Royal Childhood and Child Kingship
Boy Kings in England, Scotland, France and Germany, c. 1050–1262

The first comparative study of royal childhood and child kingship, revealing the fundamental role they played in medieval rulership.

Emily Joan Ward (Author)

9781108978842, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 October 2023

360 pages
23 x 15 x 2 cm, 0.503 kg

'A highly impressive feat of scholarship … No longer will child kings be able to be kept “out of sight, out of mind”. Ward, like the contemporary societies that had to deal with them, has made her boy kings visible and important in our understanding of what kingship was in the Middle Ages.' Andrew M. Spencer, The Scottish Historical Review

Refining adult-focused perspectives on medieval rulership, Emily Joan Ward exposes the problematic nature of working from the assumption that kingship equated to adult power. Children's participation and political assent could be important facets of the day-to-day activities of rule, as this study shows through an examination of royal charters, oaths to young boys, cross-kingdom diplomacy and coronation. The first comparative and thematic study of child rulership in this period, Ward analyses eight case studies across northwestern Europe from c.1050 to c.1250. The book stresses innovations and adaptations in royal government, questions the exaggeration of political disorder under a boy king, and suggests a ruler's childhood posed far less of a challenge than their adolescence and youth. Uniting social, cultural and political historical methodologies, Ward unveils how wider societal changes between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries altered children's lived experiences of royal rule and modified how people thought about child kingship.

1. Royal childhood and child kingship: An introduction
Part I. Royal Childhood and Child Kingship: Models and History: 2. Children and kingship in the early and central Middle Ages
3. Woe to thee, O land? Models of child kingship
Part II. Royal Childhood: Preparation for the Throne: 4. Familial education: Preparing boys to be kings
5. Loyalty, diplomacy and (co-)kingship: Preparing political communities
6. The royal deathbed: Preparing for child kingship
Part III. Child Kingship: Guardianship and Royal Rule: 7. Guardianship, regency and legality
8. Adapting and collaborating: Child kingship and royal rule
9. Feasting princes? Violence, conflict and child kingship
10. Entering adolescence: Knighting, seals and royal maturity
Conclusion: Re-thinking child kingship, c. 1050–1262.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]