Introduction. A Queen In Training And An Empress In Charge

Abstract

This is introductory chapter of the book, which attempts to place the Habsburg archduchess Elizabeth and her mother the Holy Roman Empress Maria into the center of an analysis of the court in which they lived and the political systems of which this court was a part. It places these two women into the context of the burgeoning field of Court Studies (with its subfield of Queenship Studies), as well as into the context of the analysis of the creation of the central European Habsburgs' jointly-ruled territories and these territories' shifting and complicated relations with the larger Holy Roman Empire of which many of the territories were part. It is shown how the women's court of the central European Habsburgs and its members' ties to men and women's courts elsewhere played important roles in the meshing of the various cultures, political units, and expectations which the Habsburgs brought together.Keywords: Archduchess Elizabeth; Habsburg family; Holy Roman Empress Maria; women's court