2. Power, Morality, and Political Change in Fourteenth-Century Rome

2019 ◽  
pp. 41-68
Author(s):  
Barbara Bombi

The examination of Anglo-papal relations between 1305 and 1309 provides an interesting first case study of how political change both in England and at the papal curia impacted on the development of Anglo-papal diplomatic and administrative practices in the early fourteenth century. In order to assess the extent to which political changes influenced Anglo-papal administrative and diplomatic practices in the early fourteenth century this chapter is organized in four sections. After a brief historiographical overview on Anglo-papal relations in the early fourteenth century, the chapter focuses on the surviving diplomatic correspondence, looking at some diplomatic documents produced in the context of the diplomatic missions sent from England to the papal curia between 5 June 1305, when Clement V was elected, and 14 November 1305, when he was consecrated at Lyons, as well as examining the first Roman roll, which recorded the petitions sent from England to the Apostolic See in the last year of Edward I’s reign (April 1306–July 1307). Finally, I address the evidence concerning the first two years of Edward II’s reign in order to look for continuity and change in Anglo-papal administrative and diplomatic practices after the succession of the new English king.


2015 ◽  
pp. 53-68
Author(s):  
Dafydd Johnston ◽  

Lexical eclecticism is a well-known characteristic of the fourteenth-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym. This paper will offer a preliminary categorisation of the sources of his language, considering on the one hand what he inherited from the earlier poetic tradition and the various discourses of Middle Welsh prose (religious, legal, historiographical), and on the other hand innovations resulting from use of colloquial vocabulary and loanwords from French, English and Irish, as well as new compounds and abstract formations. An attempt will be made to assess the proportion of core vocabulary of the spoken language in his poetry, with due regard to the associated methodological issues. Some conclusions will be drawn about the kinds of evidence which the poetry can provide for the development of the Welsh language during a period of major socio-political change.


Author(s):  
James A. Palmer

This chapter explores the second major challenge facing Rome's ruling elite: the transformation of the ruling group itself. It looks at the two visions of Rome that defined the city's early fourteenth-century political culture: the Rome of the barons and that of the nonbaronial urban elite. This long-standing ideological conflict was waning by the mid-fourteenth century, as formal rivals for power in Rome began to come together to form a new composite ruling group. The chapter then reveals this transitional moment through an analysis of the unique testament of a Roman baron, Francesco di Giovanni Romani Bonaventurae. Like all testators, Francesco feared death and prepared for it, but he did so in a highly unusual way, a confessional way that allows one to glimpse how the complexities of mid-fourteenth-century Roman politics could be instantiated in a single life. The chapter also studies court cases and other documents revelatory of his character as well as his relationship to Rome and to his political rivals there.


2007 ◽  
Vol 62 (7) ◽  
pp. 703-704
Author(s):  
Matthew L. Newman ◽  
D. Conor Seyle
Keyword(s):  

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (188) ◽  
pp. 369-388
Author(s):  
Tilman Reitz

This contribution discusses recent debates on the adequate form of ‘critique’ with a meta-critical intention. Since the partisans of academic critique typically fail to account for the effects of their own institutional embeddedness, their methodological reflections neutralize oppositional demands and turn political struggle into a scholastic exercise. In an extension of this analysis, the article aims to show how the academic class over-estimates its potential for bringing about liberating political change, how it falsely generalizes its own conditions of existence, and how it really contributes to the justification of capitalist power structures. The suspicion that recent populist attacks on the ‘elite’ have a fundament in progressive-liberal coalitions thus finds support in the practice of progressive discourse.   


Author(s):  
Ruth Kinna

This book is designed to remove Peter Kropotkin from the framework of classical anarchism. By focusing attention on his theory of mutual aid, it argues that the classical framing distorts Kropotkin's political theory by associating it with a narrowly positivistic conception of science, a naively optimistic idea of human nature and a millenarian idea of revolution. Kropotkin's abiding concern with Russian revolutionary politics is the lens for this analysis. The argument is that his engagement with nihilism shaped his conception of science and that his expeditions in Siberia underpinned an approach to social analysis that was rooted in geography. Looking at Kropotkin's relationship with Elisée Reclus and Erico Malatesta and examining his critical appreciation of P-J. Proudhon, Michael Bakunin and Max Stirner, the study shows how he understood anarchist traditions and reveals the special character of his anarchist communism. His idea of the state as a colonising process and his contention that exploitation and oppression operate in global contexts is a key feature of this. Kropotkin's views about the role of theory in revolutionary practice show how he developed this critique of the state and capitalism to advance an idea of political change that combined the building of non-state alternatives through direct action and wilful disobedience. Against critics who argue that Kropotkin betrayed these principles in 1914, the book suggests that this controversial decision was consistent with his anarchism and that it reflected his judgment about the prospects of anarchistic revolution in Russia.


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