The Middle Ages: Chapter 4

This was a challenging blend which intellectuals strove to inculcate and which powerful men struggled to fulfil.

Sacred kingship is probably best known to most readers for its pomp and its legacy of visual art and music, architecture and ceremony.

When the English royal entourage travelled to campaigns in Scotland in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, several departments of state still functioned from Westminster, but the all-important archive and a great deal of personnel journeyed with the king.

Louis IX (1214–70)—who was canonized soon after his death—had the Sainte Chapelle built as the architectural reliquary for the remains of the Crown of Thorns, which he acquired as a gift from the spoils of the sack of Constantinople in 1204.

The chapel’s Gothic magnificence resounded with the music of a boys’ choir, the king’s own singers.

King Alfred the Great (849–99) resisted the Vikings and developed a hegemonic position for himself as king of Wessex.

And since history supported identity, Alfred most probably launched the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; an inaugural copy was sent out to several monasteries to be kept and updated, in some cases well into the 12th century.

All this was tested when in the 9th century Carolingian unitary rule was turned into several kingdoms—east and west Francia, Italy—and with the disruption and violence caused by Vikings, Magyars, and continued Muslim raiding.

The fief supplied the resources for the livelihood and lifestyle of a warrior, the mounted knight, with a warhorse and all equestrian trappings.

The punch of military force was now delivered by fighters trained to ride with stirrups, by knights, dextrous with sword, shield, and lance.

It produced a relatively stable ruling class: the royal vassals of the 9th are discernible among the counts and castellans of the 11th century.

Once it was conceptualized and established, the language of fief, lord, and fealty was written into charters and reflected in law.

As kingdoms became larger the burden of military defence and domestic administration became more onerous; they required elaborate central organization and record keeping.

The Roman precept ‘whatever touches all, must be approved by all’ (quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbari debet) animated calls for representation in discussions about fiscal matters, alongside the established consultation between the king and his nobles on matters of war.

Christopher Columbus’ plan for a westward journey to the Indies. Where other monarchs rejected the unprecedented venture by the Genoese trader-traveller, these monarchs retained Columbus and supported him.