This episode, hosted by Dr Ellie Woodacre, features another roundtable with members of the Henry on Tour project team--we discuss the progresses of Henry VIII and the big themes of the project including kingship & queenship, logistics, legacy and performance.

About the project: This exciting three-year venture brings together a cross-disciplinary team of scholars and technical specialists from both the academic and heritage sectors to explore, evaluate and reconceptualise Henry VIII’s progresses. Led by Historic Royal Palaces in collaboration with the Universities of York and Newcastle, the main research focus will be on the logistics of Henry’s journeys around his realm and their performance as a spectacle, their significance in demonstrating kingship and queenship, and their legacy for the study and interpretation of the Tudors in schools and at heritage sites. The project will map Henry VIII’s complete itinerary for the first time and the associated landscapes, the routes taken, the venues visited and the palaces, country houses and ecclesiastical institutions that accommodated the royal household. Henry VIII on Tour will thus be presenting new stories, posing and answering innovative research questions, and hopefully inspiring greater curiosity about local places and heritage sites. As well as contributing to our understanding of Henry VIII, his wives and court and the relationship with his people in historical terms, the project will be reflecting on what monarchy and visibility means to us in the 21st century.

Check out their upcoming project events HERE.

Guest Bios:
Anthony Musson Project lead / Theme lead: logistics
Historic Royal Palaces

Professor Anthony Musson joined Historic Royal Palaces in 2018 to lead and foster a distinctive vision for the charity’s research into historic palaces, diverse communities, landscapes and collections. He is editor with JPD Cooper of Royal Journeys in Early Modern Europe (Routledge, 2022).

Kate Giles Theme lead: legacy
University of York

Kate is a building historian and archaeologist with a particular interest in the study of late medieval and early modern communal and public buildings. As Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity & Culture, Kate works with national, regional and local organisations to find creative ways of sustaining and sharing their heritage with others.

Kirsty Wright Post-Doctoral Research Assistant
Historic Royal Palaces

My research focuses on early modern architecture, politics and government. I completed my PhD at the University of York on the Exchequer of Receipt in the Palace of Westminster, which explored the relationship between institutional development and the architecture of the palace.

Toby Ward
Ensemble Pro Victoria

Founded at Cambridge in 2015, EPV is a pioneer in combining high-level performance with the latest research. Under their director Toby Ward, EPV won joint-first prize at the London International Festival of Early Music Young Ensemble Competition (2020). Their Gramophone award-nominated debut recording, Robert Fayrfax: Music for Tudor Kings and Queens, was released by Delphian in 2021. Their second album, Tudor Music Afterlives (Delphian, 2022) includes new polyphonic reconstructions.

In this episode we feature a project which aims to collect all known images of queens and royal women, called “Reines en images”. Host Ellie Woodacre interviews the project's creator, Matthieu Mensch, discussing the genesis of the project, plans for future expansion and the relevance to images of royal women today. If you are interested in getting involved with the project, Matthieu would love to hear from you, see his contact details below to get in touch.

Guest information:

• Matthieu's webpage at the University of Strasbourg
• Social Media:
  • Instagram @matthieu.mensch
  • Twitter/X @MatthieuMensch

Bio: Matthieu Mensch obtained his PhD in History from the University of Strasbourg, under joint supervision with the University Federico II of Naples. He worked on the construction and use of images of the Duchesses of Angoulême and Berry from their lifetime to our contemporary reappropriations. He is currently a research associate at the ARCHE Laboratory in the Faculty of Historical Sciences at the University of Strasbourg. His research focuses on queenship and representations, and his first book on the female entourage of Louis XVIII (Les Femmes de Louis XVIII) will be published in September 2024 with Perrin. He is also preparing a book on Marie-Thérèse Charlotte de France, to be published by Routledge in its Lives of Royal Women series.

This episode features e-Reginae, an exciting project in the field of queenship studies, based at the University of Lisbon. This roundtable includes three members of the project team: project leader Professor Ana Maria S.A Rodrigues, Inês Olaia and Pedro de Sousa. We'll be discussing the project aims, the inspiration behind e-Reginae and their plans for the future--certainly a project with real potential for fellow researchers in queenship and royal studies!

Find out more about the project on their website and by following them on social media!
The project website: http://ereginae.wordpress.com

Instagram - @e.reginae

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ereginaeproject

Twitter/X - @eReginaeProject

Guest information:

• Ana Maria S. A. Rodrigues (MA, Sorbonne Université, 1981; PhD University of Minho, 1992; Habilitation, University of Minho, 2002) is Associate Professor at the University of Lisbon and a researcher at its Centre for History. Her research focuses on Portuguese medieval queenship, from the queens’ estates and revenue to jurisdictional and political powers to religious and artistic patronage. Her most recent publications are “Splendour in life, humility in death: Queen Leonor de Lencastre (1458-1525) and the women around her”, Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, 16-1 (2024); Dynastic Change: Legitimacy and Gender in Medieval and Early Modern Monarchy, Ana Maria S. A. Rodrigues, Manuela Santos Silva and Jonathan Spangler eds. (Routledge, 2020); “The Queen Consort in Castile and Portugal. María de Aragon (b. 1403-d. 1445), Queen of Castile and Leonor de Aragon (b. 1405/1408-d. 1445), Queen of Portugal”, in J. Roe and J. Andrews eds., Representing Women’s Political Identity in the Early Modern Iberian World (Routledge, 2020).
• Inês Olaia is a PhD candidate in Medieval History at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon with a scholarship from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia. Her thesis is titled “By the Grace of God Queen of Portugal: queens’ functions and practices in Medieval Portugal”. She holds a MA in Medieval History, with a dissertation on the queens' rule of the towns of Alenquer and Aldeia Galega da Merceana. Her publications include a study of an inquest into Filipa of Coimbra, sister of queen Isabel in 2022, a study on the rule of queens Teresa and Sancha over several towns in Portugal and a work on the itineraries of the queens of Manuel I in 2023.
• Pedro de Sousa is a 3rd-year student of the History degree at the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon (FLUL) and the Grant Holder of the eReginae project. His responsibilities consisted of searching and locating the documents issued by the medieval queens of Portugal, as well as their paleographical transcription and uploading to the EGPA (Escritório Galego-Português Antigo) platform. Pedro is also one of the founders and directors of the History Students Union at FLUL.