Abstract
Dunn and Carney discuss the development of scholarship on royal women, starting in the late 1970s, and consider the various ways royal women became involved in the creation of dynastic loyalty, its maintenance, and its destruction. They introduce a collection of articles ranging from the Hellenistic period to the nineteenth century, from Europe to Asia Minor. This wide scope allows students and scholars to see the often-neglected roles played by women and to grasp patterns of formal and informal influence often disguised by narrower studies of government structures and officials. At the same time, these articles demonstrate the degree to which royal women’s involvement in issues of dynastic loyalty was shaped by the nature of specific monarchic institutions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Jeroen Duindam, “The Politics of Female Households: Afterthoughts,” in Nadine Akkerman and Birgit Houben, eds. The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-Waiting Across Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 367–9; Theresa Earenfight, “Where Do We Go from Here? Some Thoughts on Women and Power in the Middle Ages,” Medieval Feminist Forum 51 (2015): 116–18.
- 2.
Lois L. Huneycutt, “Queenship Studies Comes of Age,” Medieval Feminist Forum 51 (2015): 11–12; Marie A. Kelleher, “What Do We Mean by ‘Women and Power’?” Medieval Feminist Forum 51 (2015): 105–7.
- 3.
See, for instance, Clarissa Campbell Orr, ed., Queenship in Britain 1660–1837: Royal Patronage, Court Culture and Dynastic Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002); Emily A. Hemelrijk, Matrona Docta: Educated Women in the Roman Elite from Cornelia to Julia Domna (London: Routledge, 2004); Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage: Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam of Bhopal (London: Routledge, 2007); Elizabeth Muir Tyler, England in Europe: English Royal Women and Literary Patronage, c.1000–c.1150 (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2017).
- 4.
Theresa Earenfight, The King’s Other Body: María of Castile and the Crown of Aragon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009); Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, King and Court in Ancient Persia 559–331 BCE (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2013); David Warren Sabean, Simon Teuscher, and Jon Mathieu, eds., Kinship in Europe: Approaches to Long-Term Development (1300–1900) (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010); Marguerite Keane, Material Culture and Queenship in 14th-Century France: The Testament of Blanche of Navarre 1331–1398 (Leiden: Brill, 2016).
- 5.
For example, Anne Walthall (ed.) Servants of the Dynasty: Palace Women in World History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008) is a collection that skews the other way, with non-western royal and court women dominating and, perhaps because of that, it includes no articles on ancient royal women in the west. Jeroen Duindam’s Dynasties: A Global History of Power, 1300–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015) is truly global in scope and comparative, but not specifically focused on royal women.
- 6.
For instance, Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) and Ruby Lal, Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
- 7.
Kenneth Holum, Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982) was an early outlier. Elizabeth Carney, Women and Monarchy (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000; Elna Solvag, A Woman’s Place is in the House: Royal Women of Judah and Their Involvement in the House of David (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003); Judith Herrin, Unrivalled Influence: Women and Empire in Byzantium (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013); Altay Cosṃkun and Alex McAuley, eds., Seleukid Royal Women: Creation, Representation and Distortion of Hellenistic Queenship in the Seleukid Empire (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2016) all speak to a change in this situation.
- 8.
Hildegard Temporini-Gräfin Vitzthum, ed., Die Kaiserinnen Roms, von Livia bis Theodora (Munich: C.H. Beck Verlag, 2002) is a chronological survey of the topic, with different sections written by different authors. Christiane Kunst and Ulrike Riemer, eds., Grenzen der Macht: Zur Rolle der römischen Kaiserfrauen (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002) is a collection of articles, as is Anne Kolb, ed., Augustae. Machtbewusste Frauen am römischen Kaiserhof? (Berlin: Walter de Gryter, 2010). Francesca Cenerini, Dive e donne. Mogli, madri, figlie e sorelle degli imperatori romani da Augusto a Commodo (Bologna: Angelini Editore, 2009) is a survey of imperial women.
- 9.
Lana Troy, Patterns of Queenship in Ancient Egyptian Myth and History (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1986) is certainly relevant, though dated, but not really a study of women in Egyptian monarchy.
- 10.
Pauline Stafford, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers: The King’s Wife in the Early Middle Ages (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1983).
- 11.
Louise Olga Fradenburg, ed., Women and Sovereignty (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992) and John Carmi Parsons, ed., Medieval Queenship (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993). Though it did not appear in print until 2002, Anne J. Duggan, ed., Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe (Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 2002), had its origins in a 1995 conference.
- 12.
