Celestine V,Boniface VIII and the authority of parliament

During the troubled pontificates of Celestine V and Boniface VIII, publicists argued that because general councils of the Church represented the whole congregation of the faithful, they had the power to remove a pope found guilty of crimes ranging from obdurate heresy to personal insufficiency. In 1327, Isabella and Mortimer based much of the justification for their deposition of Edward II on these newly popularized ideas. Nevertheless, since these theories were for them very much rationalizations of the moment, they were quickly abandoned, with the result that Edward III's parliaments look little different from Edward I's, though in more mature form. In 1399, however, Henry IV was forced to rely on the precedent of 1327 when supplanting Richard II. Because the then-prevalent conciliar theories generated by the great schism gave even greater immediacy to the ones which had explained that first deposition, and because Henry's approach was many times to be imitated in the depositions of the fifteenth century, parliament began to take on the character of a corpus mysticum, one which could speak with the authority not just of the king, but of God and the realm. This background may shed light on some of the reasons for Henry VIII's success in using parliamentary statute to break with Rome, and it may even have contributed to some of the parliamentary positions expressed during the seventeenth-century struggles with the crown.     

Gift-giving and books in the letters of St Boniface and Lul

The Anglo-Saxon missionary and archbishop St Boniface (d.754) and Lul, his protégé and successor in the see of Mainz (d.768), left behind a rich collection of letters that has become an invaluable source in our understanding of Boniface's mission. This article examines the letters in order to elucidate the customs of gift-giving that existed between those who were involved in the mission, whether directly or as external supporters. It begins with a brief overview of anthropological models of gift-giving, followed by a discussion of the portrayal of gift-giving in Anglo-Saxon literature. Two features of the letters of Boniface and Lul are then examined — the giving of gifts and the giving of books — and a crucial distinction between them revealed. Although particular customs of gift-giving between the missionaries and their supporters were well established, and indeed bore some resemblance to ‘secular’ gift-giving customs depicted in Anglo-Saxon poetry, books, while exchanged frequently, were consistently excluded from the ritualised structures of gift-giving. A dual explanation for this phenomenon is proposed: first, that books were of greater practical importance to the mission than other forms of gifts; second, that their status as sacred texts rendered them unsuitable for inclusion within rituals that depended upon the giver emphatically belittling the material worth of their own gift.     

Interpreting the Syria vote: parliament and British foreign policy

This article presents three distinct interpretations of how parliamentary war powers affect British foreign policy more generally, based on a detailed analysis of the debate preceding the vote in parliament in August 2013 on whether Britain should intervene in the Syrian civil war. The first interpretation treats parliament as a site for domestic role contestation. From this perspective, parliamentary war powers matter because they raise the significance of MPs' doubts about Britain's proper global ‘role’. The second interpretation treats parliament as a forum for policy debate. There is nothing new about MPs discussing international initiatives. But now they do more than debate, they decide, at least where military action is involved. From this perspective, parliamentary war powers matter because they make British foreign policy more cautious and less consistent, even if they also make it more transparent and (potentially) more democratic in turn. The final interpretation treats parliament as an arena for political competition. From this perspective, parliamentary involvement exposes major foreign policy decisions to the vagaries of partisan politicking, a potent development in an era of weak or coalition governments, and a recipe for unpredictability. Together these developments made parliament's war powers highly significant, not just where military action is concerned, but for British foreign policy overall.     

In the words of the apostle: Pauline apostolic discourse in the letters of Boniface and his circle

This article analyses the correspondence of Boniface and his associates, arguing that Boniface deliberately but subtly communicates a Pauline apostolic identity in his letters, expressing his personal and professional successes, struggles, and feelings through a pervasive language of biblical allusions drawn primarily from the Pauline Epistles. The effectiveness of this hermeneutic becomes apparent when we see the complicity of Boniface's fellow correspondents and their ability and willingness to respond to his Pauline allusions in kind. They express their support of Boniface's missionary and reform projects through their participation in these discursive practices; their ability to recognize, interpret and engage with this biblical language supplies the meaning to his words and, in doing so, systematically constitutes Boniface as an apostolic figure.     

A marriage,a battle,an honour: the career of Boniface of the Hucpoldings during Rudolf II's Italian reign, 924–26

This article investigates the events of Rudolf II's military campaign in Italy (922) and considers the political ramification of this, both immediately thereafter and subsequently during the rule of Rudolf. Particular attention is paid to the career of Boniface of the Hucpoldings: an Italian aristocrat who attained prominence thanks to his close relationship with Rudolf. The Hucpoldings belonged to the aristocratic elite of the Carolingian empire, came to Italy under Lothar I (c.847) and tried to settle there. Until now, scholars have underestimated their role in the wider context of the early medieval Italian kingdom. This study will stress how Boniface's career was a turning point in the lineage's development, and how his political achievements were essential for his kinship's further hegemony.     

The authority of science and the postmodern reformation

Abstract

Popular reactions against science are as old as science itself. The challenge from postmodernity, however, is more fundamental, because it challenges not only what science does, but what science is. The epistemological authority of science is now challenged in much the same way as the spiritual authority of the Catholic Church was challenged by the Reformation. The experience of disruption and instability, the pluralism, relativism, and loss of absolutes of the earlier period are not unlike what we find in our own postmodern condition. Luther's priesthood of all believers has become a priesthood of all knowers in our postmodern reformation. More particularly, we can see how the advent of printing, the humanist cultivation of individuality, and the Copernican mapping of the heavens all have their (post)modern counterparts, in the development of the internet, the cult of narcissism, and the mapping of the human genome.     

Richard of Cornwall's candidature for the German throne and the christmas 1256 parliament at Westminster

Some months after the death of the German king William of Holland in 1256, Richard of Cornwall, with obvious help from King Henry III (but not initially with the support of the pope), decided to enter the contest for the German throne. His methods, including the use of his funds on a large scale, are well known, but Richard and Henry also contrived to deceive the English magnates about their plans. They told the barons at a meeting at the end of the year 1256 that Richard had already been elected king (which was manifestly untrue) and that only their consent was missing. This was a device to foil the expected resistance by the magnates, who were already opposing Henry's increasingly costly Sicilian adventure.     

Post-Enlightenment sources of political authority: Biblical atheism, political theology and the Schmitt-Strauss exchange

This essay reevaluates the Weimar writings of Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss, specifically, their intellectual efforts to replace the political authority of Kantian liberalism with, respectively, a ‘political theology’ and ‘Biblical atheism’ derived from the thought of early-modern state theorists like Hobbes and Spinoza. Schmitt and Strauss each insisted that post-Kantian Enlightenment rationality was unraveling into a way of thinking that violently rejected ‘form’ of any kind, fixated myopically on material things and lacked any conception of the external constraints that invariably condition the possibilities of philosophy, morality and politics. They considered Kantian reason and liberal politics to pose serious threats to ‘genuine’ expressions of rationality and as dangerous obfuscations of the necessity of political order—of the brute fact that human beings stand in need of ‘being ruled,’ as such.