Call for Papers

Contexts and Constellations?

Females and Rulership in the Late Middle Ages Reconsidered

23–25 June 2026

Palacký University, Olomouc, Czech Republic

For several decades, queenship studies have offered many valuable insights into the role of women in medieval monarchy, questioning the model of the sole male ruler with the female consort as a mere symbolic ornament. Royal women were valuable partners in the exercise of authority, not only correcting or influencing the male sovereign but also participating directly in exercising rulership. They drew upon significant social, economic, material, and cultural assets, networks, and patronage. Examples of many princely women who held the reins of power independently and for longer periods of time led Theresa Earenfight in her pivotal study Without the persona of prince (2007) to question the gendered presumptions of power and rulership and suggest the model of monarchy as a more fluid system with many power players operating at the same time. In specific moments, the so-called queenly times – occasions that disrupt the traditional power relations – the female consort could became the main figure of the monarchical system, and these moments were far from being rare. However, the exact parameters of such occasions and the wider (or general) applicability of this model in other geographical parts of Europe have remained unanswered.

The conference aims to develop a new model of assessing female participation in rulership and authority, especially in cases where royal women had no evident mandate to rule (e.g. as queen in her own right, queen-regent, queen-lieutenant, etc.). Can we envisage all royal couples as partners in rulership? On what grounds? What are the common points of queenly times – circumstances that enabled royal women to wield authority?

In order to move beyond simplistic assessments that a particular queen’s reign was ‘strong’ or ‘weak’, we need to take a systematic look at what shaped her reign, ideally from a comparative perspective. We suggest considering the involvement of individual queens in government as a confluence of status and specific circumstances, such as their character, the quality of the royal couple’s relationship, the economic basis of queenly estates, her social capital, and broader historical context, which can help better understand the reasons for the intensity and success of her intervention and participation in rulership.

We would also like to address the question of the appropriate vocabulary to speak about the various forms of female power. Are the themes currently used (authority, rulership, intercession, agency, influence, hard/soft power) still applicable? Their heterogeneous use in current scholarship suggests that these terms are not yet well circumscribed, and some of them seem problematic.

We welcome contributions for 20 min talks addressing these broader methodological questions from all parts of Europe and beyond, from the late Middle Ages (ca. 1300–1550). Papers with a comparative perspective are especially welcome. Topics might include (but are not limited to):

• terminology of authority and power across various European languages;
• review of scholarship on queenship and female power in a particular national historiography;
• partnership of the royal couple/family, division of roles;
• queenly titulature (in respect to the kingly);
• queenly economic powers and assets (resources, management, use) and their relation to those of the king;
• economic networks, relationships and practices of communication in exerting authority;
• absence of queenly activity in the sources and its interpretation;
• “oddities” and hard-to-interpret queenly actions and their interpretations;
• patterns of crises (political, military, dynastic, economic, …), enabling or highlighting the queens’ authority;
• the interplay between queens’ patronage, material culture, and changing power relations;
• art and material culture as power and power represented by art;
• importance of family and social capital for the queen’s participation in rulership (especially when compared to other circumstances).

Key dates:

• 31 January 2027 Deadline for proposals
• 28 February 2027 Communication of acceptance

The conference is open to all researchers, as well as to PhD and early-career researchers from all disciplines.

Keynote speakers: Theresa M. Earenfight, Ellie Woodacre, Amalie Fößel

Contact and submissions: katerina.lancova@upol.cz