On Friday 6 February the Society hosted the first lecture in its 2026 programme. Our great thanks to Professor Charles West (University of Edinburgh) who spoke on: ‘”Alike in Appearance but not in Scope”: Queens and the Making of Medieval Europe’.

 

Watch this lecture

 

Listen to this lecture

 

Charles’s lecture considered the mobility of queens in early medieval Europe. Whereas medieval kings tended to rule in the same place they were born, queens were routinely foreigners within their own realm.

This mobility ensured that queens, and their retinue, held a central place in the ‘making’ of post-Carolingian Europe, alongside that of the knights and clerics on whom historical attention has often focused.

Charles’s lecture explored the considerable extent of, and connections forged by, royal women travelling to become queens in realms outside those of their birth. Central to the lecture was the early medieval fascination with chess in which then, as now, it is the queen who possesses greater mobility on the board.

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

Our great thanks to Charles for his lecture, and to all who attended this event in person and online. The recording of the lecture will be available shortly.

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RHS Events Archive

Charles’s lecture is one of many recent Royal Historical Society events now available to watch or listen to again via the RHS Events Archive.

Recent speakers include the historians Jane Ohlmeyer on early modern Irish women, Yasmin Khan on empire and war, Peter Gatrell on refugees in the twentieth century, and Mark Stoyle on Tudor rebellion.