29 January 2024 - online
Philip Snow (Independent Scholar) – ‘Creating an Equilibrium: The Russian Diplomatic Breakthrough with Qing China, 1654 – 1732’

12 February 2024 - online
Amanda Westcott (Oxford) – ‘Queen Charlotte’s Household: the Consort’s Family of Aristocratic Courtiers’

15 April 2024 - online
Elisabeth Natour (University of Mainz) - ‘Contentious Sound? Music and Power in the reign of Charles I’

30 January 2023 - online
Alastair Bellany (Rutgers) – ‘Restoring Stonehenge to the Danes: Walter Charleton, Charles II and the Politics of Ritual Inauguration’

20 February 2023 - online
Oliver Creighton (Exeter) – ‘Warhorse Project – Warhorse: The Archaeology of a Medieval Revolution?’

13 March 2023 - online
Catriona Wilson (Warwick) – ‘The Critical Age of Victoria: the Public Image of the Queen’s Menopause and Midlife, 1861-1875’

24 April 2023 - online
Lubaaba Al-Azami (King’s College London) – ‘English Travellers and Indian Queens at the Mughal Court’

18 September 2023 - online
Lucy Whitaker (Independent Art Historian and Curator) - ‘Charles II, the Restoration and the 1666 Inventory’

16 October 2023 - online
Ella Brook Muir (Roehampton PhD) – ‘Clothing Queens in Sixteenth-Century England and France’

13 November 2023 - online
Dean Irwin (Independent Scholar) – ‘The ‘Personal Jews’ of the Aristocracy and Royal Family in Thirteenth Century England’

4 December 2023 - online
Sara Ayres – ‘The Travels of Prince George of Denmark in England, 1669: Privacy as Diplomatic Strategy’

24 January 2022 - online
Julie Farguson (Oxford), ‘Visualising Protestant Monarchy: Ceremony, Art and Politics after the Glorious Revolution, 1689-1714’

21 February 2022 - online
Priya Atwal (Oxford), Royal blood and kinship ties in the age of empire: the making of Queen Victoria’s ‘imperial family’

14 March 2022 - online
Rory MacLellan (Historic Royal Palaces), ‘The Good Lancastrian? Remembering Henry V in Yorkist England’

25 April 2022 - online
Catriona Wilson (Warwick) – ‘The Critical Age of Victoria: the public image of the queen’s menopause and midlife, 1861-1875’

19 September 2022 - online
Lucy Whitaker (Independent Art Historian and Curator) - ‘Charles II, the Restoration and the 1666 Inventory’

10 October 2022 - online
Philip Mansel (IHR/Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles) – ‘French Royal Funerals, between Contempt and Commemoration: from Louis XIV to Louis XVIII’

14 November 2022 - Venue = Wolfson Room, Institute of Historical Research, London
Jørgen Hein (Royal Danish Collections) – ‘The Nuptial Crown of Princess Louisa of Denmark-Norway – an Anglo-Danish Coronet from 1743?’

5 December 2022 - online
Cathleen Sarti (Oxford) – ‘Palaces and Industry. The Danish Queens' Lands in the Early Modern Period’

18 January 2021 - online
Oleg Benesch, (University of York), ‘Britain and Japan in the Global Medievalist Moment: From the Tower of London to Nagoya Castle’

15 February 2021 - online
Munro Price (Bradford University), ‘Versailles and the French Revolution: the role of court politics’

15 March 2021 - online
Ellie Woodacre (University of Winchester), ‘The one or the many? Examining the similarities and differences in queenship in monogamous and polygamous court settings’

12 April 2021 - online
Nicholas Dixon (Independent scholar), ‘Religious Belief and Practice at the Courts of George IV and William IV’

20 September 2021 - online
Glenn Richardson, (St Mary’s University), ‘The Field of Cloth of Gold and the Public History of the Court’

11 October 2021 - online
Amy Lim (St Hilda’s College, Oxford), ‘Court influence on the art patronage of Charles (1662-1748) and Elizabeth (1667-1722) Seymour, sixth duke and duchess of Somerset’

8 November 2021 - online
Adam Storring (The Gottingen Institute for Advanced Study), ‘Frederick the Great of Prussia, Voltaire and French Military Monarchy’

25 November 2021 - hybrid
"The History & Historiography of European Courts" featuring Mark Hengerer (Luwig-Maximilians-Universität München), Stephen Alford (University of Leeds), Charlotte Backerra (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen), Joanna Orzeł (University of Lodz), and chaired by Dustin M. Neighbors (University of Helsinki/the Society for Court Studies) and hosted by Charlotte Cederbom (Åbo Akademi University).

6 December 2021 - online
Seif El Rashidi (IHR), ‘Tented Courts: The Long Tradition of Egypt’ by Seif El Rashidi’

13 January 2020
Helen Trompeteler, Royal Collection Trust, ‘Prince Albert’s Role and influence as a patron of photography’ - abstract

17 February 2020
Aidan Jones (King’s College, London), ‘Diplomacy of a dynastic union: the princely marriage of Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria’s second son and Tsar Alexander II’s only surviving daughter’

9 March 2020
Hugh Kennedy (SOAS, London), ‘From Caliphs to Sultans in the courts of the Islamic Middle east, 800-1100’

14 September 2020 - online
Abby Armstrong, (Heidelberg University), ‘The ring account of Eleanor of Provence’ - online Zoom Meeting

19 October 2020 - online
Charles Farris, (Historic Royal Palaces), ‘The Administration of Cloth and Clothing in the Great Wardrobe of Edward I’ - online Zoom Meeting

16 November 2020 - online
Paul Dryburgh, (The National Archives), ‘A northern powerhouse: archbishops of York and the administration of fourteenth-century England’

7 December 2020 - online
John Davis, (Historic Royal Palaces), ‘Letting the public in: the opening of London’s Historic Royal Palaces in the Victorian period’

21 January 2019
Dr Mikołaj Getka-Kenig, Jagiellonian University ‘Monarchical Representation in the Russian-dominated Kingdom of Poland (1815-1915)’

11 February 2019
Dr Philip Woods, New York University, ‘Leaving the Viceroy’s House? Representations of Lord Mountbatten as last Viceroy and first Governor-General of India’

11 March 2019
Emily Burns, National Gallery ‘Collecting royal goods in London during the Commonwealth’

15 April 2019
Liesbeth Geevers, Lund University ‘Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy-Oneglia/Filiberto de Austria: nephews and cousins as members of the wider Spanish-Habsburg dynasty’

23 September 2019
Dr Tom Stammers, Durham University,‘Philippe, comte de Paris and the Orléans in Exile: Politics, Empire and Collecting after 1848’

14 October 2019
Oliver Walton, Royal Collection Trust, “Where was Prince Albert’s home? The challenges of identity and belonging for a transnational prince” - abstract

2 December 2019
Heidi Mehrkens, University of Aberdeen ‘Royal heirs as patrons of the arts and sciences in 19th-century European monarchies’ - abstract

29 January 2018
Dr Katarzyna Kuras, Jagiellonian University, Cracow - ‘Conflicts or cooperation? The world of courtiers of the queen Maria Leszczyńska (1725-1768)’

19 February 2018
Dr James Legard, University of Edinburgh - ‘Princely Glory’: The 1st Duke of Marlborough, Court Culture, and the Construction of Blenheim Palace’

12 March 2018
Dr Valerie Schutte, Independent scholar, ‘Princess Elizabeth Tudor: Book Dedications and the New Year’s Gift Exchange’

14 March 2018
‘The Restoration Court’, a study day organised by the Society for Court Studies and the Royal Collection Trust.

16 April 2018
Dr David Parrott, New College, Oxford, ‘Anne of Austria, Mazarin and the French Court’

4 June 2018
Joint event with the Institute of Historical Research Tudor and Stuart seminar - venue: Institute of Historical Research
Dr Samantha Harper, Winchester University, ‘The household of Henry VII in the last year of his reign: Evidence from the Chamber Books’

17 September 2018
Dr Alden Gregory, Historic Royal Palaces, ‘The Tudor Court under Canvas: Royal Tents and Timber Lodgings, 1509-1603’

15 October 2018
Dr Mandy Richardson, University of Chichester, ‘Hunting, Hounds and Hospitality: Gendered Aspects of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Royal Hunt’

12 November 2018
Professor Peter Barber, King’s College London, ‘George III as a map collector’

3 December 2018
Professor Helen Watanabe O’Kelly, University of Oxford, ‘Catholic Ruler, Protestant People. The Impact of the Reformation on Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe’

16 January 2017
Prof Steven Gunn, Merton College, University of Oxford - ‘Accidental death and the Life of the Tudor Court’

30 January 2017
Tom Tölle, Princeton University - ‘Royal Frailty and the Problem of Perception: Alexander Stanhope at the Court of Charles II of Spain’

20 February 2017
Dr Sarah Grant, V & A - ‘Paying Court: the politics and patronage of Marie-Antoinette’s favourite, the princesse de Lamballe (1749-1792)’

