Christus Regnat : inauguration and images of kinship in England, France and the Empire c.1050-c.1250

• Main Author: Dale, Johanna
• Published: University of East Anglia 2013
• Subjects: 900
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.601076

This thesis challenges the traditional paradigm, which assumes that the period c.1050-c.1250 saw a move away from the ‘biblical’ or ‘liturgical’ kingship of the early Middle Ages towards ‘administrative’ or ‘law-centred’ interpretations of rulership. By taking an interdisciplinary and transnational approach, and by bringing together types of source material that have traditionally been studied in isolation, a continued flourishing of Christ-centred kingship in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries is exposed. In demonstrating that Christological understandings of royal power were not Incompatible with bureaucratic development, the shared liturgically inspired vocabulary deployed by monarchs in the three realms is made manifest. The practice of monarchical inauguration forms the focal point of the thesis, which is structured around three different types of source material: liturgical texts, narrative accounts and charters. Rather than attempting to trace the development of this ritual, an approach that has been taken many times before, this thesis is concerned with how royal inauguration was understood by contemporaries. Key insights include the importance of considering queens in the construction of images of royalty, the continued significance of unction despite papal attempts to lower the status of royal anointing, and the depth of symbolism inherent in the act of coronation, which enables a reinterpretation of this part of the inauguration rite.