Kings & Queens 10

10th Anniversary Conference

Royal Patronage: Material Culture, Built Heritage & the Reach of the Crown

Perth College, University of the Highlands and Islands

Perth, Scotland

29 June - 2 July 2021

UPDATE (11 January 2021): Due to the unfolding COVID-19 situation, we have had to make the difficult decision to hold Kings & Queens 10 virtually as it seems unlikely that mass gatherings will be feasible by the summer. The conference will be online hosted by the University of the Highlands and Islands, via Cisco Webex video conferencing. We will still be working with our heritage partners at Culture Perth and Kinross and Historic Environment Scotland to bring Scottish flavour to our online proceedings and to retain the features and events we were planning as closely as possible in a virtual format. We are sad not to be welcoming attendees to Scotland in person, but we are still greatly looking forward to hosting this event and welcoming you ‘virtually’ to Scotland. Due to this decision, please note that we have also extended the CFP deadline to 1 February to allow anyone who had not yet submitted a proposal due to the uncertainty of the situation to submit a proposal for a paper, panel or poster.

This conference seeks to engage with patronage in the widest sense of the word, with a particular focus upon material culture and built heritage. The spaces and objects of monarchies throughout history provide more than the backdrops and props for human activities. Rather the built environment and material culture of royalty had/ have the agency to shape political, social, and cultural events, and some even played a part in the transformation of men and women into kings and queens. Monarchies and rulers throughout the world and across the centuries have sought to invest in patronising the creation of the material trappings of royalty and authority, as well as furnishing themselves with courtly entourages of musicians, artists, poets, scientists, and alchemists, to name just a few. This conference will bring together scholars and practitioners from across a range of disciplines to explore the multi-faceted idea of patronage.

The Centre for History at the University of the Highlands and Islands are working with partners Historic Environment Scotland and Culture Perth and Kinross on this 10th anniversary conference. We want to bring together scholars from different disciplines – particularly history, archaeology, anthropology, art history, architectural history and fashion history – and heritage professionals, museum curators, archivists, and others who focus on royal patronage in all its forms. Topics include, but are not limited to:

Regalia and objects of ritual
Dressing royal and courtly bodies: clothing, jewellery, and accessories
Gift-giving practices and customs
Building, renovating and even destruction of royal palaces and castles
Commissioned works of art and sculpture by or for monarchs
Royal monastic and religious foundations
Interpretation and representation of royal material and built heritage in the present
Royal festivals, entries, ceremonial, and performance
Kings, queens, heirs, and spares as patrons driving cultural change
Patronage networks within and beyond the royal court
Economics of royal patronage

We are interested in receiving proposals for research posters, papers and panels addressing all aspects of royal patronage in any geographic location or chronological era. We are particularly keen to receive work from postgraduate researchers and early career scholars/ professionals. Abstracts for individual papers or posters should be 250 words and panel abstracts should be 500 words, and these should be accompanied by a brief CV or bio. Proposals for posters, 20-minute papers, or panels of three papers grouped by theme or subject should be emailed to kingsandqueens10conference@gmail.com.

The deadline for submitting your proposals is

NEW DEADLINE: 1 February

Full PDF of CFP is available below.

CFP