How you can Follow Us!
Medieval News
Papacy Archive
-
Louis the Pious and the Conversion of the Danes
Posted on May 17, 2013 | No CommentsThis paper was part of a very interesting session on the Early Middle Ages. The papers covered Eastern European Infant Burial, the archaeology of medieval feasting and conversion. This paper contrasted the conversion policies of Charlemagne versus those of Louis the Pious. -
Kongo Ambassadors, Papal Politics, and Italian Images of Black Africans in the Early 1600s
Posted on April 17, 2013 | No CommentsWhile the political and economic power of Italian states was declining in the Seventeenth Century, Italy’s cultural authority remained influential, especially in the visual arts and, of course, religion, even though Europe had been split into faith-based fragments by the Protestant Reformation after 1517. -
How the Bishop of Rome Assumed the Title of “Vicar of Christ”
Posted on April 4, 2013 | No CommentsActually, we’re going to answer that question right here by stating that if we look to any century for such a development, we would probably point to the 12th century. -
Lodovico Capponi: A Florentine Banker and a Lending Transaction in 16th Century Florence
Posted on April 1, 2013 | No CommentsThis paper examines how loans transpired in early 16th century Italy, taking a look at a specific transaction involving Lodovico Capponi of Florence and the Vatican in Rome. -
Electing Popes: Approval Balloting and Qualified-Majority Rule
Posted on March 12, 2013 | No CommentsThis article demonstrates that successive reforms in the rules for electing popes during the Middle Ages can be explained as a series of rational responses to political problems faced by the Church and by successive electors -
Strategy and Manipulation in Medieval Elections
Posted on March 11, 2013 | No CommentsElections in the Middle Ages were used for the same reasons that they are today: To select suitable candidate(s) for a particular office, duty, or obligation. -
Popes through the Looking Glass, or «Ceci n’est pas un pape»
Posted on March 11, 2013 | No CommentsWhat happens if, when one pope dies, instead of electing one you elect two, and these two popes then begin to fight with one another? -
Personal’ Rituals: The Office of Ceremonies and Papal Weddings, 1483-1521
Posted on March 3, 2013 | No CommentsThis analysis reveals the increasing involvement of papal ceremonialists in the preparation and supervision of wedding events,5 highlighting the ceremonialists’ own broad definition of their mandate and a pragmatic approach to the boundaries of papal ritual. -
Scotland’s Pope: Benedict XIII
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsScotland’s Pope: Benedict XIII J. H. Baxter (Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University ofSt. Andrews) Scot’s Magazine (1929) Abstract In the latter half of the month of August,... -
What was the Investiture Controversy a Controversy About?
Posted on February 19, 2013 | No CommentsThis thesis will aim to demonstrate that the Investiture Controversy was primarily a clash originating from fifth century ideas which were put into practice and developed by an eleventh century papacy. -
Rome During Avignon: Myth, Memory, and Civic Identity in Fourteenth-Century Roman Politics
Posted on February 19, 2013 | No CommentsBroadly conceived, my dissertation examines the traditions of popular government emerging spasmodically in the roughly two hundred and fifty years between the Roman senate’s 1143 revival, and the papacy’s definitive 1377 return to Rome from roughly seven decades in Avignon. The majority of my inquiry, however, is directed toward the much-understudied fourteenth century. -
The Poisoned Image of the Borgias: A Look at the Public Image of Pope Alexander VI and His Children
Posted on February 18, 2013 | No CommentsUpon Rodrigo Borgia’s ascension to the papacy in 1492 and assumption of the name Alexander VI, the masses of Rome who watched his parade and celebration with hopeful eyes welcomed him eagerly, despite his wild ways and indiscretions as a cardinal. -
The monastic thought and culture of Pope Gregory the Great in their Western context, c.400-604
Posted on February 15, 2013 | No CommentsGregory was the first monk to be pope; proverbially, he would have preferred to have remained a monk; the audience he addressed was almost always made up of monks. -
Picturing Gregory: The Evolving Imagery of Canon Law
Posted on February 4, 2013 | No CommentsThis paper surveys images created for the opening of the Liber extra between around 1240 and 1350, from a variety of standpoints: iconography, page layout, patrons and readers - and also suggests possible ideological agendas that might be embedded in the illustrations. -
The Papal Bulls for the Invasions of England and Ireland
Posted on January 13, 2013 | No CommentsJohn has represented his master's enterprise in the very best light, making him out as an enthusiast for the reformation of the lax moral and ecclesiastical condition of Ireland. -
Reading Health in the Stars: Politics and Medical Astrology in Renaissance Milan
Posted on December 27, 2012 | No CommentsHorary astrology was skillfully exploited in political circles and suggests that, far from being irrelevant to our understanding of Renaissance Italy, astrology played an important role in shaping its history. -
Innocent III and England
Posted on December 16, 2012 | No CommentsThis paper begins with the dispute between England and the papacy over an election to the see of Canterbury. The beginning of the quarrel, seemed simple enough: King John’s refusal to accept Stephen Langton as archibishop of Canterbury. -
The Pope Who Quit
Posted on December 15, 2012 | No CommentsWhat led him to make that decision and what happened afterward would be shrouded in mystery for centuries. -
Labyrinth, Part 2
Posted on December 8, 2012 | No CommentsSo we continue with the exciting conclusion of last week's two part mini-series, Labyrinth. Alice is being pursued by unsavory attackers, and Carcassonne has all but fallen. -
Labyrinth
Posted on December 1, 2012 | No CommentsA review of Part 1 of author Kate Mosse's, "Labyrinth". Cathars, Crusaders and the Holy Grail! -
The Origins of the Great Schism
Posted on November 29, 2012 | No CommentsOne of the more profound of such differences—and one which would shape the course of religious development in the eastern and western worlds—is the nature of the Latin and Greek languages. -
Origins and Consequences of Canossa: the Evolution of Imperial-Papal Relations through the 11th century
Posted on November 28, 2012 | No CommentsThe relationship between the German monarchs and the Roman papacy in the Middle Ages was an accepted partnership of mutual interests. The theme and scope of this essay is to explore the historical processes that fashioned such interdependence. -
Furor Teutonicus: The View of the ‘Germans’ in Italy during the Reign of Emperor Frederick I, ‘Barbarossa’ (1152-90)
Posted on November 19, 2012 | No Comments“Medieval Europe did not love the Germans. The Italians hated them, the French admitted their courage, but detested their manners, the English were jealous of them, the Slavs both feared and hated them, while the Germans despised and contemned the Slavs.”16 But it is the Italian side I would like to concentrate on in this paper. Further, I do not wish to examine the reasons for the conflicts between 'Germans' and 'Italians' in this era, nor the events surrounding them. I will try to focus strictly on the views that were expressed about Germans in mediaeval Italy in general and during the reign of Frederick Barbarossa in particular. -
“The Eucharist and the Negotiation of Orthodoxy in the High Middle Ages”
Posted on November 15, 2012 | No CommentsThis paper is part of Adam Hoose's dissertation. It examined the differences between Waldensians and Franciscans in their treatment of the Eucharist. It also explored why the Waldensians were unsuccessful in their bid to become a legitimate religious order and were eventually marginalized as heretics. -
Of Kings and Popes and Law
Posted on November 8, 2012 | No CommentsIn England, the period which most legal historians consider to be the key formative years of the common law was the reign of King Henry II.