Kantorowicz Review

Review- Ernst H. Kantorowicz. The King’s Two Bodies with a New Preface by William Chester Jordan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.

                Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two Bodies has entered the annals of medieval history in particular, and history in general. William Chester Jordan, in the preface to this work, states that, even though the first draft of The King’s Two Bodies dates to 1955, the work is still “indispensable for all investigations of staatstheorie and political theology” (p.xiv), and furthermore, the work “remains indeed, a wonderfully exciting and constantly rewarding book” (p.xv). On the one hand, Kantorowicz’s perspective, by his own admission (p.xix), is narrow: he focuses on the concept of the duality of the king as an institution and a person (Introduction). On the other hand, the conclusions cannot possibly limit themselves to this duality. That is, the notion of The King’s Two Bodies become as much historical practice and behavior as it is an ideology.

                Kantorowicz begins his work with a conundrum that was posed by a legal case: in 1715, King George III wished to hold some royal land as private property. Parliament denied the king’s request. For them, the King was legally immortal, always and permanently King. And yet, the person of the king is mortal (p.4-5). It is this idea of the persona mixta, of the immortal King and mortal king that Kantorowicz investigates.

                Kantorowicz finds the ultimate expression of the King’s two bodies in the legal writings of the Tudor lawyers. In a series of legal cases, the lawyers of the Tudor period articulated the notion that the individual, once king, was endowed with the spirit of the office, which spirit migrated from one body politic to another freely upon the death of a monarch. The execution of Charles I in 1642 confirmed that this body politic, the idea of the immortal King, needed not be a single person: after the death of Charles, the King resided in Parliament. From these anecdotes, Kantorowicz identifies a crucial paradigm: the individual king, like Christ, was endowed with a mortal essence as well as an immortal one, even if this particular aspect is not stated explicitly (Chapter 1).

                Kantorowicz sees the development of the King’s two bodies in the dialogues between church and state. The crucial point that Kantorowicz identifies is that the King’s two bodies arises from the progressive secularization of the Church and its opposite, the sanctification of the temporal powers of the state. The first development is the idea that the king is a persona mixta, like Christ, a mediator between heaven and earth. The bishops, Kantorowicz state, are also personae mixtae in that same way. In the works of the Anonymous Norman, both king and bishop are both expressions of the incarnation of Christ on earth. The one caveat is that the Anonymous Norman, Kantorowicz argues is not a part of his time, but the representation of antiquated ideologies (chapter 3).

                The rediscovery of the Roman legal tradition changes the ideological battlefields (Chapter 4).  From purely rhetorical concepts, royal and papal lawyers both considered the legal implications of the persona mixta. The king changes from vicarius Christi and thus mediator between heaven and earth, to the mediator between natural or divine law, and equity or temporal law. The king derived his former power from his right to legislate, given by the lex regia, and his duty to obey, as expressed in the lex digna. The conundrum of the king as supreme legislator and yet subject to his own laws brought about a crucial development: Bracton distinguished between the temporary  ties that binds him to his subjects (res privata) and the permanent ties that bind him to his realm (res fisca) (p.165-193). 

                Bracton’s ideas, though centered on England, had echoes in ecclesiastical discourses, which, in turn, are mirrored in secular ideologies (Chapter 5): the abstraction of the realm as patria and organic imagery for the state, with the pope/king as head, and the commonwealth as body (Thomas Aquinas, p.204). Papal lawyers established the pope as the head of the corpus mysticum and the corpus iudicum. The parallel developments stems from the definition of the realm as imperium sacrum, a notion directly borrowed from Roman Law. The anointment and the coronation also increasingly come to mean that the king is married to his commonwealth, which means that the nature of kingship becomes centered on the polity. The reign of Philip IV the Fair takes the imagery even further, the king asks his people to protect the realm, and the dynasty (p.250-267).

                This relationship is not yet complete. In the works of secular theorists like Dubois, the king/head can still die (p.269). It is only with the rediscovery of Aristotelitian notions of infinite continuity and the demonstration that the individual is representative of an eternal genus. From this, Kantorowicz develops the notion of political permanence (chapter 6). All that remains is to apply the same perpetuity to the head. This, Kantorowicz argues, can only be done, once three conditions are met: establishing 1) the perpetuity of the dynasty, 2) the corporate character of the crown, and 3) the immortality of royal dignity.  The first condition is met once the kings remove the necessity for both coronation and election. For instance, Philip III, due to political expediency, becomes king without election and before coronation upon the death of St Louis (p.328). The second is met once the crown is divorced from the person of the king, but not the office. This was achieved when jurists began to blur the distinction between crown and king (p.359-381). Finally, dignitas becomes synonymous with the immortal genus mentioned in chapter 6. As such, royal dignity allows the transference of authority from one dynast to the next, or, from one body politic to another (p.389-449). Dante finishes Kantorowicz’s analysis by establishing the parallel between man and Adam, the archetype of transcendence and human perfection (chapter 8).

