Rulers and Rulership in the Arc of Medieval Europe, 1000-1200 1032482893, 9781032482897

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‘By developing a new geographical frame of investigation that dismantles arbitrary boundaries, integrates polities across Europe and questions con­ ceptions of rulership based more on modern assumptions than the reality of the medieval past, the author is able to bring a unique perspective to these topics that appreciates the full range of possible participants and practices ... Taken in toto, this book has the potential to fundamentally alter the way scholars think and talk, not just about medieval rulers and rulership, but about medieval Europe more generally’. – Erin Jordan, Colorado State University, U.S.A.

‘If you don’t want your view of the Middle Ages to be governed by the cultural politics of the Cold War, this is the book for you. Raffensperger not only offers a new understanding of medieval rulership, he provides a framework for integrating east and west into a single discussion. Rulers and Rulership in the Arc of Medieval Europe is an exemplary step toward the goal of a global and inclusive Middle Ages’. – Anthony Kaldellis, University of Chicago, U.S.A.

‘In this concise volume, Christian Raffensperger questions some of the received wisdom about how we view rulers and rulership, in part by sys­ tematically addressing both queens and kings—something that should be taken as a given but is far from the norm. His incisive analyses of such themes as titulature, power sharing, and succession, together with his close observation of trends in scholarly translations, are set out with admirable clarity. Rightly urging that we shift our focus on medieval rulership in order to take a synthetic view of a wide swathe of territory, this monograph allows us to look anew at European kingdoms within a whole, rather than divided into West (the historiographical center) and East (rarely included in standard medieval European histories)’. – Therese Martin, Centre for Human and Social Sciences (CCHS), Madrid, Spain

RULERS AND RULERSHIP IN THE ARC OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE, 1000-1200

Rulers and Rulership in the Arc of Medieval Europe challenges the dominant paradigm of what rulership is and who rulers are by decentering the narrative and providing a broad swath of examples from throughout medieval Europe. Within that territory, the prevalent idea of monarchy and kingship is overturned in favor of a broad definition of rulership. This book will demonstrate to the reader that the way in which medieval Europe has been constructed in both the popular and scholarly imaginations is incorrect. Instead of a king we have multiple rulers, male and female, ruling concurrently. Instead of an independent church or a church striving for supremacy under the Gregorian Reform, we have a pope and ecclesiastical leaders making deals with secular rulers and an in-depth interconnection between the two. Finally, instead of a strong centralising polity growing into statehood we see weak rulers working hand in glove with weak subordinates to make the polity as a whole function. Medievalists, Byzantinists, and Slavists typically operate in isolation from one another. They do not read each other’s books, or engage with each other’s work. This book requires engagement from all of them to point out that the medieval Europe that they work in is one and the same and demands collaboration to best understand it. Christian Raffensperger is the Kenneth E. Wray Chair in the Humanities at Wittenberg University. The focus of his scholarly work has been on connecting eastern Europe with the rest of medieval Europe. This began with his first book, Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus’ in the Medieval World (Harvard UP, 2012) and has continued through numerous other books and articles.

RULERS AND RULERSHIP IN THE ARC OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE, 1000-1200 Christian Raffensperger

Designed cover image: Baptistry at Split showing an enthroned ruler who could be Zvonimir Photo credit: Zoran Alajbeg First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Christian Raffensperger The right of Christian Raffensperger to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-48288-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-48289-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-38829-6 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003388296 Typeset in Sabon by MPS Limited, Dehradun

“Be curious, not judgemental” – Ted Lasso (attributed to Walt Whitman)

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

xi

Introduction

1

PART I

Titles and Rulers

15

1 Titulature

17

2 Corulership

58

3 Understanding Succession

97

PART II

Ecclesiastical Relations

131

4 Rulers and the Church

133

5 Monastic Legitimation of Rulership

182

x

Contents

PART III

Decentralizing Rulership

229

6 Weak Power Polities, Claims-making, and Itinerant Rulership

231

Conclusion Bibliography Index

276 281 305

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have been thinking about rulership in medieval Europe for some time. Initially, I was focused upon Rus, and then eastern Europe, and eventually looking at trends more broadly. Inadvertently, I was assisted in the arc of medieval Europe concept by western medievalists who, hearing me talk about rulership in Rus, often pointed me to Ireland, Iberia, and elsewhere. Places they assured me were, like Rus, “different.” Their well-intentioned help was much appreciated as I learned a great deal more about those other areas and saw the wealth of similarities not just to Rus but present in the vast majority of medieval Europe. The label “arc of medieval Europe” I owe to my best friend Dar Brooks Hedstrom who has listened to me talk about this book at conferences and over drinks for years and has been a willing sounding board. I have given numerous talks about the subjects which make up this book. I need to thank the audiences and participants at the Byzantine Studies Conference, Haskins Conference, Medieval Academy, BASEES, Eighth Annual Days of Justinian, Seven Centuries Since the Death of Holy King Milutin, and at the Rus and Latin Europe in the Middle Ages Conference. A lot of these conference presentations generated enough interest for people to invite me to speak somewhere specifically about this work, for which I am extremely grateful. I learned much by these experiences at the Oxford Early Slavonic Studies Webinar, the Gaidar Forum, at FernUniversität Hagen, and most recently at Texas Tech and as a participant at Mainz History Talks – in conjunction with the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University. Those who invited me have my deepest appreciation as they created an environment in which I could share my ideas with a dedicated audience and receive enormously helpful feedback.

xii Acknowledgements

Numerous people read drafts of chapters and pieces of chapters as well and I am extremely grateful for their time and help. They include, in no particular order, Paul Hollingsworth, Anthony Kaldellis, Therese Martin, Jitske Jasperse, and Piotr Gorecki. Additionally, several people responded to queries large and small with their own advice and help, such as Elizabeth Tyler, Kiril Petkov, Vlada Stanković, Jelena Erdeljan, Neven Budak, and Pasha Johnson. All of this work also resulted in the publication of early forms of some of the ideas included here. Such as in “Monastic Legitimation of Rulership in East and West” in Seven Centuries since the death of Holy King Milutin, ed. Dragoljub Marjanovic (volume in process) for which I have to thank Dragoljub Marjanovic. “Kingdom of Rus’: A New Theoretical Model for Rulership in Medieval Europe” in Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe: Power, Rituals, and Legitimacy in Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland, eds. Grischa Vercamer and Dušan Zupka (Leiden: Brill 2022): 325-339. For which my thanks go to the editors Grischa Vercamer and Dušan Zupka. And finally, “A Search for Rusian Monastic Legitimation” in Religion: Proceedings оf the 8th International Symposium on Byzantine and Medieval Studies “Days of Justinian I”, Skopje, 13-14 November, 2020, ed. Mitko B. Panov (Skopje: INI, 2021): 33-43. Where I must thank Mitko Panov. The work in these three publications helped me to better develop my ideas. Especially those for Chapters 5 and 6. Related to publications, I would also like to thank all of those who are participating in my own edited collection, How Medieval Europe was Ruled. Reading work on medieval European rulership while I was writing this book was not a coincidence, of course, and astute readers will see the influence, and citations, to many of the contributors of that volume who taught me so much. For the release time, both sabbatical and a leave of absence, I must thank Wittenberg University. Wittenberg’s Thomas Library and its staff were invaluable in getting me the resources I needed to write the early stages of this book. Similarly, during the writing of this book, I was named the Kenneth E. Wray Chair in the Humanities at Wittenberg. This chair has allowed me opportunities for research and travel that I would otherwise not have had, and I am incredibly grateful to the Wray family and their supporters for creating it. Special thanks go to the National Humanities Centre for naming me as the Archie K. Davis Fellow for Spring 2022. Being in residence at the National Humanities Centre was an amazing opportunity to discuss with fellow scholars and have access to every single thing I could possibly need from food, to space, to books and articles. The librarians and staff especially were top notch in every single way. I would like to take this time as well to thank Michael Greenwood at Routledge. It is a trope to thanks one’s editor, but Michael has edited

Acknowledgements xiii

numerous of my projects and he has been a consistently supportive and interested colleague as I pursued these projects. Moreover, he has believed in them and helped bring them to fruition, for which he has my enormous thanks. Finally, and always, I would like to thank my family – Cara, Iris, and Malcolm. With great good spirit, they accepted that I was taking time away from them to work on this project. This was especially true in the Spring of 2022 when I was a fellow at the National Humanities Centre, which meant I traveled alone to Durham for five months. This was a hard time for all of us, but we came through it stronger and together. I am grateful to them and love them immensely.

INTRODUCTION

Fifty years ago now, R. Allen Brown noted the familiar story of the political development of medieval European polities, “England and France going from strength to strength, Germany and Italy both divided, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia in the east towards Russia and Byzantium, Christian Spain recovering the Iberian Peninsula from the Moslems and the Moors.”1 Brown goes on to note that familiar does not mean correct, and tries to problematise some of these issues, particularly in regard to the German Empire. A couple of decades later, Timothy Reuter elaborated on the causes of this issue noting that, “The rise of ‘professional’ historical writing in nineteenth-century Europe was largely state-financed, and it was expected to reinforce an officially defined national identity, in England, France, Germany and elsewhere.”2 Reuter situates the blame for much of the way Anglophone medieval history has been written on English historians who have a tendency to focus on their well-developed national history with little recourse to other areas or regions, or if they do to use France as a stand-in for the rest of Europe.3 Such an idea of “England and …”

1 R. Allen Brown, The Origins of Modern Europe: The Medieval Heritage of Western Civilization (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1973), 153. 2 Timothy Reuter, “Modern Mentalities and Medieval Polities” in Medieval Polities and Modern Mentalities, ed. Janet L. Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 6. Though published in this volume in 2006, the original lecture on which the article is based was given in 1995. 3 Reuter, “Modern Mentalities and Medieval Polities,” 15–18. See similar statements in Timothy Reuter, “The making of England and Germany, 850–1050: points of comparison and difference” in Medieval Polities and Modern Mentalities, ed. Janet L. Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 284–299. DOI: 10.4324/9781003388296-1

2 Introduction

was challenged at about the same time that Reuter was making these remarks by Robert Bartlett whose Making of Europe caused a sensation, but also became a shibboleth for medievalists.4 Medievalists who worked on the western part of Europe thought the book was a fantastic new look at how expansive Europe was and how inclusive it was becoming (a very 1990s point of view). Those of us who worked on the eastern part of Europe read the book not as the “Europeanization of Europe,” in Bartlett’s phrase, but as the Germanification or Frankification of Europe. The trend of attempting to attach western territories to the rest of Europe continued among western historians, leading to Chris Wickham’s Framing the Early Middle Ages which deals with the western world, the Mediterranean, and the Islamic world, but not with the eastern half of Europe.5 This book, like Bartlett’s has caused an immense stir and paeans of congratulation for the author and his broad-minded approach. While the book is exceptional in many ways, the rationale for excluding eastern Europe simply does not work. He says that “I excluded the Slav lands, both in the Roman empire (in the Balkans) and outside it, because of my own linguistic weakness.” And yet, a few pages later notes, “my Arabic, Coptic, and Irish are almost non-existent (here I have relied on translations).”6 Source issues will be addressed in this Introduction below, but on its face Wickham’s claim is difficult to utilise as a rationale for inclusion and exclusion. Robert Bartlett has another entry in this evaluation of scholarly progression with his 2020 Blood Royal.7 Blood Royal covers most all of Europe, though in an episodic fashion and over approximately 1,000 years of medieval history. It still has a strong tendency to privilege western models and to talk about their absence in other areas as a lack, centralisation v. decentralisation is one common example, but it at least does engage with a broad territory, across linguistic and religious boundaries. Most recently, Björn Weiler’s Paths to Kingship in Medieval Latin Europe has attempted to expand the view of Europe to include Slavic lands as well as western and northern Europe, but only within the parameters of the Latin script.8 Weiler in fact notes, following along with Reuter’s call to do broader analyses, that “This book is … the first monograph to explore high medieval kingship as a transeuropean phenomenon.”9 While he does leave out

4 Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950–1350 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). 5 Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 6 Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 5, 8. 7 Robert Bartlett, Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). 8 Björn Weiler, Paths to Kingship in Medieval Latin Europe, c. 950–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021) 9 Weiler, Paths to Kingship in Medieval Latin Europe, 6.

Introduction 3

the medieval Roman Empire and some of the Slavic lands, he does at least cover a breadth of Europe, and it is one of the most transeuropean studies yet. The purpose of this brief tour of recent scholarship on ideas of European integration is to note a few basic things in preparation for the current volume. One is that the history of Anglophone writing on medieval Europe starts in the west and often ends there too. If it is expanded, it is expanded with western ideas as normative models that fit, or do not fit, the rest of the continent and when they do not fit, those who are not within the model are “other.” Two is the wonderful fact that this is changing. Bartlett’s Blood Royal and Weiler’s Paths to Kingship are good books that talk about a wide swathe of Europe. But, and there has to be one, they are not enough, nor are they the last word. This book, too, does not claim to be the last word. However, a book about medieval rulership by someone not starting from a position focused upon the west is a unique occurrence and one that will, as can be seen in the following pages, result in different observations about the ways that medieval European rulers structured themselves and their rule, and what we think about them. Geographic Coverage

In my experience, it is quite difficult (impossible thus far) to get a book published with the title “medieval Europe” where the contents of the book deal largely with the eastern portion of Europe. The same is not the case for books almost entirely about the western portion of Europe, where examples abound of “medieval Europe” in their titles, even if they never get east of the Rhine, not to mention the Oder or Elbe.10 To combat this equation of “medieval Europe” with the West, scholars of other parts of Europe have fought to be included in medieval Europe or to create their own named region. Iberia has had the most success at taking their region and inserting it into narratives of “medieval Europe” such that it is now commonplace to find Iberia included in surveys dealing with the western portion of Europe. Central Europe, long existing as a territory, has been rekindled for medievalists as a way to deal with the territories around the German Empire. One of the most prominent examples of such in recent year is Nora Berend, Przemysław Urbańczyk, and Przemysław Wiszewski’s Central Europe in the High Middle Ages which deals with Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia.11 That same region is oftentimes thought of differently however, and has also been the subject

10 At the risk of readers thinking I am erecting a strawman to argue against, I will not provide a list of the innumerable books which do this very thing. 11 Berend, Nora, Przemysław Urbańczyk, and Przemysław Wiszewski, Central Europe in the High Middle Ages: Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, c. 900–1300 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

4 Introduction

of works on East Central Europe.12 Scholarship focused upon this part of Europe covers an important area of medieval Europe that is rarely dealt with under the label “medieval Europe.” These works tend to draw a firm line between themselves and their new incorporation into medieval Europe, or at least a geographically-labelled slice of it, and the kingdom of Rus, all that is left on the eastern periphery of Christian Europe.13 Not to mention that almost none of what is written about medieval Europe covers the medieval Roman Empire, typically known as Byzantium, which has evolved its own independent field due to this exclusion, inclusive of its own conferences, jobs, and venues for publication.14 Thus, instead of working within one of those existing frames of reference, or continuing the uphill battle to try and have Rus or eastern Europe broadly integrated into “medieval Europe” this work focuses on the arc of medieval Europe – a territory that encompasses polities which have come to be included in multiple different geographically-labeled slices, some of which have even won inclusion into the coveted category of “medieval Europe” itself. By choosing a diverse group of territories, it is hoped that this work will continue to break down the, often unintentionally, exclusionary boundaries which we have inherited and sustained in our understanding of medieval Europe. Another reason that the arc of medieval Europe has been chosen as the territory for this book is because it represents the majority of the physical space of Europe, but the minority of the territory covered in studies of rulership (inclusive of kingship, queenship, etc.) of “medieval Europe” as a whole. The works on “medieval Europe” are largely about the west, or sometimes about the Latinwriting world. Thus, we have the good work done recently by scholars like Bartlett and Weiler, for instance, who focus on medieval Europe, but largely deal with western Europe.15 Both of them have forays into territory marked out here as within the arc of medieval Europe, but the primary examples and rhetorical focus is on the western part of medieval Europe. Weiler, even before Paths to

12 Florin Curta has been a prominent proponent of this term in many of his works. For example, Florin Curta, “Introduction” in East Central and Eastern Europe in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Florin Curta (Ann Arbor, Mich.: The University of Michigan Press, 2005), 1–38. 13 I have written more about these topics in “Situating Medieval Eastern Europe: Historiography and Dissent,” in A Handbook of East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1300, ed. Florin Curta (New York: Routledge, 2021), 9–22. 14 Throughout this volume, I have discussed chosen to use the medieval Roman Empire instead of the more common “Byzantium.” In this, I am following the scholarship of Anthony Kaldellis who has ably demonstrated why we should no longer continue this terminology. Anthony Kaldellis, The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in New Rome (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015); Anthony Kaldellis, Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2019). Though I should note that Kaldellis would probably not approve of the pan-medieval approach taken here as he has also argued that the Roman Empire was not “medieval.” Anthony Kaldellis, Byzantium Unbound (Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2019), 75–92. 15 Weiler, Paths to Kingship; Bartlett, Blood Royal.

Introduction 5

Kingship, has written numerous articles where he has dipped into Polish territory and other parts of what is often referred to as Central Europe, though often with reference to the German Empire as the frame.16 Similarly, we see excellent work done on queenship in “medieval Europe” by scholars such as Theresa Earenfight, but even then while Iberia is front and center, her Queenship in Medieval Europe rarely touches on the majority of the arc of medieval Europe.17 These summative or syncretic works are incredibly important as they seek to understand medieval Europe as a whole, thus if they leave out a large portion of medieval Europe, their analysis is either flawed or not really about medieval Europe, but rather the medieval West. It is more common for scholars to focus on a smaller area, a single polity for instance, and to discuss rulership in that area. Thus, we have Therese Martin, Lucy Pick, and Miriam Shadis, among others, writing about queenship in medieval Iberia.18 Sverre Bagge has dealt extensively with rulership in Scandinavia, and Inge Skovgaard-Petersen has talked about queenship in Denmark.19 Dániel Bagi has addressed rulership in East Central Europe, comparing Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary – with a special focus on the latter.20 Judith Herrin has addressed ruling empresses in the medieval Roman empire, and Michael McCormick, among others, has talked about ruling emperors there as well.21 These studies are the bread and butter of medieval

16 Björn Weiler, “Crown-Giving and King-Making in the West, ca. 1000-ca.1250” Viator 41:1 (2010): 57–87; Björn Weiler, “Kingship and Lordship: Views of Kingship in “Dynastic” Chronicle,” in Gallus Anonymous and His Chronicle in the Context of Twelfth-Century Historiography from the Perspective of the Latest Research, ed. Krzysztof Stopka (Cracow: Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2010), 103–124. 17 Theresa Earenfight, The King’s Other Body: María of Castile and the Crown of Aragon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010); Theresa Earenfight, Queenship in Medieval Europe (New York: Palgrave, 2013). 18 Therese Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectural Propaganda in Twelfth-Century Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2006); Lucy Pick, Her Father’s Daughter: Gender, Power, and Religion in the Early Spanish Kingdoms (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2017); Miriam Shadis, Berenguela of Castile (1180–1246) and Political Women in the High Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave, 2009). 19 Sverre Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom: State Formation in Norway, c. 900–1350 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2010); Sverre Bagge, The Political Thought of the King’s Mirror (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); Inge SkovgaardPetersen (in collaboration with Nanna Damsholt), “Queenship in Medieval Denmark,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. John Carmi Parsons (Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1994). 20 Dániel Bagi, Divisio Regni: The Territorial Divisions, Power Struggles, and Dynastic Historiography of the Árpáds of 11th- and Early 12th-Century Hungary, with Comparative Studies of the Piasts of Poland and the Přemyslids of Bohemia (Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities, 2020). 21 Judith Herrin, Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); Michael McCormick, “Emperors,” in The Byzantines, ed. Guglielmo Cavallo, transl. Thomas Dunlap, Teresa Lavender Fagan, and Charles Lambert (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), 230–254.

6 Introduction

scholarship and provide us with fascinating and in-depth insights into what is going on in that particular medieval polity. However, if we want to know about what is going on in all of medieval Europe, we would need to read and integrate these into a collective whole. Thus, the territory covered by this book is the arc of medieval Europe. The territory outside what is traditionally and most often covered by scholars writing about “medieval Europe” as a whole in terms of studies of rule and rulership. The aim is to provide a summative or syncretic coverage of those areas to demonstrate that there were many similarities along that arc of medieval Europe in how titles, succession, ecclesiastical relations, and rulership functioned. At the end of which, the point should be clear that this area must also be covered as part of the larger territory that is medieval Europe. But this too is a work that has an inherent flaw built in. It is a complement, or addon if one prefers, to the works which focus on the medieval west, demonstrating the proof of concept that these areas under discussion are worthy of inclusion. It then makes an explicit call for someone to take the next step and combine all of medieval Europe – west, east, north, and south – to talk about rulership (male and female) in all of medieval Europe.22 Sources and Source Issues

One of the major difficulties in attempting a study of the diverse places inhabiting the arc of medieval Europe is the plethora of different languages, as well as the difference in source production and preservation. Latin was utilised as the language of documentary culture for a large swathe of western medieval Europe. Old Norse was utilised first on rune stones and later in documentary production across Scandinavia, inclusive of Iceland. Old Irish mixed in with Latin in Ireland, in Rus and some of the south Slavic lands we see Old Slavonic writings, and later Old East Slavic for chronicles in Rus. While in the medieval Roman Empire, Greek was the language of documentary culture by the high middle ages. This plethora of languages is difficult for any one person to master, and it leaves out the even greater number of languages in which secondary sources have been written. What I have attempted to do in this work is to demonstrate that a study of the breadth of

22 This call is similar to that issued by Björn Weiler who, more than once, has suggested that he cannot cover everything and that he hopes that the work he does will provide a framework for discussion with experts on other areas. Björn Weiler, “Describing Rituals of Succession and the Legitimation of Kingship in the West, ca. 1000-ca. 1150,” in Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval Mediterranean: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Alexander Daniel Beihammer (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 140; Björn Weiler, Kingship, Rebellion and Political Culture: England and Germany, c. 1215-c. 1250 (Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), 176.

Introduction 7

medieval Europe can be written with a knowledge of the primary source languages, some of the secondary source languages, and utilising the vast array of sources available natively or translated into English. I was inspired in this by Wickham’s linguistic justification noted earlier. As someone who has primarily worked on eastern Europe this stuck out to me like a sore thumb and was something I worried at for years, thinking about, and discussing at conference presentations. If English translations were good enough for Irish, Arabic, and Coptic, why not Slavic? I suggest here, and the reader will see this borne out in the footnotes, that there are a plethora of primary source translations into English from all sorts of languages, and that there is a host of secondary literature in English as well.23 Timothy Reuter once noted that historians tend to value archival documents, and work, more than the utilisation of narrative and more widely published sources.24 I would suggest the same bias applies toward using the original Latin texts, despite the existence of excellent translations.25 To bridge the vast areas covered in this volume, I have attempted to primarily rely on those translations, even for the languages I read, supplemented with additional materials as needed, to make the specific point that medieval European history, all of it, is accessible to historians. I leave it to the reader to determine if this has been a successful approach. To see the latter concern of source production and preservation in greater detail, it is helpful to compile a few data points from throughout medieval Europe. Björn Weiler has noted the immense production of English chanceries in the high middle ages, one of the things that has helped to make them the normative model of governance.26 Yet, when we look at their production versus that of elsewhere the idea that they are in fact abnormal is cemented. The chancery of Henry III of England produced approximately 5,000 documents annually. Compare that with the production of Frederick II of the German Empire whose entire reign produced “3,200 charters and mandates.”27 Henry the Bearded, ruler of Silesia, produced 84 charters in his 36 year reign.28 Going further to the east, the entirety of Rus has only 191 extant documents from the

23 Such an approach utilising translations has gained momentum in recent years with the spread of world-historical approaches to history. See, for one recent example Sahar Amer, “Reading Medieval French Literature from a Global Perspective,” Publication of the Modern Language Association 130:2 (2015): 367–374, at 367. 24 Reuter, “Modern Mentalities and Medieval Polities,” 10. 25 The existence of copious passages of Latin consigned to footnotes seems to demonstrate this preference, as well as the “virtue-signaling” of Latin literacy. 26 A fact which Reuter comments on as well. “The making of England and Germany, 850–1050.” 27 Weiler, Kingship, Rebellion and Political Culture, 35. 28 Piotr Górecki, The Text and the World: The Henryków Book, Its Authors, and Their Region, 1160–1310 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 65. This is an increase over his predecessor whose similarly lengthy rule produced only one document.

8 Introduction

thirteenth century, most of which are ecclesiastical documents.29 As one can see, the difference in source base is huge between these various areas, and if we were to continue to survey the entirety of medieval Europe one would see the growing similarity of numbers marking England out as abnormal in terms of the number of sources that were produced and have been preserved. The difference in source bases is essential to understand at the outset when preparing, or reading, such a study at this; we do not always have personal letters, charters, or other documentation for individuals or individual foundations. As such, we need to often extrapolate from the information that we do have and make educated guesses as well as utilise comparative information to try to fill in some of the gaps. Finally, it is important to understand that when I note source inadequacies in the text this is not abnormal, but is, in fact, much more common than the plentiful sources that often occupy the interests of many medievalists. Chronological Coverage and Terminology

Though perhaps redundant for an academic audience, I think it is worth opening with Francis Oakley’s take on periodisation where he notes that “however necessary, historiographically speaking, periodization may be, there is of course nothing given or ‘natural’ about the precise way in which we go about the division of the course of history into discrete, clearly demarcated epochs.”30 Thus, with that caveat in mind, the chronology of the book largely covers the eleventh and twelfth centuries, though there are occasionally divergences into the late tenth and early thirteenth centuries for particular explanatory purposes. The beginning date of approximately 1000 allows for the inclusion of swaths of territory in eastern and northern Europe that were Christianised at the end of the tenth century. Since the discussion herein is about Christian polities, all of the requisite polities needed to have been Christianised to begin the discussion.31 Though rarely noted, it is also

29 Simon Franklin, Writing, Society and Culture in Early Rus’, c. 950–1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 23. This is a huge increase over the 83 from the twelfth century or the 23 from the eleventh century. 30 Francis Oakley, Empty Bottles of Gentilism: Kingship and the Divine in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (to 1050) (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), 220. Oakley continues, “And we have always to be alert to the fact that, in any given instance, the particular periodization adopted may well tell us as much or more about the convictions, preoccupations, and commitments of the person doing the periodizing and of his or her own era than it does about the stretch of history under scrutiny.” 31 Nora Berend has a fascinating discussion of the idea of Christendom in her, “The Concept of Christendom: A Rhetoric of Integration or Disintegration?” Hybrid Cultures in Medieval Europe, ed. Michael Borgolte and Bernd Schneidmüller (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2010), 51–62. As for Christianization, Berend notes that Robert Bartlett saw Ireland as needing to be re-Christianized in the twelfth century by the Anglo-Normans because they were not appropriately Roman (53).

Introduction 9

often seen as fitting to start a date range with an appropriately round number and 1000 certainly does that. The end date could be seen as more controversial, but there is a wealth of information which suggests that regarding the topics covered in this book (discussed more below) there is a broader change in the thirteenth century. Björn Weiler and Hans Jacob Orning, for instance, talk about the fact that kingship becomes increasingly defined in the later twelfth and especially in the thirteenth centuries and that we begin to see national boundaries being formed at that time.32 Similarly, we see ecclesiastical coronation in Scandinavia take hold in the later twelfth and into the thirteenth century, changing the dynamics of rule and succession; as do the succession laws which created a continuously easy path of succession in Norway from 1227 to 1387.33 For royal burials and the conception of dynasty, this too changes in the thirteenth century as we see St. Denis “was only fully developed as a symbolic embodiment of the continuity of the French monarchy in the mid-thirteenth century, when there was a translation of burials from other churches so that the rulers of France could be commemorated by a series of effigy tombs.”34 The same is true for Speyer in the German Empire and Monreale in Sicily. While these are outside of the arc of medieval Europe, they are better studied representatives of the changing identity of ruling families that was occurring during this period. Finally, I would note that the thirteenth century brings two other major changes to the idea of both medieval Europe and to rulership. For the latter, this is the age of Magna Carta in England and the Golden Bull in Hungary. A time when rulers are engaging with representative institutions in new ways and creating more formalised and bureaucratic structures to govern their realms, structures which did not exist in the same way in earlier periods, and thus represents a new phase in rulership.35 The other factor, perhaps more important for the future of the continent is the growing crusading ideal. Launched in

32 Weiler, “Describing Rituals of Succession and the Legitimation of Kingship,” 139; Hans Jacob Orning, Unpredictability and Presence: Norwegian Kingship in the High Middle Ages, transl. Alan Crozier (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 329n44. 33 Birgit and Peter Sawyer, Medieval Scandinavia: From Conversion to Reformation, circa 800–1500, The Nordic Series vol. 17 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 63. 34 Rose Walker, “Leonor of England, Plantagenet Queen of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, and her foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas. In Imitation of Fontevraud?” Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005): 363. 35 Though writing about the crisis of the twelfth century, Thomas Bisson foregrounds many of these issues. Thomas N. Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009). Alice Taylor’s discussion of law and bureaucratic rule in Scotland is also relevant here The Shape of the State in Medieval Scotland, 1124–1290 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

10

Introduction

1095 by Pope Urban II, the crusading movement had, by the thirteenth century, grown into a Latin Christian or else phenomenon which othered all those who were not beholden to Rome. The 1204 sack of Constantinople is, of course, emblematic of this shift, but we cannot forget Pope Honorius’s 1222 edict that Orthodox churches should be closed in Latin lands, or the resulting crusade against Rus declared by Pope Gregory IX in 1240.36 The division of medieval Europe between Latin and Orthodox does not date to a short-lived excommunication in 1054, but to the events of the thirteenth century. Never again would all of Europe be under the same Christian banner as they were in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Given the focus of so much scholarly work on rulership within a Christian framework of polities, it is this that puts a cap on the period for discussing a broader medieval Europe. In regard to terminology, this book will make use of two particular terminological conventions, amidst arguing for several more, that need foregrounding. The first is that there will be a differentiation between east and west and East and West. East and West, with capital letters, are indicative of not just a place but really the idea of the place. Eastern Europe and Western Europe are regions that have ideas and connotations associated with them. For instance, if we take the United Nations definition of Eastern Europe we see this clearly: “that part of the European continent that has been ‘under Byzantine and Orthodox influence, which has only randomly been touched by an Ottoman impact, but significantly shaped by Russian influence during the Russian Empire and in the Soviet period.’”37 When “East” and “West” are used in this book, it will be for purposeful reasons, to refer to the concepts associated with those terms. When speaking of geography, it is more accurate to use lower-case east and west. Thus, eastern Europe is the eastern portion of the continent of Europe. It does not have a connotation, or even a denotation, other than a geographic one. The other terminological difference to note is that this book will refer throughout to what is traditionally known as the Byzantine Empire as the medieval Roman Empire. Anthony Kaldellis has made the argument in numerous books that it is quite clear that this is what the Romans called themselves.38 We take great pains in many situations in society to use the

36 For more on which see, Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades (London: Penguin, 1997). 37 Florin Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages (500–1300) (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019), vol. 1, 4. The internal citation is to Peter Jordan, “A subdivision of Europe into larger regions by cultural criteria,” United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, Working Paper no. 48, 23rd session, Vienna, 28 March-4 April 2006, available at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo/UNGEGN/docs/23-gegn/wp/gegn23wp48.pdf (visit of 25 September 2018). 38 Most recently in Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2019).

Introduction 11

“correct” names for people, places, and things; “correct” meaning what they call themselves. However, for this medieval polity we continue to use a term that was explicitly created to distance the medieval Roman Empire from its Roman connections, and label it as something else. Kaldellis’s arguments are not unique in the sense that no one has thought of this idea before. Scholars for as long as they have been writing about “Byzantium” typically note that it is a modern name, but then proceed to use it. The present book follows a growing trend of scholars who are attempting to simply use the name the Romans called themselves, even if it sounds odd to our ears. This will not be the only terminological challenge offered here that will require thinking and rethinking on the part of the reader, but this one is not explicitly defined and discussed in the text. Topical Coverage

The possibility for topics on as broad a theme as rulers and rulership is immense. Given that immensity and the improbability of doing justice to too many of them, I have attempted to focus just on three particular themes, and then on some subsets within those themes. The three themes are Titles and Rulers, Ecclesiastical Relations, and Decentralising Rulership. Via these themes, which make up the three parts of the book, I will attempt to discuss rulers and rulership in the arc of medieval Europe. Given the breadth of topics and territory, the method by which these topics will be discussed is via case study. I will not address the totality of the arc of medieval Europe in any single chapter or part. Instead, my goal is to present representative examples of the phenomenon under discussion from various areas of the arc, in an attempt to show wider trends. Part I, in particular, stands as a challenge to existing ways of thinking about medieval Europe. But Parts II and III pivot to attempt to demonstrate that what is going on in the arc of medieval Europe is complementary to what is happening in western Europe. The aim then is to point out additional examples that do not appear, or appear only rarely, in the existing historiography. The ultimate aim of which is to reinforce the claim made throughout the book that all of medieval Europe needs to be examined to bring together the best possible understanding of its history. Part I, Titles and Rulers, covers three particular areas: titulature, corulership, and succession. The three chapters can certainly be read individually, but they interweave to create a new way of looking at how we understand and talk about rulers. Specifically, the chapters make the case for why “rulers” is used as a catch-all term in this book, given the difficulties in adequately expressing the titulature for medieval rulers, and in our persistent misunderstanding of corulership. To do that, the titulature chapter unpacks three titles, emperor, king, and queen to examine where the titles come from,

12

Introduction

how we use them, and why we use them. In so doing, it points out the problems inherent in those titles, and especially in studying kingship separately from queenship, and setting an “empire” apart from anything else. Additionally, it helps to integrate areas in eastern Europe where rulers have not traditionally been given one of those titles, and thus have often been marginalised rhetorically as they are geographically. These ideas build into the discussion of corulership which points out that the continuing emphasis on a king often disenfranchises other rulers who are participating in rule. Theresa Earenfight and others have pointed out the importance of considering women as part of a corporate monarchy, and this chapter takes that idea as a given, and moves to looking at multiple rulers working together.39 This phenomenon is difficult for us to appreciate and understand as moderns who live in a hierarchical world and want our past to represent that same organisational chart view of political structures. Medieval peoples, it seems from the evidence, did not have the same issues with having multiple rulers at the same time, nor did they have a problem with those rulers bearing the same titles. Thus, it is on us as scholars to shift our understanding of the past to better explain their reality, than try to impose our preconceptions on their world. Finally, this Part tackles the issue of succession. As in other of these areas, there has been good work in recent years, but once more that work often privileges western areas as models. This chapter addresses the practicalities of succession, rather than ritual performances, in the arc of medieval Europe. The sum of these three chapters will ideally pose a number of questions to medievalists of all stripes, and encourage a rethinking of base ideas and terminologies which have the potential to upend how we write medieval history. Part II deals with Ecclesiastical Relations, a topic which no one writing on medieval rulership can do without, given the extreme importance of conversion and Christianity to the rulers of Christian Europe. I divided this part into two to deal with the monastic establishment and the secular clergy separately. Both of these chapters are deliberately connected into our understanding of rulership, which is to say they both examine how rulers worked with and utilised the secular church and the monastic establishments to buttress their own rule. For the secular church, the clear connection is the establishment of bishoprics and archbishoprics in the polities under discussion. The format of this book allows us to see some similarities here, such as in the heretofore unique example of Hungary having two archbishoprics, and Rus having three. Both are rarities and are typically discussed on their own, but seeing them

39 Earenfight, The King’s Other Body: Pick, Her Father’s Daughter.

Introduction 13

together, expands our understanding of what is possible in the medieval church. Similarly, we see in this chapter the reactions, or lack thereof, to the Gregorian reforms – the dominant narrative of which deals with the happenings in the German Empire, or England, with many of these areas peripheral to the “main action.” In the monasticism chapter, the application of the arc of medieval Europe is especially important. Not only have I added in a brief excursus on Wales, which otherwise does not fit into the arc, but the similarities on display between monastic foundations in Iberia and the medieval Roman Empire, as well as elsewhere accentuates the utility of looking at such a broad swath of territory. Fascinating work has been done specifically on San Isidoro and Las Huelgas, both in Iberia.40 Similarly fascinating work has been done on Theotokos Kecharitomene in Constantinople.41 But rarely do those monasteries ever come up in the same conversation and so the similarities in their endowment by rulers, and especially the importance of female rulers in their creation and maintenance does not particularly enter our discussions. Both chapters attempt to demonstrate the interconnectedness of rulers with the ecclesiastical establishment with the aim of enhancing their own rule, and maintaining their own political independence from any centralised ecclesiastical authority, whatever that may be. Part III is on the idea of Decentralising Rulership. This part comprises only one chapter, but that chapter is broken up into three main areas to attempt to cover just a few topics of special importance for discussing rulership in the arc of medieval Europe. The goal of the chapter, and the coterminous theme, as a whole is to break down the idea that medieval polities needed to be centralised or that centralisation was a key goal, a sine qua non that would leave out polities who were not, and never were, centralised. To do that, the chapter relies on a theoretical framework developed by Clifford Ando and Seth Richardson to discuss ancient states, itself based on Michael Mann’s Sources of Social Power.42 This framework leads to the first two sections of the

40 Martin, Queen as King; James D’Emilio, “The Royal Convent of Las Huelgas: Dynastic Politics, Religious Reform and Artistic Change in Medieval Castile” Studies In Cistercian Art and Architecture 6 (2005): 191–282. 41 Elif Demirtirken, “Imperial Women and Religious Foundations in Constantinople,” in Piroska and the Pantokrator: Dynastic Memory, Healing and Salvation in Komnenian Constantinople, ed. Marianne Sághy and Robert Ousterhout (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2019), 174–194; Vlada Stanković and Albrecht Berger, “The Komnenoi and Constantinople before the Building of the Pantokrator Complex,” in The Pantokrator Monastery in Constantinople (Byzantinisches Archiv 27), ed. S. Kotzabassi (Berlin-Boston, 2013), 3–32. 42 Ancient States and Infrastructural Power: Europe, Asia, and America, ed. Clifford Ando and Seth Richardson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017); Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power: Volume 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012 [New Edition]).

