Chapter 4
Sacred kingship
We have already observed the dynamic blending between the legacy of Christian imperial rule, and the charismatic martial lordship which prevailed among Germanic people. This process resulted in the emergence of sacred kingship as a concept and a practice. It caused the aspirations of dynasts to merge with ideas of justice, mercy, and rule by the grace of God. This was a challenging blend which intellectuals strove to inculcate and which powerful men struggled to fulfil.
After their conversion to Christianity, barbarian rulers adopted imperial ritual and symbols. Such leaders of confederations of kin groups were magnified into Christian rulers. By the year 800 Charlemagne demonstrated that a king could even claim the title of emperor. And by the year 1000 the concept of beata stirps—blessed root—was developed by writers in the Ottonian court to describe that lineage. Writers of epics and romance in later centuries imagined that those born to rule carried a special mark on their skin.
Sacred kingship was born of a pact between dynastic rulers and the church. The church shared the expertise and service of its highly trained personnel with the ruler, and offered its counsel in spiritual matters as well as rituals of sacred power. In turn, rulers were expected to preserve Christian identity, protect the church, and promote justice and peace. Such relationships were often forged through the process of conversion. Stephen, born to the Hungarian Christian Grand-Prince Geza, embraced the possibilities of Christian rule. He defeated remaining pagan rulers in the region, and with the blessing of Pope Sylvester II was crowned king in 1000. He learned how to rule as a Christian from his wife, Gisela (985–1065), herself a daughter of the Duke of Bavaria and of a Burgundian princess. Gifts, and ecclesiastical endorsement secured such dynastic marriages. The couple promoted Christianity in Hungary through legislation and example, and embraced above all the cult of the Virgin Mary. Stephen’s new status elevated him above other nobles in the Carpathian region. Similarly, King Valdemar of Denmark confirmed his new status as sole Danish ruler in 1170 by a gathering of his nobles—Landsthing—confirmed by ecclesiastical anointment and coronation.
As a new Christian dynasty was formed family traditions of sanctity often followed. Veneration developed around Vladimir, king of Kievan Rus’ (c.958–1015), enhanced by the treatment of his sons Boris and Gleb—who died at war—as martyrs. Traditions of royal piety often ran in families. St Elizabeth of Hungary (1207–31) was married at 14 and widowed by the age of 20, when she turned to the service of the sick for the rest of her life. Her niece, Margaret of Hungary (1242–71), was raised in monasteries and was dedicated by her parents to the religious life.
When Duke William of Normandy invaded and conquered large parts of England in 1066 and its aftermath, he too became a sacred monarch. With papal approval he was crowned in Westminster Abbey by Ealdred, archbishop of York, in a scene memorably captured by the needlework of the English women who crafted the Bayeux Tapestry. In this role William espoused church reform, as an early adopter of the new papal ideas about church freedoms. He allowed church courts to flourish even as he developed his own sphere of secular legislation. The church, in turn, assisted the process of Normanization, and provided the kingdom with its educated class of royal ministers and advisors.
Sacred kingship is probably best known to most readers for its pomp and its legacy of visual art and music, architecture and ceremony. St Vitus’ Cathedral in Prague, with its chapel of St Wenceslas, is still home to the crown jewels, so close to the formidable royal castle. The images and actions of Christian kingship were adopted through dynastic contacts. When Richard II, king of England, married Anne of Bohemia (1366–94), daughter of the Emperor Charles IV, in 1381, his court learned from her imperial courtiers. The Westminster Portrait, a unique image of enthroned majesty, now in Westminster Abbey, reflects in its frontal austerity traditions Bohemians had acquired from the Byzantine East. Against a gold background, the king is seated with sceptre and orb, crowned and vested, unlike any English ruler before him. In a set of panels also commissioned by Richard II, the Wilton Diptych, the spiritual and religious dimension are explicitly bound: on the left, Richard kneels with a group of St John the Baptist, King Edward the Confessor (1033–66), and St Edmund (d. 869) behind him. The whole group faces the Virgin Mary surrounded by her heavenly court, and her son hands the banner of the Resurrection—symbol of sacred power—to the man destined to rule.