20 March 2017
Professor Robert Bucholz, Loyola University Chicago - ‘Venality at Court: Some Thoughts on the Sale of Household Office 1660-1800’

22 May 2017
Dr Natalia Nowakowska, University of Oxford - ‘What Happens When Dynasty Ends? The Jagiellonians, Poland-Lithuania and a Late Sixteenth-Century Crisis’

18 September 2017
Dr Milinda Banerjee, Presidency University, Kolkata (India) - ‘Peasant Sovereignty, Royal Authority, and Left Politics: Locating Colonial Tripura’s Court Ceremonies in South Asian and Global History’

16 October 2017
Polly Putnam, Historic Royal Palaces - ‘The Consumption and Significance of Chocolate in the Stuart and Early Georgian Court’

13 November 2017
Dr Olivia Fryman, Royal Collection Trust - ‘The furnishing of Whitehall Palace, 1660-1688’

4 December 2017
Dr Fabian Persson, Linnaeus University - ‘The Courtly Chamaeleon? Change or Perseverance of the Swedish Court from 1750 to 1930’

8 February 2016
Professor Arianne Chernock, Boston University - The right to reign versus the rights of women: Queen Victoria and the women’s movement in 19th-century Britain

14 March 2016
Dr Nicola Clark, Royal Holloway, University of London & University of Chichester - Not the Boleyn girls: The Howard women as courtiers, c. 1485–1553

18 April 2016
Dr Samantha Howard, Historic Royal Palaces -‘The matchless Graces’ of her mind: The cultural patronage of Augusta, queen in waiting, regent and princess dowager

16 May 2016
Joint event with the IHR Tudor and Stuart seminar Professor Jeroen Duindam, University of Leiden, Holland - ‘A global view of the royal court: redistribution, power, and the question of agency’

12 September 2016
Dr Stephen Brogan, Royal Holloway, University of London - ‘The king touches you, God heals you’. Comparing the royal touch ceremonies of 17th-century England and France

17 October 2016
Dr Jonathan Spangler, Manchester Metropolitan University - ‘Raising the spare: Four Monsieurs at the French court, 1574–1795’

14 November 2016
Dr Jacqueline Riding, Birkbeck, University of London - ‘His little hour of royalty’: Prince Charles Edward Stuart at the palace of Holyroodhouse

5 December 2016
Professor Sara Smart, University of Exeter - ‘Hohenzollern Brides: Confession, Identity and the Rise of the Brandenburg-Prussia in the Seventeenth Century’

9 February 2015
Alison Goudie (National Gallery, London) - Smuggled Silhouettes and the In/Visibility of Royal Exile during the Napoleonic Wars

16 March 2015
Dr Catherine Fletcher, The University of Sheffield - Creating a court in 1530s Florence: the material world of Duke Alessandro de’ Medici

11 May 2015
Professor Richard Cust, The University of Birmingham - Charles I and the aristocracy, 1625-1640

1 June 2015
Joint with the IHR Tudor and Stuart seminar - Dr Simon Thurley, English Heritage - The early Stuart court at home

21 September 2015
Dr Julie Farguson, University of Oxford - The Stuart-Orange political partnership: Anglo-Dutch kingship and war, 1690-94

23 November 2015
Virginia Rounding, Independent scholar - The court of the last Tsar, 1896 - 1917

14 December 2015
Dr Mark Bryant, University of Chichester - Romancing the throne: Mme de Maintenon’s journey from secret royal governess to the Sun King’s clandestine consort, 1669-84

17 February 2014
Charlotte Bolland (National Portrait Gallery) - ‘SAT SUPER EST’: A portrait of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and court culture during the reign of Henry VIII

10 March 2014
Yvonne Ward (La Trobe University) - Censoring a Queen: How Arthur Benson and Lord Esher fashioned an image of Victoria for their own and future generations

14 April 2014
Heather Jones (London School of Economics) - The Great War and its legacy on George V and Edward VIII

12 May 2014
Manolo Guerci (University of Kent) - The great houses of the Strand:1550-1650, An overview

9 July 2014
Andrew Thompson (Cambridge University) - Fathers and sons: the politics of intergenerational conflict and the Hanoverian monarchy (Special lecture)

22 September 2014
Julian Swann (Birkbeck College, University of London) - Of secrets and supper parties: disgrace and exile at the court of Louis XV

1 October 2014
Christopher Clark (Cambridge University) - Dynasty and Decision Making in 1914 (Special lecture)

20 October 2014
David Gelber - Royal Rio: The Brazilian capital under the Braganzas, 1808-1889

17 November 2014
Sara Wolfson (Christ Church Canterbury) - Bedchamber women and Henrietta Maria’s foreign policy agenda, 1627-1638

8 December 2014
Claire Gapper - Court or Country? The emergence of decorative plasterwork in sixteenth-century England

16 January 2013
David Cannadine (Princeton University) - When did the British Monarchy become a constitutional monarchy? (Special lecture)

11 February 2013
Janet Dickinson (University of Reading) - The politics of chivalry and courtly love at the later Elizabethan court

11 March 2013
Andrew Barclay (History of Parliament Trust) - Recovering Charles I’s art collection

8 April 2013
Anna Whitelock (Royal Holloway, University of London) - In bed with the Queen: Elizabeth I and the politics of the bedchamber

17 April 2013
Jane Ridley (University of Buckingham) - Alexandra, consort of Edward VII: The Forgotten Queen? (Special lecture)

20 May 2013
Glenn Richardson (St Mary’s University College) - The Field of Cloth of Gold: Peace Conference or War Game?

17 June 2013
Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska (The University of Illinois at Chicago) - ‘Preparing Youth for Citizenship’ from George V’s Silver Jubilee Appeal in 1935 to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme in the 1950s

21 October 2013
David Taylor (The National Trust) - ‘Triumphant in her Effigy’: Catherine of Braganza and the politics of portraiture

11 November 2013
Anna Keay (The Landmark Trust) - ‘Our dearest son’ Charles II and the Duke of Monmouth

9 December 2013
Ruth Brimscombe (National Portrait Gallery) - Art, India and the Prince of Wales in 1875-6

16 January 2012
Leonhard Horowski (German Historical Institute, London) Your Excellency or Your Grace: The Prussian Monarchy’s Quandaries of Birth, Rank and Office, 1660-1806

13 February 2012
Wolf Burchard (The Royal Collection, London) - The Grande Galerie at the Louvre: Shifting Values in Seventeenth-Century French Royal Patronage: Henri IV to Louis XIV

19 March 2012
Professor Anthony Spawforth (Newcastle University) - Ancient Courts, with Special Reference to Alexander the Great

23 April 2012
Brett Dolman (Historic Royal Palaces, London) - The Wild, the Beautiful and the Damned: Art, Beauty and Debauchery at the Late Stuart Court

14 May 2012
Dr Miles Taylor (Institute of Historical Research, London) - Queen Victoria’s Indian Jubilees

28 May 2012
Ceri Law (Cambridge University) – The University of Cambridge and the Elizabethan Court, 1558-1585

28 May 2012
Sophie Carney (Roehampton University and National Maritime Museum) – Legitimising Queenship, Visualising Love: Henrietta Maria and the Decoration of the Queen’s House at Greenwich

15 October 2012
Alden Gregory (National Trust) – The Archiepiscopal Household: Experiencing the Archbishop of Canterbury in the later Middle Ages

12 November 2012
Clarissa Campbell Orr (Anglia Ruskin University) - Under the Sign of Minerva: Mary Delany's Court Education and Early Augustan Aristocratic Feminism

10 December 2012
William Godsey (Austrian Academy of Sciences) - Coronations and Royal Inaugurations in the Austrian Monarchy 1790-1848

11 February 2011
Edward Town (National Portrait Gallery) & Olivia Fryman (Historic Royal Palaces) – Fabricating a Courtier House: Lionel Cranfield at Chelsea, 1619-1624

14 March 2011
Curt Noel (NYU, London) – The Gods in the Palace: Religious Imagery in the Palacio Real, Madrid

4 April 2011
J. R. Christianson (Luther College, Iowa) – Science and Religion at the Court of Denmark, 1534–1699

9 May 2011
Marila Keblusek (Leiden University) – Three ‘First Ladies’ in the Hague: Rivalries and Alliances at the Courts of Mary of Orange, Elizabeth of Bohemia and Amalia van Solms

20 June 2011
Jonathan Spangler (Manchester Metropolitan University) – Another Charles Restored in 1660: The Re-Establishment of the Court of Charles IV of Lorraine

3 October 2011
Barrie Cook (British Museum) – ‘The King offereth but only Gold’: Coins and Royal Ceremony in Tudor and Early Stuart England

14 November 2011
Gordon Higgott (St Paul’s Cathedral) – Edward Pearce Senior (fl.1630–d.1658): Decorative Artist, Landscape Painter and Collaborator of Inigo Jones

12 December 2011
Erin Griffey (University of Auckland) – Behind Closed Doors: Storing Household Goods at the Stuart Court

1 February 2010
Claire Gapper - The Decorative Plasterwork of Apethorpe, Northamptonshire: A City Plasterer Working in a Courtier’s House, 1622-1624

