Legitimizing the Queen

Legitimizing the Queen deals with a genre particular to the Middle Ages: the specula principum (mirror of prince). Its importance as an object of study may be understood in light of the political instability that wracked the Castilian fifteenth century. The many works written for and dedicated to Isabel I of Castile depict her kingdom as a shipwrecked boat, a wayward realm, and a land of bankrupt people. These works suggest the kingdom's need for redemption through the strong leadership of the Catholic monarchs. These largely propagandistic works were designed to garner power, and once maintained, further Isabel's agenda. This book frames the concept of sovereignty from the theoretical perspective of the speculum principum dedicated to her. It offers a Bourdieuian approach to the more literary specula texts used to legitimize and uphold Isabel's power. This book reveals propagandistic qualities promoting the ideology necessary to legitimize and support Isabel's claims to the throne. Written primarily between 1468 and 1493, these works are literary artifacts that mark the rise to power of a female sovereign. The study discusses the various strategies of legitimation employed by these propagandists whose works circulated within noble and royal courts, and presumably extended into Castile as justification for her sovereign claim to the throne. By analyzing fifteenth century texts from within a modern critical framework, this book reexamines Isabel's position as queen and contributes to the understanding of her shared sovereignty in a period political and social evolution.

Auteur

By Cristina Guardiola-Griffiths

Contenu

1 Acknowledgments
2 Prologue: Tanto monta, monta tanto: Political and Literary Affinities in the Quest for Sovereignty
Chapter 3 1. A Mirror for the Princess?: Advice Books and the Debate on Women
Chapter 4 2. Politics and Gender in the Fight for Castile
Chapter 5 3. Legitimizing the Queen: Isabel the Catholic and the Poncella de Francia
Chapter 6 4. The Transparent Mirror: The Application for Justice in the Diálogo del prudente rey y el sabio aldeano
Chapter 7 5. The Fractured Portrait, a Cracked Mirror of Ideals
8 Notes
9 Works Cited
10 Index