                Unlike intellectual historians, Kantorowicz focuses on the evolution of the idea. While the intellectual historian organizes his work by scholars, Kantorowicz organizes the work around the evolution of the concept. As such, humans themselves are only relevant as articulators of the idea, and are not major players.  Thus must one understand the criticism of Schoek that there is “too much crammed in between the covers” (p.xi).

The methodology requires Kantorowicz to focus on the evolution of statements and ideas by equivalency. For example, papal lawyers crafted the notion of corpus mysticum et spirituale, while by equivalency, royal lawyers crafted the notion of corpus morale et politicum. The problem with reasoning by equivalency is that royal lawyers may be responding intellectually to the papal lawyers, at the same time, the question for the necessity of that rhetoric equivalency is relegated to the background: political necessity and context play only a minor role in Kantorowicz’s analysis; statements evolve in the context of the scholastic debates.

                And yet, politics are never truly absent. Kantorowicz’s tour de force lies in his ability to remind the reader constantly of the importance of the historical events. In this study, the reader is constantly reminded of the crucial importance of the Investiture Contest (ca.1050-1180), which acted as the catalyst for the redefinition of papal politics and royal ideologies. Kantorowicz makes only once the statement that “that struggle itself, on the one hand dismantling the secular power of spiritual authority ecclesiastical competency and liturgical affiliation, and, on the other, imperializing the spiritual power, had certainly its share” (p.90). In other words, the rhetorical rapprochement between king and pope is the result of the pressures of a single moment in time.

                The main absentee from Kantorowicz’s analysis is not the lawyer, but the law-code. Indeed, Kantorowicz’s concept of the law seems to encompass only political thinkers and theorists. However, the only laws that Kantorowicz quotes are early-medieval, ancient, or canon, and even then, the Digest of Justinian is preferred to his Novella. The underlying assumption with Kantorowicz’s source use is that the interpretation of lawyers must be reflected somehow in the law codes. Kantorowicz is aware of this objection (p.273), but yet ignores the legal documents coming from the royal chancery. The revolution in law codes and legal collections explode in the twelfth century,[1] and should shed light on the practical implementations of the theological and legal arguments that took place in monasteries and universities. Law Codes would add a layer of analysis to the argument

                Faulting Kantorowicz for limited source use is perhaps not entirely fair to the monumental intellectual labors that went into the synthesis of so many sources, for which he was praised (p.ix). This work is a testament to a method, to the evolution of an idea that provoked radical changes in the understanding of royal monarchy in Europe.

                The subsequent part is not part of the original review, but rather a summary of the class discussion that ensued.

                One aspect of the book I had only implicitly picked up on but not fully articulated was the notion of Geistesgeschichte (loosely translated as the history of the spirit). What is evident from Kantorowicz’s book is the notion of the universal geist or the underlying spirit that qualifies an age. For Kantorowicz, this geist is found primarily in the judicial, theological and literary writings of what he perceives as the elite, that is, Shakespeare, Dante, Aquinas and even the Anonymous Norman. These people all articulate, in their own way, the geist of their age.

                The variations between scholars, though duly noted, are not emphasized. The primary goal of Kantorowicz is then to demonstrate not how each scholar/writer influenced one another, but rather to demonstrate the way in which they are similar, even though each functioned in a different historical context. The implication of this statement, I believe, invalidates my initial criticism that historical context is only latent in Kantorowicz’s work primarily because the geist, for Kantorowicz, functions as a meta-historical variable.

                One point that was raised during our class discussion was whether or not this approach to history was valid. The student objected strongly to Kantorowicz’s methodological axiom, stating that (in the immortal words of Thucydides, “he spoke such things”) “ideas do not simply float around.” That is, there is no geist to speak of. Scholars interact (here perhaps indirectly influenced by the Republic of Letters), scholars talk, scholars respond to historical circumstances.

                Still, one can wonder. Both as a respondent and a presenter at historical conferences, I have had the pleasure (or distasteful surprise) to place and be placed into broad philosophical currents. As the responder, I had the distinct pleasure of arguing that political discourses of the Late-Roman Republic were understood by the presenter as part of the Borderlands theory, even when she never uttered those words. As a presenter, I was told that I was a deconstructionalist, even when I only broached Derrida two years later (and I am still not done…). Does this qualify as geist? Or do methods of thinking simply permeate our lives so much that one can be a deconstructionalist without having ever read anything from Derrida and his associates? If we were to include the historical variable, could we still speak of a geist?

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[1] Dominique Barthélémy, The Serf, the Knight and the Historian (Cornell: Ithaca University Press, 2009).

Review- The Roman Revolution

The Roman Revolution(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939).

With the publication of Ronald Syme’s The Roman Revolution, the history of the late Roman Republic and the transition to the Principate changed radically. Indeed, Syme sapped the basis of traditional arguments: the transition from Republic to Principate would no longer be dominated by the will of a few men, geniuses in their own right. Syme demoted Sulla, Pompeius, Caesar, Octavianus and Antonius to the realm of subjects, to an extent reactors to historical changes, rather than prime agents of change. For Syme, these great protagonists hid from historians two fundamental truths. The first is that behind any great regime, no matter the kind, there lurks in the background, the agency of an oligarchy, acting for their families, shuffling and reshuffling alliances so as to ensure their own successes. Octavianus’[1] revolution lay in his ability to masquerade his authority as part of the great republican ideals, as working with these oligarchs for the restoration of their privileges (p.2). The second prefigures the longue durée: it is the accident of history. Death, old age, and civil war were as much a part of the story as the agency of men.

