La societe des princes, XVIe XVIII siecle, by Lucien Bely. Review by Costas Gaganakis (original) (raw)
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The Routledge History of Monarchy
2019
King Solomon, the famously wise ruler of the Old Testament and successor to King David, was a popular model for kings from the early centuries of Europe's Middle Ages. He was the presumed author of four biblical books, the Book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs and the Book of Wisdom, which served as ethical and political guides for kings as well as lay people. An ambivalence surrounded his character that derived partly from the fact that he was influenced by his wives and lovers, and became idolatrous and turned away from God at the end of his life. Moreover, an ancient tradition held that Solomon acquired his knowledge thanks to magical practices. 1 David, alongside Solomon, was one of the most favoured biblical exemplars for rulers, especially in the early Middle Ages. 2 Yet, Solomon became increasingly viewed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as the example to emulate. Varied associations, some negative, meant it was impossible, however, for medieval authors to create a fixed image of him. The highlighted aspects of the Solomonic ideal varied through the ages as Solomon was intermittently associated with peace, 3 justice (1 Kings 3:16-28), wealth (1 Kings 10:14, 23), wisdom 4 and, not without potentially negative connotations, involvement in magical practices. 5 From the Bible, we know of several famous episodes concerning the king, such as 'Solomon's Judgement', an incident in which he resolved a dispute between two women who both claimed to be the mother of the same child. Moreover, his rich kingdom and his famed knowledge were said to have drawn the attention of the Queen of Sheba, who travelled to meet with the king. Legendary objects as well as virtues were connected with him, ranging from the temple he built (1 Kings 6) and his palace (1 Kings 7), to his throne (1 Kings 10:18-20), key 6 and ring. 7 Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem became an archetype, one which many medieval rulers sought to imitate. This chapter will examine the way in which King Solomon was employed as a royal exempla in the medieval west between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. A Solomonic typology was certainly not attached to every medieval ruler's image. The instances selected in this study are, however, particularly notable examples. First, the chapter will touch on the early instances of so-called 'new Solomons', particularly among Carolingian and Byzantine rulers. The analysis will then focus on a
Three Arguments Relevant to the History and Theory of Monarchy (History of European Ideas, 2021)
This article states a claim about the fundamental nature of monarchy as something which in antiquity and medievality straddled the immanent and transcendent worlds but which is only half understood in a modernity where the world which is wholly immanent and so has a politics which must be theorised in wholly consistent terms. It draws on theories of antique monarchy, medieval monarchy, constitutional monarchy and popular sovereignty, and asserts three distinctive arguments: that politics is always fundamentally torn between law and power, that the philosophy of political history requires us to see that our resources for attempting to resolve the two have been narrowed in the last two hundred years, and that monarchy, theoretically considered, is best understood as something which has a transconsistent political logic.
Monarchy and Liberalism in Spain. The Building of The Nation-State, 1780-1931, 2020
'A family on the throne is an interesting idea also. It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life. (…) Just so a royal family sweetens politics by the seasonable addition of nice and pretty events. It introduces irrelevant facts into the business of government, but they are facts which speak to "men's bosoms" and employ their thoughts'. Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (2 nd ed., 1873), pp. 63-64. As Bagehot points out in the epigraph, the monarchy's functions around 1867 (the date of the cited work's first edition) were already perceived as part of a symbolic apparatus designed to construct the nation's first identity reference. This situation was part of a long process initiated after the revolutions at the end of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth. From then on, European monarchies had to be politically and culturally re-founded in order to confront the political and social challenges of the new times. It was an evolution during which they adopted monarchical constitutionalism in order to survive in a complex symbiosis with the liberal system. 2 Thus, the liberals supported an institution able to consolidate the new regimes and national states through their own historical and cultural legitimacy, incorporating a symbolic, representational power adapted to the ethos of the emerging post-revolutionary society. Of course, such compromise was characterised by pragmatism and utilitarianism. This was a new idea of power where the monarchy contributed a component of stability due to its own historical evolution, which was to coexist with the principles deriving from national sovereignty. The result was not a mere convergence of the royal tradition and the revolutionary heritage: this was a new approach to political power where the monarch had a neutral role as an umpire, even while embodying the nation. The power structure had a symbolic projection aimed at providing the political system with strength and security. 3 With the passage of time, its maintenance in most European countries would be linked to growing social recognition. 4 This was, therefore, a tangible legitimacy, but also an ephemeral one, which would lead monarchs to develop an empathic imperative and proximity formulae that, combined with the practices of traditional monarchies, would allow them to reinforce the institution as a national reference. Like its contemporary counterparts, the Spanish monarchy was engaged throughout the 19th century in a process aimed at the institution's very survival, based on two main pillars: dynastic continuity and the implementation of strategies increasing its ability to connect with popular audiences. As pointed out by one of Alfonso XIII's 1 This text is part of the research project 'Las monarquías en Europa meridional (siglos XIX y XX). Culturas y prácticas de la realeza' (Monarchies in Southern Europe (Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries). Royal Cultures and Practices) (HAR2016-75954-P), sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and ERDF funds. Thanks are due to Miguel Ángel Campos-Pardillos for the translation into English. 2 biographers, 'modern, democratic monarchs' must base their authority on both their historical rights and 'on the love of their people, who must know them in order to love them'. 5 One such new resource popularising monarchies among their national audiences was the projection of the image of the 'sentimental family'. Dynastic principle and family fiction were two sides of the same coin, always perched precariously on the construction of a simultaneously close and distant family image, where the characters performed under a pre-established set of values and behaviours, not unrelated to the monarchs' awareness of their representing an inalienable power. The king, the queen and their descendants were part of an elaborate construction, aimed at enduring in an endless cycle between stately ceremonials and expressions of bourgeois domesticity, between the ritual and the prosaic. 6 They acted as role models, and at the time they needed new elements to remodel themselves. They could not start at the popular level, but neither could they rise above the heads of the people and vanish into the distance. In Spain, the stereotyped images projected by the figures of Isabel II and her consort Francisco de Asís, Amadeo of Savoy and his wife María Victoria, Alfonso XII and the regent María Cristina of Habsburg, Alfonso XIII and his wife Victoria of Battenberg are largely based on their respective family sphere. This is the case because they represent the Crown, but they also are, and must be, the model for citizens whose political patterns, cultural values and hegemonic morality are those of the bourgeoisie. Our analysis of the royal family starts from the classical distinction made by Koselleck, 7 when describing concepts, between a 'space of experience' and a 'horizon of expectation': if we apply this to the study of the monarchy, we find that the dynastic factor would act from 'experience' as a legitimising element, above social and political vicissitudes. The 'expectation' would focus on the projection of a bourgeois family ideal which, although built on the same dynastic foundations, makes it possible to project an image of the monarchs aimed at increasing their popularity in the context of the new liberal society. We shall start our study with a theoretical section, divided into three parts, followed by an analysis where we shall present how, through the abovementioned royal figures, the family image of the monarchy is progressively developed from the reign of Isabel II to the reign of Alfonso XIII.
The Disintegration of Kinship and Kingship in A King and No King
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern English Studies, 2020
This article examines how the play A King and No King by Beaumont and Fletcher effectively critiques King James I’s rhetoric of absolute monarchy—which was strengthened by an analogy between fathers and kings—through a fictional representation of dysfunction in both family and nation. The play presents the troublesome King Arbaces, whose incestuous desire for his sister not only invalidates the logic of unlimited and unconditional royal power, but also calls into question the idea of “natural” family affection. By focusing on how the analogy between family and nation plays out in the play, I argue that A King and No King debunks the myth of the naturalness of kingship and kinship.