Ideální panovník českého středověku. Kulturně-historická skica z dějin středověkého myšlení (Ideal ruler of Czech Middle Ages. Cultural-historical Sketch of the History of Medieval Thought). Praha 2013 (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Medieval Idea of Legitimacy and the King’s Two Bodies
Philosophy, Communication, Media Sciences, 2015
Based on Ernst Kantorowicz's work The King's Two Bodies, this paper intends to show that the idea of the sacred nature of political power, of the legitimacy which transcends the secular institutions is still alive in collective mentality. Analyzing the symbolism of the duality of the king's body (divine and human), Ernst Kantorowicz argues that the ideological foundations of the modern state are founded on in the idea that the kingdom is a mystical body whose head is the kingthis is possible through the divine hypostasis of his body. According to the fundamental Christian ideology of kingship, in the first centuries of the Middle Ages, the king is human by nature and divine by grace. Also according to medieval mentality, the human side of the king embodies a veritable quantity of opposite characteristics the mystery of the modern state can be interpreted on the level of a political philosophy which does not exclude the theological dimension of the secular society.
Published 2021 This book provides the first detailed overview of research on rulership in theory and practice, with a particular emphasis on the monarchies of Bohemia, Hungary and Poland in the High and Late Middle Ages. The contributions examine the legitimation of rule of the first local dynasties, the ritual practice of power, the ruling strategies and practices of power in the established monarchies, and the manifold influences on the rulership in East Central Europe from outside the region (such as from Byzantium, and the Holy Roman Empire). The collection shows that these ideas and practices enabled the new polities to become legitimate members of Latin Christendom.
2024
OA transformation package 2024! For the first time, this volume presents a geographically and phenomenologically broad range of case studies on late medieval changes of rule, from dynastic succession to conquest by force. The focus will be on the border regions of Latin Europe, political and cultural contact zones with distinctive dynamics. By presenting examples from the Canaries to Moscow and from Sicily to Norway, late medieval Europe will be covered in all its diversity. Download: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111218083/html
Wihoda, Martin: David Kalhous, Anatomy of a Duchy. The Political and Ecclesiastical Structures of Early Přemyslid Bohemia. (East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages 450–1450, Bd. 19.) Brill, Leiden/Boston 2012. 317 S., 4 Karten. MIÖG 121, 2012, s. 479–482. , 2013
An analysis of the early Přemyslid realm provides an opportunity for recognizing the importance of different factors involved in the formation of stable social structures in the early medieval regnum. The contemporary narrative emphasizes the importance of violence, where the Přemyslid princes and their powerful retinues imposed princely will on elites and freemen in Bohemia and Moravia. However, our attention also turns to the problematic evidence of assumed powerful cavalry armies and the importance of communication between prince, elites and church, somewhat problematizing the role of violence as the primary tool of governance. Furthermore, an analysis of “otherness” in Saxon chronicles and a comparison of different traditions of St. Wenceslas and Great Moravia confirm the importance of the "Identitätsbildung"-process and "ideology" as stabilising factors in the new Přemyslid regnum.
The Medieval History Journal , 2016
This article analyses structures and representations of power in late medieval Central Europe between 1350 and 1500. Using the examples of the medieval kingdoms of Poland, Bohemia, Hungary and Germany, the study describes and compares social structures and their political implementation, fora of political discourse, achievements in constitutional and theoretical writing as well as codification of laws and privileges. The focus on “community” as a key term in the political discourse allows shedding light on modes of distributing political powers, the reciprocity and interconnections of political players and the development of notions of political representation. Against this background, the article presents the formation of structures and representations of power in late medieval Central Europe as a highly dynamic process, revealing both fictions and frictions of community.
Power in Numbers. State Formation and Christianization on the Eastern Edge of Europe, 2024
In this paper, we intend to provide the audience with basic information about the establishment and development of the ecclesiastical organization in the Přemyslid principality and its structural patterns between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. Therefore, this paper will be split into four parts. First, the beginnings of the Prague and Olomouc bishoprics will be discussed. The analysis of the foundations of these bishoprics also enables us to demonstrate the importance of princely power, contacts with the papacy and, finally, the influence of the head of the Holy Roman Empire on the high medieval Bohemian and Moravian Church. Second, a short overview of the written evidence for the local churches in Bohemia and Moravia will follow. Third, we will focus on the analysis of the existing written evidence. This will be confronted with other sources of information to determine to what extent this evidence is representative. Additionally, we will briefly discuss the relationship between the patrons and their churches, the beginnings of territorialization of the local churches, and the possible impact of the local churches on rural communities. Finally, this paper will briefly examine the embeddedness of three Benedictine monasteries, Vilémov, Kladruby, and Opatovice, and the Benedictine priories of Police and Broumov, subject to Břevnov Monastery, into the local and wider regional structures. Our analysis, based primarily on contemporary deeds and charters, will focus primarily on three issues. First, the evidence will be examined to demonstrate how exactly the newly established ecclesiastical foundations could have become foci for local elites of the Přemyslid realm. Second, the analysis results will also be used as a basis for reflections on how these institutions could have helped to establish the links between the local elites and princely power. Third, the proposed sample of ecclesiastical institutions will help us consider the dynamics of the integrating process.
2019
Nowadays the rulers’ residences and convents (Royal Sites) are often seen by the general public as the curious dwellings of royal families, who lived isolated from society. However, such places were not only built for pleasure, but they belonged to a larger network of buildings and estates that together played an important role in the ruler’s administration. Apart from palaces, these domains often comprised forests, agricultural lands, watercourses and ponds, as well as defence works and industrial and commercial buildings such as mills, tollhouses, and factories. From the Middle Ages onwards, these networks of sites became increasingly important for the consolidation of the sovereign’s power, playing a key role in the promotion of their rule. To improve control over their domanial buildings and to ensure their upkeep, rulers set up permanent administrative bodies entrusted with their management. In principle, the centralization of their building management was a financial reform, however this reform should also be considered within the context of the expansion of the sovereign’s presence throughout the realm. These building administrations have not been yet compared systematically, and it remains unclear to what extent such centralized bodies developed autonomously, responding to local conditions and requirements, or were part of international developments facilitated by the close networks of the European courts. This symposium brings together scholars from various disciplines as a first attempt to compare these institutions on a pan-European scale from the late Middle Ages up to the end of the 17th century. It aims to investigate the relationships between the local idiosyncrasies of these organisations and their shared European characteristics. It addresses from a multidisciplinary perspective questions concerning the nature of such administrations, their purpose, organisational structure, and judicial status, as well as their role in the formation of the state.