Royal Childhood and Child Kingship

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

Examining aspects of boyhood, education, family, counsel and succession, Emily Joan Ward presents how fundamental children were to systems of political authority. The first comparative and thematic study of child rulership in this period, this book is for medievalists and those interested in childhood or dynastic succession.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.