Download or read book Kingship and Propaganda written by Suzanne F. Cawsey and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2002-07-04 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Crown of Aragon was a rapidly expanding and powerful political unit with an original form of representative government. Throughout this period a series of energetic and talented rulers sought to maintain royal authority and govern their realms effectively. Their persuasive rhetoric, and that of their advisers, is preserved in the archives of the Crown of Aragon in Barcelona, which provide a rich and under-exploited vein of source material for historians. There are long letters to their subjects, historical works, and the proceedings of the cortes, where the kings and queens perusaded their reluctant subjects to grant taxes and to support their decisions. Suzanne F. Cawsey examines the tradition of royal eloquence, thereby illuminating the nature of political discourse and persuasion in medieval Aragon and exploring the key ideas shared by the king and the political classes of the kingdom.