Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe (Queenship and Power)

Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe offers a unique perspective on aspects of female rulership in the Scandinavian Middle Ages. Working with historical as well as literary evidence from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, this book shows how three queens -- Agnes of Denmark, Eufemia of Norway, and Margareta, the union queen of the Scandinavian kingdoms -- marshaled the power of the royal voice in order to effect political change. In conceptualizing the political landscape of late-medieval Scandinavia as an acoustic landscape, Layher charts a new path of historical and cultural analysis into the reach and resonance of royal power in the Middle Ages. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 10 Map of Medieval Northern Europe......Page 11 Introduction......Page 12 The Royal Families of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden......Page 21 One: Three Nordic Queens......Page 24 Two: Sound, Voice, and Vox: The Acoustics of the Self in the Middle Ages......Page 40 Three: “You Danes Must Do as I Say ...”: Queen Agnes and the Regicide of 1286......Page 64 Four: Voicing and Legacy: Queen Eufemia of Norway......Page 102 Five: Margareta of Denmark and the Voice of Identity......Page 142 Afterword: The Queen’s Two Voices......Page 184 Notes......Page 196 Bibliography......Page 228 Index......Page 246

Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe offers a unique perspective on aspects of female rulership in the Scandinavian Middle Ages. Working with historical as well as literary evidence from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, this book shows how three queens-Agnes of Denmark, Eufemia of Norway, and Margareta, the union queen of the Scandinavian Kingdoms-marshaled the power of the royal voice in order to effect political change. In conceptualizing the political landscape of late-medieval Scandinavia acoustically, Layher charts a new path of historical and cultural analysis into the reach and resonance of royal power in the Middle Ages.

This book examines female lordship and the power of the political voice in medieval Northern Europe, focusing on three prominent, foreign-born queens of medieval Scandinavia - Agnes of Denmark (d. 1304), Eufemia of Norway (d. 1312) and Margareta of Denmark/Sweden (d. 1412) - who acted as cultural mediators and initiators of political change.