Women Rulers in Europe: Agency, Practice and the Representation of Political Powers (XII-XVIII)

Abstract

New interpretations of state formation processes include gender as a category of historical analysis and tackle notions of royalty and royal power, focusing on regency and women as regents in the process of consolidating and transmitting royal prerogatives. Gendering the process of state formation in Europe entails considering ruling dynasties and families as complex subjects of historical and anthropological research.Wives and widows also exerted formal political roles as ruling consorts and governors during specific phases of their life cycle. The positioning of women in the courts of Europe opens up a complex set of questions connected to the fashioning of their political identities where agnatic and cognatic lines intersect in the long process of state building and legitimation. This WP focuses on a comparative analysis of women’s formal political roles and on the specific prerogatives of women’s power and rule from the Byzantine Empire to XVIII Europe.