                Syme’s articulated his greatest criticism of the history of the fall of the Roman Republic as linked to historical sources. Indeed, through the accident of history, the large majority of available documentation is loyal to the principate. The single averse source, Caius Asinius Pollio, does not survive.  Sallust died before the establishment of the principate, and Tacitus is a late source (p.4-6). Contemporary sources were intimately tied to the regime. As Syme demonstrates, Octavianus’ chief propagandist Maecenas had discovered Vergil and Horace. These two major authors owed everything to the new regime of Octavianus. Their patron, an equestrian, would not have risen through the ranks of the Republic, undoubtedly blocked by the interests of the oligarchs.[2]  Vergil and Horace themselves would have had little prospects in the republic. Both were of obscure origins. Vergil was born in Mantua, in Gallia Cisalpina, the son of a landowner, while Horace was the son of a wealthy freedman from Apulia, who had fought on the side of Brutus and Cassius at Philippi (p.252-254). Syme had already demonstrated the distaste of the oligarchy for these new-comers, whether foreigners (and especially Gauls) or equestrians in the senatorial reaction against Caesar (chapter 6). The Res Gestae Divi Augusti is of course skewed and biased, and should not be used as a guiding thread in the historical narrative of the time period (p.523). Syme tacitly, throughout the book, asserts Dio’s claim that “the task of the historian has been aggravated beyond all measure,” because “the great question of policy […] were now decided by a few men” (p.407). The sources, then, were wholly unsatisfactory: they were either skewed and unchecked by counter-narratives, or the mystery that shrouded governmental decisions obstructed the ancient historian in his task to acquire reliable information.

                Syme found his sources in the compilation and analysis of the lives of men in their historical contexts, in prosopography. This method allowed for Syme to reconstruct a history of the period, free from the biases of governmental histories, which, as we have seen, were wholly inadequate for a reliable history. Like Sallust, Syme begins his history of the fall of the Republic with Sulla. Sulla’s power, Syme shows rested largely on an alliance with the Caecilii Metelli. Indeed, Sulla had married a Metella, Q. Metellius Pius had been a general of Sulla, and in 79 B.C., the two consuls P. Servilius Vatia and Appius Claudius Pulcher were respectively son and husband of Metelli women. The Claudii and the Porcii were the other two families that controlled the senate (p.20-26), together with the more ancient Aemilii.  For the next half-a-century, the names of the families controlling the senate might change, but the concept remains. The political scene of the Roman Republic was dominated by a group of people. It is the nature and composition of that group that evolves.

                The composition of the senate under Pompeius was ostensibly the same as it had been under Sulla. Pompeius, himself the son of a knight, was of recent nobility. The accession of his family to the closed circle of consular families was largely due to an alliance with the Scipiones in the second century B.C, that is, his family was a client family, and their clientele was not based in Rome (p.30-31). He acquired his authority via a series of military successes, first as a member of Sulla’s party defeating the remaining supporters of Marius, and then through an extraordinary tribunician command to defeat the Pirates. Still, behind his achievements loomed the power of the Metelli and the Aemilii via marriage. Caesar’s own meteoric rise came from an alliance initially with Crassus, and subsequently with Pompeius.  These three men were able to exert influence over the politics of their time through a tight control of the consulate, and key military successes. The latter, though independent of the oligarchy, was crucial, as it gave the “dynasts”-as Syme calls them- auctoritas and the support of the army (chapter 3). Caesar’s senate was enlarged, but the powerhouses remained, since, unlike Sulla, Caesar chose not to purge the Senate of his enemies. The enlargement of the Senate to provincials from Gallia Cisalpina and Italy did not abate the power of the Fabii, the Claudii, the Cornelii, the Aemilii and the Servilii who retained control over the consulship (Chapters 5-7).[3]

                The first major break in the composition of the Senate occurred after Second Civil War, between the Triumvirs Octavianus, Antonius and Lepidus, and the Liberators, Cassius and Brutus.  Already in 43 B.C., in the absence of the Liberators (who had fled), the senate numbered a mere seventeen consulares (out of 900) (p.164). Because the Senate naturally turned to these consular men for authority and guidance, not to mention the administration of the wealthy provinces, the Senate appeared to lack any major form of authority. Their dependence on the major families, was further felt since some of the major players, Lucius Munatius Plancus, M. Aemilius Lepidus and C. Asinus Pollio, were either too far to be relevant, or to intelligent to play the game, and preferred to wait before choosing an allegiance. In other words, the first civil war had decimated the Senate, and deprived it of leadership (Chapter 12). This breach becomes more evident in buildup of the conflict between Antonius and Octavianus, and the subsequent victory of Octavianus.[4] The purges promulgated immediately before and continued after Philippi further exacerbated the Senate’s depletion of consulares. Cicero’s death in 43 B.C. was just a footnote in Syme’s narrative. Though Antonius emerged as the victor, the defeat of his partisans at Perusia, and his absence from Rome allowed Octavianus to replenish the Senate, much in the same way Caesar had, building on a coalition of men from obscure backgrounds but with great abilities (Agrippa, Maecenas), and the old families (chapter 17). The Galatian proconsuls during the early Principate show a clever mix of members of the old oligarchy and new men (chapter 26). Likewise, the party of Tiberius was composed of both “old” houses and new men, all of whom were either too young to owe much of their position to Augustus, or who had a vested interest in pursuing old familial glory (chapter 28).

