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The High Middle Ages witnessed the rise of royal power to a level of importance that had not been seen in Western Europe since the decline of the Carolingian Empire. The great kingdoms of the period — France, England, Germany, the Christian kingdoms of Spain, Sicily, and the emerging kingdoms of Poland, Hungary, and Scandinavia — all developed the institutions, the laws, and the ideologies of kingship that would define European politics for centuries. The theory of royal authority was elaborated in legal, theological, and political treatises, and the practice of kingship was transformed by the development of new administrative, financial, and military instruments.
This cluster explores the development of kingship and royal authority in the High Middle Ages. The articles in the related long-tail pages provide deeper examinations of specific aspects of the topic.
The story of medieval kingship in the High Middle Ages is the slow substitution of the royal household and the royal court for the great feudatories as the operative unit of government. Jean Dunbabin, in “France in the Making, 843–1180” (1985), and Robert Bartlett, in “England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings” (2000), have given the most influential accounts of how the Capetians and the Anglo-Normans did this in parallel. The page that follows leans on both.
The Theory of Kingship
The medieval theory of kingship was rooted in the Christian tradition. The king was understood to be God’s representative on earth, charged with the maintenance of order, the protection of the Church, the administration of justice, and the defense of the realm. The anointing of the king with holy oil, performed by a bishop or archbishop, was the central ceremony of royal inauguration, and it gave the king a sacred character that set him apart from ordinary Christians.
The theory of the king’s two bodies was developed in the late Middle Ages. The king had a natural body, which was mortal and subject to the same weaknesses as any other human, and a political body, which was immortal and represented the continuity of the monarchy. The political body of the king could not be harmed by any act against the natural body, and the successor to the throne inherited the political body even before the natural body of the predecessor had been buried.
The divine right of kings was an important element of the theory. The king was answerable to God alone for the exercise of his authority, and the subjects were bound to obey him in all things that did not contradict the law of God. The papal theorists of the thirteenth century, especially Innocent III, claimed that the pope was above the king in the spiritual order, and that kings who deviated from the law of God could be deposed by the pope. The royal theorists of the late medieval period, especially in France, asserted the divine right of kings in a more absolute form, and the conflict between pope and king would be a major theme of the high and late medieval politics.
The sacred character of the king was reflected in many features of the royal court. The crown, the scepter, the orb, and the sword were the symbols of royal authority, and they were used in the great ceremonies of coronation, royal procession, and the opening of parliament. The royal chapel was a major religious institution, and the king’s alms for the poor were a major form of royal charity. The royal touch, by which the king was believed to be able to cure the disease known as the king’s evil (scrofula), was a major element of the sacred character of the king in France and England.
The Kingdoms of the High Middle Ages
The kingdoms of the High Middle Ages were diverse in their origins, their institutions, and their fortunes. The French and English kingdoms developed the most centralized administrations, while the German and Italian politics remained more fragmented. The Spanish kingdoms were preoccupied with the Reconquista, and the Norman kingdom of Sicily developed a sophisticated administrative system that combined Norman, Italian, Byzantine, and Islamic elements.
France under the Capetian dynasty developed from a small royal domain around Paris into the dominant power in Western Europe. The early Capetian kings — Hugh Capet, Robert II, Henry I — ruled a small territory, but they maintained the principle of hereditary succession and gradually expanded their power. The reign of Philip II Augustus (1180–1223) was a major turning point, with the king winning the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, expanding the royal domain at the expense of the English Plantagenets, and laying the foundations for the later expansion of royal power under Louis IX and Philip IV.
England under the Norman and Plantagenet kings developed a sophisticated administrative and legal system. The Norman kings, beginning with William the Conqueror, conducted a comprehensive Domesday Book survey of their new kingdom, established a system of royal courts, and developed the institution of the royal exchequer. The Plantagenet kings, especially Henry II, developed the common law, the system of royal writs, and the institution of the circuit court, which together provided a unified legal system for the whole of England. The Magna Carta of 1215, issued by King John under pressure from his rebellious barons, was a major landmark in the development of the English constitution.
Germany and the Holy Roman Empire were the most fragmented of the great medieval kingdoms. The emperor was elected by the prince-electors and was responsible for the governance of a vast and diverse realm. The Investiture Controversy of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and the struggle between papacy and empire in the thirteenth century limited the power of the emperor, and the Golden Bull of 1356 would later codify the procedures of imperial election. The Hohenstaufen emperors — Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II — dreamed of a centralized imperial state, but the princes of Germany gradually won autonomy and the empire became a loose confederation.
