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In the fall of 2005 the city of Mechelen (Malines) hosted an exhibition, Women of Distinction: Margaret of York and Margaret of Austria, which was accompanied by a handsome catalogue of the same title issued by Brepols Publishers (2005). An interdisciplinary two-day conference was organized in conjunction with the exhibition ''to investigate the actual presence and influence of women at the Burgundian court'' for a scholarly audience, rather than for the more general audience assumed for the catalogue (xix). The present volume constitutes the publication of these conference papers, and, while these essays are indeed specialized in nature and assume significant prior knowledge about historical personages, artistic monuments, and cultural practices, they are nonetheless likely to be of considerable interest to a wide range of readers from different disciplines. Following a foreword and preface, the volume is divided into four sections: ''Setting the Stage'' (essays by Bertrand Schnerb and Thérèse de Hemptinne); ''Women at the Burgundian Court: The Fifteenth Century'' (essays by Monique Sommé, Wim Hüsken, Anne-Marie Legaré, and Mario Damen); ''Margaret of Austria as Patron and Author'' (essays by Catherine M. Müller, Henri Installé, and Marie-Françoise Poiret); and ''The Next Generation'' (essays by Jacqueline Kerkhoff and Dagmar Eichberger). A useful fifteen-page bibliography of primary and secondary sources is followed by twenty-five color plates; an additional thirtynine black and white figures are integrated with the pertinent essays.

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