Becoming Men: Youth, Masculinities, and Coming of Age at the Courts of Francis I and Charles V (1515–1526)

This thesis uses the case studies of Francis I, Charles V, and Federico and Ferrante Gonzaga for what they tell us about the social construction of gender and its impact on politics and society in the sixteenth century. Such an analysis reveals novel details about the making of masculinities during the early modern period and augments our understanding of how politics and gender were deeply intersected at the local and regional levels. In so doing, I stress the importance of gender as a lens for reading the actions of young men at sixteenth-century European courts.