The Royal Studies Podcast

This episode features an interview with Polly Putnam and Holly Marsden, two of the team responsible for Historic Royal Palaces' innovative 'Crown to Couture' exhibition which is running until 29 October 2023. To find out more about the exhibition, follow this link and most importantly, have a listen to this episode to hear more about the inspiration behind it and the similarities between the royal court and celebrities on the red carpet!

Guest Bios:
Polly Putnam is a collections curator at Historic Royal Palaces. She is responsible for the management, research, display and interpretation of collections and displays post 1650 at Hampton Court Palace. She has a particular responsibility for Kew Palace. She has been the curator for numerous projects including the Chocolate Kitchens at Hampton Court and the restoration of the Great Pagoda in Kew Gardens. At Kensington palace, she curated Victoria Woman and Crown which is explored Victoria’s self-fashioning and the intersection of her public role and personal life. She is the lead curator for Crown to Couture. Prior to this she was assistant curator for Leeds Museums and Galleries where she led on numerous restoration projects, displays and exhibitions.

Holly Marsden is currently completing her PhD through the AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnership scheme at the University of Winchester and Historic Royal Palaces, having previously studied Queer History for her MA and History of Art for her undergraduate degree. Her thesis examines the multiple identities of Queen Mary II in the context of queenship, culture and politics in the seventeenth century.  As part of her PhD, Holly completed a curatorial student placement with Polly Putnam on 'Crown to Couture.' Previous placements also include working in the curatorial team of the Tudor to Regency galleries for the National Portrait Gallery’s ‘Inspiring People’ re-opening project and on Historic Royal Palace's ‘Queer Lives’ immersive theatre tours. 

This very special episode features Diana Pelaz Flores, guest editor of the current Royal Studies Journal special issue 'The Iberian Queen's Households: Dynamics, Social Strategies and Royal Power' (Vol 10.1, June 2023). Diana is the 'host' of this episode, in conversation with Lledó Ruiz Domingo and Paula Del Val Vales, who both contributed articles to this issue. We are delighted to have this episode in Spanish--a first for the Royal Studies Podcast!

Please note: We are aware that there are some minor issues with the audio which could not be completely addressed in the mastering of the episode. We apologise for the less than ideal audio but we hope you will still enjoy listening to this feature.

Information about our guests:

Diana Pelaz Flores is Senior Lecturer in the Medieval History at the University of Santiago de Compostela. She was the main researcher of the project “Court feminine spaces: Curial areas, territorial relations and political practices”, granted by the Spanish Government, integrated within the MUNARQAS coordinated project, under the direction by Angela Munoz Fernandez. Her research examined the history of women and power, in particular the Queens consort of the Crown of Castile during the Late Middle Ages. She has several publications, including Rituales Líquidos. El significado del agua en el ceremonial de la Corte de Castilla (ss. XIV-XV) (Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, 2017), La Casa de la Reina en la Corona de Castilla (1418-1496) (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 2017), Poder y representación de la reina en la Corona de Castilla (1418-1496) (Ávila: Junta de Castilla y León, 2017), and Reinas Consortes. Las reinas de Castilla en la Edad Media (siglos XI-XV) (Madrid: Sílex, 2017)).

Dr. Lledó Ruiz Domingo is postdoctoral researcher of Late Medieval Iberian Queenship at the University of Lisbon (Portugal) and University of Valencia (Spain). Her wider interests focus on political activity of Aragonese consort as co-rulers and partners with their royal husbands, especially during their periods as Lieutenant, using all the King’s powers and authority. She has also focused her analysis on the Queens’ economic resources during the Late Middle Ages. In this sense, she has published a monography “El tresor de la Reina” about the patrimony, income and expenditure of the Aragonese Queens.

Paula Del Val Vales is a third year PhD student and Associate Lecturer at the University of Lincoln, where she develops her thesis ‘The Queen's Household in the Thirteenth Century: A Comparative Anglo-Iberian Study’. Paula is a Postgraduate Fellow Abroad as her PhD is funded by the La Caixa Foundation, and a member of the research group MUNARQAS. Paula has been on placement at the British Library, within the digitisation project 'Medieval and Renaissance Women', focused on digitising more than 300 documents related to medieval and renaissance women (1100-1600). Through her research she aims to explore the queens’ establishments, resources, revenues, personnel and networks. She is also working on the first ever critical edition of the household and wardrobe accounts of Eleanor of Provence.

