Eleanor de Poitiers
Eleanor de Poitiers (1444/1446-1509) was a Burgundian courtier and writer.
She was the daughter of the nobleman Jean de Poitiers from Champagne and Isabel de Sousa, a member of an illegitimate line of the royal house of Portugal. Her parents were both members of the court of the Duke Philip the Good and Isabella of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy respectively, and she herself became a demoiselle d'honneur to Isabella of Bourbon in 1458. She married Guillame de Stavele (d. 1469) in 1462, and appointed dame d'honneur to the new duchess of Burgundy, Joan I of Castile, in 1496.
In the 1480s, she wrote the Les Honneurs de la Cour, an etiquette book and a description of the court life of the Duchy of Burgundy, at the time famous the most developed and refined in all Europe outside of Italy. Her text is regarded as a valuable historic source.
References
- Susan Broomhall & Stephanie Tarbin:Women, Identities and Communities in Early Modern Europe