The historian and author of the Six Tudor Queens series turns her attention to the formidable females of the Plantagenet dynasty, many of whom defied the idea of royal brides as mere trophies and participated actively in the events that shaped the kingdoms of France and England in the Middle Ages.
The third volume of Alison Weir’s magisterial history of the queens of medieval England.
Medieval queens were seen as mere dynastic trophies – yet, as Alison Weir shows in this group biography, many of the Plantagenet queens of the High Middle Ages dramatically broke away from the restrictions imposed on their sex.
Using personal letters and fascinating sources, Weir evokes the lives of these five extraordinary women: Marguerite of France, Isabella of France, Philippa of Hainault, Anne of Bohemia and Isabella of Valois. At the same time, she recreates a truly astonishing period of history – the turbulent, brutal Age of Chivalry.
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9781784701888
Number of pages: 496
Weight: 366 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 30 mm
Weir... paints a rich image of the lives these queens led... this book shines a light on the turbulent but often forgotten stories of the queens of this important period in English history. - BBC History Magazine
Weir's character sketches of all five women are engaging, her attention to detail and itineraries comprehensive. She is an excellent storyteller: descriptions are vivid and her knowledge of the sources is extensive. - Spectator
Stunning... [Weir has] brought those five queens to life like never before. I just raced through it - it has all the drama and suspense of a novel. - Tracy Borman, praise for QUEENS OF THE CRUSADES
[A] historian who has achieved popularity without sacrificing scholarly precision... She writes with the dramatic intensity of a novelist. - Gerard DeGroot, The Times - praise for QUEENS OF THE CRUSADES
The book that I most anticipated this year was Alison Weir's Queens of the Crusades... Told with all of Weir's characteristic verve and exceptional eye for detail, this book should find its way into every history lover's Christmas stocking. - Tracy Borman, BBC History Magazine Books of the Year 2020* - praise for QUEENS OF THE CRUSADES
Alison Weir is a pre-order author for me. Her work is always meticulously researched and
Queens of the Age of Chivalry is the latest example of this - a wonderfully lengthy tome that also happens to be extremely...
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We are used to think about women in Middle Age as weak or idealised but there were some very strong women who played in the political field like the queens in this book.
They lived in complex age when things where...
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Alison Weir is a great writer of history, both non-fiction and more recently fiction. This is the third in a series of potted biographies of medieval queens and covers the fourteenth century. From Edward I's... More
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