Publicaties

This article explores the gendered dimensions of the Belgian monarchy by focusing on three distinct topics. First, the article addresses the matter of succession to the throne. In Belgium, the exclusion of women from succeeding to the monarchy came to an end in 1991, but the first female monarch has yet to ascend to the throne. Next, the article examines the gendered dimensions of the way in which Belgium’s recent monarchs have exercised their ...

Across the medieval and early modern eras, new rulers were celebrated with increasingly elaborate coronations and inaugurations that symbolically conferred legitimacy and political power upon them. Many historians have considered rituals like these as irrelevant to understanding modern governance - an idea that this volumes challenges through illuminating case studies focused on the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Habsburg lands. Taking the ...

Across the medieval and early modern eras, new rulers were celebrated with increasingly elaborate coronations and inaugurations that symbolically conferred legitimacy and political power upon them. Many historians have considered rituals like these as irrelevant to understanding modern governance—an idea that this volume challenges through illuminating case studies focused on the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Habsburg lands. Taking the ...

The constitutional monarchy as an essential 'modern' state form of the restoration period was intended to restore order and stability in Europe. In this respect, there is more of a break than continuity between the constitutional model that William I introduced in 1814-1815 and the constitutional monarchy to which Leopold I, the first king of the Belgians, had to subject himself in 1831. The specific authoritarian interpretation that William I ...

The A.D. 362/3 crisis in Antioch is usually interpreted as an economic or ideological crisis, and Julian's Misopogon as a 'festive satire' or 'edict of chastisement'. This article situates the root of the problem in a crisis of communication: Julian's failure to communicate publicly as expected in a situation that was tense because of the food shortage led to a short-circuit between emperor and subjects. Whilst the Misopogon is Julian's ...