Kings Of Europe Research Articles

The Existence of Mercenaries in Terms of Their Implications for The Fragility of International Peace-Building

This study aims to determine the development / history of the use of mercenaries from time to time, to explain the existence of mercenaries in relation to Private Military Companies (PMC), to determine the implications of the existence of mercenaries on the fragility of international peace-building. As for the results of this study 1). that the mercenary has existed for a long time, in the early Roman empire known the terms Balearic Slingers and Agean Bowmen. In medieval Germany there were known as Landsknechts. In America at the time of the revolution it was called Hessian and in Italy it was called Condottieri. The presence of mercenaries in the past generally originated from the desire of Kings in western countries to form a formidable and large army. However, this requires a large cost. Hence the Kings of Europe at that time, around the 15th-16th centuries, such as the Kings of France, Italy, England, the Netherlands and Switzerland, 2). that mercenaries are not identified with Private Military Company. PMCs do not meet the mercenaries criteria as provided for in Article 47 of the 1977 Protocol. The PMC is as civilian, the PMC is not assigned to fight in armed conflict, is not integrated in the armed forces of the state and does not hold a continuous combat function and thus is not eligible to participate directly in hostilities on behalf of the parties to the conflict, as required to categorize a person as a combatant, 3). That the distribution of mercenaries in various armed conflicts can imply that the existence of mercenaries can threaten world peace --- the fragility of peace-building. Regardless of the debate over legal status, entitled/not entitled, active or passive position in the field and so on

The two crusade campaigns of Alfonso X over North Africa

the study dealt with the Alfonso-X campaigns of the Kingdom of Castile and the Crusader Leon in the 7th Hijri/ 13th century, which aimed to transport the Crusades from the Iberian Peninsula to North Africa and were supported by the Catholic papacy in Rome, and encouraged by the kings of Europe.

Death and Resurrection: The Suppression of the Jesuits in North America

Through their history, members of the Society of Jesus have always been conscious of the fact that their apostolate may cost them their lives. So in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, missionaries from Spain and France were martyred by Native Americans—referred to as “savages.” But in the years leading up to 1773 in Europe and finally in the colonies, the Jesuits experienced another kind of death, the suppression of the Society, first by the kings of Europe and finally by the pope. At the time nearly all the Catholic priests in British North America were the twenty Jesuits in Maryland who banded together legally as the Gentlemen of Maryland to maintain their properties, mainly plantations, and under the leadership of John Carroll, the first American bishop, continue their work, including founding Georgetown University. All the while they were adapting to the democratic principles and culture that distinguished the American way of life. Nevertheless the wound did not heal quickly, and, according to historian Jean Lacouture, it took several generations for the “great adventure” of Vatican II to rescue the Society of Jesus from its “nineteenth century spinelessness.”

Wounded Veterans and the State: the precursor of the veteran’s home in Sweden (1560–1650)

The aim of this article is to explain the prehistory of the veteran’s home in Sweden. In the 16th century the Swedish army was reorganized and conscripted soldiers became an important part of the army. The conscripted soldiers were peasants, and in 1620 King Gustavus Adolphus reorganized the army so that the peasantry became the major source of soldiers to the army. The system was quite different from others in Europe, most countries having armies based on mercenaries. In 1622, the king started a fund for wounded soldiers and launched a plan for a veteran’s home in the old monastery buildings in Vadstena, which was opened in the years around 1640. The fund and the plans for the veteran’s home can thus be said to have come from the fact that the Swedish king raised his army from the peasants, and this in turn meant that he had a stronger responsibility for them than other kings in Europe. The wounded soldiers therefore became a category of the poor that society thought were qualified for help in 17th-century Sweden.

Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France by Kathleen Wellman

Reviewed by: Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France by Kathleen Wellman Isabel dos Guimarães Sá Wellman, Kathleen – Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013. Pp. 433. In general, the study of royal mistresses is undertaken separately from that of queens, but that approach, as Kathleen Wellman’s book demonstrates, has the inconvenience of separating the part from the whole, ignoring the relationships established by the individuals concerned. It thus makes perfect sense to study queens and mistresses jointly, especially in France, where the status of the latter seems to have been so important as to make their influence almost indistinguishable in terms of power. The author has analysed these women in the Renaissance, understood as a broad period, ranging from 1444—when Charles VII designated his first official mistress, Agnès Sorel—to 1599, when Gabrielle d’Estrées died before she could marry Henry IV. This means many queens and mistresses have been studied in detail, and sometimes also other women who were neither, such as Louise of Savoy whose role as regent and political partner to her son Francis I the author explores. Such an achievement requires the mastery of a multitude of characters, episodes, and political circumstances over a range of a century and a half, which the author dominates effortlessly. The quantity of cases displayed was not feasible through the reading or re-reading of manuscript sources; Wellman relies mainly on bibliography and printed materials, such as chronicles, travel accounts, ambassadors’ reports, memoirs, letters, etc. However, the reader is not informed either about their authors or the context in which they were writing, making the discussion of the weaknesses and strengths of the primary sources generally absent in the book. However, this is a minor fault within the book’s many virtues, as it is the first comprehensive study of a subject that attracts a great deal of attention, and is certainly in need of fresh approaches. Recent historiography on queenship has emphasized the role of women as political actors and cultural agents, and it is now clear to historians that the political and cultural history of Early Modern Europe can no longer ignore them. However, queens and mistresses always related to royal male figures; their role was exerted always in relation to a man, and they exerted power rather informally, except in specific circumstances (such as regency in the case of queens). Also, as the author makes perfectly clear, the status of mistresses was more fragile than that of queens, as they did not have legal rights, and as such, their influence ceased [End Page 278] after the king’s death or loss of favour. The location of women’s powers in the private sphere makes it sometimes very difficult to assess their real roles. Even so, Wellman has succeeded in demonstrating how crucial these women were in shaping court culture, the visual arts, and politics, thus being able to argue that women did have a Renaissance. Some features seem to be specific to the French monarchy, and puzzle the reader. First of all, the king’s legitimate and illegitimate children could be reared together in the same palace, generally separated from the one where the king was living. Second, some foreign young royal brides were educated in the French court from early childhood, and thus there was the possibility of being refused after a lengthy stay in France, as happened to Margaret of Austria (1480-1530), who was engaged to Charles VIII, and Mariana Victoria of Spain (1718-1781), formerly to wed Louis XV and later queen of Portugal by her marriage to Joseph I. Also, French queens might be crowned in separate ceremonies, that is, not jointly with their husbands, whereas in some kingdoms coronations were replaced by other rituals of passage, not extensive to royal wives. Last but not least, the very status of royal mistresses: even though virtually all kings in Europe were entitled to have them, France seems to have been a case where these women displayed an official status unrivalled anywhere else, meaning that such mistresses predictably created similarly official extra-magnetic fields for competition among courtiers. Why such important differences occur is...

The Rise of Female Kings in Europe, 1300–1800, by William Monter.