Since sacred monarchs were expected to use violence in the promotion of Christian peace, they seemed to be the natural leaders of religious warfare. Some answered the call more eagerly than others, but all were obliged to respond. The armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem which came to be known as the First Crusade (1095–9) was led by European aristocrats. But by the second crusade (1145–9) both Conrad III (1093–1152), king of Germany, and Louis VII (1120–80), king of France, were drawn in as leaders. Richard I (1157–99), king of England, Philip II Augustus (1165–1223), king of France, and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1122–90), came together to lead the Third Crusade (1189–92), following the fall of Jerusalem to the hands of Saladin in 1187.
As the power of Christian kingship became well-established during the 11th and 12th centuries, most royal courts settled in capitals, just as Charlemagne had in Aachen centuries earlier: Winchester and then Westminster for the kings of England, Paris as the capital of France, Krakow the new capital of the Poles under Casimir I (1016–58), and Huesca of Ramiro I (by 1007–63), king of Aragon. Even when sacred kings favoured one location as their capital, travel did not cease. When the English royal entourage travelled to campaigns in Scotland in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, several departments of state still functioned from Westminster, but the all-important archive and a great deal of personnel journeyed with the king.
Capitals were designed to reflect the responsibilities and dignities associated with Christian rule: justice, education, and patronage of the church. They became repositories of relics and stages for rituals of state: reception of diplomats, processions on feast days, celebration of victories. Louis IX (1214–70)—who was canonized soon after his death—had the Sainte Chapelle built as the architectural reliquary for the remains of the Crown of Thorns, which he acquired as a gift from the spoils of the sack of Constantinople in 1204. The chapel’s Gothic magnificence resounded with the music of a boys’ choir, the king’s own singers. Similarly magnificent was Westminster Abbey, rebuilt by Henry III; its dynastic narrative emphasized continuity since the days of Edward the Confessor, and a universal Christian loyalty to all things Roman, down to the mosaic pavement which Italian artists laid down in front of the altar in 1268.
Sacred kingship was aligned with effective provision of justice and securing of peace, and rulers were reminded of their responsibilities by a specialized literature—Mirrors for Princes—and by sermons. Some kings gained lasting recognition for their initiatives. King Alfred the Great (849–99) resisted the Vikings and developed a hegemonic position for himself as king of Wessex. He created a court that was as effective in defence and in raising taxation, as it was in communication with the papacy and European leaders. The achievement that impressed his contemporaries greatly was the commissioning of works aimed at raising the competence of courtiers and clergy. Under Alfred Christian classics like Pope Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care and Dialogues, Boethius’sConsolation of Philosophy, Orosius’s Histories against the Pagans, and Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People were translated into English. These diverse genres were all aimed at enhancing purpose and horizons among lay and ecclesiastical leaders. And since history supported identity, Alfred most probably launched the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; an inaugural copy was sent out to several monasteries to be kept and updated, in some cases well into the 12th century.
Lordship
In the kingdoms which succeeded the Roman Empire, men who held public offices were often rewarded with entitlement to tax income from land, the beneficium—benefice. This system remained largely in place even under the barbarian kings, as it ensured continuity in the functioning of military and administrative staff. In Iberia the Visigothic kings had kept on the Roman treasury—the fisc—which grew as it acquired the confiscated lands of traitors, the possessions of erstwhile temples, or the property of those who died without heirs. In the towns and cities of old Roman provinces, local councillors—curiales—continued to collect taxes and pass them on to governors, in a system of administration that was of very long standing. Kings used the system to reward loyal followers, but the benefice was still seen as a public good. And so, in 675, King Theuderic III confiscated the lands of a duke who joined his enemy. Under the Merovingian dynasty of Frankish kings, lands in Gaul were held in this fashion in return for service, and reverted to the king once that service ended. Even under Charlemagne and his successors, offices were not inherited, and close scrutiny meant that local officials in regions far from the heartland were still understood as servants of the Carolingian ‘state’.
