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mayor of Exeter appeals to history 1447–48 Locked in dispute over his jurisdiction with the cathedral and canons, the mayor of Exeter made, in the city’s case before the royal chancellor, an appeal to history. Churches could always claim ancient foundation and supernatural sanction. To compete, civic rulers needed to be able to point to a no less prestigious past. Shillingford drew for political purposes
This introduction puts the text into its early medieval context and explaining Hincmar's sometimes-dubious methods of argument. The book is a translation of the most significant source for the attempted divorce, a treatise known as De divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae, written in 860 by Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims. It sheds much light on the Frankish world of its protagonists and on early medieval Europe in general. In 860 those supporting Lothar II's divorce were still able to discomfort Hincmar by drawing parallels between the trials of Ebbo and Theutberga; the matter was only finally settled in 868. The book offers eye-opening insight not only on the political wrangling of the time, but also on early medieval attitudes towards a host of issues including magic, penance, gender, the ordeal, marriage, sodomy, the role of bishops, and kingship.
ruler. The ritual model of liminality is not, however, the model most favoured in studies of Burgundian ceremony. The supernatural symbolism and atmosphere of the Entry ceremony has been interpreted less often as evidence for a ‘rite of passage’ as for a ‘theatre-state’. Clifford Geertz’s famous study of nineteenth-century Bali has seemed to offer
appear to have made him more magnanimous, especially towards anyone he considered a threat or merely inferior. 15 He paints brutal portraits of the Ottonians’ enemies and indulges in a particularly virulent brand of ethnic stereotyping. 16 The supernatural occupied a prominent place on Thietmar’s mental landscape, as it did for most of his contemporaries. He shifts effortlessly from prosaic accounts of military
in turn drew attention to the intercessionary powers of the saint. 100 The hagiographers worked on the assumption that miracles had already demonstrated the holiness of their subjects, even if this quality became known only after death. The conventional structure of a saint’s life leads up to this final demonstration of supernatural power, and every aspect of his or her earthly career is subordinated to the
traces of unofficial religious practices or local folkloric beliefs which may not be recorded elsewhere. 87 Historians of the Annales school, often using techniques borrowed from the social sciences, have successfully mined this material to produce studies of attitudes to the supernatural, the afterlife and local cultic practices, of which Schmitt’s study of the quasi-religious cult of a dead dog, ‘St
supported by God, from where did her military successes come? For her enemies, the most likely explanation was either that she was being aided by the devil, or that she was herself a supernatural being. De quadam puella admitted that the first question regarding Joan was whether she was in fact some being transmuted into human form, while the Bourgeois of Paris famously described her as ‘a creature
observance of Christian religion. A very young person, the daughter of a shepherd, who herself followed a flock of sheep, it is said, has come to see the son of King [Charles VI]. She has declared that she had been sent by God so that, through her, this kingdom might be brought to obey him. So that her claim would not be considered rash, she has also made use of supernatural signs, such as revealing secret thoughts and
memory’. The miracles and apparitiones were evidently recorded as the result of purposeful enquiry, for in several instances there is a considerable time-lag between the date of the supernatural event and the date on which it was formally sworn to before witnesses (usually including Fra Ippolito himself) at Santa Croce
, or, rather, in his very denial of the act of prophesying he sensed that the prophetic spirit was lacking from him. But this is very far from conceding that he did, in fact, lack the prophetic spirit, since that spirit is a light that can possibly be elicited without an act being performed. Hence, it should be noted that according to Thomas [Aquinas], a prophet is, as it were, a medium between the apprehender and the viator, having a supernatural prophetic light relating to the way in which things will happen. 72 And hence, the disposition according to which