To celebrate the release of the Royal Studies Journal special issue 'Defining Aristocracy' (issue 11.1: June 2024), we have two roundtable episodes with the guest editor, Cathleen Sarti, and her contributors--one in English and another in German: a first for our podcast!This episode (in English) is hosted by Ellie Woodacre and features Cathleen Sarti and two contributors, Alexander Isacsson and Nicola Clark. In this roundtable we discuss the "fuzzy" definition of aristocracy, Alexander's article on the perception of the aristocracy in Swedish historiography and Nikki's ideas of "hard" and "soft" aristocracy in her study of women at the Tudor court. To find out more about our guest, see their bios below.Guest bios:Cathleen Sarti: Cathleen Sarti is Departmental Lecturer for History of War at the University of Oxford. She holds a Phd from the University of Mainz which has been published as Deposing Monarchs: Domestic Conflict and State Formation, 1500-1700 with Routledge in 2022--see our episode on her book here. She often works together with Charlotte Backerra from the University of Göttingen, in particular on all things regarding Monarchy & Money – there is a research seminar, several publications, and of course the book series with AUP. The research is also connected to the wider project from within the RSN on Examining the Resources and Revenues of Royal Women in Premodern Europe. Cathleen is currently working a book on War Materials in European Warfare from the Baltic (introduced in a blog), and will then turn to the question of Economic Agency of Danish Queens. Dr Nicola Clark is a Senior Lecturer in early modern history at the University of Chichester. Her first book, Gender, Family, and Politics: The Howard Women, 1485-1558 was published by Oxford University Press in 2018, and she has issued widely on women's roles, the Reformation, and sixteenth century politics. She also writes for public audiences, and her latest book The Waiting Game: The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2024.Alexander Isacsson is a researcher in history at Lund University, Sweden. He obtained his doctorate in 2023 after having published his dissertation Defining Dukeship: The Problem of Royal Spares and Dynasty Formation in Sweden, 1556–1622. He is currently working within a project financed by the Swedish Research Council and headed by Liesbeth Geevers at Lund University. The project, entitled New Princes: Duke Johan of Östergötland (1589-1618) and Archduke Charles of Austria (1590-1624), explores how the role of second sons changed in European monarchies in the seventeenth century from a comparative perspective. Besides royal studies and dynastic history, Alexander is also interested in historiography and media history.

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