and assisting with court functions. The position was abolished in 1674, and replaced by the , 12 married noblewomen with the same tasks. The fifth rank was the or (Maids of Honour), unmarried daughters of the nobility, who had the same tasks as the , but were mainly placed at court to learn etiquette and look for a spouse. They were supervised by the and the . The were from 1531 supervised by the , a lady-in-waiting who had the task to chaperone them: this post was divided in to several from 1547 onward. The position of was abolished in 1674. The sixth rank was the , who in turn outranked the remaining and . The had the keys to the Queen's rooms and could recommend and deny audiences to her, which in practice made her position very powerful at court. During the First Empire, the principal lady-in-waiting of the Empress was the , followed by between 20 and 36 . During the Bourbon Restoration, Marie Thérèse of France restored the pre-revolutionary court hierarchy. During the Second Empire, the female courtiers of the Empress were composed of the first rank, , and the second rank, , followed by six (later twelve) . Germany The early modern princely courts in Germany were modeled after the Austrian imperial court model. This court model divided the ladies-in-waiting in a chief lady-in-waiting named (a widowed or married elder woman) who supervised the (Maids of Honour), of which one or two could be promoted to the middle rank of (Maid of Honour of the Chamber). The German princely courts in turn became the role model of the Scandinavian courts of Denmark and Sweden in the 16th century. After the end of the German Holy Roman Empire in 1806, and the establishment of several minor Kingdoms in Germany, the post of (married ladies-in-waiting) were introduced in many German princely and royal courts. At the imperial German court, the ladies-in-waiting were composed of one in charge of several or . Greece During the Byzantine Empire, the Byzantine Empress was attended by a female court (the ), which consisted mostly of the wives of high-ranking male court officials, who simply used the feminine versions of their husbands' titles. The only specifically female dignity was that of the , the chief lady-in-waiting and female attendant of the Empress, who was the head of the women's court and often a