ABSTRACT
This chapter explores various aspects of the non-reproductive aspects of queenship, starting with the personal, religious and medical factors that resulted in childlessness. It examines the coping mechanisms in which childless monarchs attempted to explain away the lack of heirs through insinuations of chaste marriage or diffuse the situation by portraying childless queens as non-biological mothers. The chapter also examines the importance of intercession, cultural patronage and caring for other’s children that could provide avenues to power and successful fulfilment of the role of queen in the absence of children. Queens looked to a variety of medical remedies for childlessness. Spiritual recourse, such as pilgrimages, was especially popular. Childlessness also forces scholars to reconsider queenship as a composite of subtle but important variations of power. Aside from broadening ideas about queenship, the successes of childless queens remind that dynasty is a broad term, encompassing many royal relatives.
