Essay Prize
The Society for Court Studies offers an annual prize on the subject of court studies. The recipient of the prize will receive £500 and their essay will be considered for publication in The Court Historian. The essay, which can be up to 10,000 words including footnotes, can focus on any area of court studies, with no restrictions on time period or geographic location.
Submissions are welcomed from post-graduate and early career researchers who have completed their PhD within the last six years.
Deadline for the next essay submission is 31 May 2026. Submissions should be sent to thecourthistorian@courtstudies.org.
Past Prize Recipients
2025
Elizabeth Hines (Johns Hopkins University) – “How to Pawn the Crown Jewels”
2024
Casper Thorhauge Briggs-Mønsted and Louise Kjærgaard Depner – (University of Copenhagen) – “Wet Trousers, Entrapment and Good Sports: The Wetting Trap Chair at Rosenborg Castle and Other Trap Chairs in Early Modern Europe”
2023
Harry Lewis – (University of Edinburgh) – “The Stuart Court in Exile, the Irish Nobility and the French Caribbean, 1688-1785”
2022
Eloise Davies (University of Oxford) – “England’s Lost Renaissance? Anglo-Venetian Politics between the Household of Prince Henry and the Court of James VI & I”
2021
Matthew Gin (University of North Carolina – Charlotte) – “Ephemeral Architecture and the Entry of Maria Teresa Rafaela into France, 1745”
2020
Georgia Vullinghs (University of Edinburgh) – “Fit for a Queen: The Material and Visual Culture of Maria Clementina Sobieska, Jacobite Queen in Exile”
2019
Matthew Firth (Flinders University) – “Æthelred II ‘the Unready’ and the Role of Kingship in Gunnlaugs saga Ormstungu”