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Theresa
Earenfight.
Queenship
and Political Power in Medieval and Early Modern Spain.
Ashgate,
2005.
Women
and Gender in the Early Modern World series.
219 x
153 mm.
240pp.
Publisher's
recommended price
Hardback
ISBN 075465074X, $89.95/£45.00
Unlike empresses in Germany
and queens in England and France, the lives and political careers of
most Iberian queens remain largely unknown to non-specialists. In this
collection, Theresa Earenfight brings together new research on medieval
and early modern Spanish queens that highlights the distinctive
political culture that resulted in forms of queenship similar to, yet
also substantially different from, that of northern Europe. The essays
consider three aspects of queenship and politics: the institutional
foundations and practice of politics, the politics of religion and
religious devotion, and the literary and artistic representations of
queenship and power.
Late
medieval queens, because they often occupied prominent and powerful
offices such as the regency in Castile and Portugal and the Lieutenancy
in the Crown of Aragon, exemplify a unique form of queenship that can
best be described as a political partnership. Habsburg queens and
empresses, often excluded from such official political roles, were less
publicly visible but their power as partner to the king, although
shrouded, remains potent. Their political careers were the result of
two forces: first, military circumstances brought about by territorial
expansion, conquest, and second, a political culture that did not
explicitly prohibit queens from active participation in the governance
of the realm.
The
essays in this collection-by both newer and well established
scholars-demonstrate the range and depth of current research on Iberian
queenship, and prompt a re-examination of long-held assumptions about
women and the exercise of power in pre-modern Spain.
Contents
Preface:
Part I The Practical
Limits of Partnership:
Unwilling partners: conflict and ambition in the marriage of Peter II
of Aragon and Marie de Montpellier, Elizabeth Haluska-Rausch;
The many roles of the medieval queen: some examples from Castile,
Joseph F. O'Callaghan;
Absent kings: queens as political partners in the medieval crown of
Aragon, Theresa Earenfight.
Part II Practising the
Politics of Religion: Defending their Jewish subjects:
Elionor of Sicily, Maria de Luna, and the Jews of Morvedre, Mark
Meyerson;
Spirit and force: politics, public and private in the reign of Maria de
Luna (1396–1406), Núria Silleras-Fernández;
The queen and the master: Catalina of Lancaster and the military
orders, Ana Echevarria-Arsuaga.
Part III Representing
the Politics of Queenship:
Royal portraits: representations of queenship in the 13th-century
Catalan chronicles, Marta VanLandingham;
Isabel of Castile (1451–1504), her self-representation and its context,
Peggy Liss;
Choices and consequences: the construction of Isabel de Portugal's
image, Jorge Sebastián Lozano;
Conspicuous in her absence: Mariana of Austria, Juan José of
Austria, and the representation of her power, Eleanor Goodman.
Bibliography;
Index.
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