The Medieval Justification of Kingship and its Ties to the Church
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Date
2024-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
This essay delves into how medieval scholars reconciled their power structures with Christianity. These scholars drew on biblical stories and Greek philosophers in order to create a narrative of kings being justified in their rule over the masses. I also look at how kings put these ideas into practice and further legitimized their rule through supposed connections to historical and legendary figures. I focus on evaluating primary sources with some modern evaluations of these ideas included. While much research has been dedicated to the relationship between the Church and the state in the medieval era, much less has been focused on how Christians rationalized the existence of such centralized power and hierarchy. Thus, this thesis tries to connect the dots between medieval political philosophy and other previous political philosophies which medieval scholars drew inspiration from. The thesis further shows how such reasoning was similar to the traditional ways that monarchs legitimized their rule. Ultimately, the biblical idea of kings being ordained by God places them as the "pre-eminent individual" described by Aristotle that should be given the power to rule and subversively discourages doubt and rebellion.
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Keywords
Medieval monarchy, Codependency of monarchy and the Church in the medieval era, Influences of medieval political thought, Medieval mirrors for princes, Greek philosophy and medieval monarchy, Legitimization of rule in the medieval era