Author

Publication

2017 - Oxford University Press

Language

English

Word Count

68,000 words, Guess

Page Count

272 pages

Identifiers

  • ISBN-139780198800101
  • ISBN-10019880010X
  • OCLC Control Number961410084
  • Better World Books9780198800101
  • Open LibraryOL28622076M

Classifications

  • LCCDD137.5
  • LCCDD137.5 .M33 2017

Description

This is the first major study in English of the queens of the Ottonian dynasty (919-1024). The Ottonians were a family from Saxony who are often regarded as the founders of the medieval German kingdom. They were the most successful of all the dynasties to emerge from the wreckage of the pan-European Carolingian Empire after it disintegrated in 888, ruling as kings and emperors in Germany and Italy and exerting indirect hegemony in France and in Eastern Europe. It has long been noted by historians that Ottonian queens were peculiarly powerful - indeed, among the most powerful of the entire Middle Ages. Their reputations, particularly those of the empresses Theophanu (d.991) and Adelheid (d.999) have been commemorated for a thousand years in art, literature, and opera. But while the exceptional status of the Ottonian queens is well appreciated, it has not been fully explained. 'Ottonian queenship' offers an original interpretation of Ottonian queenship through a study of the sources for the dynasty's six queens, and seeks to explain it as a phenomenon with a beginning, middle, and end.

Subjects

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