Queens, Regents and Potentates: 1 (Women of Power) - Tapa dura

This series focuses on the exercise of power, influence and authority by particular categories, ranks and types of women in medieval societies, and by individual women; on the limitations, restrictions and inhibitions placed or assumed on such activity; on the opportunities open to women, and on the strategems by which women were able to give effect to these possibilities. Queens, Regents and Potentatesconcentrates on the theme of women and royal power, examining the available information about specific royal women and reassessing their access to and use of power and authority, and drawing significant new conclusions about internal politics and international relations in medieval Europe.Contents and Contributors: PATRICIA HUMPHREY, DONALD KAGAY, WILLIAM CLAY STALLS, PENELOPE ADAIR, KAREN NICHOLAS, DOUGLAS C. JANSEN, JOHN CARMI PARSONS, THERESA M. VANN, JENNIFER R. GOODMAN

This volume, the first of a projected series, focuses on the theme of women and royal power. Each author has re-examined the available information about specific royal women and re-assessed their access to, or use of, power and authority. By doing so, the contributors also encourage us to reconsider previous interpretations of internal politics and international relations between medieval England, Flanders, and the kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula. Indeed, based on these contributions, it seems that notable royal women flourished in the Spanish kingdoms long before Isabella I. Taken as a group, the essays suggest that medieval women exercised certain types of royal power, or authority, within socially-accepted spheres, and that this phenomenon was more wide-spread than commonly thought. These essays are a valuable addition to previous political and institutional studies, which either have ignored the queen's role in government completely or placed an adverse interpretation upon her intervention. They examine how time, place, and attitudes determined a royal woman's means of expression, and suggest the ties of lineage that linked the kingdoms of Portugal, Flanders, England and Castile. The experiences evidenced in this volume indicate that medieval attitudes towards women and royal power were fairly consistent across a wide geographical area.