This book demonstrates that premodern elite and royal women were critical to the geopolitical success of late medieval territorial monarchies, the progenitors of early modern states. It aims to communicate the 'un-exceptionality' of female political influence in medieval and early modern Europe. Manifesting sophisticated and informed leadership in times of challenge and transformation, women such as Anne de France, her matrilineal line, and the elite women and girls in her orbit were key to early modern government, politics and diplomacy. Through a longue durée case study, this book examines generations of a premodern matriline culminating in Anne, beginning with Elisabetta di Carinzia and her daughter, Elionor de Sicília, continuing with Elionor's daughters-in-law, moving into the territories of the insular and peninsular kingdoms of Naples, into France with Elionor's granddaughter, Yolande d'Aragon, and into England with Yolande’s granddaughter, Marguerite d'Anjou, to influence and underwrite powerful and influential territorial monarchies. Together, these women, and the others discussed in this study, form an important part of Anne de France’s matrilineal heritage, providing her with a historical template of lived political experience on which to construct her own gendered political theory and practice.
