Download PDF | (International Medieval Research, 14) Brenda M. Bolton_ Christine E. Meek - Aspects of Power and Authority in the Middle Ages-Brepols (2007).
369 Pages
INTRODUCTION
Concepts of power and authority underlie most aspects of medieval life and culture. Authority may be understood as the generally accepted justification for action and power as the practical ability to induce others to obey or follow a lead. In the most traditional kind of top-down political history, the claim to authority and the capacity to command obedience would have been understood as attributes of kings and powerful nobles, though even with this limited view it would have been necessary to allow for the claims of the papacy and ecclesiastics to an authority independent of and superior to that of lay lordship.
Historical and literary study over the last half-century, influenced by other disciplines such as law, political theory, and above all anthropology has produced a much broader understanding of what constitutes both authority and power. Authority is what gives the justification for action and can be of either worldly or otherworldly origin. It would thus include royal authority which was conceived to be divinely sanctioned, or the generally accepted authority of other traditional lords, based on hereditary right, but also the claims of collective bodies that were believed to have a representative character. It included the institutional church whose claims to authority derived from the Scriptures and succession to the apostles, but also individuals or groups whose claims to be heard derived from the holiness of their lives or their perceived direct relationship to God.
Authority derived not only from legal codes which were believed to reflect eternal principles of law and to have been ‘found’ rather than ‘made’, but also from charters and other documents guaranteeing specific rights and privileges and issued by those enjoying generally recognized political authority or proprietary rights. Power, the effective exercise of influence over others, is also now understood much more broadly. It certainly included the use of military force and violence and other means of compulsion. For both secular powers and the institutional church it also increasingly involved the creation and manipulation of a governmental apparatus to oversee central and local administration. Neither military force nor governmental institutions could hope to be effective without resources in landed wealth and liquid funds to support them. But there was much more to the effective exercise of power than this, as is shown by the difficulties many rulers in church and state experienced in retaining the loyalty even of men they themselves had promoted and rewarded. Scholars now look at more subtle aspects of the exercise of power, such as diplomacy, the formation of groups of supporters by grants and gifts, and persuasion through sermons or literature and works of art.
They also look at the exercise of power by nontraditional groups, such as the peasantry and the humbler inhabitants of towns, the lesser clergy and marginal, sometimes heretical, religious groups, and above all women, who might rarely be able to claim authority as rulers, but who could often exercise a degree of influence that may fairly be called power through their family connections, the wealth and property at their disposal, their claims to holiness of life, or their political or cultural patronage. Conversely, women who were the heirs to kingdoms or fiefs might have authority but be expected to leave the actual exercise of power to male relatives, whether husbands or sons. The relationship of power and authority was fundamental in the Middle Ages, since power without authority was little more than brute force, while claims to authority without the power to make them effective were in the long run unsustainable. Even those who had acquired power or property by force would seek justification or recognition of their new acquisitions.
This might be done by seeking authorization from a generally recognized higher authority or by propaganda and image-making, while those with claims to authority that they were having difficulty enforcing would seek the support of networks of kin and friends and allies, or might base their claims on the supernatural or superior knowledge or urge the moral superiority of poverty. The relationship of Power and Authority is considered in this volume under three main headings, ‘Imagemaking’, ‘Informal Influence’, and ‘The Power of Words’.
I. Image-Making Image-making was important to those trying to impress on their audience a particular view of themselves or their family or their authority as they wished them to be perceived. Issues of power and authority were especially acute in the case of rulers who were attempting to establish new dynasties, particularly when those rulers came from outside and had only tenuous connections with the previous regime. These problems are considered in this volume with regard to Charles of Anjou as ruler of the Regno of Sicily and southern Italy and Cnut (Knútr) and William the Conqueror as kings of England.
In fact, since all three rulers had obtained their new kingdoms by conquest and were accompanied by powerful groups of military followers who had not only benefited from the establishment of the new dynasty but who also had every interest in ensuring the permanence of the new regime, the problems were more those of authority than of power. Any one of these rulers might have based his claim to rule on the right of conquest, by making use of the widely shared belief that major and decisive military victory could only have been achieved through divine favour and was in itself an indication that it was God’s will that they should be ruler of their respective kingdoms.
