"Queenship" una categoría analítica para el estudio del Rol de las Esposas Reales en España, Siglos XVI - XVII "Queenship" an analytical category for the study of the role of the Royal wives in Spain, centuries XVI - XVII

This study aims to analyze the "Queenship", used by its creator, British researcher Clarissa Campbell Orr analytical category, which he proposed responses from a gender perspective into the role of the King's wife as a valuable political to decrypt cultural high Baroque and the enlightenment period piece. Under the concept of "Queen- ship", study for the first time themes such as: the formal and informal power of the King's wife, his religious role, its cultural sponsorship and dynastic policies in relation to the use that the cuts made their family joins dynamics. Finally we will make a brief overview of the results obtained by the application of this category and approach applied to the analysis of the epistolary Empress Maria of Austria, mother-in-law of Philip II of Spain.