Medieval Queenship

Rating:
Summary: An academic study of themes of queenship.
Review: John Carmi Parsons, the editor, has brought together 11 essays, of varying quality, dealing with a number of European queens and aspects of queenship spanning the period from the 6th to the 16th centuries. As Parsons explains it, "[t]he contributors, all historians, offer no biographical sketches of individual queens, but have instead sought to dissect ways in which queens pursued and expoited means to power, and how their actions were interpreted by others." As such, the book will probably be of more interest to academics than to the general reader with an interest in medieval history.