Table Of ContentECLIPSE OF EMPIRE?
Perceptions of the Western Empire and its Rulers in
Late-Medieval France
CURSOR MUNDI
Editorial Board all members ofthe UCLA Centerfor Medieval and Renaissance
Studies
Christopher Baswell, General Editor
Blair Sullivan, Executive Editor
William Bodiford
Peter Cowe
Teofilo Ruiz
Giulia Sissa
Zrinka Stahuljak
Advisory Board
Michael D. Bailey Iowa State University
IstvanBejczy Radboud UniversityNijmegen
Florin Curta University ofFlorida
Elizabeth Freeman University ofTasmania
YitzhakHen Ben-Gurion UniversityoftheNegev
Geraldine Heng University ofTexasat Austin
Lauren Kassell Pembroke College, Cambridge
David Lines University ofWarwick
CaryNederman TexasA&M
VOLUME 1
ECLIPSE OF EMPIRE?
Perceptions of the Western Empire and its Rulers in
Late-Medieval France
by
Chrisjones
BREPOLS
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Jones, Chris
Eclipse of empire? : perceptions of the western empire and
its rulers in late-medieval France. - (Cursor mundi ; v.l)
1. Imperialism - France - History - To 1500 2. Holy Roman
Empire - History 3. Europe - Politics and government -
476-1492
I. Title
943'.025
ISBN-13: 9782503524788
© 2007 Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
D/2007/0095/61
ISBN: 978-2-503-52478-8
Printed in the E.U. on acid-free paper.
For Mum & Dad
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits
to point out that the emperor has no clothes.
But the half-wit remains a half-wit,
and the emperor remains an emperor.
N. Gaiman, The Sandman: The Kindly Ones (London: Titan, 1996), pt. 4, p. 23.
Contents
Preface ix
List of Abbreviations xiii
List ofFigures xix
List ofPlates xxi
List ofMaps and Genealogical Tables xxiii
Introduction 1
Interpretations 1
Choosing a Perspective 9
The Altered Image ? 17
Chapter 1: Frederick II — The Conspicuous Emperor 27
A Clerical Perspective 32
HeroorVillain? 43
The Emperor and lepetit roP. 49
Chapter 2: The Emperor and the Saint 59
Saint-Denis and the Creation of an Antithesis 62
Frederick after Guillaume — The Fragmented Image 82
Alternative Fredericks? 93
Chapter3:AfterFrederick — Allies andEnemies 103
Innocent’sMen 105
Richard of Cornwall and the Castilian Prism 114
Through an English Prism? Perspectives on German Rulers after Richard 118
Through the Prism ofjohn ofBohemia? Henry VII and Ludwig ofBavaria 131
Chapter 4: Charlemagne — The Ubiquitous Emperor 145
The Carolingians and Capetian Legitimacy 146
The Imperial Past: Inheritance or Irrelevance? 150
The Carolingians and Saint-Denis 164
LeroiCarlemainne 169
Chapter5: ThroughtheLookingGlass 183
Thelnalienabilityoflnheritance 184
The Hohenstaufen — A Dynasty like any Other 189
The Hohenstaufen — A German Dynasty? 197
TheLineageof theEagle 201
An Heir to the Hohenstaufen? 203
Electing a Dynasty 211
Chapter 6: Dominusmundti 219
Thejurists — Imperial Authority as a Legal Technicality 220
Beating Boniface — The Case for French Exemption 229
Jean Quidort — An Alternative to Exemption? 238
Jean Quidort’s Perspective: A Success? 242
Chapter7: Limits 259
Finding Boundaries 262
Expansion or Consolidation? 272
One Step Beyond? 283
Extendinglnfluence 291
NegotiatingExpansion? 300
Chapter 8: An Imperial Vocation? 309
A German Kingdom and a German Empire? 312
The Roman Connection and the Papacy 319
The Roman Emperor and the Empire of Christianity 333
The Imperial Crusader 340
Conclusion: TheEclipseofEmpire? 353
Bibliography 367
Index 407
Preface
This book is an expanded version of a Ph.D. thesis submitted to the
University of Durham in 2003. I embarked on the original thesis
primarily as a result of two stimuli. The first of these was connected
with the questions which lingered on — and indeed the new ones that arose —
after I submitted a B.A. dissertation concerned with the context and purpose of
Jean Quidort’s famous treatise De potestate regia et papali to the same
institution in 1998. The approach I adopted in that piece, and much of my later
thought, was influenced by an article Janet Coleman wrote in 1991 exploring
the Dominican context of Jean’s work in which she questioned many of the
traditional assumptions that have tended to be made about his motivations (the
full reference to Professor Coleman’s article appears in chapter six). The second
factor was an interest in the chronicle as an historical source, an interest first
awakened by Professor Michael Prestwich, in his special subject on Edward II,
and by Professor David Rollason, in his seminar on Anglo-Norman Durham.
