Rewriting the Middle Ages in the Twentieth Century: III. Political Theory and Practice

270 Pages·2015·11.326 MB·English

by  Julia Pavón Benito

RewRiting the Middle Ages in the
twentieth CentuRy
III. PolItIcal theory and PractIce
rewriting the Middle ages in
the twentieth century
Series Editor
Jaume aurell (Universidad de navarra)
Editorial Board
david abulafia (caius college – University of cambridge), Jaume
aurell (University of navarra), Martin aurell (University of
Poitiers), Paul Freedman (University of yale), nikolas Jaspert
(ruhr-Universität Bochum), alicia c. Montoya (University of
Groningen), Gabrielle M. Spiegel (Johns hopkins University),
teofilo F. ruiz (University california los angeles)
III. PolItIcal theory and
PractIce
edited by
Julia Pavón Benito
F
Cover Photo :
evangelista San lucas (ménsula del pasadizo de la Iglesia de Santa María
de Ujué, navarra, españa). © carlos Martínez Álava
© 2015, BrePolS PUBlISherS n.v., turnhout, Belgium.
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBn 978-2-503-54842-5
d/2015/0095/113
Printed in the eU on acid-free paper.
ContEntS
Introduction: Studying Power 7
Julia Pavón Benito, Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona, Spain)
1. Ernst H. Kantorowicz (1895–1963) and Gabriel naudé
(1600–1653): From ‘Mysteries of State’ to ‘Coups d’État’ 13
antónio Bento, Universidade da Beira Interior, UBI (Covilhã, Portugal)
2. Percy Ernst Schramm (1894–1970):
The Symbols of Power and the Power of Symbols 27
Jaume aurell, Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona, Spain)
3. Walter Ullmann (1910–1983):
The Limitations of Medieval Legal History 47
Israel Sanmartín, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (Santiago de
Compostela, Spain)
4. Joseph Reese Strayer (1904–1987):
The Medieval State from a Cold War Perspective 73
Julia Pavón Benito & anna K. dulska, Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona, Spain)
5. José Antonio Maravall (1911–1986):
Historian of Medieval Spanish Social and Political Thought 97
alejandro diz, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos I (Madrid, Spain)
6. Luis Suárez Fernández (1925– ):
A Contemporary Master of Spanish Medievalism 131
césar olivera Serrano, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Madrid, Spain)
7. Stephan Kuttner (1907–1996):
A Modern Approach to Medieval Canon Law 151
Joaquín Sedano, Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona, Spain)
8. Robert Louis Benson (1925–1996):
Justification of Power in its ‘Formulae’ 179
nicolás Álvarez de las asturias, Universidad Eclesiástica de San Dámaso
(Madrid, Spain)
6 contentS
9. André Grabar (1896–1990):
The novel Conception of Iconography 197
Marta Serrano coll, Universidad Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona, Spain)
10. Ferran de Sagarra i de Siscar (1853–1939):
on Sigillography and Political Theology 223
alfons Puigarnau, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya
(Barcelona, Spain)
Biographical Profiles 267
IntRodUCtIon
StUdyInG PoWER
Julia Pavón Benito
an analysis of the historiographical production linked to european
kingdoms – French, english or Spanish – reveals, for all the chro-
nological periods and contexts, interest in serving the crown and
its political interests. Cronicae and Historiae, apart from articulating events
connected to political monarchies, formulated – with varying degrees of rigor,
realism, and detail – the narrative keys to the justification of power. In this
manner, what appeared as explanatory historical texts actually infused existing
literature with deep political intentionality. These chronicles thus managed
to confer a highly efficient practical legitimacy to the Kings’ ruling programs,
developing at the same time an official discourse for the reigning crowns.
on another level of the intellectual discourse constructed in the Middle
ages to justify the exercise of power, authority, or establish the legitimacy
of those who ruled, or wanted to rule, over kingdoms or empires, a group of
thinkers began to reflect on the origin, nature, and the meaning of power.
