"The subject of this book is the family politics of royal and imperial dynasties in Latin Christendom and Byzantium in the period 500-1500. Family politics means competition and cooperation within the ruling family, shaped at every point by the human life-cycle of birth, marriage and death, and also by ideas of what a dynasty was. Hence the two parts of the book, the life-cycle and a sense of dynasty. The main dynasties are listed in Appendix A. A...