                Syme’s greatest tour de force lays in his subtle comparison between discourse and prosopography, especially in the later chapters of the book. Indeed, Augustus’ position rested on a careful rhetoric that masked the larger revolution. If Caesar had renewed the Senate with rebel rousers from Gaul, and opened positions to the equestrians, and shamelessly restored the Marian party, when the Senators themselves were largely from the Sullan party (Chapters 5-6), Augustus carefully crafted a discourse around the continuity of the old republican order. The “settlement of 23 B.C.” Syme argues, buried the Republic, but was clouded by discourses of continuity. Augustus had almost died, and relinquished the consulate, and was replaced by L. Sestius, once a republican, now a devout servant to the state.  In exchange, Augustus obtained proconsular imperium over the Empire, and he began to exercise the powers of the tribune (as opposed to simply holding them).[5] The Senate had willingly given up: by removing the consular ornaments from the titulature of Augustus, the Senate had effectively removed itself from the basis of power of Augustus. Indeed, Syme argues,  “the new settlement” set up the two pillars on top of which the regime is based: the army (proconsular imperium) and the people (tribunicia potestas). In other words, Augustus had shown deference towards the senate and liberated its most prestigious office, all the while entrenching his position beyond the reach of the powerful, opportunistic familial dynasties that had plagued the end of the Republic (chapter 23).

In terms of control of discourse, Augustus was able to use patronage to his advantage: the men that he placed in positions of power had effectively become his clients. Some men, like for instance, Agrippa, had also acquired tremendous wealth from their service with Augustus. In the rebuilding program of Rome by his clients, Syme argues, Augustus had become omnipresent in the empire. Then, by securing advancements for the members of his party, Augustus was able to control the system he had created (chapter 25). Thus, Syme’s demagogue, through a careful manipulation of rhetoric and the accidents of history (war, death, and old age) was able to replace the old oligarchy with his own, thus establishing a monarchy and ending the Roman Revolution.

                The criticism of such a text is tricky. Firstly, Syme’s arguments have permeated any lecture on the Roman Republic, and in this way, have become somewhat canonical. Secondly, the benefits of the anthropological concept of cultural relativism, which tempered the way historians analyzed discourse, did not emerge until the 1970’s. One can hardly fault Syme on that ground.

                Still, one can see a limit to prosopography as displayed in Syme’s work. The purpose of the Roman Revolution was to completely reevaluate the discourse previous generations had crafted. Extreme views could and should be adopted. The heroes (Cicero, Caesar, Pompeius) have become, at the very least, shameless promoters. In the case of Cicero, Syme overplays his hand. It is true that Cicero was not consistent in his affiliations. He had opposed Pompei, but fought for him against Caesar (chapter 3); he had initially turned a blind eye to Octavianus, before pushing him forward as the savior of the Republic, even giving Octavianus’ illegal army of veterans Senatorial clearance and legality (chapter 10). The speeches are a special target of Syme, who shows that, from a philological perspective, Cicero was exceedingly vague, using words devoid of political sense. Indeed, the libertas of the Roman people carried no real actual significance (p.152-153). For Syme, Cicero was attached primarily to his own advancement (p.139). The argument is dangerous. That the words used in Cicero lacked precise meaning is not uncommon in general political discourses, and Cicero still shows remarkable consistency in choosing a side that would, in the end, help the salvation of the Republic. Was Octavianus the most dangerous threat to the Republic? Objectively, Antonius’ power base resembled Caesar’s. His authority was extensive (Gaul), and his army powerful. He also, in 43 had placed Hirtius and Pansa as consuls, probably because of their lack of auctoritas (p.149). Octavianus’ army was small in comparison, and only coupled with D. Brutus could Octavianus really pose a threat to Antonius. Is it a stretch to see Cicero as genuinely concerned, as seeing Octavianus as a little threat that could be controlled? In other words, perhaps Cicero’s loyalties did indeed lie with the Republic that he so desperately wished to save, and that his alliances reflect a genuine belief in the person who would save the republic.

                Prosopography, as displayed in the Roman Republic, really acts as a check on available sources. Like other non-literary checks, archaeology for instance, one runs the risk of transforming one type of source as a slave to the other. Syme wants his Cicero to be an opportunistic demagogue, therefore, he becomes one. His alliances seem to reflect a lack of consistency, so too should his speeches. Still, Syme’s work provided a complete reevaluation of a historical discourse that had become canonical. Syme’s analysis shattered the field, and his methodology has allowed for an objective use of information contained in the sources.

