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Catherine de Médicis was an important political figure of the French monarchy for over 30 years. Her authority was based on her position as queen mother in relation to her children. This book explores the question of what relatedness actually was for the queen mother and her offspring, how they negotiated kinship relations and how kinship and political power were intertwined. What was a queen mother, a royal son or a royal sister? The letters that the relatives wrote to each other show that kinship formed a flexible repertoire of political thinking and acting. In a period that is considered the beginning of the building of modern states, royal authority was conceptionalized and legitimized by kinship relations.

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