14

Introduction

chapter, weak power polities, and claims making. The argument behind the first is that medieval rulers were not strong actors, in that they could not give orders and make them stick simply because it was they who said it, especially not throughout the polity as a whole. Instead, we see those actors as weak, in that they were not able to execute those powers themselves, but must work with their elites, also weak actors, to rule the polity as a whole. Similarly, Richardson talks in some detail about the concept of claims making, which he explains as, “The state generates the most evidence for its ‘powers’ as it is trying to usher them into being, before it actually has them.”43 We see claims making in numerous examples here where it is used to create the idea of power for a ruler or polity, either by the ruler or by agents of the ruler, even when the ruler or polity does not actually have that power. The crux of the issue for Richardson, and for scholars in general, is that we as moderns have often read those claims and taken them at face value, writing them into the history books, rather than seeing them for what they were. The final section of this chapter is on itinerant rulership and the multiplicity of central places that were present in medieval polities. Though the medieval model of a ruler may have been based to some extent on a sedentary Roman emperor, sitting on a throne in Rome or Constantinople, that was not their own lived experience. They moved around, quite regularly, eating the surplus produce of their population, visiting justice on particular regions, and making sure that all of the polity knew they were still alive and still in power. We see this from Norway to Hungary and it is a commonality across the region under consideration. All of the sections of this chapter encourage us to think about decentralising the state, but none of them are arguing against the best scholarship on western medieval Europe. Instead, this chapter builds on such works as John Bernhardt’s book on itinerant kingship to add to the examples of this phenomenon, and eventually help shift the discourse for all of medieval Europe.44 There are, of course, a plethora of topics left out in this, or any, study of rulership. But it is hoped that this collection of three themes spread across six chapters will present a new take on ideas of rulers and rulership in a unique area. The goal is to integrate this area and these ideas with the massive amount of work done for western European rulership to create a new synthesis, a task left to another scholar of the future, of what rulership means for all of medieval Europe, east and west, north and south.

43 Seth Richardson, “Before Things Worked: A ‘Low-Power’ Model of Early Mesopotamia,” in Ancient States and Infrastructural Power: Europe, Asia, and America, ed. Clifford Ando and Seth Richardson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 18. 44 John W. Bernhardt, Itinerant Kingship and Royal Monasteries in Early Medieval Germany, c. 936–1075 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

PART I

Titles and Rulers

1 TITULATURE

In nearly any medieval Europe textbook, you will find the year 800 char­ acterized by the coronation of “Emperor” Charlemagne. Related to that story, you will also read about the empress of “Byzantium” Irene, who refused his proposal of marriage. But only a few of those textbooks will note that Charlemagne much preferred to use the title “rex Frankorum et Langobardum” than “imperator.” And still fewer will note that Irene often used the title of “basileus” with a male ending, rather than a female ending. None of those textbooks will note that Offa of Mercia, a powerful ruler in Anglo-Saxon England, also claimed the title emperor for himself and was known as “basileus Anglorum.” Nor the fact that “The most common title used by Æthelred after rex was basileus … which appears in thirty-seven charters.”1 These examples, well outside of our time and mostly of our geography, are merely to demonstrate the problems with contemporary ti­ tulature versus modern conceptions of titulature. Modern scholars have assigned certain titles to medieval rulers regardless of what titles they actu­ ally chose, or claimed, for themselves. To expand upon this point, Chris Wickham notes that the Anglo-Saxon kings “are called reges in our Latin sources, so we call them ‘kingdoms’, but they had little or nothing in common with the Romano-Germanic kingdoms of the Continent, ten or even a hundred times the size of insular ones.”2

1 Katherine Cross, Heirs of the Vikings: History and Identity in Normandy and England, c. 950-c. 1015 (York: York Medieval Press, 2018), 172. 2 Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 306. DOI: 10.4324/9781003388296-3

18

Titles and Rulers

What matters for Wickham then in regard to titulature is not the titles as much as the size of the polity ruled. Katharine Simms digs into the same problem for Ireland, which has even more kings, “In the Old Irish law tracts, about 700 A.D. the word king – in Irish rí – was used even for the rulers of a tuath, a tiny kingdom occupying a quarter or a fifth of the modern Irish county.”3 Though she goes on to note that by the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, some of those rí were sometimes referred to as “taoisigh, that is, ‘chieftains’ or ‘leaders’,” or reguli in Latin; while others still maintained the title of rí or rex.4 Anders Winroth, in his discussion of the Conversion of Scandinavia, deploys multiple levels of titles for medieval leaders to best express his own perceptions of their rank, most often utilizing “chieftain” to describe Scandinavians who were called konungar (cognate of king) in English.5 In one of the most interesting moments he utilizes multiple titles within one sentence to express rank order: “In the eyes of Scandinavian chieftains aspiring to power, the religion of Emperor Charlemagne, the emperor in Constantinople, and the kings in the British Isles must have been a fine religion indeed.”6 The Scandinavian rulers are called “chieftains.” The Anglo-Saxon rulers are called “kings.” And both the Carolingian and medieval Roman emperors get the highest-ranking title of “emperor.” Such terminological issues are problematic given the equivalence of titles in the primary sources. For instance, as noted above, Anglo-Saxon rulers used basileus, the same way that medieval Roman rulers did; and at other times they used imperator the same way that Charlemagne, occasionally, did.7 What then is the differentiation between those rulers other than modern terminology/translation? This chapter will address that issue and examine a variety of medieval titles which have been translated into English as king, queen, and emperor. It is important to acknowledge right at the start the difficulties inherent in translation and the problems with shifting words and their cultural meaning (and baggage) from one language to another. Here we will see that in the majority of languages discussed, the titles under discussion meant “ruler” and were gendered male or female. Sometimes the titles had

3 Katharine Simms, “Changing patterns of regnal succession in later medieval Ireland,” in Making and Breaking the Rules: Succession in Medieval Europe, c. 1000–1600, ed. Frédérique Lachaud and Michael Penman (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2008): 167. 4 Simms, “Changing patterns of regnal succession in later medieval Ireland,” 167. 5 Anders Winroth, The Conversion of Scandinavia: Vikings, Merchants, and Missionaries in the Remaking of Northern Europe (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012), 1, 99, 101, and so forth. 6 Winroth, The Conversion of Scandinavia, 140. 7 For imperator see Simms, “Changing patterns of regnal succession in later medieval Ireland,” 167.

Titulature 19

different meanings attached to them to enhance their status, but they were often contingent upon individuals as much as on a systematic categoriza­ tion of nomenclature. Thus, by a closer examination of the modern denotation of these words and a comparison with how they were used in medieval titulature we can hope to achieve a better understanding of what medieval peoples actually meant by the titles they used. Such a broader understanding will help modern scholars adjust the received meaning of these titles, their status, and how we look at rulers and rulership throughout medieval Europe. Medieval polities were ruled by individuals bearing a variety of titles. Karl Werner has pointed this out most eloquently with reference to the register of letters written by Pope Gregory VII in the eleventh century: There are 152 lay addressees in Gregory’s register, including, besides forty-five kings, eighty princes: the dukes of Poland and Bohemia, the princes of Salerno, Capua and Benevento, dux Beatrix, Duke Godfrey and the Margravess Mathilda, the doge of Venice, Duke Robert Guiscard of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, Margrave Azzo of Este, the dukes of Suabia, Bavaria, Carinthia, Lotharingia and Saxony, the margrave of the Saxon East Mark, the dukes of Normandy, Aquitaine and Burgundy, the counts of Flanders, Brittany, Blois-Champagne, Anjou, Toulouse and Provence, to name only the most important.8 Pope Gregory VII’s register displays the multiplicity of designations that were quite regular in medieval Europe, and yet in modern scholarly studies we have come to especially privilege “king” and “emperor” over many other, equally useful, titles. Lisa Wolverton has addressed this issue directly in her article, “Why Kings?” in which she suggests that kings and kingdoms are often proxies for modern nations and states, and thus make it difficult to move away from nationalism.9 Part of this problem, I would suggest, is the close identification in modern English of the words king and monarch, and the conception of royal power as unitary. Björn Weiler, who has written extensively on medieval rule, focuses almost exclusively on

8 Karl Ferdinand Werner, “Kingdom and principality in twelfth-century France,” in The Medieval Nobility: Studies on the ruling classes of France and Germany from the sixth to the twelfth century, transl. and ed. Timothy Reuter (Amsterdam, New York, Oxford: NorthHolland Publishing Company, 1979): 243–244. 9 Lisa Wolverton, “Why Kings?” in Rethinking Medieval Margins and Marginality, ed. Ann E. Zimo, Tiffany D. Vann Sprecher, Kathryn Reyerson, Debra Blumenthal (London: Routledge, 2020): 92–107. Florin Curta has also undertaken a fascinating study of the modern issues of titulature in regard to Southeastern Europe in Florin Curta, “Qagan, Khan, or King? Power in Early Medieval Bulgaria (Seventh to Ninth Centuries)” Viator 37 (2006): 1–31.

20

Titles and Rulers

“kingship.” In his 2021 book, Paths to Kingship, he begins his discussion with “Kingship was representative of how things should be” and “Kingship symbolised the right order of the world”.10 In earlier work, he paraphrases kingship as “monarchical rule” and talks about the period of the tenth to thirteenth centuries as “an age of kingship.”11 Weiler is straightforward about his preconceptions, terms, and definitions and there is no negative implied by using his work here. I am simply attempting to emphasize the point that we must make a distinction between a king and a ruler; and a king and a monarch. For the latter, a monarch is inherently singular as it means “sole ruler;” and as we will see in this chapter and in the chapter on corulership, that was not always the case in medieval Europe. Thus, if we also frame the definition of king as a sole ruler, then places that do not have one ruler do not easily fit our definition of a kingdom. Even more importantly, an exclusive focus on kings, excludes the very many queens, also rulers, who played a part in medieval politics. Theresa Earenfight led the charge to include female rulers in our conver­ sation, but even she relied once again on “monarchy,” though with a woman added suggesting that “Monarchy no longer appears as sole rule by a man but as a partnership between king and queen.”12 Rather, like Wolverton, I think we need to take a step back and question our terms and interrogate what they mean and why we use them; not just for kings, but in regard to the titles of king, queen, and emperor. If we place medieval usage of these titles beside their modern translations, with accompanying con­ notations, we see a serious disconnect. The consequences of that dis­ connect shift our understanding of medieval rulers and rulership and cause us to have a fundamentally skewed perspective. Words, like everything else, change over time – and we must pay attention to not only what the word means but when it means that thing. Similarly, people use words in particular ways for particular purposes – and so we must pay attention to who is using those words and why. Thus, this reexamination of medieval titles will help us separate modern accretions from medieval intent, in relation to the polities in the arc of medieval Europe. One, large, segment of the difficulty in shifting our modern under­ standing of medieval titulature is that we are reliant on words – and words have denotative and connotative meanings. In an attempt to understand what some of the problems are with our current Anglophone terminology

10 Björn Weiler, Paths to Kingship in Medieval Latin Europe, c. 950–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 3, 4. 11 Björn Weiler, “Crown-Giving and King-Making in the West, ca. 1000-ca.1250” Viator 41:1 (2010), 58. 12 Theresa Earenfight, The King’s Other Body: María of Castile and the Crown of Aragon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 4.

Titulature 21

for medieval European titles, defining our terms is an essential component to begin the process of deconstructing those meanings.13 For instance, if I say “planet” it has both a denotative and connotative meaning. In the early twenty-first century when Pluto was stripped of the title of planet, there were numerous objections to this from groups not affiliated with the International Astronomical Union (IAU).14 Thus, to clarify their terms, the IAU attempted to publicize the definition of what “planet” meant, beyond the common wisdom that the mass of people had accrued related to this definition.15 They are still, at the time of writing, dealing with their own attempt to shift the definition of terms. The path is an uphill one for all of us undertaking such reexaminations of nomenclature, but the conse­ quences, at least for medievalists could be quite profitable. To take just one example, imagine a Portugal with multiple concurrent rulers, some male and some female.16 If we utilize such a word, ruler, versus king and queen, the immediate impact is clear from not just the denotation of the words but their connotation, their impact, as well. Shifting that vocabulary can help us as scholars shift our understanding of who those rulers were as indi­ vidual power centers, but also in relation to other rulers, and allow us to escape the requirement of continually adding modifiers to express who this “queen” was and why she actually did have power; as is so common in the existing scholarship. King

As mentioned, “king” in modern English has taken on the connotation of monarch. This can be seen in the very first entry in the Oxford English Dictionary for the word where it is listed as, “A male sovereign

13 Not that one needs a citation for a rationale of defining terms, but Chris Wickham gives a solid one, “All that one can do, when one uses words, is to have a clear and consistent idea of what they mean, and to explain them to the reader if necessary.” Framing the Early Middle Ages, 7. 14 The New York Times has a nice retrospective on the issue, including letters of complaint at: https://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2015/07/07/science/07PLUTOHISTORICAL/s/07PLU TOHISTORICAL-slide-E57P.html?searchResultPosition=3 (accessed 2/16/2021). 15 The IAU has devoted a whole section on their website (linked straight from the front page) to answering people’s questions and discussing why they tried to make this change. https:// www.iau.org/public/themes/pluto/ (accessed 2/16/2021). 16 This is actually a pretty big ask, it turns out. No less a figure than Robert Bartlett in his Blood Royal noted the problem from his perspective: “The problem of categorizing Bereguela is compounded by the fact that, in the twelfth and early thirteenth century sometimes the daughters of the kings of Castile, as also the daughters of the kings of Portugal, were called queens. This caused annoyance when they married outside the Iberian peninsula.” Robert Bartlett, Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 125.

22

Titles and Rulers

(esp. hereditary) ruler of an independent state, a male monarch.”17 In fact, this definition contains multiple problems for understanding the medieval world as it is utterly reflective of the ideas of the early modern and modern age (as can be seen in the two example quotations given which are from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries). Theresa Earenfight has noted this, in reference to a common definition of king as monarch, by saying, “The standard definition of monarchy as ‘the rule, whole or partial, of one person over a political unit’, which implies sole rulership, is misleading.”18 The idea of hereditary rulers is discussed in the chapter on succession, but here we must challenge the definition of a king in the middle ages as both sovereign and as a monarch, as they are deeply interrelated. The place to begin is with a flexible understanding of terminology appropriate to the period under discussion. In medieval Europe a “rex,” “konungar,” “cyning,” “kniaz’,” and so forth were all kings, but they were not necessarily monarchs. In fact, they were not typically monarchs, as there were multiple people in each realm who held that title, and even ruled corporately, as we will see in the chapter on corulership.19 Part of the problem of correcting titulature for medieval rulers is the centuries-long accretion of habit and citation that has happened in the meantime. Another part is the difficulties inherent in the sources, whether simply source pres­ ervation or (what moderns prize) consistency in naming. To address the first problem, that of accretion, I will use an example from Rus. Medieval Rusian titulature will be addressed below in more depth, but the translation issue for the titles is an early modern one. In the sixteenth century, English traders arrived at the court of Ivan IV of Muscovy and began to describe what they saw in their native English. The political system that they saw around them was one in which there was a ruler above all others and his title was “tsar.” They equated this title with that of their own ruler and typically referred to the tsar as a king or on occasion as emperor. Under that tsar were a host of other, lesser, rulers who were all part of the same larger clan and they typically bore the title “kniaz’.” Again, following their own model from England, English observers referred to these kniazia (in the plural) as “dukes.” When Russian–English dictionaries began to be made, these early vernacular sources were drawn upon and tsar became

17 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 1: A-M (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007 [sixth edition]), 1506. 18 Theresa Earenfight, “Without the Persona of the Prince: Kings, Queens, and the Idea of Monarchy in Late Medieval Europe” Gender and History 19:1 (2007): 8, with an internal citation to Myers, Medieval Kingship, p. 1. 19 For just one example here, the Irish chronicles, “when they write in Latin, are content with the title rex for all grades of king.” Francis John Byrne, Irish Kings and High-Kings (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1973 [2001 – 2nd edition]), 259.

Titulature 23

defined as a king or emperor and kniaz’ as a duke or, later, prince. This titulature was correct for the sixteenth century and for later, thus there were no problems apparent, and for hundreds of years the titulature remained unchanged. Unfortunately, while the titulature worked just fine for those periods, it was not consistent with the political arrangements for the medieval period where each of those kniazia was, in fact, a king in their own right.20 And yet, given the generations of citations and the ease of use of dictionaries, the translations persisted and became commonly accepted – to the extent that they have become beyond question. Thus, while it is easy to understand why one must question those translations, it is a difficult en­ terprise to engage in – though a worthwhile one. As to the second problem, related to primary sources, there are many is­ sues interrelated here. Notable is the lack of consistency with which titles are rendered in the primary sources, even for specific individuals. Benjamin Hudson has suggested that medieval titles were much more flexible than what modern historians often deal with, a sentiment with which I would agree. In support of this idea he notes that the Irish ruler, Sitric (d. 1042), is called “rex” on a coin and “dux” in a charter of about the same time.21 Another, related, issue is the lack of ample primary source evidence. The primary sources for medieval Poland, especially before the thirteenth cen­ tury, are not plentiful; they are also in Latin. In the Latin primary sources, the ruler(s) of Poland are called either “dux” or “rex” dependent upon when and which ruler. In the Rusian sources, the ruler of Poland is always referred to as kniaz’, irrespective of whether that ruler was titled dux or rex in Latin sources of the time.22 However, the population spoke the vernacular lan­ guage – West Slavic – and we have ancillary evidence that the West Slavic word książę, ruler, was also used.23 Thus, this creates a more complicated titulature situation for modern historians to attempt to unravel. One of the oft-discussed markers of kingship is ecclesiastical coronation. Janet Nelson notes the increase in unction and coronation in the ninth and tenth centuries, and that kingship was “liturgified” in the mid-tenth century.24 Further, she suggests that, “From Hincmar’s time onwards consecration was

20 Christian Raffensperger, The Kingdom of Rus’ (Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2017). 21 Benjamin Hudson, Viking Pirates and Christian Princes: Dynasty, Religion, and Empire in the North Atlantic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 120–121. Hudson also gives an example of this flexibility of titulature with the Scottish ruler Macbeth, in the same location. 22 PVL, s.a. 996, 1102 (for two examples). 23 Discussed further below, but also see 1136 grant to Tyniec. Monumenta Poloniae Historica 1 ed. August Bielowski (Lwow and Krakow: Akademia Umiejetnosci, 1864), 518; Piotr Górecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 1100–1250 (New York and London: Holmes and Meier, 1992), 68. 24 Janet L. Neson, “Inauguration Rituals,” in Early Medieval Kingship, ed. P. H. Sawyer and I. N. Wood (Leeds: University of Leeds, 1977), 54.

24

Titles and Rulers

indispensable for West Frankish kings in the sense that none dispensed with it.”25 Nelson’s ideas have become standard fare for understanding medieval kingship, and have been applied widely, even when there is not sufficient evidence to do so.26 For instance, Piotr Boroń has suggested that this begins around the year 1000 for the Slavic world, and that it is only rulers crowned by a bishop or higher who can be properly called “rex.”27 Boroń’s work is fo­ cused on the Slavic world, but is grounded in the ideas of Nelson and others who have talked about the primacy of ecclesiastical coronation. Within the arc of medieval Europe, however, the picture is much more complicated than such a bald-faced statement of rex = ecclesiastically crowned ruler would allow. Within the Slavic world, the title of the Polish rulers, as noted above, was variable in Latin documents. Bolesław Chrobry may have been granted the title of rex at Gniezno in 1000, or not until 1025, but he also issued his own coin on which he called himself a rex.28 There was no ecclesiastical involvement in those affairs. Rus, the largest of the Slavic polities, was ruled by a kniaz’, which is often translated as a “prince” or “duke,” as mentioned above, and we have no evidence of ecclesiastical coronation in the realm at all, with the most common formula for rule being that a ruler “sat on the seat of [their father]”. Continuing the arc of medieval Europe north, ecclesiastical coronation in Scandinavia does not arrive until the latter half of the twelfth century. As Sverre Bagge notes, the “Ritual of coronation, [was] introduced in Norway in 1163/64, in Denmark in 1170, and in

25 Janet Nelson, “Kingship and Empire,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c. 350–1450, ed. J. H. Burns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988): 235. 26 Similar to Nelson, Francis Oakley moves quickly from specific Carolingian and Visigothic examples to generalize that anointing was widespread throughout western Europe. Francis Oakley, Empty Bottles of Gentilism: Kingship and the Divine in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (to 1050) (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), 160–161. 27 Piotr Boroń, Kniaziowie, królowie, carowie …: Tytuły i nazwy władców słowiańskich we wczesnym średniowieczu (Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 2010), ch. 3. I have chosen to cite Boroń here, but the work of numerous medievalists would work in the same way such as Zbigniew Dalewski, “The Piast Rulership,” in Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe: Power, Rituals and Legitimacy in Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, ed. Grischa Vercamer and Dušan Zupka (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022): 111–132; Przemysław Urbańczyk, “What did early medieval authors know about structures of gov­ ernance and religion in northern Central Europe? (A Comment on M. Hardt)” in Trade and Communication Networks of the First Millennium AD in the northern part of Central Europe: Central Places, Beach Markets, Landing Places and Trading Centres, ed. Babette Ludowici, Hauke Jöns, Sunhild Kleingärtner, Jonathan Scheschkewitz, and Matthias Hardt (Hannover: Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum, 2010): 356–361. 28 Dalewski, “The Piast Rulership,” 119. Though, Dalewski would heartily disagree with my next statement, as he firmly believes in the Carolingian continuity of ecclesiastical power of the crowned ruler.

Titulature 25

Sweden – where it never had the same importance as in other countries – in 1210.”29 Before that time, kings were made so by acclamation, election at a thing (þing) (or multiple things), and by self-proclamation, but ecclesiastical coronation does not figure widely in Scandinavia. A similar case could be made for Ireland where Wendy Davies notes that “Ecclesiastical and secular interests were in fact very strongly intertwined.”30 And yet, there are only two possible sacral coronations of Irish kings and “Perceptions of Irish sacral kingship come more from theorizing than from contemporary accounts of behaviour.”31 Finally, moving to Iberia, we see that in Portugal, rulers simply declared their titles themselves, rather than having them given to them.32 All of these examples demonstrate the lack of regular ecclesiastical coronation as a marker of kingship, and yet the claims of required ecclesi­ astical coronation persist. Weiler in his recent, Paths to Kingship, focused a great deal on ecclesi­ astical coronation as a requirement for kingship, as well as noting the sanctification of kings: “Kingship was an office conferred by God, ad­ ministered through the people and in recognition of the moral stature of the individual.”33 Similarly, “The royal office was a duty, created so that anyone exercising it would enact the will of God.”34 Though after building up the process a great deal, he does note that, “Not everyone sought recognition through the formal giving of a crown.”35 While Weiler’s work is excellent, it is worth challenging some of the core assumptions which are typically made about kingship. Earenfight, in a persuasive essay entitled, “Where do we go from here?” notes two things of particular relevance for this argument – (1) traditions have “congealed into habits of thought that hardened into as­ sumptions about norms.”36 In particular here she is talking about patriarchal practices, but the point is true more broadly as ideas or theories once discussed and engaged with become bedrock upon which to build new theories and (2) “much of the new work on monarchy is, in fact, not new at all in terms of theory or methods.”37 Instead, it builds upon the traditional scholarship,

29 Sverre Bagge, Cross and Scepter: The Rise of the Scandinavian Kingdoms from the Vikings to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 57. 30 Wendy Davies, “States and non-states in the Celtic world” in Der frühmittelalterliche Staat Europäische Perspektiven, eds. Walter Pohl and Veronika Wieser (Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2009):, 167. 31 Davies, “States and non-states in the Celtic world,” 166n60. 32 Weiler, Paths to Kingship, 96. 33 Weiler, Paths to Kingship, 61. 34 Weiler, Paths to Kingship, 95. 35 Weiler, Paths to Kingship, 96. 36 Theresa Earenfight, “Where do we go from here? Some thoughts on Power and Gender in the Middle Ages” Medieval Feminist Forum 51:2 (2015): 116. 37 Earenfight, “Where do we go from here?” 126.

26

Titles and Rulers

much as in the example above about how citing one dictionary translation encouraged misunderstandings over time, to reify existing understandings of multiple issues. Further, she notes that the focus of many such scholars on “Germany, England, and France, places where there were no queens regnant in the Middle Ages” has predisposed them to not think about the inclusion of women.38 I would add to that suggestion that a focus on western polities as normative has created a basis for viewing the medieval European experience that is not in accord with what was going on in the rest of, the largest part of, medieval Europe. For the purposes of this chapter, what this means is that the definition of kingship is once again wide open if we can move away from a basis of ecclesiastical coronation to talk about kings in other ways. The fol­ lowing examples will discuss the title of “king” in different parts of the arc of medieval Europe. The kingdom of Rus, as I have referred to it elsewhere, has rarely been seen as a kingdom in the historiography – in large part due to the plethora of rulers referred to by the same title, kniaz’.39 These kniazia (plural of kniaz’) were all members of the ruling clan, the Volodimerovichi (referred to typi­ cally as the Riurikids) and each held control over their own city and its hinterland, but they also existed within a hierarchical relationship in the larger polity. For instance, when Volodimer Sviatoslavich, known as the Christianizer of Rus or St. Vladimir, reorganized his realm after his Christianization, he assigned his sons to various cities throughout Rus: “He set Vysheslav in Novgorod, Iziaslav in Polotsk, Sviatopolk in Turov, and Iaroslav in Rostov.”40 Additionally, when one of the sons died, he rear­ ranged their places of rule accordingly. This indicates that Volodimer, both as ruler of Kyiv and Rus and because he was pater familias, controlled the placement of subordinate rulers. Similarly, when Volodimer’s son, Iaroslav, died he left a final “testament” to his sons in which he assigned them to various territories and made clear the hierarchical relationship: “The throne of Kyiv I bequeath to my eldest son, your brother Iziaslav. Heed him as you have heeded me, that he may take my place among you. To Sviatoslav I give Chernigov, to Vsevolod Pereiaslavl’, to Igor’ the city of Vladimir, and to Viacheslav Smolensk.”41 Iaroslav’s testament, though much discussed in the historiography,42 lays out a clear relationship for our purposes of discussing titulature. Iziaslav was to be the primus inter pares, acting as pater familias,

38 Earenfight, “Where do we go from here?” 126–127. 39 Christian Raffensperger, The Kingdom of Rus’ (Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2017). Here there is more discussion of the roles of these kniazia as well. 40 PVL, s.a. 988. 41 PVL, s.a. 1054. 42 For one in-depth examination see Martin Dimnik, “The ‘Testament’ of Iaroslav ‘the Wise’: a Re-examination” Canadian Slavonic Papers 29:4 (1987), 369–86.

Titulature 27

while the other brothers were to obey him as they had obeyed their father. And yet, there is no distinction whatsoever in the titulature for these various rulers. All of them, without exception, were referred to in the Povest’ vremmenykh let, our main source for eleventh century Rus, as a kniaz’. Thus, without being overly reductionist, we may suggest that the hierarchical relationship was understood through means other than titulature. In other words, it did not bother the medieval denizens of Rus if there were multiple people bearing the same title, since the relationships and power structure were clear to them. The problem of multiple kniazia is not a medieval, but a modern one. Because of the coming together of the definitions for king and monarch, it became impossible for modern scholars to acknowledge that Rusian kniazia, even the primus inter pares in Kyiv, were kings. This is despite the fact that in other sources, such as those in Latin, they consistently appeared with the title of “rex.”43 Thus, we see otherwise excellent translations of primary sources which have been marred by overcorrection of titulature. One example is the translation of the early thirteenth-century Chronicle of Henry of Livonia which narrates the activities of the crusading Bishop Albert of Riga. Given the region, there is a great deal of interaction with various Rusian rulers, all of which are referred to as “rex” in the text.44 The translator translates the “rex” as king; however, he then adds a note indicating that the chronicler was, in fact, incorrect in his label – “Like the ‘king’ of Polozk, the ‘king’ of Gerzika was a Russian prince.”45 James Brundage, the translator, was working with the situation as best he could, translating the text as written, but then adding a historiographic note. As can be seen from the change, the shift from “king” to “prince” is a dramatic one in terms of stature, and thus a major difference in meaning from what Henry of Livonia intended. Medieval polities did not live in isolation from one another, as is well known, which is how we have Latin texts referring to Rus. Scandinavia was another region in which there were multiple rulers at the same time, and in which there were wider connections with Rus. For instance, Scandinavian sources such as Fagrskinna (ca. 1220) which were written in Old Norse refer to Rusian rulers as konungar (plural of konungar).46 Scandinavia also had sources written in Latin, such as Historia Norwegiae (early thirteenth

43 There are numerous examples of this, including a particularly telling one from the Register of Pope Gregory VII referenced in Raffensperger, The Kingdom of Rus’, 55–59. 44 Henricus Lettus, Heinrici Chronicion Lyvoniae, ed. Wilhelm Arndt (Hannover: Impensis Bibliopolii Hahniani, 1874). 45 Henricus Lettus, The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, transl. James A. Brundage (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), Bk. 3, fn. 8. 46 Fagrskinna, Ed. C. R. Unger and P. A. Munch (Christiania: Trykt hos P. T. Malling, 1847). This can be seen in many locations, such as 55, 69, 78, 88, 94, 95, 106, 107, 108, 112.

28

Titles and Rulers

century), which presents an interesting overlap and corollary as it refers to Rusian rulers as reges (plural of rex).47 What seems clear then is that for the unknown monastic author of the text, konungar was the same as rex – at least insofar as the Rusian rulers were concerned. This should naturally bring us to Scandinavia, a place where corulership was not rare. As will be seen in the following chapter, there were multiple instances of corulership in Norway, in this period, not to mention the numerous konungar who lived and ruled coterminously from 800 to 1000. If we look at the Scandinavian sources regarding those rulers, we can see that multiple konungar coexist as kings in Scandinavia, further moving us away from a conflation of king and monarch. Beginning with the shared rule of Magnus and Harald in the middle of the eleventh century, the Old Norse Morkinskinna (ca. 1220) repeatedly refers to the two as “Magnus konungar oc Haralldr konungar.”48 King Magnus and King Harald are seen operating together on any number of occasions, meeting with one another, even having problems, but they are referred to jointly in the chronicle text. Interestingly, the chronicle also keeps the same name order whenever referring to both of them, maintaining Magnus’s name first. This is an acknowledgement of his having been king before Harald returned to Norway to claim a portion of rule for himself. The text itself verifies this, by putting words into the mouth an “old man” who says that the, “prior king has the greater authority over us.”49 In this way, the verbal expression of rank order is similar to the left-right rank order witnessed on the medieval Roman coins, (as seen in Chapter 2) in which we see a con­ sistent trend of dominant and subordinate positioning signaled by position on the coin’s face. Similarly, after the death of King Olaf, there were two kings again in Norway, King Magnus and King Hakon. Just as in the situ­ ation with a previous Magnus and Harald, both are referred to with the title “konungar” in the Old Norse.50 And when this Magnus, Barefoot, died, his three sons all became konungar.51 The order of brothers listed at this inheritance is Sigurd, Eystein, and then Olaf, who was just a small child. Sigurd goes off to crusade and travels to Jerusalem, while Eystein stays at

47 Historia Norwegie, Ed. Inger Ekrem and Lars Boje Mortensen, transl. Peter Fisher (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, 2003) ch. XVII, 90–91; ch. xviii, 104–105. 48 Morkinskinna, Ed. C.R. Unger (Christiana: Det for B. M. Bentzen’s Bogtrykkeri, 1867), 40, 44 (for just two examples). 49 Morkinskinna: The Earliest Icelandic Chronicle of the Norwegian Kings (1030–1157) Transl. Theodore M. Andersson and Kari Ellen Gade (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2000), ch. 19, 162. 50 Morkinskinna, 130. 51 Morkinskinna, 156.

Titulature 29

home and rules in Norway, and Morkinskinna notes that “Eysteinn ko­ nungar oc Olafr konungar” worked together.52 The phrasing for the pairing of rulers is the same as what we saw with Magnus and Harald. In this case, Eystein is first, and thus superior, to the younger Olaf. When Olaf dies, noted out of order in the text, Sigurd and Eystein are the remaining kings and split the land in two (rather than three), and in this case, we see “Sigurþr ko­ nungar oc Eysteinn konungar.”53 The order has shifted to present Sigurd as the elder and thus first ruler, with Eystein second. Eystein may be superior to Olaf, and the one who stayed home while Eystein went crusading, but apparently birth order still dictated the order of rank among corulers – even if all were indicated by the same title. Once again, as in Rus, it was not the title that differentiated rank position, but the application of it. One further instance of translation is relevant to the titulature recorded in Morkinskinna. In the chapter on corulership, I note an instance in which a skald said, “hail to both monarchs!”54 Given that monarch is inherently singular, it is odd to see this expression in the English translation, but it further reinforces the point that king has become so identified with monarch that they are difficult to separate. In the Old Norse, the original phrase is, “Heilir allvalldar baþir.”55 The crucial word in question is “allvalldar” which is translated by Geir T. Zoëga as “sovereign, king” and which literally means something like “all-wielder.”56 In fact, Zoëga includes an example sentence for “allvaldr” which is “Heilir all-valdar báðir!” “All-wielder” is a particularly nice expression for king in a world where kennings make stories more interesting, but the translation as monarch seems an awkward one, especially given that there are two rulers, who are consistently referred to as “konungar” [king] throughout the text. This is in no way meant to impugn the translation of Theodore Andersson and Kari Ellen Glade. I would suggest that they were working from a common understanding of the denotation and connotation of king that we have already seen problematized in this section. In both examples discussed, if we can uncouple king from monarch and acknowledge that medieval peoples utilized different measures to signal rank than differing titulature, it would allow us to recognize multiple Rusian kniazia and Norwegian konungar as kings. The “if” above is a rather large one given the strength of the cross-identification of king and monarch. If it is not possible to disassociate the two, then perhaps “ruler” is a better catch-all title for all of them. This can only be accepted however, if “ruler” becomes

52 53 54 55 56

Morkinskinna, 174. Morkinskinna, 174. Morkinskinna, ch. 21, 165. Morkinskinna, 31. Geir T. Zoëga, A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic (Mineolo, N.Y.: Dover Publications, Inc., 2004 [original publication 1910]), 12.

