What were the fundamental social goods toward which it was ordered and from which it derived it legitimacy? In short, what was the moral purpose of the later medieval state?
Medieval Geopolitics: The Invention of the Idea of “Political Community”
June 17, 2018 by
How a distinctively post-feudal, later medieval understanding of “political community” evolved in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Two Lessons from Late Medieval Politics
November 16, 2017 by
Mass culture tells us that medieval political life was somewhat like ‘Game of Thrones’. This image is rather far from the complexities of late medieval politics, where institutions played at least as big a role as kings and queens.
Medieval and modern concepts of rights: how do they differ?
June 10, 2017 by
The concept of a right has not changed since the middle ages and neither have the kinds of justifications given for recognising rights.
The Idea of World Domination in the Public Consciousness in Europe in the Early and Developed Middle Ages
May 4, 2017 by
The article explores a public thought and public consciousness in the early and developed Middle Ages in Europe.
Popular Culture and Royal Propaganda in Norway and Iceland in the 13th century
May 4, 2017 by
Do the kings presented in Strengleikar appear as the European Christian rex justus kings, which was the dominant medieval royal model, or do they convey another image – an image that may be interpreted to explain both the intended function and the popularity of the translations in Norway and Iceland
Medieval Sources of Sovereignty: The Idea of Supreme Authority in Quanto Personam and its Glosses
April 18, 2017 by
Pope Innocent III’s decretal Quanto personam, issued on 21 August 1198, makes a number of claims regarding the locus, source and character of supreme authority within the Church.
The Attitude Towards Democracy in Medieval Jewish Philosophy
November 6, 2016 by
By and large, medieval Jewish philosophers conceived the ideal government to be that of a perfect philosopher-king of the Platonic mold
The Medieval Roots of Democracy
November 6, 2016 by
By the late Middle Ages, institutions of self-government, including regional representative institutions, municipal assemblies, and numerous other autonomous units, had come to saturate West European society.
Augustine of Hippo and the Art of Ruling in the Carolingian Imperial Period
August 21, 2016 by
This thesis investigates how the political thought of Augustine of Hippo was understood and modified by Carolingian-era writers to serve their own distinctive purposes.
Machiavelli and Botticelli Movies to Hit the Screen in 2016
August 29, 2015 by
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.
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.
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