The Rise of Female Kings in Europe, 1300-1800, by William Monter. New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press, 2012. xviii, 272 pp. $30 US (cloth). Titled provocatively, The Rise of Female Kings in Europe, 1300-1800, William Monter's latest book, seeks to fill a historiographical gap concerning medieval and early modern European female rulers, with special reference to rights of women to exercise political authority. The framework of Monter's book is structured, therefore, around issues of matrimony and inheritance, and of legitimacy and authority in lives of thirty female rulers from Jeanne II, who became head of tiny kingdom of Navarre in 1328, to Catherine II the Great, who ruled Russia for more than thirty years up until her death in 1796. In five centuries within his scope, author defines and describes an evolutionary pattern in way female rulers came to affirm their rights and authority. Relying heavily on secondary literature, Monter's analysis proves to be pertinent thanks also to examination of well-chosen primary sources and paintings, but above all thanks to use of numismatics. Indeed, study of medals and coins highlights degree of autonomy gained by female rulers across time, and importance of consort's function, rendered through gendered symbols, contributes a fresh and unusual perspective to Monter's approach in this book. Monter has organised thirty female rulers of his sample, not only into chronological order, but also according to their sovereign status and actual practice of legitimacy, underlining their peculiarities and similarities. The first category, female heirs to crown but with their husbands taking throne, 1300-1550, constitutes a group of women politically subordinated to their spouses, despite their inherited legal right to govern. Most of these female rulers had to hand over their power to their consort following a joint coronation. Once both sovereigns were invested with ruling powers, main task and expectation for female ruler was to produce an heir, while her husband had to take primary responsibility to govern his wife's territory, especially in relation to military affairs. Monter calls this pattern Navarrese solution--from example set by Jeanne I of Navarre early in fourteenth century--and one which occurred most frequently thereafter. The author underlines fact that some experiences worked out better than others; Isabel I of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, for instance, are an example of successful joint rule. The second category highlights experiences of eight European female regents, from 1500 to 1630, governing in name of their sons in their minority or in name of an absent relative, who were not subordinate to a husband, and therefore had greater autonomy. Monter underlines fact that greatest achievement of this group of female rulers was to serve as references and, cultural pioneers for its female sovereigns during their gradual transition away from Navarrese-style royal heiresses to women ruling by (p. 121). The third division comprises six heiresses who, between 1550 and 1700, effectively distanced themselves from Navarrese-style and placed curbs on their husbands' authority, or who did not marry at all (Elizabeth I and Christina I), thus avoiding joint rule issue. …

The rise of female kings in Europe, 1300-1800

In this lively and pathbreaking book, William Monter sketches Europe's increasing acceptance of autonomous female rulers between the late Middle Ages and the French Revolution. Monter surveys the governmental records of Europe's thirty women monarchs-the famous (Mary Stuart, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great) as well as the obscure (Charlotte of Cyprus, Isabel Clara Eugenia of the Netherlands)-describing how each of them achieved sovereign authority, wielded it, and (more often than men) abandoned it. Monter argues that Europe's female kings, who ruled by divine right, experienced no significant political opposition despite their gender.

Brave New Spain: An Irishman's Independence Plot in Seventeenth-Century Mexico

To rule, O Fortune, we go; Do not wake me up, if I am asleep, And if it be true, do not let me slumber. Prince Segismundo, in Calderón de la Barca’s Life is a Dream (1635) On the evening of 26 October 1642, constables working for the Mexican Inquisition made an extraordinary arrest in a humble district of Mexico City near the Convento de la Merced. Working on a tip-off from a neighbour, they detained a thirty-one-year-old Irish man known by the hispanicized name of Don Guillén Lombardo de Guzmán. In his apartment, they found drafts of an independence proclamation that announced a new reign in Mexico and declared him ‘king of New Spain’. The decree laid out a revolutionary plan to abolish slavery, end the repartimiento (the forced drafting of indigenous labour), and establish a limited monarchy based on popular mandate and parliamentary consultation. The constables also found drafts of letters to the pope and several kings in Europe announcing that New Spain would henceforth be open to free commerce. Subsequent testimony to the Inquisition by Don Ignacio, Don Guillén’s indigenous friend and collaborator, revealed that the Irishman had been relying on peyote-induced visions to discern the correct time to take power with the assistance of a militia formed of Indians and African slaves. For inquisitors gathering evidence in the case, this ‘diabolic plot’ at first seemed merely the work of a deranged foreigner. Yet their prisoner’s potential threat became ever clearer as they began to realize that he knew the inner workings of institutions in the viceroyalty and of the society that he planned to ‘liberate from Spanish captivity.’1 In this year, when news of real and feared rebellions circulated throughout the Atlantic world, the inquisitors set themselves to the task of discovering how Don Guillén could have imagined such a plot, the sources he might have used to develop it, and to what extent his plan might have reflected the convictions and participation of others. Building on the trial evidence that the inquisitors gathered, as well as on Don Guillén’s own texts, this study reconstructs the transatlantic experiences, ideas and encounters that Don Guillén synthesized into this unique seventeenth-century proposal for political sovereignty in the New World.2