All this was tested when in the 9th century Carolingian unitary rule was turned into several kingdoms—east and west Francia, Italy—and with the disruption and violence caused by Vikings, Magyars, and continued Muslim raiding. Public administration faced severe challenges, as local administrators were required to provide fortification, law, and order. Officials went about the work of government as before. In the absence of the close scrutiny which had been in place since c.800, the distinction between the public and private good—and property—became blurred, and ultimately disappeared. Counts now passed their office on to their sons, and treated the benefice as the means for support of power and authority which ran in the family. They apportioned parts of the lands and income to their followers, as fiefs, in return for loyalty and support. The fief supplied the resources for the livelihood and lifestyle of a warrior, the mounted knight, with a warhorse and all equestrian trappings. The punch of military force was now delivered by fighters trained to ride with stirrups, by knights, dextrous with sword, shield, and lance.
This system formed the basis upon which long-term reorganization of land, wealth, and power took place in Europe around the year 1000. It produced a relatively stable ruling class: the royal vassals of the 9th are discernible among the counts and castellans of the 11th century. Such lands formed the basis for independent influence, alongside responsibilities and obligations. By the 11th century the sense of family and lineage around such men and their patrimony was very strong, and it inspired the new genre of family histories, accounts of great deeds, like those of Fulk le Réchin (1043–1109), count of Anjou, of Prince Bolesław of Poland (1086–1138), or the deeds of the Counts of Barcelona, composed between 1162 and 1184 (Box 3). These vassals could
Box 3 Chivalry
The word chivalry—chevalerie—describes an array of ideas, practices, and experiences. It was a code of behaviour and a lifestyle for free men engaged in military conduct. Its conventions promoted honourable behaviour in warfare, reciprocal discipline even between enemies, such as in the treatment of prisoners. Chivalry was affected by Christian values, as churchmen aimed to limit the reach of violence: protecting the unarmed, prohibiting violence against religious houses, forbidding warfare during Lent and on religious festivals. It aimed to regulate warfare between members of a warrior class, who might encounter kinsmen in battle, and spare them the worst brutalities of physical mutilation and dishonour. Hence chivalry developed a language of symbols—shapes and colours—which helped identify a knight in armour—and so heraldry was born. Campaigns against Muslims helped strengthen the link between Christian service and warfare, and produced in the 12th century chivalric heroes such as Richard the Lion Heart and El Cid. The rich British historical traditions about King Arthur were rewritten by clerics into poems of knightly endeavour and adventure—like the ‘Quest for the Grail’—first in French and then in all other European languages.
Alongside the theme of idealized male valour and loyalty, a fitting form of love developed: courtly love. It imagined the unfulfilled yearning of a knight for a lady of refinement and distinction, and inspired poetry, song, and visual imagery. Chivalry was practised during war, but was also perfected during times of peace in jousts and performances of prowess in courts of great kings and aristocrats. The culture of chivalry was promoted in courts, where women could participate in it as patrons, and take part in the artistic rituals. Immersion in the culture of chivalry led young men of high birth to seek fame and experience in battle: the future King Henry IV (1367–1413) of England joined in his youth the Teutonic Knights on their campaigns to establish Christianity in Livonia (Figure 12). Chivalric themes continued to inspire social relations and artistic production even after the age of the mounted knight gave way to that of mercenaries and cannons.
12. Castle at Malbork (northern Poland), built by the Teutonic Order in 1274, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It and the town around it reflect the military and political domination of the Order in northeast Europe
become very mighty in turn. The Duke of Normandy—vassal of the king of France—conquered and became king of England; Robert Guiscard (c.1015–85), the sixth son of a Norman noble in Lombard service, became Duke of Apulia and Calabria, and the pope’s vassal.
