Political Thought in Sixteenth-Century Spain: A Study of the Political Ideas of Vitoria, Soto, Suárez, and Molina. Bernice Hamilton

Objective: To study the monuments of diplomatic correspondence from the sixteenth century as a source of political thought in the successor states of the Golden Horde. Research materials: The messages of Crimean khans, sultans, representatives of ruling groups, Nogai beks and mirzas preserved in translated copies in the ambassadorial books of the Muscovite state. Novelty of the research: For the first time ever, the diplomatic documents of the Crimean khanate and the Nogai Horde are involved in the reconstruction of their period’s corpus of political ideas. Considering the question of the authorship of messages, we proceed with the concept of S.M. Kashtanov about “technical authorship”, in which the authorship is understood as the collective work of rulers, courtiers, bureaucrats, and technical workers on the creation of a letter. Research results: The application of the concept of “corporate authorship” has made it possible to show that diplomatic messages were always a product of some convention possible within the elite that were involved in the development of foreign policy. Translators played an important role in shaping the political language. The messages of the khans, sultans, beks, and mirzas of the successor states of the Golden Horde contain some ideas that can help us to outline the political ideology. Central to it is the thesis of the exclusive right to power of the Chinggisids who could get power only with the general consent of the “political people”. “Evil” and “good” were the most important concepts of thought in the successor states. “Evil” was understood as any change in the established order, and “good” as its preservation. Thus, conservatism and the desire to fix the rituals of power and management practices that had developed earlier in the era of the Golden Horde were the most important concepts for political life in the successor states. This attitude led to the preservation of earlier concepts and terminological language, something which was reflected in the practice of diplomacy when the elusive reality of former power influenced ambassadorial ceremony and the form of messages.

Download Full-text

Tyranny and Usurpation

10.3828/liverpool/9781786941688.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Doyeeta Majumder

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Political Thought ◽

The Political ◽

History Plays ◽

Elizabethan Drama ◽

Political Drama ◽

English Stage ◽

The One ◽

Tragic Drama ◽

Law Making

This book examines the fraught relationship between the sixteenth-century formulations of the theories of sovereign violence, tyranny and usurpation and the manifestations of these ideas on the contemporary English stage. It will attempt to trace an evolution of the poetics of English and Scottish political drama through the early, middle, and late decades of the sixteenth-century in conjunction with developments in the political thought of the century, linking theatre and politics through the representations of the problematic figure of the usurper or, in Machiavellian terms, the ‘New Prince’. While the early Tudor morality plays are concerned with the legitimate monarch who becomes a tyrant, the later historical and tragic drama of the century foregrounds the figure of the illegitimate monarch who is a tyrant by default. On the one hand the sudden proliferation of usurpation plots in Elizabethan drama and the transition from the legitimate tyrant to the usurper tyrant is linked to the dramaturgical shift from the allegorical morality play tradition to later history plays and tragedies, and on the other it is reflective of a poetic turn in political thought which impelled political writers to conceive of the state and sovereignty as a product of human ‘poiesis’, independent of transcendental legitimization. The poetics of political drama and the emergence of the idea of ‘poiesis’ in the political context merge in the figure of the nuove principe: the prince without dynastic claims who creates his sovereignty by dint of his own ‘virtu’ and through an act of law-making violence.

Download Full-text

The Use ofKairosin Renaissance Political Philosophy*

Renaissance Quarterly ◽

10.1086/676152 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 67 (1) ◽

pp. 43-78 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Joanne Paul

Keyword(s):

Political Philosophy ◽

Sixteenth Century ◽

Political Thought ◽

The Political ◽

Ancient Greek ◽

History Of Political Thought ◽

Important Concept ◽

Niccolò Machiavelli ◽

Greek Tradition ◽

History Of

AbstractAlthough the Greek concept ofkairos (καιρός)has undergone a recent renewal of interest among scholars of Renaissance rhetoric, this revival has not yet been paralleled by its reception into the history of political thought. This article examines the meanings and uses of this important concept within the ancient Greek tradition, particularly in the works of Isocrates and Plutarch, in order to understand how it is employed by two of the most important political thinkers of the sixteenth century: Thomas Elyot and Niccolò Machiavelli. Through such an investigation this paper argues that an appreciation of the concept ofkairosand its use by Renaissance political writers provides a fuller understanding of the political philosophy of the period.

Download Full-text

Calvinism, the Thirty Years' War, and the Beginning of Absolutism in Brandenburg: The Political Thought of John Bergius

Central European History ◽

10.1017/s000893890000145x ◽

1982 ◽

Vol 15 (3) ◽

pp. 203-223 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Bodo Nischan

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Political Thought ◽

The Political ◽

Protestant Churches

When Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg converted to Calvinism in 1613 he became the second major German prince, with the elector of the Palatinate, to renounce Lutheranism in favor of Calvinism. Unlike Frederick of the Palatinate and the dozen or so other minor German princes in the empire who had opted for Calvinism, the Hohenzollern decided not to impose his new faith on his subjects, who had been Lutheran since the days of Joachim II in the early sixteenth century. John Sigismund decreed instead that the two Protestant churches were to exist together in peace and harmony in his domains.

