Marriage and Motherhood: Catherine de’ Médici, Queen Mother of France, 1559–1588

Abstract

Catherine de’ Médici produced over six thousand letters (both holographs and autographs) during her lifetime, making her one of the most prolific female letter-writers of her day.2 Such an impressive epistolary output partly reflects the indirect nature of Catherine’s power during her fifty-six years as consort and queen mother, for under the French Salic law she was unable to make full use of the formal channels of government available to her male relatives. The breadth of her correspondence also indicates an awareness of both the affective and effective nature of royal correspondence; as recent feminist studies of early modern politics have shown, women used letters not only as a means of exerting personal influence and drawing in alliances with disparate groups, but as a medium through which to carry out political action itself.3 Catherine defined her authority rhetorically through letters and proclamations by assuming a series of dependent relationships—daughter, wife, and mother—and in doing so was able to arrogate more power to herself than any other French queen had before.KeywordsRhetorical StrategyQueen MotherItalian CultureFrench CourtFrench KingThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.