The Cultural Power of Medieval Monarchy: Politics, Learning and Patronage in the Royal Courts of Europe, 1000-1300 (Studies in Medieval History and Culture)

This book focuses on why the diffusion of the political theology of royal wisdom created “Solomonic” princes with intellectual interests all around the medieval West and how these learned rulers changed the face of Western Europe through their policies and the cultural power of medieval monarchy. Princely wisdom narratives have been seen simply as a tool of royal propaganda in the Middle Ages but these narratives were much more than propaganda, being rather a coherent ideology which transformed princely courts, shaped mentalities, and influenced key political decisions. This cultural power of medieval monarchy was channelled mainly through princely patronage of learning and the arts, but the rise of administrative monarchy and its bureaucracy are equally related to these policies.This can only be understood through a cultural approach to the history of medieval politics, that is, a history of the relationship between knowledge and power in the Middle Ages, a topic much analyzed regardi