The growing success of the tri-annual Medieval Chronicle conference, which
held its fourth meeting in 2005, suggests I am not alone in taking a renewed
interest in what has been for much of the previous century a source much
neglected by all but a few brave historians.1
1 One particularly notable example from the English-speaking world of the resurgence
of interest in the chronicle is Chris Given-Wilson’s recent thought-provoking study of
English historical writing between the late-thirteenth and the early-fifteenth century: C.
Given-Wilson, Chronicles: The Writing of History in Medieval England (London:
Hambledon, 2004).
X Preface
There are many debts to be acknowledged in connection with a project such
as this one. I wish first to recognize the financial assistance of the United
Kingdom’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, from whom I received a
three-year Ph.D. studentship and an overseas field study award. I am also
grateful to the Royal Historical Society, who indulged a penchant for European
travel, and the socrates -erasmus exchange programme of the European Union,
who indulged a penchant for living in Paris. I am obliged to the History
Department of the University ofDurham, to Dr BjörnWeiler, and to the Open
University, all of whom arranged funding which enabled me to expound ideas
originating in this book at, respectively, the 2003 Leeds International Medieval
Congress, the 2003 University of Wales Representations of Power in Medieval
Germany conference (in whose proceedings I was kindly invited to publish an
article which further develops some of the ideas discussed in chapter two), and
the 2005 Reading Medieval Chronicle IV conference. I am grateful to the
participants at all of these conferences and to those at the 2001 Durham
Political Identities in Britain and Western Europe conference for their many
helpful comments and suggestions.
I am extremely grateful to the Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte, the
Mission historique française en Allemagne, and the British Centre for
Historical Research in Germany under whose joint auspices I had the honour to
attend a tri-lingual summer school held at Göttingen in 2000, an event which
has been formative in the preparation of this book. I am obliged to Dr Henri
Bresc for facilitating a happy year of research at the Université Paris X-
Nanterre. I am particularly indebted to Dr Blair Sullivan of the UCLA Center
for Medieval and Renaissance Studies who kindly accepted my first foray into
print, whose benevolence resulted in several further invitations to publish, and
who has taken on the not inconsiderable burden of becoming my editor for this
book. I am grateful for both her friendship and her patience.
The late Master of Grey College, Victor Watts, in addition to being an
inspirational friend, was kind enough to read and comment upon early drafts of
the original thesis. I am particularly indebted to Dr Bob Dyson who has been
extremely generous in supplying me with copies of manuscripts, his own work,
and his time. I also appreciate the discussions of aspects of this work I have had
with Dr Jay Rubenstein, Romedio Schmitz-Esser, and, in particular, with Dr
Klaus Oschema who painstakingly read through the manuscript and saved me
from many a bêtise great and small. I am also grateful for the sound advice of my
external examiners, Professor Jeffrey Denton and Dr Joseph Canning. The
errors that remain, of course, are my own.
