Introduction. Royal Families; Part I. The Life Cycle: 1. Choosing a bride; 2. Waiting for sons to be born; 3. Fathers and sons; 4. Female sovereigns; 5. Mistresses and bastards; 6. Family dynamics; 7. Royal mortality; Part II. A Sense of Dynasty: 8. Names and numbering; 9. Saints, images, heraldry, family trees; 10. Responses to dynastic uncertainty: prophecy and astrology; 11. Pretenders and returners: dynastic imposters in the Middle Ages; 12. New families and new kingdoms; 13. Dynasties and the non-dynastic world; Conclusion; Appendices.
An engaging history of royal and imperial families and dynastic power, enriched by a body of surprising and memorable source material.
Robert Bartlett, CBE, FBA, is Professor Emeritus at the University of St Andrews. His books include The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change 950-1350 (1993), which won the Wolfson Literary Prize for History in 1994, and Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? (2015). He is well-known as the writer and presenter of several BBC documentary series including 'Inside the Medieval Mind' (2008), 'The Normans' (2010), and 'The Plantagenets' (2014).
'Integrating numerous translated quotes from key primary sources
into a fluently written history, this wide-ranging, authoritative
and colourful overview will prove to be of enduring relevance, as a
great story for the general reader and a treasure trove for
researchers.' Jeroen Duindam, author of Dynasties. A Global History
of Power 1300-1800
'Blood Royal is a magisterial, comprehensive and imaginative
exploration of dynastic principles and practices in medieval
Europe, including the risks and perils of dynastic succession…Quite
frankly, in terms of originality, there is no other book I know to
rival it on any aspect of dynastic history.' William Chester
Jordan, author of The Apple of His Eye: Converts from Islam in
the Reign of Louis IX
'Blood Royal is a tour de force. In dynastic politics, Bartlett has
found a huge subject that has yet been little explored. He has
researched it magisterially, ranging Europe-wide across vast
numbers of sources in classical and vernacular European
languages.'' Janet L. Nelson, author of King and Emperor: A New
Life of Charlemagne
'Dynasty – where kinship and politics meet – is the subject of
Robert Bartlett's latest ambitious exploration of Europe's medieval
centuries. He commands an impressive range of regional experiences,
explores change over time and uses helpful concepts in this study
of the idea that made European kingdoms and nations – and still
does.' Miri Rubin, author of Cities of Strangers: Making Lives in
Medieval Europe
'Bartlett's eye for the graphic and revealing incident, as well as
for the historical insights encoded in medieval personal names, is
just as evident here as it is in his previous books and in his
several television series.' Len Scales, Times Literary
Supplement
'Absolutely brilliant.' Dan Snow, History Hit
'Political stability in medieval Europe depended in the last resort
on the births, marriages and deaths of ruling families. Scholarly
and a pleasure to read, Bartlett's new book draws on an impressive
range of sources in explaining how unpredictable dynastic politics
shaped the history of Latin Christendom Byzantium from 500 to
1500.' Tony Barber, Financial Times, Best Books of 2020
'Blood Royal bears all the hallmarks of a classic.' Levi Roach,
Literary Review
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