Dynastic Change: Legitimacy and Gender in Medieval and Early Modern Monarchy examines the strategies for change and legitimacy in monarchies in the medieval and early modern eras.
Taking a broadly comparative approach, Dynastic Change explores the mechanisms employed as well as theoretical and practical approaches to monarchical legitimisation. The book answers the question of how monarchical families reacted, adjusted or strategised when faced with dynastic crises of various kinds, such as a lack of a male heir or unfitness of a reigning monarch for rule, through the consideration of such themes as the role of royal women, the uses of the arts for representational and propaganda purposes and the impact of religion or popular will. Broad in both chronological and geographical scope, chapters discuss examples from the 9th to the 18th centuries across such places as Morocco, Byzantium, Portugal, Russia and Western Europe, showing readers how cultural, religious and political differences across countries and time periods affected dynastic relations.
Bringing together gender, monarchy and dynasticism, the book highlights parallels across time and place, encouraging a new approach to monarchy studies. It is the perfect collection for students and researchers of medieval and early modern monarchy and gender.
Author(s): Ana Maria S. A. Rodrigues, Manuela Santos Silva, Jonathan Spangler
Series: Themes in Medieval and Early Modern History
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: x+294
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
Figures
Tables
List of contributors
Introduction
The idea of legitimacy
A history of legitimacy
Gaining and keeping legitimacy
Notes
Bibliography
PART I: Dynastic change
Chapter 1: “The very next blood of the King”: the rules governing female succession to the throne in English history
The twelfth-century example of Matilda
The problem of female succession in later medieval England
The law of female succession in Tudor England
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 2: Portugal, 1385: a people’s choice or coup d’état?
The reign of Fernando of Portugal: marriage and wars
Beatriz of Portugal
The regency of Queen Leonor Teles
The Master of Avis
The Cortes of Coimbra, 1385
A closer look at the Cortes of Coimbra and the enthronement of João I
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 3: From election to consolidation: the strategies of legitimacy of the Trastámara dynasty in the Crown of Aragon
1410–12: the claims to the Aragonese throne – five candidates, one throne
1412–16: consolidation and legitimisation of the Trastámara dynasty in Aragon
1416–58: extending the legitimisation strategy
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 4: Sigismund of Sweden as foreigner in his own kingdom: how the king of Sweden was made an alien
Depositions forming national culture
Foreignness, religion, and political representation as dynastic battlefields
Political identity and the change of rulers of 1599
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 5: Free election, divine providence, and constitution: legitimacy of royal power in the early modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth after the Union of Lublin (1569) and the origins of the free election
The Henrician Articles: a quasi-constitution?
The sacral character of royal power and the ceremony of coronation
The last free election, 1764
The end of free election and the constitution of 3 May 1791
Conclusion
List of Polish monarchs (XVI–XVIII centuries)
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 6: Legitimacy through family traditions? The Hanoverians represented as successors to the throne of Great Britain
Great Britain and Hanover
Medals as sources
Dynasty: Leibniz and the uses of Guelph history
Religion: defenders of the faith
Politics: liberty and the people
Conclusion
Notes
Medals
Bibliography
Chapter 7: The reversal of dynasties during the Bourbon era in the Kingdom of Naples
Charles of Bourbon, Elizabeth Farnese, and a dynastic return to Italy
Maria Carolina and the re-Habsburgisation of southern Italy
Notes
Bibliography
PART II: Legitimising royal authority
Chapter 8: Purple dreams of the Macedonian dynasty of Byzantium in manuscript illuminations: legitimising the usurping emperor, Basil I (867–86)
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 9: “King by fact, not by law”: legitimacy and exequies in medieval England
Burying a king
King by fact, not by law
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 10: The exaltation of the “holiness” of the Bragança dynasty as a legitimating strategy in the seventeenth century
King John IV
Queen Luísa de Guzman
Prince Teodósio
Princess Joana; Princess Catherine, Queen of England; and Princess Isabel Luísa Josefa
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 11: Consolidating authority in seventeenth-century Morocco: Sultan Moulay Ismail’s strategies for legitimacy
Moulay Ismail’s struggle for legitimacy
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 12: Dominae imperiales: Ottonian women and dynastic stability, strength, and legitimacy in tenth-century Germany
Background
Otto II’s death
Stability and strength of the realm, 983–95
Context and conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 13: Legitimacy represented through court entertainment: La estatua de Prometeo and the power struggle between Queen Regent Mariana and Don Juan José of Austria
The play and its scholarly reception
Don Juan José’s pursuit of a leadership role in the Spanish court and the dilemma of Carlos II’s authority
La estatua de Prometeo’s open ending
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 14: Catherine the Great: how the question of legitimacy influenced her politics
Creating legitimacy
Legitimacy through ability and heritage
Representing legitimacy
Legitimacy justifies autocracy
Threatened legitimacy
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
