January 15, 2025 – January 16, 2025 – Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours
Convenors : John Cooper (Le Studium Visiting Researcher/CESR) and Philippe Vendrix (CNRS/CESR)
This international conference explores how royal power was performed, negotiated and justified in England and France during the long sixteenth century. The notion that kingship and queenship was an act of performance, deploying liturgy, music and ritual in spaces either permanently or temporarily configured for the purpose, has become well established in Renaissance studies. But an integrated understanding of the phenomenon has proved more difficult to achieve, whether because of distinctions between the contributing disciplines or the specific conventions of national historiographies. To meet that challenge, this Le Studium conference brings together an interdisciplinary group of researchers – historians, musicologists, architectural and art historians, from institutions in the UK, France and Italy – to consider a common set of questions and problems.
The conference addresses the theme from two angles. The first day, ‘Insights’, presents recent and emerging research on the construction and performance of power in Renaissance Europe. Key themes include the mobility of monarchy in sixteenth-century England and France, music and liturgy as factors in royal performance, urban festivals and royal entries, and palatial architecture and the politics of access. The second day, ‘Impact’, broadens the agenda to discuss the social as well as academic benefit of innovative research, and its relevance to the presentation of historic sites to the public through the imaginative use of music, sound and space. Comparing the UK impact case studies ‘St Stephen’s Chapel Westminster’ and ‘Henry VIII on Tour’ and projects led by RicercarLab hosted at the CESR in Tours, we will identify key targets for impact and lay foundations for a statement of best practice in the sector.