Maîtresse-en-titre
I recently learned that European monarchs (both kings and queens) often had official lovers.
I recently learned that European monarchs (both kings and queens) had official lovers (so-called royal mistresses, or maîtresse-en-titre—literally mistresses-in-title).
This is crazy.
What did the wives and husbands of kings and queens think about royal concubines? Perhaps they, too, kept official lovers?
This suggests dynastic marriages were widely and explicitly understood to be political. It wasn’t controversial that the Prince of Neusterlitz married the Princess of Wallonia out of sheer interest.
What did the Church think of all this? Surely, adultery was seen as a sin? Was this a case of royal exception? Or had the power of the Church waned to the point where they had no way of enforcing their rules?
I would assume society as a whole was still monogamous. How common was it to cheat? How common was it to cheat openly? Was it tolerated for the aristocracy, but not for the rest? Or maybe vice versa?
In some cases, royal mistresses held great sway over politics, bore children to their monarchs, and were admired by the court. Agnès Sorel “was the subject of several contemporary paintings and works of art, including Jean Fouquet's Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels”.