Available for purchase via Bloomsbury etextbooks on publication date
Description
Theresa Earenfight's Queenship in Medieval Europe documents the richly complex lives and works of queens and empresses across eastern and western Europe in the Middle Ages. The book links vital research by generations of scholars to reveal how religion, education, lineage, and marriage law fundamentally altered the practice of queenship. The book makes the compelling argument that queens, linked to kings by marriage, family, and property, were highly visible women active in a man's world and vital to the institution of monarchy.
This 2nd edition includes innovative new work on the theories and practices of queenship in the context of wider issues of gender, authority, and power. Using an enhanced and entirely reformulated chapter structure, this new edition includes:
· New material on sources, methods and theories that considers recent work on feminist and gender theories
· A framing of the historical study of queens in the wider history of the Middle Ages
· Stronger coverage of gender, dynasty, and legitimacy; the dynamics of women at court and in the royal household; the history of emotions; landholding and lordship; and material culture
· Clearer connections between the history of queens and queenship and the history of women overall
· Analysis of the movement of women across geographical boundaries, including Eastern European, Byzantine, Scandinavian, and Islamic realms
· 30 images
· Historiographical updates throughout
Accessibility Information
Additional accessibility information
- PDF/UA-2, 1.4
- accessibility@bloomsbury.com
Hazards
The publication contains no hazards
Support for non-visual reading
Has alternative text descriptions for images
Navigation
- Page list to go to pages from the print source version
- Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation
- All or substantially all textual matter is arranged in a single logical reading order
Table of Contents
Figures: Maps, Dynasties
List of Images
Introduction
· Notes on Sources
· A Note on Place Names, Translations, and Proper Names
PART I: What Does It Mean To Be a Queen or an Empress?
Introduction to Part I
Ch. 1 Definitions, Context, Geographies
· Complex Layers of Identity: Eleanor of Aquitaine
· What Is a Queen? An Empress?
· What Does It Mean to Be a Queen?
· What Does It Mean to Be a European Queen?
· What Is Distinctive About Medieval Queenship?
Ch. 2 Methods: Studying Queens
· Overshadowed and Overlooked: Blanca of Navarre
· Historiography of Queenship
· Feminists Rewrite History: Women Studies and Its Allies, Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies
· Working with Textual Sources
· A Woman Writing about Queens: Christine de Pizan and Medieval Political Theory
PART II: Becoming a Queen: Marriage, Sexuality, Maternity
Ch. 3 Legitimizing Marriage
· Marriage as the Foundation of Monarchy in Medieval Europe
· Marriage Law in Late Antique and Early Medieval Queenship
· Polygamy and Polyamory: Wives, Bed-Companions, and Concubines
· The Question of Divorce: Theutberga, Waldrada, and Lothar
· Keeping It in the Family: Consanguinity and Incest
· Public Legitimization of the Marriage: A Queen's Coronation
Ch. 4 New Marital Status, New Royal Identity
· Markers of a Queen's Personal Identity
· Royal Objects of Exchange
· Queens Exchange Ideas Across Borders
Ch. 5 Sexuality, Power, and Queenship
· Gender, a Precarious Balancing Act
· Gender, Sexuality, and Medieval Queenship
· The Interplay of Gender, Sexuality, Power, Authority, Influence, and Agency
· A Case in Point: Isabelle of France
Ch. 6 Maternity and Motherhood
· Queenship and Motherhood
· Medical Knowledge and the Experience of Pregnancy
· The Social and Political Practice of Queens as Mothers
· Queens Without Children
Ch. 7 Queens, Marriage, and the Formation of European Dynasties
· Capetian France, 987–1328
· Anglo-Norman and Plantagenet England: 1002–1337
· France: Valois Queens
· England: Plantagenet, Lancastrian, and York Queens
· Scotland
· Christian Iberia
PART III: Queenship in Practice
Ch. 8 Empresses, Queens, and the Power of Sanctity
· Eastern European Empresses as Models of Christian Queenship
· Queenship and Religious Conversion
· Balancing Carnal Marriage and Pious Spirituality
· Memorializing Christian Queenship and Dynasty
Ch. 9 The Queen's Household
· The Organization of the Household
· Public and Private Spaces and Places in the Royal Household
· Women (and a Few Men) in the Queen's Household
· Funding a Household: The Queen's Finances
Ch. 10 Empresses
· The Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire
· The Holy Roman Empire
Ch. 11 Sovereign Queens
· Anglo-Saxon Britain
· Plantagenet England
· The Crusader-States
· Iberia: Castile, León, and Portugal
· The Mediterranean: Sicily and Naples
· Eastern and Northern Europe: Hungary, Poland, and Scandinavia
Ch. 12 Queens-Consort: Official and Unofficial Co-Rulership
· Official Authority: Regents
· Official Authority: Queens-lieutenant in the Crown of Aragon
· Unofficial Shared Rulership: Diplomats, Advisors, Intercessors
Ch. 13 Queens-Dowager and the Art of Memorializing a Queen
· Queens-Dowager
· Commemorating Queens
Conclusions: Wrapping Up and Looking Ahead
Notes
Works Cited
Product details
| Published | 12 Nov 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 2nd |
| Pages | 336 |
| ISBN | 9781350497924 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 30 bw illus |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
Related Titles