30

Titles and Rulers

the default translation of not just kniaz’ and konungar, but also for rex. It would continue the process of privileging western Europe if their rulers maintained their status as kings, while those in the arc of medieval Europe became “rulers.” Another possibility is to keep the title of king, but to dis­ entangle it fully from modern accretions, and show, as Lucy Pick has sug­ gested for León, “that even the king was not a king in the way we popularly imagine him.”57 Queen

The role of a medieval queen, as defined by the scholarship, has changed immensely over the last several decades. It began with work on, what were considered, exceptional queens, like Eleanor of Aquitaine, and has thrived the most in studies of Iberian rulers, where scholars like Theresa Earenfight, Therese Martin, Lucy Pick, and many others have made the case for female rulership and networks of power in the medieval and early modern period.58 This section intends to draw on that excellent work and build a picture of the problems with the title of queen. We begin with a definition that sets up our problem. Queen – “A female sovereign (esp. hereditary) ruler of an inde­ pendent state, a female monarch; the wife or consort of a king.”59 As with the title of king, discussed above, there are multiple problems, given a wider interpretation of queens. The first is the repetition of the use of monarch, or sole ruler. The second is the categorization of a queen as the wife or consort of the king. This section will address these two issues, in particular, to attempt to demonstrate that the title of queen is one that needs a new, broader, definition in medieval studies. Queen, unlike king, has a larger semantic issue. While king (like AngloSaxon cyning, Old Norse konungar, Slavonic kniaz’) shares a Germanic root that means “ruler;” queen comes from a series of roots, also from Germanic and ultimately Indo-European, that functionally mean “woman.” Queen (cwēn) first appears in Old English where it still bears subordinate definitions of woman and wife. In fact, Asser, in his Life of King Alfred notes that there was a tradition among the West Saxons of the eighth and ninth century of

57 Lucy Pick, Her Father’s Daughter: Gender, Power, and Religion in the Early Spanish Kingdoms (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2017), 246. 58 Earenfight, The King’s Other Body; Therese Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectural Propaganda in Twelfth-century Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2006); Pick, Her Father’s Daughter; Miriam Shadis, Berenguela of Castile (1180–1246) and Political Women in the High Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave, 2009); Jitske Jasperse, “Of Seals and Siblings: Teresa/Matilda (d. 1218), Queen of Portugal and Countess of Flanders” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/17546559.2020.1805120 59 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 2: N-Z (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007 [sixth edition]), 2432.

Titulature 31

not calling the “king’s wife” a “queen,” due to a particular Mercian queen.60 Similarly, Judith Herrin has noted the slow pace of crowning of queens in the Latin West in the eighth and ninth centuries.61 All of which leaves scholars with a problem when trying to understand medieval female rulership in its proper medieval context. These women bear titles in our sources that are gendered female, a characteristic that we do not have in English. But the titles are the same as their male counterparts – kniaginia, basilisa, regina, and so forth; thus, the titles are indicating that this person is a female ruler. The modern English translation for these titles though bears an older relationship not with rulership, however, but with woman and wife creating a hierar­ chical discord that does not exist in our medieval sources. Even if we cannot replace “queen” as the word for a female ruler, we must be aware of its roots to help us understand the problems involved with using it. That issue of a hierarchal discord is mixed up with our modern ideas of gender and gender dichotomies. In a classic work on the Yoruba, Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí made the controversial argument that “the fundamental category ‘woman’ - which is foundational in Western gender discourses - simply did not exist in Yorubaland prior to its sustained contact with the West.”62 While this is not true of our period, Oyěwùmí’s argument encourages us to rethink our preconceptions, especially those which create the foundations for our argu­ ments.63 The battle fought by female scholars to gain recognition for women in the medieval past is worth highlighting in this regard. Georges Duby wrote widely on medieval France, utilizing chronicle and charter evidence; and in so doing talked about the dearth of women in the documentation that he was reading.64 Yet, when Amy Livingstone read that same charter material she found women everywhere in the documentation.65 The women did not just appear since the time when Duby read the charters, they were there all along,

60 Asser, “Life of King Alfred,” in Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and other contemporary sources, transl. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge (New York: Penguin, 1983), 70–71, 235n28. With thanks to Elizabeth Tyler for her help on this matter and for bibliographic suggestions. See also the discussion about this in Pauline Stafford, “The King’s Wife in Wessex 800–1066” Past and Present 91 (1981): 3–27 (esp. 17). 61 Judith Herrin, Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 246–247. 62 Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), ix. 63 “I argue that concepts and theoretical formulations are culture-bound and that scholars themselves are not merely recorders or observers in the research process; they are also participants.” Oyěwùmí, The Invention of Women, xv. 64 In the “author’s note” to his edited collection of articles Duby makes a point of saying that all the sources are male and that their authors “despised” women. Georges Duby, Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages, transl. Jane Dunnett (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), vii. 65 Amy Livingstone, Out of Love for My Kin: Aristocratic Family Life in the Lands of the Loire, 1000–1200 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010).

32

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but his own preconceptions led him to miss their involvement. The same thing is true when talking about female rulership. Robert Bartlett, in a moment of self-revisionism, said that he, among many others, was wrong to suggest that one of the reasons that Mathilda was not accepted as Henry I’s successor in England was her gender.66 Further, he notes that “there is little contemporary evidence for anyone taking this position.”67 The same thing is true for Earenfight in the later middle ages, when she finds no evidence of a gendered attack on Maria’s rule.68 In fact, if we return to the sources without modern preconceptions, we can see that there are multiple examples of positive female rulership, which Bartlett himself cites and discusses and involve the German Empire, the Medieval Roman Empire, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.69 What we see here is both that the work of challenging our core, base preconceptions is already being done, but also that there is more work that needs doing. These next examples will illustrate the issues with the label “queen” within multiple areas of the arc of medieval Europe. Returning to the modern denotation of the word queen as the wife or consort of a king runs up against the most trouble in Iberia where there are numerous examples of women as powerful figures and rulers in their own right, bearing a variety of titles, domna, infantissa, and regina. One of the most famous rulers of León-Castile was Queen Urraca in the late eleventh and early twelfth century. She ruled on her own behalf as heir to her father, Alfonso VI; she supported monasteries and the church, warred against her neighbors and enemies, married and divorced, and passed on her kingdom to her son, Alfonso VII. However, while Urraca is a powerful and well-known figure, she was a ruling queen and fits the standard definition of a queen as sovereign, and even as monarch – as such, we will leave her aside to focus on other powerful reginae in Iberia.70 After her death in 1126, Alfonso VII became king, but he was not the only one who inherited Urraca’s extensive

66 67 68 69

Bartlett, Blood Royal, 141. Bartlett, Blood Royal, 141. Earenfight, King’s Other Body, 87. Bartlett, Blood Royal, 118, 127–28, 140. Not to mention his clear statement that, “there seems to have been no, or virtually no, opposition to the succession of Urraca, Matilda and Melisende explicitly on the grounds that they were female.” 141. 70 There is a large, and growing, scholarship on Urraca. One of the earliest and most important in English is Therese Martin, “The Art of a Reigning Queen as Dynastic Propaganda in Twelfth-Century Spain” Speculum 80:4 (2005): 1134–1171. Several recent M.A. theses in Spain have picked up on Martin’s work, including one providing a wonderful table com­ prising all of the titles used by Urraca on her documents from 1109–1125. Carmen Grijalba Peña, “Urraca I: La Imagen de una reina según las crónicas de su tiempo y los documentos regios” (M.A. Thesis: University of Cantabria, 2017), p. 69, table 3.2.2. Though, illustrating the underlying problem that this chapter is dealing with, Robert Bartlett’s portrayal of Urraca is almost entirely about the men in her life, culminating in the description of Alfonso the Battler as “a man’s man.” Blood Royal, 131–134.

Titulature 33

powers. Her first-born daughter, Sancha Raimúndez, was the most powerful woman in the realm, ahead of even Alfonso VII’s wives.71 Our standard definition of queen would not provide a place for Sancha, but in the actual medieval world, she often bore the title regina as the daughter of the queen and sister to the king.72 This title was not given idly and reflects the power of Sancha in the kingdom. The Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris in 1145 says that “In all matters the King consulted first his wife [Berengaria/Berenguela] and then his sister, Princess [infante domina] Sancha. Both of them possessed much sound wisdom. All of their advice produced good results for the King.”73 And though the Chronica tells us that Alfonso VII valued his wife’s advice, she (or his other wives) never issued charters in their own names, as Sancha did – 76 of them. Beyond that, she confirmed 14% of his diplomas, testifying to her regular presence at the royal court, and her position with her brother, the king.74 These numbers are especially important to reinforce the idea that Sancha was not just a consultant of the king, but a participant in royal governance. Sancha’s role was not unique, and in fact Lucy Pick has pointed out the ways in which royal women acted as a corporate body using their own networks to assist the rule of their fathers, brothers, sons, and nephews from late tenth through twelfth century León-Castile. Stepping just a bit west, the kingdom of Portugal, ruled initially by Queen Urraca’s sister, Theresa provides another example of queens that break our definition of the word. Though Afonso Henriques forcibly took power from his mother in 1128, he was always careful to note that his right to rule as king came through his mother.75 That care for female power, and powerful

71 “Bernard Reilly calls her the major figure of the kingdom, after the king.” Pick, Her Father’s Daughter, 232. 72 The earliest reference to her as queen comes from an inscription (“Queen Sancha, [daughter] of Raimundo, silvered me”) on a portable altar discussed in Jitske Jasperse, Between Leon and the Levant: The Infanta Sancha’s Altar as Material Evidence for Medieval History,” in The Medieval Iberian Treasury in the Context of Cultural Interchange (Expanded Edition), ed. Therese Martin (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 145. For other references to her title see, Pick, Her Father’s Daughter, 232; Therese Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectural Propaganda in Twelfth-century Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 155. 73 The Chronicle of Alfonso the Emperor, transl. Glenn Edward Lipskey (Ph.D. Dissertation, Northwestern University, 1972), ch. 12; Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, ed. L. Sánchez Belda (Madrid: 1950), ch. 12. I have used Lipskey’s translation here, but think that it is important to note that “Princess” is an inaccurate translation of “Domina” which Kimberly LoPrete has shown clearly is “Lord” in the feminine form. Kimberly LoPrete, “The gender of lordly women. The case of Adela of Blois,” In Pawns or players? Studies on medieval and early modern women, ed. Christine Meek and Catherine Lawless (Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2013), 90–110. 74 Pick, Her Father’s Daughter, 232. 75 Miriam Shadis, “The First Queens of Portugal and the Building of the Realm” in Reassessing the Roles of Women as ‘Makers’ of Medieval Art and Architecture, vol. 2, ed. Therese Martin (Leiden: Brill, 2012): 676.

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women, was seen in the titulature of his daughters, Mafalda, Urraca, Sancha, and Teresa – all four of whom bore the title of queen [regina].76 The presence of these four queens, even while there was a living queen of Portugal, the wife of Afonso Henriques, immediately counters our definition of what a queen is. And yet, the presence of five queens was certainly not a problem at the time, as the Portuguese court and its neighbors knew the people as in­ dividuals and understood their position within the family. As Miriam Shadis has noted, “the first generations of the Portuguese monarchy … operated differently from what historians of medieval queenship elsewhere in Europe have come to expect and that difference was furthermore crucial to the construction of the monarchy.”77 And though I would suggest that the term monarchy is not right for this multiplicity of rule, we can certainly see the point when we note the five queens surrounding Afonso Henriques and assisting with his reign. We see that assistance in documentary evidence as when the daughters appear in royal charters; and in fact, Afonso Henriques names co-heirs, Teresa and his son Sancho I.78 Afonso Henriques was en­ tirely serious when associating his children with his rule. In 1161, he issued a seal with all three of them listed on it – “Rex Alfonsus - Rex Sancius Tarasia Regina.”79 Though she is listed last, she was listed alongside her father, and her brother on a symbol of royal authority in what Jitske Jasperse has called, “a carefully designed strategy to communicate that the recently established kingdom of Portugal was a family enterprise, to which all its members contributed.”80 While Teresa was only ten at the time of the seal’s issuance, she was able to issue her own charter in 1169, signing “ego Tarasia regina.”81 We see then that Teresa was an important figure, and yet would not fit the normative definition of queen. In fact, Teresa’s life changes rad­ ically when she marries, in her 30s, moves to southern France and begins going by the name, Mathilda. And yet, in spite of all of that, she still signs documents with her title, “Mathilde regina,” even though she was no longer in Portugal, and was married to a count.82 These examples from Iberia present two major problems with our modern definition of what a queen is. There could be many more as well, as Sancho I

76 77 78 79

Pick, Her Father’s Daughter, 236. Shadis, “The First Queens of Portugal,” 671–673. Shadis, “The First Queens of Portugal,” 677. Jitske Jasperse, “Of Seals and Siblings: Teresa/Matilda (d. 1218), Queen of Portugal and Countess of Flanders” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/1754655 9.2020.1805120, 5. 80 Jasperse, “Of Seals and Siblings,” 5. 81 Jasperse, “Of Seals and Siblings,” 5. 82 Jasperse, “Of Seals and Siblings,” 9. This is the example which Bartlett cites as confusing to other medieval peoples. Blood Royal, 125–126.

Titulature 35

of Portugal continued the trend and all of his daughters bore the title of queen, just as his sisters had.83 To get at the reality of what medieval queens were and did, we need to expand our definition beyond the wife of a king, or a monarch. There were a plethora of powerful women in Iberia who were political actors, donors, and even warriors. As Earenfight has pointed out, we should be able to simply call them “queens” rather than feeling obliged to add a modifier to note that they were more than wife and mother.84 Shifting from the west of the arc of medieval Europe to the east, the rulers of Rus, as noted above, were known in the vernacular as kniaz’, typically in English as dukes or princes, though I have made the argument that they should be referred to as kings.85 Neglected in that argument is the situation of the female ruler, the kniagina which, if the argument for a kniaz’ as king holds, should be known as a queen.86 Thus, as there were multiple male rulers in Rus at one time bearing the title of kniaz’, there were also multiple female rulers in Rus at one time, bearing the title of kniaginia. Medieval Rusian chronicles are deliberately neglectful of women, especially in the Povest’ vremennykh let (PVL), with a compilation date in the early twelfth century.87 In that text, there are approximately three female members of the ruling Volodimerovichi clan who get any significant mention. One is the famed Olga (d. 969) who traveled to Constantinople, sent an embassy to the Ottonians and (most well-known) did away with her potential suitor after her husband’s death; another is Evpraksia (d. 1109) who was the wife of the Salian Henry IV, and empress of the German Empire, though she is only noted in the PVL as taking holy orders and then at her death; and finally there is Evpraksia’s sister, Ianka (d. 1113), who is also a nun, and who is sent to Constantinople to bring back a new metropolitan.88 One can see the religious focus of the latter two, especially, who are more contemporary with the writing of the chronicle. That focus aside, there are mentions of women as kniagini (plural of kniagina) in the PVL, and more so in later chronicles and textual sources. It is these women that will be discussed briefly here to demonstrate the multiplicity of queens, as well as their actions.

83 84 85 86

Shadis, “The First Queens of Portugal,” 678. Earenfight, “Without the Persona of the Prince,” 1. Raffensperger, The Kingdom of Rus’. I am indebted to Jessica Stormoen for making this point abundantly clear to me in her research for her Wittenberg University Honors Thesis – “A Woman’s Place is on the Throne: A Study of Queenship in Medieval Rus” (2019). 87 “The Missing Rusian Women: The Case of Evpraksia Vsevolodovna.” In Putting Together the Fragments: Writing Medieval Women’s Lives. Ed. Amy Livingstone and Charlotte Newman Goldy (New York: Palgrave, 2012), 69–84. 88 For more on Evpraksia see, “Evpraksia Vsevolodovna between East and West.” Russian History/Histoire Russe 30:1–2 (2003), 23–34. For Ianka’s trip to Constantinople for the metropolitan see, PVL, s.a. 1089.

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The difficult situation of understanding medieval female rulership in Rus is exemplified in the story of Anastasia of Minsk.89 Anastasia is the name typically given to her, but even that is basically a later creation. What we do know about her is rather exceptional, but only comes from a single chronicle entry, composed at her death. I will quote it at length here, to share the kind of evidence we have, and why it is such an important entry: In that same year the blessed kniaginia, Gleb Vseslavich’s wife, daughter of Iaropolk Iziaslavich, who had been ruling forty years in the place of her kniaz’ as a widow, died. And she was eighty-four years old. … This blessed kniaginia and her kniaz’ had great love for the Holy Mother of God and Father Theodosius … Gleb and the kniaginia during their lives gave six hundred griv’nas of gold, and after the kniaz’s life the kniaginia gave one hundred griv’nas of silver and fifty griv’nas of gold; and after her life the kniaginia gave five villages with their serving people, and she gave all before she became a nun.90 It is fascinating to imagine that Gleb’s widow had been ruling in Minsk for 40 years since his death, and this is the only notation of it in any of the Rusian chronicles for the twelfth century. I have also left the original Old East Slavic titles in place from the Hypatian Chronicle, despite their normal translation as “princess” and “prince” to demonstrate the ubiquity of the titles in the original. If we were to replace kniaginia with “queen,” one can see the striking difference: In that same year the blessed queen, Gleb Vseslavich’s wife, daughter of Iaropolk Iziaslavich, who had been ruling forty years in the place of her king as a widow, died. And she was eighty-four years old. … This blessed queen and her king had great love for the Holy Mother of God and Father Theodosius … Gleb and the queen during their lives gave six hundred griv’nas of gold, and after the king’s life the queen gave one hundred griv’nas of silver and fifty griv’nas of gold; and after her life the queen gave five villages with their serving people, and she gave all before she became a nun.91

89 The major article on this woman and her life is, Ines Garcia de la Puenta, “Gleb of Minsk’s Widow: Neglected Evidence on the Rule of a Woman in Rus’ian History?” Russian History/ Histoire Russe 39:3 (2012): 347–378. 90 Hypatian chronicle, s.a. 1158. English translation based on Lisa Heinrich, “The Kievan Chronicle: A Translation and Commentary” (PhD Dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1977), 230–231. 91 Hypatian chronicle, s.a. 1158. English translation based on Heinrich, “The Kievan Chronicle,” 230–231. I have not replaced “nun” in this translation, though the Old East Slavic uses monk and genders it male or female.

Titulature 37

Titles, and our perception of them, matter a great deal in shaping our understanding of the past. Beyond titles, this text tells us a great deal about the queen, what she did, and what she controlled, for instance, that she had monetary and property resources that she could dispose of at her own wish.92 Thus, this text provides us with an image of a female ruler of a Rusian city for nearly half a century, and yet one whose name we do not even know. During her forty years of rule in Minsk, there were many other rulers in Rus, at least fourteen who bore the title of kniaz’/king, but we know of very few women who bore the title kniaginia/queen at this same time. Nevertheless, those male rulers had wives, mothers, and daughters, so one can suggest that whether the sources recorded them or not, there were other female rulers taking action elsewhere in Rus. Another example of female power in Rus comes in the person of the wife of Sviatoslav Olgovich of Chernigov. This woman, in later sources referred to as “Ekaterina” attempted to take charge of her husband’s realm after his death, in contravention of our typical understanding of succession pro­ cesses.93 Sviatoslav Olgovich died in 1164, and the Hypatian chronicle records that she kept it secret for three days, and ruled with her husband’s councilors.94 During that time, she required the men around her, including the bishop, to swear an oath that they would not divulge the death of Sviatoslav Olgovich, in particular to the other line of the family who might try and usurp power in Chernigov. As shown by later events, this was a very real concern that she had. All of the named figures swore the oath, but the chronicle says that the bishop swore falsely, “for he was a Greek by birth” (repeating a stereotype common to the Rusian chronicles) and sent a message to exactly those family members who were not supposed to know. It is this message, or at least the version included in the chronicle, which provides us with one of our most interesting pieces of information about this event. For in that letter, the bishop noted quite clearly that the queen ruled in Chernigov; it is true that he claimed she ruled, “incompetently” but she was ruling.95 Unfortunately for this queen, the bishop’s letter provoked a response and soon, there was a contest over the throne of Chernigov; she is

92 Which evidence could be supplemented with other material, such as law codes which talk about queens owning land and people, both. “The First Treaty of Novgorod with Tver’ Grand Prince Iaroslav Iaroslavich [1230-71], ca. 1264-65,” transl. Daniel Kaiser in The Laws of Rus’ - Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries, transl. And ed. Daniel H. Kaiser (Salt Lake City, Utah: Charles Schlacks Jr., 1992): 67–68. 93 For the name Ekaterina see, R. V. Zotov, O chernigovskikh kniaziakh po Liubechkomu sinodiku i o Chernigovskom kniazhestve v tatarskoe vremia (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia brat’ev Panteleevykh, 1892), 240. 94 Hypatian chronicle, s.a. 1064. 95 The English translation can be found in Heinrich, “The Kievan Chronicle,” 266.

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never mentioned again in the chronicle sources. In a Rusian world where we have few mentions of women taking power, we must seize on these examples to demonstrate that the women were there and they were taking action, even if the sources do not always record that information. It is not just in regard to active ruling that we see these Rusian queens take on public roles. We also see them acting alongside their husbands in multiple different capacities, or even just as partners acting corporately together. For instance, in 1159, Iziaslav Davidich was on the run from multiple enemies and, we are told by the Hypatian Chronicle, that he held up to wait for his wife, the queen [kniaginia].96 The queen’s journey is narrated by the chronicler, first going to her in-law Gleb and then proceeding through multiple other cities, before being assisted by Iaroslav Vsevolodich who es­ corted her to Iziaslav. Already, we know more about her journey than we do for most female royals in Rus, but the situation improves for us with a chance mention that once reunited with her husband, they took “the queen’s city” from their enemies. Thus, even though this woman is never once named in the chronicle, she has a city and has a deliberate role. In 1171, Volodimer Andreeich of Dorogobuzh died and quickly another ruler, Volodimer Mstislavich, attempted to take his territory.97 However, when Volodimer Mstislavich arrived at Dorogobuzh, he was denied entry, and it appears that Volodimer Andreeich’s wife was ruling in his stead, as Volodimer Mstislavich had to promise that he bore no ill intent to the queen or her villages (a nice indication that she owned her own property). Of course, once in Dorogobuzh, Volodimer Mstislavich foreswore himself and kicked the queen out of the city, along with her retainers. A ruler breaking an oath is not an uncommon occurrence in the chronicles, nor is a ruler being ousted from a city he occupies, but it is rare to see a woman in power. We know little more about her though as she fled to another ruler (with her husband’s body) seeking justice, but that is where her story ends. Sviatoslav Vsevolodich’s queen has multiple mentions in the Hypatian chronicle, even though we also have no name for her. She is listed in 1180 as being consulted by her husband for advice, “And then Sviatoslav conferred with his queen [kniaginia] and with Kochkar’, a dear friend of his, but he did not tell his best men about his plans.”98 Immediately after this, Sviatoslav went to war, which indicates quite clearly that his queen, but not “his best men” were part of the planning for that process. Interestingly for our pur­ poses, David, the object of Sviatoslav’s attack, was forced to flee with his own queen from Sviatoslav’s forces. At the end of his life, Sviatoslav’s wife

96 Hypatian chronicle, s.a. 1159. 97 Hypatian chronicle, s.a. 1171. 98 Hypatian Chronicle, s.a. 1180; Heinrich, “The Kievan Chronicle,” 379.

Titulature 39

makes an appearance having a dialogue with him about his impending death.99 Though she is never named, she is referred to consistently as his queen, and clearly plays a role in his life and his counsels, even if the chronicle gives us little other information to work with. The Rusian chronicle sources are neglectful of women in the extreme. Their names are rarely recorded. They often appear as “wife of” or “mother of,” perhaps indicative of how the monastic authors thought of the women they wrote about; which has resulted in the unfortunate circumstance of us having to identify them by their male family members as well. Despite this issue, these women when given a title by the chroniclers are relatively con­ sistently referred to as “kniaginia.” The use of this title and even the few ex­ amples seen here allow us then to talk about the fact that there were multiple queens in Rus, all coexisting at one time. If we had a fuller source base, charter evidence, more contemporary material culture perhaps we could even see some of the trends that we saw in Iberia in regard to the multiplicity of queens operating at the same time, and in cooperation with one another. Sadly, we do not, but that does not detract from the basic fact that we do have several queens at one time, further undermining our static definition of queen as monarch or wife of a ruling king. Issues of queenship, and especially the titulature for queens is difficult to get at in the arc of medieval Europe, in part because of source issues and preservation. Discussed elsewhere are the multiple kings of Norway who were sons of Magnus Barefoot. Both Sigurd and Eystein married and thus there are two queens of Norway in the twelfth century, but there is little discussion of those women in the primary source material for the period. Similarly, while the titulature for male Polish rulers is complicated, it is worse for women because of a scarcity of sources, and the lack of inclusion in those few ones. However, a diploma from 1136 in which Queen (“Regina”) Judith gave away some of her own land, referred to as Ksieginice, is revealing.100 The Latin document refers to Judith as queen (regina), but the name of the land adds to our understanding as Ksieginice (“land of the female ruler) is derived from the feminine form of książę [king/ruler] and indicates that while the document preserving this recorded her own title in Latin, a West Slavic label for queen also existed.101 In fact, one can gain an

99 Hypatian Chronicle, s.a. 1194. 100 This document also refers to her as “domina,” similar to the example seen in Iberia where rulers were not always referred to by one title, but in the same document could be both “ruler” and “lord”. 101 1136 grant to Tyniec. Monumenta Poloniae Historica 1 ed. August Bielowski (Lwow and Krakow: Akademia Umiejetnosci, 1864), 518; Piotr Górecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 1100–1250 (New York and London: Holmes and Meier, 1992), 68.

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understanding of the full weight of our titulature problem from Piotr Górecki’s additions to this example where he adds a “[sic]” to the Latin quotation for “regina” and translates Ksieginice as duchess.102 This is, in no way, meant to defame Górecki or his scholarship – instead he is following the dictionary definition of words and centuries of trends of translation (as noted above) in making those “corrections” to the text. Just as with “king” we need to be more flexible in our understanding of the title “queen” as well. We cannot read back modern or early modern ideas of queens onto the medieval past. Queens were varied individuals who played many different roles, and as demonstrated here – there were many of them. Shifting our understanding of what a “queen” was will, therefore, help us to better understand medieval rulership by allowing us to talk about queens not as female monarchs or spouses of kings, but as rulers in their own right and rulers alongside other rulers; some of which were male and others female. Additionally, by talking about female, and male, rulers we can begin to move away from the dichotomous study of kingship and queenship that Theresa Earenfight has so correctly condemned.103 Emperor

Much like king, emperor too has taken on the connotation of monarch, and in fact it has that denotation in the Oxford English Dictionary. Further, the definition refers quite specifically to “the monarch or head of the Roman Empire (in its various forms).”104 This definition, by itself, is enough to prompt a reinvestigation of titulature. As will be seen in the corulership chapter there could be multiple rulers of the Roman Empire at any one time. Further, Anthony Kaldellis has called into question the translation of em­ peror for the ruler of Roman Empire, which puts the entirety of the definition into question if we remove the ur-example. Additionally, studies of “empire” which have proliferated in recent years tend to leave out the middle ages, and when they do not, they privilege western Europe over the rest of medieval Europe.105 Emperor then, much like the other titles discussed, is one that has accreted meaning through time and needs reevaluation of its use in medieval

102 Górecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 68. 103 Earenfight, “Without the Persona of the Prince,” 1–21. 104 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 1: A-M (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007 [sixth edition]), 821. 105 See for example the article by Chris Jones, et al. which introduces a collection of articles in The Medieval History Journal on empire. The authors discuss both the problems of fitting “empire” to medieval Europe as well as the privilege the “(Holy) Roman Empire” receives in regard to that term. Chris Jones, Christoph Mantel, and Klaus Oschema, “Controversial Terminology: Medieval Perspectives on Claiming and Assigning Imperial Status” The Medieval History Journal 20:2 (2017): 233–247.

Titulature 41

Europe, and in the ways that we, as moderns, discuss medieval political arrangements. Evangelos Chrysos makes the argument that the Greek title basileus was first used as the official title of the Roman ruler by Herakleios and his son Herakleios Constantine in 629.106 But this was not the first use of the word, which had been used in Greek for centuries to designate a ruler, and even in the period of the Roman Empire, it appeared in literary sources (Prokopios) and laws (Justinian) to take just two examples. Chrysos’s 629 date is an important one though for the correspondence he discusses with the Persians, especially regarding their titulature and what it might tell us. The Persians typically referred to the Roman ruler as Caesar: “quaisar i Rum.”107 Caesar, or Caesar Augustus, was the typical title of the Roman ruler since the time of Augustus. Thus, though it might be surprising that this was the title used by the Persians, it should not be, they were simply using the title that the Romans used for themselves. Similarly, when the Romans wrote to the Persian shahanshah, they used either “basileus” or “rex” to address him; demonstrating that they did not differentiate between the valences of those titles; something we also saw in relation to the titles for Aethelred earlier in the chapter.108 Kaldellis has questioned the translation of basileus as emperor, in large part, by questioning what is meant by empire. Modern definitions of empire have focused on the subordination of one group, or multiple groups, by another; and this definition has taken hold for ancient and medieval peoples as well. Donald Luscombe has stated the medieval position most clearly, “When kings acquired control over neighbouring peoples or neighbouring kingdoms they tended to be acclaimed as emperors on account of their supra-national hegemony.”109 He is, of course, not alone in holding that position. Thomas Bisson and Chris Jones, et al. also utilize the idea of multiple peoples being united under one ruler as the basis for the idea of empire.110 It is this very definition that Kaldellis is calling into question, utilizing the stated ur-example of the medieval Roman Empire. He notes that while the Roman populace viewed their ruler as “superior to other kings”

106 Evangelos K. Chrysos, “The Title Βασιλευσ in Early Byzantine International Relations” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 32 (1978): 31. 107 Chrysos, “The Title Βασιλευσ in Early Byzantine International Relations,” 35. 108 Chrysos, “The Title Βασιλευσ in Early Byzantine International Relations,” 35; Cross, Heirs of the Vikings, 172. 109 D. E. Luscombe, “Introduction: The Formation of Political Thought in the West,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c. 350–1450, ed. J. H. Burns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988): 165. 110 Thomas N. Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009)., 296; Jones, Mantel, and Oschema, “Controversial Terminology,” 241.

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that did not make him an emperor.111 He suggests (correctly, I believe) that the idea of a multi-ethnic polity being conceptualized as an empire comes not from the medieval Roman model, but from the German one: “they began the practice of formally promoting the ‘rex of the Germans’ to the notional status of ‘imperator of the Romans’.”112 In the medieval Roman empire, the basileus was the ruler, or as we will see in the chapter on corulership, the basileis were the rulers of the Romans. This was made clear in the titulature – Basileus ton Rhomaion.113 In the German Empire, however, there was a patchwork of different groups and subordinate rulers over which the rex or imperator ruled. A clear example of such would be in the depiction of Otto III from his Gospel Book, ca. 1000, where he is shown seated on his throne, with Roma, Gallia, Germania, and Sclavinia bowing before him and bringing him tribute.114 All of these territories were subordinate to him, at least in the imagination of the maker of the image, and thus he needed an imperium to encompass all of them. We can also see this articulated in Benjamin Arnold’s conception of the “Neo-Roman Empire.”115 Thus, it is really the German Empire which embodies the modern political scientists’ definition of empire, in which one group rules over multiple other subordinate groups, not the Roman Empire.116 But though this example of Otto III’s claim over the Romans, and the titulature of the Ottonians and Salians falls outside the scope of this book, we do see them using “rex Romanorum” regularly which represents a very real problem for the Roman Empire in Constantinople.117 The rulers of the

111 Anthony Kaldellis, Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2019), 201. 112 Kaldellis, Romanland, 201–202. 113 Kaldellis, Romanland, 202–211. Interestingly, per Niketas Choniates, Baldwin calls him­ self “basileus Rhomaion” after his 1204 coronation in Constantinople, though Choniates only refers to him as basileus. Niketas Choniates, Historia, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae, vol. XI/1, ed. I. A. Van Dieten (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1975), 598. 114 Europas Mitte um 1000, (Stuttgart: Theiss, 2000), vol. 1. 22.01.01 115 Benjamin Arnold, Medieval Germany, 500–1300: A Political Interpretation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 75–125. 116 One could perhaps trace this back to Charlemagne as Alcuin referred to his rule as an “imperium” even before he was crowned by the pope with the title of imperator. Francis Byrne has suggested that it is possible that Alcuin was drawing on Bede’s definition of imperium as “overlordship of other kingdoms and nations.” Francis John Byrne, Irish Kings and High-Kings (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1973 [2001 - 2nd edition]), 259. 117 Christian Raffensperger, Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus’ in the Medieval World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 20. In fact, we also see the “Empress Mathilda” crowned as “Romanorum regina” in 1110. Jitske Jasperse, Medieval Women, Material Culture, and Power: Matilda Plantagenet and Her Sisters (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2020), 25. Robert L. Benson, “Political Renovatio: Two Models from Roman Antiquity” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), 373n177.

Titulature 43

medieval Roman Empire were the rulers of the Romans. That was their title, but also their reality. Thus, when other rulers claimed to be the rulers “of the Romans,” those rulers were not making a claim on antiquity but were actively claiming to be the ruler over the people of the Roman Empire. Imagine, for a moment, if the king of England added to his already impressive list of titles, king of France, the French would not be amused. It is no wonder then that the Roman emperors objected quite strenuously to appropriation not of their title, basileus, but of their people – the Romans. The title basileus held an importance greater than its translation though, as it was the title of the ruler of the Roman Empire, and thus a connection to both antiquity and to the most powerful and longest lasting Christian polity in Europe. Thus, we see it appropriated by rulers throughout medieval Europe, including in England, where rulers from Offa of Mercia in the late eighth and early ninth century to Edgar in the tenth century and Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror in the eleventh century all used the title “basileus” for themselves, as well as using “rex.”118 These rulers were appropriating medieval Roman titulature, in Greek, as a way to enhance their own rule, regardless of the specific valence (king or emperor) of basileus. We can take a longer look at a few instances in the Balkans, which fall into the arc of medieval Europe, and where we see basileus used as well as Slavic translations. Though some of these examples fall outside the bounds of the strict chronology covered by this book, we will note them nonetheless. In the tenth century, the Bulgarian ruler Symeon claimed the title basileus for himself. There is a complicated historiography behind this claim, well summarized by Ian Mladjov, but the general view is that circa 913, Symeon claimed, and was granted, the title of “basileus” but only of the Bulgars.119 This agreement was part of a larger plan of Symeon’s seeking some level of parity with the Roman Empire.120 Something changed in the 920s, at least according to Simeon the Logothete, writing in the second half of the tenth century, who says that, Symeon was proclaimed emperor “of the Romans.”121 Jonathan Shepard disputes the claim of the Logothete, noting

118 Raffensperger, Reimagining Europe, 20–21. For one fascinating example, see the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s modern copy of an 11th century seal of Edward the Confessor where he is referred to as “Anglorum basilei” which it translates as “king of the English.” https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/467433 (accessed 4/19/ 2021) - I thank Jitske Jasperse for bringing this seal to my attention. 119 Ian Mladjov, “The Crown and the Veil: Titles, Spiritual Kinship, and Diplomacy in TenthCentury Bulgaro-Byzantine Relations” History Compass 13 (2015): 171–183. 120 Jonathan Shepard, “Symeon of Bulgaria - Peacemaker” Godishnik na Sofiiskiia universitet ‘Sv. Kliment Okhridskii’: Nauchen tsentr”r za Slaviano-vizantiiskii prouchvaniia ‘Ivan Duichev’ 3 (1989): 9–48. 121 Symeonis Magistri et Logothetae, Chronicon, ed. Stephanus Wahlgren (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006), 136:33 p. 474.