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[1] For the sake of clarity, Octavianus will remain Octavianus until the discussion of the principate.

[2] On the context for the rise of Maecenas and other kings, see p.235-238, chapter 18; on the politics of the oligarchs, see specifically chapter 2, where Syme exposes the machinations of the large families, especially the Metelli.

[3] Syme’s appendix is tremendously useful for corroborating his evidence.

[4] Syme struggles with this victory, since, as he demonstrated in chapters 7-9, Antonius clearly had the upper hand.

[5] From then on, Augustus would date his years from the acquisition of the tribunicia potestas.

Grafton Book Review

At the Crossroads of Arts and Science

A Review of The Footnote: A Curious History by Anthony Grafton

Reviewed by Laurent Cases



Monographs or articles of academic value contain some method of citation; it is natural for scholars to expect that any scholarly work should contain a way to assess a given statement, as well as assess its reliability. Students of pre-modern history are well aware that such methods as footnotes or endnotes are fairly recent. After all, the ancients did not use footnotes or endnotes. Herodotus, instead of citing his sources, would use the word φὰσιν to indicate divergent storylines in sources. This practice endured well into the byzantine period, as the historian Zonaras, when discussing the fate of the Palmyrene empress Zenobia, also citing the two main narratives, would also use that same word marker found in Herodotus (Zon 607). At the other end of the spectrum, historians began to collect documents and data in order that they might sustain a point. Eusebius of Caesarea is a case already mentioned in Grafton’s work. Optatus of Milevis, in Against the Donatists, attached to his manuscript a flurry of documents with the aim of demonstrating the validity of his position.

Yet, even as a student of this particular historical tradition, footnotes are in fact second nature when crafting a discourse about the time period, even if their purpose has remained largely unsought, their true nature unidentified. In Grafton’s own words, “most students of historiography, for their part, have interested themselves in the explicit professions of their subjects, rather than their technical practices, especially those that were tacitly, rather than explicitly transmitted and employed” (p.26). Still, footnotes have become an integral part of the tools of the historian, and their use, hence, is a vision of a certain kind of history. Grafton’s work traces the development of the footnote as a mirror of larger historical trends, and changes in the mentalités of scholars and authors alike.

Chapter one of Grafton’s work introduces the conundrum that he seeks to resolve. The historian, Grafton states, has two major tasks: to examine all of the sources relevant to a certain historical problem, and to create an original narrative from these sources. Footnotes, Grafton states, are the proof that both tasks have been carried out (p.4-5). Grafton extrapolates on the implications of this statement. First, footnotes are the marks of appurtenance to a professional fellowship. By writing footnotes, Grafton states, the apprentice stakes a claim at being a historian, and perhaps most important, at being a member of a group by engaging in a discussion with the members of that group (p.7-17). The inherent problem is that, though the young historian enthusiastically displays this membership, as the historian ages, the footnote becomes a hindrance: it breaks the narrative, and affects the accessibility of the text. That is, the writing of a historical narrative becomes a science rather than an art form.

Chapters two and three evaluate this hypothesis, that footnotes evolved (out of simple glossings on manuscripts) from the marriage between history (the art of narrative) with philology (the science of source criticism). At the center of this marriage, scholars have argued, is the figure of Ranke. Ranke, Grafton argues, had become obsessed with the recreation of the past, “as it was” after the cruel realization that the Louis IX and Charles of Burgundy of Walter Scott had not existed. Grafton does point out that footnotes had existed prior to Ranke: Gibbon (in chapter 1) and Gucciardini both acted as predecessors to Ranke with respect to the use of footnotes. However, as Grafton demonstrates, Ranke used his footnotes differently, that is, while Gucciardini used sources rather heavily to cite any and all sources, Ranke refined this model by viewing footnotes as the quotation and citation of proper sources. Chapter three is concerned with the establishment of this marriage between philology and history. Though a historian, Ranke’s fame had been in his criticism of Gucciardini, and specifically, Ranke’s demonstration that Gucciardini had invented certain speeches in his history (Chapter 2). Grafton shows further that the combination of philology and history changed the nature of history: “history should tell the double story of the historical past and the historian’s research” (p.67). Not only did Ranke reject that notion of history, but philology, as a method, had been around since the Renaissance. Then, the footnote did not originate with Ranke and the German academics of the nineteenth century.

The link established between footnote and scientific history holds, however, as Grafton demonstrates in chapter four, as he examines the attitudes of eighteenth century philosophes. Voltaire, on the one hand disliked foonotes as exhibition of pedantic knowledge that got in the way of the historical narrative, while Tissot on the other hand, viewed footnotes as a natural apparatus of historical research. Tissot’s point is exemplified further in the anecdote of a debate between Gibbon and Davis, as Davis argued that Gibbon’s footnotes were used as a clever artifice to avoid detection. The underlying point is that, by the time Gibbon was writing, academic historical works necessitated the use of footnotes.