Too many have appeared to list them all, but some are: Campbell Orr, Queenship; Susan Broomhall and Jacqueline van Gent, eds., Gender, Power and Identity in the Early Modern House of Orange (London: Routledge, 2016); Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly and Adam Morton, eds., Queens Consort, Cultural Transfer and European Politics, c.1500–1800 (London: Routledge, 2016); Murielle Gaude-Ferragu, ed., Angela Krieger, trans., Queenship in Medieval France, 1300–1500 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
- 13.
Two examples: Lois L. Honeycutt, Matilda of Scotland: A Study in Medieval Queenship (Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 2003) and Penelope Nash, Empress Adelheid and Countess Matilda: Medieval Female Rulership and the Foundations of European Society (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
- 14.
Theresa Earenfight, Queenship in Medieval Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
- 15.
“Beyond Women and Power: Looking Backward and Moving Forward,” Medieval Feminist Forum 51.2 (2015), edited by Kathy Krause.
- 16.
For example, see Rolf Strootman, Courts and Elites in the Hellenistic Empires: The Near East after the Achaemenids, c. 330 to 30 BCE (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014).
- 17.
Christiane Wolf, “Representing Constitutional Monarchy in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Britain, Germany, and Austria,” in The Limits of Loyalty: Imperial Symbolism, Popular Allegiances, and State Patriotism in the Late Habsburg Monarchy, ed. Laurence Cole and Daniel Unowsky (New York: Berghahn Books 2007), 199–222.
- 18.
Alice Freifeld, “Empress Elisabeth as Hungarian Queen: The Uses of Celebrity Monarchism,” in The Limits of Loyalty: Imperial Symbolism, Popular Allegiances, and State Patriotism in the Late Habsburg Monarchy, ed. Laurence Cole and Daniel Unowsky (New York: Berghahn Books 2007), 138–61 is a good example of this phenomenon. See also Liesbeth Geevers and Mirella Marini, eds., Dynastic Identity in Early Modern Europe: Rulers, Aristocrats and the Formation of Identities (London: Routledge, 2016); Campbell Orr, Queenship; Takashi Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
- 19.
For examples, see Lisa Benz St. John, Three Medieval Queens: Queenship and the Crown in Fourteenth-Century England (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 33–63; John Carmi Parsons, “The Intercessionary Patronage of Queens Margaret and Isabella of France,” Thirteenth-Century England 6 (1995): 145–56; Paul Strohm, “Queens as Intercessors,” in Hochon’s Arrow: The Social Imagination of Fourteenth-Century Texts (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 95–120.
- 20.
See Tracy Adams, “Powerful Women and Misogynist Subplots: Some Comments on the Necessity of Checking the Primary Sources,” Medieval Feminist Forum 51 (2015): 69–81, passim; Una McIlvenna, “‘A Stable of Whores? The ‘Flying Squadron’ of Catherine de Medici,” in Nadine Akkerman and Birgit Houben, eds. The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-Waiting Across Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 179–208.
Bibliography
Adams, Tracy. “Powerful Women and Misogynist Subplots: Some Comments on the Necessity of Checking the Primary Sources.” Medieval Feminist Forum 51 (2015): 69–81.
Benz St. John, Lisa. Three Medieval Queens: Queenship and the Crown in Fourteenth-Century England. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Broomhall, Susan, and Jacqueline van Gent, eds. Gender, Power and Identity in the Early Modern House of Orange. London: Routledge, 2016.
Campbell Orr, Clarissa, ed. Queenship in Britain 1660–1837: Royal Patronage, Court Culture and Dynastic Politics. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
Carney, Elizabeth. Women and Monarchy. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000.
Cenerini, Francesca. Dive e donne. Mogli, madri, figlie e sorelle degli imperatori romani da Augusto a Commodo. Bologna: Angelini Editore, 2009.
Coşkun, Altay, and Alex McAuley, eds. Seleukid Royal Women: Creation, Representation and Distortion of Hellenistic Queenship in the Seleukid Empire. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2016.
Duggan, Anne J., ed. Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 2002.
Duindam, Jeroen. “The Politics of Female Households: Afterthoughts.” In The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-Waiting Across Early Modern Europe, edited by Nadine Akkerman and Birgit Houben, 365–370. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
———. Dynasties: A Global History of Power, 1300–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Earenfight, Theresa. The King’s Other Body: María of Castile and the Crown of Aragon. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.
———. Queenship in Medieval Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
———. “Where Do We Go from Here? Some Thoughts on Women and Power in the Middle Ages.” Medieval Feminist Forum 51 (2015): 116–131.
