Blood Royal, an excursus on monarchy as the “family firm” (199), surveys royal and imperial dynasties in Latin Christendom and Byzantium between 500–1500. Bartlett's focus is wide, with an emphasis on Britain, France, and the German Empire and forays into the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe. He recounts a familiar political narrative that keeps kings at the center of dynastic politics, arguing that marriage and warfare were necessary for the state. He pays close attention to aggressive bellicose kings and describes women as status objects, game pieces in dynastic strategies, and vehicles for marriage and childbearing. Part 1, “Life Cycle,” outlines what men do to create a royal family: choose a bride, wait for the sons to be born, and then teach their sons (no mention of mothers and daughters). Part 2, “A Sense of Dynasty,” discusses naming and numbering of kings; saints, public images, heraldry, family trees; dynastic uncertainty; new kingdoms; and non-dynastic monarchies. The organization is vexing, however. Blood Royal covers a long chronology and a wide geography—it is literally all over the place. The narrative is descriptive, and repetitive, moving from anecdote to anecdote, realm to realm, century to century, with stories of wicked uncles, adulterous queens, scheming mistresses, violently unhappy bastards, and murderous siblings.

The book claims to be about kinship, but there is no critical consideration of anthropological and sociological studies of family and monarchy. He notes that it was more likely for a Byzantine empress than her English or French counterparts to rule as a sovereign, but he does not analyze the different political cultures. His consideration of “bastard culture” (175) advises the reader on how to tell one son from another using naming patterns and heraldry, but does not seriously discuss important studies on why legitimacy mattered so much. Foreign queens are “homesick” (26) and bring with them strange practices, but he does not consider the impact of patrilocal customs on a woman who had to learn a new language and customs, change her identity, and sometimes her name, when she married, and overlooks the important transmission of cultures when brides move. He admits that an explanation is demanded when a king does not marry, but does not posit one, saying simply that there are not enough unmarried kings to study and does not ponder why.

More problematic, however, is the lack of serious engagement with theories of gender, sexuality, and power. Bartlett summarizes decades of queenship research, but it appears he was not paying close attention. He employs the discredited add-women-and-stir method but does not engage in any meaningful discussion of the patriarchal structures that shaped monarchy. This creates blind spots in the narrative. He ignores work that convincingly shows that queenship was an office with political authority and power. He discusses the political disruptions of interregna, father-son conflicts, and minorities but downplays the political significance of queens-regent. The narrative is rife with casual sexism. He pays attention to women's beauty, rivalry, reputation, chastity, and sexuality, and notes without comment that royal brides were inspected physically. Men's sexuality, however, is mentioned briefly when trying to explain the lack of a male heir, and then only in terms of chaste marriages or possible homosexuality. The sexist language is particularly glaring when he blames queens who give birth to daughters and calls them “failed mothers” (64). This phrasing demeans the mothers themselves and ignores the work of geneticists who inform us that it is the father's DNA that determines the sex of the child. Bartlett feels the pain of the frustrated king who wanted a son, but is blind to the pain of the rejected mother, and he indulges in a flawed retrospective diagnosis when he deems a queen who does not have children as “sterile” (68). Bartlett is admirably steeped in the medieval sources, but his prose is an uncanny replication of the medieval men he quotes.

At its core, this book is predicated on a narrowly paternalistic definition of the term political. In the conclusion, Bartlett argues that “ruling dynasties were not biological units but political ones” (433). With this one phrase he undercuts the promising title of the book. For him, dynastic politics remain a king's domain and the blood of the “family firm” that matters most bears an XY chromosome.