8 March 2010
Laura Moretti (University of Oxford) - Spaces for Musical Performance in the Este and Gonzaga Courts (c. 1440-1540)

19 April 2010
William O’Reilly (University of Cambridge) - The Emperor Who Could Not Be King: the Emperor Charles VI and Spain (1700-1740)

10 May 2010
Alasdair Hawkyard - The Tudor Royal Household and Parliament, 1509-1558

14 June 2010
Malcolm Smuts (University of Massachusetts Boston) - The Queen Elizabeth/Anjou Match and the Politics of Dynastic Libel

4 October 2010
Hannah Greig (University of York) - Faction and Fashion: The Politics of Court Dress in Eighteenth-Century England

8 November 2010
Simon Dixon (University College London) – Catherine the Great and the Imperial Russian Court

6 December 2010
David Boswell - The Architectural Setting of the Grand Masters of Malta, 1530-1798

26 January 2009
Marc Morris - Edward I and the Knights of the Round Table

16 March 2009
Aonghus MacKechnie (Historic Scotland) - Architecture and Absent, Intermittent and Satellite Courts: The Case of Seventeenth-Century Scotland

27 April 2009
Jane Ridley (University of Buckingham) - The Biographical Consequences of Edward VII: Lord Esher’s Bonfire

22 June 2009
Patrick Little (History of Parliament) - Fashion at the Court of Oliver Cromwell

5 October 2009
Philip Mansel - The French Court 1770-1870: Grandeur and Catastrophe

7 December 2009
Elizabeth Goldring (University of Warwick) - The Politics of Translation: Arthur Golding’s Account of the Duke of Anjou’s Entry into Antwerp, 1582

21 January 2008
Emily Cole (University of Sussex) - “The English Court and the English Country House 1603-1625”

14 April 2008
Alexander Courtney (University of Cambridge) - “‘By merie company...free from importunitie’: The Bedchamber and Jacobean Kingship Revisited”

12 May 2008
Manolo Guerci (University of Cambridge) - “An aristocratic palace of monarchical intent: The Interiors of Northumberland House in the Strand, 1605-1874”

9 June 2008
Claire Norton (St Mary’s University College) - “Uniting Against the ‘Lords of Lewdness’: Forging Alliances and Constructing Shared Identities in the Ottoman Nagykanizsa fethnames [victory missives] Sent to Queen Elizabeth I”

6 October 2008
Edward Corp (University of Toulouse) - The Stuart Court in Rome

10 November 2008
Alexander Samson (UCL) - Sovereignty in the Queen’s Closet: The Court and Household of Mary Tudor and Philip of Habsburg

8 December 2008
Maria Hayward (University of Southampton) - Making Magnificence: Dress at the Court of Henry VIII

22 January 2007
Patrick Little (History of Parliament) - “Music at the Court of King Oliver”

19 February 2007
Ian Archer (Keble College, Oxford) - “City and Court Connected: the Material Dimension of Royal Court Ceremonies, 1480-1625”

19 March 2007
Irena Murray (Royal Institute of British Architects) - “Our Slav Acropolis: Architecture and Governance at the Prague Castle, 1918-1939”

14 May 2007
Glenn Richardson - “Postcards from the Edge: Francis I and Englands’s break with Rome”

11 June 2007
Mary Hollingsworth - “Electing the Court: Ceremony and Discomfort in Sixteenth-Century Papal Conclaves”

22 October 2007
David Reed - “Breakfast in the Afternoon - or One Hundred Years of Royal Garden Parties”

19 November 2007
Nicole Reinhardt (University of Lyon) - “The Importance of Being Catholic: Religion and Court Life in Early Modern France and Spain”

17 December 2007
Jeremy Ashbee (English Heritage) - “The Tower of London as Royal Residence 1066-1399”

23 January 2006
Glenn Richardson (University of Surrey) - “Gift Exchange at Renaissance Courts: England and France, 1509-1603”

20 February 2006
Curt Noel - “Baroque, Rococo, Neo-Classical: The Bourbon Court and Cultural Change in Eighteenth-Century Spain”

20 March 2006
Jerry Brotton (Queen Mary, University of London) - “‘Who bids most?’ The sale of Charles I’s Art Collection”

15 May 2006
Graham Gendall Norton - “A Caribbean Court: Henri Christophe, King of Haiti”

23 October 2006
Craig Clunas (SOAS) - “‘As a Hedge and a Fence...’: Kingly Courts of Ming China (1368-1644)”

20 November 2006
Nigel Saul (Royal Holloway College) - “Politics and Luxury: The Court of King Richard II”

18 December 2006
Dries Raeymaekers (University of Antwerp) - “A Princely Court in Brussels: the Court and Household of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella (1598-1621)”

24 January 2005
Toby Osborne (Durham University) - “What’s in a name? Ceremonial Rivalry between the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Duchy of Savoy during the Sixteenth Century”

28 February 2005
Maurice Howard (University of Sussex) - “William, Lord Sandys of the Vyne: A Tudor Courtier’s Goods”

25 April 2005
Anna Keay (English Heritage) - “Charles II and the Chapel Royal”

23 May 2005
Nigel Aston (University of Leicester) - “Commentary from a Courtier: An Insider’s Perspective on the Last Years of George II, 1756-1760”

13 June 2005
Caroline Finkel (Istanbul) - “Holy Men at the Ottoman Court: A Dynasty in Search of Legitimisation”

17 October 2005
Robin Eagles (History of Parliament Trust) - “No more to be said? Reactions to the Death of Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales”

21 November 2005
Sophie Pickford (University of Cambridge) - “Nobility and Possession: Objects in the French Renaissance Château”

19 January 2004
Jane Ridley (Buckingham University) - “Deconstructing Tum Tum: becoming Edward VII”

15 March 2004
Iain Fenlon - “Novellara: music and culture at a ‘minor’ Italian Renaissance court”

17 May 2004
John Pollard (Cambridge University) - “A Court in exile: the Vatican 1870-1929”

14 June 2004
Roderick Barman (University of British Columbia) - “The Portuguese Court in Two Worlds: The corte e casa at Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro 1640-1834”

18 October 2004
Robert Lacey - “How enlightened was George III? The King, the British Museum and the Enlightenment”

20 October 2003
Patric Dickinson - “Heralds as Courtiers”

15 December 2003
William Purdue (Open University) - “Monarchs of the world 1850-1914: the invention of tradition?”

2023 Conference: Female Succession in Late Medieval and Early Modern Monarchy – Contestation, Conflict and Compromise

The Society’s 2023 annual conference will be held at Rey Juan Carlos University on 25 – 26 May 2023. The conference theme is “Female Succession in Late Medieval and Early Modern Monarchy – Contestation, Conflict and Compromise”, and features keynotes from Ana Eschevarría Arsuage (UNED) and Bethany Aram (University of Seville).

This international symposium aims to bring together experts from different historiographical fields (history, art history, literature and political thought), with the objective of developing a comparative analysis on the way female royal succession was approached and managed from a transnational and diachronic perspective. By bringing together case studies from across a long time period (1400 to 1800) and from across Europe, this symposium hopes to understand the greatest breadth of experiences of this topic so crucial to the early development of women’s access to political power in our history.

This symposium is organised by the Society for Court Studies and the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid (URJC), with support from Purdue University (Indiana), and will be held across two days in May 2023, on the campus of URJC near the Palace of Aranjuez—a favourite residence for some of Spain’s early modern queens.

Research themes and questions:

• written legal practices / fundamental laws of succession
• wills and testaments planning for successions
• involvement of democratic / representative bodies in securing successions
• ‘curators’ or ‘transmitters’ of successions
• contested successions
• coups and dispossession
• religious ramifications of female succession
• joint succession

The conference programme and registration will be announced shortly. Please check back soon.

Symposium chairs:
José Eloy Hortal Muñoz (URJC)
Jonathan Spangler (Manchester Metropolitan)
Silvia Z. Mitchell (Purdue)
Felix Labrador Arroyo (URJC)

All queries should be directed to the Organizing Committee via email at

2022 Conference: The Embodied Court

The Society’s annual 2022 conference was held in hybrid format at the University of Helsinki and Turku Castle on 1 -3 September 2022. The conference theme was The Embodied Court: Procreation – Sexuality – Lifestyles – Death and explored the physicality of premodern royal and princely courts in four key contexts from across the lifecycle: bodies being born and giving birth; bodies as sexual actors or objects; bodies in courtly lifestyles; and dead and dying bodies.

Helen Watanabe O’Kelly (University of Oxford), Svante Norrhem (Lund University), and Anu Lahtinen (University of Helsinki) were the keynote speakers.

