Popular Opinion in the Middle Ages: Channeling Public Ideas and Attitudes PDF
Preview Popular Opinion in the Middle Ages: Channeling Public Ideas and Attitudes
Charles W. Connell Popular Opinion in the Middle Ages Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture Edited by Albrecht Classen and Marilyn Sandidge Volume 18 Charles W. Connell Popular Opinion in the Middle Ages Channeling Public Ideas and Attitudes . ISBN 978-3-11-044060-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-043217-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-043239-8 ISSN 1864-3396 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com To Lynn, my loving companion who provided constant support on this quest. Acknowledgements InitiallystimulatedbyresearchformydoctoraldissertationontheWesternreac- tion to the Mongol invasions of Europe in the thirteenth century, this project beganmanyyearsagoandwasinterruptedmanytimesbystintsinacademicad- ministration.AlongthewayIhaveincurredmanydebtsofgratitude,whichhere I can only repay with slight acknowledgements and words of thanks. First, sinceessentially this is aworkof synthesis and a longhistoriograph- ical essay, my admiration goes to those scholars of the past thirty years in par- ticularwhoseworkisrepresentedinthisstudy.Thisbodyofrapidlyaccumulat- inginterdisciplinaryresearchandanalysishasservedtoverifymyearliestnaive intuitionsaboutthenatureofthemedievalpublicandpublicopinion.Thesyn- thesis and conclusions drawn hereinaremeant toappreciatetheirefforts,but I readilyacknowledgethatIcannotdofulljusticetothemanyavenuesofengag- ingresearchandpublicationthathavebeenopenedinrecentyears.Thus,Imust apologizetothosewhoseworkisrelevanttomyown,butwhoImayhaveslight- edoroverlookedentirely.Ihopemyoverviewwillatleastencouragefurtherex- amination of the manyquestions it may serve to generate. Second,Ithankmanycolleaguesovertheyearswhohavetakensomedegree of interest in this ongoing study. Jim Brundage, Tim Runyan, James Muldoon, andGilesConstablewereamongtheearliest.EdPeters,throughpersonalconver- sation, but even more by his own insightful studies of so many topics directly related to my own, has been a constant stimulus. Most recently, it has been JohnFrance,andespecially,AlbrechtClassen,withwhomIhaveworkedonsev- eralrelatedprojects,whohavehelpedbringthisprojecttoitsconclusion.ToAl- brechtandMarilynSandidge,whoservedaseditorsforthemanuscript,Ioffera special thanks for their careful attention to detail and accuracy in helping me avoid numerous potential errors. Thanks also to Maria Zucker, Project Editor for the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Series with Walter De Gruyter,who has provided valuable comments and feedback as the manuscript moved for- ward to publication. However, any errors of commission and omission that re- main are solely myown. Third, this book could not have been completed without the unfailing and patient assistance of the interlibrary-loan staff of Cline Library at Northern Ari- zona University. A recent sabbatical leave supported generously by my collea- gues in the Department of History and Dean Michael Vincent of the College of Liberal Arts provided a much needed catalyst as well. Preface Historianshavelongstruggledwithissuesthatconstitutethefocusofthisstudy. AsJosephStrayerwrylyobservedaboutpublicopinionin1957,“historianscould seldom study itdirectly.Theyhad to deduce its existence […] much like astron- omerstryingtoprovetheexistenceofanewheavenlybodywhichtheyhavenot yet seen.”¹ For most periods of the past the surviving sources often reveal the opinions of only a smallgroup of the most articulate and more elite of society. Although this remains true for the Middle Ages, my study does not attempt to find a new way to measure the opinion of the public ‘scientifically.’ Instead, I present a synthesis and an analysis of the way modern scholars have shown the way the public (populus or ‘people’) was being perceived; how medieval sources reveal the evolution of a public sphere in which ideas were articulated and debated; and,the degree to which public opinion could be shown to have influence. Recentresearchontheprimarytopicsfoundinthisstudycantraceitsroots to two scholars who published significant works on the influence of communi- cation within a year of each other. One focused on medieval culture and the other on the Enlightenment, but in recent years the results of their work have tended to converge within the research of medievalists. In 1990 The Vox Dei by Sophia Menache laid out the way various medieval media communicated and was used by ‘the Church’ to deal with issues in the struggle for power with lay elements for control of Christian society.The 1989 English translation of the study by Jürgen Habermas entitled The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere [Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit (1962)] articulated a theory of how the bourgeoisie convened in public places in an attempt to develop a way to influence public power. Although Menache was likely not yet aware of this particular work, she did cite his earlier book on communication published in anEnglishtranslationof1979.²Menachedrewattentiontothewayscommunica- tion became ‘political’ in the central Middle Ages—to how it was used by the clergy to achieve support and cooperation; to how monarchy became a ‘cult’ and began to employ national symbols to overcome crises in the Hundred Years’ War; how both monarchs and clergy used the Crusades to justify war; and how those who came to be defined as heretics demonstrated some of the most creative and adaptive systems of communication to influence a widening Strayer,“TheHistorian’sConceptofPublicOpinion”(),. Menache,TheVoxDei();JürgenHabermas,TheStructuralTransformationofthePublic Sphere();Habermas,CommunicationandtheEvolutionofSociety(). X Preface public.Habermas,ontheotherhand,construedapublicspherewhereinprivate individualsofthebourgeoisclasscometogethertoconsider,debate,anddevel- opideaswhichinturntheyattemptedtorepresentasthe‘publicgood’inorder topersuadethoseinpowertoincorporatethemintothepowercircles.Bydelim- itingthe origins of the ‘public sphere’ tothe male bourgeois Enlightenment so- ciety,Habermasstirredupahornet’snestthatcontinuestoarousescholarsofall eras who find evidence of the existence of public spheres from the ancient to moderntimes.InreachingtothesourcesfortheMiddleAges,forexample,schol- arsofvariousdisciplineshavetendedtotakeupthesameissuesandfundamen- talquestionsconcerningcommunication,influence,andtheroleofthe‘people’ thatMenachefoundchallenging,andhaveshednewlightonherworkaswellas that of Habermas. Inthisbook,myargumentfocusesintwodirections,thefirstbeingonhow theelite(layandecclesiastical)becamemoreawareofthepowerofthecommon opinion beingexpressedinavarietyofways,andhowthoseelitetriedtoinflu- enceandshapethatcommonopiniontosupporttheirownviewofthecommon good.Secondly,Iillustratehowtheresearchofmostrecentyearsrevealsnot‘the public,’ but rather several publics from various levels of medieval society that actually had some impact on the nature of the dialogue on political issues of widespread importance. Underlying this dialogue was the desire to control power,asubjectthathasbeenonemajorcenterofattentionamongmanyexcel- lentmedievalscholarsinthepasttwentyyears.Theonewhostandsoutperhaps mostisThomasBisson,whohasdrawnourattentiontomanyaspectsofitwhile atthesametimeenlighteningusonhowmanyinsociety(the‘people’atvarious levels) actually experienced it.³ I contend that as the nature of human power evolvedsodidthemeansusedtoconstructandinfluenceit.AswesternEurope settleddown,grewitspopulation,rebuiltitstownsandrenewedandrefocused thestruggleforthe‘rightorder’insociety,itexperimentedwithnewkindsofand uses of public space which attracted crowds of people.The sites where crowds His most recent comprehensive work, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century (), focuses on power as lordship, or the domination of people by one or few as it came to maturity in the twelfthcentury.Thisbookisshapedinparticularbyhisearlierresearchon“MedievalLordship” ();and,TormentedVoices().Hisinfluenceishighlightedbythepublicationofanan- thologywhichheedited,CulturesofPower();and,afestschriftinhishonor,TheExperience ofPowerinMedievalEurope,–,ed.Berkhofer,Cooper,andKosto().Hisviewsof bothpowerandcrisishavechallengedscholarstothinkoftheissuesinnewways.See,forex- ample,thereviewsofTheCrisisoftheTwelfthCenturybyJudithGreeninTheEnglishHistorical Review():–;WilliamChesterJordan,inLawandHistoryReview():– ;WarrenC.Brown,inCentralEuropeanHistory():–;and,AliceTaylor,inSpec- ulum():–.
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