Women at the Early Modern Swedish Court

Fabian Persson is a Lecturer in History at Linnaeus University in Sweden and currently a Visiting Scholar at the University of Oxford. He is a specialist on the history of the early modern court and also writes on patronage, corruption, élites, aristocratic marriage and duelling.

List of Illustrations
List of tables and genealogical charts
Acknowledgements
Note on Names
Dramatis Personae
Genealogical Charts

WOMEN LIVING WITH POWER: Introduction
Opportunities
Growing interest
Sources and the challenge of invisibility

OUTSIDERS
1 Rituals of royal compassion
- Who and when
- Institutionalisation
- The quality of compassion
2 Why be at court? The example of the Königsmarcks
INSIDERS
3 All the queen's women
- The creation of the Swedish court in the sixteenth century
- The women in service
- The recruitment process
- Pay and perquisites
- Marriage
- The appeal of the court
4 Noblewomen crossing borders
- Change over time
- Princely women visiting and residing in Sweden
- Swedish noblewomen in service abroad
- Clean break or gradual erosion?
- From melting pot to enclave
5 Servants of power
- Everyday power-and more
- Maids of honour as power brokers
- Everyday power-and high politics
- Power struggles on several levels
- Emerentia Düben
- Juliana Schierberg
- Anna Catharina Bärfelt
- Measures of success
6 Left behind
- Reputational damage
- Beata Sophia Horn, trapped at court
- Ageing and unmarried
7 Dirt among the apples: Hierarchy and gender at court
- A Swedish Table of Ranks
- Formal hierarchies
- Royal decisiveness
- Increasing formality
- Marks of status
- Negotiating the hierarchy
8 A small circle with wide horizons
- Living under surveillance
- Socialised into a group
- Widening interests and attitudes
- Changes in appearance
- The best school in the world
9 Fumbling for power: Being a royal mistress
- A golden age of adultery
- A passing fancy
- An emotional anchor
- A lesser sort of marriage
- The extraordinary success of Karin Månsdotter
- Pimped to a King
- The role of a royal mistress

ROYALS
10 The performance of a lifetime: Being queen consort
- Being foreign
- Being sociable
- Being self-assured
- Being a success
11 The winding road: Royal marriage negotiations
- A queen's worth
- How to pick a marriage partner
- Successful failures
12 The broken mirror: Gender differences in the system of royal apartments
- Mirroring apartments
- Royal apartments outside Stockholm
- Renovations
- A mirror cracked
- In-built gender
13 Death and beyond
- A Swedish Artemisia manquée
- Commemorating a dynasty
- Dynastic memory
14 The court as substitute family
- The Princess, her sister, and the need for trust
- A court of her own
- Court rather than family
- A long-lost sister
- The entertaining princess
15 Epilogue
Glossary
Court positions
Abbreviations
Coinage
The calendar
Bibliography
Manuscript sources
Published sources
Secondary publications
Index