Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe by Robert Bartlett Book Review

With a focus on medieval Europe, Blood Royal by Robert Bartlett takes on the system of monarchies and how families were shapes by births, marriages and deaths. Monarchies were the essence of medieval Europe.

It is an in-depth look at the way monarchy works, and I was delighted to find that the book did not solely focus on the United Kingdom. The research can only be described as meticulous as about a third of the book’s pages are for the many, many sources. This book would have worked well, but I found it quite dry, and after a while, I was flipping through to the next chapter hoping it would be a little bit more enticing.

Overall, it is an excellent reference work but not quite suitable for the casual reader.