In fact, all three sought other justifications for their newly acquired position. Jean Dunbabin considers these problems primarily from the point of view of the king himself, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the various claims to authority in the Sicilian kingdom that Charles I might make. Chris Dennis considers the rule of Cnut and of William the Conqueror in England less from the point of view of the King than from the point of view of those, both AngloSaxon and Norman, who wrote about them. Although both rulers owed their acquisition of England to military conquest just as Charles of Anjou did in Sicily, like Charles they sought to legitimize their position by other claims, associating themselves with pre-existing royal traditions and above all through conspicuous acts of generosity toward the Church.
The portrayal of William and his rule in England in near-contemporary accounts can be illuminating for the way he was regarded by various categories of subjects. The earliest Norman accounts, those of William of Jumièges and William of Poitiers, which served as sources for later writers, probably reflected the official version of events and aimed to justify the conquest. William the Conqueror is therefore portrayed as the perfect Christian prince, a pious protector of churches, victorious, prudent, and merciful, a man destined to become a king. The writers of the two contemporary manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle naturally saw things very differently and presented William as a ruthless, sacrilegious, and greedy plunderer. But they were also impressed with his power and magnificence, describing him as wiser, more powerful, and stronger than any of his predecessors, but also as so stern and violent that no one dared to contravene his will.
The reference to William’s predecessors indicates an important element in the authority of any king by conquest, and that is the state of the kingdom when he acquired it. Charles of Anjou was able to present himself, at least in propaganda terms, as offering relief to his new Sicilian subjects from the oppression they had suffered under Frederick II and Manfred and promising a return to the good old practices of the Norman kings of Sicily. It was fundamental to William’s claim to the throne that Harold had been a usurper and an oath-breaker, but as Harold had ruled for only nine months, William was essentially the successor of Edward the Confessor. Since William claimed to be Edward’s natural successor, Edward’s regime could hardly be criticized and in any case Edward seems to have been popular, his rule providing an interlude of relative peace compared to what went before and what came after. Chris Dennis brings out the importance of this by comparing William’s situation with that of Cnut. As a Danish conqueror of pagan background who had made himself king with great violence and destruction, Cnut would seem to have every quality to make him generally hated by the AngloSaxons.
Yet the chronicler rarely criticizes him and by the twelfth century he was lauded for his efforts to reconcile the Anglo-Saxons and transform himself into a Christian king. Cnut benefited from the weaknesses of his Anglo-Saxon predecessor, Æthelred, whose total failure to organize any resistance against the Danes and fulfil the obligations of lordship exposed the country to two decades of plunder and anarchy. William, succeeding the popular and peaceable Edward, aroused fear and resentment, though also awe and a growing feeling that foreign conquest might be divinely willed as a punishment for the sins of the English.
It is indicative of the inherent problems of authority for rulers whose position derived from conquest that, however different thirteenth-century southern Italy may have been from eleventh-century England, the authors of these two essays reach very similar conclusions. As Jean Dunbabin puts it, ‘the problem for conquerors is that universal acquiescence in their rule has to be their goal’, a goal that Charles of Anjou unsurprisingly failed to achieve, and although he succeeded in passing on his conquests to his successors, at least in part, they had to work out new and different ways of presenting themselves. In similar vein, Chris Dennis concludes that William the Conqueror never successfully reconciled the AngloSaxons to his rule and that the ‘gap’ between the King and his subjects was greater than it had been in Edward the Confessor’s time, although he too passed on his conquests to his successors and established a style of rule on which, for better or for worse, they were able to build.
Chris Dennis addresses the problem of the authority and reputation of Cnut and William the Conqueror primarily on the basis of written texts. Gale OwenCrocker discusses similar topics on the basis of the visual images presented in the Bayeux Tapestry, which, whatever the precise circumstances of its commissioning and execution, told the story of the brief reign of Harold Godwinesson and his defeat and death at the hands of William the Conqueror from the Norman point of view. The frieze is primarily a narrative of events with a succinct commentary in Latin, but propaganda points could be made graphically by the actions, gestures, and dress of the protagonists. Most obviously Normans were distinguished from the English and individuals were identified by their costume and accoutrements, but much more subtle points could also be made.