Chapters five and six explore different ways in which footnotes predated the enlightenment. Again following that footnotes stem out of the philological tradition, Grafton focused on De Thou, the legal historian, who was instrumental in propagating the use of first-hand accounts as the best source for an event. These sources were largely quoted in footnotes. Most interestingly, Grafton uses the folios of Ben Johnson’s Sejanus, heavily annotated undoubtedly as a shield against potential repression in a tense political climate, to show essentially that footnotes were used in lieu of collection of sources. Chapter six looks to antiquarianism and antiquarian attitudes as the earliest archetypes of footnotes. Indeed, the desire to annotate texts to give them credence can be found in the Greek historical tradition of the fourth century B.C.E, and in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Greek historians and Jewish lawyers used heavy text collection as support for a wide range of problematic issues; for instance, the demonstration that Biblical codes predated Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey. The antiquarians, Grafton demonstrates, had a profound effect on the development of footnotes, in that “their [antiquaries] methodical criticism prodived the model for he analytical, though not the narrative, procedures that Robertson and Möser used” (p.187). However, antiquaries did not annotate: the sources were discussed in the text proper. Then, antiquarians might have provided the impetus for analytical history and have created an intellectual model for the footnote, but they clearly did not “invent” the footnote.

Chapter seven is the culmination of Grafton’s reasoning. In this chapter, he believes that he has identified the archetypal footnote, both in form and in spirit, of the modern footnote: Bayle’s Historical and Critical Dictionary. Perhaps forced by necessity to hide important data in his footnotes to avoid repression from censure, Bayle undoubtedly believed in full and appropriate citations. Grafton’s aforementioned quote about the duality of the historian that Ranke rejected is fully formed for Bayle who saw himself as a narrator and commentator (p.200). Bayle’s commentary arose from the criticism of Descartes, who had elevated mathematical knowledge and method as the pinnacle of truth. Footnoting arose out of Bayle’s belief that historical knowledge was more accurate and applicable than mathematical truth. The final step in the evolution of the footnote came with Jean Le Clerc, who crafted the footnote in its modern form: clear, concise and accessible. Then, according to Grafton, one can find the origins of the footnote in the Republic of Letters, in the reaction against Descartes and mathematical truth, and in the definition of history as a scientific endeavor.

Grafton’s masterful study has taken the form of the dialogue between history, and the art of historical writing, and the science of source criticism. Indeed, though the book purports to delve into the history of the footnote, Grafton instead takes his readers on a journey into the ways in which historians have conceptualized their craft. Why Grafton chose the footnote as his focal point is made clear in the first chapter. Indeed, the footnote is the way in which one expresses appurtenance to a certain intellectual group. It is the mark of the historian’s craft.

Grafton’s methodology is set forth in his preface when he states that “the footnote is not so uniform and reliable as some historians believe. Nor is it the pretentious authoritarian device that other historians reject.” This dichotomy in attitude between science (sentence 1) and the art (sentence 2) is at the core of the footnote. From Ranke’s rejection of the footnote as an ugly alteration of what is otherwise an art form (chatper 2) to Bayle’s extolling of the footnote as a necessary tool, Grafton’s book offers countless examples of scholars torn between the scientific approach to their craft (via source criticism) and the art of crafting a historical narrative. Gibbon’s footnotes are characterized as truthful and accurate but inaccessible, while Möser filled his pages with an extreme amount of footnotes, so as to make his discourse barely legible. Grafton’s clear and precise examples bring the wrenching conflict between the artist and the scientist in all historians to life.

Grafton’s book also exemplifies his belief that a history should show both the narrative and the historical inquiry. Indeed, Grafton begins with the end: Ranke and the evolution of the historical method in the German universities during the nineteenth century (a topic developed more fully in his other work Worlds Made by Words), and breaks down the ideology of Ranke and Niebuhr to its core components. Moving backwards, he then identifies the various influences of Ranke and Niebuhr: Voltaire’s remarks against the pedantic footnotes, the scientific dismantling of the Donation of Constantine by Valla, or the grand literary narratives of Gucciardini and Bruni. Grafton then states that these are but the components that lay behind the idea of the footnote, but that they do not explain the footnote itself (nor do they answer the deeper question on the nature of the Historian’s craft). He finally reaches the first formulation of the idea of the footnote in the response of the liberal arts (via Bayle and Le Clerc) to methodical science (Descartes).
Grafton’s method, traced along the lines of inquiry and discourse, is at the core of what is perhaps my only critique of this book. Grafton’s own training as an early modern Western historian comes to light in this work. Indeed, Grafton does not account for the Greek historical tradition. In chapter five, Grafton jumps from Herodotus to Eusebius of Caesarea, forgetting in the process to address the important historian Thucydides with any depth. Grafton reproduces the bias of Ranke and Le Clerc that the ancients did not have footnotes. This is in theory correct, but the Greeks’ use of the word φὰσιν as a means to distinguish between multiple accounts deserved to be investigated in this context. Lastly, Grafton forgets two important ancient historians: Tacitus and Ammianus Marcellinus. Both of these historians deserve attention as writers of grand narratives to be sure, but also as expositors of some historical truth.[1] While there are no footnotes in classical histories, the process of inquiry and the exposition of truth by sorting out sources deserved a greater place in the narrative, rather than what felt like a footnote in Le Clerc’s

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[1] Ammianus, for instance, made abundant use of primary eyewitness accounts, like imperial reports and possibly merchants. Guy Sabbah, La méthode d’Ammien (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1985), esp. the second part.

