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My research is based on the aristocracy of France and its neighbours in the 16th-18th centuries, and the notion of frontier identities. In particular, I am working on a new history of the Duchy of Lorraine, a formerly independent state between France and Germany.
I am also interested in early modern royal courts, in France and elsewhere. I particularly focus on members of royal families besides the king: his wife, his brother, his mother, his cousins. In particular, I am a specialist on the role of the second son in the history of monarchy (the 'heir and the spare'), and have published and spoken to the media frequently on this topic.
Three words to describe me? Cosmopolitan, cheerful, erudite.
I enjoy music a lot, especially as a performer, but also exploring new recordings of various historical periods. I love exploring new cities, and long driving tours abroad. I am knowledgeable about old films from Hollywood’s Golden Era. Nothing beats relaxing with friends over a long meal.
I enjoy interacting with students from a variety of backgrounds, and introducing them to a wide range of historical and cultural ideas and experiences. The Renaissance and Revolutionary periods of European history are exciting times of fundamental change, and are essential to the understanding of the building blocks of much of our society today. As a researcher, I enjoy delving more deeply into many of these ideas and historical situations myself. I like discovering in some small way aspects of our global heritage, in particular how Europe fits together as a collection of diverse cultural and political spaces.
Don’t think studying history is just about learning names and dates -it’s not! It’s about dismantling past events, critically appraising them, and then re-assembling them to understand their full meaning and impact on how we live today. It’s also about expressing an argument clearly and effectively. Students of History are well equipped to then apply these skills in a variety of today’s situations.
My teaching is full of variety, enthusiasm, and meaning!
When teaching about the early modern world, I explore topics from a various angles: politics, literature, art, even music. I use a variety of media, from primary written sources to clips from popular films about historical subjects. This helps both me and the students engage with the subject with enthusiasm. In the end, every topic needs to be examined for its full meaning to us today, not just as historical events in the abstract.
A native of Virginia, I did my first degree at the College of William & Mary, then an MSt and DPhil at Oxford University (dissertation subject: the family of the Lorraine-Guise, as exemplars of foreign princes at the court of Louis XIV, with emphasis on the family's finances, marriage contracts, wills, roles for women, and roles at court, in the French provinces, and on the wider European stage). I have presented much of this information in conference papers, journal articles, and books.
I have been at MMU since September 2009, previously having taught at Glasgow University and the University of Gloucestershire.
At the University of Glasgow I was responsible for running a team of post-graudate students in the creation of a an online book digitisation project giving research access to over 30 sixteenth-century texts. When I moved to Gloucestershire, I took on the role of Senior Tutor for the Faculty of Humanities, responsible for student well-being and the organisation and running of examination boards at the end of the year. At Manchester Metropolitan, I have previously coordinated the joint-honours degrees for History, the personal tutoring system, and the creation of a new Master's in History programme.
I'm a native English speaker, but also do much of my research in French. I can also move around somewhat in Latin, Italian, Spanish and German.
Understanding the early modern world helps put more recent history into perspective. The period 1500 to 1800 is the setting for the creation of much of what we consider 'modern' in European history. It is the era of the Renaissance, the Reformation, the emergence of modern science, and the explosion of social movements into the 'Age of Revolutions' all across Europe.
My taught courses also focus on connecting British students' experiences with the rich diversity on the doorstep that is European history. In my classes students experience the brilliant sunlight of the Italian Renaissance, the evolution of individual freedoms of beleif in the German Reformation, and the bold break with the past and establishment of a brave new future in the Frech Revolution.
I teach or co-teach several of the early modern units, including parts of:
and two special subjects:
I contribute to the taught MA research methods unit, and teach a specific unit entitled: 'The World of the Courtier: Monarchy and Court Culture in Early Modern Europe', about the evolving relationship between early modern European elites, their rulers and governments, and the wider society in which they lived.
I am happy to supervise third year dissertations or post-graduate research in areas having to do with France, Britain or Europe from the Renaissance to the French Revolution. My specialisms include aspects of political culture (primarily at courts and nobles), women and families, diplomacy, and intellectual history.
PHD & MRes supervising topics (past and current) include: the Duchy of Lorraine as a destination for the Grand Tour and Jacobitism; James VI and I and the re-writing of dynastic history; Anna Maria Luisa de Medici and the birth of a museum for the public in Florence; fencing and princely education at the court of Louis XIII; collecting and aristocratic identity in Edwardian Britain; noble culture in the North during the English Republic; female political culture at the court of Elizabeth I; and alternative societies in the 'Golden Age' of Anglo-American piracy.