Conference speakers included

Tracy Adams (University of Auckland)
Mirabelle Field (University of Auckland)
Susannah Lyon-Whaley (University of Auckland)
Karen Hearn (University College London)
Emma Trivett (Independent Scholar)
Julie Özcan (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales-Paris)
Erin Griffey (University of Auckland)
Maria F. Maurer (University of Tulsa)
Susan M. Cogan (Utah State University)
Maximilian Diemer (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München/Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
Megan Shaw (University of Auckland)
Esther Griffin van Orsouw (University of Warsaw/PALAMUSTO)
Philippa Woodcock (University of the Highlands and Islands)
Fabian Persson (Linnæus Universitet)
Amrita Chattopadhyay (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Aishwarya Kothare (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Shreejita Basak (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Anuj Sah (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Rakshit Malik (Jawaharlal Nehru University/Emory University)
Noble Shrivastava (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Emma Kalb (University of Bonn)
Shounak Ghosh (Vanderbilt University)
Sonia Wigh (University of Edinburgh)
Clémentine Girault (Université de Paris Cité – ICT/EHESS – AHLoMA)
Diana Lucía Gómez-Chacón (Universidad Computense de Madrid)
Lourdes Mazlymian (Queen’s University)
Tupu Ylä-Anttila (University of Helsinki)
Janet Dickinson (Oxford University Department for Continuing Education/New York University-London)
André Godinho (Universidade de Lisboa)
Emilie Margaix (Université de Poitiers)
Marc W.S. Jaffré (Durham University)
Mirella Marini (Independent Scholar)
Bozena Popiołek and Anna Penkała-Jastrzębska (Pedagogical University of Cracow)
Holly Marsden (University of Winchester/Historic Royal Palaces)
Merit Laine (Uppsala University)
Reima Välimäki (University of Turku)
Marie-Claude Canova-Green (Goldsmiths-University of London)
Miriam Shadis (Ohio University)
Juliana Amorim Goskes (The Morgan Library and Museum)
Patrik Pastrnak (Palacky University Olomouc)
Harriet Strahl (Durham University)
Marian Rothstein (Carthage College)
Zita Eva Rohr (Macquarie University)
Amanda Westcott (University of Oxford)
Dustin M. Neighbors (University of Helsinki/Aalto University)
Kristen Vitale (University of Connecticut)

Some of the papers are currently being developed as part of a publication of the proceedings.

Privacy at Court? A Reassessment of the Public/Private Divide within European Courts (1400-1800)
10-12 December 2020
Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen/ Society for Court Studies (Digital conference)

Speakers

Mette Birkedal Bruun (Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen), Early Modern Notions of Privacy
Professor Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin/Institute for Advanced Study), Privacy at Court? Reconsidering the Public-Private Dichotomy
Elena (Ellie) Woodacre (University of Winchester), Influence and Interference in the Queen's Private Sphere: The Case of Joan of Navarre
Barbara Arciszewska (University of Warsaw), Architecture, Gender and the Private Sphere: Women and Early Modern Court Residences around 1700
Britta Kägler (Universität Passau), Institutionalized Privacy? - The Need to Achieve and Defend Privacy in the Frauenzimmer
Fabio Gigone (Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen), The gilded balustrade: the Architecture of the Ban at the Court of Louis XIV
Karin Schrader (Independent Scholar), Intimate Tokens and Public Emblems - Portrait Miniatures in Eighteenth-Century European Court Culture
Christine Jeanneret (Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen), Soundscapes of Rosenborg Castle: Hearing Privacy at Court
Jonathan Spangler (Manchester Metropolitan University/Society for Court Studies), Not Always on Display? The Hybrid Public/Private Life of the Court of Lorraine at the Palace of Lunéville, 1698-1736
Oskar Jacek Rojewski (Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen), Spreading of Court Culture from the Burgundian Court to the Kingdom of Castile: Sovereign's Privacy and its Relationship with Court Artists
Mirella Marini (Independent Scholar), From the Privacy of Death to the Public Ritual of Mourning: the Testamentary Dispositions of Anne of Croy (1564-1635), duchess of Aarschot and the Reversal of the Burgundian Court Ritual
Cathleen Sarti (University of Oxford), Court, Historiography, Historical Fiction, and Privacy?
Heta Aali (University of Turku), Narrating the Private Sphere in France: Reinterpreting the Early Modern Royal Family through Eighteenth-Century Notions of Privacy
Vasileios Syros (University of Jyväskylä), Venice and the Ottoman Court: Revisiting the Public/Private Divide in 16th-Century Europe Dries Raeymaekers (Radboud University), The Monarch Exposed. Privacy in Practice at the Early Modern Court
Lars Cyril Nørgaard and Bastian Felter Vaucanson (Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen), The Portrait of Louis XIV’s Privacy
Dustin M. Neighbors (Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen), Maximilian II's Visit to the Court of Elector August of Saxony: Private Politics or Politics of Privacy?
My Hellsing and Kristine Dyrmann (The Danish Research Centre for Manorial Studies / Stockholm University and Aarhus University), Privacy and Political Sociability in the Suburbs of Stockholm and Copenhagen in the Late Eighteenth Century
Ineke Huysman (Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands), Silent Power: Privacy Practices of the Dutch and Frisian Stadholder's Wives (1605-1725)
Paige Emerick (University of Leicester), Seeking Privacy within the Royal Visits of George III, c. 1760-1805
Michael Brauer (University of Salzburg), Royal Presence and the Framing of Privacy Observations on Charles V "the Wise" of France (1364-1380)
Bram van Leuveren (University of St. Andrews), Negotiating the Public and the Private: Dispatches of European Diplomats at the Late Valois and Early Bourbon Court
Anna Penkała-Jastrzębska (Pedagogical University of Kraków), Noble Matrimonial Policy at the Royal Court in Dresden during the Reign of King August the Strong (1697-1733): Public Affairs, Individual Interests
Søren Frank Jensen (Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen), Private Devotion in Public? Mapping The Book of Psalms at the Electoral Court of Saxony 1553-86
Marta Wojtkowska-Maksymik (Warsaw University), Where I’m not... About the Lack of Privacy at Court in 16th-Century Anticourt Literature
Anne Gallewicz (Warsaw University), Castiglione and Górnicki - Literary Perspectives of Otium at Court
Jolanta Dygul (Warsaw University), Court Ceremonies and Performative Arts at the Courts of the Last Jagiellonians
Anna Horeczy (Polish Academy of Sciences), Intellectuals at the Court of the Last Jagiellonian Kings - Between Public and Private Spheres
Fabian Persson (Linnæus University/University of Oxford), Public Displays of Affection: Creating Spheres of Royal Intimacy in Public
Jose Eloy Hortal Muñoz (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos), Regulating Access to the Rulers: the Codification of the Royal Chamber of the Spanish Monarchy at the Seventeenth Century
Sara Ayres (Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen), The Madness of Christian VII: The Uses of Privacy at the Danish Court, 1766-1772
Agnieszka Pawłowska-Kubik (Medical University of Gdańsk), Be as close to the ruler as possible: The Royal Physician at Court in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Michaël Green (Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen), Privacy Aspects of the Household Instructions by Henry VIII Concerning the Infant Prince Edward
Bethany Bourn Williams (University of Bristol), Performing and Representing Domesticity at the Protectoral Court of Oliver Cromwell

George IV: First Gentleman of Europe
6 March 2020
Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London

A day symposium, co-organised with the Royal Collection to accompany their recent exhibition, ‘George IV: Art and Spectacle’, 6 March 2020 at the Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace, with speakers including Flora Fraser and Philip Mansel. More details

Performance, Royalty and the Court, 1500-1800
11-12 April 2019

The Society for Court Studies, with the support of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and Birkbeck College School of Arts and Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, held this conference on 11-12 April 2019, ‘Performance, Royalty and the Court, 1500-1800’. You can find the conference schedule here - Programme:

Horses and Courts
21-23 March 2018

The conference focused on the role of horses in court ceremonies, court culture and military and political events. Speakers include Alexandra Lotz on the imperial stud at Kladrub on the Elbe: Tessa Murdoch on Foubert’s Riding Academy in London; Pia Cuneo on Protestantism and horsemanship; Sara Ayres on Queen Caroline Mathilde on horseback; Barney White-Spunner on the Household Cavalry and the Policing of London; Jane Ridley on Elizabeth II and Horses; and many others. Please find further information on the flyer.

The conference was organised by Donna Landry and Philip Mansel. To watch all videos from this conference please click here.