Establishing Royal Authority and Decreasing Papal Dependence: The Dialogues of Authority at the Besançon Affair

This essay seeks to demonstrate two aspects of imperial authority as evidenced by the documents pertaining to the Imperial Diet at Besançon. I hope to demonstrate two key aspects of Imperial government. First, Frederick I was well aware of the principles of communal governance. Second, Papal rhetoric and actions threatened the destruction of local communal ties to the imperial government. Most importantly, however, is that this situation arose from the consolidation of three different titles around a single person.

When the Imperial Diet met in October 1157, chancellor Roland read a letter from the pope, which stipulated that “the fullness of dignity and honor had been bestowed upon the emperor by the Roman pontiff, that the emperor had received from his hand the imperial crown, and that he would have regretted conferring even greater benefits upon him […].” The crowd then proceeds to go into “a great tumult and uproar (Tierney, doc. 51).

The reaction of the crowd is not altogether surprising. After all, this event takes place a mere thirty years after the Concordat of Worms (1122), which ‘ended’ the investiture contest. A key feature of papal policies during the Investiture Contest was the assertion that the emperor had derived his authority from the pope. Firstly, in 1075, the Dictatus Papae stipulates that “the Pope may depose Emperors” (Tierney, doc. 26). This particular point is reinforced when Henry opens his letter to the pope by stating that he is “King not by usurpation, but by the pious ordination of God” (Tierney, doc. 30). Then, not only does the presence of reliefs and iconography in Rome representing the pope handing down imperial authority and the kingdom of Italy to Emperor Lothar (Tierney, doc. 51; also doc. 52) become plausible, but the injunction from the legate that “from whom then does he have the empire, if not from our lord the Pope?” (Tierney, doc. 51) would infuriate the assembly. Subsequently, popes argued that, on account of the Donation of Constantine, the imperial dignity was theirs alone, and that they gave it back to Charlemagne (Tierney, doc. 80).

Imperial authority, indeed, does not appear to descend from the pope in the sources. The response of Frederick Barbarossa to the envoys of the City of Rome in June of 1155 attests to the fact that he holds imperial authority from the nobility of ‘the Frank.’ That is, ‘the Frank’ is the sole person who is fit to recover the Empire “clad with in its virtue”, and with “its adornments” (Tierney, doc 49). That is, the German emperors are the natural heirs to the Empire.

Then, the question becomes, who carries that dignity to confer imperial dignity upon a person? Obviously, as mentioned above, the pope believes it is himself who carries that dignity, while the emperor (and probably, by extension his lawyers and nobles)[1] states that: “through election by the princes, the kingdom and the empire are ours alone” (Tierney, doc.52). Frederick’s actions at the diet clearly shows that he supported the outburst, all the while maintaining the royal dignity Hadrian claims he lacked.[2] Indeed, he both saved the lives of the legates by removing them from the room, while responding to the outburst and supporting his nobles by exiling the legates, first to their rooms and then sending them back to Rome (Tierney, doc. 51). Then, there are two different ideas of authority at stake here: first, the pope claims sole authority to nominate emperors, while the emperors stated that they obtained their authority both from their being Franks and from their electors. In other words, papal rhetoric is at odds with the reality of the governance of the empire.

Susan Reynolds may have the key to understanding this problem. Indeed, in her discussion of German Imperial authority, she states quite clearly that there is a distinction between the three holdings of the Emperor, namely his kingdom of Italy and the Imperial government, both of which carry papal sanctioning and the kingdom of the Germans, which have been granted by the electorate.[3] Then, even if the individual parties involved (that is emperor, popes, and magnates) were well aware of the distinctions between the offices, the concentration of the offices around a single person creates a situation which allows for varied forms of legitimization.

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[1] Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 2^nd Ed (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), esp. pp.319-331. She argues that the theories of imperial kingship arose partially from laws, lawyers and scholars. This shows that the emperor would not have been the only one involved in defining his authority in this way.

[2] The circumstances are different, but Hadrian states twice that the emperor behaves in a different way than “behooved imperial dignity,” first in a letter of 1157, and then again in a letter of 1158. Tierney, docs 50, 53.

[3] Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, pp.289-297.

