Re-Viewing Claude de France

Image coming soon

Extent: 400 pages

Publisher: Wiley-VCH

Subjects: Early Modern & Renaissance Studies, French Studies

Series: Courts and Courtiers in a Global Context

Language: English, French

Hardback (Forthcoming)

(March 2027)

ISBN: 9782503616667

Price: $0.00

This book sets out to reclaim and restore the legacy of the short-lived, oft-forgotten, yet remarkable Queen Claude de France


The nine-year reign of Queen-Duchess Claude de France (1499-1524), heiress of King Louis XII and Queen-Duchess Anne of Brittany, has been largely absent from History. This collection, which aims to restore the reputation of this oft-neglected queen of France, duchess of Brittany, countess of Blois, is the first to present in one groundbreaking publication a comprehensive, interdisciplinary analysis of Claude’s legacy. An international panel of scholars examines Claude’s reception, household, politics, cultural entourage, spiritual leanings, and interaction on the European stage and beyond through the lens of diplomacy, dynastic politics, and patronage of the arts in an age of seismic religious shifts. Claude’s prominence in contemporary media, including manuscripts, printed books, foreign ambassadors’ correspondence, and royal entry theaters testifies to the indisputable visibility of her royal persona as consort to Francis I, despite the power that accrued to the king’s mother, Louise of Savoy. Claude ensured male dynastic succession, thus fulfilling her most crucial role in the land of Salic Law, but also figured centrally in the transmission of her mother’s gendered political and intellectual legacy.