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that Emperor Romanos Lekapenos would not have negotiated with Symeon if he had done that, while Mladjov accepts the claim, but notes that Romanos Lekapenos objected only to the claim “of the Romans” not to the title of basileus.122 Interestingly, though Shepard disputes the characterization of Symeon as basileus of the Romans, he does note that, “Already in the 920s, … Symeon was depicted on his seals in the costume of a Byzantine emperor, wearing a loros wrapped over his divitision and holding an orb and sceptre.”123 Additionally, the text of Symeon’s seals demonstrate his claim of the title “basileus” as well as on one seal in particular the title “basileus of the Romaioi.”124 Thus, both the visual image and the text was communicating the idea that Symeon was basileus and, specifically, basileus of the Romans. Symeon’s son, Peter, was married to the granddaughter of Romanos Lekapenos, Maria Lekapena, in 927 and this created a host of new appro­ priations and agreements, including an autocephalous church. But for our discussion, the most important part of the marriage had to do with titualture. Peter was formally allowed use of the title, basileus, as long as he restricted its use to “of the Bulgars” rather than “of the Romans.”125 There are multiple examples from the reign of Peter of his use of the title basileus. For instance, it was used on his seals, where he was depicted with his wife, Maria Lekapena.126 In fact, on many of the seals the inscription notes that both husband and wife bore the title basileus (in Greek), in addition to grasping the patriarchal cross in the center of the image, with their hands clasped127 (Figure 1.1). The visual imagery of seals and coins was meant to depict not just rulers, but their relative power relationships. Maria was clearly the equal of Peter not just in the title (which only those literate in Greek could read) but also in terms of the visual imagery. We also see references to this title in both Latin and Greek

122 Shepard, “Symeon of Bulgaria – Peacemaker,” 24; Mladjov, “The Crown and the Veil,” 177. 123 Jonathan Shepard, “A marriage too far? Maria Lekapena and Peter of Bulgaria” In The Empress Theophano: Byzantium and the West at the turn of the first millenium, ed. Adalbert Davids (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995): 140. 124 Kiril Petkov, The Voices of Medieval Bulgaria, Seventh-Fifteenth Century: The Records of a Bygone Culture (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 34. 125 Florin Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages (500–1300), volume 1 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019), 231; see also, Robert Browning, Byzantium and Bulgaria: A Comparative Study across the Early Medieval Frontier (Berkeley and Los Angelenes: University of California, 1975), 69. 126 Shepard has an extensive discussion of these seals, with images. Shepard, “A marriage too far?” 140–148. 127 “Peter and Maria basilei of Bugaria,” “Peter and Maria in Christ autocrats of the Bulgarians,” and “Peter and Maria in Christ august autocrats and basilei.” Petkov, The Voices of Medieval Bulgaria, 34. See the extensive discussion of the various seals of Peter and Maria in Ivan Jordanov, Corpus of the Medieval Bulgarian Seals (Sofia: Natsionalen arkheologicheski institut s muzei pri B’lgardska akademiia na naukite, 2016), 86–95.

Titulature 45

FIGURE 1.1

Seal of Peter and Maria Lekapena - Copyright – Classical Numismatist Group.

sources. Liudprand of Cremona, insulted by being paired with the Bulgarians, records Roman officials attempting to mollify him by talking about the agreement made with Peter, “vasileus of the Bulgarians.”128 Similarly, the tenth-century De Ceremoniis of Constantine VII records greetings to and from the Bulgarians and includes the title basileus of the Bulgarians.129 For the purposes of discussing titulature, the most important part of these examples is that the title chosen by these rulers was the Greek basileus. They purposely utilized a foreign (non-Slavic) title to express their rulership as a way to appropriate Roman authority for themselves.130 This does not mean that they were choosing to rule over Romans, though it may have been briefly claimed, but that the title seemed especially potent to them. These

128 Liudprand, “Relatio de Legatione Constantinopolitana” ed. J. P. Migne, De Scriptoribus Ecclesiae Relatis, 909–938.[accessed online at https://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/ 04z/z_0922–0972__Liutprandus_Cremonensis_Episcopus__Relatio_De_Legatione_ Constantinopolitana__MLT.pdf.html], ch. 19. 129 Constantine Porphyrogennetos: The Book of Ceremonies, transl. Ann Moffatt and Maxeme Tall (Leiden: Brill, 2012), Bk. 2, ch. 48 (R690). It is important to note as well that in the same section of the Book of Ceremonies, the Bulgarian ruler is also called “archon.” Though Mirosław J. Leszka suggests that this change in titulature is part of a progression. “The Portrayal of Peter in Mediaeval Sources,” in The Bulgarian State in 927–969: The Epoch of Tsar Peter I, ed. Mirosław J. Leszka and Kirił Marinow, transl. Lyubomira Genova et al. (Lodz: Wydawnictwo Uniwerytetu Łódzkiego, 2018): 405–406. 130 Leszka also notes the uses of “tsar” for Peter and while the discussion of Roman titulature and the title “basileus” are quite full, the section on tsar takes only one half of one page, and largely concerns later texts when “Bulgarian rulers customarily used an imperial title.” Leszka, “The Portrayal of Peter in Mediaeval Sources,” 420.

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examples, despite their traditional translation into English also do not mean that either Symeon or Peter were claiming to be emperors, a ruler ruling over multiple other polities. Instead, they wanted to appropriate the grandeur of the Greek title and still be basileis, rulers, of their people.131 Francesco dall’Aglio puts this quite clearly in regard to the late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Bulgarian ruler Kalojan, “He definitely considered him­ self, as he had every right to do, the βασιλεύς of Bulgaria: but most certainly, not the βασιλεύς of Constantinople.”132 Which is not to say that there was no use of the Slavonic language to render the title. The early tenth-century poem, “In Praise of Tsar’ Symeon,” perhaps written by John the Exarch, and included in his Zlatostruj utilizes the Slavonic word, “tsar’” to render Symeon’s title.133 Tsar’ first appeared as a title in Slavonic, among the South Slavs, in the sixth and seventh century, and came from the Latin designation for Caesar, rather than coming from the medieval Roman empire.134 Caesar was a main title for the Roman ruler until the reforms of Diocletian when it began to designate the heir; a position it continued to hold through the eleventh century. The Komnenian reforms of titulature dropped the title to a tertiary place behind sebastokrator, though the importance of the title had already been established elsewhere in the medieval world. For the Slavs, for instance, tsar’ remained a powerful word for ruler, particularly in the Bible where the rulers of Israel in the Old Testament, in medieval Slavic translations, were called “tsar’.” In modern English, biblical rulers are typically referred to as “king,” further complicating our understanding of the title “tsar’” as it can then have multiple definitions in English based upon what it refers to; this is a welcome complication in my mind, and a practice that we should be aware of more generally as titles are more flexible than a rote dictionary definition might allow.

131 Greek was the language used by the elite in Bulgaria until the middle of the tenth century, under Peter, when a slow change to Slavonic began to happen. Georgi N. Nikolov, “State Organisation and Power Hierarchy in the Bulgarian Empire (927–969),” in The Bulgarian State in 927–969: The Epoch of Tsar Peter I, ed. Mirosław J. Leszka and Kirił Marinow, transl. Lyubomira Genova, et al. (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2018): 260. 132 Francesco dall’Aglio, “Rex or imperator? Kalojan’s royal title in the correspondence with Innocent III,” Studia ceranea 9 (2019), 182. 133 The history of this document is quite difficult, and the majority of the copies that are extant come from the east Slavic world where Symeon has been replaced by Sviatoslav, an ele­ venth century Rusian ruler, and tsar’ with kniaz’, giving rise to the retitling of the text as Izbornik Sviatoslava 1073. For the text of the poem, and brief context, see “A Eulogy to Tsar Symeon from the Svjatoslav Miscellany of 1073” in Monumenta Bulgarica:A Bilingual Anthology of Bulgarian Texts from the 9th to the 19th Centuries, ed. And transl. Thomas Butler (Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, 1966): 139–142. 134 Gy. Moravcsik, “Zur Geschichte des Herrchertitels ‘Caesar - Tsar”” Zbornik radova Vizantoloshkog Instituta 8:1 (1963): 229–236.

Titulature 47

Tsar’ continued among the Bulgars. For instance, even though the majority of Peter’s seals refer to him as basileus, he did issue one type of seal, after the death of his wife Maria, which refers to him as “tsar of the Bulgarians.”135 A later suc­ cessor, the last ruler of an independent Bulgaria before the conquest of Basil II, Ioan Vladislav (d. 1018) also uses the title on an inscription, referring both to his predecessor Samuel, and to Basil II, as tsars.136 This use of the title is an interesting one as it is made clear in the one inscription that the titles of both the Bulgarian ruler and the Roman one were the same. In a rare notice, John Skylitzes records the title of tsar being used in the Slavonic by Ioan Vladislav, who, when fighting against Basil II, is reported to have said “bezeite ho tzesar,” (“Look Out! The “tzesar”).137 Skylitzes recorded this line in Slavonic in the midst of his Greek text, and it provides a nice attribution of the Slavonic translation of Basil’s title as “tzesar” which is a natural part of the shift from Caesar to tsar’.138 The resusci­ tation of the Bulgarian empire toward the end of the twelfth century brought back the title of tsar’ to the discussion. There is one example of a seal of a ruler, John, which uses the title basileus, and appears in Greek, but the majority of the seals are in Old Bulgarian and use tsar’.139 Peter, one of the two brothers to declare an independent Bulgaria is said to have claimed the title of “tsar’” around 1185.140 Much like the Peter just discussed, after whom he self-consciously renamed him­ self, this Peter used the title “of the Bulgarians” rather than anything else.141

135 Petkov, The Voices of Medieval Bulgaria, 34. Jordanov, Corpus of the Medieval Bulgarian Seals, 116–117. Georgi Nikolov suggests that this was the first seal in the Cyrillic script. “State Organisation and Power Hierarchy in the Bulgarian Empire (927–969),” 259. 136 Petkov, The Voices of Medieval Bulgaria, 39. Adding another, fascinating, layer of com­ plication, Ioan Vladislav refers to himself, and later to Samuel, as “autocrator.” 137 John Skylitzes, A Synopsis of Byzantine History, 811–1057, transl. John Wortley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), ch. 16, sec. 40, p. 337, 337n220. 138 For the linguistics, see Moravcsik, “Zur Geschichte des Herrchertitels ‘Caesar - Tsar”,” 229–230. 139 Jordanov, Corpus of the Medieval Bulgarian Seals, 205–212. 140 John V. A. Fine, Jr., The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1987), 14. This claim is made in part from Niketas Choniates reference that “Peter, Asan’s brother, bound his head with a gold chaplet and fashioned scarlet buskins to put on his feet.” Niketas Choniates, O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates, transl. Harry J. Magoulias (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1984), ch. 372. For more analysis see, Alexandru Madgearu, The Asanids: The Political and Military History of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1280) (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 46–48. 141 Miliana Kaymakamova discusses the use of the name Peter in the multiple revolts leading to the Second Bulgarian Empire in “The Cult of the Bulgarian Tsar Peter (927–969) and the Driving Ideas of the Bulgarian Liberation Uprisings against the Byzantine Rule in the 11th–12th century,” in The Bulgarian State in 927–969: The Epoch of Tsar Peter I, ed. Mirosław J. Leszka and Kirił Marinow, transl. Lyubomira Genova, et al. (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2018): 457–478; Alexandru Madgearu, who has made an in-depth study of the Second Bulgarian empire, presents a divergent opinion for Thomas’s renaming as Peter. The Asanids, 37–38.

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Though there is some debate about Peter’s claim, his brothers Asen and Kalojan certainly used the title “tsar’” themselves, as did their successors.142 Similarly, in Stephen Dušan’s Serbia of the fourteenth century, tsar’ became the title of choice for the rulers. In fact, Stephen Dušan used it to claim power both over his own Serbs, as well as the Roman Empire, by creating a joint inscription in Slavonic and Greek. Beginning in 1345 he began to call himself “Tsar of the Serbs and Romans” in Greek, and “Tsar of the Serbs and Greeks” in Slavonic inscriptions.143 Further, Dušan had his young son, Uroš, crowned as “king” of the Serbs at the same time as he was crowned “tsar” perhaps testifying to his vision of the imperial nature of the title. The differentiation between “of the Greeks” and “of the Romans” speaks to a shift in the perception of the medieval Roman Empire. In their own language, the Slavic peoples generally referred to the empire as “Greek” while it was very clearly labeled Roman (or Romanía) in Greek. The title of tsar’ as well is one which means different things in different regions. To the rulers of the Second Bulgarian Empire and to Stephen Dušan, it was an appropriation of Roman grandeur, even if they called the empire Greek. For the Rusians, the term applied in just a few ways. When used for Rusian rulers, tsar’ was a term that was used largely for deceased rulers who had been particularly saintly.144 It was also, as noted earlier among the South Slavs, used for biblical kings. And it was used to describe the ruler of Constantinople – tsar’ Grecheskii – and his city – Tsargrad.145 Only one of those uses of the title could possibly be called imperial, and even that one, referring to the ruler of the medieval Roman empire, was in the Rusian context, and thus Greek not Roman. Stefan Nemanja, a Serbian ruler of the later twelfth century, did not utilize the titles basileus or tsar’ for himself, but he did leave a fascinating list of titles in the beginning of his decree granting land for the building of the Hilandar monastery on Mt. Athos. He begins, God “made some of them emperors (“tsare”), others princes (“kneze”) and some [of them]

142 Petkov, The Voices of Medieval Bulgaria, 217; Jordanov, Corpus of the Medieval Bulgarian Seals, 212–213. 143 Fine, Jr., The Late Medieval Balkans, 309. 144 Simon Franklin, “The Empire of the Rhomaioi as Viewed from Kievan Russia: Aspects of Byzantino-Russian Cultural Relations,” In Byzantium – Rus’ – Russia: Studies in the Translation of Christian Culture (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, 2002), 532; A. P. Tolocho, Kniaz’ v drevnei Rusi: Vlast’, sobstvennost’, ideologiia (Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1992), 135–138. Interestingly, this same process can be seen in Iberia for the use of “imperator,” where late “late kings are referred to as imperator by their offspring.” Wolfram Drews, “Imperial Rule in Medieval Spain: Christian and Islamic Contexts” The Medieval History Journal 20:2 (2017): 293. 145 For just one example of tsar’ and Tsargrad from Rus see, PVL, s.a. 955. See also, Franklin, “The Empire of the Rhomaioi,” 532.

Titulature 49

rulers (“vladiki”) … merciful God made the Greeks emperors (“tsar’”) and the Hungarians kings (“kral’”). And He established me, named Stephen Nemanja at the holy baptism, as the great župan.”146 In this short preface to his 1198/1199 document, later copied into the preface of his son’s 1199/ 1200 land grant to Hilandar, Nemanja lists five separate titles – tsar’, knez’, vladik, kral’, and župan. The English translation of the document marks all of the terms as different, emperor, prince, ruler, king, and župan, yet that difference is not necessarily inherent in the titulature itself. Nemanja, reliant upon the actions of God, lists the various titles, but a rank order is not required to read them. For instance, “merciful God made the Greeks emperors (“tsar’”) and the Hungarians kings (“kral’”)” does not necessarily mean that the tsar’ is superior to the kral’, and given Nemanja’s own history of political engagement with both sides, that would not be his perspective.147 Similarly, a few lines later he refers to lord (kyr) Alexios, “emperor of the Greeks.”148 No one would make the argument that “kyr” refers to emperor, and here Nemanja is simply using it as an honorific. The whole of Nemanja’s introduction seems to point to the idea articulated earlier that medieval titles were much more flexible than modern interpreters will give them credit for.149 In sum, one can quite reasonably suggest that what Nemanja was doing was listing the variety of titles used by rulers in his region, and due to his faith including that they were given by God. Though we, as moderns, might desperately want to rank order these rulers to attempt to understand their hierarchical rela­ tionship, this does not seem at all what Nemanja had in mind, nor what his view of medieval practice was. The Latin title imperator is the most common rendering of the Greek basileus.150 It is important to note that, largely, the Roman ruler did not care that rulers in Latin Europe used the title imperator, or even the title basileus,

146 Selected Charters of Serbian Rulers (XII-XV Century): Relating to the Territory of Kosovo and Metohia - Part One ed. and transl. T. Živković, S. Bojanin and V. Petrović (Athens: Centre for Studies of Byzantine Civilization, 2000), 21, 24. 147 Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages (500–1300), 656–661. My interpretation of this document is shared by Curta, see 661–662. 148 Selected Charters of Serbian Rulers (XII-XV Century): 22–23, 25. 149 Hudson, Viking Pirates and Christian Princes, 120–121. 150 Francesco dall’Aglio notes that Kalojan, or his scribe, wrote in Greek, but his letters are preserved in Latin in the papal register of Innocent III, thus turning “basileus” into “imperator.” dall’Aglio, “Rex or imperator?” 174–175. In The Medieval History Journal collection on empires noted earlier, the focus is “strictly on the Latin notions of imperium and imperator”. Thus, the corrective offered in this section of the chapter which focuses primarily on other titles, but does also include imperator. Jones, Mantel, and Oschema, “Controversial Terminology,” 241.

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for that matter. The sticking point for the Romans was twofold: one was the simple fact that in their minds they were superior to all other rulers, and that should be acknowledged. This was, however, not typically acknowledged in titulature, though they did have a tendency to refer to Latin rulers as rex, even in Greek.151 The second part was much more important and that was the fact that the polity centered in Constantinople was the only one that had the ability to call itself Roman. Thus, when we saw Symeon of Bulgaria call himself basileus of the Romans, this was unacceptable to the medieval Romans. As Mladjov observed, “the Byzantine court grudgingly recognized the upstart as emperor of his own people (Franks, Bulgarians) but never as ‘emperor of the Romans’.”152 In a similar vein, one could refer back to the situation around 800 when Charlemagne was crowned “emperor” by Pope Leo III and an agreement was negotiated with the Constantinopolitan court that Charlemagne could be “emperor of the Franks” but not, ever, “emperor of the Romans.” One of the difficulties of dealing with these issues of titulature today is the abstruse way that titles are often referred to, in large part because of issues that we have discussed. For instance, in the oft-cited text of Liudprand of Cremona on his embassy to Constantinople, Nikephoros accuses Liudprand’s patron Otto of having appropriated the title “emperor (imperator) for himself” and that “he names himself emperor (impe­ rator).”153 The issue here is not really that Otto has used the title “em­ peror,” but that Otto has used the title emperor of the Romans. This is unclear from the text itself, but knowing the context, specifically that Otto was crowned as emperor of the Romans in 962, we can understand the position of Nikephoros when Liudprand arrived for his second visit, later in the 960s.154 If we dismiss the idea that the Roman ruler was trying to disenfranchise the German, or other (as we will see) rulers from claiming

151 Liudprand of Cremona, “The Embassy of Liudprand,” ch. 2. For the Latin see Liutprandus Cremonensis Episcopus, Relatio De Legatione Constantinopolitana, ed. J. P. Migne, De Scriptoribus Ecclesiae Relatis (https://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/04z/z_0922–0972__ Liutprandus_Cremonensis_Episcopus__Relatio_De_Legatione_Constantinopolitana__MLT. pdf.html) 152 Mladjov, “The Crown and the Veil,” 178. 153 Liudprand of Cremona, “The Embassy of Liudprand,” ch. 25. For the Latin see Liutprandus Cremonensis Episcopus, Relatio De Legatione Constantinopolitana, ed. J. P. Migne, De Scriptoribus Ecclesiae Relatis (https://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/04z/z_0922–0972__ Liutprandus_Cremonensis_Episcopus__Relatio_De_Legatione_Constantinopolitana__MLT. pdf.html) 154 Peter H. Wilson deals briefly with some of the controversy over these titles in Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2016), 141. The classic coverage of this issue is, of course, Werner Ohnsorge. Das Zweikaiserproblem im früheren Mittelalter. (Hildesheim: Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1947).

Titulature 51

the title of emperor for themselves, it will help us understand the flexibility of titles in medieval Europe. At the same time, this situation provides further reinforcement that what actually mattered was claim over territory or people. The Roman ruler claimed, rightly so, that they had prior claim to the title “of the Romans” (in any language). That, not the specific title, was the most important thing, and the one they defended. Jumping to the end of our chronological period, we see an excellent example of the contested uses of titulature in a correspondence between the Bulgarian ruler Kalojan and Pope Innocent III. All of the letters are recorded in Innocent III’s register and thus recorded in Latin, despite the fact that Kalojan (or his scribe) wrote in Greek.155 When Kalojan writes to the pope he uses “imperator” with regularity. But when Pope Innocent III responds he refers to Kalojan simply as a nobleman or lord, until Kalojan is crowned in 1204 at which time the pope refers to him as “rex.” From Kalojan’s perspective, this coronation does not mean as much. He uses “rex” after this time, but he also interchanges “regnus meus” and “imperium meum,” seeing the two as completely interchangeable terms when applied to himself.156 However, he does differentiate between rex and imperator when he is referring to his neighbors, with the ruler of Hungary receiving the designation “rex” and the ruler in Constantinople receiving the title of “imperator.”157 Despite this interchange in titulature, Kalojan never (as dall’Aglio explicitly points out) calls himself emperor of the Romans, by any title, restricting his rule to Bulgarians and to Vlachs in particular. The pope, often regarded as the maker of emperors, is clear enough that Kalojan is not a king until the pope makes him one, but he also is clear that the Roman emperor is the “emperor” with his repeated references to him as “imperator.”158 For the pope especially, specific titles mattered as he, and his predecessors, made claims to be the designator of particular titles. The example of Kalojan suggests that the difficulties of variant titulature are not confined to our own time, but were manifest throughout the middle ages. Building on the previous example, we can suggest that far from only having a two-emperor problem, as it was called by Werner Ohnsorge, there

155 Francesco dall’Aglio, “Rex or imperator? Kalojan’s royal title in the correspondence with Innocent III,” Studia ceranea 9 (2019), 171-2, 174-5. The papal correspondence is col­ lected in Die Register Innocenz’ III, vol. I–XIV, ed. O. Hageneder et al. (Vienna–Graz–Köln: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1964–2018). 156 dall’Aglio, “Rex or imperator?” 173. 157 dall’Aglio, “Rex or imperator?” 174. 158 dall’Aglio, “Rex or imperator?” 174. See the example of Innocent III’s letter to Alexios III in Die Regester Innozenz’ III: Pontifikatsjahr, 1198/99. Ed. Othmar Hageneder and Anton Haidacher (Graz-Köln: Verlag Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1964), letter 353.

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were others in medieval Europe who utilized the title imperator. Alfonso VII of León-Castile has gone down in history as “el Emperador” though he is never added to the “problem” of multiple emperors.159 Such an omission is natural, given that the main problem associated with the titulary difficulties between the Roman and German empires was who could claim the legacy of Rome. Alfonso VII, though focused on here, was not the first in Iberia to use this title. In fact, the title was used intermittently since the tenth century along with other titles such as rex magnus and basileus.160 His grandfa­ ther, Alfonso VI referred to himself as “Totius Hispaniae Imperator” with great regularity on his documents.161 While Alfonso VI’s daughter, and Alfonso VII’s mother, Urraca occasionally styled herself, “Ispanie im­ peratrix,” though she more often used the title “Totius Hispaniae Regina.”162 Finally, Urraca’s “sometime husband,” Alfonso I of Aragon, called himself, “Ispanie imperator.”163 Alfonso VII and his relatives used the title of imperator (in male and female forms), as well as the reference to the old Roman province of Hispania. Thus, we see a conscious referent to Roman practice, even while we do not see a deliberate use of the contested title “of the Romans.”164 Though Alfonso I of Aragon stopped using the title after 1117 and renounced it in 1127, traces of “imperium” can be seen

159 Not that he has been unstudied, quite the opposite. Two of Ohnsorge’s contemporaries wrote about non-Roman emperors, such as Alfonso VII. Carl Erdmann, ‘Die nichtrömische Kaiseridee’, in his Forschungen zur politischen Ideenwelt des Frühmittelalters (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1951): 1–51; Edmund E. Stengel, “Kaisertitel und Suveränitätsidee. Studien zur Vorgeschichte des modernen Staatsbegriffs,” Deutsches Archiv für Geschichte des Mittelalters, vol. 3(1) (1939): 3–23. And in much more recent years, there is a thorough study of the concept of the emperor of Spain in Hélène Sirantoine, Imperator Hispaniae: Les Idéologies Impériales dans le Royaume de León (IXe-XIIe Siècles) (Madrid: Casa de Velazquez, 2012). 160 Though, Alfonso VII’s was the first and only coronation of an emperor. Drews, “Imperial Rule in Medieval Spain,” 289, 293. 161 Bernard F. Reilly, The Kingdom of Leó n-Castilla Under King Alfonso VI, 1065–1109 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), 103–104. 162 Martin, Queen as King, 181; Bernard F. Reilly, The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VII, 1126–1157 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 36; See the table of titles used by Urraca in Carmen Grijalba Peña, “Urraca I: La Imagen de una reina según las crónicas de su tiempo y los documentos regios” (M.A. Thesis: University of Cantabria, 2017), p. 69, table 3.2.2. 163 Martin, Queen as King, 181; Reilly, The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VII, 23n24, 36. 164 For another example of what could be termed a classicizing tendency – when Ramiro II of Aragón ceded Zaragoza to Alfonso VII, the Chronica Adefonsis Imperator refers to the city by its Roman name, Caesaraugustanum. Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, ed. L. Sánchez Belda (Madrid: 1950), Bk. 1, ch. 64, p. 180. Drew also suggests that the utilization of “imperator” by Alfonso VII at that time was in relation to the struggle with the Almohads, rather than a Roman appropriation. Drews, “Imperial Rule in Medieval Spain,” 288–318.

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elsewhere in the peninsula and Alfonso VII deliberately chose the title and used it to mark his rule.165 That deliberate use of the title can be seen in his enthronement ceremony, held in 1135. Though Alfonso VII had used the title intermittently, though consistently since Alfonso I’s death, this was to be a major event for him and ideally for his expanding realm.166 Alfonso VII called together a host of nobles and ecclesiastics for a royal council in the city of León.167 Accompanying him were his wife Queen Berengaria and his sister Queen Sancha, along with King García Ramírez IV of Navarre. It is worth quoting at length from the “Chronicle of Emperor Alfonso,” which records the coronation to help understand the contemporary rationale for the title’s endowment upon Alfonso VII at this time. On the second day, the feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, the Archbishop, all the clergy, nobles, and commoners again gathered in the same church with King García and with the King’s sister. After receiving inspiration from the Holy Spirit, they decided that they should bestow the title of Emperor [imperator] on the King. This was resolved because King García, King Zafadola, the Moorish ruler, Count Ramón Berenguer IV of Barcelona, Count Alphonse of Toulouse, and many other nobles from Gascony and France had become his vassals. Therefore, they placed a precious, marvelously embroidered cloak on his shoulders. They put on his head a crown of pure gold which was adorned with valuable jewels, and they placed a scepter in his hand. King García stood at his right and Ariano, the Bishop of León, at his left. Accompanied by the bishops and the abbots, they led him to Saint Mary’s altar while singing the Te Deum to the very end. They Shouted, “Long live Alfonso, the Emperor [imperator].”168

165 For Alfonso I’s agreement to stop using the title see –Martin, Queen as King, 182; Reilly, The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VII, 23n24, 36. Another example of “imperium” occurs when García Ramírez of Pamplona pays homage to Ramiro II of Aragón and Ramiro says that García Ramírez rules “sub meum imperium.” Reilly, The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VII, 48. Finally, Reilly devotes a lot of attention to the coronation and rule of Alfonso VII. Reilly, The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VII, 49–52. 166 Drews suggests that it was Alfonso I’s death that allowed Alfonso VII, his one time stepson, to go forward with the coronation. Drews, “Imperial Rule in Medieval Spain,” 304. 167 Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, ed. L. Sánchez Belda (Madrid: 1950), Bk. 1, ch. 69. See also Isabel Alfonso, “Judicial Rhetoric and Political Legitimation in Medieval LeónCastile” in Building Legitimacy: Political Discourses and Forms of Legitimacy in Medieval Societies, ed. Isabel Alfonso, Hugh Kennedy, and Julio Escalona (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004), 75. 168 Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, Bk. 1, ch. 70. English translation from, The Chronicle of Alfonso the Emperor, transl. Glenn Edward Lipskey (Ph.D. Dissertation, Northwestern University, 1972).

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The chronicle text here offers not just a fascinating account of the coro­ nation and the people present, but also the rationale for Alfonso’s receiving the title of emperor. According to the logic of the text, which is in line with a modern conception of what an emperor is, Alfonso shifts from king to emperor because he has taken the fealty of other kings.169 Of course, the text also notes that it was not just kings who paid homage to Alfonso, but also two counts and “many other nobles” adding to those under his control. While this seems like a convincing rationale on its face, it is difficult to reconcile with the politics of the period as Alfonso was actually involved in on-again/off-again conflicts with García Ramírez and Ramón Berenguer over Aragon.170 These three formed a shifting set of alliances that continued throughout the 1130s. After 1137, Ramón Berenguer even became the ruler of Aragon, and the second most powerful ruler in northern Iberia after Alfonso VII himself. Thus, to state that Ramón Berenguer and García Ramírez were purely subordinate to Alfonso is a piece of panegyric, even if they participated in the imperial ceremonial of Alfonso VII.171 Acknowledging the complexity of the situation between these rulers is important for our understanding of titulature because a formal statement that Alfonso VII was the emperor and they were his vassals leads us to a piece of circular logic. Alfonso VII was emperor because he had rulers such as King García Ramírez under him. If we remove García Ramírez from under Alfonso VII, he is no longer emperor per the modern definition of empire that scholars use. And yet, the reality of medieval titulature is that Alfonso VII used the title, issued coins with it, and dates on charters corresponded to the year of empire, 1135172 (Figure 1.2). All of this regardless of Alfonso VII’s relation­ ship with King García Ramírez, Count Ramón Berenguer or any others. Similarly, the use of the title had nothing to do with papal coronation, and in

169 Drews, “Imperial Rule in Medieval Spain,” 304n76, 308–309. 170 Part of the rationale for claiming the imperial throne was to show dominance over those lords. Though Drew also suggests that not all of the people the Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris claims were present probably were. Drews suggests that it was Alfonso I’s death that allowed Alfonso VII, his one-time stepson, to go forward with the coronation. Drews, “Imperial Rule in Medieval Spain,” 289, 304. In a similar vein, Björn Weiler’s reading of the Gesta Principum Polonorum suggests that it was the fact that Bolesław I had rulers, principes, subordinate to him that allowed for his crowning as king in 1000 by Otto III. Björn Weiler, “Kingship and Lordship: Views of Kingship in “Dynastic” Chronicle,” in Gallus Anonymous and His Chronicle in the Context of Twelfth-Century Historiography from the Perspective of the Latest Research, ed. Krzysztof Stopka (Cracow: Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2010): 118. 171 Reilly says something similar when he notes that, “The Leonese imperium then, as it had taken shape by the end of 1135, was inherently unstable. The hegemony to which it pretended was simply unenforceable in any practical sense.” Reilly, The Kingdom of LeónCastilla under King Alfonso VII, 51. 172 Drews, “Imperial Rule in Medieval Spain,” 290–291.

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FIGURE 1.2 Illustration from a formal grant of Alfonso VII from 1150. The image has identifiers including Alfonso as “imperator” and his sons Sancho and Ferdinand as “rex” (The Hispanic Museum and Library).

fact Alfonso VI used the title against papal claims of supremacy.173 All of which is to demonstrate that medieval titulature was more flexible than our modern denotations and categories allow for, and further suggests that we meet medieval titles on their own terms. These examples of the titulature of emperor are not the only ones we could call upon to demonstrate the breadth of the utilization of this title in medieval Europe. For instance, Owain Gwynedd and the Lord Rhys were both styled “emperor” of Wales in the twelfth century.174 And yet, it is difficult enough to find a secondary source which refers to “kings” of Wales, much less emperors.175 In Ireland, a land of many kings, Brian Boru wanted to be called “Emperor of the Irish” [imperator Scottorum].176 While this might have solved the problem of how to create a hierarchy out of the many kings in Ireland, it was never widely adopted at the time, and certainly not since. These other moments are mentioned here to highlight the breadth of

173 Angus MacKay, “Yet again Alfonso VI, ‘the Emperor, Lord of [the Adherents of] the Two Faiths, the Most Excellent Ruler’: A Rejoinder to Norman Roth” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 61:2 (1984): 171–181. 174 David Stephenson, Medieval Wales, c. 1050–1332: Centuries of Ambiguity (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2019), 15. 175 Stephenson discusses these issues of titulature in passing and notes where Welsh rulers called themselves kings. Medieval Wales, 8, 12–13, 14, 18, 20, 35–36, 108, 113. 176 Hudson, Viking Pirates and Christian Princes, 86.

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our issue with titulature and what recognizing the issue and thinking about it, even if not changing it might help to accomplish. Imagine for a moment an eleventh century medieval Europe where there was an emperor of the Romans, an emperor of the Germans (or even a second emperor of the Romans), an emperor of all of Spain, an emperor of the Irish, and an emperor of the Welsh. This is a much different world than we typically see not just in textbook portrayals but also in our scholarly discussions. One of the major reasons for that is because we privilege the use of titles by a certain few individuals or polities and disregard others who use those same titles. Part of the process of correcting this titulature is to pay attention to contemporary usage as well as intent. Once we do that, we can then apply that intent to understanding what is going on in the political structure of the day, and be flexible in our own understanding of titulature as a way to express it to one another and to our students.177 Conclusion

When I first began talking about changing the translation of kniaz’ to king a decade ago, the response was mixed, but there was one consistency once the conversation got deeper into specifics, there was always a moment when someone would say to me – ‘well, if we do that, we need to change the translation of all of the titles!’ Yes, we do. Or at the very least, we need to be more thoughtful about how we use titles and how we apply them. We need to listen to the primary sources and what titles they are using for the people they know, rather than just what we, as modern scholars, think those titles should be based upon our understanding of the modern denotation of titles like king, queen, and emperor.178 This will result in a more complicated medieval world where there may be dozens of Irish kings, a handful or more of Scandinavian ones, an even dozen of Rusian kings, numerous queens in one polity, and multiple (or no!) em­ perors. But this will also be a world that is a better reflection of the medieval

177 I am reminded of Elizabeth A. R. Brown’s admonishment that we not teach undergraduates one thing and then try to unteach it when they become graduate students. I am mindful of this when thinking about portraying the complexities of medieval history to all, scholars and students alike. Elizabeth A. R. Brown, “The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe,” The American Historical Review 79:4 (1974): 1068–1069. 178 Of course, to properly understand those challenges we need to question the translations that I championed earlier in this work, and that is fine. I do not mean to argue that we do not need work in original languages, merely that given the plethora of excellent transla­ tions (especially facing page translations like those published by Central European University and Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library) make working in areas outside of our own linguistic expertise possible.

