Women and Politics in the “Box, Blue”

In a Munich archive, historian Katrin Keller stumbled across an item listed only as “Box, blue.” It turned out to contain documents of the House of Palatinate-Neuburg. To Keller's surprise, it also contained hundreds of letters from and to Empress Eleonore Magdalene Theresia of Palatinate-Neuburg (1655–1720), wife of Emperor Leopold I.

Together with her team at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Keller has since made the letters available online. In her correspondence with her brother, the empress discussed many political issues. The find confirms the historian's previous research on women in courtly society: women have always been involved in politics.