Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe: Proceedings of a Conference held at King's College London, April 1995 [Hardcover]

Anne J. Duggan (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0851156576 | ISBN-13: 978-0851156576 | Publication Date: June 19, 1997

The image, status and function of queens and empresses, regnant and consort, in kingdoms stretching from England to Jerusalem in the European middle ages, are here under scrutiny. The studies confront many of the central issues relating to women's authority and power in medieval societies and raise questions about the perception of women rulers in contemporary records (and modern historical writing). Did queens exercise real or counterfeit power? Did the promotion of the cult of the Virgin enhance or restrict their sphere of action? Is it time to revise the early feminist view of women as victims? Important papers on Emma of England, Margaret of Scotland, coronation and burial ritual, Byzantine empresses and Scandinavian queens, among others, clearly indicate that a reassessment of `women's work' and of the role of women in the world of medieval dynastic politics is under way. Contributors: JANOS BAK, GEORGE CONKLIN, PAUL CROSSLEY, VOLKER HONEMANN, STEINAR IMSEN, LIZ JAMES,KURT-ULRICH JASCHKE, SARAH LAMBERT, JANET L. NELSON, JOHN C. PARSONS, KAREN PRATT, DION SMYTHE, PAULINE STAFFORD, MARY STROLL, VALERIE WALL, ELIZABETH WARD, DIANA WEBB.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 380 pages
• Publisher: Boydell Press (June 19, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0851156576
• ISBN-13: 978-0851156576
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,350,441 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not nearly as interesting as I thought it would be, July 9, 2010

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Judith Loriente (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe: Proceedings of a Conference held at King's College London, April 1995 (History of the Valois Burgundy) (Hardcover)

Technically, I probably shouldn't review this book, since I wasn't able to finish most of the chapters in it. But then, that's exactly the problem: most of them are plain boring. I would never have guessed that anyone could make the study of medieval women as dull as ditchwater. My goodness, are most of the sketches of these women dry and technical! Aside from Chapter 3, `Ingeborg of Denmark, Queen of France 1193-1223' and Chapter 13, `The Image of the Queen in Old French Literature', both of which proved fairly interesting, they either bored me all the way through, or bored me so severely that I gave up before the end of the chapter.

This book is subtitled `Proceedings of a conference held at King's College London April 1995'. What a dry, uninteresting conference it must have been.

If you already know a fair bit about any of the women covered and want some technical information such as dates, places and events, it might be worth a look at. But if you want to read an interesting book about the lives of prominent medieval women, look elsewhere.