This work looks at queenship in a global, timeless sense—examining the role of queens, empresses, and other royal women from the ancient and classical period through to nearly the present day on every continent. By looking at queenship in this comparative, longue durée way, we can start to see connecting threads and continuity over time and space as well as the change and development and comparisons of how the queen’s role differed in various cultural contexts. A wide variety of examples are given to explain and contextualize key themes in queenship: family and dynasty, rulership, and image crafting. The introduction provides a brief overview of the development of queenship studies and a discussion of the ideals that queens were expected to conform to. This book offers a radically new perspective on queenship studies which enables new insights into the queen’s role as the preeminent woman in the realm.

Queenship and Sanctity brings together for the first time in English the anonymous Lives of Mathilda and Odilo of Cluny's Epitaph of Adelheid. Richly annotated, with an extensive introduction placing the texts and their subjects in historical and hagiographical context, it provides teachers and students with a crucial set of sources for the history of Europe (particularly Germany) in the tenth and eleventh centuries, for the development of sacred biography and medieval notions of sanctity, and for the life of aristocratic and royal women in the early Middle Ages.