Royal Administration Research Articles

Duke John and Finland’s Church 1556–1563

The short period of John’s duchy (1556–1563) has received significant attention from historians of Finland’s sixteenth century, but relatively little attention has been paid to Duke John’s ecclesiastical policies. This investigation reveals that John sought to maximise control over the church just as he did over other parts of his duchy’s administration. His activities demonstrate that he upheld his father’s conviction that he held the right of ius reformandi, the right of the temporal authorities to regulate religion in their realms. As duke, John grew his power over the clergy and thus the church in three ways. First, he sought clerical loyalty. Second, after first continuing his father’s confiscations of the church’s property, he turned to support the clergy and its parishes with direct financial support. Third, he made pastoral appointments bypassing ecclesiastical and royal administration. This drive to assert control over the church contributed to conflict between John and his brother King Eric XIV. Although John lost his duchy in 1563 to Eric because of this conflict, many of the clergymen whom he appointed and supported still held office when he overthrew Eric in 1568. This cohort of clergymen largely supported the king as he implemented controversial changes in the Swedish kingdom’s church. Keywords: John III, King of Sweden; John, Duke of Finland; Duchy of Finland; reformation; clergy

The Liberty of Whitby Strand: The Origins and Significance of a Jurisdictional Immunity

Abstract The medieval abbey at Whitby, North Yorkshire, controlled a jurisdictional immunity from royal administration, which was territorial and was known as the Liberty of Whitby Strand. Since Frederick William Maitland, historians have analysed such jurisdictional immunities as an index of royal authority and power. However, the surviving documentation for jurisdictional immunities means that it is often difficult to establish precisely when they were created or what franchises they included. Whitby Abbey claimed that the Liberty of Whitby Strand originated in a grant of King William I and this was accepted by the Victoria County History at the beginning of the twentieth century. Since then, the Liberty has been almost completely ignored. This article revisits the evidence, suggesting that it is possible to pinpoint its origins with rare precision. It argues that the Whitby monks forged a series of charters to persuade King Richard I and King John to transform a narrower portfolio of franchises into the wider territorial Liberty. This article further considers the politics surrounding its creation under Richard and John, and its implications for our understanding of royal authority and power.

Municipal rents in private hands: a comparative approach to the indirect collection of fiscal and judicial rights in medieval Loulé and Porto (late 14th - early 16th centuries)

By the second half of the 14th century, leasing municipal rents to private individuals (known as tax farming) was already prevailing in most Portuguese municipalities. In this paper, we will study this system of rent collection in two urban centers: Porto and Loulé, in the period between the end of the 14th century and the beginning of the 16th century. In particular, we intend to determine the sociological profile of the tax farmers operating in those two urban contexts, as well as their relationship with local power and royal administration. Ultimately, we expect to identify dynamics of upward and downward social mobility linked to participation in this business, while verifying whether tax farming worked as a platform for social advancement or a consequence of already belonging to the ruling elite. In order to achieve these results, we will analyze the accounting books, and town council minutes available.

An Enigmatic Play: When Skulls Speak Loudly A Deconstructive Reading of Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Being vivacious and colourful members of the medieval and Renaissance courts, jesters served for a variety of recreational purposes in addition to having the oblique subaltern voices in the administration of the kingdoms. Despite their ostentatious clothing and jaunty manners, which they manifested while delivering jokes and tricks, their contribution to the royal administration had to be indirect and clever. Indeed, these men of great observation and acute cunning used their humour in order to voice what cannot be expressed by the others. In their peculiar kind of way that was also associated with their divergent nature, jesters were inclined to act as the advocates of truth which had to be suppressed or ignored at times in face of royal hegemony. As a rather skilled playwright, who was also familiar with the conventions of the court manners, Shakespeare spared an exceptionally subtle role for the character of the jester in his plays. This role reveals itself through witty jokes of criticism masked by the jolly words of a fool. Nevertheless, Shakespeare ascribes a markedly grim condition for his late jester Yorick who has to deliver his criticism through his deceased body, a skull per se. Deriving mobility from the Derridean sense of decentralizing the meaning, the article employs a deconstructionist reading of Hamlet through the absence of a jester to exhibit how the lack of a critical perspective may yield catastrophic dim-sightedness.