External examiner for the department of History at Chichester University, 2016-2019
My research and writing focuses on themes concerning elite frontier identies in an early modern, pre-nationalistic context. This work expands the focus of my doctoral work on the aristocratic family of the Guise in 17th-century France towards the original home of the Guise, the Duchy of Lorraine, and on other similar border regions between France, Germany and the Low Countries. I am currently completing a project on the court and nobles of the Duchy of Lorraine (16th to 18th centuries), whose identity is "neither here nor there", and in particular the mixed identities of the ducal family, the courtiers in Nancy and Luneville, and the multiplicity of cultural influences on the court of Lorraine in its last decades of independence.
Other research projects I continue to pursue include an in-depth examination of the political and cultural roles of French kings' brothers (known at court simply as 'Monsieur') in the early modern period; and further exploration of the position in noble society of 'women alone'--widows and spinsters--in early modern France. Both studies help illuminate the functionality of power and patronage in a pre-modern courtly space, by examining generally overlooked yet central figures.
In general I collaborate with academics across Europe and in the US in producing articles for the journal, The Court Historian, or specifically themed collections of essays--mostly with a court and nobility-centred topic. I am involved in the running of several academic networks, notable the Society for Court Studies and the Trans-Natoinal Elites Research Network.
J. Munns, P. Richards, J. Spangler (2016). Aspiration, Representation and Memory: The Guise in Europe, 1506-1688. JW. Spangler. Ashgate.
JONATHAN. SPANGLER (2014). The Problem of the Spare. The Court Historian. 19(2), pp.119-128.
J. Spangler (2021). Monsieur Second Sons in the Monarchy of France, 1550-1800. Routledge.
A. Kalinowska, B. Kümin, J. Spangler, B. Cowan (2021). Power and Ceremony in European History Rituals, Practices and Representative Bodies Since the Late Middle Ages. Bloomsbury Publishing.
ZE. Rohr, J. Spangler (2021). Significant Others Aspects of Deviance and Difference in Premodern Court Cultures. Routledge.
AMSA. Rodrigues, MS. Silva, J. Spangler (2019). Introduction. Routledge.
AMSA. Rodrigues, MS. Silva, JW. Spangler (2019). Dynastic Change Legitimacy and Gender in Medieval and Early Modern Monarchy. AMSA. Rodrigues, MS. Silva, J. Spangler. Themes in Medieval and Early Modern History.
J. Spangler, P. Richards, J. Munns (2016). Introduction: The Context of a Dream.
J. Munns, P. Richards, J. Spangler (2016). Aspiration, Representation and Memory: The Guise in Europe, 1506-1688. JW. Spangler. Ashgate.
J. Munns, P. Richards, J. Spangler (2015). Aspiration, representation and memory: The guise in Europe, 1506–1688.
J. Spangler, P. Richards, J. Munns (2015). Introduction: The context of a dream.
J. Spangler (2009). The Society of Princes. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..
É. Faisant, J. Spangler (2021). An English Court in a French Château: The Apartments of James II and his Family at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. The Court Historian. 26(3), pp.246-260.
J. Spangler (2018). Ruling Sexualities: Kings and Queens 7. The Court Historian. 23(2), pp.235-237.
Aspiration, Representation and Memory.
J. Spangler (2017). Sabaudian Sovereignty. The Court Historian. 22(2), pp.227-229.
JONATHAN. SPANGLER (2014). The Problem of the Spare. The Court Historian. 19(2), pp.119-128.
J. Spangler (2012). Material Culture at the Guise 'Court': Tapestries, a Bed and a Devotional Dollhouse as Expressions of Dynastic Pride and Piety in Seventeenth- Century Paris. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH STUDIES. 34(2), pp.158-175.
J. Spangler (2012). Who really killed Henry IV. FRENCH HISTORY. 26(1), pp.118-121.
J. SPANGLER (2009). Aulic Spaces Transplanted: The Design and Layout of a Franco-Burgundian Court in a Scottish Palace. The Court Historian. 14(1), pp.49-62.
J. Spangler (2003). A Lesson in Diplomacy for Louis XIV: The Treaty of Montmartre, 1662, and the Princes of the House of Lorraine. French History. 17(3), pp.225-250.
JW. Spangler (2003). “Benefit or Burden? Elite Widows in Seventeenth-Century France”. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History. 31, pp.65-83.