This episode features an interview with the winner of the Royal Studies Journal 2023 Postgraduate/Early Career Scholar Article Prize. In this interview we'll be discussing her prizewinning article and the disastrous Medici/Habsburg marriage that inspired it!

Guest Bio: Adriana Concin is the Assistant Curator of Paintings and Drawings at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She completed her doctoral studies at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London in 2021 with a dissertation focused on the 1565 wedding of Francesco I de’ Medici and the Habsburg Archduchess Johanna of Austria and its wider cultural implications. She has been the recipient of several fellowships, including the Eva Schler fellowship at the Medici Archive Project in Florence and the Studia Rudolphina fellowship in Prague at the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Adriana has also held the Ayesha Bulchandani graduate internship at the Frick Collection in New York. Her research interests lie in sixteenth-century collecting, cultural exchanges between Tuscany and the Holy Roman Empire, and female patronage networks. In addition to her prize winning article, she has also published on the frescoes of Habsburg cityscapes in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence (Burlington Magazine, 2019).

Find out more about Adriana and her research here: 

• Adriana's website on Habsburg Women
• Academia.edu page
• Codart profile
• Prize winning article: Sadly this article, published in Studia Rudolphina is not available digitally but you can follow this link to find out more about how to access it--in the 2020/21 issue.

In this episode, Rob Runacres (University of Winchester) speaks about aspects of his doctoral research on fencing and HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) in early modern European courts and royal education.

Rob’s two translations from French primary sources are available from Fallen Rook Publishing (https://www.fallenrookpublishing.co.uk/). The Free Master of Arms (1653) can be found here and The Book of Lessons (mid 17th century) can be found here. The latter contains the 71 colour pictures from the manuscript in the Swedish Royal library. There are other authors on the same site.

You can follow Rob’s research via his Academia.edu page.

AGEA reproduces a large number of Spanish fencing treatises, including those of Royal fencers, available online here. 

Rob’s latest article was published with Acta Periodica Duellatorum, an open-source HEMA periodical, and is on the Bolognese Tradition (Vol. 10 No. 1 (2022))

A general introduction to the topic can be found in "The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe" by Sydney Anglo. For French readers, a comparable work is "Croiser le Fer" by Pascal Brioist, Hervé Drévillon and Perre Serna. Much research has moved on from these works, but they remain significant pieces.

Rob recommends articles by Eric Burkart, Daniel Jaquet, Hélène Leblanc and Iason Tzouriadis and also recommends this huge wiki of fightbooks, with scans or links to scans of originals. Most of the background information is sound but, as per any wiki, relies on contributors.

Join us for this episode featuring postgraduate research students Louise Gay and Ashlee Johnson, who speak to Dr Johanna Strong about their research into queens' roles in warfare, conflict, and military life in medieval Europe.

Louise is a PhD student at the Université Sorbonne Paris Nord examining thirteenth- and fourteenth-century French and English queenship and warfare. Ashlee is a PhD student at the University of Winchester focusing on the 4 Matildas (1066-1152) and their charters.

You can follow Louise and her research at her Twitter profile. You can also find Ashlee and her research on Twitter here.

In this episode we are joined by Nikki Clark and Caroline Dunn to speak about their work on the role of ladies-in-waiting in the medieval and early modern English court. We’ll hear their reflections on how the role changed over time and what life was like for these women as well as their thoughts about Queen Camilla’s decision to eliminate this position in favour of the new post of ‘companions’. 

Dr Nicola Clark is a Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Chichester. Her first book, Gender, Family, and Politics: The Howard Women, 1485-1558, was published by Oxford University Press in 2018, and she also writes for public audiences, with work featured in History Today and on the History Extra website. She has spoken about her research at events for Historic Royal Palaces, the National Archives, various schools, and academic institutions, and has recently appeared on television as part of the BBC's The Boleyns: A Scandalous Family, and More4's Royal Scandals. Before coming to Chichester, Nicola taught at the University of Winchester and Royal Holloway College, University of London. She has published widely on women’s roles, queenship, the Reformation, and Tudor politics.