The role of Magdeburg law for the political, economic and cultural formation of Ostroh in the XVI-XVII centuries

The article examines the impact of the concept of Magdeburglawontheeconomic, political and cultural development of Ostrohin the 16th-17th centuries. The author establishes that today there are many issues which require through research and resolution, inparticular, the introduction of a clear division of administrative functions between state authorities and local self-government bodies, improvement of the system and structure of local self-government bodies, and creation of an appropriate legislative framework. It is believed that it is impossible to solve these problems without a clear and systematic analysis of the mainstages of formation of local self-government in the contex to historical data on Magdeburg law.
 The author establishes that Magdeburg law is a medieval type of law under which cities were partially exempted from the power of the central royal administration or the power of a feudal lord and, as a result, were able to self-governon a corporate basis. Thanks to the privileges of Magdeburg law, cities for the first time received self-government, their own mayor, mayor, councilors, shopkeepers, their own courts, and the right to create their own craftsmen’s shops.
 The article confirms the idea that Magdeburg law is perhaps the clearest evidence that Ukrainian cities form any centuries were in a single political, cultural and economic space on a par with the leading cities of Europe. This thesis is confirmed by the history of the Magdeburg in many centers of our country, including the largest educational center of sixteenth-century Volhynia, the legendary city of Ostroh. Despite the outstanding importance of Ostroh in the socio-political and cultural life of Ukraine at the turn of the Middle Agesand the Modernera, the formation of the Magdeburg in this city has long been misinterpreted due to the lack of historical sources. The adoption of the concept of Magdeburg law provided Ostroh with a unique opportunity to develop local trade and, most importantly, the educational sphere. A characteristic feature of Magdeburg law in Ukrainian cities at the end of the sixteenth century was the transformation of its norms due to the influence of current factors of socio-economic development, as well as ancient Russian traditions of urban organization and law. Thus, the Magdeburg law did not initiate a new process of establishing local government in Ukraine, but only modified to a certain extent the existing norms of life and management of local affairs.

Johann Christian Kittels Choralbuch für Schleswig-Holstein

In 1800 and 1801 Johann Christian Kittel from Erfurt worked (during a sojourn in Altona) on a Chorale-Book for Schleswig and Holstein. Well-known nowadays as a collection of small preludes and four-part Chorale-settings, the circumstances of the book’s publication were not very clear and more a subject of speculation. However, the regional archives are hosting a considerable amount of documents on Kittel and his project, so it is possible to get more insight in the conditions of Kittels work on this collection, as well as on its publication and distribution. Also remarkable are some hints on conditions of reworking melody and setting in respect of enlightenment-thought about congregational singing and church-melodies in general. A friendly report on some work samples, which Kittel sent to the royal administration, was written by the music scholar Peter Grönland in Copenhagen and reveals the pro-Bach connection or network between Berlin, Hamburg and Northern Europe. However, the reception of Kittels Chorale-book failed the aims of author and administration: Especially the Nikolai-Organist in Kiel, Georg Christian Apel, criticized Kittels book in detail and found reasons to work out an own collection over the following decades.

Peace in the desert, peace in the realm: the Carthusian monastery of Durbon, protection and the safeguard of exempt monasteries in Angevin Provence

ABSTRACT Through a case study of the Carthusian monastery of Durbon in Angevin Provence around the year 1300, this article explores the usage of the legal mechanism of safeguard by exempt monasteries. Though exempt monasteries and royal authorities were often at odds in fourteenth-century Europe, the safeguard allowed monasteries to seek royal protection for their property without relying upon or admitting subservience to lesser lords or bishops. By appealing to the count-king’s love of peace, Durbon secured the aid of a regional powerhouse, while maintaining claims to pristine ecclesiastical liberty. By inviting royal administrators to police its rural property, Durbon offered the Angevins a foothold in a strategically important yet previously impervious region. The safeguard functioned both as a representation of the king as peacemaker and as a tool for political centralisation, expanding royal jurisdiction and the temporal power of exempt monasteries at the expense of local elites and their tenants.

