Prologue: kingship and its changing profile in the central Middle Ages -- Historical orientation: the flowering of medieval Europe -- The Christian commonwealth (i): regnum vs. sacerdotium-- the struggle for control -- Recuperating the past (i): nature and chronology of the process -- Recuperating the past (ii): the encounter with Christian and Roman antiquity -- Recuperating the past (iii): fruits of the encounter with Greek antiquity -- Proto-constitutionalist innovation: the roots of consent theory and the emergence of representative institutions -- Priestly kings and royal popes: the resilience of regal sacrality -- The Christian commonwealth : disintegration
Summary
Oakley continues his three-part history of the emergence of Western political thought during the Middle Ages with this volume. Here, Oakley explores kingship from the tenth century to the beginning of the 14th, showing how, under the stresses of religious and cultural development, kingship became a secular institution
