ABSTRACT
Queenship has often been taken for granted as if it were a natural part of the medieval landscape. In fact, like any other human product, material or social, it was fashioned by men and women in particular times and places. To ask under what conditions it took shape means defining at the outset what is specific about new kinds of power in the first formative period of western European history, that is, the earlier Middle Ages. Studying medieval queenship is salutary, because it requires an inclusive definition of power, one in which the social encompasses the political: it requires attention to gender division but also to the complementarity of women's agency and men's, to informal as well as formal action, to the pursuit of ends that are both personal and political, and, always, to social context.