Titulature 57

reality, where there were multiple ríthe, many konungar and kniazia, reginae in every kingdom, and more than one basileus, imperator, and tsar at a time. Working with this world as scholars requires setting aside our modern desire (often innate) to classify and structure our understanding of history. At a macro level, the imperator does not have to be superior to the konungar or rex and the imperator and the basileus can both be emperors. A ruler could be both an autocrator and a basileus in the same text, or a rex and an imperator in a different text. Within medieval Europe, there will be partic­ ular webs of relations where titulature matters more to neighbours. Basileus and imperator can both be emperors, as long as they are not both “of the Romans.” The pope might care a great deal about titles, especially in regard to his ability to assign them. The German Empire cares more about the title of the Polish ruler than they do about the title for the Rusian ruler, given their intense contacts and conflicts. And yet, despite those issues what we see most often is that within the larger framework articulated in this chapter is the multiplicity of rulers who could, and did, use similar if not the same titles, all at once. The key for us as scholars then is to keep an open mind about the flexibility of such titles. Such a project does not require us to throw out all of the titles we traditionally use, nor does it require us to use ver­ nacular titles solely (especially not just for those non-Latin writing areas, as has been suggested to me numerous times). It merely requires a willingness to detach king, queen, and emperor from “monarch,” to allow for multiple iterations of those titles at one time and in one polity, and to move away from a hierarchical “org chart” mentality when attempting to understand medieval rulership. In this way, we can study and write about the intricate and complex relations between individuals, families, clans, and polities that made up medieval Europe.

2 CORULERSHIP

In 1059, King Henry Capet of France named his seven-year-old son Philip as his coruler, in a tradition that came to be associated with his family. The corulers lasted for only a year before Henry died. Philip, at seven or eight years old, was too young to take over as sole ruler and scholars debate whether he was ruled by a regency council or was under his mother’s guidance as regent. But when one looks at the documentary evidence from his minority, it is clear that for the first few years, he was once again a coruler, this time with his mother, Anna Iaroslavna, where the two are jointly listed as “king” and where she signs herself alongside his “Philippus gratia Dei Francorum rex” as “Anna regina.”1 One can find this signature, despite the name of the source which indicates sole rule, in the “Record of Acts of Philip I.” In 1127, King Henry I of England required his nobles to swear oaths securing his daughter Matilda’s position as heir to the throne of England. Though not quite crowning her as his coruler, the sentiment that she would take over was clear. A bloody civil war later, Henry II (Matilda’s son) went one step further and in 1170 made his son, also named Henry, a king as well. Henry, known as the Young King, ruled along with his father through multiple revolts and attempts to gain additional power for himself until his death in 1183.2 Though the young king Henry is the subject of

1 Recueil des actes de Philippe I-er, roi de France (1059–1108), ed. Maurice Prou (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1908), letters 6, 18. The necessity of a discussion about corulership is further made by the title of this document collection. 2 For discussion of the coronation and results see, Björn Weiler, “Kings and Sons: Princely Rebellions and the Structures of Revolt in Western Europe, c. 1170–1280” Historical Research 82:215 (2009): 17–40. DOI: 10.4324/9781003388296-4

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much scholarship, and Henry II even more, their relationship is typically discussed under the rubric of “anticipatory association” rather than cor­ ulership. Considering the basis of Henry (III)’s revolt against his father, that he was not given territory to rule, this makes sense for this example. And yet, as a whole, medieval European studies has marginalized the idea of corulership due, in large part I would suggest, because of the issues of titulature in the previous chapter. One of the rare exceptions to this is Robert Bartlett in his Blood Royal, where he devotes several pages to examples of corulership.3 The traditional image of kingship is of a king, a monarch, acting as sole ruler; whether making decisions, creating or codifying laws, or going to war. Recently there has been a good deal of scholarship, typically focused on the Anglo-Norman “heartland” of Europe discussing the role and participation of women as actors in conjunction with their male counter­ parts, be they husbands, brothers, or sons.4 Unfortunately, though Iberia has certainly been included in this expansion (with a plethora of examples, often linked to the Angevins) and Erin Jordan has demonstrated that this stretches to the Crusader states (again linked to the Anglo-Norman world) these examples of rule beyond solitary kings have yet to expand to the arc of medieval Europe.5 Therefore this chapter focuses on demonstrating, through a series of selected examples, that in the arc of medieval Europe, the model of a sole king acting on his own was only one of multiple methods of rule and that the institution of corulership did not create chaos, but could even work toward stability, or at the least was one reasonable mode of government among others. Implicit in this is a call for a more flexible approach to studies of rul­ ership in the Middle Ages and throughout Europe. It is clear from a wide reading of medieval studies scholarship, especially that focused on the field as a whole or even a more popular readership that it is rulers such as Henry II and Frederick Barbarossa who are held up as models of medieval kings and emperors. Yet, David Luscombe has quite clearly stated that at

3 Robert Bartlett, Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 92–98. 4 There are many examples that one could cite. For just a few Jitske Jasperse, “A Coin Bearing Testimony to Duchess Matilda as consors regni” Haskins Society Journal 26 (2014): 169–190; Erin Jordan, Women, Power and Religious Patronage in the Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave, 2006). 5 Lucy Pick, Her Father’s Daughter: Gender, Power, and Religion in the Early Spanish Kingdoms (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2017); Therese Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectural Propaganda in Twelfth-century Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2006); Erin Jordan, “Corporate Monarchy in the Twelfth-Century Kingdom of Jerusalem” Royal Studies Journal VI:1 (2019): 1–15.

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the time, “Strong centralising monarchs such as Henry IV of Germany or Barbarossa or the Anglo-Norman kings of England were viewed by many as subversive tyrants.”6 Similarly for Scandinavia, Hans Jacob Orning has suggested that it was when rulers consolidated power from their rivals that they acted without checks and could become tyrants.7 These brief examples create a fascinating duality between the ways that we as moderns view “normative” medieval rulers versus how medieval peoples may have viewed these same individuals. Bartlett is not the only one to discuss corulership as part of a ruling spectrum in recent work.8 Björn Weiler in his Paths to Kingship also notes that rulership was shared among individuals, giving examples from Norway, Denmark, and Poland, moving beyond the Anglo-Norman heartland of western Europe.9 Theresa Earenfight, working on late medieval Iberia, struck a blow against the idea of sole rulership by including Queenlieutenants as part of a “corporate monarchy,” further suggesting that “medieval monarchy admitted a plurality of power arrangements that permitted a range of power-sharing options.”10 Similarly, Jordan has sug­ gested that “scholars have underappreciated the extent to which medieval monarchy was both fluid and contingent” and this was true across Europe.11 Taking this a step further, Earenfight has suggested that one of the reasons that we need to move away from either kingship or queenship studies is that they often operate in separate and mutually exclusive spheres.12 To correct this, she has suggested utilizing “medieval rulership” as a category and I would heartily endorse that. It is important to note in this regard that redefining rulership to include multiple people does not mean there is still not a dominant ruler. In the examples that follow, we will see corulers who are certainly sharing titles and elements of the rule, but also wherein one is

6 D. E. Luscombe, “Introduction: The Formation of Political Thought in the West,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c. 350–1450, ed. J. H. Burns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988): 158. 7 Hans Jacob Orning, “Conflict and Social (Dis)order in Norway, c. 1030–1160” in Disputing Strategies in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. Kim Esmark, Lars Hermanson, Hans Jacob Orning, and Helle Vogt (Leiden: Brill, 2013): 62–65. 8 Bartlett, Blood Royal, 92–98. 9 Björn Weiler, Paths to Kingship in Medieval Latin Europe, c. 950–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 135, 144, 169. Though largely these follow the model of anticipatory association, as Weiler discussed in earlier work. Kingship, Rebellion and Political Culture: England and Germany, c. 1215–c. 1250 (Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), 5. 10 Theresa Earenfight, The King’s Other Body: María of Castile and the Crown of Aragon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 13. 11 Jordan, “Corporate Monarchy in the Twelfth-Century Kingdom of Jerusalem,” 3. 12 Theresa Earenfight, “Without the Persona of the Prince: Kings, Queens, and the Idea of Monarchy in Late Medieval Europe” Gender and History 19:1 (2007): 7–8.

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more active than the others – often because of their position as head of the ruling family.13 Nevertheless, the rulership was shared across individuals and that ruler was one among them. A shift in our perception of how rulership was managed should, ideally, suggest once more that we need a more broad-based series of studies to engage with the medieval past and understand the medieval world as people of the time did, rather than reading modern models back onto it. Capetian Theory and the Origins of Corulership

The study of corulership, as it exists in modern medieval studies, counts the Capetians as the touchstone of modeling corulership for medieval Europe. The reasons for this are two-fold, I would suggest, and neither of those reasons has to do with the phenomenon actually being limited to a Capetian practice. The first reason is the compelling article by Andrew Lewis from 1978 “Anticipatory Association of the heir in Capetian France.”14 Lewis’s article is widely cited and, combined with Warren Hollister’s article from two years earlier on England, has become the basis for studying corulership among medieval scholars.15 The second reason, which underlies the reason that Lewis’s article has become the touchstone for corulership studies, is the predominance of the Anglo-French narrative in medieval studies. What happens, though, if we expand our picture of medieval Europe, to include all of Europe, inclusive of eastern Europe and the medieval Roman Empire? Such a wider Europe is hard to imagine for many medievalists. Lewis, in his seminal article, noted and dismissed the medieval Roman Empire (re­ ferred to as Byzantium) and its potential role in a footnote as, like the Carolingians, “extraneous to the period under review, since the tenth- and eleventh-century rulers either were unaware of them or else understood such knowledge as they had in ways that can no longer be determined or properly assessed.”16 Functionally speaking, he continues, the French did not know

13 A.V. Nazarenko has discussed this concept as “corporate rule” and I think there is much merit in the idea that the rulership of a realm is held in trust by multiple members of the ruling family. However, it is also an idea that if introduced in opposition to corulership could be seen as a way to further divide the study of rulership in medieval Europe. “Rodovoi siuzernitet Riurikovichei nad Rus’iu (X-XI vv.)” Drevneishie gosudarstva na territorii SSSR (1985): 149–157 14 Andew W. Lewis, “Anticipatory Association of the Heir in Early Capetian France” The American Historical Review 83:4 (1978): 906–927. 15 C. Warren Hollister, “Normandy, France and the Anglo-Norman Regnum” Speculum 51:2 (1976): 202–242. 16 Lewis, “Anticipatory Association of the Heir in Early Capetian France,” 911, 911n19. Lewis makes the quoted remark regarding the Carolingians and in the footnote says that “For the same reason, discussion of anticipatory association in the Byzantine empire has been excluded” for the sake of clarity I included the quote above, rather than “for the same reason.”

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anything about the Roman Empire, and if they did, we cannot understand what they knew or how they knew it, thus we cannot consider that infor­ mation. This is, to put it bluntly, wrong. Perhaps it is the fact that an intervening forty years has passed, but we know rather a lot about the in­ teractions between the medieval Roman Empire and western Europe. Krijnie Ciggaar has written widely on the topic, including pointing out that William the Conqueror appropriated the image from a coin of Emperor Isaac I Komnenos for one of his own coins.17 Bernard Bachrach has written about the Norman use of medieval Roman military technology in the conquest of England.18 And I have combined these and other ideas to discuss a Byzantine Ideal – the conception that the medieval Roman Empire was the empire par excellence in the medieval world of western Afro-Eurasia, and as such it was appropriated in numerous ways to add to the grandeur and legitimacy of other kingdoms.19 Knowledge of the medieval Roman Empire also spread via marriages such as the famous marriage of Theophano to Otto II in the German Empire, but also with the many marriages of Rusian princesses throughout Europe, including to France in the marriage of Anna Iaroslavna to Henry I Capet, producing Philip, with whom Anna signed documents as co-ruler.20 Bartlett puts a cap on the entire endeavor by noting that “A French bishop writing in the late tenth century even called joint rule ‘the Greek way’.”21 If we add in the realm of coinage, which will be a medium we will explore more shortly, we can see the wider influence of the medieval Roman models. Medieval Roman coinage has been referred to, most famously as the “dollar of the middle ages” and we see examples of coins appropriated and used

17 Krijnie N. Ciggaar, Western Travellers to Constantinople: The West and Byzantium, 9621204: Cultural and Political Relations (Leiden; New York; Köln: Brill, 1996); K. N. Ciggaar and Jos. M. M. Hermans, “Byzantium and the West in the tenth century: some introductory notes,” in Byzantium and the Low Countries in the Tenth Century: Aspects of Art and History in the Ottonian Era (Hernen: A. A. Brediusstichting, 1985); Krijnie Ciggaar, “England and Byzantium on the Eve of the Norman Conquest (the reign of Edward the Confessor)” Anglo-Norman Studies V (1982); Krijnie Ciggaar, “Byzantine Marginalia to the Norman Conquest” Anglo-Norman Studies 9 (1986), 60–61. 18 Bernard S. Bachrach. “On the Origins of William the Conqueror’s Horse Transports.” Technology and Culture 26:3 (1985). 19 Christian Raffensperger, Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus’ in the Medieval World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), ch. 1. 20 The Empress Theophano: Byzantium and the West at the turn of the first millennium, Adalbert Davids, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Wladimir V. Bogomoletz, “Anna of Kiev: An Enigmatic Capetian Queen of the Eleventh Century: A Reassessment of Biographical Sources,” French History 19 (2005), 299–323; Emily Joan Ward, “Anne of Kiev (c .1024–c .1075) and a reassessment of maternal power in the minority kingship of Philip I of France” Historical Research 89:245 (2016): 435–453. 21 Bartlett, Blood Royal, 93.

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FIGURE 2.1

Miliaresion of Basil II and Constantine VIII (Credit: Yale University Art Gallery).

across medieval Europe.22 One of the most common coins found in medieval Europe was the miliaresion of Basil II and Constantine VIII, struck in the late tenth century (Figure 2.1). As one can see, the coin carries the image of the corulers, Basil II and Constantine VIII, and thus would have projected the image of corulership throughout the medieval European world, wherever the coin was found. As Jitske Jasperse has noted in reference to Matilda and Henry the Lion, “corule was deliberately communicated through their coinage.”23 Not only did medieval people use this coin in their transactions, but rulers appropriated the image for their own coins. Olof Skötkonnung of Sweden (r. 995–c. 1021), Harthacnut of Denmark (r. 1035–1042), and Sven Estridsson of Denmark (r. 1047–1074) all utilized this coin in their own creation of dies to mint coins.24 With these bits of evidence it is possible to suggest, at the very

22 Robert Sabatino Lopez, “The Dollar of the Middle Ages” Journal of Economic History 11:3 (1951): 209–234. 23 Jitske Jasperse, Medieval Women, Material Culture, and Power: Matilda Plantagenet and Her Sisters (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2020), 42. 24 Raffensperger, Reimagining Europe, 30–31.

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least, that it was possible to see the medieval Roman Empire as a source for knowledge about corulership in medieval Europe.25 Thus, again, by widening our frame we can see the relevance and importance of looking at medieval Europe, more broadly construed. Medieval Roman Empire

The medieval Roman Empire has come under its own revision in recent years, as Anthony Kaldellis has led a charge to consider it as, what it said it was, the Roman Republic.26 Part of that change has been thinking differently about the role of the emperor, not as a god-appointed ruler, but as an elected (or at least selected and appointed) official who was tolerated and obeyed, but could also be replaced when the populace, or certain segments of the populace, demanded a change. Leonora Neville puts this well: “No one wrung their hands in agony at having to serve a new governor when the old one was replaced, because loyalty was owed to the Roman state, not to whatever individuals were working for it at a particular moment.”27 What has not changed, however, is the idea that the emperor ruled in a solitary fashion. It is certainly acknowledged that there were “de jure” multiple emperors, referred to sometimes by scholars as “the imperial college,” but they rarely are seen or discussed in the publications about the empire or Constantinople. Michael McCormick noted that “From 610 to 1204, thirtytwo designated co-emperors succeeded to the purple; twenty-five of them were imperial offspring, and six more were co-opted into the imperial family.”28 Bartlett devotes a page and a half to these co-emperors, expressing some of the confusion apparent in our modern rendering of such corulers. For instance, “The exact status of Byzantine co-emperors, especially child co-emperors could be complex and variable.” Or slightly later on the same

25 One could also note that there are potential Germanic antecedents to this process as well. Patrick Geary, for instance, has noted the prevalence of multiple rulers among the Germanic groups invading the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity. “At any given time, therefore, within these broad confederations, a variety of individuals might claim some sort of kingship over portions of the people. The Alamannic confederation that fought the emperor Julian in 357, for example, was led by an uncle and nephew termed ‘the most outstanding in power before the other kings,’ five kings of second rank, ten regales, and a series of magnates.” Patrick J. Geary, “Barbarians and Ethnicity,” in Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World. G. W. Bowesock, Peter Brown, and Oleg Grabar, eds., (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 112. 26 Anthony Kaldellis, The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in New Rome (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015). 27 Byzantine Gender (Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2019), 84. 28 Michael McCormick, “Emperors,” in The Byzantines, ed. Guglielmo Cavallo, transl. Thomas Dunlap, Teresa Lavender Fagan, and Charles Lambert (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press,1997), 238.

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page, “Categorizing co-emperors was a delicate matter for medieval histo­ rians, as it is for modern ones.”29 One example that he uses is that of Basil II who was, by one metric, the longest-serving emperor in the medieval Roman Empire, ascending the throne in 960 and not dying until 1025. However, during that sixty-five-year period, Basil II had multiple corulers, and so should he be counted as emperor for the whole time? Or for only a portion of the time? Bartlett comes down, as do others, on the idea that he is emperor from 976 and the death of Emperor John Tzimiskes.30 This is difficult to determine however, as Kaldellis, among others, notes that Constantine VIII, Basil II’s brother, only rules upon the latter’s death, and yet the two were both crowned as emperors for the vast majority of their lives. These are, I suggest, modern problems, that we have created because of our desire for a clear order and process. The numbers from McCormick make clear that corulers were a part of the medieval Roman lived experience. How then, can we get at perception of those rulers without a modern bias? One way to do this, I suggest, is through utilizing the coinage from the period to help us understand the ways that medieval Roman elites, who created these coin dies and distributed them, wanted their rulership to be understood.31 One of the earliest and most plentiful sets of coins are those of Emperor Herakleios. Herakleios, over the course of his lifetime, issued a series of coins to delineate who was ruling at what time. In the Dumbarton Oaks collection, one can easily see coins minted just with Herakleios; coins with Herakleios and his son Herakleios Constantine; and ones with himself and both of his sons, Herakleios Constantine and Heraklonas.32 Viewing the coins through the lens of corulership, it is clear that Herakleios was dem­ onstrating through a visual medium to his people who was ruling the empire, and it was not just him. In this way, he was associating his sons with himself and his own rule. This practice had deep roots in the ancient Roman empire, from which the political culture of Herakleios’ time descended. Nor is this the only model of corulership that we can see via the coinage of the medieval Roman Empire. One of the most often pictured rulers was Constantine VII in the tenth century. Looking at the progression of coins on which he appeared, one can see how over the course of his life, he ruled

29 Bartlett, Blood Royal, 94. 30 Bartlett, Blood Royal, 95; Kaldellis follows the same preference in dating, see Anthony Kaldelis, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 A.D. to the First Crusade (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), xxii. 31 Sadly, the lacuna in acknowledging corulership extends even to Dumbarton Oaks. Their excellent catalog of Byzantine coins categorizes them by issuing authority and does not count corulership for any of the many, many coins that their holdings contain. 32 See the Byzantine coin catalog at Dumbarton Oaks for the numerous examples, https:// www.doaks.org/resources/coins.

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FIGURE 2.2

Constantine VII and Zoë (©Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Coins and Seals Collection, Washington DC).

alone, but also in conjunction with multiple other individuals, and each time that changed, it was signaled to the populace by a change in the coinage. The visual imagery of rule was important so that the people knew who was in charge, and coins were a medium that people could see and carry with them. Constantine VII first appears on a coin while a young man beside his mother, where they are both grasping the scepter of authority (Figure 2.2). Zoë, his mother, appears on the right and Constantine VII on the left in typical gender roles. This, though, results in Zoë awkwardly reaching across her body to grasp the scepter at a higher point than the young Constantine VII to demonstrate her position as the dominant ruler in the partnership.33 Constantine VII later appears on a coin with Romanos I Lekapenos who married his daughter Helene to Constantine VII and became coemperor with him (Figure 2.3). On this coin, Constantine VII appears on the right with his hand lower on the scepter, showing his secondary position to his father-inlaw Romanos I who appears on the left with his hand higher on the scepter.34

33 Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Coin collection - BZC.1957.59. 34 Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Coin collection - BZC.1948.17.3054.

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FIGURE 2.3 Constantine VII and Romanos (©Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Coins and Seals Collection, Washington DC).

After a complicated interchange in which Romanos’s own sons ousted him from rule, and then Constantine removed them; Constantine VII, at the age of forty, ruled as sole emperor and minted coinage to that effect (Figure 2.4).35 Finally, Constantine VII associated his own son, Romanos II, with his rule and they minted coins showing the two of them ruling as corulers, with Constantine VII finally in the position of dominant coruler on the left, with his hand higher on the scepter than his son, Romanos II, on the right (Figure 2.5).36 Thus, we can see through the progression of Constantine VII’s coinage that his position as ruler changed over the course of his life. He was coruler with his mother, his father-in-law, and his son, as well as sole ruler briefly as well. This review also allows us to note that while we would do well to acknowledge corulership, this does not speak to a strict equality of rule amongst the corulers. In each of the coins of Constantine VII, one can see a visual hierarchy of rule, expressed both by which side of the coin the ruler was on, and how (and where) they grasped the scepter of authority betwixt

35 Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Coin collection BZC.1948.17.3075; for the history of these events, see Kaldellis, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood, 21–23. 36 Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Coin collection BZC.1948.17.3090.

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FIGURE 2.4 Constantine VII (©Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Coins and Seals Collection, Washington DC).

FIGURE 2.5

Constantine VII and Romanos II (©Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Coins and Seals Collection, Washington DC).

them. Just because there are two, or more, rulers, does not mean then that one of them is not dominant over another. To follow one more example, to help illustrate the idea of corulership in the medieval Roman Empire – there is the case of Empress Zoë in the middle of the eleventh century. Zoë was the daughter of the last Macedonian (itself a

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problematic label) emperor Constantine VIII (the brother of the famous Basil II), and thus she was the tie to the authority of the Macedonians. Because of this, Zoë was married to Romanos III Argyros (1028–1034), and he ruled following the death of Constantine VIII.37 And yet, Zoë still maintained her position as empress, and we see her as an important political figure in Constantinople and for the people of the empire. When Romanos Argyros died in 1034, Zoë immediately remarried, this time to Michael IV (1034–1041), who became emperor via his marriage to Zoë.38 She subse­ quently adopted Michael’s nephew, Michael V, and named him kaisar, and heir to the throne.39 It is important to note here that the power devolved from Zoë to make this nomination happen. When Michael IV died in 1041, Michael V (1041–1042) duly took over as emperor and, soon after, tried to set aside his adopted mother and co-ruler Zoë, ordering her tonsured and sent into a monastery.40 However, the populace revolted at this slight to their empress and rose up against him, ending his reign. They not only pulled Zoë out of the monastery into which Michael had sent her but also her sister Theodora, who had been in a monastery for most of her life. The two sisters, Zoë and Theodora were made co-empresses in Hagia Sophia in 1042, and illustrated their joint rule by appearing together on a gold histamenon (Figure 2.6).41 As one can see, not only do they appear at equal heights, but they are jointly grasping the scepter in the center, betwixt them – though Zoë (on the left) has her hand higher on the scepter than Theodora (on the right), indicative of her position as the more dominant coruler (she also had seniority as Augusta). Therefore, during her lifetime Zoë was coruler with Romanos Argyros, Michael IV, Michael V, and her sister Theodora. Further, it is clear that her position actually mattered and that she was not simply an adjunct to the men in her life; it was she who transmitted the power to rule to Romanos Argyros and Michael IV via their marriages, it was she who named Michael V as kaisar and adopted him, and when Michael V tried to set her aside, the people of Constantinople revolted. It seems more than fair to suggest that Zoë should be counted as a coruler for each and every one of those emperors, and she provided the thread of dynastic continuity that they all wanted.

37 Michael Psellos, Fourteen Byzantine Rulers: The Chronographia of Michael Psellus, transl. E. R. A. Sewter (New York: Penguin, 1966), Bk 2, ch. 10 (pp. 58–59). 38 Psellos, Fourteen Byzantine Rulers, Bk. 4, ch. 1 (p. 87). 39 Psellos, Fourteen Byzantine Rulers, Bk. 4, chs. 23–24 (pp. 109–110); Kaldellis, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood, 165–167. 40 Psellos, Fourteen Byzantine Rulers, Bk. 5; Kaldellis, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood, 175–176. 41 Psellos, Fourteen Byzantine Rulers, Bk. 6, chs. 1–15; Kaldellis, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood, 176–177. Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Coin Collection - BZC.1956.11.

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FIGURE 2.6

Histamenon of Zoe and Theodora (©Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Coins and Seals Collection, Washington DC).

Moving to the Komnenoi of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries we can see the trend of co-rulership continue via the words of Anna Komnene in her Alexiad. Anna narrates her father’s reign and in both purposeful and incidental ways talks about corulership.42 Alexios Komnenos rose to power through the military and seized control of the empire in 1081 as emperor.43 Coming to power in this fashion guaranteed that Alexios would face internal difficulties, but he also had external ones to deal with as well, as both the Turks in the east and the Normans in the west were still threatening the empire. One of his potential enemies, or collaborators, was Nikephoras Melissenos. Melissenos proposes to become Alexios’s co-ruler saying, “I will wear the

42 The best book on Anna Komnena’s work is Leonora Neville, Anna Komnene: The Life and Work of a Medieval Historian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). 43 Kaldellis, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood, 269–270.

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diadem and purple robes and receive the acclamation in the way that emperors normally do, with one of you.”44 He goes on to note how the emperors will rule the empire jointly, though with separate areas of influence. Later, once Botaneiates recognizes the completeness of Alexios’s conquest, he offers to become co-emperors with Alexios Komnenos, though of an unequal sort, “… nor will I share in any way your authority as emperor, but will merely enjoy with you the title, the acclamation, the right to wear the purple sandals and to live quietly in the palace. The government of the empire will rest entirely only your shoulders.”45 Neither of these offers is accepted and Alexios takes the reins of power as the sole emperor. Though this does not last long. First, given the various tasks required of him, he empowers his mother, Anna Dalassene, to be ruler while he is away on campaign.46 Anna Komnene even copies an imperial chyrsobull into the text of the Alexiad to highlight her grandmother’s power. However, while Anna becomes the practical ruler of Constantinople, she is not crowned as emperor and probably thus should not be considered a coruler in the sense we are discussing, though she is certainly a major power in the empire at this time. Alexios does have his wife, Eirene, crowned as coruler, and later his son John as coruler as well. Anna records that when Bohemond pledged his fealty to Alexius he also did so to John saying, “I swear to you, Lord and Emperor Alexios Komnenos, most powerful and revered, and to your co-Emperor, the thrice-beloved Lord John porphyrogennetos.”47 Thus, the position of coruler was secure through the change in governmental structure that characterized the Komneni rule of the medieval Roman Empire. The examples here for the medieval Roman empire demonstrate quite clearly that not only were there multiple emperors, as is well known, but that they acted together (either individually or corporately) to rule the empire and that this was signaled to their population via the visual imagery of coinage. Adding to the prevalence of Roman coinage throughout Europe, especially before the middle of the eleventh century when the coinage was precipitously devalued, it is also possible to note that the Roman model of corulership could be seen, consumed, and even appropriated throughout medieval Europe. Ireland

Rulership in Ireland has been the subject of intense study over the years. Donnchadh Ó Corráin’s classic article on “Irish Regnal Succession” laid out the process by which Irish rulers, of a variety of sorts, were selected,

44 Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, transl. E. R. A. Sewter, ed. Peter Frankopan (New York: Penguin Books, 2009 [revised edition]), Bk. 2, ch. 8. 45 Komnene, The Alexiad, Bk. 2, ch. 12. 46 Komnene, The Alexiad, Bk. 3, chs. 6–7. 47 Komnene, The Alexiad, Bk. 13, ch. 12.

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including a discussion of their terminology and a discussion of specific ex­ amples in detail.48 More recently, Bart Jaski updated and expanded some of those ideas, as did Charles Doherty.49 One of the hardships in studying Irish rulership, however, is the perception that what is going on in Ireland is abnormal compared to the rest of medieval Europe. Patrick Gleeson sum­ marized this quite accurately, “Faced with this bewildering complexity to the nature of royal power, Ireland in particular often seems somewhat anoma­ lous, and for this reason it endures as an outpost of early medieval European society, often excluded or ignored by scholarship.”50 I have found the “othering” of Ireland to be true in my own experience. For instance, when speaking about eastern European rulership to medievalist audiences, I have often been told to go talk to the Irish as they are weird too – as if the people on the “fringes of Europe” belong together.51 One outcome of those con­ versations, and many others, was the impetus to rethink how medieval Europe is studied, and what is considered normal, which is reflected here in this book. Ó Corráin in his article from fifty years ago notes a number of instances of corulership in Irish medieval history in a footnote on page one, however, he then ends the footnote by saying, “these however do not constitute the norm.”52 One can respect the scholarship of Ó Corráin and still differ with the conclusions to which he came. His list, inclusive of twenty-six entries from 643 to 1107, with seventeen in the ninth century alone, ends with an “etc.” indicative that he knew that the list continued.53 If one simply focuses on the ninth century, according to Ó Corráin’s list, we find that roughly onefifth of the century is occupied by co-rulers if we assign each co-rulership just one year. If we give the corulerships two years, we are at a third of the century, and so forth as we adjust the periods of corule. This is a substantial

48 Donnchadh Ó Corráin, “Irish Regnal Succession: A Reappraisal” Studia Hibernica 11 (1971): 7–39. One should also mention Francis John Byrne, as well – Irish Kings and HighKings (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1973 [2001 – 2nd edition]). 49 Bart Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000); Charles Doherty, “Kingship in Early Ireland” in The Kingship and Landscape of Tara, Ed. Edel Bhreathnach (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005), 1–31. 50 Patrick Gleeson, “Early Medieval Kingdoms and Territories: Negotiating Sovereignty in the Irish Sea Region” in La Construcción De La Territorialidad En La Alta Edad Media, ed. I. Martin Viso (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca Universidad de Salamanca, 2020): 47. 51 I recognize that such an acknowledgement breaks the scholarly tradition of writing anon­ ymously, however, one of the things that drove me to write this book, and do what I do in general, is the continued critique of western medievalists that what I see in eastern Europe is not what is going on elsewhere. This drove me to learn more and more about other areas to try and understand what was happening and to properly contextualize the situation. 52 Ó Corráin, “Irish Regnal Succession,” 7n4. 53 Ó Corráin, “Irish Regnal Succession,” 7n4.

Corulership 73

period of time to have corulership, especially to then dismiss corulership as non-normative. Byrne notes, in an often-quoted passage that, “there were probably no less than 150 kings in the country at any given date between the fifth and twelfth centuries.”54 Taking these numbers, and combining them with the noted instances of corule by Ó Corráin, we can perhaps arrive at a more cogent idea of how often we see instances of corule – seventeen instances in the ninth century, when there were 150 kings, might be a smaller proportion. However, let us look at a couple of illustrative examples from the eleventh century, a similar period to what we are looking at more broadly in this volume, to demonstrate some temporal parity. In that century, there was a great deal of activity regarding a particularly fascinating part of Ireland, that near Dublin and its activities on and near the Irish Sea. In 1052, Diarmait mac Máel na mBó, king of Leinster, invaded Dublin and took the city for himself from Echmarcach son of Ragnall.55 Echmarcach had been known as “king of the foreigners” while ruling Dublin according to the Annals of Ulster, but this had been a relatively uncommon title for an Irish ruler to take. Seán Duffy has noted that in the later tenth century when rulers such as Maél Sechnaill and Brian Boru took power over Dublin, they inevitably kept the local “Ostmen” (Scandinavian-descended locals) in power over the city itself.56 However, this seems to have changed in the eleventh century and Diarmait’s conquest of Dublin was a key part in the shifting of these power structures. Instead of relying on a local ruler to pay tribute and be subordinate, Diarmait installed as his coruler in Dublin his own son, Murchad. “Diarmait no doubt considered that the experience and prestige of being master of Dublin would be an admirable apprenticeship for his heir.”57 Dublin was a major city in Ireland with a population of four to five thousand in this period and significant control over the Irish Sea, especially given the naval fleet of Diarmait and Murchad.58 Rule over such a city would be a major triumph, and yet Diarmait did not claim it for himself, instead, he was content to share that rule with his son.

54 Byrne, Irish Kings and High-Kings, 7; Jaski says something quite similar, “Historians have estimated that at any given time in early medieval Ireland there were around one hundred persons who could claim to be ‘king’.” Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession, 37. 55 Annals of Ulster. Accessed online at CELT (https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T100001A/index. html), s.a. 1052. 56 Seán Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052-1171” Ériu 43 (1992): 94. 57 Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052–1171,” 99–100. 58 Benjamin Hudson, Viking Pirates and Christian Princes: Dynasty, Religion, and Empire in the North Atlantic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 92; Ben Hudson, “The Family of Harold Godwinsson and the Irish Sea Province” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 109 (1979): 94.

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Diarmait remained king of Leinster, and Murchad was called “king of the foreigners” or “king of the Danes” in different sources.59 While we might assume that this was a situation in which Murchad was subordinate to his father, and we would probably be right, this is no different than the multiple rulers in the medieval Roman Empire already discussed, in which some were dominant over others. While Diarmait turned his attention to Munster, Murchad acted, seemingly on his own initiative, both in Dublin and more broadly in the Irish Sea region.60 In 1059, he is recorded as being defeated in Meath, but this was only one of many attempts to expand his territory into the north, while his father went south and west.61 In 1061, he invaded the Isle of Man and defeated Echmarcach, who had presumably fled there after his defeat in Dublin nine years before.62 After this time, Murchad was then the ruler of both Dublin and Man, under his title of king of the foreigners. Murchad’s involvement in the Irish Sea realm is evident as well in his promise to aid Gruffudd ap Cynan. Gruffudd was the son of Cynan ap Iago who killed his rival Gruffudd ap Llewellyn in Dublin in 1064.63 Gruffudd ap Cynan was most likely born during the early part of Murchad’s rule and his later biography says that Murchad promised him aid to regain, or gain, Wales, though Murchad’s own death in 1070 precluded the fulfill­ ment of the promise.64 This is all not to say that Diarmait and Murchad divided up territory entirely. It is clear from multiple modern accounts of the ties between the Godwin family of England and Diarmait that it was he, not Murchad, that seemed to have lent assistance to first Harold Godwinsson and then to his sons in the 1050s and 1060s.65 Which example provides us with an important corrective to the potential idea that Murchad ruled Dublin and Diarmait ruled Leinster and the two were separate, if not entirely equal. The final example of Murchad as coruler with his father Diarmait can be taken from his death notice where the Annals of Ulster refer to him as both king of Leinster and king of the foreigners.66 Diarmait would take over

59 Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052–1171,” 100; Hudson, Viking Pirates and Christian Princes,142. 60 Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052–1171,” 99. 61 Hudson, Viking Pirates and Christian Princes, 142; Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052–1171,” 100. 62 Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052–1171,” 100. 63 Annals of Ulster. Accessed online at CELT (https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T100001A/index. html), s.a. 1064. 64 Hudson, Viking Pirates and Christian Princes, 162, 168. 65 Clare Downham, “England and the Irish-Sea Zone in the Eleventh Century” Anglo-Norman Studies 26 (2003): 66–68; Hudson, “The Family of Harold Godwinsson and the Irish Sea Province,” 92–100. 66 Annals of Ulster, s.a. 1070.

