Legitimizing the Queen deals with a genre particular to the Middle Ages:
the specula principum (mirror of prince). Its importance as an object of
study may be understood in light of the political instability that
wracked the Castilian fifteenth century. The many works written for and
dedicated to Isabel I of Castile depict her kingdom as a shipwrecked
boat, a wayward realm, and a land of bankrupt people. These works
suggest the kingdom's need for redemption through the strong leadership
of the Catholic monarchs. These largely propagandistic works were
designed to garner power, and once maintained, further Isabel's agenda.
This book frames the concept of sovereignty from the theoretical
perspective of the speculum principum dedicated to her. It offers a
Bourdieuian approach to the more literary specula texts used to
legitimize and uphold Isabel's power. This book reveals propagandistic
qualities promoting the ideology necessary to legitimize and support
Isabel's claims to the throne. Written primarily between 1468 and 1493,
these works are literary artifacts that mark the rise to power of a
female sovereign. The study discusses the various strategies of
legitimation employed by these propagandists whose works circulated
within noble and royal courts, and presumably extended into Castile as
justification for her sovereign claim to the throne. By analyzing
fifteenth century texts from within a modern critical framework, this
book reexamines Isabel's position as queen and contributes to the
understanding of her shared sovereignty in a period political and social
evolution.
