(ii) Royal and Princely Courts: Ancient, Medieval and Early

HISTORICAL TRIPOS PART I 2009
Paper 1
Option (ii)
THEMES AND SOURCES
Royal and Princely Courts: Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern
Write an essay of 3000 to 5000 words on ONE of the following questions. Your essay
must be typewritten and should be provided with footnotes and a bibliography giving
references in a consistent format to the primary sources and secondary literature used.
For further details on presentation (including how to count footnotes, bibliography
and statistical graphs and tables), consult the Faculty Style Guide which is available
on the Faculty website. Please also read carefully the Notes to Candidates on the
cover-sheet, and the previously distributed information sheet on long essays.
Indicate the question number and copy in full the wording of the question at the start of
your submission.
Unless the question requires otherwise, you may concentrate on a particular period or
region within the scope of the course.
All essays, including those on topics in section B, should be related to the issues
discussed in the classes and in the course-work material. Further guidance on reading,
and on the suitability of particular case-studies for questions in Section B, should be
obtained after you have chosen the question you wish to answer, from one of the course
leaders before the end of Easter Full term (Friday, 13 June 2008).
TWO hard copies of your essay and ONE electronic copy on either CD or diskette
must be submitted to the Themes and Sources Secretary in the Faculty Office by
Friday, 16 January 2009.
Section A: Essay Questions
1. How valid an impression do the imperial biographers and historians of the early
Roman emperors provide of the extent of the emperors' power and authority
2. What difference did Christianity make to the imperial court and position of the
emperor in the fourth and fifth centuries
3. How effective were the Carolingian rulers’ cultural strategies
4. ‘The greater the display, the weaker the power.’ How valid is this as an
assessment of the Italian princely courts
5. How would you account for European perceptions of Ottoman sultanic power in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

6. To what extent did the royal court function as a centre of cultural life
in England in the late fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries
7. How crucial was the absence of the monarchs of Spain and Portugal in the
development of princely courts in Latin America
8. What impact did the German background of the Hanoverian kings George I and
George II have on their English courts
Section B: Topics
9. Diplomacy.
10. Government and the court.
11. Palaces and their function.
12. Princes and religion.
13. Representations of power.
14. The legacy of Rome.
15. Gender and politics.
16. The court and the arts.