Servant of the Crown and Steward of the Church: The Career of Philippe of Cahors by William Chester Jordan

Reviewed by: Servant of the Crown and Steward of the Church: The Career of Philippe of Cahors by William Chester Jordan Gregory Lippiatt Servant of the Crown and Steward of the Church: The Career of Philippe of Cahors. By William Chester Jordan. [Medieval Academy Books.] (Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2020. Pp. xi, 128. $28.95. ISBN 978-1-487-52461-6.) This short biography of Philip of Cahors, bishop of Évreux (c. 1220–81), examines the character and career of an important—if hitherto only regionally [End Page 187] recognised—figure in both French royal administration and the Norman Church. With his characteristically admirable archival scrutiny and attention to illustrative detail, William Chester Jordan has produced a succinct but illuminating account of a member of the reformist circle surrounding King Louis IX of France and an exemplary shepherd of his diocese. As with all good biography, this concentration on Philip of Cahors also brings more fully to light the wider field of northern France in the latter half of the thirteenth century. The book is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 reconstructs Philip’s early life from what hints are available from the evidence and wider context. Offspring of a Cahorsin family that made good as creditors to the Albigensian Crusade (1208–29), Philip became a clerk and almost certainly a student of law, probably at Orléans after preparatory schooling in Cahors, before serving as an officialis for the archdeacon of Rheims—and future pope—Ottobuono Fieschi. Much of the information about Philip’s life before his appearance in Rheims is presented as conclusions rather than argument, as the latter appears in a chapter of Elizabeth A.R. Brown’s Festschrift. While understandable, the need to consult a separate volume may frustrate a reader hoping to consult immediately the reasoning behind the claims made for this less thoroughly documented period of Philip’s life. Philip’s effective service in the archdiaconal court recommended him to royal service in 1256/7, the subject of chapter 2. As a legal clerk of the Parlement, Philip investigated claims competing with royal jurisdiction on a host of issues and assisted in rendering judgements. His skill and reliability earned him the post of keeper of the royal seal—‘chancellor in all but name’ (p. 31)—in the early 1260s. He emerges from Jordan’s study as a skilful diplomat and disinterested judge, marked by strict fidelity to both the structure and the content of custom, as in his ruling against the peasants of Ézy, a Norman village, who in 1263 pleaded without (written) proofs for exemption from a triennial hearth tax, a case again dealt with by Jordan at greater length elsewhere, this time in the Haskins Society Journal. Chapter 3, the longest of the book, treats Philip’s career as bishop of Évreux from his election in 1269. As the head of an important Norman see, he leaves a greater personal impression on the sources. Philip’s recommendation to the episcopate by his friend, Louis IX, was swiftly followed by the king’s death before Tunis on his final crusade. His decade as bishop therefore took place under the reign of Louis’ son, Philip III, and was spent upholding the saintly king’s legacy (including in a literal sense, as one of the dead crusader’s executors). Amidst disputes and controversies with the powerful interests of his diocese—such as the abbey of Saint-Taurin d’Évreux and various knightly families—and despite his reduced role in the new court, Philip of Cahors maintained the reforms introduced in Louis’ reign, though Jordan may too confidently read the silence surrounding the bishop’s attitude toward the important Jewish population of Évreux as benevolent. The ‘formalism’ (p. 28) of Philip’s earlier years seems to have been tempered by an inclination toward mercy, though still exercised within the bounds of procedure. For instance, Jordan interprets Philip’s warning of the widowed [End Page 188] mother of one of his wards against an unauthorised betrothal of her daughter as sparing the family from the crippling fine to which he would have been entitled had the marriage gone ahead. Elsewhere, Philip relinquished his rights to the...

THE Priesthood and Administrartion of Abydos during the Saite Period (based on the Data from Private Monuments)

The article deals with the main composition of the Abydos’ elite during the Saite Period (664–525 B.C.). The aim of the article is to analyze the changes in Abydos’ elite after the unification of Egypt under the rule of Psamtik I. The author analyzes the data from private inscriptions, mostly the lists of different positions of the monuments’ owners. The vast majority of private stelae and statues belonged to local priests, associated with cults of the VIII (Thinite) nome of Upper Egypt. The data shows the existence of other sacerdotal ranks and titles that can be regarded as superior or inferior in the sacerdotal hierarchy. However, the exact position of the most common priestly titles cannot be determined due to the lack of data on their specific functions. A small part of private monuments, dating back to the reign of last Saite kings, preserved information about the non-priestly positions of their owners that held different military or administrative offices. The absence of data on any sacerdotal posts of these nobles can be explained by the gradual isolation of priesthood from other social groups of Ancient Egypt. The author suggests that this disproportion between priestly and civil offices reflects the development of the royal administration during the Saite Period. Due to Psamtik I’ policy, local priests retained their power over their nomes in exchange for swearing their loyalty to the Saite king. The emergence of civil offices in private inscriptions of the VI century B.C. denotes the strengthening of royal power.

