Survival And Revival In Sweden S Court And Monarchy 1718 1930

This book will be the first to deeply analyze the Swedish court and monarchy through a longue duree perspective to show the crucial role of the court in maintaining a relationship between the monarchy and nobility throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sweden offered a different type of monarchy in comparison to the more often studied French and British monarchies. Sweden's court system successfully managed several coups and upheavals and maintained strong royal power throughout many transitions. Studying the Swedish model offers insights into how courts functioned in European principalities in general by providing a resilient and flexible framework for royal authority in tandem with the nobility. Based on extensive research conducted in the Swedish National Archives, the Palace Archives, and the Royal Library, the book presents some never-before published case studies and materials that drive the impact of court studies on many different areas of research, including gender studies, political science, and art history.

This volume presents a comprehensive exposition of both the prehistory and medieval history of the whole of Scandinavia. The first part of the volume surveys the prehistoric and historic Scandinavian landscape and its natural resources, and tells how man took possession of this landscape, adapting culturally to changing natural conditions and developing various types of community throughout the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. The rest - and most substantial part of the volume - deals with the history of Scandinavia from the Viking Age to the end of the Scandinavian Middle Ages (c. 1520). The external Viking expansion opened Scandinavia to European influence to a hitherto unknown degree. A Christian church organisation was established, the first towns came into being, and the unification of the three medieval kingdoms of Scandinavia began, coinciding with the formation of the unique Icelandic 'Free State'.

"Until the 1960s, it was widely assumed that in Western Europe the 'New Monarchy' propelled kingdoms and principalities onto a modern nation-state trajectory. John I of Portugal (1358-1433), Charles VII (1403-1461) and Louis XI (1423-1483) of France, Henry VII and Henry VIII of England (1457-1509, 1509-1553), Isabella of Castile (1474-1504) and Ferdinand of Aragon (1479-1516) were, by improving royal administration, by bringing more continuity to communication with their estates and by introducing more regular taxation, all seen to have served that goal. In this view, princes were assigned to the role of developing and implementing the sinews of state as a sovereign entity characterized by the coherence of its territorial borders and its central administration and government. They shed medieval traditions of counsel and instead enforced relations of obedience toward the emerging 'state'."--Provided by publisher.

Prince, Pen, and Sword offers a synoptic interpretation of rulers and elites in Eurasia from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century. Four core chapters zoom in on the tensions and connections at court, on the nexus between rulers and religious authority, on the status, function, and self-perceptions of military and administrative elites respectively. Two additional concise chapters provide a focused analysis of the construction of specific dynasties (the Golden Horde and the Habsburgs) and narratives of kingship found in fiction throughout Eurasia. The contributors and editors, authorities in their fields, systematically bring together specialised literature on numerous Eurasian kingdoms and empires. This book is a careful and thought-provoking experiment in the global, comparative and connected history of rulers and elites.

The first English translation of a comprehensive legal history of Europe from the early middle ages to the twentieth century, encompassing both the common aspects and the original developments of different countries. As well as legal scholars and professionals, it will appeal to those interested in the general history of European civilisation.

In The Real North Korea, Lankov substitutes cold, clear analysis for the overheated rhetoric surrounding this opaque police state. Based on vast expertise, this book reveals how average North Koreans live, how their leaders rule, and how both survive

What was it possible for a woman to achieve at an early modern court? By analysing the experiences of a wide range of women at the court of Sweden, this book demonstrates the opportunities open to women who served at, and interacted with, the court; the complexities of women's agency in a court society; and, ultimately, the precariousness of power. In doing so, it provides an institutional context to women's lives at court, charting the full extent of the rewards that they might obtain, alongside the social and institutional constrictions that they faced. Its longue durée approach, moreover, clarifies how certain periods, such as that of the queens regnant, brought new possibilities. Based on an extensive array of Swedish and international primary sources, including correspondence, financial records and diplomatic reports, it also takes into account the materialities used to create hierarchies and ceremonies, such as physical structures and spaces within the court. Comprehensive in its scope, the book is divided into three parts, which focus respectively on outsiders at court, insiders, and members of the royal family.