Oh, how cool!

Bavaria has some pretty great duchesses in its history, not to mention some fantastic lesser nobles and burgher (non-noble, urban) women. That said, my pick for tops of the duchess stack would be Kunigunde of Austria (1465-1520), daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor and wife of Duke Albrecht of Bavaria.

A favorite of her father and close to her brother Maximilian (the future emperor), the adolescent Kunigunde made quite an impression on visitors to the imperial court with her extensive humanist education, knowledge of current events, and deep religious piety. Luther's mentor Johann von Staupitz even dedicated one of his texts to her. As imperial princess, Kunigunde was no window dressing. She had her father's ear, and was a very effective intermediary for petitioners bringing their pleas to the court.

Her marriage was shrouded in drama and duplicity. Far from the typical "marriage alliance" story of royal parents betrothing their daughter in toddlerhood (with actual marriage, of course, following long afterwards), the emperor and empress actually refused offers for young Kunigunde. Finally, both Friedrich and Kunigunde agreed she would make a profitable match with Albrecht, the duke of Bavaria. But between the initial agreement and the potential wedding, the hurting-for-finances Albrecht decided to make up some of that gap by attempting to seize control of Regenburg, a city located within the boundaries of Bavaria but answerable directly to the emperor. Friedrich nixed the marriage.

Kunigunde married Albrecht anyway.

There is some question whether Albrecht tricked her into marrying him. The story goes that he presented her with a false reassurance of her father's approval, but subsequent events--the rapidness with which they married and Friedrich's anger at both--poses some questions.

However relations with her much-older husband evolved, Kunigunde threw herself into being duchess of Bavaria and politically-minded mother to a whole host of children. After Albrecht's death, in fact, she picked a convent in Munich to retire to--from which she manipulated her eldest son, Wilhelm, into sharing the dukedom with his younger brother Ludwig (apparently Kunigunde's favorite).

But what elevates Kunigunde from a neat lady to awesome is her battle of wits with Anna Laminit.

In the Middle Ages, women could not teach and preach publicly about religion. The very, very rare exception was a bare handful of "religious women" who, through a combination of pious life, asceticism, support from a prominent cleric, charisma, massive diplomatic and communications skills, and a fair amount of luck, established themselves as vessels of divine revelation. In Augsburg around the turn of the 16th century, Anna Laminit staked such a claim for herself. In classic medieval holy woman fashion, the core evidence of her holiness was her extreme ascetic feats, above all superhuman self-starvation abilities. Her ability to eat nothing but the Eucharist for years and years was a clear sign, in the eyes of her beguine and clerical supporters--not to mention the population of Augsburg--that God favored her, including to the extent of making her a mouthpiece for his warnings of divine retribution. Laminit even convinced the by-then empress (Kunigunde's sister in law), on a visit to the city, to lead a massive penitential parade with Laminit at her side in hopes of warding off God's looming wrath against the city.

Laminit is a fascinating Bavarian woman in her own right (the prime of her life was spent in Augsburg, though, rather than Munich, so I'm telling the story with Kunigunde as protagonist). She was, by all accounts, an incredibly important figure for the people of Augsburg in spiritual and psychological terms. Her presence and her messages from God helped calm nerves in the face of some freaky meteorological events. She provided one-on-one spiritual counseling, too, usually in exchange for donations to charity. Over the course of a little over a decade, the prominent parish churches of Augsburg even kind of fought to secure her regular attendance, for prestige and for spiritual benefit. Augsburg, it is clear, believed it had received a special gift in the person of Anna Laminit.

Kunigunde was not so sure.

By 1511, she was a widow and had taken up residence in her beloved Franciscan convent in Munich. She might have been concerned about a too-strong independent Augsburg plopped in the middle of her sons' principality; she might have been concerned about her brother's remarks that Laminit was a clear sign he needed to mobilize against the Turkish threat (as opposed to being motivated by practical concerns, like the actual Turkish threat); she might have perceived that Laminit's excesses were a dangerous precedent to be setting for devout Christians. For one reason or another, between 1504 and 1511, Kunigunde lost faith in the holy woman of Augsburg. So she designed an experiment/trap to unmask Laminit as the fraud the duchess believed she was.

Laminit's sanctity and everything that went with it (her housing, her income, her fame, her power) rested above all on her miraculous asceticism. That, Kunigunde understood, was where to spring the trap. She invited Laminit for a stay at her convent, seeking advice. Laminit tried to defer, but Kunigunde prevailed (she was the dukes' mother, after all! and, again, immensely popular and persuasive). After a nice day of prayers and spiritual counsel, really quite lovely according to all parties, Kunigunde and her fellow sisters showed Laminit to a nice private room.

What Laminit didn't know what that Kunigunde had drilled a hole in the wall so sisters on the other side could see into the room. They were expecting to see Laminit eat. What they saw instead was Laminit poop--and then throw the devastating evidence out of the window. Since medieval Christians believed the Eucharist was absorbed as the body of Christ rather than digested and excreted like nutrients and undigestible waste, Laminit's feces proved she had indeed been eating all along--and her attempt to cover it up meant she understood exactly what she was doing.

Laminit tried to protest that it was a one-time thing, that she was too weak from traveling in her semi-starved state so God had permitted her to eat a little something. Kunigunde was not swayed. Especially when she forced Laminit to eat some gingerbread in front of the sisters of the convent, and Laminit seemed to do so with little trouble at all.

Kunigunde dispatched Laminit back to Augsburg in disgrace, where she was expelled from the city.

Subsequent events would prove Kunigunde right whatever Laminit's protests. She actually tried to restart her holy woman fraud in another city, but ultimately, it was a long-running child support fraud that led to Laminit's final downfall and execution. For over a decade, Laminit had been extracting a substantial annual sum from a prominent businessman to help her care for their illegitimate son. Well, it came time for the son to enter a more expensive school, which naturally his caring father wanted for his son to have the best life he could.

Except--there wasn't a son anymore.

Kunigunde was still alive in 1518--she may well have received word that the target of her triumph had been drowned in Freiburg for "fraud", with a heavy implication of infanticide at its core. It was a spectacular rise and fall for "our holy Anna," and a categorical confirmation of the power of her insight and true piety for Duchess Kunigunde.