Speakers

Tobias Capwell (Wallace Collection), The Armoury of Peace: Equestrian Harness and Accoutrements for Renaissance Courtly Spectacles in the Wallace Collection
Francisco LaRubia-Prado (Georgetown University), Literal and Literary Power: Horses, Gift-Giving Diplomacy and Restoring the Balance of Power in ‘The Song of Cid’(c. 1207)
Peter Edwards (University of Roehampton-Emeritus), Equine Imagery and the Field of the Cloth of Gold: 7-24 June 1520
Marie-Louise von Plessen (European Cultural Parliament), Dancing with Horses: Equestrian Ballet and Carrousels at European Courts
Pia F. Cuneo (University of Arizona), The Reformation of Riding: Protestant Identity and Horsemanship at North German Courts
Sarah R. Cohen (State University of New York at Albany), Noble Spirit in the Garden: The Gray Horse in the Paradise Landscape of Jan Brueghel the Elder and his Contemporaries
Sally Mitchell, Museum of the Horse, Tuxford - The Perception of Power and the Influence of the Bit
Kasper Lynge Tipsmark (Aarhus University), A Guilded Coronation Trophy: Memory and Materialized Masculanity at the Court of Christian IV of Denmark (1588-1648)
Simon Adams (formerly Strathclyde University), Providing for a Queen: The Earl of Leicester and the Elizabethan Stables
Philip Mansel (Society for Court Studies), Louis XIV and the Politics of the French Royal Stables
Tülay Artan (Sabancı University), Late 17th and early 18th century Ottoman dignitaries and their account books: Where do the trappings of office end, and horse collecting and connoisseurship begin?
José Eloy Hortal Muñoz (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos), The Public Image of Hispanic Monarchs in Early Modern Times: The Role of the Royal Stables
Sally Goodsir (Royal Collection Trust, London), The Royal Mews, Buckingham Palace
Julian Munby (Oxford Archaeology), Men in the Saddle and Women on Wheels: The Transport Revolution in the Tudor and Stuart Courts
Alexandra Lotz (Cultural Heritage Centre, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg and Horses & Heritage, Germany) Noble coarch horses for the court: The Hapsburg imperial stud at Kladrub on the Elbe and the ‘Oldkladruby’ horse
Diana Krischke (LOEWE-Network for Human-Animal-Studies, University of Kassel) and Fürstliche Hofreitschule (Bückeburg, Schaumburg-Lippe) Horse Breeding: From Wild Ancestors to Multi-Purpose Tool and Luxury Object?
Tessa Murdoch (Victoria and Albert Museum, London), Foubert’s Riding Academy in London and Paris, 1668-1768
Catherine Girard (Eastern Washington University), From Experience to Representation: Horses in Depictions of Eighteenth-Century French Hunting
Monica Mattfield (University of Northern British Columbia), Changing the Reins of Power: From Cavendish’s Centaur to Eighteenth-Century Riding Houses and Horses
Stefano Saracino (University of Vienna), Horses and Political Theory in Seventeenth-Century England: The Case of William (1592-1676) and Margaret (1623-1673) Cavendish
Jasmine Dum-Tragut (Centre for the Studies of the Christian East, University of Salzburg; University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna), “This medical book for horses was written on behalf of my king...”: Armenian manuscripts and their royal commissioners.

‘Elizabeth I: The Armada and Beyond, 1588 to 2018
April 2018

Royal Museums Greenwich, in association with the Society for Court Studies, held a major international conference on the 19-21 April 2018 to mark the conservation and re-display of the Armada Portrait at the Queen’s House, titled ‘Elizabeth I: The Armada and Beyond, 1588 to 2018’. Papers explored aspects of Elizabeth’s representation and reputation through history, from the crisis of the Armada until the present day. Speakers included Tracy Borman, Jackie Eales, Helen Hackett and Hiram Morgan and a keynote paper from Susan Doran on the ‘Memory and commemoration of Elizabeth in the early years of her successor’.

‘Courts and Capitals 1815–1914 (V)’
Society for Court Studies/Victorian Society conference
Art Workers’ Guild, 6 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AT
10 November 2018

The century before the Great War, far from being a period of decline for monarchies, witnessed a resurgence of court life around the world. In the decades following the defeat of Napoleon, new monarchies appeared, while long-established dynasties sought to consolidate their power. In Europe and beyond, monarchies reshaped the cities in which power was concentrated: new, larger palaces were constructed; royal avenues, squares and parks were created; public ceremonies reached levels of elaboration and participation previously unknown.

Speakers

A N Wilson, Prince Albert’s London
Jane Ridley, The British monarchy and London 1839-1914
Talitha Ilacqua, The Creation of an Imperial Summer Capital: Napoleon III, the Basques and Biarritz
David Gelber, Rio Grande: The making of an imperial capital for Brazil, 1822-1889
Philip Mansel, Imperial Apogee: Constantinople and Abdulhamid II, 1876-1909
Andrea Merlotti, Ancient capitals for a new monarchy. The ‘itineranza’ of the Italian Court, 1861-1938: Turin, Florence, Rome, Naples, Venice
George Eckert, From Riches to Rags: the decline and fall of royal Stuttgart (film presentation in speaker’s absence)

For further information, please see flyer - programme - podcast of presentation on Royal Stuttgart.

European Court Culture & Greenwich Palace, 1500-1750: Queen’s House Conference 2017
National Maritime Museum and the Queen’s House, Greenwich
20-22 April 2017

Royal Museums Greenwich and the Society for Court Studies are holding a major international conference on the 20-22 April 2016 to mark the 400th anniversary year of the Queen’s House, Greenwich. To see the conference programme please click doc / pdf

Animals at Court
Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich, Germany
8-10 December 2016

Speakers

Philip Mansel, The Pursuit of Courts: Courts and the Making of Europe
Nadir Weber (Konstanz), Animals at Court
Elena Taddei (Innsbruck), Animals as Instruments for Networking and Cultural Transfer at the 16th Century Este-Court
Annemarie Jordan Gschwend (Lisbon), Animals fit for Emperors. Hans Khevenhüller and the Creation of Habsburg Menageries in Vienna and Prague
Catarina Simōes (Lisbon), Non-European Animals in the Portuguese Court in the Renaissance and the Construction of an Image of Royalty
Julia Weitbrecht (Kiel), Of Good Breeding: Animals and Noble Self-fashioning in Medieval Courtly Literature
Mackenzie Cooley (Standford), I Would Have Our Courtier Be a Perfect Horseman. Creating Nobility and Fashioning Horses between Mantua and Naples, 1461-1571
Armelle Fémelat (Tours), Portraits of horses and dogs and the Renaissance Gonzaga Court
Arenas of Competition
Christian Jaser (Berlin), Ipsi equi barbarici currere tantum sciant. Racehorses and the Competitive Representation of Italian Renaissance-Courts, ca. 1500
Maike Schmidt (Trier), Staghounds and Narratives of Excellence in French Renaissance Court Culture
John Villiers (London), The corrida de touros as theatre and ceremony: royal bullfights at the courts of Pedro II and Joao V of Portugal
Marco Iuffrida (Rome), Symbols and Sounds of „Hunting”. The Musical Interaction between Men and Animals from the Courts of Middle Ages to Romanticism
Elena Taddia (Versailles), The Real and the Imaginary. Animals Inside and Outside Versailles Palace
Magdalena Bayreuther (Munich), Ceremonial Coach Culture. A Human-Animal Hierarchy Study at the 18th Century Munich Court
Giovanni Forcina (Sevilla), The Black Francolin. Food for Gourmets, Game for Nobles, Lust for Lovers. Reawakening the Memory and Assessing the Origin of a Prized Courtly Bird
Thierry Buquet (Caen), Cheetah Hunting in European Courts. From the Apogee to the End of a Fashion (14th-17th Century)
Fabian Persson (Lund/Kalmar), Unruly Display. Animals at the Early Modern Scandinavian Courts
Katherine MacDonogh (London), A Woman’s Life. The Role of Pets in the Lives of Royal Women at the Courts of Europe from 1400
Maria Aresin (Rome), Ein ganz hurtig und unruwig thier. Pet Squirrels in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times
Andreas Erb (Dessau), Ein Triton als Freund. A Dog’s Life at the Dessau Court
Contingency and Liminality
Julia Burbulla (Bern), Animals in Early Modern Court Entertainments
Nadeije Laneyrie-Dagen (Paris), Projection physiognomonico-politique ou exploration des confins humains? A propos de l’association nains – bêtes dans les portraits des grands à la Renaissance
Fabian Jonietz (Florence), Death and Memoria of Animals at Early Modern Courts
Mieke Roscher (Kassel), Comment
Mark Hengerer (Munich) and Nadir Weber (Konstanz), Closing words

Gifts and Perquisities
15 April 2013
Knole, Kent
Convener: Janet Dickinson

Speakers

Felicity Heal, Court gifts and their contexts: Elizabeth to Charles I
Olivia Fryman, Rich pickings: The royal bed as a perquisite 1660-1760
Catherine Daunt, Galleries of fame: assembling portrait collections through gifts and requests in Tudor and Jacobean England
Alden Gregory, In the Bishop's Gift: Knole and the Establishment of Political Affinities in 15th-Century Kent
Chris Woolgar, Gifts, perquisites and the late medieval great household
Maria Hayward, Continuity and change: New Year’s gifts at the court of James I
Tracey Sowerby, Negotiating with gifts: the meaning and significance of gifts in Tudor diplomacy

Heirs and Spares
19-20 September 2013
Kellogg College, Oxford
Convener: Jonathan Spangler

