Mysteries of State: An Absolutist Concept and Its Late Mediaeval Origins

1955 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernst H. Kantorowicz
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Spiritual Power ◽  
Mutual Exchange ◽  
Secular Power ◽  
The Middle Ages

Mysteries of State as a concept of Absolutism has its mediaeval background. It is a late offshoot of that spiritual-secular hybridism which, as a result of the infinite cross-relations between Church and State, may be found in every century of the Middle Ages and has deservedly attracted the attention of historians for many years. After A. Alföldi's fundamental studies on ceremonial and insignia of Roman emperors, Theodor Klauser discussed more recently the origin of the episcopal insignia and rights of honor, and showed very clearly how, in and after the age of Constantine the Great, various privileges of vestment and rank of the highest officers of the Late Empire were passed on to the bishops of the victorious Church. At about the same time, Percy Ernst Schramm published his compendious article on the mutual exchange of rights of honor between sacerdotium and regnum, in which he demonstrated how the imitatio imperii on the part of the spiritual power was balanced by an imitatio sacerdotii on the part of the secular power. Schramm carried his study only to the threshold of the Hohenstaufen period, and he was right to stop where he did. For the mutual borrowings of which he speaks—insignia, titles, symbols, privileges, and prerogatives—affected in the earlier Middle Ages chiefly the ruling individuals, both spiritual and secular, the crown-wearing pontiff and the mitre-wearing emperor, until finally the sacerdotium had an imperial appearance, and the regnum a clerical touch.

Ritual and reality in the early medieval ordines

1975 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 41-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet L. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Know How ◽  
Full Picture ◽  
The Middle Ages ◽  
The Way

To know what was generally believed in all ages, the way is to consult the liturgies, not any private man’s writings.’ John Selden’s maxim, which surely owed much to his own pioneering work as a liturgist, shows a shrewd appreciation of the significance of the medieval ordines for the consecration of kings. Thanks to the more recent efforts of Waitz, Eichmann, Schramm and others, this material now forms part of the medievalist’s stock in trade; and much has been written on the evidence which the ordines provide concerning the nature of kingship, and the interaction of church and state, in the middle ages. The usefulness of the ordines to the historian might therefore seem to need no further demonstration or qualification. But there is another side to the coin. The value of the early medieval ordines can be, not perhaps overestimated, but misconstrued. ‘The liturgies’ may indeed tell us ‘what was generally believed’—but we must first be sure that we know how they were perceived and understood by their participants, as well as by their designers. They need to be correlated with other sources, and as often as possible with ‘private writings’ too, before the full picture becomes intelligible.

Corpus Christi College, Oxford, as an Emotional Community

2019 ◽  
pp. 81-102
Author(s):  
Miri Rubin
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Actual Performance ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Middle Ages

This chapter focuses on the aesthetic of the cultural moment at which Corpus Christi College was founded: 1517 lies on the cusp between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in England. If one accepts that cusp as fundamentally contested, it remains fruitful to explore how the main actors in affairs of Church and State manifest certain tastes and ideas, combining ‘medieval‘ and ‘Renaissance‘ themes, that are identifiable as elements of coterie-signalling. Two artefacts directly associated with Richard Fox, the College’s founder, stand as such signals, that is material testimonies to group-definition in the dominant sub-culture. The chapter then draws on the wider ecclesiastical and court milieu to explore how performative gestures in the patronage of the built environment have counterparts in actual performance, in the pageantry and plays of the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century.

Heterodoxy in Dante's Purgatory

PMLA ◽  
1923 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-98
Author(s):  
Alfonso de Salvio
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Marked Contrast ◽  
General Conception ◽  
Preceding Page ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Middle Ages

In his “Dante as a Religious Teacher” Dr. Edward Moore makes the following significant remarks with regard to Dante's teaching on the subject of Purgatory: “Dante's conception of the nature and purpose of the pains of Purgatory stands in very marked contrast to the popular ideas of the Middle Ages, and not only to the popular ideas, but also to the teaching and practice of the Roman Church both then and in later times… This difference of attitude on the part of Dante applies not only to the general conception of Purgatory itself, but still more strikingly to the practical consequences flowing from it, in teaching respecting indulgences, transference of merits, and means of remission of, or escape from, Purgatorial penalties.” However, the eminent Dantist minimizes the significance of this difference of attitude and applies to it what he said in a preceding page concerning Dante's conception of the relation of Church and State, namely, that “it may be held to be contumacious, but scarcely heretical, to criticize and oppose what has been authoritatively declared to be essential as a practical condition for the exercise of the Church's mission.”

scholarly journals Ecclesiastical and theological aspects of the coronation acts of the Polish kings in the Middle Ages. An outline

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 47-53
Author(s):  
Włodzimierz Bielak
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The State ◽  
Special Position ◽  
Theological Foundations ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

The coronation ceremonial of the Polish kings reflects the medieval union of the Church and state. The coronation was, therefore, not only a state ceremony but also an ecclesiastical one. It was performed by the archbishop in the cathe­dral in the presence of the assembled Church and through the coronation the new ruler was involved in the mission of the Church. It should also be noted that the formulary used during the coronation was built on theological foundations. Thanks to the coronation, which made the king God’s anointed, the ruler gained a special position in the state and the Church.

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