 Twitter: @NikkiClark86

 Selected Publications: 

 Gender, Family, and Politics: The Howard Women, 1485-1558. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/gender-family-and-politics-9780198784814?cc=gb&lang=en&

“Queen Katherine Howard: Space and Promiscuity Pre- and Post-Marriage, 1536-1541”, Royal Studies Journal 6.2 (2019), 89-103. https://rsj.winchester.ac.uk/articles/10.21039/rsj.202

Dr Caroline Dunn is a scholar of medieval Europe with a particular focus on women’s roles and social networks in late medieval England. Her book, Stolen Women in Medieval England: Rape, Abduction, and Adultery c. 1100-1500 (Cambridge, 2012) offers the first comprehensive overview of women’s experiences with ravishment, which ranged from forcible rape to consensual elopement and adultery, during the English Middle Ages. Professor Dunn’s current research explores the lady-in-waiting in medieval England. Examining these highborn serving women reveals the nuances of soft power, social influence, and economic resources wielded by women who lacked official authority within political institutions or patriarchal households. Dr. Dunn teaches upper level courses on medieval women, crusades and conquests, aristocratic society, and preindustrial food at Clemson University. She received the Dean’s award for teaching excellence in 2011 and the John B. and Thelma A. Gentry Award for teaching excellence in the Humanities in 2019. In 2016 Dr. Dunn co-organized the 5th annual Kings and Queens conference, introducing international scholars to Clemson University for the first time that the gathering was held outside of Europe. Dr Dunn was awarded the 2020 Bonnie Wheeler Fellowship to recognize and advance her scholarship. 

 Twitter: @SCmedievalist

 Selected Publications:

“Serving Isabella of France, From Queen Consort to Dowager Queen.” In Elite and Royal Households in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Edited by Theresa Earenfight. Leiden: Brill, 2018.

"All the Queen’s Ladies: Philippa of Hainault’s Female Attendants." Journal of Medieval Prosopography 31 (2016), 173-208.

Royal Women and Dynastic Loyalty. Edited by Caroline Dunn and Elizabeth Carney. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

This episode is the second of two episodes on the history of coronations in England and Britain in connection with the upcoming coronation of King Charles III. In this episode we are talking to Alice Hunt, author of The Drama of Coronation. We’ll be getting her thoughts on the legacy of the medieval and early modern ceremonies on the upcoming coronation and which element of the ritual is the most significant. 

 Bio: Dr Alice Hunt is Associate Professor at the University of Southampton. Her research interests include early modern and modern monarchy, ritual and ceremony and queenship as well as the period of English Republic. She is currently completing a book on the period of the English Republic and Oliver Cromwell. The research was supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, and the book, England’s Republic: The Lost Decade, 1649–1660, will be published by Faber and Faber. She is also a co-investigator on a major AHRC research project, ‘The Visible Crown: Elizabeth II and the Caribbean, 1952-present’, working with colleagues at City, UCL and the University of the West Indies. This timely project scrutinises the political and cultural significance of the late Queen Elizabeth II and the British Monarchy in the Caribbean countries where the British monarch is still head of state.

 Twitter: @amm_hunt

 Research Project: ‘The Visible Crown: Elizabeth II and the Caribbean, 1952-present’  https://www.visiblecrown.com/#Home-about

 Book: The Drama of Coronation: Medieval Ceremony in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008 https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/drama-of-coronation/B63DC86C42DC9CB9CD508A0F155BB1CC

 Other publications of interest: Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230111950

This episode is the first of two episodes on the history of coronations in England and Britain in connection with the upcoming coronation of King Charles III. In this episode we are talking to José Manuel Cerda about his new book Coronation: The British Monarchy in only one word (Coronación. La monarquía británica en una sola palabra) and his thoughts about what makes the coronation ceremony distinctively British and which coronation ceremonies of the past were the most significant and memorable.

Bio: Dr José Manuel Cerda was born in Chile, but did his university studies (BA in Liberal Arts and PhD in Medieval History on the councils of Henry II in England) at University of New South Wales in Australia, and also spent time during his doctorate at Oxford and St Andrews. After his PhD he returned to Chile, and he founded and was the Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies and later Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities and Academic Vice-Rector at Universidad Gabriela Mistral. He’s also been a visiting professor at St Louis University in the US and at the Universidad Nacional de Salta in Argentina. Currently he is Professor of Medieval History at the Universidad San Sebastián. His area of speciality is the political history of England and Castile in the 12th century—he has been very active in disseminating his work in international media and conferences as well as his publications including his book on Leonor of England: ‘The Plantagenet Queen of Castile’ and his new book on coronations which is the focus of this episode.