Speakers

Glenn Richardson, The Spare who became the Heir: Henri II of France
Charles Gregory, Louis XIII’s Heirs as Political Points d’Appui
Philip Mansel, Cousins from Hell: The Orléans as Heirs to the Bourbons, from the Regent to ‘Philippe VII’
Sarah Kinkel, Princes and Pamphlet Wars: The Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cumberland, and the Struggle to Shape British Society, 1740-1765
Catherine Chou, ‘For the Right which Pertaineth unto Her’: Mary Stuart’s Parliamentary Case for the English Succession
Janet Dickinson, Securing the Succession in Late Elizabethan England
Alexander Dencher, Imagining William III of Orange in the First Stadtholderless Era: Representation, Rhetoric and Theatricality
Alex Greer, The Evolution and Disappearance of the Spare, the Duke of Orleans, in Rubens’ Medici Cycle
Nathan Perry, Investing the Spare: Court Ceremonial for the Princes of Wales in Early Stuart England
Catriona Murray, Public Display at a Private Funeral: Managing the Death of Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester
Anne Somerset, Princess Anne of York: An Unexpected Heir
Mathieu Lahaye, Heir Obedience, Heir Disobedience: Two Generations of Dauphins for Louis XIV
Graham Williams, ‘Such writing is not my will’: Language and Self-representation in the Letters of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland
Liesbeth Geevers, Habsburg Spares: the Princes of Savoy and the Spanish Court (ca. 1585-1630)
Michael Schaich, Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales, in Hanover
Jonathan Spangler, The Family Man: Monsieur as Brother, Husband, Father (and Lover?) in the Service of Bourbon Diplomacy
Marlen Schneider, ‘Much lesser than the Sun’: The Self-fashioning of Philippe I of Orleans
Don Fader, Music in the Service of the King’s Brother: Courtly Patronage and Philippe I’s d’Orléans’s Musical Posterity
Megan Reddicks, Portraits of Margaret of Austria as ‘Pseudo-heir’ of the Holy Roman Empire
Giora Sternberg, The Fabrication of Heirs: Status Legitimating Power in Louis XIV’s France
Blythe Sobol, Family Ties: The Patronage of the Children of Madame de Montespan in the Golden Age of Bastards

Rubens and the Thirty Years War: Dynastic Politics, Diplomacy and the Arts, c. 1618-1635
10-11 May 2012
Rubenium, Antwerp

Speakers

John Adamson
Nicola Courtwright
Jean-Marie Dubost
Erin Griffey
Antien Knapp.

The Key to Power? The Culture of Access in Early Modern Courts, 1400-1700 - flyer
8-9 November 2012
Antwerp, Belgium.
Convenors: Dries Raeymaekers and Sebastiaan Derks

Speakers

Ronald G. Asch (Albert Ludwigs Universität Freiburg), Patronage, Friendship and the Politics of Access: The Role of the Early Modern Favourite Revisited
Christina Antenhofer (Universität Innsbruck), Meeting the Prince between the City and the Family: The Resignification of Castello San Giorgio in Mantova (14th-16th Century)
Encarnación López (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Symbolic Spaces in Madrid’s Alcázar: Doors and Keys Providing Access to the Planet King
Neil Murphy (Northumbria University), The Court on the Move: Royal Entries and Access to the Monarch in France, c. 1400-1560
Alexandra Beauchamp (Université de Limoges), ‘Estant nós en la dita rambla ab tota aquella gran multitud.’ Direct Contacts between the Kings of Aragon and their Subjects (14th century)
Katarzyna Kuras (Jagiellonian University, Krakow), Was it Easy to Get to the King? Access of the Nobles to the Monarch during the 16th and 17th Centuries in Poland
Charles C. Noel (New York University, London), Access - Privileged and Unprivileged at the Changing Spanish Court, 1665-1788
Michael Talbot (SOAS - University of London), Accessing the Shadow of God on Earth: Gifts, Feasts, and Humiliation in Ottoman Diplomatic Ceremonial
Maartje VAN Gelder (University of Amsterdam), Rebel Diplomats: The Dutch Envoys’ Access to the Court of Henry IV of France, 1598- 1609
Neil Younger (University of Essex), Access, Favour and Religious Division at the Court of Elizabeth I of England
Florence Berland (Université Lille 3 - IRHiS), Access to the Prince’s Court in Late Medieval Paris
Orsolya Réthelyi (Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest), Access to the King and Queen in Late Medieval Hungary. Conflicting Conceptions of Order in Princely Households
Audrey Truschke (Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge), European Experiences and Interpretations of Access at Indian Courts
Eric Hassler (Université Paris I - Sorbonne), Quantifying the Approachability of the Emperor: The Question of the Number of Chamberlains on Duty in the Court of Vienna (1670-1720)
Anna Kalinowska (Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of History), The King, the Favourite and the Ambassador. Sir Thomas Roe at the Polish Court, 1629
Fabian Persson (Linnaeus University, Kalmar), The Battle for Access: Access During a Royal Minority, 1660-1672
Jonathan Spangler (Manchester Metropolitan University), Those Who Hold the Keys: Princes, Grand Chamberlains, and Grand Equerries and the Rivalry of Access at the Early Modern French Court
Aubrée David‐Chapy (Université de Paris IV - Sorbonne), Anne de France, Closeness to the King and Power
Steven Thiry (University of Antwerp), Forging Dynasty. The Politics of Dynastic Affinity in Burgundian-Habsburg Baptism Ceremonial (1430-1505)
Klara Pako (Academy of Sciences, Babeş - Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, Romania), Access to Power at the Confines of Europe. The Case of the Princely Court of Alba Iulia in Transylvania in the 16th and 17th Centuries
Sara J. Wolfson (Manchester Metropolitan University), Distinguished Guests, Diplomacy and Foreign Policy at the Caroline Court, 1638-1641.

Courts & Capitals, 1815–1914 (IV): From Alexandria to Tokyo
8 October 2011
Art Workers Guild, London
Conveners: Steven Brindle, Philip Mansel and David Gelber

Speakers

John Breen, Tokyo: The Capital, The Palace and Modern Japan’s Sacred Centre
Philip Mansel, The Rise and Fall Of Royal Alexandria: From Mohammed Ali to Farouk
Keith Pratt, The Gyeongbok Palace, Seoul, as a Barometer Of Korea’s Political Fortunes in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Gavin Stamp, New Delhi: The Creation of a Vice-Regal Capital
John Villiers, A New Capital for a New Dynasty: Bangkok, from Rama I to Rama V (1782-1910)
Bill Woodburn, From The Bala Hissar to the Arg: How Royal Fortress-Palaces Shaped Kabul

Princes Consort in History
16 December 2011
Chancellor’s Hall, Senate House, London
Conveners: Janet Dickinson and Miles Taylor

Speakers

David Abulafia, Ferdinand of Aragon - Ferdinand the Catholic: a consort with six crowns
Luc Duerloo, Upstairs, Downstairs: Archduke Albert, consort of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, 1598-1621
Elena Woodacre, The kings consort of Navarre; 1284-1512
Derek Beales, Francis Stephen: Duke of Lorraine 1729-37, grand-duke of Tuscany 1737-65, co-regent of the Austrian Monarchy 1740-65, Holy Roman Emperor 1745-65
Charles Beem, Why Prince George of Denmark Did Not Become a King of England
Paul Keenan, ‘The misfortune to be German’: Ernst Johann von Biron and the Russian Court, 1730-40
Fabian Persson, From ruler in the shadows to shadow king
Hugo Vickers, Prince Philip: The life and work of a modern consort
Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Prince Philip: sportsman and youth leader
Daniel Alves, Ferdinand II of Portugal: A conciliator king, in a turmoil kingdom
Roderick J. Barman, Gaston d’Orleans, Comte d’Eu: Prince Consort to Isabel of Brazil
Karina Urbach, The Creative Consort: New Sources on Prince Albert
Simin Patel, Commemorating the consort in colonial Bombay

Charles II: King, Court and Culture
28 May 2010
Royal Hospital, Greenwich, London
Convener: Andrew Barclay

Speakers

Ronald Hutton, Charles II in the Twenty-First Century
Diana Dethloff, Peter Lely and the Royal Image
Karen Hearn, John Michael Wright (1617-1694), ‘Picture Drawer in Ord[inary]’
Robert Bucholz, Restoration Courtiership: The Evidence of Three Diaries (Pepys, Evelyn and Reresby)
Stephen Brogan, Medicine, Politics and Sin: The Rationale for the Royal Touch During the Stuart Restoration, 1660-85
Helen Jacobsen, Bringing it Home: English Diplomats as Cultural Intermediaries, 1660-85

Courts in Europe: A Historiographical Survey
24-26 September 2009
Chateau of Versailles, France
Convener: Marcello Fantoni

Speakers

Werner von Paravicini, Germany
Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Italy
Amedeo Quondam, Court Literature
Chantal Grell and Peter Campbell, Courts and Power
Jose Martinez Millan, Spain
Jeroen Duindam, Comparative Studies of the Courts of Europe and Asia
Philip Mansel, The Nineteenth Century

Courts and Capitals, 1815-1914 (III)
7 November 2009
Art Workers’ Guild, London
Conveners Steven Brindle and Philip Mansel

