ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part deals with Grand Prince Simeon’s family, whose candle of dynastic continuity was flickering as precariously as he approached death in the year 1353. It examines the strategies for installing primogeniture in Muscovy and situates the Muscovite practice of anticipatory association in and among other monarchical systems that employed the custom. The part explores the way the Salic Law came to be transformed and appropriated by the French magnates and the Valois branch of the Capetian dynasty to keep the English off the French throne. It illustrates a general observation that Duindam made about monarchy: that ‘almost all peoples across the globe until very recently accepted dynastic rule as a god-given and desirable form of power’, with ‘divergent practices’ that ‘can be seen as part of the same pattern’.