J. Spangler (2021). Wider kinship networks. In: Early Modern Court Culture. Routledge, pp.55-66.
J. Spangler, A. Kalinowska (2021). Introduction. In: Power and Ceremony in European History Rituals, Practices and Representative Bodies Since the Late Middle Ages. Bloomsbury Publishing,
ZE. Rohr, JW. Spangler (2021). Introduction: Significant others: aspects of deviance and difference in premodern court cultures: Tales of the unexpected?. In: Significant Others Aspects of Deviance and Difference in Premodern Court Cultures. Routledge, pp.1-26.
JW. Spangler (2021). Pivot to piety. In: Significant Others. Routledge, pp.210-233.
F. Leroux, JW. Spangler (2021). Normalising Louis XIV's natural daughters. In: Significant Others. Routledge, pp.180-209.
J. Spangler (2019). A Family Affair: Cultural Anxiety, Political Debate and the Nature of Monarchy in Seventeenth-Century France and Britain. In: The Routledge History of Monarchy. Routledge,
JW. Spangler (2017). Le rappel des princes de sang par Léopold: une stratégie politique pour rehausser l’image ducale. In: Échanges, passages et transferts à la cour du duc Léopold (1698-1729). Presses universitaires de Rennes,
M. Meiss-Even, J. Spangler (2016). The Guise ‘Italianised’? The Role of Italian Merchants, Intermediaries and Experts in Ducal Consumption in the Sixteenth Century. In: Aspiration, Representation and Memory: The Guise in Europe, 1506-1688. pp.47-60.
J. Spangler (2015). Mother knows best: The dowager duchess of guise, a son's ambitions, and the regencies of Marie de Medici and anne of Austria. In: Aspiration, Representation and Memory: The Guise in Europe, 1506-1688. pp.125-146.
M. Meiss-Even, J. Spangler (2015). The guise ‘Italianised’? The role of Italian merchants, intermediaries and experts in ducal consumption in the sixteenth century. In: Aspiration, Representation and Memory: The Guise in Europe, 1506-1688. pp.47-60.
JW. Spangler (2011). Those in Between: Princely Families on the Margins of the Great Powers—The Franco-German Frontier, 1477-1830. CH. Johnson, D. Sabean, S. Teuscher, F. Trivellato. In: Transregional and Transnational Families in Europe and Beyond. Berghahn,
JW. Spangler (2015). Review, Marjorie Meiss-Even,Les Guise et leur paraître, (Presses universitaires François-Rabelais/Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2013).
JW. Spangler (2015). Review, Robert J. Knecht: Hero or Tyrant? Henry III, King of France, 1574-89 (Ashgate 2014).
J. Spangler (2015). Kathleen Wellman, Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France. European History Quarterly. 45, 406-408.
J. Spangler (2014). The Stuarts in Italy, 1719–1766: A Royal Court in Permanent Exile. By Edward T. Corp. Pp. xi, 416. ISBN: 9780521513272. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. £62.00. The Scottish Historical Review. 93, 153-154.
J. Spangler (2014). The King, the Court, the State: From Renaissance to Absolutism. SIXTEENTH CENTURY JOURNAL. 45, 196-197.
J. Spangler (2013). Contested Spaces of Nobility in Early Modern Europe. HISTORY. 98, 787-789.
J. Spangler (2013). Noble Strategies in an Early Modern Small State: The Mahuet of Lorraine. FRENCH HISTORY. 27, 119-121.
J. Spangler (2012). Henry IV in Saint Denis. From abjuration to profanation. FRENCH HISTORY. 26, 118-121.
J. Spangler (2012). Henri IV of France: His Reign and Age. FRENCH HISTORY. 26, 118-121.
JW. Spangler (2011). Church, Society and Religious Change in France, 1580-1730. SIXTEENTH CENTURY JOURNAL. 42, 957-958.
J. Spangler (2011). Martyrs and Murderers: The Guise Family and the Making of Europe. SIXTEENTH CENTURY JOURNAL. 42, 237-238.
J. Spangler (2011). Manning the Margins: Masculinity and Writing in Seventeenth-Century France. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW. 126, 161-163.
J. Spangler (2011). A House Divided: Wittelsbach Confessional Court Cultures in the Holy Roman Empire, c. 1550-1650. EUROPEAN REVIEW OF HISTORY-REVUE EUROPEENNE D HISTOIRE. 18, 581-583.
J. Spangler (2010). The Information Master: Jean-Baptiste Colbert's Secret State Intelligence System. RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY. 63, 657-U390.