The Power of Kings: Monarchy and Religion in Europe, 1589-1715

In the sixteenth century, the kings of Europe were like gods to their subjects. Within 150 years, however, this view of monarchs had altered dramatically: a king was the human, visible sign of the rational state. How did such a momentous shift in political understanding come about? This sweeping book explores the changing cultural significance of the power of European kings from the assassination of France's Henry III to the death of Louis XIV. Paul Kleber Monod draws on political history, political philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and literature to understand the relationship between kings and their political subjects and the interplay between monarchy and religion. He also makes use of 35 paintings and statues to illuminate the changing public images of kings. Discussing monarchies throughout Europe, from Britain to Russia, Monod tells how sixteenth-century kings and queens were thought to heal the sick with a touch, were mediators between divine authority and the Christian self in quasi-religious ceremonies, and were seen as ideal mirrors of human identity. By 1715, the sacred authority of the monarchy had been supplanted by an ideology fusing internal moral responsibility with external obedience to an abstract political authority. Subjects were expected to identify not with a sacred king but with the natural person of the ruler. No longer divine, the kings and queens of the Enlightenment took up a new, more human place in the hearts and minds of their subjects.

The Fly Whisk

Throughout history various hand-held objects have become identified with authority. Thus, while in state some pharaohs held a symbolic shepherd's crook and a grain flail, and today high clergymen still use a ceremonial shepherd's crook. The kings of Europe had their scepters, orbs, state swords, maces, and staves. Military officers have carried batons, swords, and swagger sticks.

Librarians to the King, the Bignons, 1642-1784

Previous articleNext article No AccessLibrarians to the King, the Bignons, 1642-1784Jack Alden ClarkeJack Alden Clarke Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Library Quarterly Volume 36, Number 4Oct., 1966 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/619460 Views: 2Total views on this site Copyright 1966 University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Monks of Ḳûblî Khân Emperor of China or The History of the Life and travels of Rabban Ṣâwmâ, Envoy and Plenipotentiary of the Mongol Khâns to the Kings of Europe, and Marḳôs who as Mâr Yahbhallâhâ III became Patriarch of the Nestorian Church in Asia. Translated from the Syriac by SirE. A. Wallis Budge, with 16 plates and 6

The Monks of Ḳûblî Khân Emperor of China or The History of the Life and travels of Rabban Ṣâwmâ, Envoy and Plenipotentiary of the Mongol Khâns to the Kings of Europe, and Marḳôs who as Mâr Yahbhallâhâ III became Patriarch of the Nestorian Church in Asia. Translated from the Syriac by SirE. A. Wallis Budge, with 16 plates and 6

The Kings of Europe, Past and Present, and their Familier

The Kings of Europe, Past and Present, and their Familier Get access Notes and Queries, Volume s4-V, Issue 114, 5 March 1870, Page 267, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s4-V.114.267c Published: 05 March 1870

An account of some books. I. The History of the Royal Society of London, for the advancement of experimental philosophy, by Tho. Sprat. II. Disquisitio Anatomica de Formato Fætu: Authore Gualtero Needham M.D. Londini, in 8°. III. Elementorum Mylogiæ specimen; seu Musculi descriptio geometrica, authore Nicolao Stenone

It was indeed highly sutable, that the History of the Royal Experimenting Society should be dedicated, as the candid author of it hath done, to that King, who is the first of all the Kings of Europe