To rule and to prepare: Claudia de’ Medici and her European “fellow widows”

Abstract

In his book Familien = Stats=Recht Derer Teutschen Reichsstände from 1745 Johann Jacob Moser, a legal scholar from Wuertemberg, wrote the following on early modern widows, ruling as guardians for their sons: “Some may, when asked, not give a penny for a form of government whereby female guardians may rule nations, but 1. this is a quaestio consilii and not juris, 2. one cannot deny that royal houses and their country have fared as well– if not better – during the rule of a female guardian than during the reign of males. In this question one cannot state firm rules.”