These included St. augustine, John of Salisbury, St. Thomas aquinas, John of
Paris, Peter duboys, John Wycliffe, Marsilius of Padua, and dante aligheiri.
Their writings aimed to define and locate the spheres and limits of power of
the majority of the monarchies in Western europe that had arisen after the
fall of the roman empire. We should keep in mind that the development
of these kingdoms, which would eventually lead to the formation of the
modern states of France and england, happened over a long period of time,
in complex social, economic, and cultural contexts, wherein the ecclesiastical
hierarchy played a crucial role.
The church, under the leadership of the roman pontiff, was a key player
in the political conflict beginning in the eleventh century. The reach of an
organization like the church simultaneously complicated and facilitated the
growth of the monarchies in the face of feudal power and its territorial expan-
sion towards eastern europe and against Islam in the Iberian Peninsula. at
the same time, it posed a difficult problem: Who would make the decisions
in the realm of secular concerns? The monarchs or the Pope? Which of the
8 JUlIa Pavón BenIto
powers should be superior to the others? While rome pressed for inde-
pendence in its responsibilities, kings and emperors promoted and deployed
the clergy for diplomatic purposes or to move their political interests. at
the same time, from 1000, the church supported a refomatio in capite et in
membris, leading to a shift in its complex ecclesiastical organizational, juri-
dical, moral, legislative, and formative scaffolding. This way, and recovering
the weight of the visigothic and carolingian ‘national churches’, the Pontiff
intervened in the european theatre not only to validate the independence
of the church hierarchies against powerful groups, but also to ratify the
importance of the church as an arbiter of secular power. This did not imply
that the clergy decided on internal fiscal or territorial matters proper to the
Kings, but it did strive to maintain a clear role in mediating or advising the
rulers on matters related to the nature and limits of power.
In spite of the appearance of the church’s moral tutelage, well repre-
sented, for example, in the hispanic Gothic, we must remember that the
roman pontiff was a feudal lord who, from the mid-eleventh century, had to
defend his property in Italy against the holy roman empire. For this reason,
and in order to maintain and strengthen his authority as the head of a hie-
rarchy spread throughout europe under the influence of secular powers, and
not only before henry Iv or Frederick II, a clash of powers came about. The
Pope and the German emperor entered into a discussion, for many complex
political and religious reasons (the complaint regarding investitures), leading
to an intellectual discourse that would have enormous consequences for the
Middle ages and the Modern age. harnessing as the frame a series of generic
concepts that blended the idea of ‘people’ with ‘the people of God’ or the
divine origin of power, the church supported a doctrine of complementarity
between spiritual and temporal power. From this arose the theory of the two
swords, utrumque gladium, which turned to biblical and patristic sources (St.
luke 23: 35–38; the letters of the Pope Gelasius I and of St. augustine) to
explain that, according to the divine will, the human community possessed
both civil and religious authority. Both owed each other reciprocal protec-
tion, because if the church obeyed secular laws, the monarchs and other
rulers also had to respect religious matters. however, this apparently harmo-
nious theoretical frame was difficult to apply in practice. The emperor and
the monarchs did not respect the independence of the church hierarchies;
the church, in turn, refused to distance itself, within national spheres, from
its zeal to collaborate in political projects.
The historical conflict of powers, and the consequent historiographical
complexity of a scholarly analysis of the situation in diverse kingdoms, where
IntrodUctIon 9
events were experienced with varying degrees of intensity, arose from this
context.
This book, the third volume in the series Rewriting the Middle Ages,
focuses on the history of political theory and practice. It collects historio-
graphical reflections on twentieth century medievalists who devoted at least
part of their academic career to these questions. The essays presented here
centre on history, art history, canon law, and sigillography to raise questions
about the source of power, its symbolism, its dialogue with ecclesiastical
power and society, and with ruling dynasties.