Thus when Harold is captured by Count Guy of Ponthieu, Guy is portrayed in the culottes characteristic of the Normans in the tapestry, while Harold is distinguished from his followers by his costume and in one scene wears a cloak and carries a hawk on his wrist, making it clear that, however vulnerable his position, he was a distinguished foreigner and a potentially lucrative prize as a prisoner. In the scenes that depict Harold before Duke William the high status of both is indicated by the richness of their dress, but the Duke’s superior power and authority is established by his frontal seated position clad in long robes and cloak, the conventional indicators of rulership, as Harold is transformed from prisoner to vassal by the acceptance of arms and the swearing of an oath, in accordance with the Norman version of events. When Harold is himself crowned king in England, he is presented in typical royal fashion, seated frontally high on a throne, holding orb and sceptre and wearing a crown, long robes, and centrally fastened cloak, but prominent beside him, and labelled to prevent any mistake, is Archbishop Stigand, whose irregular position was an important factor in enabling William to obtain papal support for his expedition.
In the scene in which the appearance of Halley’s Comet foretells William’s invasion Harold retains some of the royal accoutrements, but his twisted body and awkward pose combined with the relative shortness of his robe convey the horror which the comet’s appearance inspired in him, and rob him of dignity. If, as Gale Owen-Crocker suggests, the Bayeux Tapestry originally had a final scene, now lost, showing William crowned as King of England, matching and echoing the depiction of Edward the Confessor splendidly dressed and enthroned at the beginning, it would have very effectively made the Norman propaganda point that England was again under its rightful king, a brief attempt at usurpation having been successfully overcome. Those responsible for the design and execution of the Bayeux Tapestry succeeded in conveying subtle interpretations of authority through their depiction of stylized actions, gestures, and high-status ‘power-dressing’. Far less subtle and more obvious was a new ‘ostentation’ in family chapel architecture and a hitherto unseen form of heraldic display in late-thirteenth- and early-fourteenth-century Rome where local clan rivalries between Colonna, Savelli, and Capocci were being played out on the Capitoline Hill.
While campanilismo remained the most obvious architectural feature of the period, with nobles vying to gain recognition of their power and status by building towers beside their palaces, Claudia Bolgia turns to visual and technical evidence to show that the Roman nobility treated their private chapels as they did their towers, competing to raise them ever higher and embellishing them with distinctive coats of arms and other heraldic emblems. At the Franciscan Church of S. Maria in Aracoeli, where the Colonna family had acquired the right to construct a discrete family oratory in one chapel, its vault quite literally dominated the aisle of the main church. The Savelli oratory in the south transept of the same church reached similar lofty heights but this family managed to outdo even the Colonna by occupying a prime position directly opposite the ara coeli or most revered altar of the eponymous church. While their towers were to prove notoriously easy to destroy, the soaring family chapels of the Roman nobility, protected by the Franciscan order, became alternative and, as it turned out, far more enduring architectural symbols of authority.
The ostentation — and it could be described as nothing less — was enhanced by numerous decorative shields and heraldic symbols, captured in paint or in mosaic, and covering every possible surface in a new and fashionable image-making phenomenon of power. Image-making in medieval Rome was, however, by no means the sole prerogative of a small group of nobles engaged in competitive building campaigns and enjoying ecclesiastical permission to display their newly fashionable coats of arms. Occasionally, even a venerable institution such as the papacy found it necessary to appropriate powerful images to bolster its traditions, although the validity of the images used might be somewhat dubious. One such moment occurred in the mid to late twelfth century, while the Constantinian foundations of the Lateran, Rome’s cathedral, and of St Peter’s, sheltering the tomb of the apostle, waged a vigorous war of propaganda as to which of them held the more significant relics.
Marie Thérèse Champagne highlights the means by which the Lateran, with papal backing, made good its claim to possess the treasures from Jerusalem which had been captured by the Romans following the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70. These treasures were supposed to include the Ark of the Covenant and Moses’ Rod and while the Lateran tradition was to insist that they were preserved as sacred relics within its High Altar, some polemical writers had ventured to raise doubts about their actual presence there.
In order to strengthen and revitalize the perception of this and other aspects of the Church’s Jewish heritage, serious scholarly texts were composed with papal authorization. One of these renamed the pope’s private chapel as the Sancta sanctorum, the Holy of Holies of the Old Testament, while narrative scenes in mosaic on the now lost Lateran portico relating to the destruction of Jerusalem were commissioned to reinforce the legend. The focus was thus on powerful image-making — the Lateran as the cathedral of Rome, caput et mater, head and mother of all churches, and direct successor of the Temple by virtue of its custody of the treasures. The Church of Rome meanwhile stood to gain by the articulation of papal claims to possess the fullness (plenitudo) of the Old and New Covenants and, in particular, a wider authority (latitudo) as the direct heir to the Church of Jerusalem.
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