An in-depth study of coexisting social norms of princely power cutting across categories of hierarchy, gender, and collaborative rulership.

Jeanne de Penthièvre (c.1326–1384), duchess of Brittany, was an active and determined ruler who maintained her claim to the duchy throughout a war of succession and even after her eventual defeat. This in-depth study examines Jeanne's administrative and legal records to explore her co-rule with her husband, the social implications of ducal authority, and her strategies of legitimization in the face of conflict. While studies of medieval political authority often privilege royal, male, and exclusive models of power, Erika Graham-Goering reveals how there were multiple coexisting standards of princely action, and it was the navigation of these expectations that was more important to the successful exercise of power than adhering to any single approach. Cutting across categories of hierarchy, gender, and collaborative rule, this perspective sheds light on women's rulership as a crucial component in the power structures of the early Hundred Years' War, and demonstrates that lordship retained salience as a political category even in a period of growing monarchical authority.

A collection of essays that describe and assess the ways in which royal publicists in Medieval France conceived the authority of the crown, especially with regards to protecting and defending Christian subjects from their alleged enemies at home and abroad - corrupt officials, Jews, heretics and Muslims. A number of the essays also describe the execution of royal policies with respect to these groups and evaluate their impact, both in terms of the groups affected and their influence on further developments in royal ideology.

Proximity to the monarch was a vital asset in the struggle for power and influence in medieval and early modern courts. The concept of ‘access to the ruler’ has therefore grown into a dominant theme in scholarship on pre-modern dynasties. Still, many questions remain concerning the mechanisms of access and their impact on politics. Bringing together new research on European and Asian cases, the ten chapters in this volume focus on the ways in which ‘access’ was articulated, regulated, negotiated, and performed. By taking into account the full complexity of hierarchies, ceremonial rites, spaces and artefacts that characterized the dynastic court, The Key to Power? forces us to rethink power relations in the late medieval and early modern world. Contributors are: Christina Antenhofer, Ronald G. Asch, Florence Berland, Mark Hengerer, Neil Murphy, Fabian Persson, Jonathan Spangler, Michael Talbot, Steven Thiry, and Audrey Truschke.

Aimed firmly at the student reader, this handbook offers an overview of the full range of the history of France, from the origins of the concept of post-Roman "Francia," through the emergence of a consolidated French monarchy and the development of both nation-state and global empire into the modern era, forward to the current complexities of a modern republic integrated into the European Union and struggling with the global legacies of its past. Short, incisive contributions by a wide range of expert scholars offer both a spine of chronological overviews and a diverse spectrum of up-to-date insights into areas of key interest to historians today. From the ravages of the Vikings to the role of gastronomy in the definition of French culture, from Caribbean slavery to the place of Algerians in present-day France, from the role of French queens in medieval diplomacy to the youth-culture explosion of the 1960s and the explosions of France’s nuclear weapons program, this handbook provides accessible summaries and selected further reading to explore any and all of these issues further, in the classroom and beyond.

The essays in this volume portray the public life of late medieval France as that country established its position as a leader of western European society in the early modern world. A central theme is the contribution made by contemporary writers, chroniclers and commentators, such as Jean Froissart, William Worcester and Philippe de Commynes, to our understanding of the past. Who were they? What picture of their times did they present? Were their works intended to influence their contemporaries and what success did they enjoy? Other contributions deal with the exercise of political power, the relationship between the court and those in authority in far-flung reaches of the kingdom, and the role and status of the death penalty as deterrent, punishment and means of achieving justice. "... a very valuable overview of recent work on the interface between the intellectual and the political history of the Valois realm."—De Re Militari Online "... this collection will be of particular interest to literary scholars as well as historians in view of the emphasis of many of the essays on representations above event or record."—Medium Aevum

A fresh introduction to the political history of late medieval France duing the turbulent period of the Hundred Years' War, taking into account the social, economic and religious contexts. Graeme Small considers not just the monarchy but also prelates, noble networks and the emerging municipalities in this new analysis.