 Instagram: @joecerda79

 YouTube:  @JoseManuelCerda https://www.youtube.com/c/JoseManuelCerda

 Find out more about his publications here (in Spanish): https://edadmedia.cl/?page_id=18

·      Coronación. La monarquía británica en una sola palabra, Editorial Trayecto, Santiago de Chile, 2022.

·      Leonor de Inglaterra. La reina Plantagenet de Castilla (1161-1214), Gijón, Ediciones Trea, 2021

In this episode, we continue this month's theme on deposed or deposing monarchs with an interview with Dr Cathleen Sarti about her work on this topic in early modern Europe. Below we have some recommendations from Cathleen if you would like to know more about the topic or follow up on some of the works she mentions in the interview:

• Sarti, Cathleen. Deposing Monarchs: Domestic Conflict and State Formation, 1500-1700. Routledge Research in Early Modern History. Abingdon, New York: Routledge, 2022.
• Chapter 34 in Routledge History of Monarchy has a list of depositions in Northern Europe 1300-1700 with short description (and of course, bibliography, movie recommendations, etc) 
• Book Series Studies in Monarchy & Money: 
• Edited Volume: Sarti, Cathleen, ed. Women and Economic Power in Premodern Royal Courts. Gender and Power in the Premodern World;. Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2020.
• Depositions in Colonial Contexts: Aldrich, Robert. Banished Potentates: Dethroning and Exiling Indigenous Monarchs Under British and French Colonial Rule, 1815-1955. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018.

Recommended works on depositions by Susan Richter in German & French:

• Richter, Susan, and Dirk Dirbach, eds. Thronverzicht: Die Abdankung in Monarchien vom Mittelalter bis in die Neuzeit. Cologne: Böhlau, 2010. 
• Richter, Susan. “Zeremonieller Schlusspunkt: Die Abdankung als Herrschertod.” In Thronverzicht: Die Abdankung in Monarchien vom Mittelalter bis in die Neuzeit. Edited by Susan Richter and Dirk Dirbach, 75–94. Köln [u.a.]: Böhlau, 2010. (this is the chapter where abdication as reversal of coronation is discussed).
• Richter also edited another book (again in German) on the ceremonial aspects of abdications: Richter, Susan (Hg.): Entsagte Herrschaft Mediale Inszenierungen fürstlicher Abdankungen im Europa der Frühneuzeit, Wien/Köln/Weimar 2019.
• Richter, Susan: Seul un dragon sait quand il vient a l’existence et s’éteint, sans pourtant jamais perdre sa véritable nature. En vérité, lui seul est le Sage - La stratégie de l’empereur de Chine Qianlong pour légitimer son abdication en 1796. In: Burkardt, Albrecht (Hg.): Crépuscules du pouvoir. Destitutions et abdications de l’Antiquité au xxe siècle. Paris 2022. S. 509-536.
• Richter, Susan: L’abdication de Charles Quint de son titre d’empereur du Saint-Empire romain germanique. Aperçu juridique et « médiatique. In: Burkardt, Albrecht (Hg.): Crépuscules du pouvoir. Destitutions et abdications de l’Antiquité au xxe siècle. Paris 2022. S. 151-190.

Alex Bescoby is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, writer and presenter from Manchester, UK, with a love of history, travel and storytelling. A Cambridge University history and politics graduate, he has written for BBC News, the Telegraph, National Geographic and Lonely Planet. His long- and short-form films have been shown by global broadcasters including BBC, All4,  History, Discovery & Canal+.
 
Alex co-founded independent production company Grammar Productions, to make innovative documentaries that delve deeper into history and how it affects the lives of people and societies around the world today.
 
In 2013, he began work on his debut documentary, We Were Kings. Telling the incredible true story of Burma’s lost royal family, it was the first winner of the Whicker’s World Foundation Funding Award, the biggest single documentary funding prize in the UK. Filmed through three seismic years in Burma’s history, it premiered at the British Library in 2017 and has since been broadcast all across the world.  Follow this link to watch the documentary and related short features linked to the documentary.

Since then, Alex has continued to pursue filmmaking projects for major broadcasters that combine his passion for history and adventure. In 2019, Alex completed The Last Overland, crossing 23 countries in 111 days in a very badly behaved old Land Rover - his greatest adventure to date. On September 29th 2022, Alex’s debut book – The Last Overland – was released by Michael O’Mara. A 4x60’ documentary series of the same name is also on All4.