Eudes Rigaud, the Pope and Ecclesiastical Reforms The Implementation of Universal Reforms in a Local Context

Adam J. Davis’ book The Holy Bureaucrat is filled with interesting anecdotes concerning life of the Franciscan archbishop of Rouen, Eudes Rigaud. It would be difficult to respond in a general manner to all of the topics proposed in the book, and so I will focus on the interactions between the papacy and Eudes.[1]

Papal reforms, as we have discussed in previous weeks, was met with varying success from the time of the investiture contest. One the problems clearly was the enforcement of papal policies by local bishops. As an oft quoted (by me) letter of Gregory to Otto of 1074, bishop of Constance, shows, papal orders were not always diligently followed (Tierney, document 25). There is no reason to believe that this was an isolated case. Bruce Venarde demonstrates that in terms of monastic reforms, the impetus for change was not motivated by the papacy but by local preachers, with papal support being ex post facto.[2]

One major problem with papal involvement in local politics stems from accepted papal ideology that the pope was a universal overseer in ecclesiastical matters, as the promulgator of canon law. Indeed, Gregory VII places himself as judge over the enforcement of canon law, while the defendant has the prospect of excommunication (Tierney, document 25). Perhaps more relevant is the opinion of Gregory IX (contemporary to Rigaud) that the pope received imperial dignity from Constantine, and that this authority was subsequently delegated to the emperors after Charlemagne (Tierney, document 80). This opinion is particularly relevant, especially if taken in the context of the revival of revival of Roman law. One key concept is that “whatever the Emperor settles by rescript, or decides in his judicial capacity, or ordains by edicts is clearly a statute” (Tierney, document 48). Hence, the popes claimed absolute authority with respect to Canon Law.

But this totalizing discourse betrays the local reality that, while a bishop was bound to papal judgment, he still could choose what to enforce and what not to enforce, sometimes being at odds with papal opinions. For instance, Eudes’ visitations to his parishioners, which, Davis says, were both uninvited and frequent, were in direct violation of the papal opinion (and hence law by the principle stated above) stated in Romana Ecclesia that the archbishop could not make uninvited visits within his province.[3] The pope tacitly confirmed the prohibition, but Eudes did not cease his visitations, preferring to focus instead on the juridical authority of the bishop in his own diocese over that of the archbishop.[4] Hence, even in the face of direct papal order, the local bishop retained certain liberties.

This last point is not as interesting as the fact that the bishop could choose, in addition to whether, how he would enforce papal orders. Eudes Rigaud highlights this particular point, especially in the context of monastic disciplines. Indeed, both Gregory IX and Innocent III confirmed legislations pertaining to the care of the sick. For them, this meant founding new hospitals.[5] Eudes’ proclivity for charity to the sick has already been demonstrated by Davis in preceding chapters, and indeed, he diligently enforced this particular piece of legislation. However, Eudes chose a slightly different path to enforce the rule. He did not as much found new hospitals as ensure that the hospitals themselves were in working order, providing proper care. That meant ensuring access to physicians, paying attention to the physical needs of the sick, and proper diet for the sick. Then, as Davis ably shows, Eudes’ policing actions and the way he enforced papal legislation were motivated by his Franciscan ideals.[6]

What the study of Davis highlights is the regionalism of reform. That is, the reform of one region is dependent on its own context. However,[7] the region is not isolated from the wider context, either of the French kingdom or of the Papacy. Indeed, papal reforms, though stemming from Rome, were universal in the sense that, according to Roman law, rescripts are equivalent to statutes (see above). Hence, rescripts, like the one solving the aforementioned dispute between Eudes and his bishops, shaped papal reform. Then, the universality of the reform is conditioned by a dialogue between general, and centralized, principles of law, and local circumstances.

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[1] Though there are some clearly fascinating topics that I would have loved to discuss, from his intellectual background in Chapter 1, and intellectuals parallels to Aquinas’ views, to his more general economic policies. One question worth raising, however, with respect to Eudes’ policies is this: Some like the archbishop of Canterbury were asked to answer for the alleged poverty vows of the Franciscans, but these criticisms seem to arise out of the necessity of the control Pecham’s spending. Hence, under appropriate expenditures, was there a criticism? In other words, was there a fundamental discrepancy between the handling of money and Franciscan poverty vows? Wasn’t there a distinction between ideal (rule) and practicality (glossing/interpretation)? At a more fundamental level, this begs the question of the integration of spiritual orders within society and the artificial distinction placed on the separation of church and state alluded to by Reynolds in her second edition to Kingdoms and Communities.

[2] Bruce L. Venarde, Women’s Monasticism and Medieval Society (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), esp. chapter 3.

[3] Adam J. Davis, The Holy Bureaucrat: Eudes Rigaud and Religious Reform in Thirteenth-Century Normandy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), pp.57-60. Davis’ initial points in Chapter 3 frame the issue in terms of shifting hierarchies within the church, and the ambiguous place of honorary titles (metropolitan, archbishop) within the church. One question Eudes and his bishops were attempting to answer was “what is the place of the archbishop in the diocese?”

[4] Ibid, p.60.

[5] Ibid, p.79. Davis frames this in the context founding new hospitals.

[6] Ibid, pp.79-82. Eudes’ implementation papal or local legislation was motivated by his intellectual formation. This is especially clear in chapter 1, when the debate over the way in which scholastics should apply their knowledge is discussed. On the one hand, Peter the Chanter argued that scholastic training served a pastoral purpose, whereas Aquinas viewed his intellectual pursuits as reaching the masses by way of clerks. In Chapter 5, there is mention of Guillaume de Saâne’s school in Paris to train clerics from Rouen to become part of the archbishop’s familia. Thus, there is a clear association between intellectual ability/pursuit and local administration.

[7] Davis does well to highlight this objection.