Lady in waiting
The dignity of a lady-in-waiting , also called lady of honor or lady of a palace , was given to noble ladies belonging to a court on the basis of their status or the status of their husbands.
Court ladies performed honorary services and acted as partners . Such court offices were only hoffähigen dressed nobleman. In contrast to the maid , for example , they were not court officials in Europe. The knight - and later the chamberlain - can be seen as the male equivalent of the lady-in-waiting .
Both levels were presumably already with the first strong princely and royal courts in appearance. The first written records of this social class are over 3000 years old, for example in Egypt (see Nefertiti ) or in Chinese and the Persian Empire .
Artistically gifted personalities have always been among the people at the royal courts . The work of the minstrels is well documented , but some works by court ladies are also part of world literature . A Far Eastern example of this is the classic Japanese novel Genji Monogatari (the story of [Prince] Genji), written by Murasaki Shikibu , the Empress's lady-in-waiting around the year 1000.
Examples of well-known court ladies
- Elizabeth Throckmorton (1565–1647), lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth I , Queen of England
- Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (1660–1744), lady-in-waiting to Princess Anne, who later became Queen Anne
- Sophie Marie Countess von Voss , née von Pannwitz (1729–1814), lady-in-waiting of Queen Sophie Dorothea of Prussia , chief stewardess of Queen Luise of Prussia
- Charlotte von Stein (1742–1827), lady-in-waiting to Duchess Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar and Eisenach, close friend of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Louise von Sturmfeder (1789–1866), lady-in-waiting to the Dowager Empress Karoline Auguste , tutor to Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and his brother Emperor Maximilian of Mexico
- Rosalie von Rauch (1820–1879), lady-in-waiting of Princess Marianne of Prussia , as Countess von Hohenau, second morganatic wife of Prince Albrecht of Prussia , the youngest brother of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. And Kaiser Wilhelm I.
- Elisabeth (Elise) Countess von Fersen , née von Rauch (1820–1909), lady-in-waiting of Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, Princess Charlotte of Prussia
- Julia von Hauke (1825–1895), lady-in-waiting of Tsarina Maria Alexandrovna , Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, as Princess von Battenberg, the morganatic wife of Prince Alexander of Hesse
- Countess Pauline Bellegarde , Countess Irma Sztáray , Countess Ida Ferenczy , Countess Marie Festetics (1839–1923), Karoline von Hunyady (1836–1907), Charlotte von Majláth (1856–1928), ladies-in-waiting of Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary
- Mathilde Countess von Keller (1853–1945), lady-in-waiting to the last German Empress Auguste Viktoria
- Marie Freiin von Redwitz (1856–1933), lady-in-waiting to the Duchess Amalie in Bavaria and writer
- Sophie Countess Chotek von Chotkowa (1868–1914), lady-in-waiting to Archduchess Isabella of Austria-Teschen, Princess of Croy-Dülmen , as Duchess of Hohenberg morganatic wife of the Austrian heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand
- Anna Vyrubowa (1884–1964), lady in waiting for the last Russian Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna
literature
- Katrin Keller : Court ladies. Office bearers in the Viennese court of the 17th century. Böhlau, Vienna et al. 2005, ISBN 3-205-77418-3 ( online ).
- Susan Richter : Lady-in-waiting - a job for women? Fields of activity of noble ladies using the example of the Electoral Palatinate court in the 18th century. In: Journal for History on the Upper Rhine. NF 114 (2005), pp. 441-480.
