New book by Florian Mazel explores how the church and the bishop invented the idea of regional sovereignty, which came to inspire the later princely or monarchical states

L’évêque et le territoire. L’invention médiévale de l’espace (Ve-XIIIe siècle)
By Florian Mazel,
Paris, Seuil, 2016 (L’univers historique)

During the long centuries that separate the collapse of the Roman Empire and the final affirmation of the great monarchies of the West, the Church represented the main social and political institution. In its founding texts, early Christianity was as a religion without limits or anchor points, a religion without borders, based primarily on interpersonal relationships and charisma of those in authority. Nevertheless, the Church gradually established itself as a territorial power until it succeeded in the beginning of the thirteenth century to define itself as a new empire in which the authority of the pope reigned over all provinces and bishoprics in Western Christendom – Urbi et Orbi.

Since the nineteenth century, historians have believed that the medieval church had inherited and preserved the spatial and territorial organisation from the Roman Empire. In this context, the bishop was implicitly regarded as the direct successor of the ancient Roman magistrates. The thesis of this book is to explore whether the combined movements of Christian society and the ecclesial institution did not actually produce a new relationship to space. The episcopal power appears in this perspective as the crucible of a new sovereignty based on the region through the exercise of jurisdiction and a specific taxation. It was this newly invented idea of regional sovereignty  which came to inspire  the princely or monarchical states of the 13th century and later.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Florian Mazel is a professor at the University of Rennes-2 and member of l’Institut universitaire de France. His research on the aristocracy and the Church in Provence have contributed to his status as one of the foremost French medievalists specializing in the feudal society. In 2010 he published a masterly synthesis Féodalités (888-1180) (volume 3 of  “L’Histoire de  France” ed by Joel Cornette Belin).

FEATURED PHOTO:

Episcopal Palace in Albi France from the 13th century.