Forgotten Queens in Medieval and Early Modern Europe Political Agency, Myth-Making, and Patronage

Forgotten Queens in Medieval and Early Modern Europe examines queens dowager and queens consort who have disappeared from history or have been deeply misunderstood in modern historical treatment.

Divided into eleven chapters, this book covers queenship from 1016 to 1800, demonstrating the influence of queens in different aspects of monarchy over eight centuries and furthering our knowledge of the roles and challenges that they faced. It also promotes a deeper understanding of the methods of power and patronage for women who were not queens, many of which have since become mythologized into what historians have wanted them to be. The chronological organisation of the book, meanwhile, allows the reader to see more clearly how these forgotten queens are related by the power, agency, and patronage they displayed, despite the mythologization to which they have all been subjected.

Offering a broad geographical coverage and providing a comparison of queenship across a range of disciplines, such as religious history, art history, and literature, Forgotten Queens in Medieval and Early Modern Europe is ideal for students and scholars of pre-modern queenship and of medieval and early modern history courses more generally.

Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: The Power of the Mythological Past: Reader Response to Queen Gwendolen and the Thirty-Three Daughters of King Diocletian in English Histories; Chapter 3: Berengaria of Navarre and Joanna of Sicily as Crusading Queens: Manipulation, Reputation, and Agency; Chapter 4: Becoming Anglo-Norman: The Women of the House of Wessex in the Century after the Norman Conquest; Chapter 5: Power, Patronage, and Politics: Maria of Navarre as Queen of the Crown of Aragon (1338-1347); Chapter 6: Beyond Patronage: Richard Jonas’s The Byrth of Mankynde as Counsel to Queen Katherine Howard; Chapter 7: Katerina Jagellonica and Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow: Power, Piety, and Patronage; Chapter 8: Elisabeth of Austria and Marie-Elisabeth of France: Represented and Remembered; Chapter 9: Queen Catherine of Braganza’s Relationship with her Catholic Household in Restoration England; Chapter 10: Queenly Afterimages: The Visual and Historical Legacy of Marie Leszczinska; Chapter 11: The Eagle Eye of the Habsburg Family on the Kingdom of Naples: Lights and Shadows of Queen Maria Carolina at Court

Valerie Schutte earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Akron. She is author of Mary I and the Art of Book Dedications: Royal Women, Power, and Persuasion and has edited several collections on early modern kings and queens.

Estelle Paranque is a Lecturer in Early Modern History at the New College of the Humanities and author of Elizabeth I of England Through Valois Eyes: Power, Representation, and Diplomacy in the Reign of the Queen (1558-1588).