“Jesuit Priests” in a union project and a romantic myth

The reception of relations between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches by the Ukrainian national consciousness was largely formed by a romantic myth. It appeared in the works by Taras Shevchenko, in the documents of the the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius. According to this myth, the Church Union of Brest (1596) was the result of the colonial policy of the Polish government and the intrigues of the Jesuit priests. In fact, the influence of the royal administration on the religious life of the inhabitants of the Polish-Lithuanian state was extremely limited. „Henrician Articles” of 1573 forced the king to adhere to religious tolerance and to recognize the nobility’s right to free choice of religion. The Roman Catholic clergy, for the most part, did not want to grant Christians the Eastern rite of parity. The Society of Jesus, which formed a separate province in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1574, was guided not by political but by religious motives. Benedict Herbest (1531–1598) already in his work „Wypisanie drogi” („The Desribing of The Way”, 1566) discusses the prospect of restoring unity with the Orthodox Ruthenians. In the book „Wiary Kościołu Rzymskiego wywody” („The Arguments of the Roman Church’ Belief”) he explains Ruthenia’s departure from unity with Rome by lack of education and low religious consciousness. Piotr Skarga (1536–1612) wrote the book „O jedności Kościoła Bożego” („About the God’s Church’s Unity”, 1577), when he had not great authority in the Church and when he was little known in society. At the Brest synod in 1596 Skarga was not a participant and organizer, but only an observer and chronicler. Both Herbest and Skarga were only inflammatory polemicists who responded to the challenge of the Reform by calling for the consolidation of the Church in a single organism. The romantic myth is refuted by a closer acquaintance with their works and life experience.

Readings in Times of Crisis: New Interpretations of Stories about the Settlement of Iceland

Readings in Times of Crisis: New Interpretations of Stories about the Settlement of Iceland

‘The King’s turnspit was a member of Parliament’: And other Tales from the Expanded Database of Court Officers 1660–1837

In February 1780, Edmund Burke rose in the House of Commons to explain the impending loss of America and rail against political corruption in the speech on Economical Reform. Among the speech’s most effective rhetorical refrains was to remind the honourable members, repeatedly, that true reform of a corrupt, expensive and antiquated royal administration was impossible because ‘The King’s turnspit was a member of parliament’. But was he? The answer lies in the Database of Court Officers. Since 2005, the Database of Court Officers 1660–1837, hosted by Loyola University Chicago, has sought to provide an authoritative source for the career histories of every salaried member of the British royal household for this period. Prior to 2019 it included only the servants of the sovereign’s household, but in that year, it was expanded to include the forty-nine satellite courts of the various queens (consort, mother and dowager), as well as princes and princesses of the blood — a total of 21,000 officers and servants overall. The household, among its many ceremonial, social, and domestic functions, provided places for peers and members of Parliament — the vehicle of political influence and corruption that Burke decried and sought to reform. This article introduces the expanded database and establishes the size, expense, and opportunities for patronage of the combined royal households (sovereign’s and satellite courts) across the period. It concludes with an analysis of the number of peers and members of Parliament who held household office over time with a view towards establishing 1) the identity of the offending turnspit; and 2) whether the ‘corruption’ Burke called out (i.e., the contingent of peers and MPs with positions at court) was really so large or decisive as he and other reformers alleged, determining that it was neither of those things.

