Prince(ss)ly Practice: Gender Roles and Courtly Hunting Activities in the Early Modern Period

In the early modern period, the courtly hunt was an activity for both men and women. But to what extent were hunting activities linked to a decisive gendered space? The introspections of the Electress of the Palatinate, Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici (1667–1743), as a high-noble woman, which have survived in the confidential correspondence with her uncle Cardinal Francesco Maria de’ Medici (1660–1711), serve as a source to trace her active involvement as a princess consort. Her panoptical depiction of hunting practices in the Palatinate assembles remarks on hunting properties, tools, and animals as well as hunting in company. The correspondence does not directly describe certain hunting activities as specifically “female” or “male” domains. Rather, it focuses on personal preferences in the ways both de’ Medici and her husband hunted according to their socialization to fulfill their hunting right as territorial lord and lady of the Holy Roman Empire. To come to a broader conclusion on the importance of gendered spaces in hunting activities, Anna Maria Luisa’s views are compared to the correspondence of other German-born princesses, Princess Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate (1652–1722)—also known as Liselotte von der Pfalz—and Empress Eleonore Magdalena von Pfalz-Neuburg (1676–1731).