The conference volume Frictions and Failures - Cultural Encounters in Crisis focuses on those
dynastic marriages which ran into difficulties of various kinds and examines a wide range of
cases in order to determine what caused these problems. Conflict situations could easily arise
from the queen consort's presence at her new court. These conflicts might be religious
(consorts were often of a different faith from that of their husband and new country) personal
(rivalries with mistresses or favorites) diplomatic or political. The case studies elucidate
what these frictions tell us a) about the specific context in which they occurred and b) about
the problems limitations and challenges of cultural transfer in general. The volume also
considers (in a broader sense) whether success and failure are adequate and helpful terms in
assessing the impact of the queen's consort. The geographical range of the territories
discussed covers not only West and Central Europe but extends to Hungary Lithuania Muscovy
and Russia. This is particularly valuable as it helps to take orthodox consorts into
consideration as well as the elective monarchy of Poland in which the role of the consort is
by definition different from that of a consort in a system of dynastic succession.
