Male kingdom

Abstract

Since Régine Pernoud and Georges Duby, a tradition, whose influence extends beyond the historiographical framework, locates in the second half of the ^12th century, at the time of Hildegarde de Bingen and Eleanor of Aquitaine, a lost paradise of the feminine condition. This article looks at the current revival of research into the exemplary destinies of exceptional women in the medieval past. Beyond the question of the symbolic domination of rank and the honor of queenship, how can we assess the effectiveness of the exercise of power, and thus move from the archaeology of charisma to the genealogy of governmentality ? This question leads to an analysis of political traditions which, especially in France, assign a gender to systems of power : unlike perhaps the empire, the monarchical framework, and the constraints it places on blood, alliance and gender definitions, imposes the idea of a male kingdom.

Is the history of ancient societies still today a " usable past " ?(Hayden White, Le Passé s'écrit [2014], Paris, 2017)
Sex king, money king : what if it were simpler ?
" That was what we had to think about : desire, value and simulacrum " (letter from Michel Foucault to Pierre Klossowski, winter 1970)
" Les Filles au Moyen Âge " (film by Hubert Viel, 2015) : a Rohmerianrevival
The dreamed-of Middle Ages, a lost paradise for women
Femmes d'exception, femmes exemplaires, femmes puissantes (Régine Pernoud, La Femme au Moyen Âge, Paris, 1980)
La Femme, " une femme ", women : the power of the name
" I think I can also place around 1180 the moment when their status was somewhat enhanced, when knights and priests became accustomed to debating with them " (Georges Duby, Dames du ^XIIe siècle, Paris, 1995)
" Your mind is like a storm-beaten wall. Wherever you look, you find no rest " (letter from Hildegarde à Bingen to Eleanor of Aquitaine, 1174 ?)
To greet Martin Aurell(Aliénor d'Aquitaine. Souveraine femme, Paris, 2024)
La " mauvaise réputation " d'Aliénor d'Aquitaine (Martin Aurell) : sexuality and the orientalization of debauchery, around the Antioch affair (March-April 1148)
The Marie-Antoinette of the ^12th century :" Viveet légère, fière et ambitieuse, elle crut ne s'être mariée que pour gouverner et jouir de tous les plaisirs " (Louis-Charles de Lavicomterie, Les Crimes des reines de France depuis le commencement de la monarchie jusqu'à Marie-Antoinette, Paris, 1793)
Domina, " souveraine femme " et exercice du pouvoir : archéologie du charisme ou généalogie de la gouvernementalité ?
The Ottonian precedent : the dominae imperiales of the late ^10th century (Justine Audebrand, " Impératrices et abbesses : les dominae imperiales ottoniennes (^Xe-XIe siècle) ", Clio, 53, 2021)
Emma and Eleanor : two foreign princesses between two kingdoms
Encomium Emmae Reginae : when the idea of empire comes through women (Fanny Madeline)
As inVirgil'sAeneid , an imperial political foundation based not on identity but on otherness (Florence Dupont, Rome, la ville sans origine, Paris, 2011)
Rank, honor, status :queenship in the monarchical setting (Pauline Stafford, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers: The King's Wife in the Early Middle Ages, Leicester, 1998)
Queen Adelaide, " co-holder of a kingship with which we have associated her " (letter from Hugues Capet to Empress Théophano, 988)
Princess, wife, mother, peacemaker : the traditional female roles of consors regni
" Souveraine, elle fait figure d'épouse ; épouse, elle paraît sujette " (Fanny Cosandey, La Reine de France, symbole et pouvoir. ^XVe-XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 2000)
Du queenship à l'empowerment : mesurer l'autorité diplomatique des reines par le nombre de souscriptions d'actes (" Actes écrits des femmes de pouvoir, ^XIIe-XVe^siècle ")
Discours sigillaire et dispositions diplomatiques (Lucie Jardot, Sceller et gouverner. Pratiques et représentations du pouvoir des comtesses de Flandre et de Hainaut (^XIIIe-XVe siècles), Rennes, 2020)
The politicalagency of " femmes au cœur d'hommes " (Marion Chaigne-Legouy)
Networks, resources, symbols and magical tyranny (Garance Recoing, Les Reines de Norvège, Rennes, 2025)
Réseaux : les équipes de pouvoir de Yolande de Flandre (Michelle Bubenicek, Quand les femmes gouvernent : Yolande de Flandre, droit et politique au ^XIVe siècle, Paris, 2002)
Ressources : la table carnassière de Marguerite de France (Jean-Baptiste Santamaria, Marguerite de France, comtesse de Flandre, d'Artois et de Bourgogne (1312-1382). Une vie de princesse capétienne au temps des Valois, Turnhout, 2022)
Symbols : the theatricality of Mahaut d'Artois's movements (Christelle Balouzat-Loubet, Mahaut d'Artois. Une femme de pouvoir, Paris, 2015)
Vierges terrestres et Vierge céleste : couples royaux et sursacralisation de l'office royal (Murielle Gaude-Ferragu, La Reine au Moyen Âge. Le pouvoir au féminin, ^XIVe-XVe siècle, Paris, 2014)
The theatrical assimilation of the virgin queen to the fallen king " I am Richard, don't you know ? " (Queen Elizabeth ^1st in 1601)
Removal, delegitimization and demasculinization of Richard II in 1399 (Chris Fletcher, Richard II: Manhood, Youth, and Politics, 1377-99, Oxford, 2008)
In England and Spain, tightening or broadening of alliances (Jean-Philippe Genet, " Une arme mortelle ? L'alliance royale dans les monarchies d'Occident au ^XVe siècle ", in Julie Claustre, Olivier Mattéoni and Nicolas Offenstadt dir., Un Moyen Âge pour aujourd'hui. Mélanges offerts à Claude Gauvard, Paris, PUF, 2010)
In France, the mystique of Capetian blood (Andrew Lewis, Le Sang royal. The Capetian Family and the State, France ^Xe-XIVe centuries [1981], trans. franç. Paris, 1986)
The dynastic crisis of 1316-1328 and the invention of the Salic law (Ralph E. Giesey, Le Rôle méconnu de la loi salique. La succession royale (^XIVe-XVIe siècles), Paris, 2007)
From terra to regnum : humanists, the gender of the kingdom and the " virile sex " of power
Le mâle royaume, jusqu'en 1791 (Éliane Viennot, La France, les femmes et le pouvoir. L'invention de la loi salique (^Ve-XVIe siècle), Paris, 2006)
" One cannot doubt [that the Duc de Rohan] conceived displeasure at seeing this generous stem, to whom so much strength and glory promised immortality, fail in his person " (Sylvie Steinberg, " "Au défaut des mâles". Genre, succession féodale et idéologie nobiliaire (France, ^XVIe-XVIIe siècles), Annales, HSS, 2012)
A French political passion : the political exclusion of women.