Download Full-text

Between the tropes and pragmatics: the rhetorical aspect of Rozmowa polaka z litwinem

Literatūra ◽

10.15388/litera.2019.3.7 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 61 (3) ◽

pp. 86-97

Author(s):

Skirmantas Knieža

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Classical Antiquity ◽

The Political ◽

Church Fathers ◽

Multiple Points ◽

Political Ideas ◽

History Of ◽

Points Of View ◽

Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽

Rhetorical Tropes

This paper presents rhetorical aspects of a sixteenth century Lithuanian polemical treatise “Rozmowa polaka z litwinem” (“Pasikalbėjimas lenko su lietuviu”). This anonymous work is often labeled as “humanist”. Even though many scholars analyse its contents and emphasize references to the Classical Antiquity, formal aspects and their pragmatic implications remain unevaluated. Scholars have mainly focused on the issue of it authorship and quoted it illustrating cultural and political sixteenth century changes in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The main aim of this article is to reveal rhetorical tropes and figures employed by the author of the treatise and discuss the possible motivation of their selection. “Rozmowa” responds to, “Quincunx”, written in 1564 by a Polish polemist Stanisław Orzechowski (1513–1566). It is a part of a prolonged polemic between the later and Lithuanian Chancellor, Palatine of Vilnius Mikalojus Radvila “The Black”. The details and the course of their dispute is reconstructed by Orzechowski himself in the letter to Piotr Miscovius, which also is titled “Apologia pro Quincunce”. He refers to the “Rozmowa” without mentioning its title or particular author. Historiography attributes it to the Vilnius mayor (wójt) Augustyn Rotundus (c. 1520–1582). Both Orzechowski and Rotundus studied abroad and had spent some time in Italy. Not only curricula of their studies of artes liberales were influenced by Classical Antiquity, they also undoubtedly got familiar with humanist culture of the contemporary Europe.“Rozmowa” consists of two main parts, which are separated by a verse. The treatise is written in a form of a dialogue, and allows to portray a vivid discussion and multiple points of view. The first part of “Rozmowa” focuses on the questions of the political theory, whereas the second one is dedicated to the history of Lithuania, its dynasty and the issue of the Polish-Lithuanian Union. While the first part is polemical, the second one has epideictic character. The author employs personification, paradiastole and antithesis. The latter two allow changing the normative contents of political concepts, and irony highlights the absurdities in the Polish political practices. The Lithuanian, one of the characters, uses deprecation and interpellation, addresses the absent participants of a dialogue (e. g. Orzechowski himself). The author quotes Ancient authors, Scripture, Church Fathers and contemporary thinkers (e. g. Machiavelli and Erasmus), whose ideas provide him with literary topoi. Merged with the rhetorical techniques, they constitute the political arguments of the treatise and allows the author to express one’s political ideas.

Download Full-text

Introduction

10.1093/oso/9780199674886.003.0001 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

Sarah Mortimer

Keyword(s):

Social Change ◽

Early Modern ◽

Natural Law ◽

Political Thought ◽

Economic Change ◽

The Political ◽

Distinctive Features ◽

Political Ideas ◽

Political Communities ◽

The Relationship

The introduction sets out the main themes of the book and the approach taken. It characterizes political thought as the analysis and examination of how earthly communities flourish, as distinct from other kinds of communities like churches or households. It argues that although the period began with the consolidation of large empires, there was a growing concern to understand and to defend local or regional political communities, and that these developments were shaped by social and economic change. It emphasizes the need to see the political ideas and aspirations of early modern people within the context of their other desires and aspirations, and the context of their specific historical situations. It shows how the approach taken in this book builds upon the existing work of scholars and historians. It also sets out the distinctive features of the book: the inclusion of lands beyond Europe, the emphasis on natural law, and the relationship between political thought and social change.

Download Full-text

Introduction: when ideas travel: political theory, colonialism, and the history of ideas

Colonial Exchanges ◽

10.7228/manchester/9781526105646.003.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Burke A. Hendrix ◽

Deborah Baumgold

Keyword(s):

North America ◽

Early Modern ◽

Social Contract ◽

Political Thought ◽

Social Contexts ◽

History Of Ideas ◽

The Political ◽

History Of Political Thought ◽

Political Ideas ◽

History Of

Ideas travel. The history of political thought as it has generally been studied is deeply interested in these forms of travel and in the transformations that occur along the way. Ideas of a social contract first crystallize in the England of Hobbes and Locke, and then travel in branching ways to Jefferson’s North America, Robespierre’s France, Kant’s Prussia, and elsewhere. In their travels, these ideas hybridize with others, are repurposed in new social contexts, and often take on political meanings deeply divergent from what their originators intended. Students of the history of political thought are acutely aware of these complexities in the development of European political ideas during the early modern and modern eras, given the centrality of such ideas for shaping the political worlds in which we now live....

Download Full-text

The Papacy and the Establishment of the Kingdoms of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal: Twelfth-Century Papal Political Thought on Incipient Kingship

The Journal of Ecclesiastical History ◽

10.1017/s0022046916000622 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 68 (2) ◽

pp. 223-259

Author(s):

SIMON JOHN

Keyword(s):

Twelfth Century ◽

Political Thought ◽

The Political ◽

Political Ideas

This article examines the political thought of the twelfth-century papacy, considering how popes of this era responded to the establishment of the kingdoms of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal. It compares the intellectual strategies used by popes to justify why these three polities were kingdoms rather than any other type of political unit. It is suggested that, to make their cases, popes advanced a range of arguments, many of which echoed the political ideas of Gregory VII. The article concludes by linking its findings to the wider question of how the twelfth-century papacy responded to the expansion of Latin Christendom.

Download Full-text