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direct rule of Dublin after Murchad’s death and was still called the king of Leinster at the time, providing us with further evidence of the corulership of father and son. Duffy notes that “Murchad mac Diarmata had established a position of authority within this Hiberno-Scandinavian city-state that no Gaelic lord had ever previously attained.”67 He was buried within Dublin and the chronicle referred to as Four Masters, “have a full twenty lines of verse” on his death.68 All of these testify to the immense importance of Murchad, even while he also ruled along with his father, Diarmait mac Máel na mBó. Diarmait mac Máel na mBó died in 1072 and he was replaced as ruler of Dublin by Tairdelbach ua Briain, the ruler of Munster, at least briefly. For the first few years after the defeat of Diarmait, Tairdelbach reverted to the previous practice of having a local king of Dublin, who acted as his subor­ dinate.69 However, though this may provide us with an example of corule, in which Gofraid was clearly subordinate to Tairdelbach, he was forcibly ousted in 1075 and died in exile later that year.70 Tairdelbach’s initial plan was to replace Gofraid with Domnall, the son of Murchad mac Diarmait, but he died the same year as well; at which point Tairdelbach turned to the strategy of Diarmait mac Máel na mBó and appointed his own son, Muirchertach, as king of Dublin.71 In fact, it is only from this point in 1075 that Clare Downham notes Tairdelbach as holding the “overkingship of Dublin.”72 Muirchertach had not been the king of Dublin for long before he began to take action – in 1075, he lent forces to assist Gruffudd ap Cynan to take the throne of Gwynedd.73 This was something that Murchad had promised to Gruffudd but died before it could be completed. Just as Tairdelbach followed Diarmait’s lead in placing his son in charge of Dublin, Muirchertach seemed to follow the lead of Murchad in creating policies that put Dublin at the forefront of wider Irish Sea politics. These were not the only actions taken by Muirchertach as king of Dublin, which were similar to Murchad. Just as Murchad had attacked Meath, only to lose, Muirchertach attacked Meath, successfully, expanding his own power and subjugating the king of

67 Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052–1171,” 101. 68 Annals of Ulster, s.a. 1070; Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052–1171,” 101. 69 Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052–1171,” 101. 70 Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052–1171,” 102; Annals of Ulster, s.a. 1075. 71 Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052–1171,” 103; Annals of Ulster, s.a. 1075. 72 Downham, “England and the Irish-Sea Zone in the Eleventh Century,” 69. 73 Downham, “England and the Irish-Sea Zone in the Eleventh Century,” 70.

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Meath in 1080.74 Muirchertach also acted more concretely as coruler with Tairdelbach, as the latter became ill, and Muirchertach was often to be found in Limerick ruling over Meath. Much as we saw with Diarmait and Murchad, Tairdelbach placed Muirchertach as king of Dublin to have a loyal ally and ruler there, but also to train him for future rule. And though Muirchertach was involved in affairs in the Irish Sea and Meath, he also acted clearly as coruler of Munster in his father’s waning years, before the latter’s death in 1086. Though Ireland as a whole could be discussed in terms of kings, sub-kings, over-kings, and much more75 (as was discussed in Chapter 1 on titualture), from just these couple of examples, it can also be seen that with Dublin as a focus, corulership would come to be the norm for several rulers and their fathers in the eleventh century.76 Norway

It is often difficult to get at the history of rulership in Scandinavia, and elsewhere, as historians struggle to see through (or around) the lens of nineteenth and twentieth-century nationalism. Gwyn Jones, in discussing Cnut’s empire which stretched over parts of modern Denmark, England, Norway, and Sweden noted that it was doomed to fail because of the many nationalities which made it up.77 And yet, if we can attempt to look at contemporary events through a contemporary lens, we will see a much dif­ ferent picture. Eric Christiansen, who has written on this topic suggests that around 800 there were roughly forty-five different rulers in Scandinavia, and by 900 there were still thirty different rulers.78 In summary of the problem facing historians, Christiansen says, “The variety and vigour of these terri­ tories was the main story of viking-age Scandinavia, overlooked by those with eyes only for the deeds of kings, the pre-requisites of state formation, and the transforming effects of international trade.”79 We see a similar sit­ uation when we turn to the primary sources, and their analysis in secondary sources. Heimskringla, a thirteenth-century source, but an oft-used one for medieval Scandinavia, notes that during the reign of Harald Fairhair (the noted “consolidator” of Norway in the tenth century), there were multiple

74 Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052–1171,” 103. 75 Wendy Davies, “States and non-states in the Celtic world” in Der frühmittelalterliche Staat Europäische Perspektiven, eds. Walter Pohl and Veronika Wieser (Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2009): 160. 76 Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052–1171,” 100. 77 Gwyn Jones, A History of the Vikings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 354–386. 78 Eric Christiansen, Norsemen in the Viking Age (Oxford and Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 161, 108. 79 Christiansen, Norsemen in the Viking Age, 111.

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kings along with Harald.80 In his well-received Conversion of Scandinavia, Anders Winroth calls these rulers “chieftains,” most likely because of a focus on Christian kingship that can be seen later in the work.81 The real concern with all of this, for our present purpose, is that the secondary source focus on monarchy elides the corulership evident in the primary sources into one line of king follows king.82 This section then will take corulership as an accepted practice, as we have seen elsewhere, and see how that is portrayed in the primary sources through a series of examples. In Norway, there are three examples of varying lengths that we will ex­ amine to attempt to better understand corulership in the kingdom. Looking at the work of Sverre Bagge, the dean of studies of Scandinavian royalty, demonstrates the difficulty in discussing corulership. He notes that “Olaf was succeeded first by his son Magnús (1035–1047) and then by his halfbrother Harald.”83 The statement reads as if there was a “normal” serial succession Olaf > Magnus > Harald. However, this is not the case from the primary sources, and Bagge knows this, as just a few lines later in the same work he talks about how “There was no rule of individual succession.”84 Problems such as these demonstrate why it is essential to turn to the primary sources regarding questions such as corulership which upend our traditional framework of how medieval Europe was ruled. Morkinskinna, one of the earliest of the main primary sources for medieval Scandinavia, is the main source used here for narrating the episodes of corulership in Norway.85 We will begin with the same example Bagge did above, the situation involving Magnus Olafsson and Harald Hardrada. Both Magnus and Harald left Norway around 1030 to go to Rus. Soon after

80 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, transl. Lee M. Hollander (Austin, Tx.: University of Texas Press, 1964), ch. 7, 63 (for one example). 81 Anders Winroth, The Conversion of Scandinavia: Vikings, Merchants, and Missionaries in the Remaking of Northern Europe (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012), 1, 101 – to choose two diverse examples. 82 This focus is, of course, not true everywhere. In Ármann Jakobsson’s detailed look at Morkinskinna he regularly notes the multiple corulerships which feature in its pages. “The Individual and the Ideal: The Representation of Royalty in ‘Morkinskinna’” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 99:1 (2000): 71–86. 83 Sverre Bagge, Cross and Scepter: The Rise of the Scandinavian Kingdoms from the Vikings to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 54. 84 Bagge, Cross and Scepter, 54. Not to mention that he actually uses corulership to (briefly) discuss this situation in another work. Sverre Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom: State Formation in Norway, c. 900–1350 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2010), 40–41. 85 Hans Jacob Orning, who also uses Morkinskinna for this purpose has an extensive note on why it is the best source for these purposes. Hans Jacob Orning, “Conflict and Social (Dis) order in Norway, c. 1030–1160” in Disputing Strategies in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. Kim Esmark, Lars Hermanson, Hans Jacob Orning, and Helle Vogt (Leiden: Brill, 2013): 46n4.

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Olaf’s (later St. Olaf) death, Magnus was called back and he became the king of Norway.86 Magnus ruled alone in Norway, while Harald adventured in Rus and the medieval Roman empire, before eventually making his way back to Norway with the intention of claiming a share of the kingdom for himself, from his nephew Magnus. Initially, Magnus was reticent to share the kingdom, and his nobles supported him in this, causing no small drama as Harald cooperated with King Sven of the Danes.87 However, eventually the two were able to make peace and Morkinskinna records the event as taking place at a great feast where “King Magnus said: ‘With this reed sprig I give you half of *the realm* of Norway with all the taxes and dues and all properties. I declare that you will be king everywhere in Norway with the same rights that I have. When we are together, I will have precedence in greeting, service, and seating. If three men of noble rank are present, I will occupy the center’.”88 With this clear statement, the two rulers agreed to share rule over Norway; though Magnus also stipulated that he would be the senior ruler, even if he was younger. In return, Harald granted Magnus half of his wealth – the majority of which was derived from his time in service to the emperors in the medieval Roman empire. Thus, we see an interesting picture forming in which the corulership depicted here of two rulers ruling together, with one senior to the other, is akin to what we saw depicted on medieval Roman coins. Further, Harald had spent much time in the Roman empire and brought back many of those coins with him, thus providing him with some knowledge (if such was required) of the practice.89 Magnus and Harald did not always agree, and that was amply recorded in the primary sources. But they were both recognized as rulers, in fact, Morkinskinna’s English translation carries with it an interesting phrase, when a skald says, “hail to both monarchs.”90 The intent, that both kings were present and being included in the greeting, is clear; but our English vocabulary fails us as we rely on a word intended to mean “sole ruler” for those kings (discussed in more depth in Chapter 1). Nevertheless, agreeing or not, monarchs or dyarchs, the two ruled together and even acted corporately in some instances. One of those instances was a military expedition against the Danes, in an attempt to subordinate the kingdom: “When King Magnus and King Haraldr had both ruled the land together for two years, they as­ sembled their army for a campaign south in Denmark and called up their

86 87 88 89

Morkinskinna, ch. 1, 98–100. Morkinskinna, ch. 14, 151. Morkinskinna, ch. 14, 154. For much more on Harald’s coinage and its ties to Byzantium see, Philip Grierson, “Harold Hardrada and Byzantine Coin Types in Denmark” Byzantinische Forschungen 1 (1966): 124–138. 90 Morkinskinna, ch. 21, 165

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naval forces in Norway.”91 The expedition was not successful, and Magnus ended up dying, but for our purposes, it is the corporate action as rulers, acknowledged by the primary source, that is of most importance. After Magnus’s death, Harald is acknowledged as sole ruler and maintains as such until his well-known death at Stamford Bridge in 1066. Morkinskinna spends a lot of time dealing with these two corulers and Ármann Jakobsson suggests this is because the author of the text was particularly interested in comparing and contrasting them.92 Yet, within that, he always acknowl­ edged that they were both kings of Norway, and after Magnus’s death, the author of Morkinskinna regularly supported Harald against other claimants to the Norwegian throne.93 Harald Hardrada was succeeded by his son Olaf kyrre (the Quiet), and it is with Olaf’s death that we see our second example of corulership in Norway.94 Olaf was succeeded by his son Magnus in 1093, but he did not rule the entirety of the kingdom. “Two kings were now installed in Norway. Magnus, the son of King Óláfr, ruled in the east, but the þrœndir took as their king Hakon, the son of Magnús and grandson of Haraldr.”95 The situation presented by Morkinskinna is an interesting one, and difficult for moderns to reconcile with our understanding of inherited kingship. King Magnus’s son should have inherited everything, according to that concep­ tion, and yet he did not – Hakon was chosen as ruler by the þrœndir, and Magnus agreed to it. The two rulers lived in peace with one another, having their own supporters and nobles, and largely staying apart from one another for their brief period of co-rule. After two years in which “the kinsmen had ruled the land … King Hakon died.”96 At that time (1095), the þrœndir took a man named Sveinn as their ruler, but this was not accepted by Magnus on account of the fact that “they had taken a leader who was not born to the

91 Morkinskinna, ch. 25, 179. 92 Jakobsson, “The Individual and the Ideal,” 79–80. 93 Though, according to Andersson’s division of the Morkinskinna author’s vision of kingship, Magnus is one of the “builder and lawmaker” types, which is favored, while Harald is an “adventurer” type, which is not. Yet, or perhaps because of this, the two stories are told in an interwoven fashion. Theodore Andersson, “The Politics of Snorri Sturluson” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 93:1 (1994): 58. 94 Morkinskinna, ch. 54, 285. In fact, it is from Harald’s line that future kings of Norway will descend. We see this articulated clearly in Fagrskinna: “since King Haraldr Sigurdarson became king, the kingship of Norway has been held exclusively by his descendants, though there has been some division of the family into branches in their descent from him.” Fagrskinna: A Catalogue of the Kings of Norway, transl. And ed. Alison Finlay (Leiden: Brill, 2004), ch. 53, 197. 95 Morkinskinna, ch. 55, 285. 96 Morkinskinna, ch. 55, 286.

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title in Norway” by which he meant “a man of no royal birth and poor lineage to rule.”97 Which example provides us with an acknowledgement of the importance of lineage, as well as a rationale for Magnus’s acceptance of Hakon, but his failure to accept Sveinn as a coruler. Though this might not fit exactly with our modern conceptions of medieval kingship, there were certainly guidelines (if not rules) that seem to have been followed. The third and final example of corulership in Norway has to do with the inheritance of Magnus’s sons. King Magnus died in 1103, while on campaign in Ireland. At that time, “his three sons Sigurðr, Eysteinn, and Óláfr were installed as kings.”98 All of them were young, with Eystein the eldest at six­ teen, Sigurd fourteen, and Olaf just three; yet despite this they were all accepted as kings, even if it was left to Eystein and Sigurd to act as regent for the young Olaf’s territory.99 It is interesting, nonetheless, that Olaf was given a territory, even if it is not specified. Sigurd ruled the eastern part, while Eystein ruled the northern part; and in a sign of the late date of composition of the sources (later twelfth century), there is almost no mention of Olaf.100 He appears at the beginning of the rule of the three brothers, passes once again out of the story where the focus is on Sigurd and to a lesser extent Eystein, and then appears again when his death (1116) is mentioned: “In the thirteenth year of their joint rule.”101 At which time Sigurd and Eystein split the land in half and “King Sigurdr ruled the eastern part of the country, and King Eysteinn ruled the northern part and resided chiefly in Nidaross.”102 The stated division of territory is the same as when Olaf was still alive, causing us difficulties when trying to identify what it was, exactly, that Olaf ruled. Nevertheless, the principle of corulership is soundly established. Each of the sons of Magnus inherited as king, and the three ruled together, even while dividing the territory between them. Our modernist problem of how to write about corulership has its roots, potentially or at least in part, in the perception of these rulers by the primary sources. The section in Morkinskinna on the sons of Magnus is quite long and almost entirely devoted to Sigurd and his adventures abroad. Eystein, who stays in Norway and rules is given much less time and space in the written record, despite actually being present in Norway.103 Jakobsson, in regard to this, notes that the author of the Morkinskinna favors Eystein as the better

97 98 99 100 101 102 103

Morkinskinna, ch. 55, 286–287. Morkinskinna, ch. 60, 313. Fagrskinna, ch. 85, 252. Morkinskinna, ch. 60, 313. Morkinskinna, ch. 69, 334. Morkinskinna, ch. 69, 334. Morkinskinna, 4.

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ruler but cannot escape Sigurd’s fascinating journey to the eastern Mediterranean.104 Further, both are legitimate rulers, and both then should be given their due. But, given the comparative length of treatment in Morkinskinna, it should not be surprising to find that it is Sigurd who receives the majority of coverage in modern surveys of medieval Scandinavia, and yet it is undeniable that Eystein, Sigurd, and even Olaf were corulers of the kingdom. These multiple examples of corulership demonstrate that the phenomenon existed in medieval Scandinavia, as we have seen it exist elsewhere in medieval Europe. This concept is awkwardly dealt with, if at all, in broader medieval studies, but within studies of Scandinavia (and Norway in partic­ ular), it is openly discussed. Jakobsson suggests that the Morkinskinna has a consistent pairing of two or three rulers, or potential rulers, throughout its narrative structure.105 While Hans Jacob Orning has suggested (persua­ sively) that, “Co-rulership was a distinct feature of the political set-up in the period between 1030 and 1160.”106 Orning also notes the historiographical problems of dealing with corulership in Norwegian scholarship as scholars of an older generation viewed it as, “a disruptive political arrangement.”107 While I do not doubt Orning on the particulars of Norwegian scholarship, more broadly in medieval studies, I would suggest that the problem of viewing corulership as disruptive still exists. One potential reason is due to the gloss that modern secondary sources put on the primary source evidence. For instance, returning to Winroth he notes that, “By introducing a monopolizing, hierarchical religion, kings changed the way in which their society functioned … Just as there could be only one God and one church, there could be only one king.”108 While the principle is sound and if one views the entirety of the medieval period, it certainly makes sense, but only over the long durée, and certainly not for the majority of the period under examination in this volume. Sverre Bagge writes that, in Norway, the Law of Succession was created only in 1163/64 which then solidified the idea of individual (rather than multiple) succession to the throne. And yet, he also notes that the most likely purpose of the Law of Succession of 1163/64 was to guarantee the succession for Magnus

104 Jakobsson, “The Individual and the Ideal: The Representation of Royalty in ‘Morkinskinna’,” 85. For Andersson’s take see Andersson, “The Politics of Snorri Sturluson,” 69–71. 105 Jakobsson, “The Individual and the Ideal: The Representation of Royalty in ‘Morkinskinna’,” 80. A similar pairing appears in Andersson, “The Politics of Snorri Sturluson,” 69–71. 106 “Conflict and Social (Dis)order in Norway, c. 1030–1160,” 49. 107 “Conflict and Social (Dis)order in Norway, c. 1030–1160,” 49. 108 Winroth, The Conversion of Scandinavia, 160.

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Erlingsson, and that, in fact, it started “the most intense phase of the struggles.”109 Looking back on the struggle from the perspective of the middle of the thirteenth century, the author of the Norwegian King’s Mirror blamed multiple rule on the last century of conflict, and yet we can see from the picture here that though there was occasional conflict between the corulers discussed, it was not endemic; certainly not in the way that the next period of Norwegian history (mid-twelfth to mid-thirteenth century) is perceived.110 Returning then to the topic of ecclesiastical involvement: the Law of Succession of 1163/64 makes kingship hereditary but also elective and the bishop is given one vote among many in that election.111 While often marked as the start of ecclesiastical intervention, the bishop was not the only voice, even if ecclesiastical power was harnessed with royal power to en­ hance royal authority.112 Similarly, we do not see ecclesiastical coronation introduced until 1170 in Denmark and 1210 in Sweden – thus anywhere from one-hundred and fifty to two-hundred years passed from the time of Christianization to the reification of ecclesiastical enthronement of royalty, and the seeming solidification of sole rule (and yet see the Danish example in the conclusion). Before that time, it seems clear that in parts of Scandinavia, much as elsewhere in the arc of medieval Europe there were multiple rulers acting together to rule. A period that is known in Norway as notable for its century of internal peace.113 This should add another essential data point to the larger discussion of what is a “king” and what is “kingship” for medieval European rulers. Poland

In the eleventh century, after a series of ups and downs which saw the Polish ruler (a member of a family widely known as Piasts but which I have referred to elsewhere as the Mieszkowice – descendants of the first ruler Mieszko)114 in charge of not just Poland but Bohemia as well, and then lose all of it, only

109 Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 41. 110 Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 166–170. See also Bagge’s study on the “King’s Mirror” itself - Sverre Bagge, The Political Thought of the King’s Mirror (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). Orning notes the same thing, “There is no reason to assume that society in the period c. 1030–1160 was inherently unstable, and progres­ sively more so.” “Conflict and Social (Dis)order in Norway, c. 1030–1160,” 67. 111 Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 166. 112 Bagge, Cross and Scepter, 54, 57. 113 Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 40. 114 Christian Raffensperger, Conflict, Bargaining, and Kinship Networks (Lexington Books, 2018). Robert Bartlett as well notes the modern creation of the dynastic label of “Piast.” Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 381.

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to have control over Poland restored through a series of conquests, Władysław Herman had two sons, from two different mothers, creating an eventual problem of rule.115 Władysław’s first-born son was Zbigniew, born from a concubine, and his second son was Bolesław (later Bolesław III), born with Władysław’s first wife, Judith of Bohemia.116 Though Władysław went on to marry a second time, to another Judith – the sister of the German Emperor Henry IV, he had no more sons.117 The main Polish source for the eleventh century which tells of these events is the Gesta Principum Polonorum (hereafter Gesta) the creation of which has an enormous bearing on the events, as will be discussed.118 Zbigniew, though the elder, was not born in wedlock, which the Gesta privileges, as it was written on behalf of Bolesław III, and thus he is mentioned later in the chronicle and almost immediately in terms of being in rebellion against his father.119 The situation in Poland deserves a bit of context, as while Władysław Herman ruled, there were multiple counts who had their own resources and served under him, one of them was Count Sieciech. Sieciech is described by the Gesta in terms that make clear the fine line that the author was trying to walk – noting the count’s service to the throne but also acknowledging the problems – saying, he “was the count palatine, a wise, noble, and handsome man, but blinded by greed he perpetrated many cruel and intolerable deeds.”120 Sieciech and his behavior are relevant as they provide for the narrative introduction of Zbigniew who is stolen away from the monastery in which he was placed (to be educated perhaps rather than taking holy orders, as it was a female monastery in which his half-sister was abbess), to lead a resistance to Sieciech.121 This campaign, circa 1096, did not end well for Zbigniew, however as Władysław Herman defeated him and

115 This was not the only problem of Władysław’s reign of course. He took over for his brother Bolesław II after he fled. 116 Gesta Principum Polonorum: The Deeds of the Princes of the Poles, transl. and ed. Paul W. Knoll and Frank Schaer (New York: Central European University Press, 2003), 117, 123. 117 For the marriage see Gesta Principum Polonorum, 117. This same series of events is narrated by Björn Weiler with a slightly different focus in his Paths to Kingship in Medieval Latin Europe, c. 950–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 145–149. 118 Though it will be discussed more below, I take much of the argument of Zbigniew Dalewski, “A New Chosen People? Gallus Anonymus’s Narrative about Poland and its Rulers” in Historical Narratives and Christian Identity on a European Periphery: Early History Writing in Northern, East-Central, and Eastern Europe (c. 1070–1200) ed. Ildar H. Garipzanov (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2011), 145–166. One should also note the discussion in Przemysław Wiszewski which differs from that of Dalewski. Domus Bolezlai: Values and Social Identity in Dynastic Traditions of Medieval Poland (c. 966–1138) (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010), 258–301. 119 Gesta Principum Polonorum, 123. 120 Gesta Principum Polonorum, 123. 121 Gesta Principum Polonorum, 123–131.

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imprisoned him, though through the good graces of the “bishops and princes at the consecration of the church of Gniezno” Zbigniew was pardoned.122 It is only a few years later, in 1099, that Władysław made a surprising move and divided the land between both of his sons, Zbigniew and Bolesław.123 Władysław kept some of the core territories, Wrocław, Cracow, and Sandomierz (at least), in his own hands, while giving Greater Poland to Zbigniew and Silesia to Bolesław.124 Thus, by 1099, we see a new situation in Poland in which Władysław Herman, Zbigniew, and Bolesław rule corpo­ rately, though over different territories, with Władysław Herman acting as primus inter pares, and (literally) pater familias. The Gesta, written after the fact and at the behest of Bolesław III, takes time to note immediately after this division that Władysław’s will was that following his own death, Bolesław should have the principal territories held by his father. Further, that if one of them “sides with foreign nations and brings them in to the destruction of the realm, [he] should be deprived of rule and forfeit his right of inheritance.”125 Though a situation of corulership was created, the stage was set (according to the later Gesta) for an eventual consolidation. The three rulers acted corporately for the remaining three years of Władysław’s rule, though the Gesta takes pains to point out Zbigniew’s failings. In 1102 at Władysław’s death, the division of the realm was restated and “each received his portion of the kingdom of Poland that their father had assigned them while alive.”126 We even see the notice of this corulership in Cosmas of Prague’s Chronicle of the Czechs where he notes that they “divided his realm in half between them.”127 The two do not take long to fall out, though, but given the poor source base, we are left only with the Gesta’s recounting which blames Zbigniew for plotting with foreign rulers (the Bohemians and Pomeranians, in this case), against Bolesław.128 The Gesta

122 Gesta Principum Polonorum, 131. 123 Gesta Principum Polonorum, 133. It is important to note as well that he divides military power among them as well. For more commentary on this see Dániel Bagi, Divisio Regni: The Territorial Divisions, Power Struggles, and Dynastic Historiography of the Árpáds of 11th- and early 12th-century Hungary, with Comparative Studies of the Piasts of Poland and the Přemyslids of Bohemia (Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities, 2020), 116. 124 For the division of territory see, Gesta Principum Polonorum, 132n2, 134n1. 125 Gesta Principum Polonorum, 135. 126 Gesta Principum Polonorum, 157. 127 Cosmas of Prague, The Chronicle of the Czechs by Cosmas of Prague, transl. Lisa Wolverton (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), 3.16. 128 This issue is highlighted by Weiler as violating the accord, also mentioned in the Gesta (and above) about siding with foreign nations. The obvious problem is that there is no source taking Zbigniew’s side, and the Gesta was written to aggrandize Bolesław III. Thus, adding a statement about siding with foreign nations when one knows the end result, and taking that out of order as a modern historian presents problems with our analysis.

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account is interesting in that it takes pains to point out that Zbigniew denied any wrongdoing, which of course may have been the case; but also repeat­ edly presents Bolesław as a peacemaker trying to reconcile with his brother, while at the same time lauding him as “warlike Bolesław” and vaunting his “martial exploits.”129 Tadeusz Manteuffel has suggested that, “The older Zbigniew had a calm disposition and preferred to avoid armed conflict … The younger Bolesław was his complete opposite.”130 Which one can just about see when reading between the lines of the Gesta account. This was not the last of their quarrels, and we see them make peace again in 1105 with negotiations and a treaty, though the Gesta suggests that Zbigniew broke it immediately.131 During this period of corulership and intermittent conflict, Bolesław even suggests that Zbigniew, as the elder, should be the senior ruler, though Zbigniew does not reply, again according to the Gesta.132 The enduring conflict between the corulers came to a head circa 1110 when Zbigniew and Bolesław once again arranged for peace between them, though Bolesław betrayed that peace and had his brother blinded; an act which Cosmas of Prague uses as an infamous example to threaten his own Bohemian rulers.133 This act brings to an end the period of corulership of Zbigniew and Bolesław, but does create the pretext for the writing of the Gesta, as “This bloody deed met with a negative reaction in public opinion, and Bolesław was forced to undergo a humiliating public penance.”134 Zbigniew Dalewski ar­ gues that confronting this public opinion was the rationale for the writing of the Gesta, that it was used as a way to expiate Bolesław’s sin, and provide the rationale for him as the rightful ruler.135 Bolesław III ruled for another nearly thirty years after assuming sole rule over Poland. In that time, he married twice, having male heirs with both wives, and creating the grounds for another division of the realm upon his death in 1138.136

129 Gesta Principum Polonorum, 161–163. 130 Tadeusz Manteuffel, The Formation of the Polish State: The Period of Ducal Rule, 963–1194 transl. Andrew Gorski (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1982), 105. 131 Gesta Principum Polonorum, 175; Manteuffel, The Formation of the Polish State, 106. 132 Gesta Principum Polonorum, 185–187, see also 186n1. Though Bagi suggests that what Gallus was describing here was property not rule. Bagi, Divisio Regni, 85. 133 Gesta Principum Polonorum, 271–275. The blinding is explicitly mentioned in Cosmas of Prague, 3.34. 134 Dalewski, “A New Chosen People?” 145. 135 Dalewski, “A New Chosen People?” 145–146. Dalewski further suggests, convincingly I believe, that in the Gesta “Poland’s history becomes inextricably linked to the histories of the members of the princely dynasty, and the Piast dukes are portrayed as the sole rightful rulers - the true ‘natural lords’ summoned by God to wield power over Poland, whose rule guarantees the well-being of Poland and the Poles.” 136 The historiography relating to this division is covered in some depth by Bagi, in particular in relation to other divisions of the Polish realm, some of which are mentioned here. Divisio Regni, 51–54.

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At that time, the Chronica Polonorum records that Bolesław had five sons and he divided the realm between them, the eldest (Władysław II) received Silesia and Cracow, but he was also honored as the eldest and holding sway over his brothers.137 Here we see the creation of another situation of corule in which four of the five brothers (the youngest, Casimir, received nothing and may have been born after Bolesław III’s death), receive land to rule on their own, but under the guidance of their eldest brother who was to act as primus inter pares. Bruce Boswell suggests that Bolesław’s division of the land was grounded in his own struggles with his brother, creating an acknowledgement of corulership in Poland.138 Further, Bolesław III “framed an elaborate system of division which admitted the right of every male child to a share in Polish territory. … These provinces were to be hereditary principalities in which their rulers were to possess full sovereign power. But the eldest of the princes was to be supreme ruler under a new system called the Seniorate.”139 In many ways this system replicates that created by Władysław Herman for the initial division of land between him and his sons at the end of the eleventh century. At that time, each of the sons received land for themselves, but Władysław Herman kept crucial, economically and politically relevant, territories for himself to cement his rule as first among equals. The same seems to have happened with Bolesław III’s division of terri­ tory, and for similar reasons. In regard to the purposes of this chapter, we can see the continuum of corulership in Poland over many years, with an interregnum of sole rule. The corulership of Władysław II and his half-siblings ended up being a complicated one. At the root of the complication, most likely, is the fact that Władysław was the only son of Sbyslava Sviatopolkovna, while the other sons of Bolesław III were all by Salomea of Berg who survived her husband and shepherded her sons, their marriages, and their rule.140 The corulership of the brothers lasted peacefully for about four years, though it seems that they were jockeying for position during this time.141 Manteuffel suggests that Salomea of Berg was plotting against Władysław, but also that Agnieszka, Władysław’s wife, was encouraging him to consolidate his rule, rather than share it.142 While

137 “Chronica Polonorum.” in Monumenta Poloniae Historica. Tom 3. ed. Ludwik Čwik­ liński, 578–656. (Lwów: W Komisie księgarni gubrynowicza I schmidta, 1878), 629–630. 138 A. Bruce Boswell, “The Twelfth Century: from Growth to Division, 1079–1202,” in The Cambridge History of Poland: From the Origins to Sobieski (to 1696), ed. W. F. Reddaway, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950): 50. 139 Boswell, “The Twelfth Century: from Growth to Division, 1079–1202,” 50. 140 For Sbyslava and Bolesław’s marriage see Christian Raffensperger, Ties of Kinship: Genealogy and Dynastic Marriage in Kyivan Rus’ (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2016), 87–89. For Salomea’s involvement in her sons’ affairs see Raffensperger, Conflict, Bargaining, and Kinship Networks, 113–120. 141 Raffensperger, Conflict, Bargaining, and Kinship Networks, 113–117. 142 Manteuffel, The Formation of the Polish State, 119–121.

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one can document Salomea’s arrangement of alliances on behalf of her sons, it is more difficult to validate Manteuffel’s claim that Agnieszka wanted her hus­ band to be the sole ruler. In this regard, it is relevant that Agnieszka was the sister of the German Emperor Conrad, elected in 1138, and was thus sister to a host of major players in German politics.143 Thus, it might be possible to argue that she came from a history of sole ruler, though that is not entirely the case. The conflict between Władysław and his brothers began in 1142, and Darius von Güttner-Sporzyński has suggested that “Władysław began the war in response to the unilateral actions of his stepmother, Salome of Berg, who as the mother of the Piast Juniors held the leadership of a powerful faction.”144 Władysław was not successful in whatever his aim may have been, however, as the Polish nobles united around Salomea and the younger Piasts (“Piast Juniors” in Güttner-Sporzyński’s terminology). Both Manteuffel and GüttnerSporzyński cite the nobility’s lack of interest in a strong monarch as the main rationale for their opposition to Władysław.145 This idea, if true and it does seem probable, leads us back to Luscombe’s proposition advanced at the beginning of this chapter that, “Strong centralising monarchs … were viewed by many as subversive tyrants.”146 The nobles preferred a situation in which there were multiple corulers, as suggested by Orning, rather than a world in which one powerful ruler dominated the kingdom and could do as he wished.147 Despite Władysław’s loss in this conflict, the situation maintained an equilibrium and the brothers continued as corulers. The conflict began once more in 1144, upon Salomea’s death, when Władysław attempted to take the land that Salomea had held as the widow of Bolesław III. That land was designed to escheat back to him following her death; instead, she passed it on to her sons, perhaps in a deliberate casus belli.148 Władysław gathered allies for his attack, as did his brothers, and they engaged in conflict, eventually meeting in 1145 for a peace gathering at which a papal legate participated. The younger brothers agreed to cede some, but not all, of Salomea’s territory to Władysław, which Manteuffel

143 The list includes: “Frederick II of Swabia, Conrad III, Cunigunda and her husband Henry X of Bavaria, Gertrude and her husband Herman III Count Palatine of the Rhine, Leopold IV, Henry II of Austria, Otto of Freising, and second Gertrude and her husband Vladislav II of Bohemia, and others.” Raffensperger, Conflict, Bargaining, and Kinship Networks, 132n30. 144 Darius von Güttner-Sporzyński, Poland, Holy War, and the Piast Monarchy, 1100–1230 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2014), 111. 145 Güttner-Sporzyński, Poland, Holy War, and the Piast Monarchy, 111; Manteuffel, The Formation of the Polish State, 122. 146 Luscombe, “Introduction: The Formation of Political Thought in the West,” 158. 147 “Conflict and Social (Dis)order in Norway, c. 1030–1160.” 148 Andrzej Jureczko, Testament Krzywoustego (Cracow: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1988), 15.

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suggests simply created the premise for additional conflict, which broke out in 1146.149 At that time, Władysław was undermined by his use of pagan forces which caused Archbishop Jakub to declare him anathema. Władysław was defeated because of that and was forced to flee to his wife’s German relatives.150 Though 1146 marks the end of Władysław’s participation in this corulership situation with his brothers, it does not mark the end of cor­ ulership in Poland. Following Władysław’s expulsion, Bolesław IV, the eldest of the “Piast Juniors” took over as the primus inter pares and began to rule the core territories, with his brothers ruling their own territories in Poland, subordinate to him. In fact, even after Bolesław IV’s death, the throne passed to the next eldest brother and the trend continued with Mieszko III.151 Corulership continued until the reunification of the Polish territories much later.152 Corulership – Single Land or Kingdom

As a codicil to this discussion of multiple instances of corulership in the arc of medieval Europe, it is worth noting an interesting phenomenon in con­ temporary medieval sources. Even with the corulership noted above, many of these kingdoms are still spoken of as a unity – “the kingdom of …” rather than “kingdoms” or even further down the political spectrum – “principalities.” This is true for France where there was a rex Frankorum during the time of the Capetians whose titulature indicated that he ruled over all of the Franks, though that was not quite the case. Janet Nelson’s evocation of this for an earlier period, under the Carolingians is still striking – “There were many regna and several kings, but only one regnum Francorum.”153 Though decentralized, these polities were still recognized as the kingdom of the Franks, or whomever, by medieval writers. This is not always the case in modern historiography, but only for parts of Europe. France, for example, is always “France” or “the

149 Manteuffel, The Formation of the Polish State, 122–123. 150 Jureczko, Testament Krzywoustego, 15; Manteuffel, The Formation of the Polish State, 124–125; Güttner-Sporzyński, Poland, Holy War, and the Piast Monarchy, 115, 119. Eventually, in 1163, Władysław and Agnieszka’s sons will return to Poland and rule in Silesia (one of their father’s territories) as corulers under Bolesław IV. Jerzy Wyrozumski, “Poland in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries” in The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 4: c.1024–c. 1198 Part 2 ed. David Luscombe and Jonathan Riley-Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004): 286. 151 Wyrozumski, “Poland in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” 286. 152 For the reunification of Poland see, Paul W. Knoll, The Rise of the Polish Monarchy Piast Poland in East Central Europe, 1320–1370 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972). 153 Janet Nelson, “Kingship and Empire,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c. 350–1450, ed. J. H. Burns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988): 233.

