Machiavelli and Botticelli are set to hit screens in 2016. We sat down to chat with Italian director, Lorenzo Raveggi about his two ambitious projects.
Roman identity in Byzantium: a critical approach
February 9, 2015 By
The main lines of thinking in the research on medieval Eastern Roman identity could be roughly summarized as follows: The first, extensively influenced by the retrospective Modern Greek national discourse, approaches this identity as the medieval form of the perennial Greek national identity.
Vice, Tyranny, Violence, and the Usurpation of Flanders (1071) in Flemish Historiography from 1093 to 1294
December 1, 2014 By
The earliest sources of the history of medieval Flanders do not agree on the origins of the counts. The earliest source, the so-called “Genealogy of Arnold [I],” credibly traces the counts’ origin to Baldwin I “Iron Arm,”…
The Great Parliament of 1265: Medieval origins of modern democracy
September 24, 2014 By
On the eve of the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta – the charter recognised as laying the foundations of England’s modern democracy – new research by a medieval historian from the University of Lincoln, reminds us that 2015 also marks 750 years since the earliest forerunner of a modern parliament was held.
Bringing the State Back in: Toward a New Constructivist Account of the Medieval World Order
July 23, 2014 By
The crux of my argument, here as elsewhere, is not that fully evolved sovereign states populated Latin Christendom from 1300 on, but that a constitutive script of corporate-‐sovereign statehood had come to define the political imagination of the era, and that the enactment of this script was the defining dynamic of late medieval political life.
Prophetic Statebuilding: Machiavelli and the Passion of the Duke
April 12, 2014 By
My interpretation of Machiavelli’s use of Borgia highlights the biblical resonances of Machiavelli’s account of the rise and fall of this exemplary new prince—a prince whom both his subjects and the Florentine himself call by the exalted title “Duke Valentino.”
BOOKS: The Feuding Families of Medieval and Renaissance Italy
March 15, 2014 By
Put down the Godfather, turn off the Sorpanos, and check out the real Italian families of Medieval and Renaissance Italy!
Queer times: Richard II in the poems and chronicles of late
January 7, 2014 By
The article focuses on the representation of deviant sexual behavior in 14th-century English poetry and other chronicles. The portrayal of King of England Richard II as a rebellious youth, which is interpreted as perverse and lacking manliness, and the propaganda needed to offset this perception are discussed. Historical information is given about the political culture and power of the church. The murder of Edward II after being accused of sodomy by the Bishop of Hereford is mentioned.
Emotions and Power in Orderic Vitalis
January 4, 2014 By
This essay explores some of the complexities and paradoxes encountered when one thinks about power, particularly as power was expressed by a single author, Orderic Vitalis.
Medieval Geopolitics: An interview with Andrew Latham
December 6, 2013 By
Was there such a thing as International Relations in the Middle Ages?
The Icelandic Althing: Dawn of Parliamentary Democracy
December 4, 2013 By
It is an old idea, and one that reaches as far back as the nineteenth century, that Viking Age Iceland was democratic and much like an early republic
Biblical nationalism and the sixteenth-century states
November 4, 2013 By
Biblical nationalism was new because pre-Reformation Europeans encountered the Hebrew Bible through paraphrases and abridgments. Full-text Bibles revealed a programmatic nationalism backed by unmatched authority as the word of God to readers primed by Reformation theology to seek models in the Bible for the reform of their own societies.
Investing In England: The Designation Of Heirs To The Crown Throughout English History
October 18, 2013 By
It was not until the late eighteenth century that rules for succession to the English throne were written.
Political Science in Late Medieval Europe: The Aristotelian Paradigm and How It Shaped the Study of Politics in the West
September 26, 2013 By
While scholars have provided many interesting insights into the role of Aristotle in shaping later political theory, I argue that they are inadequate to explain the rapid “Aristotelianization” of political thought in the later Middle Ages.
Commonwealth, Conversion and Consensus: An Examination of the Medieval Icelandic Free State and Political Liberalism
September 18, 2013 By
John Rawls’ Political Liberalism opens with a question: ‘how is it possible for there to exist over time a just and stable society of free and equal citizens, who remain profoundly divided by reasonable religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines?’
For the Glory of England: The Changing Nature of Kingship in Fourteenth Century England
August 30, 2013 By
Over the course of the fourteenth century, a new image of kingship emerged; a strong king was one who led his subjects on and off the battlefield, and balanced royal authority with guidance from Parliament.
Machiavelli: Theories on Liberty, Religion, and The Original Constitution
August 8, 2013 By
Machiavelli: Theories on Liberty, Religion, and The Original Constitution Erin Bos Oklahoma Christian University Journal of Historical Studies, Tau Sigma Journal of Historical Studies: Vol.21 (2013) Abstract Machiavellian qualities are often described as conniving or corrupt. Niccolò Machiavelli coined the idea of power-hungry, unremorseful princes in his book, The Prince. However, Machiavelli’s true political theory can […]
How Machiavellian was Machiavelli?
July 25, 2013 By
Professor Quentin Skinner gave a public lecture at the University of York, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the composition of Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince.
Writing Away the Caliph: Political and Religious Legitimacy in Late Medieval Islamic Political Thought
April 23, 2013 By
In 632, the death of the Prophet Muhammad was met with confusion, as he died without naming a successor; nor did he leave a blueprint detailing how political rule should take shape after his death
Rule by Natural Reason: Late Medieval and early Renaissance conceptions of political corruption
April 17, 2013 By
This paper argues that, from about the eleventh century CE, a new and distinctive model of corruption accompanied the rediscovery and increased availability of a number of classical texts and ideals, particularly those of Cicero and the Roman Jurists.
Samuel and Saul in Medieval Political Thought
March 24, 2013 By
This article traces the history of a medieval struggle for supremacy between spiritual and temporal authority, between pope or church and monarch, following the employment of the aforementioned Old Testament narrative
Gilbert Foliot and the two swords : law and political theory in twelfth-century England
March 18, 2013 By
Considering the importance of the Church as a driving force in twelfth- century political history, the complex relationship between piety and Church involvement in lay politics during this time period remains surprisingly under-explored.
The Cult of Saint Louis and Capetian Interests in the Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux
March 10, 2013 By
Throughout the Middle Ages the Capetians labeled themselves as the ‘Most Christian of Kings,’ and to have a saint in the family legitimated their claim.
500-year-old arrest warrant for Machiavelli discovered
March 6, 2013 By
The original copy of a proclamation – exactly 500-years old – calling for the arrest of Niccolò Machiavelli has been discovered by a British historian.
Rome During Avignon: Myth, Memory, and Civic Identity in Fourteenth-Century Roman Politics
February 19, 2013 By
Broadly 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.
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