Fradenburg, Louise Olga, ed. Women and Sovereignty. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992.
Freifeld, Alice. “Empress Elisabeth as Hungarian Queen: The Uses of Celebrity Monarchism.” In The Limits of Loyalty: Imperial Symbolism, Popular Allegiances, and State Patriotism in the Late Habsburg Monarchy, edited by Laurence Cole and Daniel Unowsky, 138–161. New York: Berghahn Books, 2007.
Fujitani, Takashi. Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
Gaude-Ferragu, Murielle, ed., Krieger, Angela trans. Queenship in Medieval France, 1300–1500. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Geevers, Liesbeth, and Mirella Marini, eds. Dynastic Identity in Early Modern Europe: Rulers, Aristocrats and the Formation of Identities. London: Routledge, 2016.
Hemelrijk, Emily A. Matrona Docta: Educated Women in the Roman Elite from Cornelia to Julia Domna. London: Routledge, 2004.
Herrin, Judith. Unrivalled Influence: Women and Empire in Byzantium. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013.
Holum, Kennneth, Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California, 1982.
Huneycutt, Lois L. Matilda of Scotland: A Study in Medieval Queenship. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 2003.
———. “Queenship Studies Comes of Age.” Medieval Feminist Forum 51 (2015): 9–16.
Keane, Marguerite. Material Culture and Queenship in 14th-Century France: The Testament of Blanche of Navarre 1331–1398. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
Kelleher, Marie A. “What Do We Mean by ‘Women and Power’?.” Medieval Feminist Forum 51 (2015): 104–115.
Kolb, Anne, ed. Augustae. Machtbewusste Frauen am römischen Kaiserhof? Berlin: Walter de Gryter, 2010.
Kunst, Christiane, and Ulrike Riemer, eds. Grenzen der Macht: Zur Rolle der römischen Kaiserfrauen. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002.
Lal, Ruby. Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Lambert-Hurley, Siobhan. Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage: Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam of Bhopal. London: Routledge, 2007.
Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd. King and Court in Ancient Persia 559–331 BCE. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2013.
McIlvenna, Una. “‘A Stable of Whores? The ‘Flying Squadron’ of Catherine de Medici.” In The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-Waiting across Early Modern Europe, edited by Nadine Akkerman and Birgit Houben, 179–208. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Nash, Penelope. Empress Adelheid and Countess Matilda: Medieval Female Rulership and the Foundations of European Society. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
Parsons, John Carmi, ed. Medieval Queenship. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993.
———. “The Intercessionary Patronage of Queens Margaret and Isabella of France.” Thirteenth-Century England 6 (1995): 145–156.
Peirce, Leslie P. The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Solvag, Elna. A Woman’s Place is in the House: Royal Women of Judah and Their Involvement in the House of David. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003.
Stafford, Pauline. Queens, Concubines and Dowagers: The King’s Wife in the Early Middle Ages. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1983.
Strohm, Paul. Hochon’s Arrow: The Social Imagination of Fourteenth-Century Texts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Strootman, Rolf. Courts and Elites in the Hellenistic Empires: The Near East After the Achaemenids, c.330 to 30 BCE. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014.
Temporini-Gräfin Vitzthum, Hildegard, ed. Die Kaiserinnen Roms, von Livia bis Theodora. Munich: C.H. Beck Verlag, 2002.
Troy, Lana. Patterns of Queenship in Ancient Egyptian Myth and History. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1986.
Tyler, Elizabeth Muir. England in Europe: English Royal Women and Literary Patronage, c.1000–c.1150. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2017.
Walthall, Anne, ed. Servants of the Dynasty: Palace Women in World History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.
Warren Sabean, David, Simon Teuscher, and Jon Mathieu, eds. Kinship in Europe: Approaches to Long-Term Development (1300–1900). New York: Berghahn Books, 2010.
Watanabe-O’Kelly, Helen, and Adam Morton, eds. Queens Consort, Cultural Transfer and European Politics, c.1500–1800. London: Routledge, 2016.
Wolf, Christiane. “Representing Constitutional Monarchy in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Britain, Germany, and Austria.” In The Limits of Loyalty: Imperial Symbolism, Popular Allegiances, and State Patriotism in the Late Habsburg Monarchy, edited by Laurence Cole and Daniel Unowsky, 199–222. New York: Berghahn Books, 2007.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dunn, C., Carney, E. (2018). Introduction: Royal Women and Dynastic Loyalty. In: Dunn, C., Carney, E. (eds) Royal Women and Dynastic Loyalty. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75877-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75877-0_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-75876-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-75877-0
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)