Reconsidering Courtly Environments, c. 1200-1800: Interconnecting European Court Cultures and the Role of Natural Environments and Landscapes

20 -21 November 2025
Academy Conference Centre, Prague, Czechia
Co-Organisers: Household and Environmental Studies (HES), the Centre for Research on Courts and Residences (DaR) of the Institute of History at the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Society for Court Studies

Keynotes:

Luc Duerloo (University of Antwerp)

The full programme of speakers can be found here.

Courtly Experiences in the Premodern World, c. 1200-1800: Cultural, Material and Sensory Experiences in the World of the Court

22 -24 August 2024
Palacký University Olomouc, Olomouc, Czechia
Organisers: Patrik Pastrnak (Palacký University Olomouc/SCS-European Branch Conference Officer) and Dustin M. Neighbors (University of Helsinki/SCS Conference Secretary

Keynotes:

Karl Kügle (University of Oxford/ Utrecht University)

Leah R. Clark (University of Oxford)

The full programme of speakers can be found here.

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

26 -26 May 2023
Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid
Organisers: José Eloy Hortal Muñoz (URJC), Jonathan Spangler (Manchester Metropolitan), Silvia Z. Mitchell (Purdue), Felix Labrador Arroyo (URJC)

Keynotes:

Ana Eschevarría Arsuage (UNED)

Bethany Aram (University of Seville)

The full programme of speakers can be found here.

The Embodied Court: Procreation – Sexuality – Lifestyles – Death

1–3 September 2022
University of Helsinki/Turku (hybrid format)
Organisers: Janet Dickinson (New York University, London and the Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford/Society for Court Studies (SCS), Conference Secretary), Erika Graham-Goering (Ghent University/SCS – European Branch, Conference Secretary), Dustin M. Neighbors (University of Helsinki/SCS – European Branch, Chair), and Anu Lahtinen (University of Helsinki)

Keynote speakers:

Helen Watanabe O’Kelly (University of Oxford)

Svante Norrhem (Lund University)

Anu Lahtinen (University of Helsinki)

The full programme of speakers can be found here.

No conference was organised due to COVID

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.

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’. The conference programme can be found here.

Horses and Courts

21-23 March 2018
Organisers: Donna Landry and Philip Mansel

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

19-21 April 2018
Royal Museums Greenwich, London
Organisers: Janet Dickinson and Jackie Riding

This international conference marked 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, Hiram Morgan, Dustin Neighbors, and others, with 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)

10 November 2018
Art Workers’ Guild, 6 Queen Square, London

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)

European Court Culture & Greenwich Palace, 1500-1750: Queen’s House Conference

20-22 April 2017
National Maritime Museum and the Queen’s House, Greenwich

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. The conference programme can be found here.

Animals at Court

8-10 December 2016
Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich, Germany

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 Perquisites

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

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, California
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:

Paul Binski

David Carpenter

John Crook

Chris Thomas

Simon Carter

Jason Peacey

Mark Collins

Malcolm Hay

Gavin Stamp

Sir John Sainty

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:

David Watkin, The Transformation of Munich into a Royal Capital by Kings Maximilian I Joseph and Ludwig I

Stephen Parissien, George IV, Regent and King, and London c. 1811-1830

Philip Mansel, Paris: Court City of Europe, c. 1800-1870

Tom Verschaffel, King and City: Brussels under Leopold I and Leopold II

Alan Sked, Franz Joseph and the creation of the Ringstrasse

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:

David Bates, The Norman Conquest in the Context of Anglo-French Relations

David Carpenter, The Meetings of Henry III and Louis IX

Rachel Gibbons, The Background of the Marriage of Isabelle of France and Richard II, 1396

Anne Curry, Henry VI’s Coronation and Anglo-French relations, 1420-1432

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

Charles Giry-Deloison, Edward IV, Henry VII and France

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

Glenn Richardson, Postcards from the Edge: Francis I and England’s break with Rome

Susan Doran, Elizabeth I and Catherine de Médici

Simon Thurley, Henrietta Maria and England

Loic Bienassis, Richelieu and England, 1634-1642

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

Tony Claydon, William III and Louis XIV

David Onnekink, Anglo-French Negotiations on the Spanish Partition Treaties (1698-1700): a revaluation

Peter Campbell, Fleury, Horace Walpole and Anglo-French relations

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

Philip Mansel, From War to Peace: the House of Hanover and the Crown of France, 1783-1855

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, Massachusetts
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

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

Nicholas Cranfield, The Politicization of the Garter under Charles I

Hannes Kleinecke, History of Parliament Trust, The Garter in Crisis: the Late Middle Ages and the Problem of Peace

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)