Berenguela of Castile (1180-1246) and Political Women in the High Middle Ages
Berenguela of Castile (1180-1246) and Political Women in the High Middle Ages

Author: M. Shadis

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2009-10-26

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 0230103138

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The women in the family which ruled thirteenth-century Castile used maternity, familial and political strategy, and religious and cultural patronage to secure their personal power as well as to promote their lineage. Leonor of England, and her daughters Blanche of Castile (queen of France), Urraca (queen of Portugal), Costanza (a Cistercian nun of Las Huelgas) and Leonor, (queen of Aragon) provide the context for a study focusing on Berenguela of Castile, queen of Leon through marriage and of Castile by right of inheritance, whose most significant accomplishment was to enable the successful rule of her son Fernando.

Berenguela the Great and Her Times (1180-1246)
Berenguela the Great and Her Times (1180-1246)

Author: Salvador H. Martínez

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-11-15

Total Pages: 656

ISBN-13: 9004502904

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This biography presents a remarkable vision of Spanish society at the beginning of the 13th century by exploring the life of Berenguela of Castile (c. 1179-1246), a queen who dominated public life for over forty years.

Rulers and Rulership in the Arc of Medieval Europe, 1000-1200
Rulers and Rulership in the Arc of Medieval Europe, 1000-1200

Author: Christian Raffensperger

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-08-24

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1000921670

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Rulers and Rulership in the Arc of Medieval Europe challenges the dominant paradigm of what rulership is and who rulers are by decentering the narrative and providing a broad swath of examples from throughout medieval Europe. Within that territory, the prevalent idea of monarchy and kingship is overturned in favor of a broad definition of rulership. This book will demonstrate to the reader that the way in which medieval Europe has been constructed in both the popular and scholarly imaginations is incorrect. Instead of a king we have multiple rulers, male and female, ruling concurrently. Instead of an independent church or a church striving for supremacy under the Gregorian Reform, we have a pope and ecclesiastical leaders making deals with secular rulers and an in-depth interconnection between the two. Finally, instead of a strong centralizing polity growing into statehood we see weak rulers working hand in glove with weak subordinates to make the polity as a whole function. Medievalists, Byzantinists, and Slavists typically operate in isolation from one another. They do not read each other’s books, or engage with each other’s work. This book requires engagement from all of them to point out that the medieval Europe that they work in is one and the same and demands collaboration to best understand it.

Berenguela the Great and Her Times (1180-1246)
Berenguela the Great and Her Times (1180-1246)

Author: H. Salvador Martínez

Publisher: Medieval and Early Modern Iber

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 660

ISBN-13: 9789004499317

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This biography presents a remarkable vision of Spanish society at the beginning of the 13th century by exploring the life of Berenguela of Castile (c. 1179-1246), a queen who dominated public life for over forty years.

Eleanor de Montfort
Eleanor de Montfort

Author: Louise J. Wilkinson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2012-03-08

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 1441112499

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As sister of Henry III and aunt of the future Edward I, Eleanor de Montfort was at the heart of the bloody conflict between the Crown and the English barons. At Lewes in 1264 Simon de Montfort captured the king and secured control of royal government. A woman of fiery nature, Eleanor worked tirelessly to support her husband's cause. She assumed responsibility for the care of the royal prisoners and she regularly dispatched luxurious gifts to Henry III and the Lord Edward. But the family's political fortunes were shattered at the battle of Evesham in August 1265 where Simon de Montfort was killed. The newly-widowed Eleanor rose to her role as matriarch of her family, sending her surviving sons - and the family treasure - overseas to France, negotiating the surrender of Dover Castle and securing her own safe departure from the realm. The last ten years of her life were spent in the Dominican convent at Montargis. Drawing on chronicles, letters and public records this book reconstructs the narrative of Eleanor's remarkable life.

King Alfonso VIII of Castile
King Alfonso VIII of Castile

Author: Miguel Gómez

Publisher: Fordham University Press

Published: 2019-04-02

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0823284166

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King Alfonso VIII of Castile: Government, Family and War brings together a diverse group of scholars whose work concerns the reign of Alfonso VIII (1158–1215). This was a critical period in the history of the Iberian peninsula, when the conflict between the Christian north and the Moroccan empire of the Almohads was at its most intense, while the political divisions between the five Christian kingdoms reached their high-water mark. From his troubled ascension as a child to his victory at Las Navas de Tolosa near the end of his fifty-seven-year reign, Alfonso VIII and his kingdom were at the epicenter of many of the most dramatic events of the era. Contributors: Martin Alvira Cabrer, Janna Bianchini, Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J., Miguel Dolan Gómez, Carlos de Ayala Martínez, Kyle C. Lincoln, Joseph O’Callaghan, Teofi lo F. Ruiz, Miriam Shadis, Damian J. Smith, James J. Todesca

The Sword and the Cross
The Sword and the Cross

Author: Edward L. Holt

Publisher: Medieval and Early Modern Iber

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 9789004427624

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"This volume provides a series of new perspectives on the political, military and religious history of the reign Fernando III, king of Castile-León from 1217-1252. The essays collected here address the conquest of al-Andalus and the policies of Fernando III, Christian-Muslim relations in the Peninsula, the creation and curation of royal networks of power, the role of women at the Castilian court, and the impact of religious change in Castile-León. Assembling an international group of eleven leading scholars on this period of Iberian history, this volume combines military and religious history with a variety of novel approaches and methodologies to ask new and exciting questions about the reign of Fernando III and his place in medieval European history. Contributors are Martín Alvira, Carlos de Ayala Martínez, Janna Bianchini, Bárbara Boloix-Gallardo, Cristina Catalina, Francisco García Fitz, Francisco García-Serrano, Edward L. Holt, Kyle C. Lincoln, Miriam Shadis, and Teresa Witcombe"--

The Queen's Hand
The Queen's Hand

Author: Janna Bianchini

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2012-08-16

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 0812206266

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Her name is undoubtedly less familiar than that of her grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, or that of her famous conqueror son, Fernando III, yet during her lifetime, Berenguela of Castile (1180-1246) was one of the most powerful women in Europe. As queen-consort of Alfonso IX of León, she acquired the troubled boundary lands between the kingdoms of Castile and León and forged alliances with powerful nobles on both sides. Even after her marriage was dissolved, she continued to strengthen these connections as a member of her father's court. On her brother's death, she inherited the Castilian throne outright—and then, remarkably, elevated her son to kingship at the same time. Using her assiduously cultivated alliances, Berenguela ruled alongside Fernando and set into motion the strategy that in 1230 would result in his acquisition of the crown of León—and the permanent union of Castile and León. In The Queen's Hand, Janna Bianchini explores Berenguela's extraordinary lifelong partnership with her son and examines the means through which she was able to build and exercise power. Bianchini contends that recognition of Berenguela as a powerful reigning queen by nobles, bishops, ambassadors, and popes shows the key participation of royal women in the western Iberian monarchy. Demonstrating how royal women could wield enormous authority both within and outside their kingdoms, Bianchini reclaims Berenguela's place as one of the most important figures of the Iberian Middle Ages.