Premodern Ruling Sexualities: Representation, Identity, and Power - Paperback

by Gabrielle Storey (Editor), Zita Eva Rohr (Editor)

This volume explores a range of premodern rulers and their depictions in historiography, literature, art and material culture to gain a broader understanding of their sexualities. It considers the methodologies and motivations of premodern writers and rulers when fashioning royal and elite sexualities and offers new analyses of an array of texts and artwork from across Europe and the wider Mediterranean.

Back Jacket

This collection brings together a range of methodological approaches to analyse textual and visual representations of premodern royal and elite sexualities, pushing beyond what has in the past - and in some instances continues to be - a binary view of sexualities as heterosexual or homosexual; licit or illicit; queer or straight, and so forth.

The contributors to this collection present fresh theories and approaches to the consideration of premodern sexualities and lay down durable foundations for further research and study. Being the richest sources for the investigation of premodern sexualities and their representations, the primary source base for the collection rests upon chronicles, archival materials, artistic production, and literary texts. Building upon previous work in the field of royal and elite sexualities, these primary sources will be signposts to further exploration in the fields of royal and monarchical studies, while also advancing wider analyses and interdisciplinary conversations around intersectionality and sexualities more broadly imagined.

Author Biography

Gabrielle Storey is a historian of monarchy, gender, and sexuality, and an Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

Zita Eva Rohr is a historian of the late medieval and early modern period, an honorary research fellow in the Department of History and Archaeology at Macquarie University, Sydney, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Chevalier in the Ordre des Palmes Académiques