EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT... MEDIEVAL QUEENS AND FAMILY
Q: How important was motherhood for a medieval queen?
A: Maternity was absolutely central to queenship, and not just in the Middle Ages. Queens were under a great deal of pressure to produce children because dynastic continuity and dynastic survival were crucial. But even saying that, women like Anne of Bohemia, who didn’t have any children, could still be really effective queens in other ways.
Queens obviously had huge responsibilities. They were running their households, their lands, engaged in the political and ceremonial aspects of royal life, and they often had to be on the move with their husbands. All of this meant that they weren’t always in the same place as their children.
Royal children were often set up in miniature royal households of their own, attended to by a team of servants – nurses, governesses, tutors, even their own laundresses. But that’s not to say that queens had no input into their children’s lives. Many queens were very involved in their children’s education,
