Ottonian Queenship
Simon MacLean
Abstract This is the first major study in English of queens Ottonian dynasty (919–1024). The Ottonians, a family from Saxony, are often regarded as founders medieval German kingdom. They were most successful all dynasties to emerge wreckage pan-European Carolingian Empire, ruling kings and emperors Germany Italy exerting indirect hegemony France Eastern Europe. Historians have long noted that peculiarly powerful—indeed, among powerful entire Middle Ages. Their reputations been commemorated for thousand years art, literature, opera. book offers an original interpretation queenship via sources dynasty’s six queens, seeks explain it phenomenon with beginning, middle, end. has be understood feature broader landscape, its history intimately connected unfolding story royal dynasty. therefore interprets spectacular status women not matter extraordinary individual personalities, but distinctive product post-Carolingian era which certainties ninth century breaking down amidst overlapping struggles elite power, legitimacy, territory. Queenship provides thread takes us through complicated crucial Europe’s creation, helps how new ideas order constructed debris past.