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kingdom of France” and the nuances are left to specialist scholarship. In the arc of medieval Europe, there is much more attention to pointing out the decentralization, even in, or especially in, the broadest scholarship. The first case will be the polity of Rus which I have argued was a kingdom, and its structure of titulature was discussed earlier in the book (Chapter 1).154 Rus had numerous constituent units, the rulers of which all bore the same title of kniaz’. The ruler in Kyiv was the pater familias of the entire Volodimerovichi clan and exercised supremacy throughout the territory ruled by that clan, as can be seen through his placement of various subordinate rulers, command over those rulers during times of war, tribute remittances, etc. These factors are a big part of why I made the argument that he should be called a king, in keeping with broader medieval trends that those are functions of a king. Another main factor was that the ruler of Kyiv was called a “rex” in medieval Latin texts.155 Thietmar of Merseburg in the early eleventh century calls Volodimer Sviatoslavich a rex repeatedly in his Chronica.156 Volodimer was the ruler of Kyiv at the time, as well as the Christianizer of Rus and the literal pater familias of the Volodimerovichi clan, thus it perhaps makes sense that he was viewed as a king. Lambert of Hersefeld records in 1075 a “king of the Rusians.”157 The ruler in 1075 was Sviatoslav Iaroslavich, a grandson of Volodimer Sviatoslavich and the second son of Iaroslav Volodimerich to hold the throne. Sviatoslav’s rule was contested as he was a usurper who had kicked his brother Iziaslav off the throne. Iziaslav traveled to Poland and the German Empire with his family seeking aid, and his son traveled to Rome to visit Pope Gregory VII. Annalista Saxo, writing in the mid-twelfth century used the title of rex often for Rusian rulers based in Kyiv, though typically in relation to their daughters. He records Casimir, the Polish ruler, marrying a daughter of the Rusian king in 1039, though this woman was the daughter of Volodimer and so we have the same issue as before about the particular place of Volodimer in the realm of Rusian rulers.158 However, Annalista Saxo continues through the century, spending particular time on Henry IV, and thus adding several mentions of his Rusian wife Evpraksia, who is

154 Christian Raffensperger, The Kingdom of Rus’ (Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2017). 155 Beyond Kingdom of Rus’ see, A. V. Soloviev, “‘Reges’ et ‘Regnum Russiae’ au Moyen Âge” Byzantion 36 (1966): 144–173. 156 Thietmar of Merseburg. Chronica Ed. J. M. Lappenberg, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores. Volume III (Hannover: Impensis Bibliopolii Aulici Hahniani, 1839) [reprinted Leipzig: Verlag Karl W. Hiersemann, 1925], Bk. VI, ch. 37, Bk. VII, chs. 48, 52, Bk. VIII, ch. 16. 157 “Lamberti Hersfeldensis Annales.” Ed. V. Cl. Lud. Frid. Hasse, Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores V (Hannover: Impensis Bibliopolii Avlici Hahniani, 1844), s.a. 1075 158 Annalista Saxo. Published by D. G. Waitz and P. Killon. Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores 6: 542–777. Hannover: Impensis Bibliopolii Avlici Hahniani, 1844), s.a. 1039.

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the “daughter of the Rusian king.”159 By this time the Rusian ruler in Kyiv was Vsevolod Iaroslavich, a grandson of Volodimer Sviatoslavich, and the youngest, last living, son of Iaroslav Volodimerich. Though brief, what we see here is that in the eleventh century, the ruler of Kyiv was referred to as the king of the Rusians in Latin sources, creating an idea of unity and centralization in the primary sources that is absent from the secondary literature. Work by modern scholars has taken a very different line on the medieval polity of Rus. To take just a couple of choice examples, in his textbook A History of Russia which has been reprinted and reissued numerous times, Nicholas Riasanovsky said, “The reigns of Iziaslav, Sviatoslav, and Vsevolod, the last of whom died in 1093, as well as that of Iziaslav’s son Sviatopolk, who succeeded Vsevolod and ruled until his death in 1113, present a frightening record of virtually constant civil wars.”160 This period is inclusive of the reigns of two of the rulers who were referred to as “king of the Rusians” in Latin sources from the period, Sviatoslav and Vsevolod, seen above. A more recent modern source, Russia’s Empires, by a pair of es­ teemed early modern and modern scholars, goes even further in diminishing Rus noting that “Rus was not at first a unified polity but a mafia-like net­ work of merchants and warlords” and later that, “Early Rus was a nonterritorial, quite mobile system of tribute-collection and constant warfare based on gift-giving, pillage, and a certain degree of dynastic charisma.”161 Neither of these statements is in any way a positive vision of the kingdom of Rus! The latter of which is particularly evocative for us because it can be used to describe a wide variety of medieval European polities and yet the specific description of not having a capital and having itinerant rulership is used as a way to demean Rus and make it seem less than its peers in medieval Europe. A key problem with these perceptions of the medieval past is that they are seen through an early modern and modern lens. The authors of Russia’s Empire begin with a definition of empire and kingship, referring back to Weber, and cited to a book dealing with Spain, Britain, and France from 1500–1800.162 If we expect the medieval past to be like the present, or even like the early modern world, we will be disappointed. Instead, we should be using medieval sources to discuss the medieval past and

159 Annalista Saxo¸s.a. 1082, 1089. There are numerous Latin sources dealing with this marriage, for another example of the same title for Evpraksia see Annales Augustani. Published by George Pertz. Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores 3: 123–136. Hannover: Impensis Bibliopolii Avlici Hahniani, 1839), s.a. 1089. 160 Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, A History of Russia 5th Edition (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 39. 161 Valerie A. Kivelson and Ronald Grigor Suny, Russia’s Empires (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 17, 22. 162 Kivelson and Suny, Russia’s Empires, 1–2, 2n2.

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formulating frameworks from that. In this way, we can see that Rus was a kingdom ruled by a king, according to medieval sources, despite what modern scholars have tried to say. The second example is the polity of Poland, which has a complicated medieval history in terms of whether it is a kingdom or duchy, singular or plural.163 Titulature, for the moment, aside, medieval Poland was ruled by a clan descended from Mieszko, and typically known by the early modern dynastic label of Piasts. Mieszko’s kin group ruled the realm as a whole, though there is a debate here about the spread of that rule, its corporate character, etc.164 We have discussed this in more length above and will use that as the groundwork here. For this example, the focus will be on the period after the death of Bolesław III in 1138, the time often known as the Seniorate. Güttner-Sporzyński talks about por­ tions of this period as “civil war” reminiscent of what we saw in the scholarship on Rus, and that this time was a victory for proponents of decentralization.165 Bartlett explicitly compares Poland in this period to Rus and refers to the multiple Polish duchies and partible inheritance.166 Despite this picture of a multiplicity of rulers, contemporary sources still referred to Poland as a singular entity. In his overview of rulership in East Central Europe, Dušan Zupka notes that during this period, even when there were multiple rulers, “in foreign sources the idea of a regnum/principium Polonie persisted.”167 This por­ trayal of a united realm or united land, despite the corporate rule of the period is evident in sources from numerous locations. For instance, the midthirteenth century Master Roger, writing about the Mongol invasion of central Europe, noted multiple times that “Poland” was a target, even while acknowledging that there were multiple “dukes” of that same realm.168 The

163 The most recent overview of this is in Florin Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages (500-1300), volume 1 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019), 341–362. 164 Zbigniew Dalewski discusses this in more detail in “The Piast Rulership,” in Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe: Power, Rituals and Legitimacy in Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, ed. Grischa Vercamer and Dušan Zupka (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022): 111–132. 165 Poland, Holy War, and the Piast Monarchy, 1100–1230 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2014), 109–111. 166 Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 204. 167 Dušan Zupka, “Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe” in Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe: Power, Rituals and Legitimacy in Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, ed. Grischa Vercamer and Dušan Zupka (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022): 18. I am grateful to Dušan for his help with this material. 168 Master Roger, Epistle to the Sorrowful Lament upon the destruction of the Kingdom of Hungary by the Tatars, ed. and transl. János M. Bak and Martyn Rady (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2010), ch. 20, 32, 37.

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so-called second continuator of Cosmas of Prague does the exact same when discussing the flight of Władysław to the German Empire.169 He flees from “Poland,” Emperor Frederick makes plans to invade “Poland” on his behalf, but later in the same entry, Władysław’s opponents are listed in the plural as Polish rulers. The chronicler, like Master Roger, thought, or wrote, of Poland as a singular entity while acknowledging the multiple rulers present within that realm. The same Władysław is referenced in the chronicle of Canon Vincent of Prague who follows the path of the continuator of Cosmas, noting the flight of Władysław from Poland, a German Emperor’s invasion of Poland, but the Poles as a plural in coming to terms after the invasion.170 These instances can be expanded with one from Croatia, incorporated by this time into the kingdom of Hungary, where we see Archdeacon Thomas of Split also refers to Poland in the singular while discussing the period of the mid-thirteenth century, the time focused upon by Master Roger.171 Though briefly noted, given the time already spent on Poland in this chapter, these examples from a variety of locales in Europe demonstrate clearly the idea that though this area was ruled by members of the Piast family, it was still viewed as a unitary “Poland” in the primary sources. This, despite political fragmentation highlighted in the secondary sources describing the region at this same time. The two polities under discussion here are both often labeled as de­ centralizing and not fitting the model of medieval Europe. Bartlett groups them together to talk about the problems with partible inheritance and division, implicitly contrasting them with centralizing models in the west, and looping the “German mini-states” into the picture as well.172 If we can set modern conceptions of what rule should look like aside, medieval au­ thors did not seem to see these two polities in the same way that modern authors have. They tended to refer to a ruler or the land, in its entirety, even when we see a multiplicity. The existence of this disconnect should, on its own, encourage us to think more about how we conceive of the past and what models we are, consciously or unconsciously, putting on it, which might not exist in situ.

169 “Druhé pokračování Kosmovy kroniky,” in Pokračovatele Kosmovi, ed. M. Bláhová (Praha: Svoboda Praha, 1974): 81. 170 “Milevský opis díla pražského kanovníka Vincencia,” in Milevský letopis: Zápisky Vincencia, Jarlocha a Ansberta, ed. M. Moravová (Praha: Argo, 2013): 40. 171 Archdeacon Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops of Salona and Split, ed. Transl. Damir Karbić, Mirjana Matijević Sokol, and James Ross Sweeney (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2006), ch. 36 (p. 257). 172 Much to the chagrin of Joseph Huffman, quoted in chapter 6, I am sure. Joseph P. Huffman, The Social Politics of Medieval Diplomacy: Anglo-German Relations (1066–1307) (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2000).

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The Arc of Medieval Europe

As one can see, there are multiple instances of corulership in the polities discussed here, and yet this merely scratches the surface of studies of cor­ ulership. Without going into much detail, I wish to briefly highlight some of the additional examples of corulership throughout medieval Europe, many of which have been well represented already in the scholarly literature, to demonstrate the breadth of this phenomenon. Staying in the arc of medieval Europe, we can see additional examples even in Scandinavia which also contribute to the larger points under dis­ cussion. For instance, in 1170, Valdemar I of Denmark (1157–1182) made his son, Knud co-regent with him as a way to help ensure his succession. Saxo Grammaticus, putting words in Valdemar’s mouth, says that, “sharing the sovereign power with one of his own blood constituted not a loss of privilege, but an enrichment to his reputation.”173 Which provides a fasci­ nating statement on rulership, akin to what we have seen in practice else­ where. Jenny Benham notes this incidence of corulership as copying “Capetian practice.”174 As was discussed earlier, the default fallback to the Capetians as the initiators of corulership is inadequate and unlikely but accepted given the common western European focus of medieval studies. With the examples of multiple rule seen here, and on multiple sides of Denmark, it is not unlikely that there were other possibilities for Valdemar’s model. In fact, Valdemar was also connected to another kingdom in the arc of medieval Europe – Rus. The name Valdemar is, as can be seen easily, a metathesis of the Rusian name Volodimer (often rendered Vladimir). Valdemar’s mother was Ingeborg, a Rusian princess and the granddaughter of Volodimer Monomakh, a king of Rus at the end of the eleventh cen­ tury.175 Apart from the name of her grandfather, it is possible that Ingeborg gave her son much more from Rus, including knowledge about rulership there. Rule there was maintained by the Volodimerovichi clan as a whole, with the king in Kyiv, but other members of the family ruling as subordinates throughout Rus. Those rulers acted corporately for the good of the clan as a whole, including banding together to fight against invaders; as well as acting individually against one another for the good of their families by engaging in

173 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum: The History of the Danes, vol. 2, ed. Karsten FriisJensen, transl. Peter Fisher (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2015), xiv.33.1. This is in reference to Knud’s acclamation as coruler, which probably took place in 1165, prior to his coro­ nation in 1170. 1244n239. 174 Jenny Benham, Peacemaking in the Middle Ages: Principles and Practice (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010), 7. 175 Raffensperger, Ties of Kinship, 114–118.

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conflict with one another. Within the Volodimerovichi we see similar ex­ amples of fathers associating their sons with their rule, including Vsevolod Iaroslavich bringing in his son Volodimer Monomakh to help him rule as he was dying; and Volodimer Monomakh calling on his own son Mstislav (Ingeborg’s father) to do the same. Continuing along the lines of the anticipatory association of corulers, Márta Font has pointed out that such a practice was quite common in Hungary; with examples including Salomon in 1058, Stephen II in 1112, and Ladislas III 1204.176 Whether such a process could be accounted for through influence from the medieval Roman Empire, or simply internal practice is unknown and, really, unknowable. Though, Font does suggest that despite primogeniture being tried, it did not manage to catch hold until the end of the twelfth century, and then certainly in the thirteenth century. Before that time, there were often brothers who ruled in a system she described as Seniorate, as we saw in Poland, though it also could be described by our catch-all term of corule.177 One of the places where studies of corulership have advanced the most is in Iberia. As noted at the beginning of the chapter, Earenfight began this process by talking about collective monarchy in which women as queens were instrumental in late medieval Iberian governance. This has been con­ tinued by others such as Miriam Shadis and Lucy Pick who have demon­ strated the immense power that women held during the rule of not just their husbands, but also their fathers and sons.178 The image presented by these scholars is one in which corulership is not restricted to a pair of king and queen, but that rulership is a family endeavor and the networks of women (typically all termed “queens” – see Titulature chapter) participate in aiding the ruling king, be he father, brother, or son, in addition to supporting one another. The model which has been ably demonstrated for Iberia has, unfortunately, not received wider comparative work and has been seen as the province of the peninsula rather than indicative of larger trends in medieval Europe.

176 Márta Font, “The Rulership of the Árpádian Dynasty in the 10th-13th Centuries,” in Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe: Power, Rituals and Legitimacy in Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, ed. Grischa Vercamer and Dušan Zupka (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022): 96. 177 Font, “The Rulership of the Árpádian Dynasty in the 10th-13th Centuries,” 85–86. 178 Miriam Shadis, Berenguela of Castile (1180–1246) and Political Women in the High Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave, 2009); Pick, Her Father’s Daughter. See also the work of Jitske Jasperse (cited earlier) who has written about corulership in a variety of places. Jasperse, Medieval Women, Material Culture, and Power; Jitske Jasperse, “Matilda, Leonor and Joanna: the Plantagenet sisters and the display of dynastic connections through material culture” Journal of Medieval History 43:5 (2017): 523–547.

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Conclusion

The increasing popularity of the genre of “mirror of princes” is reflected in the arc of medieval Europe via the thirteenth-century King’s Mirror from Norway which presented an image of Christian rule in which the king was God’s regent on earth.179 The king ruled over a hierarchical society, much as the pope ruled over Christendom, and God gave him immense power to provide service, especially justice.180 This image, while certainly fine and accurate for this genre of literature is not at all accurate for the portrayal of rulers we have seen in this chapter (and in the book as a whole). Yet, I would suggest that it has pervaded our modern sense of what a king is, and we have read that thirteenth-century idea, unintentionally, back into the eleventh and twelfth centuries as well. Sverre Bagge, liberally used in this chapter for his immense body of work on Scandinavian rulership, published a close reading of Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla which demonstrated that when it came to kingship, Snorri did not follow any of those trends from The King’s Mirror, despite writing at the same time.181 Snorri does not view the Norwegian king as a representative of God, nor does he view him as the head of a hierarchical state, instead he seems to see him as almost a primus inter pares among the Norwegian elite.182 Most importantly for the argument in this chapter, Snorri also does not follow the thirteenth-century idea that one person per generation has the inherent power of rule. He emphasizes the importance of royal blood for good rulership, but seems to be explicit that its special properties are inherent in “all the king’s descendants, not only to one heir.”183 Which, I would suggest, returns us once again (as we have seen in other chapters) to a break in the thirteenth century where perceptions of rulership shift, often very dramatically.184 Snorri and the Norwegian King’s Mirror are emblematic of this change, writing at similar times in a similar milieu but presenting very different pictures of rule. For our purposes, the

179 Björn Weiler briefly mentions the growth of the genre in the thirteenth century, and their reference to recent history to demonstrate their ideals. Björn Weiler, “Describing Rituals of Succession and the Legitimation of Kingship in the West, ca. 1000-ca. 1150” in Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval Mediterranean: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Alexander Daniel Beihammer (Leiden: Brill, 2013): 138. 180 For a critical analysis of this text, relevant to this topic, see Bagge, The Political Thought of the King’s Mirror. 181 Bagge, Society and Politics in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla. 182 Bagge, Society and Politics in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla, 129, 135. 183 Bagge, Society and Politics in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla, 130. 184 Hans Jacob Orning and Bjørn Poulsen discuss a similar shift in relations between rulers and elites in this period as well. “Holding Royal Office and the Creation of the Elites in Scandinavia, c. 1050–1250” in Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050–1250, Volume 1: Material Resources, ed. Bjørn Poulsen, Helle Vogt, and Jón Viðar Sigurðsson (New York and London: Routledge, 2019): 212–247.

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picture which Snorri presents fits the image of the eleventh and twelfth centuries that we have seen played out in this chapter – a world in which rulership is not God-given, nor restricted to one individual, but shared, typically by blood, amongst a group of eligible individuals. Taking this idea of corulers as normative allows us to shift our conver­ sation about medieval rulership. This conversation has for generations been almost entirely about kings, and only in recent years have queens made their way into the discussion as partners of the king. Now, perhaps we can note a multiplicity of rulers participating in the governance of their realm, all sharing royal blood and acting corporately, even if sometimes adversarially to rule over their realm.185 Shifting this conversation is important, I would argue, because when the king as ruler is the normative model, areas that do not have a king as ruler are seen as abnormal and something needs to be done to either explain away that abnormality or the area faces its othering. Medieval Ireland with its many kings had to have a hierarchical system imposed upon it (beginning in the seventeenth century), as a way to impose a structure that made sense to moderns and fit with the prevailing idea of monarchy.186 The kingdom of Rus has received similar treatment, being viewed as “other” because of its multiplicity of rulers. Over the years advancing the proposition that a Rusian ruler (kniaz’) was really a king, I received pushback from both medievalists and Russianists who were unwilling to accept multiple rulers as being included in the definition of king.187 All of this is why it is so important to look at the ways that medieval rulers actually did share power to remove the mysticism, and chronologically later ideal, of sole kingship. Allowing for multiple corulers in any one kingdom, which Janet Nelson acknowledged was true even among the Franks – “There were many regna and several kings, but only one regnum Francorum”188 – will also require us to change our connotation of “king” from monarch back to its original meaning of “ruler” without an indication, overt or otherwise, that that ruler was all alone.

185 Dániel Bagi, in looking at Árpád, Piast, and Přemyslid rulers, has noted that “these ter­ ritorial divisions [what I have referred to as co-rulership – CR] were the product of dynastic conflicts, and though they were generally implemented with the intention of precluding additional strife, perhaps paradoxically, they themselves became a source of further discord.” While this was not always the case, it often could be, as seen in some of the examples given here. Divisio Regni, 76. 186 Byrne, Irish Kings and High-Kings, 41. 187 The argument for a kniaz’ as king is made in Raffenperger, The Kingdom of Rus’. 188 Janet Nelson, “Kingship and Empire,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c. 350–1450, ed. J. H. Burns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988): 233.

3 UNDERSTANDING SUCCESSION

The model of succession that, I would suggest, the majority of people in the Anglo-American world hold in their heads is one based on the British royal family – the most prominent of the European royal families. However, like so many things, taking a modern example and reading it back into the medieval past can cause us numerous problems. Figure 3.1 shows an abbreviated genealogy demonstrating succession to the British throne.1 The chart here demonstrates several things about the British royal family that we can use as a starting point for a discussion of medieval succession. First, we see here a principle of lineal succession. As we saw in 2022, the throne passed to Charles as Elizabeth’s first-born son, making him King Charles. The succession then continues in a lineal fashion from Charles to his own first-born son, William, and thence to William’s first-born son George, before passing to anyone else. We can also see on this chart the principle of female inheritance, where Charlotte is third in line for the throne, before her younger brother Louis, and similarly, other women are in the line of suc­ cession. However, Anne, Princess Royal, is King Charles III’s next youngest sibling and yet she is in the line of succession only after her younger brothers Andrew and Edward, and their children, inclusive of women. Perhaps most importantly, what this chart shows us is that there is a system of succession that is laid out quite clearly and in much detail. The origins of the legal processes regulating the succession date to the seventeenth century and there are multiple acts of Parliament that regulate the succession process. The most

1 The information behind this chart was derived from https://www.royal.uk/succession (accessed 12/7/2022). DOI: 10.4324/9781003388296-5

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FIGURE 3.1 British Royal Succession, abbreviated.

recent of those was the Succession to the Crown Act of 2013 that ended male primogeniture and is thus responsible for Charlotte being third in line for the throne, though Anne is still only sixteenth as the Act was not retroactive.2 This kind of legal process is a modern one, perhaps even the exemplar of modern regulation of what was once a relationship among family and dealing often with family dynamics. Yet, this legalistic understanding has inspired scholars to attempt to understand medieval succession by finding similar principles and procedures that would regulate eleventh-century processes in the same way that twenty-first-century processes are regulated. One of the key problems with such regulation is the privileging in the medievalist mind of lineal succession, and perhaps secondarily of primo­ geniture. Björn Weiler summarizes the problem well in his Paths to Kingship: For instance, patrilineal succession, the practice of an eldest son following his father onto the throne, is still considered to be the standard mode of passing the crown from one generation to the next. Any deviation is taken to indicate a crisis or at least denote something out of the ordinary. Yet during the eleventh and twelfth centuries it occurred in only 54 out of roughly 160 successions - a third of the total. Father-son succession might have been normative, but it most certainly was not the norm.3 Weiler’s work is expressly on Latin Europe, but we can see similar situ­ ations in regard to the rest of medieval Europe as well. For the medieval Roman Empire, Judith Herrin has noted that “The emperor’s position was an office, not a bloodline, despite many attempts of emperors to keep the succession in their family.”4 This is a theme that Anthony Kaldellis has

2 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/20/contents/enacted (accessed 3/17/2021). 3 Björn Weiler, Paths to Kingship in Medieval Latin Europe, c. 950–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 117–118. 4 “Byzantium: Imperial Order, Constantinopolitan Ceremonial and Pyramids of Power” in Political Culture in the Latin West, Byzantium and the Islamic World, c. 700–c. 1500: A Framework for Comparing Three Spheres, ed. Catherine Holmes, Jonathan Shepard, Jo van Steenbergen, and Björn Weiler (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2021), 292.

Understanding Succession 99

written a great deal about, urging scholars to accept the medieval authors at their word about the “republic” that “Romanía” really was in the medieval period, and getting away from a focus on monarchy.5 Why, if these authors are correct and lineal succession and primogeniture are not normative, have we constructed the medieval European world in this way? Weiler can also help answer this question with his observation that, there is “a kind of historiographical commonplace, [in which] high medieval European is often equated with Capetian kingship.”6 The Capetians are unlike the examples mentioned here and progressed from father to son “where an unbroken (though not always uncontested) line of sons followed their fathers between 987 and 1328.”7 As has been noted already in this book, the reading of English or French models as exemplary for all of medieval Europe is com­ monplace, still, and it needs to be challenged to demonstrate the multiplicity of models available, rather than one normative and all others abnormal. Another problem that has bedeviled studies of succession is that those places which have been considered abnormal have often undertaken more indepth studies of succession, as a result creating a more complicated (though realistic) picture. For instance, Irish kingship studies have a thriving dis­ cussion of models of succession. Donnchadh Ó Corráin is the dean of this field in its modern incarnation and his half-century old “Irish Regnal Succession: A Reappraisal” is still required reading for attempting to understand the processes by which rulers passed on power.8 Ó Corráin aside, there have been multiple more recent works on kingship that bring succes­ sion into the discussion, as well as (of course) summative works that also contain information and theories about the way that power changed hands among the many Irish rulers.9 While all of this work is innately fascinating,

5 Anthony Kaldellis, The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in New Rome (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015). For instance, “Byzantium was in fact the continu­ ation of the Roman res publica; and its politics, despite changes in institutions, continued to be dominated by the ideological modes and orders of the republican tradition.” (at xii) 6 Björn Weiler, “Crown-Giving and King-Making in the West, ca. 1000-ca.1250” Viator 41:1 (2010), 85. 7 Weiler, Paths to Kingship, 135. 8 Donnchadh Ó Corráin, “Irish Regnal Succession: A Reappraisal” Studia Hibernica 11 (1971): 7–39. This study will be drawn on extensively in the discussion of Irish succession below, for instance. 9 Charles Doherty, “Kingship in Early Ireland” in The Kingship and Landscape of Tara, Ed. Edel Bhreathnach (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005), 1–31; Francis John Byrne, Irish Kings and High-Kings (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1973 [2001 - 2nd edition]); Bart Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000); Clare Downham, Medieval Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018); Katharine Simms, “Changing pat­ terns of regnal succession in later medieval Ireland,” in Making and Breaking the Rules: Succession in Medieval Europe, c. 1000–1600, ed. Frédérique Lachaud and Michael Penman (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2008): 161–172.

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one reads it only if one is interested in understanding succession in that particular area, at that particular time. A specialist on eleventh-century France would be unlikely to look at any of the literature cited about Irish succession, and why would they? Yet, by not doing so, their image of suc­ cession is limited to what is going on in France, and perhaps England, maybe even the German Empire, but not the whole of medieval Europe. Thus, a more comparative study is called for that introduces succession practices more broadly by way of beginning a discussion about how succession operated throughout medieval Europe – beginning in its arc.10 A third potential problem is the construct of ruling families as dynasties. Donald Ostrowski has written a persuasive article arguing that the ruling dynasty of Rus – typically referred to as the Riurikids – is actually a sixteenth-century construct, for sixteenth-century purposes; and that scholars have taken that construct and applied it back in time.11 This last part would not be surprising at all given what we have seen in regard to titulature, in an earlier chapter.12 Ostrowski begins his argument quite simply noting two discordant things. First, “One of the givens of early Rus’ history is that the Riurikid dynasty ruled Rus’.”13 While second, “the pri­ mary sources before the fifteenth century seem to be completely unaware of or, at the very least, unconcerned that Riurik [founded such a dynasty].”14 This is incredibly important to understand, not only for Rus, but as a model for how we analyze medieval sources and separate out what happened, or what the medieval sources record happened, versus the interpretations put on those activities by later scholars. In a similar way, Robert Bartlett offhandedly challenges our modern dynastic labels for western dynasties, even while prizing that term, such as his brief comment that the Capetians were not known as such in the medieval period. Further, “the royal and imperial dynasties of the Middle Ages did not identify themselves through a surname or any general collective appellation.”15 Bartlett hits on the crux of the issue between ruling families and dynasties. A dynasty has a label, Riurikid, Capetian, and so on, who were identified as such and who claimed rule over

10 It is well worth acknowledging, even though both works have been cited already, that Bjorn Weiler and Robert Bartlett have addressed succession as well in their recent works (Paths to Kingship and Blood Royal respectively). Though their work is good, I believe there is still room for more work to be done on the subject. 11 Donald Ostrowski, “Was there a Riurikid Dynasty in Early Rus’?” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 52 (2018): 30–49. 12 Similarly, see Christian Raffensperger, The Kingdom of Rus’ (Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2017). 13 Ostrowski, “Was there a Riurikid Dynasty in Early Rus’?” 30. 14 Ostrowski, “Was there a Riurikid Dynasty in Early Rus’?” 31. 15 Robert Bartlett, Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 286, 289.

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a particular place at a particular time. Often, dynasties are later constructs to legitimize rule. Ruling families, on the other hand, are just what they sound like, the families that ruled. In Rus, the descendants of Volodimer Sviatoslavich, the Christianizer of Rus, ruled Rus and its component towns, even if they did not conceive of themselves as belonging to a dynasty with a particular label. While names might not seem to be important subjects for such challenges, I (and many of the authors cited here) would disagree, pointing out that names and labels construct identities and thus are essential to get right, or at least problematize, to best understand our subject. This is especially the case when such names are created after the fact and applied as if they had always existed. Ostrowski’s article, in challenging the terminology of dynasty, also relates it directly to succession. Instead of claiming authority when taking the throne via a dynastic label (Riurikids), they used a particular formula of sitting on the throne of their father, while sometimes adding a grandfather, brother, or uncle.16 He concludes that this is not “empty phraseology, but a legitimizing formula.”17 The implications for opening our discussion of succession are clear. In the primary sources which tell us about Rusian succession in the period under discussion what matters was occupying the throne of your father, particularly, though other relatives could also be important.18 There was not a larger claim about a lineage, Riurikid or otherwise, and there was not even a direct statement that one inherited the throne because they were the brother of the previous ruler. This last is especially important given that the majority of studies of succession in Rus all focus upon it being a system of collateral succession in which brother succeeded brother.19 This “legitimizing formula” does not invalidate the concept of collateral succession, but it does point out that the sources of the

16 Ostrowski, “Was there a Riurikid Dynasty in Early Rus’?” 34. 17 Ostrowski, “Was there a Riurikid Dynasty in Early Rus’?” 35. 18 A similar claim is made in Bohemia “The Přemyslid dukes were traditionally inaugurated by enthronement on the old ducal stone throne located in Prague Castle. No one who was not seated on it by Bohemian leaders could become the Duke of the Bohemians.” Dušan Zupka, “Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe” in Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe: Power, Rituals and Legitimacy in Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, ed. Grischa Vercamer and Dušan Zupka (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022): 6. 19 Nancy Shields Kollman. “Collateral Succession in Kievan Rus’” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 14:3–4 (1990), 377–87; A. P. Tolocho, Kniaz’ v drevnei Rusi: Vlast’, sobstvennost’, ideo­ logiia(Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1992), 77–96; Martin Dimnik, “The ‘Testament’ of Iaroslav ‘the Wise’: a Re-examination” Canadian Slavonic Papers 29:4 (1987), 369–386; Janet Martin, “Calculating Seniority and the Contests for Succession in Kievan Rus’” in Russian History 33:2–4 (2006), 272–281; Donald Ostrowski, “Systems of Succession in Rus’ and Steppe Societies” Ruthenica XI (2012): 29–58.

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time did not focus upon that aspect of inheritance when determining legit­ imacy for the assumption of rule. In short, Ostrowski’s example is what this chapter will attempt to follow – looking at the primary sources from the period to determine who succeeded and why, in an attempt to see what was recorded as happening versus the picture that we often receive from the secondary scholarship. It should also be noted that the discussion of succession undertaken here is in regard to what might be called the practicalities of succession rather than the enactment of public power, or the rituals and performance of coro­ nation and succession which are often discussed in regard to the Latin West.20 It is also worth noting that there have been solid challenges to “systems” of succession in recent scholarship and that those challenges are accepted here. Armin Wolf puts the succession system well, “The funda­ mental principle of the law of succession can be formulated thus: in order to become king one had to be a) a descendant of the first king of the land, and b) next of kin to the last king. In many cases, however, it was not clear who was next of kin.”21 Bartlett would certainly agree, as he has said that there were rarely written, legalistic, models of succession in early medieval Europe, but that one can still discern models of practice.22 This is what we will try to observe in this chapter then, not rituals or ceremonies, not formulae read back into the past from a better documented later medieval period, but what the documents of the time tell us (with caveats about their origins, of course) about the succession ideas in practice in the arc of medieval Europe. Denmark

Scandinavia has been featured in the other chapters in this section, but lar­ gely with a focus on Norway. Denmark has its own interesting history of succession that deserves attention because of the shift over the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries from a collateral succession system to a lineal succession system and the problems associated with individual rulers

20 See for example, the fascinating article by Björn Weiler, “Describing Rituals of Succession and the Legitimation of Kingship in the West, ca. 1000–ca. 1150” in Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval Mediterranean: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Alexander Daniel Beihammer (Leiden: Brill, 2013): 115–140. “The sequence of events here labelled ‘succession’ constituted a public enactment of royal power, one that was observed, judged, and analysed as much by those present as by those writing it from often considerable geographical and chronological distance.” (116) 21 Armin Wolf, “The Family of Dynasties in Medieval Europe: Dynasties, Kingdoms and Tochterstämme” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History XII (Old Series, Volume XXII) (1991): 254. 22 Bartlett, Blood Royal, 90, 99.

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attempting to make that shift. The goal of this section is merely to illustrate some examples of the succession practices in Denmark in this period, rather than to detail each instance of succession or the entirety of the succession struggle, thus not everything will be covered. Our focus on Danish succession begins with the rule of Sven in the middle of the eleventh century. Sven is known by either his patronymic, Ulfsson, or more commonly by his matronymic, Estridsson.23 He was the nephew of the famous Cnut who attempted to create a North Sea kingdom and was a main source for Adam of Bremen, both of which helped his notoriety in our sources. Sven was not the king of Denmark until 1047 when Magnus of Norway died; and even then, Sven battled Harald Hardrada for control of various territories until they made peace in 1064.24 Sven was married to a woman named Gunnhild, “a blood relative from Sweden” according to Adam of Bremen.25 This marriage did not last long as first Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen and then Pope Leo IX demanded that Sven divorce his kinswoman. Thus, all of Sven’s children, as far as is known, came from concubines. This is relevant when discussing their succession, as some scholars have suggested a predilection away from children born out of wedlock, post-Christianization; though this is not a phenomenon that we see in much of the arc of medieval Europe. Sven Estridsson had many sons from many different women, but over the course of the six decades following his death, five of those sons ruled the kingdom of Denmark in succession (Figure 3.2). Nils Hybel, who has written on Danish kingship extensively, notes that of the five, Olaf Hunger and Niels were proclaimed by the people, or at least some of them, while the two main primary sources (Saxo Grammaticus and Sven Aggesen) note just that the others began to rule.26 However, while Olaf was acclaimed by the Jutlanders

23 Adam of Bremen, The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Francis J. Tschan, transl. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), bk. 2, liv (52) – p. 92. 24 The convoluted history of these events is contained in the Morkinskinna, from Magnus’s initial grant of Denmark to Sven as a Jarldom (ch. 4) to Magnus’s death when he wishes Sven to rule Denmark as a kingdom (ch. 26), and finally to the peace with Harald (ch. 42). Morkinskinna: The Earliest Icelandic Chronicle of the Norwegian Kings (1030–1157) Transl. Theodore M. Andersson and Kari Ellen Gade (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2000). The Gesta Danorum does not share a positive first impression of Sven’s rule noting, “Sven acquired the chief command more by good fortune than by his own vigour” Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum: The History of the Danes, vol. 2, ed. Karsten Friis-Jensen, transl. Peter Fisher (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2015), Bk. X, 1.1. 25 Adam of Bremen, bk. 3, xii. (11) - p. 123. There is a great deal of complication with this story which I will not delve into. I note the marriage merely for the purpose of including its dissolution and the fact that Sven’s children were born “out of wedlock”. 26 Nils Hybel, The Nature of Kingship, c. 800–1300: The Danish Incident (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 50.

