El "empoderamiento de las mujeres": Los casos de Leonor de Guzmán y Mariana de Austria

women's power is an issue which historiography, in particular that one which takes gender as an analytic category, is paying special attention to. in this paper, we would like to present and study two aspects under consideration. firstly, the roles that do？a leonor de guzmán and do？a mariana de austria played during alfonso xi and carlos ii reigns, respectively; secondly, the way historiography dealt with the topic of power exercised in each of these cases. on the one hand, do？a leonor de guzmán excrcised her power in castilla-león kingdom in the time she had a love affair with alfonso xi which lasted twenty years (1330-1350). during that period she acted as a royal concubine. on the other hand, do？a mariana de austria, was king felipeiv legitimate wife, and she acted as the regent queen (1665-1675) during prince carlos ii childhood. taking these differences into account, we will deal with the role each of them played and the cultural, social and political circumstances that allowed them to exercise a royal power, that is to say, empowerment.