Les intendants de la vice-royauté de la Nouvelle-Espagne (1764–1821): Répertoire prosopographique

Les intendants de la vice-royauté de la Nouvelle-Espagne (1764–1821): Répertoire prosopographique

Law Between Public Norm and Narrative: from Fazaña and Fuero to Royal Jurisdiction in Medieval Castile

The formation of the state-legal system in medieval Europe can be represented as a model. This is convenient for a more detailed study of historical and legal processes. This model does not completely coincide with historical reality, but it reflects the main laws of the evolution of the state and law. This process is considered on the example of medieval Castile. There the law developed in a spiral. Developed legal forms inherited from Rome were replaced by primitive barbaric law, and then returned to the patterns proposed by Roman law, but at a higher level. This evolution corresponded to the formation of state (public) power. In the described model, the following stages are highlighted. Romanization of the local population, the arrival of Roman law. Visigothic conquest, the creation of vulgar Roman law mixed with Germanic customs. The Arab conquest, the destruction of the emerging system. Castile's abandonment of the previous legal system, a return to regulation by custom. Fixing customs in court decisions, the emergence of precedents (fazañas). The influence of the Royal administration on the formation of a unified state-legal system, the creation of fuero. Development of Royal written law by means of abstract rules of law. The peculiarity of the evolution of the legal system was a fact that periods could not be rigidly separated from each other. Legal forms at each stage coexisted and interacted. Each instrument regulated legal relations in its own sphere. Another feature is that the development of law went from a narrative (a story about Law, saturated with emotions, values, morality) to an abstract faceless rule of law, the source of which was public power.

Sovereignty and Decentralization – two competing perspectives on the crisis of the French monarchy in the 16th century

The purpose of this paper is to analyze two significant treatises concerning the constitutional structure of the 16th century French monarchy, namely Jean Bodin’s Les Six livres de la République and Vindiciae, contra tyrannos written under the pseudonym of Brutus. The texts were answers to an ongoing institutional crisis of the monarchy, especially in light of the strictly connected issues of decentralization and the weakness of the royal administrative apparatus. The paper portrays how the tension between the royal administration and the complicated structure of the local networks of power not only rendered it impossible for both Bodin and Brutus not to take a stance on the matter but also how it influenced the shape of their theories. An analysis of how Brutus and Bodin tried to incorporate the complex institutional realities of the French kingdom into their own theories sheds some light on the authors’ attitude towards the functioning of the local centres of power, their theoretical disabling or using them on purpose; it also points to how much the actual decentralization of the state influenced the shape of the theories of both authors.

Changing Concept of the Royal Grain Management in Egypt (2600-1650 BC)

The present study concerns a longue durée evolution of the ancient Egyptian Snw.ty from the time of its foundation during the Old Kingdom to the end of the Middle Kingdom (ca 2600–1650 BC). During this time, Snw.ty was the apex of the royal grain management as an important royal tool and intermediary between the producers and receivers of the grain. The objective of this study is to determine how Snw.ty was used during this time and how its operations transformed with respect to changing royal administration and policies. The analysis is based on observation of term’s use transformations which might be indicative of its changing sense, as found in written documents referring to both Snw.ty and related Snw.wt installations.

The Royal Cabinetmaking Workshops. Furniture Production Systems in the Royal House of Spain

It is necessary to have a frame of reference to understand the work of each cabinetmaker in the Royal House of Spain. This research on the Royal Cabinetmaking Workshops try to systematize its structure within the conglomerate of court artists and the relationship of each cabinetmaker with the royal administration. It is essential to know how these workshops were created, their purpose, who directed them, what their day-to-day life was like and how they disappeared. In this way, workshops, cabinetmakers and furniture have appeared that have not been given the importance they deserve. Dates and attributions are also corrected. On the other hand, the authorship of important furniture sets is justified and the ability of cabinetmakers to design their own furniture is once again demonstrated. In short, it is an approach to royal furniture delving into the crown production systems.

Attempting to establish land tax and stamp duty in France in 1787

The paper examines the short-term introduction of land tax and stamp duty by Lomnie de Brienne in the summer of 1787 and their further abolition in September 1787. The introduction of new taxes became an urgent need in France in 1787. The huge budget deficit, external debts forced the government to first turn to notables for public approval of the reform plan, and after the failure of this idea, to register through the Paris Parliament in the summer of 1787. Parliamentarians opposed the introduction of these taxes. To combat the deficit, they called for a general economy, cut costs and increased income, demanded the convening of the States General, on which new taxes should be introduced. Discussions and correspondence with the king continued in July and early August 1787. At the royal meeting on August 6, taxes were adopted, but parliament did not obey and advocated their abolition. The king sent parliament into exile. Negotiations began, which led to a compromise: the land tax and stamp duty were canceled, and the term of two twenty was extended until 1792. The work analyzes the stages of the adoption and cancellation of new taxes, highlights the requirements of parliament and the royal administration, studies the land tax edict and the stamp declaration, collection and edict on their cancellation, considers remonstration and decisions of the Paris Parliament, the kings answers and analyzes the reflection of these events in the press and publicism.

