When I was a child, I was forever drawing pictures of princesses in elaborate medieval and early modern dress. I devoured history books—especially those containing artworks that helped me visualize the people whose names rang out from their pages. Inexplicably, I was passionate about France and French language and culture from my primary school years. Then, in my early twenties, I stumbled onto Umberto Eco’s, The Name of the Rose, which appeared in English translation around 1983. History has been, and remains, my passion (as do whodunits). I have been passionately obsessed with in my research for over two decades—uncovering the truth that lies beneath the spin and the ashes.
I wrote
Yolande of Aragon (1381-1442) Family and Power: The Reverse of the Tapestry
This book appeared just as I was on the point of completing my doctoral thesis. It helped me to understand the importance of examining a queen and/or elite premodern woman’s networks—familial, political, diplomatic, friendship and how these networks underpinned her use of both soft and indeed hard power. When the document trail goes cold in the archives, looking more closely at female networks and how they played out is a great way of overcoming gaps and erasures—both deliberate and accidental. It remains a durable and very influential study and a bonus for non-Ibericists as it is in English.
Based on an exhaustive and varied study of predominantly unpublished archival material as well as a variety of literary and non-literary sources, this book investigates the relation between patronage, piety and politics in the life and career of one Late Medieval Spain's most intriguing female personalities, Maria De Luna.
Carole Levin’s magisterial work has now appeared in its second edition, a testament to its importance. Carole explores the myriad ways the unmarried, childless Elizabeth represented herself and the ways members of her court, foreign ambassadors, and subjects represented and responded to her as a public figure. Like her recently deceased successor, Elizabeth II, Elizabeth Tudor understood that she had to be seen to be believed. She fashioned herself into both the Virgin Queen and the mother of her people. Carole interrogates the gender constructions, role expectations, and beliefs about sexuality that influenced her public persona and the way she was perceived as a female Protestant ruler and points us to paths along which can travel to investigate other female monarchs regardless of time period and on a global scale.
In her famous speech to rouse the English troops staking out Tilbury at the mouth of the Thames during the Spanish Armada's campaign, Queen Elizabeth I is said to have proclaimed, "I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king." Whether or not the transcription is accurate, the persistent attribution of this provocative statement to England's most studied and celebrated queen illustrates some of the contradictions and cultural anxieties that dominated the collective consciousness of England during a reign that lasted from 1558 until 1603.
In The Heart…
Theresa starts our journey into the past life of Catherine of Aragon, whom many regard very mistakenly as a victim, with a pair of shoes, a painting, a rosary, a fur-trimmed baby blanket. She shows us how each of these things took meaning from the ways Catherine experienced and perceived them. Upon these traces and fragments, her portrait of Catherine emerges, and we glimpse her life lived five centuries ago. Engagingly written by Theresa in her clear and elegant prose, her cultural and emotional biography of Catherine truly brings us closer to understanding her life from her own perspective.
Despite her status as a Spanish infanta, Princess of Wales, and Queen of England, few of her personal letters have survived, and she is obscured in the contemporary royal histories. In this evocative biography, Theresa Earenfight presents an intimate and engaging portrait of Catherine told through the objects that she left behind.
A pair of shoes, a painting, a rosary, a fur-trimmed baby blanket-each of these things took meaning from the ways Catherine experienced and perceived them. Through an examination of the inventories listing the few possessions Catherine owned at her death, Earenfight…
With this excellent and seamlessly co-authored study, Christine and Tracy have Adams delve into the creation of the post of the royal significant other—an often-overlooked category of premodern female power and influence. They move beyond the salacious to an intellectual understanding of the complementarity of gendered premodern political power.
Kings throughout medieval and early modern Europe had extraconjugal sexual partners. Only in France, however, did the royal mistress become a quasi-institutionalized political position. This study explores the emergence and development of the position of French royal mistress through detailed portraits of nine of its most significant incumbents: Agnes Sorel, Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly, Diane de Poitiers, Gabrielle d'Estrees, Francoise Louise de La Baume Le Blanc, Francoise Athenais de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Francoise d'Aubigne, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, and Jeanne Becu.
Beginning in the fifteenth century, key structures converged to create a space at court for the royal mistress. The first was…
I recommend this book not on the basis of my co-editorship with Lisa but rather on the basis that the essays contained in it speak to the unexceptionality of premodern female power and influence in both the fantasy fiction world and in historiography and how these sometimes reflect one another—without forcing the issue. The germ of the idea for the essay collection came with the screening of the sixth series HBO television cultural phenomenon when all of a sudden the female characters started to emerge as leaders and belligerents in the quest for the Iron Throne and all that that entailed.
Is the world of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO's Game of Thrones really medieval? How accurately does it reflect the real Middle Ages? Historians have been addressing these questions since the book and television series exploded into a cultural phenomenon. For scholars of medieval and early modern women, they offer a unique vantage point from which to study the intersections of elite women and popular understandings of the premodern world. This volume is a wide-ranging study of those intersections. Focusing on female agency and the role of advice, it finds a wealth of…
Yolande of Aragon is one of the most intriguing of late medieval queens who contrived to be everywhere and nowhere simultaneously; operating seamlessly from backstage and front of house. She was shrewd, focused, and intelligent—a grey eminence whose political and diplomatic agency secured the throne of France for her son-in-law, Charles VII, and the survival of her marital house. Rohr's work is a long-anticipated and much-needed scholarly assessment of an incredibly powerful and influential figure of fifteenth-century history who just happened to be a queen.
So many books, so little time! If you're a nonfiction fan, this field guide may help you make better choices about what to read.
Just like a field guide helps you identify plants or birds, this book helps you navigate the rich world of nonfiction. You’ll uncover how your favorite authors break down complex topics, keep you hooked, and forge those deep, personal connections that make their work unforgettable.
Practice spotting techniques "in the wild" and track your responses in the Field Notes. Record your own preferences and favorites in the Field Observations. With this guide by your side, you'll…
Attention nonfiction book lovers, this guide is for you!
If your nightstand is stacked with histories or essays, how-to guides or science books, The Curious Reader’s Field Guide to Nonfiction is going to be your new favorite companion.
Just like a field guide helps you identify plants or birds, this book helps you navigate the rich world of nonfiction. You’ll uncover how your favorite authors break down complex topics, keep you hooked, and forge those deep, personal connections that make their work unforgettable.
More than just a guide—a reading companion
This isn’t just a book you flip through—it’s an interactive…
