Ladies-in-Waiting in Medieval England

Ladies-in-Waiting in Medieval England examines female attendants who served queens and aristocratic women during the late medieval period.Using a unique set of primary source based statistics, Caroline Dunn reveals that the lady-in-waiting was far more than a pretty girl sewing in the queen's chamber while seeking to catch the eye of an eligible bachelor.Ladies-in-waiting witnessed major historical events of the era and were sophisticated players who earned significant rewards.They had both family and personal interests to advance - through employment they linked kin and court, and through marriage they built bridges between families.Whether royal or aristocratic, ladies-in-waiting worked within gendered spaces, building female-dominated social networks, while also operating within a masculine milieu that offered courtiers of both sexes access to power.Working from a range of sources wider than the subjective anecdote, Dunn presents the first scholarly treatment of medieval English lad