The Christian kingdoms of Spain — Castile, Aragon, Navarre, Portugal — were preoccupied with the Reconquista and the gradual expansion at the expense of the Muslim states of the peninsula. The kingdoms developed the institutions of royal government, the council of nobles, the courts of justice, and the militia of the frontier towns. The union of Castile and Aragon in 1479 and the completion of the Reconquista in 1492 transformed Spain into a major European power.
The Instruments of Royal Power
The medieval kingship was exercised through a complex set of institutions and instruments. The royal court was the center of government, with the king and his officials presiding over the great ceremonies of state, hearing petitions, and conducting the business of government. The chancery produced the documents — charters, letters, and writs — that conveyed the king’s authority throughout the realm. The exchequer managed the royal finances, with its own staff of officials, its own system of accounts, and its own courts for the settlement of financial disputes.
The council of the king was the principal advisory body. The great council included the barons of the realm, the archbishops and bishops, and the major royal officials. The smaller council — the curia regis — included only the king’s closest advisors and was the principal executive body. The parliament, which emerged in the thirteenth century in England, France, and Spain, included the representatives of the towns and shires alongside the lords and prelates, and it became a major institution of representative government.
The royal courts were the principal instruments of justice. The king’s court — the curia regis in the early period and the court of King’s Bench, the Court of Common Pleas, and the Court of Exchequer in England — exercised a civil and criminal jurisdiction that was the ultimate appeal for all free subjects. The parlement of Paris, the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster, and the Royal Audiencia in Castile and Aragon were the supreme courts of the great medieval kingdoms.
The royal revenue was drawn from a variety of sources. The royal domain — the lands and rights held directly by the king — produced rents, fees, and other income. The feudal dues — the reliefs, wardships, escheats, and aids — were payments owed by the vassals of the king. The taxes — the taille in France, the scutage in England, the fodrum in the Empire — were collected on particular occasions. The customs duties on trade produced significant revenue, especially in England, where the wool customs were a major source of income.
The royal armies were raised from a variety of sources. The feudal levy — the obligation of the vassals to provide military service for a fixed number of days each year — was the traditional basis of royal armies, but it was supplemented by the paid soldiers (mercenaries), the militia of the towns, and the contracts with foreign princes. The English kings, especially Edward I and Edward III, made extensive use of paid soldiers and contracts with foreign princes, and the French kings, especially Philip IV and his successors, developed a system of regular taxation to support a more professional army.
The Limits of Royal Authority
The royal authority of the High Middle Ages was limited in many ways. The feudal lords — dukes, counts, and other great lords — often exercised effective sovereignty in their own territories, and they were constantly in tension with the king. The Church claimed a superior spiritual authority and resisted royal control over the appointment of bishops, the taxation of church property, and the jurisdiction of the church courts. The towns claimed privileges of self-government and resisted royal taxation and control. The provincial and regional institutions — the parliament of England, the parlement of France, the cortes of Spain, the diet of Germany — all limited the king’s freedom of action.
The Magna Carta of 1215 was a major landmark in the development of the limits of royal authority in England. The charter was issued by King John under pressure from his rebellious barons, and it set out a series of principles — the rule of law, the protection of the rights of free men, the limitation of royal taxation, the right to due process — that would be the foundation of the English constitution. The Magna Carta was reissued and confirmed many times in the following centuries, and it became a symbol of the rule of law against arbitrary royal power.
The conflict between pope and king in the medieval period was a major expression of the limits of royal authority. The Investiture Controversy of the eleventh and twelfth centuries was a struggle over the appointment of bishops, and the struggle between Philip IV of France and Pope Boniface VIII in the early fourteenth century was a struggle over the taxation of church property. The royal claim to supremacy in temporal affairs, asserted most clearly in the late medieval period, was a response to these conflicts and a sign of the growing power of the king.
Sources
Principal sources used in this article:
- Robert Bartlett, England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings (Oxford, 2000).
Further reading:
- Jean Dunbabin, France in the Making, 843–1180 (Oxford, 1985).
For a recent single-volume synthesis with full scholarly apparatus, see the relevant chapter of Barbara H. Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press, 2014).