Absentee Authority Across Medieval Europe

Description

In the medieval world, what happened when a figure of recognised authority was absent? What terminology, principles and solutions of proxy authority were developed and adopted? Did these solutions differ and change over time depending on whether the absence was short or long and caused by issues of incapacity, minority, disputed succession, geography or elective absenteeism? Did the models of proxy authority adopted by ruling dynasties and large institutions influence the proxy choices of lesser authority? The circumstances and consequences of absentee authority, a major aspect of the systems of medieval power, are the focus of this volume. Ranging across the realms of medieval Europe (but with a focus upon the British Isles and France), its essays embrace a wide variety of experience - royal, parliamentary, conciliar, magnatial, military, ecclesiastical (papal to parochial), burghal, household, minor or major, male or female, exiled, captive or infirm - and explore not merely political developments, but the dynastic, diplomatic, financial, ideological, religious and cultural ramifications of such episodes. Frédérique Lachaud is Professor of medieval history at the Université de Lorraine, France; Michael Penman is Senior Lecturer in history at the University of Stirling, Scotland. Contributors: James Bothwell Michelle Bubenicek, Léonard Dauphant , Bruno Dumézil, Laurent Hablot, Torsten Hiltmann, Tom Horler-Underwood, Robert Houghton, Olivier de Laborderie, Frédérique Lachaud, Hans Jacob Orning, Michael Penman. Norman Reid Front Matter Table of Contents List of Illustrations List of Contributors Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction: Absentee Authority across Medieval Europe 1 Incarnating Authority, Exercising Authority: The Figure of the King in the Merovingian Era 2 ‘Ubi armae ibi princeps’: Medieval Emblematics as the Real Presence of the Prince 3 While the Bishop’s Away …: Absentee Bishops of Parma during the Investiture Contest 4 An Inconceivable Absence: Usurpers and Illegitimate Rulers in the Genealogical Rolls of the Kings of England, from the Late Thirteenth to the Early Fifteenth Centuries 5 Local Loyalty and Absentee Authority in Thirteenth-Century Normandy: The Evidence of the Querimoniae Normannorum (1247) 6 Representation and Authority in Thirteenth-Century England and Gascony 7 Internal Exiles: Exclusion from the Fourteenth-Century English Court and Kingdom 8 ‘Si grant charté a Paris … par defaulté du roy’: Governmental Practice and the Customary Geography of the Absence and Presence of the King in France (1364–1525) 9 Was the Couple a Palliative to the Absence of the Prince? The Political Role and Influence of Margaret of Flanders during the Reign of Philip the Bold, Duke and Count of Burgundy (1384–1404) 10 Guardian – Lieutenant – Governor: Absentee Monarchy and Proxy Power in Scotland’s Long Fourteenth Century 11 Absentee Authority in Late Medieval Iceland, as Viewed from the Literary Sources 12 Representatives of Kings and ‘Kings’ as Representatives: Authority and its Representation in Professional Groups in Late Medieval and Early Modern France – the Example of the King of Minstrels and of the King of Mercers Index Back Matter