Callum Jamieson
Published: 21 January 2019
The papacy, as one of the earliest ‘supranational’ bodies, was central to English politics between 1066 and 1221, with a considerable and developing impact on royal power and secular and ecclesiastical government.
University of Glasgow
The papacy, as one of the earliest ‘supranational’ bodies, was central to English politics between 1066 and 1221, with a considerable and developing impact on royal power and secular and ecclesiastical government.
While historians have often noted the papacy’s engagement with English kings many times over the centuries, their characterisation of this has very often been relentlessly negative or focussed on highly technical detail. 20th century studies been bound by traditional understandings of English, British, and Protestant historiography of church-state relations. Beyond brief references to Anglo-papal interactions, little work has done on how the papacy, with its very specific understanding of secular kingship, legitimised English kingship. Within the historiography, the papacy is something of a caricature, and its impact on medieval English royal governance has often been passed over.
Moving beyond these anecdotal episodes and traditional historiography, I will establish how the papacy legitimised English kingship. I will ascertain whether English kings always welcomed papal legitimisation, and how, if at all, this legitimisation of kingship changed. Consultation with English and papal documents will establish how kingship was conceived by both royal government and the papacy and reveal the similarities and differences, something that is lacking in current scholarship.
First published: 21 January 2019