Book
Queens of the Crusades
First published 2020
The second volume of England’s Medieval Queens follows the consorts of the Angevin kings, including Eleanor of Aquitaine and Berengaria of Navarre. Their lives intersect with crusading, rebellion, captivity, dynastic marriage and the expansion and loss of the Angevin Empire. The book uses queenship to examine the political network connecting England, France, Iberia and the eastern Mediterranean in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.
The biographies emphasise that queenship included more than marriage to a king. Consorts could manage estates, act as regents, negotiate family disputes and maintain cross-Channel networks during long royal absences. Crusading and the Angevin inheritance increased those responsibilities by stretching dynastic politics across several kingdoms, making female households important instruments of continuity and diplomacy.
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