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Chapter 9 - Feasting Princes?

Violence, Conflict and Child Kingship

from Part III - Child Kingship: Guardianship and Royal Rule

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2022

Emily Joan Ward
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Summary

Contextualising conflict provides further testimony of children’s legitimacy as rulers between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. This chapter turns to narrative accounts of dynastic challenge, opportunistic conflict and kidnap to address the problematic association between child kingship and magnate violence. Evidence for the appearance and escalation of conflict while a boy was king has often been accepted without sufficient critical scrutiny. The chapter shows that attempts to remove children from their royal positions were rare, and that conflict often upheld their legitimacy to rule rather than undermining it. Applying the arbitrary label of violent opportunism to all instances of conflict when a child was king oversimplifies the complex range of reasons for magnate disputes. Instead, conflict could be, among other things, a legitimate response to royal succession, a habitual aspect of the negotiation of disputed property and rights, or a product of recurring quarrels over hierarchy and prominence. The child king’s presence and active participation could, once again, convey a significant and authoritative weight.

Type
Chapter
Information
Royal Childhood and Child Kingship
Boy Kings in England, Scotland, France and Germany, c. 1050–1262
, pp. 230 - 248
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Feasting Princes?
  • Emily Joan Ward, University of Edinburgh
  • Book: Royal Childhood and Child Kingship
  • Online publication: 04 August 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108974516.010
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  • Feasting Princes?
  • Emily Joan Ward, University of Edinburgh
  • Book: Royal Childhood and Child Kingship
  • Online publication: 04 August 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108974516.010
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Feasting Princes?
  • Emily Joan Ward, University of Edinburgh
  • Book: Royal Childhood and Child Kingship
  • Online publication: 04 August 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108974516.010
Available formats
×