여말선초 경연 기구 운영에 관한 고찰-세종 이전, 경연을 둘러싼 여러 논의를 중심으로-

본 논문은 여말부터 태종까지 경연에 관한 논의를 살펴봄으로써 그 제도적 발전의 의미를 이해하고자 하였다. 일찍이 경연 제도가 시작된 고려는 서연관 위주로 운영하였으나, 여말부터 국왕의 수신을 중시한 신진 사대부에 의해 조선은 경연에 비중을 두었다. 다만 국초부터 경연은 국왕의 소극적 참여와 경연관의 낮은 업무 집중도로 인해 운영에 차질이 발생하였는데, 사대부들은 이를 만회하기 위해 일찍부터 경연관의 종일 교육에 주목하며 정종 때부터 고려 문한 기구 중 하나인 집현전에 대한 관심이 증대되었다. 특히 이 관심은 초기 기존 문한 기구의 통합으로 출발해서 문한 기구에 대한 권학 정책과 맞물려 문풍 진작과 인재 양성이라는 형태로 발전하였다. 이로 볼 때 세종 때 집현전이 복설되고 경연 기구로 발전하게 된 것은 태종까지 지속된 경연 운영에 대한 선행적 노력의 산물로 보인다.

Novellas for Diverting Jewish Urban Businessmen or Channels of Priestly Knowledge: Redefining Judean Short Stories of Hellenistic Times

The Jewish literary production of Hellenistic and early imperial times includes a substantial number of short narratives displaying novelistic features. Most of these texts are in Greek, with novelistic trends also appearing in Hebrew and Aramaic works (Esther, Daniel). While this stylistic shift is undeniable, the present article questions the social and cultural implications that a number of scholars seek to read into it. Because of their shared stylistic innovations, these works are often treated as a homogeneous group, regardless of whether or not they were eventually included in the biblical canon (the Septuagint), and contrasted with the traditional narrative genres represented in the Hebrew biblical corpus. The transition to the novelistic is further taken to indicate a shift in the social context in which these works were produced, and correlatively, in their social function. Thus, in contrast with the earlier narrative literature written by temple scribes, these early novels supposedly emerged in the urban environment, where they catered to the tastes of a wider segment of the Jewish population. Furthermore, it is alleged that like their Greek counterparts, the Jewish novels had no institutionalized social use but were performed or read purely for entertainment, explaining the prominent thematization of eroticism, chastity, and marriage.
 In contrast with this approach, it is argued that when it comes to works that were eventually canonized, the issue of the social environment in which they were produced and that of their social function need to be decoupled from style and tone. To bolster this stance, the discussion draws extensively on a comparison with the social context in which the contemporary Demotic literature was produced, which is archaeologically documented, and on a comparison with Demotic texts themselves in both form and content. As a starting point, it is noted that the model associating novelization and urbanization crystallized at a time when indigenous temples—not least the one in Jerusalem—were held as bastions of conservatism, and it was speculated that that Hellenization in Judea was promoted by new, secular elites. Since then, this assumption has been proven wrong. Both in Egypt and Judea, the indigenous elites who manned the royal administrations were fielded from among the local temple personnel, meaning that the temple literati were familiar with their own traditions and Greek literature alike.
 On this basis, it is argued that the novelization of the works was first and foremost a matter of the reception of Greek literature by temple literati. Given that most if not all the narrative texts were aimed for oral performance, those were eager to borrow any literary devices that would make the stories livelier. In terms of their social function, however, these novelized works were no different from pre-Hellenistic narrative genres. Like their Demotic counterparts, biblical narratives provided a tool for exploring virtually all the aspects of knowledge that were of interest to their authors and audience, including the nature of the relationship between human beings and deity, history, law, prophecy, political, social, and religious matters. Their diverting tone assisted in the inculcation knowledge. In this way, the reappraisal of the biblical narratives as serious literature proposed in this article goes much further than simply stressing their connections with sapiential literature.