Speakers

Giles MacDonogh, The Slow Death of Royal Dresden
Juan F. Remón Menéndez, Madrid from Ancien Regime to the Bourgeois Restoration: The Parque del Oeste and the Augmentation of the Capital
George Vassiadis, Athens: The Creation of a Royal Capital, 1834-1914
John Villiers, ‘It is the Sovereign who makes the Palace, as a stone in a field may become an altar’: Bucharest under Carol I and the Building of Peleş
David Blow, From Islamic Small Town to Westernised Metropolis: The Development of Tehran under the Qajars and the Pahlavis
Khaled Fahmy, The Essence of Cairo

Henrietta Maria and European Politics
13 November 2009
Bonham’s, London
Conveners: Malcolm Smuts and Robert Oresko

The Court and the Country House
21 November 2008
Mellon Centre, London
Convener: Emily Cole

Speakers

Caroline Adams, Impact of the Royal Progress of 1591 on the social network of West Sussex and Hampshire
Emily Cole, The Jacobean Royal Progress and the Country House State Apartment
Michael Pearce, Progressive Adaptations: Royal Presence and Pastime in Scotland to 1602
Jeremy Pearson, George III’s visit to Plymouth, 1789
Jane Ridley, Edward VII’s visits to country houses
Christopher Ridgway, New Technologies and Old Ceremonies at Castle Howard for the Visit of Queen Victoria
James Rothwell, ‘Great Company’ at Lyme Park, Cheshire: The Visit of the Duke of York in 1676

The Politics of Space: Courts in Europe and the Mediterranean, c.1500-1750
26-27 January 2007
Huntington Library, San Marino
Conveners: Professor Malcolm Smuts and George L. Gorse

Speakers

Marcello Fantoni
Monique Chatenet
Simon Thurley
Anna Keay
Nicola Courtright
Hillary Balon
John Beldon Scott
Patricia Waddy
Tracy Ehrlic
Jesus Escobar.

Courts and Capitals, 1815-1914 (II)
29 September 2007
Wallace Collection, London
Conveners: Steven Brindle and Philip Mansel

Speakers

Roderick J Barman, Imperial Cities and Seasonal Residences: Petrópolis, Summer Capital of Brazil (1843-1889), and its European Counterparts
Gavin Stamp, Budapest 1867-1914: A Dual Capital for the Dual Monarchy
Terry Kirk, The Image of King Vittorio Emanuele II and the Remaking of Rome
Giles MacDonogh, ‘Nothing Is Too Colossal, Nothing Too Expensive’: William II and Berlin
Jack Hamilton, False Starts and Failed Hopes: The Rise and Fall of Royal Sofia 1878-1946
Emmanuel Ducamp, The Romanovs and Saint Petersburg: The Second Phase

The Palace of Westminster
4-5 October 2007
Westminster Hall, London

Conveners: Edward Impey, Andrew Barclay, Rosemary Hill and Robert Lacey

Speakers

Professor Paul Binski
Professor David Carpenter
Dr John Crook
Chris Thomas
Simon Carter
Jason Peacey
Dr Mark Collins
Malcolm Hay
Dr Gavin Stamp
Sir John Sainty
Dr David Starkey
Daniel Brittain-Catlin
Ian Denver

Monarchy and Exile
14-15 December 2007
German Historical Institute, London
Conveners: Philip Mansel and Torsten Riotte

Speakers

Toby Osborne, A Queen Mother in exile: Marie de Medici
A Hughes, Gender, exile and The Hague courts of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia and Mary, Princess of Orange
Ferenc Toth, Emigrated or Exiled? Ferenc Rákóczi II
William O’Reilly, A life in exile: Charles VI
Anna Keay, “The shadow of a king”? Charles II of Great Britain in exile
John Jeremiah Cronin, The Irish royalist elite of Charles II and the Caroline Stuart Court in exile, c. 1649-1660
Karen Britland, Exile or homecoming? Henrietta Maria in France, 1644-1660
Edward Corp, The extended exile of James III
Philip Mansel, From Exile to the Throne: The Europeanisation of Louis XVIII
Peter Hicks, Napoleon on Elba
Heidi Mehrkens, The Politics of Waiting: Empress Eugenie
Guy Stair Sainty, The Bourbons of Naples in exile
Torsten Riotte, Hanoverian exile and Prussian governance: George V and Ernst August of Hanover
James Rettallack, Johann of Saxony
John Röhl, The Unicorn in Winter. Kaiser Wilhelm II in Amerongen and Doorn 1918-1941

Greenwich Palace
25 April 2005
Greenwich, London
Conveners: Anna Keay and Simon Thurley

Speakers

Philip Dixon, The Tudor Palace at Greenwich
Thom Richardson, The Greenwich Armouries
Simon Thurley, Architecture and Diplomacy: Greenwich Palace under the Stuarts
Gordon Higgott, The Design and Setting of Inigo Jones’s Queen’s House, 1616-40
David Jacques, Garden Works in Greenwich Park, 1662-1728
Julian M.C. Bowsher, The Chapel Royal at Greenwich Palace

Court and Capitals, 1815-1914 (I)
1 October 2005
Wallace Collection, London
Conveners: Steven Brindle and Philip Mansel

Speakers

Professor David Watkin, The Transformation of Munich into a Royal Capital by Kings Maximilian I Joseph and Ludwig I
Dr Stephen Parissien, George IV, Regent and King, and London c. 1811-1830
Dr Philip Mansel, Paris: Court City of Europe, c. 1800-1870
Dr Tom Verschaffel, King and City: Brussels under Leopold I and Leopold II
Dr Alan Sked, Franz Joseph and the creation of the Ringstrasse
Dr Steven Brindle, Buckingham Palace, the Victoria Memorial and the Mall, 1901-1914

Coronations Conference
27 March 2004
Senate House, London
Convener Robert Lacey

Speakers

Jinty Nelson, Carolingian Coronation Rituals: a model for Europe?
Richard Wortman, The Russian Coronation: rite and representation
Sir Roy Strong, The English Coronation – a call for a wider perspective
Philip Mansel, From Constantinopole to Cairo: Ottoman inaugurations and their successors
Dougal Shaw, Scotland’s Place in Britain’s Coronation Tradition
Graham Gendall Norton, The Budapest Habsburg Coronation of 1916
Jeffrey Richards, The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and Film

A Tale of Two Crowns: The Courts of England and France 1066-1904
19-20 November 2004
Institut Français, London
Conveners: Glenn Richardson and Philip Mansel

Speakers

Professor David Bates, The Norman Conquest in the Context of Anglo-French Relations
Professor David Carpenter, The Meetings of Henry III and Louis IX
Dr Rachel Gibbons, The Background of the Marriage of Isabelle of France and Richard II, 1396
Professor Anne Curry, Henry VI’s Coronation and Anglo-French relations, 1420-1432
Dr David Potter, Politics and Faction at the Court of France from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance: the development of a political culture, 1300-1600
Professor Charles Giry-Deloison, Edward IV, Henry VII and France
Professor Robert Knecht, The Nobilities of France and England in the Sixteenth Century
Cédric Michon, Pomp and Circumstances: the courtly prelates of France and England, 1515-1547
Dr Glenn Richardson, Postcards from the Edge: Francis I and England’s break with Rome
Dr Susan Doran, Elizabeth I and Catherine de Médici
Dr Simon Thurley, Henrietta Maria and England
Loic Bienassis, Richelieu and England, 1634-1642
Dr Sonja Kmec, Playing the International Card: the networks of noble women in seventeenth-century France and England
Anna Keay, Charles II and Lessons Learned in France
Dr Tony Claydon, William III and Louis XIV
Dr David Onnekink, Anglo-French Negotiations on the Spanish Partition Treaties (1698-1700): a revaluation
Dr Peter Campbell, Fleury, Horace Walpole and Anglo-French relations
Dr Nigel Aston, Two Courts, one Courtier: the third Duke of Dorset as British Ambassador to France, 1784-1789
Clarissa Campbell Orr, Scandal, morality, intellect and virtue at Versailles and Windsor, 1760-1800
Dr Philip Mansel, From War to Peace: the House of Hanover and the Crown of France, 1783-1855
Professor Edward Royle, British Radicals and French Revolutions, 1789-1848

Golden Jubilee Conference: Royal Ritual in the Media Age
11 May 2002
Institute of Mechanical Engineers, London
Convener: Robert Lacey

Speakers

Richard Brown, “It is a Very Wonderful Process…” Film and British Royalty 1896-1902
John Wolffe, The People’s King: the crowd and the media funeral of Edward VII, May 1910
Robert Lacey, Made for the Media: the twentieth century investitures of the Princes of Wales, with commentary and recollections of the Investiture of July 1969 by Lord Snowdon
David Reed, What a Lovely Frock: royal weddings and the illustrated press in the pre-television age
Daniel Brittain-Catlin, Presenting and Explaining the Constitutional Crown to the Twenty-first Century
Luke McKernan, The Finest Cinema Performers We Possess: British royalty and the newsreels, 1910-37
Philip Ziegler, Edward VIII: the modern monarch?
Nigel Dacre, The Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales
Hugo Vickers, The Man Who was Helen Cathcart

Somerset House: Architecture, Religion and Etiquette 1547-1692
28 September 2001
Courtauld Institute, Somerset House, London

Speakers

David Starkey
Maurice Howard
Simon Thurley
David Baldwin
Caroline Hibbard
Roy Sherwood
Peter Leech
Frances Harris.