Once it was conceptualized and established, the language of fief, lord, and fealty was written into charters and reflected in law. It also inhabited the world of poetry and history. It was spread and mediated by the educated clergy who helped convert and also administer the new Christian polities. As regions became integrated into Europe, it mixed with indigenous ideas about leadership, valour, and loyalty. A good example is the Norwegian commonwealth—the Norgesveldet. The language of lordship and fealty—homage—was used there to express the relationship between Goðrøðr, king of the Manx and Hebrides, and Ingi Haraldsson, king of Norway. Similarly, in 1217, King Logmaðr of Manx and Hebrides was said to hold his kingdom ‘in fief’ from the king of Norway. In turn, when the Norwegian invasion of Scotland failed, the resulting Treaty of Perth of 1266 reduced the king of Norway to the status of vassal to the king of Scotland, for the Hebrides. By the 13th century dynastic diplomacy had developed as a form of communication and dispute resolution between Europe’s rulers. Rulers shared assumptions and the language of lordship with their vassals, and their vassals’ vassals, and thus an aristocratic political culture was formed.
The traditions of Roman law prevailed not only in the old Roman provinces, but formed the basis for legal study in courts and schools in the 12th century, as we shall see in a later chapter. Many areas of life—land tenure, marriage, punishment for theft and murder—were regulated by traditional customs—Welsh, Irish, Saxon, Frankish, Alemann, and more—but Roman law was particularly useful for the facilitation of commerce, and its support for the notion of a state and its ruler. Between 1000 and 1200 royal administrations—gradually and not always consistently—worked to remove the treatment of major offences from the sphere of family retribution to that of royal justice. A great deal of arbitration between families meant that not all cases reached the royal courts, but officials sought to identify capital cases for the crown, and mobilized communities as informants—with the requirement to raise the hue and cry—when evidence of a crime was discovered.
Local traditions were subsumed within hegemonic royal legislative systems, like those of Henry II in later-12th century England, or of Alfonso X ‘the Wise’ of Castile in the mid-13th. Delivery of justice was a royal duty but also an opportunity to exercise power and collect revenues. Royal judges of various titles and capacities travelled throughout the kingdoms to dispense justice. Together with local elite men who provided regular policing and local advice, who empanelled juries and arrested suspects, capital cases were tried—murder, robbery, treason, and more—by royal officials who also collected the resulting fines and punitive confiscation of property.
In the later part of our period we witness royal courts become increasingly elaborate and complex institutions. They legislated on economic affairs, and intervened in commercial activities by controlling the coinage. In England scrutiny of the lucrative wool trade meant that customs were imposed on the 35,000 sacks of wool exported to the Continent in the early-14th century. As kingdoms became larger the burden of military defence and domestic administration became more onerous; they required elaborate central organization and record keeping. The buoyant economy of this period was increasingly complex as a source of income to be monitored through customs and protectionist laws. With so many participants in economic and political life occasions for broad consultation became necessary. The Roman precept ‘whatever touches all, must be approved by all’ (quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbari debet) animated calls for representation in discussions about fiscal matters, alongside the established consultation between the king and his nobles on matters of war. While lords always had their vassals around them for advice and support, the very greatest lords—kings—required expert advice in finance, law, administration, and diplomacy. This was achieved by the appointment of expert royal servants, but also through consultation. Parliament, parlement, diet, cortes, landsthag, developed all over Europe, assemblies aimed at representation that included constituents of the political nation: nobles, churchmen, knights, and townspeople. The broadening of consultation meant that by the 15th century cities were incorporated into the processes by which kings were elected in Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary.
Kings were looked to as patrons for great projects. We have already seen how closely related Christian kingship and leadership of Christian military campaigns became: crusades to the Holy Land, Reconquista in Iberia, and the war against heretics. In the 15th century new horizons for royal patronage similarly invoked royal leadership. From the 1430s the kings of Portugal led the exploration of Africa, providing privileges and charters to official navigators and cartographers. By the end of our period their Iberian neighbours, Ferdinand and Isabella, were approached with a project of commercial enterprise and millenarian enthusiasm: Christopher Columbus’ plan for a westward journey to the Indies. Where other monarchs rejected the unprecedented venture by the Genoese trader-traveller, these monarchs retained Columbus and supported him. His vision appealed to their sense of mission and leadership as Christian monarchs.