Royal Geographies in Early Modern Europe: Concepts, Evolution, Types

José Eloy Hortal Muñoz - "Royal Geographies in Early Modern Europe: Concepts, Evolution, Types"

NOTE: The seminar will take place at 17:00 CET/16:00 GMT

Abstract

Nowadays rulers’ palaces and residences are often regarded by citizens as curious dwellings of royal families who lived isolated from society. However, these places were not only built for pleasure but belonged to a larger network of buildings and estates that together became increasingly significant means of consolidating sovereigns’ power from the Middle Ages onwards. We believe that further studies need to be carried out on these spaces from new perspectives, in order to gain an understanding of their true importance in shaping the European monarchies.

This involves addressing them from new approaches and methodologies, which can help improve our understanding of courtly space, as these studies underline the need to pay increasing attention to the use and conception of space as something that is not inert but structural. Thus, space helps us understand how society has been organized and how people interacted with their environment. The term ‘geography’ expresses our interest in the way the physicality of spaces and landscapes was acted upon and produced through cultural practices.

On that basis, Court Studies conducted over the past decades shows us that, although the classical definition of Court referred to three elements (Royal Household, Councils, and Courtiers), it left out a very important one, the Royal Geographies. Besides, Court must refer not solely to the place where the king and his entourage dwelled, but also encompass places where the monarch was present, both physically and metaphorically; maintaining such a presence was particularly significant to European monarchies through the Royal Geographies, especially in places the monarch did not live in and seldom visited.

This contribution examines the evolution of European Royal Geographies from Middle Ages to Early Modern Times, from these new methodological approaches in Humanities.

Bio

José Eloy Hortal Muñoz is Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the University Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid. His main research interests are the political history of the Habsburg Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Courts of Brussels and Madrid in both these centuries, the Royal Households of the Spanish Habsburgs and, lastly, the Royal Sites and Geographies.

His major works include the monographs Las guardas reales de los Austrias hispanos (Madrid, 2013); and (with G. Versteegen) Las ideas políticas y sociales en la Edad Moderna (Madrid, 2016). He has also edited Politics and Piety at the Royal Sites of the Spanish Monarchy in the Seventeenth Century (Turnhout, 2021), and co-edited (with R. Vermeir and D. Raeymaekers) A Constellation of Courts: The Households of Habsburg Europe, 1555-1665 (Louvain, 2014); and (with A. Espíldora García and P.-F. Pirlet), El ceremonial en la Corte de Bruselas del siglo XVII. Los manuscritos de Francisco Alonso Lozano (Brussels, 2018), which was awarded the Henry Pirenne Prize in 2019.