“Loyalty to place or loyalty to dynasty: old and new nobles in the Duchy of Lorraine in the early modern period”, Early Modern and Reformation Seminar, University of Saint Andrews, 10 October 2019
“From Duchy to Province to region (and the 'Great East'): The evolving sense of identity in Lorraine and France's north-eastern frontier”, Centre for History, University of the Highlands and Islands, 9 October 2019
“The Frustrations of Being the Spare: Second Sons in the French Monarchy (16th–18th c.) and their Increasingly Limited Roles in Politics and Society”, Dynasty and State Formation in Europe Conference, Lund University, 29-30 August 2019
“The Start of Conflict in the ‘Pays Entre-les-Deux’: Lorraine in 1618”, Institute of History Conference “To the 400th Anniversary of the Thirty Years War”, St. Petersburg State University, Russia, 30 October 2018.
“The Miseries of War: The Duchy of Lorraine, Jacques Callot and the 400th Anniversary of the Start of the Thirty Years War”, North West Early Modern Seminar, Liverpool University, 1 November 2017.
“Les usages des petites souverainetés dans la construction de l’identité aristocratique: la Vallée de la Meuse comme laboratoire de promotion sociale”, Construire la frontière. Les Croÿ, Montcornet, et les Guerres de Religion, Château de Montcornet en Ardenne, 26-27 May 2017.
“A thistle between lilies and roses: the Renaissance duchy of Lorraine as a border space, between France and the Habsburgs”, Interdisciplinary Renaissance and Early Modern Seminar, Leeds University, 8 November 2016.
“The other Marie de Guise: dynastic identity and marian devotion in the 17th century”, journée d’études Marie de Lorraine, University of Reims, 12 February 2016.
“Le Retour: Les stratégies d’accroisement du gloire ducal par le rappel des princes du sang lorrains”, for the workshop, Échanges, passages et transferts à la cour de Lunéville (1697-1729), Université de Lorraine, Nancy, 12-13 May 2015.
"Les princes étrangers: Truly Princes? Truly Foreign? Typologies of Princely Status, Transnationalism and Identity in 17th-Century France", Noblesses et nations à l’époque moderne: loyautés, hiérarchies et égalité du XVIe au XXe siècle, Troisième colloque d’histoire de la Fondation d’Arenberg, Deutsches Historisches Institut Paris, 22–24 mai 2013
"Monsieur is worth a Mass: From Navarre to Heidelberg: the changing emphasis of personal confessions in Bourbon royal marriages, 1599 to 1671", Mixed Courts: Dynasty, Politics, and Religion in the Early Modern World International Conference of the Forschungszentrum Gotha at the Universität Erfurt and the German Historical Institute, London, held at the Forschungszentrum Gotha, March 14-16, 2013
“Points of Transferral: Mademoiselle de Guise’s Will and the Transferability of Dynastic Identity”, Dynastic Identity in Early Modern Europe, VU University of Amsterdam, October 2011
“Royal Loves and Rivals in Renaissance England and France”, Plenary Round-Table at Kings & Queens 7, University of Winchester (co-sponsored by Historic Royal Palaces and Winchester Histories Festival), July 2018, Winchester
"Power and Architecture. Residences of Monarchs and Seats of State Authorities in Europe - Forms and Functions (15th-20th cent."--invited discussant), 9-11 April, 2014, Royal Castle, Warsaw
“The Charming Meddler: Marie de Rohan, Clever Diplomat or Annoying intriguer?”, Friends of Castle Sychrov, Czech Embassy, London, April 2012
“Mary of Guise: Renewal of the Auld Alliance, or Something More?”, Stirling Castle Palace Project—Rebirth of the Palace, Historic Scotland and Stirling University, November 2011
"Cultural Transfer in the 18th Century: Music and Literature between Britain, France and Germany", 1 Day Symposium at MMU with invited guests from the University of Manchester, Royal Northern College of Music and the University of Lorraine, co-organised by Jeremy Filet, April 2018.
“European Court Culture & Greenwich Palace, 1500-1750”, The Queen’s House, Greenwich and the National Maritime Museum, co-organised with Janet Dickinson (Society for Court Studies/Oxford University) and Christine Riding (Royal Museums Greenwich), 20-22 April 2017.
“I principi e l’Europa: I Guisa e l’Italia”, University of Naples, co-organised with Penny Richards (Gloucestershire), Jessica Munns (Denver) and Michele Benaiteau (Naples), November 2010.