Courts without Kings? The Political Center in Colonies, Provinces and Republics 21-23 September 2000
Bayside Exposition Center, Boston
Convener: Malcolm Smuts

Speakers

Lawrence Bryant, The Collapse of Ducal Burgundy and New Configurations of French Royal Ceremonies; 1476-1484
Kristen Neuschel, French Noble Households in the Sixteenth Century: the evidence of material culture
Timothy Raylor, A Prince in the Provinces? William Cavendish, first Duke of Newcastle
Catherine Wilkinson-Zerner, The Duke of Lerma and his Town
Luc Duerloo, From Sovereignty to Viceregality: the Netherlands court of the widowed Infanta Isabella and the revolt of 1632
Alejanda Osorio, The King in Lima: the power of simulacra in seventeenth-century Lima
Alejandra Caneque, Royal Authority, Viceregal Patronage and the Specter of Corruption in Seventeenthp-Century New Spain
Nancy Fee, King versus Kingdom: Juan de Palafax y Mendoza and the controversy over the Puebla Cathedral retable arms
Linda Curcio-Nagy, The Concept of the Good Vassal: Amerindians and Africans in the Habsburg viceregal entry of Mexico City
James Robertson, Here his Grace Resides: Spanish Town and the place of the royal governor in English Jamaica, 1661-c.1720)
Linda Sturtz, Dining Room Politics: Lady Berkeley of Virginia
Mridu Rai, From Hindu Rulers to Hindu State: territorializing religion and political control in the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir
Manu Bhagavan, Demystifying the ‘Ideal Progressive’, resistance through mimicked modernity in princely Baroda, 1900-1913
Thomas Arnold, Courts on Campaign: military adventures and the great captains of the sixteenth century
George Gorse, A Court in a Republic: art and pageantry at the villa of Andrea Doria in Genoa
Derek Hirst, Heroism and the English Republic
Lorraine Madway, The Remaking of Majesty: Oliver Cromwell and the visual imagery of monarchy
Nigel Smith, Purified Form: literary culture in the Commonwealth courts, 1649-1660
Thomas Willette, Art History as Patriotic Memory: the promotion of civil society in Naples in the time of the Austrian viceroys, 1707-1734
Daniel Gordon, Courtliness and Civility: the Elias thesis revisited
Fredrika Teute & David Shields, The Confederation Court
Catherine Allgor, Aristocratic Longings, Aristocratic Anxieties: Dolly Madison and the White House
Pamela Scott, A Comparison of P. L’Enfant’s and Thomas Jefferson’s Plans for the Federal City
Philip Mansel, The Court of the First Consul, 1799-1804

British Orders of Chivalry
Thursday 21 September 2000, Society of Antiquaries,
The Order of the Bath and the Nineteenth-Century Expansion of Chivalric Orders
Friday 22 September 2000, College of Saint George, Windsor Castle
The Orders of the Garter and the Thistle

Speakers

Rev. Dr Peter Galloway, Anglo-Irish Relations and the Demise of the Order of St Patrick
Dr Andrew Hanham, History of Parliament Trust, The Refoundation of the Order of the Bath
Fionn Pilbrow, The Medieval Knighthood of the Bath
David White, Rouge Croix, College of Arms, Projects for New Orders and the Early Nineteenth-Century Expansion of the Bath
Charles Burnett, Ross Herald, The Order of the Thistle in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries
Dr Nicholas Cranfield, The Politicization of the Garter under Charles I
Dr Hannes Kleinecke, History of Parliament Trust, The Garter in Crisis: the Late Middle Ages and the Problem of Peace
Dr Shelagh Mitchell, Ladies of the Garter in the Late Middle Ages

Reponses to Regicide
1 February 1999
Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies
Convener: Malcolm Smuts

Speakers

Joyce Malcolm, The Missing Mob. Why Charles I was not Rescued
Howard Nenner, January 30 Commemorations: the responses to regicide
Steven Zwicker, Passions and Occasions: Milton, Marvell and the politics of reading, c. 1649
David Smith, Oliver Cromwell, Religious Reform and the First Protectorate Parliament

The Role of the Consort
16-18 September 1999
Institute of Historical Research/Kew Gardens, London
Convener: Clarissa Campbell Orr

Speakers

Janet L. Nelson, Consorts in the Middle Ages: the origins of the European role
Sally Hickson, Isabella d’Este
Eric Ives, Consorts and Mistresses: Anne Boleyn
Robert Knecht, Royal consorts & ‘privados’ in seventeeth-century Spain
Lis Granlund, Hedwiga Eleonora of Sweden
Mark Bryant, The Unofficial Consort: Mme de Maintenon
Helen Payne, Anne of Denmark as a Mother
Frances Harris, Catherine of Bragança
Simon Thurley, Mary II
Caroline Hibbard, Henrietta Maria: establishing the role of consort
Joanna Marschner, Queen Caroline as a Collector
Christine Gerrard, Queen in Waiting: Caroline of Ansbach & Augusta of Saxe-Gotha as Princesses of Wales
Clarissa Campbell Orr, Charlotte, Scientific Queen
Marcia Pointon, Maternal Paragon or Luxurious Consumer? Queen Charlotte in Portraiture and Caricature
Bill Purdue, The Consort Maligned: Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen
John Bullion, Princess Augusta: the consort as contrast
John Rogister, Maria Leszczynska and Court Faction at the French Court
Curt Noel, Barbara of Bragança and Isabella Farnese
Melissa Calaresu, The Queen and the Philosophers: Maria Carolina and the Neapolitan Enlightenment
Richard King, Anne of Hanover and Orange
Michael Brengsbo, Danish Consorts: Louisa, Caroline Matilda and Juliana Maria
Aubrey Newman, Sophia of Hanover, her daughter and grand-daughter-in-law
Thomas Biskup, Hohenzollern Consorts
Peter Wilson, Württemberg Consorts

The Court Painter in Seventeenth-Century Europe: Van Dyck and his contemporaries
26-27 November 1999
The National Gallery, London

Speakers

Jonathan Brown, Velazquez and the Conventions of Portraiture in Spain
Malcolm Smuts, The Structure of the Court and the Role of the Artist
Jeremy Wood, Van Dyck, Hamilton and Bortolo della Nave
Gabriele Finaldi, Gentileschi and the patronage of Queen Henrietta Maria
Diana Dethloff, Van Dyck’s Legacy: Lely and the court of Charles II
David Howarth on Van Dyck
Jonathan Israel on the court of Frederik Hendrik Prince of Orange
Arabella Cifani and Toby Osborne on painters at the court of Savoy
Marcello Fantoni on Justus Susterman and the Medici
Emanuel Coquery on the court of Louis XIII
Friedrich Polleross on the court painters of the Austrian Habsburgs in the seventeenth century.

From Castiglione to Kennedy: Courts, Courtiers and Power, 1500-1963
2-4 April 1998
Society of Antiquaries, London and Chapter Library, St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle

Speakers

Malcom Smuts, The English Court
Robert Frost, The Vasa Kings of Poland
Marcello Fantoni, The Grand Dukes of Tuscany
Ronald Asch, Images of Power
Tim Blanning, George I and Augustus II
Toby Barnard, The Lord Lieutenants of Ireland
Hugh Roberts, George IV
Thomas Biskup, The Dukes of Brunswick
Simon Adams, Elizabeth and Leicester
David Edwards, The 10th Earl of Ormonde
John Guy, Mary I
Jeroen Duindam, Louis XIV
Olivier Chaline, Factions at Versailles
Caroline Hibbard, The Politics of Honour at the Stuart Court
Michael Bentley, Queen Victoria
Luc Duerloo, Seventeeth-Century Brussels
Niall Ferguson, The Rothschilds
Dominic Lieven, Nicholas II
Ferdinand Mount, Mrs Thatcher
Jeremy Noakes, Hitler

Chapels Royal: Politics, Doctrine and the Arts at the Early-Modern Court 1400-1720
13-15 February 1997
The Society of Antiquaries; The Institute of Historical Research; St James’s Palace; Hampton Court Palace

Speakers

Werner Jacobsen, The Carolingian and Ottonian Palace Chapels
Thomas Campbell, Tapestries and the English Chapel Royal
Robert Bucholz, The Officers and Servants of the Chapel Royal, 1660-1714
Monique Chatenet, The Chapel Royal in Valois France
Edward Corp, The Jacobite Chapel Royal at St-Germain-en-Laye
Henry Fernandez, Julius II’s Palatine Chapel: the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Palace
David Watkin, Monarchy and Liturgy: The Chapels Royal of Louis XIV at Versailles, Marly and Fontainebleau
(and many others)
The conference included tours of the Queen’s Chapel and the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace, and concluded with a reconstruction of a 1540 Tudor mass in the chapel at Hampton Court.