The Flowering of British Court Culture

Abstract

Another compelling addition to the University of Amsterdam Press’s Early Modern Court Studies series, Susannah Lyon-Whaley’s edited volume Floral Culture and the Tudor and Stuart Courts presents a wholly unique and valuable contribution to an expanding body of literature on the early modern court. Coalescing the voices of thirteen leading scholars of the Stuart and Tudor Courts across its twelve chapters, the volume sets out with a seemingly monumental goal: to synthesise the diverse ways living and artificial flowers were consumed, displayed and conceptualised between the reigns of King Henry VIII and Queen Anne. It seeks to provide a fresh examination of floral culture, exploring the diverse ways in which flowers appeared in printed, visual, and manuscript forms, and their social, political and cultural functions at court. This wide-ranging work comprehensively outlines nature’s entanglement with elite life in early modern England, touching in turn on dynastic lineage, religion, health, gender, collecting and more.