EN
Recently, the Czech and Austrian historiography has been much concerned with the history of the court society concentrated around the Austrian Habsburgs. However, not all of the Hofchargen (grand officers of the court) of the ruling dynasty receive the same attention. One of the less known courts is a court kept by the Empress Dowager Eleonora Gonzaga (1657–1686). In this article, the author analyses two sources that clarify the composition and operation of Eleonora’s court in the 1680s, that is a post-mortal list of the court members (1687) and, most importantly, sixteen letters by Philipp Sigmund von Dietrichstein to his step brother Prince Ferdinand, which document the struggle of the Dietrichstein fraction to obtain the office of Stallmeister (Premier Master of the Horses and Mews) on the Empress Dowager’s court in summer 1683. Their edition in extenso is provided in the supplement.