This book examines the rituals, ceremonies, gestures and actions of kings in the period 1100-1250. Whereas modern English Kingship is commonly seen as "bureaucratic," kingship during the Twelfth Century was a sacral, ritualistic phenomenon. Although focusing predominantly on English political culture, the author also explores the wider European arena to compare their contemporary political cultures and by doing so offer a new conceptual approach to the study of political society in Norman and Angevin England.

Editors: Janet Burton, Bjorn Weiler, Philipp Schofield, Karen Stober The thirteenth century brought the British Isles into ever closer contact with one another, and with medieval Europe as a whole. This international dimension forms a dominant theme of this collection: it features essays on England's relations with the papal court; the adoption of European cultural norms in Scotland; Welsh society and crusading; English landholding in Ireland; and dealings between the kings of England and Navarre. Other papers, on ritual crucifixion, concepts of office and ethcis, and the English royal...