Aspects of Power and Authority in the Middle Ages

Abstract

This collection brings together eighteen papers presented at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds in 2003. The volume is divided into three sections: image-making, informal influence, and the power of words. Jean Dunbabin considers the problems faced by Charles of Anjou in his attempt to project an image of Sicilian kingship that sought to root itself in customs of Norman royal lordship, while at the time honing and developing further the practices of his much-maligned Staufen predecessors. Chris Dennis deals with similar problems faced by William the Conqueror, offering a subtle and careful analysis of both the self-representation of William and its reception by chroniclers. Gale Owen-Crocker discovers that Normans and Anglo-Saxons were depicted differently in the Bayeux tapestry. Claudia Bolgia offers a fascinating case-study of how patronising the friars was a means by which noble families in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Rome could celebrate aristocratic family identity just as traditional means of doing so became more difficult to employ. Marie-Thérèse Champagne contributes a fascinating but highly speculative piece suggesting that legends about the treasures looted from the Second Temple being kept in Rome may have influenced papal policy towards Jews.