ernst h. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies has clearly shaped medie-
val historiography in its relation to political thought since its publication in
1957. This text, which arose from the historian’s discussions with his col-
league Max radin (University of california-Berkeley), may be taken among
other things as an attempt to understand and, if possible, demonstrate how, by
what means and methods, certain axioms of a political theology with ‘mutatis
mutandis’ was to remain valid until the twentieth century, began to developed
during the later Middle Ages. It would go much too far, however, to assume
that the author felt tempted to investigate the emergence of some of the ideas of
modern political religions merely on account of the horrifying experience of our
own time…
This quotation expressively sums up the academic and intellectual cli-
mate of the first decades of the twentieth century, during which a genera-
tion of historians, canonists, and art historians became committed to both
renewing their disciplinary methodologies and to understanding the origin
and characteristics of state power forged in the medieval period. terms such
as ‘imperium,’ ‘the Papacy,’ ‘theocracy,’ ‘canon doctrine,’ ‘coronation,’ among
others that appeared in literary texts and other documents as of the eleventh
century, became the focus of attention of a group of scholars from the end
of the 1920s and early 1930s in a europe that was simultaneously captivated
and challenged by new political regimes. In this pre-war world, scholars such
as P. e. Schramm, S.G. Kuttner, W. Ullman y e. h. Kantorowicz, concerned
about the political climate and seduced by the possibilities of the revision of
historical methodologies and the direct study of archival sources, struggled
to unravel the origins and antecedents of power, in all its facets. Thus, attrac-
ted by the context of the late roman empire and its attendant ceremonies,
the patristic tradition, and the ecclesiastical canon collection, by figures such
as Frederick II or Philippe Iv of France, as well as the conflicts and dynamics
of late medieval power, they made this historiographical period the focus
of their study. Further, apart from leaving a mark through their books and
10 JUlIa Pavón BenIto
articles, developed in the midst of the intellectual debate of the period, they
formed currents of thought and other historians who, in diverse ways, conti-
nued these traditions, in both europe and the United States.
This new book, the first chapter of which breaks away from the esta-
blished methodology of volumes of this nature, offers a renewed vision of the
readings on Kantorowicz: Ernst H. Kantorowicz (1895–1963) and Gabriel
Naudé (1600–1653): from ‘Mysteries of State’ to ‘Coups d´État’. Because this
historian has already been analysed in depth in the first volume of this series,
the current article, by antónio Bento, articulates a conceptual shift in the
move from the late Middle ages to the Modern age, the time during which
the idea of the State and its practices were sacralised. one of these ideas, that
of the coup d’État, justified by Gabriel naudé, implied the representation, in
the seventeenth century, of a political theory formed centuries earlier in the
intellectual context of medieval political theology.
Percy ernst Schramm (1894–1970) and Walter Ullmann (1910–1983)
were two influential scholars in the field of the history of medieval politi-
cal thought. Their ground-breaking work is the focus of the next two chap-
ters of this volume. Jaume aurell analyses Schramm’s historical production,
specifically the transmission of political ideas and liturgical and ceremonial
practices from the late roman empire to the German empire. he signals
the singularity of this academic who – the only one of his generation – col-
laborated with the Third reich, which lead to his work acquiring less atten-
tion in post-war intellectual and cultural circles. nonetheless, his work on
coronations continues to be fundamental to our understanding of the phe-
nomenon. Israel Sanmartín discusses the contributions of the austrian histo-
rian W. Ullman, who established an important school of medieval political
thought at cambridge University. highly influential because of the cultural
context of German universities, Ullman’s work focuses primarily on the his-
tory and legal frame of the papacy.
Julia Pavón Benito and anna K. dulska focus on the work of Joseph r.
Stayer (1904–1987). as a student of charles h. haskins who worked at
Princeton, Stayer set the ground for research on medievalism in the United
States, blending variables such as the intellectual legacy of his teacher, open-
ness to new research areas beyond the field of anglo-norman studies, the
adoption of european historiographical methods, and a particular interest
in studying the institutional and organizational structures of the modern
state. Furthering the exploration the origins of the state, the next two
essays examine the work of two Spanish historians: José antonio Maravall
(1911–1986), of the history of ideas who emphasized theoretical reflection,