In this event Professor Charles West (University of Edinburgh) presented his lecture on ‘Alike in Appearance but not in Scope’: Queens and the Making of Medieval Europe.

The lecture took place on Friday 6 February 2026 and was hosted by the Royal Historical Society, UK.

 

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About this lecture

Whereas medieval kings tended to rule in the same place they were born, queens were routinely foreigners within their own realm. This lecture starts from this simple observation to reconsider the position of queens in the ‘making’ of post-Carolingian Europe, alongside that of the knights and clerics on whom historical attention has often focused.

Through a set of case studies, the lecture looks at the role played by queens as cultural ambassadors in creating, both deliberately and unwittingly, a human network that transcended political borders.

About our speaker

Professor Charles West is Professor of Medieval History History at the University of Edinburgh with research interests in the history of Europe in the early and high Middle Ages. Charles’s research focuses on changes in ideas and practices of public order with reference to three principal areas: the relationship between religious and secular fields of activity, local society and its relation to hegemonic authority, and comparisons of regional, regnal, European and Eurasian scales of analysis.

Charles is the author of nine monographs, co-authored books and edited collections. Of these the most recent are: Europe in the Eleventh Century. Beyond Revolution and Reform (OUP, 2025), Local Priests in the Latin West, 900–1050, co-written with Alice Hicklin, Steffen Patzold and Bastiaan Waagmeester (CUP, 2025) and The Fall of a Carolingian Kingdom – University of Toronto Press (University of Toronto Press, 2023). Prior to moving to Edinburgh in 2023, Charles taught for 15 years at the University of Sheffield.