"Royal ‘Heirs and Spares’ in Early Modern Europe", Kellogg College Oxford, co-organised with Catriona Murray (Edinburgh University), supported by the Society for Court Studies and Manchester Metropolian University, Sept. 2013.
“Peripheral Regions and Centres in Pre-Modern Europe c.1100-1700”, Manchester Metropolitan University, co-organised with Kathryn Hurlock (MMU), with support from the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, with invited guests from universities of Edinburgh, Leeds and Luxembourg, May 2011.
Regularly review books for History, French History, English Historical Review, European Review of History, Histoire Sociale, Sixteenth Century Journal, and online journals H-France, Erebia, Sehepunkte and Francia-Recensio.
Peer reviewer for articles submitted to French History, European History Quarterly, The Court Historian; book manuscripts for Ashgate Publishing and for Manchester University Press; and
Stipendiary Research Fellow, Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Germany, Summer 2014
Research and Travel Grant, Institute of Humanities and Social Science Research, Manchester Metropolitan University, Summer 2010.
Research Collaboration Fellowship, Office of the Curator of Asian and European Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, 2003-2004.
Centenary Fellowship, Royal Historical Society, awarded through the Institute of Historical Research, 2001-2002
Read Research Scholarship, Zaharoff Award, Scatcherd Award, Oxford University, 1999 to 2002.
Overseas Research Studentship, British Academy, 1999-2000, 2000-2001
Media relating to modern monarchy:
Interviews for Washington Post, Swedish Dagbladet, and Korean radio for the departure of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for North America, January 2020
BBC Radio for the birth of Prince Archie in May 2019
ABC Radio Melbourne, Australia, for wedding of Princess Eugenie in Oct 2018
BBC Radio regional broadcasts (Cumbria, Surrey, Sussex, etc) for Harry and Meghan’s wedding in May 2018; also interviewed for Japanese newspaper, Asahi Shinbun (19 Feb 2018)
BBC News, Sky News, BBC Radio (Five Live), Key103, BBC Radio Ulster and WebMD—various appearances concerning the engagement of Prince Harry, 27 November 2017
BBC Radio Manchester, interview regarding the Queen’s 75th Wedding Anniversary, 22 November 2017.
Radio and newsprint interviews relating to the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana, 31 August 2017: BBC Radio (various regional outlets); Manchester Evening News; and Key 103 radio.
Several related items also in print:
• “The rise and fall of ‘Royal Highness’: a brief history of royal titles and what it means for Prince Harry’s baby” BBC History Extra, 6 May 2019
• “Sun King cross-dressing brother steps out of shadows”, The Connexion: French News and Views, 27 June 2018
And two in The Conversation:
• “Princess Eugenie and the unexpected importance of second daughters of second sons”, October 12, 2018
• “Prince Harry and the history of the heir and ‘the spare’”, May 18, 2018
Public talks:
“First Cousins and Brothers in Law: The Duke of York and the Duke of Orleans in the 1660’s — Always coming in second to their elder brother, the King”, public talk to the Historical Association, Manchester & Liverpool Branch, 20 Jan 2018.
Society for Court Studies, public lecture, ‘Raising the spare: Four Monsieurs at the French court, 1574–1795’, 17 October 2016
“Gentry Families of Manchester”, Manchester Histories Festival, 3 June 2016.
“Louis XIV and Holy War”, commemorating the 300th anniversary of the death of the Sun King, Humanities in Public, Manchester Metropolitan University, 28 Oct 2015, with invited guests, Prof. Daniel Szechi, Prof. Joseph Bergin, Dr Mark Bryant.
Fellow, Royal Historical Society
Fellow, HIgher Education Association
Research projects (doctoral and post-doctoral level) for the Council for the Humanities of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, Research Foundation – Flanders (Belgium), Univeristy of Leuven research grants office.
Visiting Professor, Centre de Recherche Universitaire Lorrain d’Histoire (CRULH), and Interdisciplinarité Dans les Etudes Anglophones (IDEA), University of Lorraine, Spring 2020.
Visiting Scholar, Centre for Historical Studies, University of Lisbon, Spring 2017
Research Associate, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, Spring 2014.
Committee Member (and Trustee): Society for Court Studies, since 2010; senior editor of the journal for the Society (The Court Historian) since 2016.
Member, Research Committee, Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles, since 2016
Member of editorial board for Royal Studies Journal, since 2013
History Program Committee, Renaissance Society of America, since 2019