As the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta fast approaches in 2015, Professor Nigel Saul takes a look at its relevance to us today.
Narrative and political strategies at the deposition of Richard II
January 27, 2013 By
This paper is an attempt to examine the role of what might loosely be termed formal and informal political ideas in the coup d’e´tat which brought Henry IV to power in 1399.
Sovereignty and Territoriality: An Essay in Medieval Political Theory
December 17, 2012 By
To advance this task of conceptual clarification, my essay offers an excursus into medieval political theory. It argues that sovereignty, as the idea is used at present, has its genesis in a theological concept—it the notion of highest authority the archetype for which is God. But why invoke the medieval tradition to talk about all this?
Shakespeare’s Richard II: Machiavelli for the Good of England
December 15, 2012 By
The name Machiavelli has negative connotations, and this way of thinking is not new. Throughout Europe, in Shakespeare’s time and earlier, Machiavellianism was associated with unscrupulous abuse of power, and Machiavellian methods were seen as immoral and evil.
Imperial Ideology: The Idea of the Universal Christian Empire in Late Antiquity
November 28, 2012 By
This paper examines the evolution of Christian universalist ideologies from the year 300 AD to about 800 AD, with a focus on their development in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.
The Doctrine of Active Resistance in the Sixteenth Century
November 18, 2012 By
This article will explore the late medieval sources and the sixteenth century context of Continental Reformation theologians’ response to that agony of conscience.
John Lydus’ Political Message and the Byzantine Image of the Ideal Ruler
November 6, 2012 By
What makes a great emperor? This was one of the questions addressed by John Lydus, a 6th century Byzantine administrator and writer, whose work On Powers examined the rule of previous Roman emperors.
Voting in the Medieval Papacy and Religious Orders
November 5, 2012 By
Medieval theologians no doubt believed that God’s word was handed down from above; but they well knew that they often had to decide among rival human interpretations of it.
Rome in the imperial idea of the 14th century: The age of emperor Lewis the Bavarian
November 1, 2012 By
The town of Rome has had a huge importance within the medieval world. Besides Jerusalem it has always been seen as one centre place in medieval philosophy.
Expectations of empire: some twelfth- and early thirteenth-century English views of what their kings could do
October 8, 2012 By
In this paper I shall try to see what the ways in which a number of twelfth- and early thirteenth-century English authors interpreted the past might reveal about their assumptions about the reach of the king’s government.
Reading Machiavelli Rhetorically: The Prince as Covert Critique of the Renaissance Prince
September 17, 2012 By
In this essay, classical rhetorical theory is applied to show that Machiavelli’s Prince was not intended as advice for a prince, nor as “political science,” but rather as a very subtle, but nevertheless powerful, critique of the Italian princes of his day, the Medici included.
Melchizedek as Exemplar for Kingship in Twelfth-Century Political Thought
July 29, 2012 By
The figure of Melchizedek, ‘king of Salem’ and ‘priest of God Most High’,was less prominently featured in political writings than Saul, David, Solo-mon, and other biblical rulers.
The Heritage of Polish Republicanism
July 22, 2012 By
In Polish political debates of half a millenium ago, monarchic ideas were always permeated with republicanism. In that period public discourse had civic virtue as its centerpiece.
Machiavelli on Christian Education
July 20, 2012 By
My primary point is not to vindicate Christian education as good for the well-being of cities but to complicate the assumptions of the civil religion approach by examining Machiavelli’s reflections on human character and psychology.
Codex Argenteus and political ideology in the Ostrogothic kingdom
July 15, 2012 By
One of the most intriguing manuscripts of late Antiquity, the early-6th – century Codex Argenteus, combines elements typical of lavish Greek and Latin bibles with yet another significant aspect.
Sovereign Subjects, Feudal Law, and the Writing of History
July 8, 2012 By
The early historiography of feudal law coalesced as the point of articulation for a discourse of time (the rejection/reclamation of a “barbaric” past) and a discourse of power (the theorization of the sovereign relation), and ultimately yielded a period concept foundational to “modern” theories of state.
‘Guelphs! Faction, Liberty and Sovereignty: Inquiries about the Quattrocento’
June 18, 2012 By
Such an approach has not always been the obvious one, as the centuries- long debate about the nature of the Italian noble (or magnate) and Popolo fac- tions suggests. Gaetano Salvemini’s 1899 interpretation of Florentine political conflict in the thirteenth century as the clash between two groups with distinct socio-economic characters and political programmes was probably as much indebted to Machiavelli as to the author’s socialist beliefs
Æthelstan, “King of all Britain” : royal and imperial ideology in tenth-century England
May 7, 2012 By
This thesis examines how King Æthelstan legitimized and systematized his claims of power and status through a royal ideology, how that ideology emerged, what it consisted of, and how it manifested itself in his kingship and diplomacy.
Justinian’s reconquest of the West : ideology, warfare, religion, and politics in sixth-century Byzantium
May 5, 2012 By
This thesis will examine the guiding ideology of Justinian’s emperorship and how that ideology especially manifested itself in terms of Justinian’s diplomacy and his relationship with the former provinces of the Western Roman Empire.
The Originality of Machiavelli
May 3, 2012 By
There is evidently something peculiarly disturbing about what Machiavelli said or implied, something that has caused profound and lasting uneasiness.
The legacy of the 13th Apostle: origins of the East Christian conceptions of church and state relation
April 26, 2012 By
In this article I wish to query the notion that there is a single Eastern Christian religious political theory, such a one that could be stood in opposition to Catholic medieval or early modern Protestant theories of church-state relations…
Depositions of rulers in the later middle ages: on the theory of the “useless ruler” and its practical utilization
April 8, 2012 By
The fact that in late medieval times more or less changes of rulers by force increased in nearly all European kingdoms, may indeed be read as a symptom of change in kingship as well as in the basic order of lordship.
“Neither Mine Nor Thine”: Communist Experiments in Hussite Bohemia
February 20, 2012 By
Because of such circumstances the intoxicating influence of idealism and utopia continued to be pressed forward. One pervasive ideal was communism.
Who gave King Arthur “a crippling blow”? It was St. George, argues scholar
February 11, 2012 By
One of the key figures associated with the Middle Ages in England has been King Arthur, the legendary ruler who was made popular in medieval romances and chronicles. But in a recent lecture, Professor Henrietta Leyser argues that the Arthurian legend declined sharply in the later Middle Ages, replaced by a new hero emerged for the English people – St.George the Dragonslayer.
Noch Einmal 918-919: Of the ritualized demise of kings and of political rituals in general
February 5, 2012 By
As 918 drew to a wintry close, King Conrad lay dying. His reign had been short. Perhaps, as Adalbert of Magdeburg later suggested, the Franconian ruler had been exhausted by bitter feuds against his former peers, the German ‘dukes’.
How you can Follow Us!