Queen Maria of Castile, wife of Alfonso V, "the Magnanimous,"
king of the Crown of Aragon, governed Catalunya in the
mid-fifteenth century while her husband conquered and governed the
kingdom of Naples. For twenty-six years, she maintained a royal
court and council separate from and roughly equivalent to those of
Alfonso in Naples. Such legitimately sanctioned political authority
is remarkable given that she ruled not as queen in her own right
but rather as Lieutenant-General of Catalunya with powers
equivalent to the king's. Maria does not fit conventional images of
a queen as wife and mother; indeed, she had no children and so
never served as queen-regent for any royal heirs in their
minorities or exercised a queen-mother's privilege to act as
diplomat when arranging the marriages of her children and
grandchildren. But she was clearly more than just a wife offering
advice: she embodied the king's personal authority and was second
only to the king himself. She was his alter ego, the other royal
body fully empowered to govern. For a medieval queen, this official
form of corulership, combining exalted royal status with official
political appointment, was rare and striking."The King's Other
Body" is both a biography of Maria and an analysis of her political
partnership with Alfonso. Maria's long, busy tenure as lieutenant
prompts a reconsideration of long-held notions of power,
statecraft, personalities, and institutions. It is also a study of
the institution of monarchy and a theoretical reconsideration of
the operations of gender within it. If the practice of monarchy is
conventionally understood as strictly a man's job, Maria's reign
presents a compelling argument for a more complex model, one
attentive to the dynamic relationship of queenship and kingship and
the circumstances and theories that shaped the institution she
inhabited.
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