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FIGURE 3.2 Sven Estridsson and selected sons.

in opposition to St. Knud, and after his death, rather than by the whole realm;27 the situation with Niels is more complicated and reflects one of the problems with Saxo Grammaticus as a source. After the death of King Eric Ejegod in Cyprus, and the time for the news to return to Denmark, an assembly was called at Isøre and Saxo makes a statement about the suc­ cession practices among the Danes: “the custom had been for Sven’s sons each to take his turn over the succession to the crown according to prece­ dence in age, the elder always having the next in line as his heir to this title.”28 This is an ideal statement of precedent that very clearly demon­ strates the lateral succession principles of the Danes.29 And yet, is it accurate to the time in question? Saxo begins the same section with the statement that, “The subsequent election, then, had to centre round Niels and Ubbe,” with Ubbe being an elder brother to Niels, and thus the obvious choice for an heir.30 Immediately after this statement about the two brothers though, Saxo spends much of the rest of the section discussing Eric Ejegod’s son Harald who had been the regent for his father while Eric was away in the Mediterranean. Saxo lists his faults and his tyranny during his father’s time away. Why bother discussing Harald at all, if the succession hinged on the two remaining sons of Sven? It seems likely that Harald, as regent, was in a

27 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. Xii, 1.1. See also n2 for more on his imprison­ ment. Saxo also uses the reign of Olaf as a bit of a morality play or contrast to the sub­ sequent reign of Eric Ejegod. 28 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. XII, 8.2. 29 For a different, though similar, analysis of this succession discussion see John H. Lind, “Knes Kanutus: Knud Lavard’s Political Project,” in National Saints and the Emergence of Nation States in the High Middle Ages, ed. John Bergsagel, David Hiley, and Thomas Riis (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2015): 105–106. 30 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum. Bk. XII, 8.2.

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position to stay in power and succeed his father directly, an option that Saxo was attempting to muster precedent to deny. Similarly, if the succession process was as clear cut as Saxo maintains, why bother noting that the succession “centre[d] around Niels and Ubbe.” If Ubbe is the elder brother, he would naturally inherit in Saxo’s system. But, Karsten Friis-Jensen, the editor of Saxo’s text, points out that apart from a brief reference in Kytlinga Saga of an Ulv Svensson, there is no other knowledge of Ubbe, and it is quite possible that he is a construct of Saxo’s to prove a particular point.31 In the end, Ubbe turns down the throne through a lack of confidence in his own abilities, and Saxo tells us that “Niels, then ascended the throne.”32 While Saxo created an assembly at Isøre to choose the next ruler, it chose Ubbe, and there is no mention of its choosing of Niels, just that he “ascended the throne.” The example of Niels’s ascension to the kingship of the Danes, via Saxo as an intermediary, presents multiple problems to our understanding of the succession process. Lars Hermanson has noted that, “Saxo portrays Denmark as though it were the Roman Empire” and that “The author’s consistent classicism inevitably raises the question of the extent to which his work can provide information about the norms, values, and ideals that characterised Danish society during the twelfth century.”33 Later in the same article, he suggests that Saxo has a fondness for the idea of elected kings, and so the possibility that he created an assembly to serve a literary, rather than historical, purpose is not unlikely.34 Thus, we need to keep in mind the thirteenth-century origin of our source and the fact that Saxo was writing for a wider audience in classicizing language when we try to use Gesta Danorum to interpret eleventh and twelfth-century political affairs such as succession. Saxo’s mention of Harald Ericsson brings to the fore a problem with lateral succession practices; they work largely on the principle of age and the throne passes horizontally through the brothers before descending to the next line. One must wait for one’s turn, and that involves a lot of uncles dying before the nephews get a chance, something that Saxo notes himself in a speech that he has Niels give, criticizing Knud Lavard.35 Occasionally in

31 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. XII, 8.2.n30. 32 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. XIII.1.1. 33 Lars Hermanson, “How to Legitimate Rebellion and Condemn Usurpation of the Crown: Discourses of Fidelity and Treason in the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus,” in Disputing Strategies in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. Kim Esmark, Lars Hermanson, Hans Jacob Orning, and Helle Vogt (Leiden: Brill, 2013): 110. 34 Hermanson, “How to Legitimate Rebellion and Condemn Usurpation of the Crown,” 125. Weiler has a different interpretation of this event, taking Ubbe as real, and presenting Ubbe’s hesitation as a virtue of a good ruler, and the “the inability of the Danes to choose the right king” as strengthening Saxo’s “case for hereditary succession, which was introduced in 1165.” Paths to Kingship, 254–255. 35 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. XIII.5.8.

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models like these, we see similar phenomena in other places, there will be individuals who want to pass the throne to their own sons directly, or sons of rulers who want to rule themselves, before their uncles.36 Harald may have wanted to claim his father’s throne immediately upon Eric’s death, but given Saxo’s chronological distance from the event, and his particular focus on telling the story of a certain family (that of Valdemar whose son Valdemar II was ruling at the time Saxo finished his work – thus Eric Ejegod and his son Knud Lavard play important roles in the narrative), we do not know much about it. We do know much more about a different example, however, also because of Saxo’s particular focus. King Niels and his wife Kristín had a son, Magnus, whom they would have liked to see on the throne, but after Niels’s eventual death, the throne would pass to the children of his elder brothers first, notably those of Eric Ejegod who was elder to Niels and had adult male heirs, such as Knud Lavard.37 Saxo records that Niels should determine the succession himself, and for his own heirs, without regard for others.38 Thus, to circumvent this problem, Magnus and Niels (Saxo Grammaticus imparts the ill intent mostly to Magnus), plan to ambush and kill Knud Lavard in 1131.39 This strategy was a way to improve the succession chances of Magnus and, potentially, shift from a lateral to a lineal succession model. One of the difficulties in understanding the motivations here is that Knud Lavard was not the only son of Eric Ejegod, in fact after Knud Lavard’s murder, we will see his half-brother Eric Emune take up the defense of Knud Lavard’s widow and children and even be proclaimed king by a subset of the Danish population in 1134.40 Thus, killing Knud Lavard, though a popular figure (admittedly, the sources are biased in his favor), and the eldest son, and the only one by Eric Ejegod’s marriage, would not have eliminated the line of Eric Ejegod, allowing succession to pass to Magnus Nielsson. Though

36 The cases of Volodimer Monomakh passing the throne to his son Mstislav in Kiev, or Andrew passing the throne to his son Salomon in Hungary can be taken as just two ex­ amples of such phenomena. 37 The situation with Magnus is complicated by several factors, which are explained by Lars Kjær in his “Political Conflict and Political Ideas in Twelfth-Century Denmark” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 13 (2017): 70–71. 38 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. XIII.5.14. John Lind has suggested that, while this may have been the motivation of Niels and Magnus, perhaps Knud Lavard was not inter­ ested in ruling Denmark. Lind, “Knes Kanutus, 103–128. 39 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. XIII.6.1–9. This is not the only assassination at­ tributed to Magnus. The death of Charles, son of St. Knud, was also ascribed to him by some sources. Lind, “Knes Kanutus, 107. 40 Hybel, The Nature of Kingship, 50. For an analysis of the conflict, with a focus on the Rusian women who were married to both Eric Emune and Knud Lavard see, Christian Raffensperger, “Dynastic Marriage in Action: How Two Rusian Princesses Changed Scandinavia,” in Imenoslov: Istoriia iazyka. Istoriia kul’tury, ed. F. B. Uspenskij (Moscow: Aleteja, 2010): 193–205.

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one could suggest that after five brother rulers, all sons of Sven Estridsson, born out of wedlock, there was now beginning to be an idea, if only the beginnings of one, that an idea of bastardry began to matter. However, it seems more likely to reconsider Saxo and his main narrative focus. Saxo was writing at a time when birth in marriage was important, and for the current ruler of his day, Valdemar II the Great. For instance, this was why Valdemar I crowned his son Knud VI as coruler, rather than his elder, out of wedlock, son Christopher in 1170.41 Crucially for our focus, Valdemar was the son of Knud Lavard, and as such Knud Lavard receives much of Saxo’s time. There were, in fact, other people in the generation after the Svenssons, but Knud Lavard is the one upon whom Niels, Magnus, and Saxo focus. And ulti­ mately, it is the murder of Knud Lavard, which sparked the conflict that resulted in Magnus’s death in 1134, and Niels’s flight to the German Empire, where he was killed. It is worth the time to note the procession of rulers which followed Eric Emune’s ascension to the throne, and their relationships with one another.42 Given a system of pure lateral succession, in which the children of the eldest brother inherit first, and that Eric Emune had no older living male cousins, he should have been followed by either a brother, of which he had none living (having killed his brother Harald Kesja), or a son of Niels, of which there were none living. In fact, Saxo notes that after Eric Emune’s death in 1137, “no one was so convinced of his own descent or courage that he dared to seek or to seize it.”43 He then continues to note the younger generation who were not “old enough to assume the crown” including “Sven, Eric’s son, nor Cnut, Magnus’s son, nor Valdemar, Cnut’s son.”44 Despite his youth Valdemar Knudsson was put forward as ruler, and his mother pushed back, noting that he was too young.45 We are told by Saxo then that the obvious choice is Eric Lamb, who was the grandson of Eric Ejegod via his mother Ragnhild. Descent through the female line does not seem to bother Saxo who mentions it twice in one sentence, “They could adopt no one more fitted for this duty than Erik, grandson of the preceding Erik through his daughter, for his boldness and conscientiousness were both remarkable and

41 Lind, “Knes Kanutus, 107; See also, Hermanson, “How to Legitimate Rebellion and Condemn Usurpation of the Crown, 107–140. 42 Eric’s reign was not a peaceful one, and there was much resistance to him from multiple groups in society. See Kjær, “Political Conflict and Political Ideas in Twelfth-Century Denmark,” 88–94. 43 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. XIV.2.1. 44 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. XIV.2.1. 45 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. XIV.2.1; Knytlinga Saga: The History of the Kings of Denmark. Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards, transls. (Odense, Odense University Press, 1986), 145.

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he was descended from a kingly line on his mother’s side.”46 This is an important moment for understanding the succession of Danish rulers. If Saxo’s earlier statement about lateral succession being determined by age were rigid, then a minor ruler (with regent) might have been enthroned. However, a different choice was made – a testament to the flexibility of the process in actual practice. Further, the choice that was made traced royal descent through the female line. It is, of course, at this same time that we see the “Anarchy” in England (beginning in 1135) where the two claimants were Henry I’s daughter Empress Mathilda – whose claim to the throne was direct through her father; and Stephen of Blois – whose claim to the throne came through his mother, Adela, the sister of Henry I. Perhaps, given both Knud Lavard’s ties in the German Empire, where Mathilda was empress, and Saxo’s knowledge of what was going on elsewhere from his perch seventy years in the future, there is a connection of knowledge, though not appropriation, between the events. In fact, Saxo writes approvingly of Valdemar’s creation of his son Knud VI as coruler in 1170, at the same time as Henry II of England has his own son Henry crowned in Westminster Abbey.47 Whether there was a direct transmission of information is unclear, though Weiler notes the trend of such coronations of sons in the middle of the twelfth century as extending from England to Denmark, and Jerusalem to Sicily.48 All of which gives more weight to a push for broader comparative analyses, as well. Eric Lamb ruled until 1146 when he abdicated his throne; though his reign was not entirely without internal conflict, as Olaf, another grandson of Eric Ejegod, challenged him for the throne, resulting in back and forth raiding from 1139 to 1143.49 After Eric Lamb’s abdication, any attempt at an orderly succession seems to go out the window as Eric Emune’s son Sven is proclaimed king by one group and Magnus’s son Knud is proclaimed king by another. The situation only becomes more complicated when Knud Lavard’s son Valdemar enters the fray, at which point there were three claimants for the throne, all from the same generation as great-grandsons of Sven Estridsson. Two of them were grandsons of Eric Ejegod and the other was a grandson of Niels. Though a precedent of inheritance from the eldest line might, on paper, sort out the issue and make Valdemar the ruler (as the son of the eldest of the fathers, in genealogical succession), Valdemar was the last to declare his candidacy for the throne – though he was the ultimate winner. What we see in Denmark then over the course of one hundred years is almost

46 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. XIV.2.2. 47 Hermanson, “How to Legitimate Rebellion and Condemn Usurpation of the Crown,” 124, 124n39. 48 Weiler, Paths to Kingship, 166. 49 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. XIV.2.5–13.

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entirely the opposite of what we saw in the inheritance chart of the modern British royal family. There is the hint of a pattern in the procession of lateral inheritance between the sons of Sven Estridsson, but then we see an attempt to possibly shift the succession to a lineal one, and by the time that is sorted out, there is a pool of candidates who have claims to the throne, including through the female line, and there is no concrete process or procedure which dictates who will succeed whom.50 Though uncomfortable, perhaps this is something that we need to more readily acknowledge as a truism of the medieval past – there were suggestions of process, but personalities, politics, and current events overtook those processes quite quickly. Sweden

Following on the example of Denmark, it is worth noting the complicated picture further east, in Sweden. The complication begins with the issue that there was not in fact a “Sweden” in the period under discussion, rather there were at least two polities, Svealand in the north around Lake Malaren, and Götaland in the south.51 The first time the two were noted as being under one rule is in the middle of the twelfth century when Pope Adrian IV sends Karl Sverkersson a letter calling him, “king of the Svear and Götar.”52 In fact, Birgit and Peter Sawyer note that this by itself is odd, as Karl Sverkersson was not as internally popular as his rival Knut Eriksson. The complication continues with the source base which Władysław Duczko describes as “an incoherent muddle based on the disparate information from the Gesta of Adam of Bremen, Norse poetry, Medieval Icelandic literature and archaeological/runological/numis­ matic sources.”53 Others have noted that “Unlike its Scandinavian neigh­ bours, Sweden produced neither saga literature by commissioning Icelanders, nor Latin Gestae or Historiae by its clergy.”54 The sources we do have for

50 Lind notes the appearance of lateral succession among the sons of Sven Estridsson and also compares it to the situation in Rus at the same time, noting though that both “broke down”. Lind, “Knes Kanutus,” 103–104. 51 Władysław Duczko, “Reach Consensus then Make War: The Politics of Alliances in 12th Century Scandinavia” in Consensus or Violence? Cohesive Forces in Early and High Medieval Societies (9th-14th c.) ed. Sławomir Moździoch and Przemysław Wiszewski (Wrocław, Institute of History at the University of Wroclaw, 2013), 41. 52 Birgit and Peter Sawyer, Medieval Scandinavia: From Conversion to Reformation, circa 800-1500, The Nordic Series vol. 17 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 60. 53 Wladyslaw Duczko, “The Fateful Hundred Years: Sweden in the Eleventh Century” in The Neighbours of Poland in the 11th Century, ed. P. Urbańczyk (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo DiG, 2002), 11. 54 Nils Blomkvist, Stefan Brink, and Thomas Lindkvist, “The Kingdom of Sweden” in Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’, c. 900-1200, ed. Nora Berend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007): 202.

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“Sweden” are late, thirteenth and fourteenth century, or from other places and focused on the affairs of those other places, where Sweden and its internal structure receives little attention. So, if the situation is so complex, why spend time on it if we can know so little? The reason is that despite knowing so little, scholars can still make statements about the period that represent a generalization of knowledge or a reading back into the past of certain features. For instance, in the late thirteenth century, there are sources that codify the election process of the king of Sweden and detail a personal progression through the realm “to the main provinces of Svealand and Götaland in order to be elected or rather to have the election confirmed.”55 Though late, this process is characterized as appearing “ancient and archaic, and was possibly a reflection of an older tradition of the secular election of kings.” While “possibly” is a modifier that suggests that we cannot directly rebut it, given our lack of knowledge of the eleventh and twelfth-century practices, it is difficult to make such claims. When, in the twelfth century, Magnus Nielsson is acclaimed king by the Götar but not the Svear, Saxo Grammaticus notes that this is against the privilege of the Svear (Sueones).56 The editor of the translation mentions the thirteenth-century processes which accord with this statement.57 A potential problem, however, is the fact that Saxo was writing if not at the time of those later Swedish regulations, then very close to them, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and we have no way of knowing if his statement regarding the practice of the Svear was contemporary to the early twelfth century or drawn from his own time. In fact, Sawyer suggests a deep skepticism for much of what scholars have found to be “archaic,” noting that many of the copyists and compilers had a shared educational back­ ground and borrowed liberally from other sources.58 Much like the discus­ sion of dynasties in the introduction, it is difficult sometimes to separate our late medieval (or even early modern) impulses toward codification from the events of the high middle ages themselves. As Sawyer put it so well, “These Scandinavian legal collections show that their compilers were very much like the later medieval commentators on the early Irish laws, who delighted in elaborating very complicated and artificial schemes.”59 Given this context, let us take a look at a few of the rulers of the eleventh and twelfth century in Sweden and what we do and do not know about them and their succession practices (Figure 3.3). The first king that we know a

55 56 57 58

Blomkvist, Brink, and Lindkvist, “The Kingdom of Sweden,” 191. Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. XIII, 5.1. Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. XIII, 5.1.n27. P. H. Sawyer, Kings and Vikings: Scandinavia and Europe, AD 700-1100 (London and New York: Methuen, 1982), 19. 59 Sawyer, Kings and Vikings, 19.

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FIGURE 3.3 Swedish succession to early twelfth century.

good deal about is Olof Skötkonnung, who declares himself “King of Sigtuna” and “King of Svear” on his coins, during his rule in the late tenth and early eleventh century.60 It is also to Olof that the earliest king lists of the thirteenth century trace their descent, thus he seems an adequate place to begin our study.61 The sources on Olof come not just from numismatic sources, but also later textual sources including the Heimskringla and The Saga of King Heidrik the Wise, both of which date from the thirteenth century. The Heimskringla records that King Olof “had a mistress, called Ethla” and “their children were Emund, Ástrith, Holmfrith” and later

60 Duczko, “The Fateful Hundred Years,” 16. 61 Sawyer, Kings and Vikings, 18.

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“Jakob” who came to be called Onund.62 Sometime in the later first decade of the eleventh century, the rule of Olof was challenged by his magnates, for not following their counsel.63 According to the version recorded in the Heimskringla, the magnates asked who should be king instead, and Freyvith answered, “King Olaf has two sons, and we desire one of them to be king. But there is great difference between them. The one is born in wedlock and of Swedish race on both sides whereas the other is the son of a servant woman herself half Wendish.”64 Thus, they made Jakob king and gave him the Swedish name of Onund, to accompany his Christian name. The distinctions made in the Heimskringla are interesting and worth discussing. Earlier in the same text, both sons, Emund and Jakob were listed as the sons of the same mother, Ethla, a Wendish woman. The differentiation at the time was that Jakob was baptized and Emund went to live with his mother’s people, the Wends, and did not maintain his Christianity.65 Adam of Bremen, a much more contemporary text, from the later eleventh century, records that Emund was born of Ethla, a mistress, while Onund-Jakob was born of Olof’s wife.66 Given Adam’s relative chronological advantage to Heimskringla, and the fact that his statement seems to confirm part of the rationale for the choice, it should probably be accepted. Much of the rest of the choosing, especially the issues with regard to Swedish nationality, seem to be part of a later construction. Apart from the obviously later composition, the text also contains future knowledge in a later passage when Earl Emund foreshadows the death of the line of Olof and the succession of a new ruler and family in Sweden.67 It is thus somewhat problematic to accept this rationale for the acceptance of Jakob as king. Despite the confusion, Onund-Jakob becomes king, but with his father Olof, as coruler.68 At some point, Olof dies, and Onund-Jakob becomes the sole ruler of Sweden. The Saga of King Heidrik the Wise notes the succession and dates Onund-Jakob’s rule to the time of the battle of Stiklestadir, thus ca. 1030.69

62 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, transl. Lee M. Hollander (Austin, Tx.: University of Texas Press, 1964), ch. 88, p. 332. 63 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch.94. 64 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 94, p. 349. 65 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 88. 66 Adam of Bremen, bk. 2, lix. 57, p. 95. 67 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 94, 349. “I will tell you what will happen later, and that is that some of you who now insist on the Swedish crown continuing to go to men of the ancient line, that you will yourselves live to agree to it’s going to a different line”. 68 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 94, 349. “Olaf was to be king over the land as long as he lived … Onund was also to be king and have as large a portion of the land as was agreed upon between father and son”. 69 The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, transl. Christopher Tolkien (Toronto and New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1960), 62.

Understanding Succession 113

Heimskringla also notes his rule, and even had him assist St. Olaf in his battles against Cnut.70 And numismatically, we see that by the 1020s, Onund-Jakob is minting coins calling himself the ruler of Sigtuna.71 He rules for nearly thirty years, it appears, but we have little more information about him. After his death, which The Saga of King Heidrik the Wise attributes to illness, his halfbrother Emund takes the throne.72 According to Heimskringla, Emund is the elder brother, a half-Wend, and not born in wedlock, thus Onund-Jakob’s earlier ascension to corule with his father.73 The Saga of King Heidrik the Wise makes no mention of this, but it does note that “in his [Emund’s] days the Swedes neglected the Christian faith” and that “Eymund was king for only a little time.”74 Emund, though, does enter into the purview of another source, Adam of Bremen, who does not care for him in the slightest. Adam calls him Gamular, which could mean “the Old” or even “the Bad.”75 Adam’s biases are well known, and relate to the progress of Christianization, but especially to the progress of the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen. In the case of Emund, Adam is quite clear that Emund is not a part of that plan and has brought in a bishop from outside of Hamburg-Bremen’s authority.76 He then proceeds to list a series of problems that happen in Sweden due to Emund’s lack of proper Christian subordination to the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen, including Emund’s death at the hands of Amazons.77 To return to our focus on the issue of succession, why does Onund-Jakob succeed before Emund? Heimskringla gives us reasons, but can we accept them? I suggest that we can only accept them fully if we have other examples of similar decisions, made in the same way, to indicate that those ideas (Swedish nationality, born in wedlock) were accepted as normative. The case gets more complicated if we include The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise’s condemnation of Emund’s Christianity, in line with the critique of Adam of Bremen. Similarly, if we include Adam’s note that the two were not born of the same woman. Adam is a contemporary source, and his evidence should be given precedence over Heimskringla, especially as it confirms evidence from later in the text about the birth of Onund-Jakob when he takes the throne. Perhaps then, we can see a preference for birth within marriage, but the issues of Christianization seem very much to be a construct of Adam and of the later authors.

70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, chs. 132, 134, 145, 149–151, 154, 192, 198. Duczko, “The Fateful Hundred Years,” 18. The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, 62. Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, chs. 88, 94. The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, 62. Adam of Bremen, bk. 3, xv. 14, p. 125. Adam of Bremen, bk. 3, xv. 14, pp. 125–126. Adam of Bremen, bk. 3, xvi. 15, p. 127.

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After Emund, the line dies out and a jarl named Stenkil becomes king “and the Swedish throne passed from the ancestral line of the ancient kings,” according to The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise (Figure 3.3).78 The saga’s desire to call attention to the shift in the ruling family is interesting for our discussion of succession. It is made even more so, because Stenkil will only rule for approximately six years before he dies and there is a period of many rulers again in Sweden, often battling with one another.79 Stenkil does attempt to connect himself with the former ruling line, by marrying the daughter of King Emund, at least according to the Saga.80 But for the author of the Saga in the thirteenth century, this connection via marriage was not enough to make Stenkil a member of the “line of the ancient kings” though it may give him some additional validity as a ruler. After the death of Stenkil, “Svealand was thrown into a long period of political instability with various pretenders for the royal title fighting each other.”81 The multiple claimants to the throne include at least two Erics, and a son each of Stenkil and Emund; however, none of them are able to maintain their rule for any length of time, despite the royal pedigree of the sons of Stenkil and Emund, causing us to question any privilege of royal succession entirely. Eventually, a man named Inge becomes king, and he will be a powerful ruler in Sweden for some time. Heimskringla refers to him as, “a good and powerful king, a man of great size and strength.”82 The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise includes similar praise for him, noting that he was “well-liked and a good Christian.”83 Though Inge seems to have come from nowhere, the thirteenth-century sources connect him to King Stenkil, and make him his son.84 Władysław Duczko has called this familial connection into question.85 If Duczko is correct, the connection with Stenkil has an obvious purpose, to create a sense of familial continuity, a reason for Inge to succeed and have validity as a ruler beyond the mere force of arms. Given the fact that Inge ruled for decades, it is worth considering this option, as he would have had time to shape his legacy. He is one of the most talked about Swedish rulers of the period and participated in relations with rulers in Denmark, Norway,

78 The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, 62. 79 The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, 62. Where his death is noted “of illness” around the time of the death of Harald Hardrada. Morkinskinna also notes Stenkel as ruler later in Harald Hardrada’s reign. Morkinskinna, ch. 42, p. 243. 80 The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, 62. 81 Duczko, “The Fateful Hundred Years,” 24. 82 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 12, p. 678. 83 The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, 62. 84 The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, 62; Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 12, p. 678; Morkinskinna also notes Stenkel as ruler later in Harald Hardrada’s reign. Morkinskinna, ch. 58, p. 303. 85 Duczko, “The Fateful Hundred Years,” 25.

Understanding Succession 115

and Rus, at the least. In one famous interaction, the three Scandinavian kings (Magnus Barefoot of Norway, Eric Emune of Denmark, and Inge of Sweden) met for peace talks, and Inge married his daughter Margaret to Magnus Barefoot of Norway to help create peace.86 Magnus died soon after the peace talks, and Inge’s daughter remarried, this time to Niels Svensson, the king of Denmark.87 Morkinskinna, in recording this first marriage, notes the parallel with the relationship created between St. Olaf and Olof Skötkonnung, cre­ ating another parallel to the past to further legitimize the relationships.88 Though Inge ruled for a long while and had multiple children, his suc­ cession is problematic and ultimately his successors not successful. The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise records that Inge ruled with his son Halstein, and that after Inge’s death it was Halstein’s sons, Philip and Ingi Halsteinsson, that inherited the rule of Sweden.89 Both Philip and Ingi were said to have made royal marriages with the Norwegians. Ingi appears in the Heimskringla as the first husband of Brigitha, daughter of King Harald Gilli, though some have called into question this marriage, given that she has three subsequent marriages, concluding with the well-known Birgir Brosa.90 Philip is said by the Saga to have married Ingigerd, the daughter of Harald Hardrada, though Morkinskinna records that she was married to King Olaf Hunger of Denmark, decades earlier.91 Given the very little that is known about them, and even their problematic, or absent, references in other sources it is difficult to talk further about them, or even to know how much to trust in their record. Multiple historians do note the early twelfth century as a time in which there are once again multiple claimants to the rule of Sweden and a continuing struggle between the Svear of the north and the Götar of the south.92 The second line of rulers in less than a century thus died out, and it would not be until the rise of Sverker in 1130 that we would see a third, though that too did not ultimately encompass multiple individuals.

86 87 88 89 90

Morkinskinna, ch. 58, p. 307. Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. 13, ch. 1. Morkinskinna, ch. 58, p. 307. The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, 62. Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 22, p. 757. Heimskringla lists four marriages for Brigitha with Ingi Halsteinsson being the first. Some have suggested that this marriage is unlikely, given her other marriages, which begin the stretch into the period of better information for the author. 91 The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, 62; Morkinskinna, ch. 53, p. 281. 92 Sawyer, Kings and Vikings, 9; Blomkvist, Brink, and Lindkvist, “The Kingdom of Sweden,” 200. We even see this struggle illustrated in Saxo Grammaticus when he notes the Götar choosing their own king, Magnus Nielsson, against a Svear king. Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Bk. Xiii, 5.1.

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The sum total of what we can know about succession in Sweden then is quite limited; and yet it is important to talk about that and acknowledge that we can know little about succession practices, especially in light of the thirteenth-century claims for the progression of rulers through the realm, and even the ecclesiastical coronation that begins in 1210. As can be seen in other chapters, there seems to be a break around 1200 in which practices and processes of rulership change – witness the shift in royal burial and com­ memoration in Chapter 5, for instance. Succession seems no different, with a lack of formal process among royal kindreds, in favor of pacifying multiple constituencies. In fact, the image we see in Sweden is particularly difficult to systematize as very few sons succeed as effective rulers and we see almost no collateral succession, at least for any length of time. Some of this, of course, might be due to source problems, but these examples, just as those from the medieval West, are medieval Europe and thus part of our source study. Ireland

Succession in medieval Ireland is, admittedly, well-studied and is considered to be quite complicated. But it is included here, even if in brief form, because of that very complication. Irish succession is often consigned to its own studies and is rarely put into comparison with the rest of medieval Europe.93 If we look then at Irish succession as part of a wider arc of medieval Europe, perhaps we can create a wider survey of medieval succession practices, outside of the traditional “normative” view of Anglo-French succession practices. The classic work on Irish rule is that of John Francis Byrne who laid out the commonly accepted view of Irish succession, and his views will be in­ tertwined with others to demonstrate the larger issues of kingship and suc­ cession, before moving on to specific examples. First, Byrne noted that primogeniture was not used in Ireland, “although seniority in the male line was the normal criterion for headship of the kindred.”94 Bart Jaski explains that, “every Irish king was basically a rí túaithe, ‘king of a túath” and that “The king thus acts as the leader and representative of the túath in political and military affairs in dealing with other túatha and by caring for internal order and welfare.”95 The kingship then was confined within the túath,

93 Wendy Davies does look at Celtic polities together, though she notes that there is “No such thing as a ‘Celtic’ political system.” Wendy Davies, “States and non-states in the Celtic world” in Der frühmittelalterliche Staat - Europäische Perspektiven, eds. Walter Pohl and Veronika Wieser (Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2009): 155–170, quote at 156. 94 Byrne, Irish Kings and High-Kings, 35. 95 Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession. 38, 48. See as well on this subject, Simms, “Changing patterns of regnal succession in later medieval Ireland,” 167.

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though it could be stretched out to multiple degrees of kinship.96 Donnchadh Ó Corráin, in an article exclusively dealing with succession, produces a highly technical definition of succession, in which “Irish dynasties consist of polysegmental agnatic lineage groups which are constantly being created by polygamic royal marriage and an inclusive rule of legitimacy.”97 Functionally, there were multiple people within any dynasty (or family group) who believed that they had a claim to the kingship, similar to Wolf’s characterization of succession practices noted earlier. Further, Ó Corráin notes that “The dynasty, then, rather than the individual was the royal heir.”98 Thus, if someone from one’s larger family had ruled at some time in the recent past, that person too would have a claim to the throne. Ó Corráin supplies data to support his argument, which also points out the difficulty of categorizing succession. In Ui Chennselaig [the main Leinster dynasty], the instances of succeeding sons (i.e. sons whose fathers had been kings) are 38 and six of these are instances of sons who succeeded their fathers directly. There are ten instances of succeeding grandsons and two instances of succeeding greatgrandsons. Of the balance, five kings are of unknown antecedents, six fall totally outside any royal derbfine, and either others are outside the royal derbfine in the direct line though brothers and other relatives preceded them in the kingship, thus preserving their derbfine membership collaterally.99 As a corollary to these numbers, he notes that it is only, “kings of great ability and resource [who] tend to be succeeded … by their immediate rela­ tions, usually sons or brothers.”100 As one might imagine, this set up a wide pool for who could rule any túath, but also function as one of the many over-kings of the various Irish regions and families. But as we can see from Ó Corráin’s numbers, the hint of a pattern is belied by the multiple variations from that pattern, such as the five kings of unknown antecedents, and the six totally outside a royal family, which alone account for 29% of all of the suc­ cessions that he discusses. Thus, while multiple patterns have been developed,

96 Byrne, Irish Kings and High-Kings, 35. 97 Ó Corráin, “Irish Regnal Succession: A Reappraisal,” 8. 98 Ó Corráin, “Irish Regnal Succession: A Reappraisal,” 38. We can see similar arguments being made by Zbigniew Dalewski about Poland specifically, but also about Rus and Hungary. Zbigniew Dalewski, “Patterns of Dynastic Identity in the Early Middle Ages” Acta Poloniae Historica 107 (2013): 38; Zbigniew Dalewski, “Family Business: Dynastic Power in Central Europe in the Earlier Middle Ages” Viator 46:1 (2015): 52. 99 Ó Corráin, “Irish Regnal Succession: A Reappraisal,” 28–29 100 Ó Corráin, “Irish Regnal Succession: A Reappraisal,” 30.

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FIGURE 3.4 Main contenders for succession to the throne of Leinster.

with the necessary exceptions and exemptions, it seems likely that, like else­ where, there is no clear-cut system, as will be seen from the examples here. To attempt to keep the examples of succession as clear as possible, I have chosen to discuss some of the same individuals from Chapter 2 on coruler­ ship. Thus, we will proceed from the death of Diarmait mac Máel na mBó in 1072 (Figure 3.4). Diarmait had been the ruler of Leinster and he and his sons, variously, had been the ruler(s) of Dublin. Diarmait also had a com­ plicated relationship with the Ua Briain kings of Munster, including mar­ rying a daughter of that family, though especially for our purposes in his support of Tairdelbach Ua Briain to the throne there in 1063.101 When Diarmait died, Tairdelbach gained some kind of supremacy over the Leinster line of kings, of which Diarmait had been the head; but nevertheless, Diarmait needed a successor as king of Leinster. Two of Diarmait’s sons had predeceased him, as had his elder brother, Domnall Remar, but Diarmait had a third son who was of age and could have inherited rule, but that did not happen. Instead, there were two claimants to power, the first was Domnall mac Murchada, the grandson of Diarmait; and the second was Donnchad mac Domnall Remar, Diarmait’s eldest nephew. Though Irish royal succession practices do not fit into collateral succession or primogeniture, we can see an interesting collation of these ideas in the two contenders. Murchad had been Diarmait’s favored son, as can be seen by their corulership (discussed in Chapter 2) and Murchad’s status as king of Dublin. Thus, it is likely that that association could have played a role in the selection of Domnall as a prospective heir to his grandfather. Some of the difficulties with this include the fact that Diarmait still had a living son, and that Domnall was not even the

101 Ó Corráin discusses this in more detail, as well as suggesting Diarmait’s supremacy over Tairdelbach in Donnchad Ó Corráin, “The Career of Diarmait Mac Máel na mBó, King of Leinster” Journal of the Old Wexford Society 4 (1972–1973): 21–23.

Understanding Succession 119

oldest son of Murchad. As for Donnchad, he was the oldest son of Diarmait’s older brother, and in a collateral succession system he should have been the rightful heir to Diarmait. In fact, this may have been how he saw it, and he began revolting against Diarmait, even before the latter’s death. In Ó Corráin’s analysis, Donnchad was the more powerful ruler (and he was certainly longer lasting), and as such was taken prisoner by Tairdelbach Ua Briain at Diarmait’s death in 1072 in the city of Dublin, where he had tried to make a stand for himself.102 Domnall was nominally king of Leinster though operating under Tairdelbach’s aegis as king but with little power of his own. In 1075, Tairdelbach named Domnall king of Dublin, in an attempt to exert more control over that city, but Domnall died the same year; and at his death, he was memorialized as king of Dublin, rather than king of Leinster.103 At the same time that Domnall was made king of Dublin, Donnchad was let out and allowed to rule as king of Leinster.104 Donnchad ruled Leinster under Tairdelbach, until the latter’s death in 1086, at which time Donnchad took control of Dublin, and began to meddle in Tairdelbach’s own succession.105 At that time, Donnchad also made common cause with Enna, the last son of Diarmait. Their common cause was to resist the claim of an outsider, a nonLeinsterman, or at least not one from the family of either Domnall Remar or Diarmait mac Máel na mBó.106 Such an outside claimant is something that we have seen before, in the Swedish succession examples, and sometimes they could be successful. Conchobar Ua Conchobhair Failge claimed power as the king of Leinster, utilizing an entirely different means of claiming the throne than dynastic ties, and battled Donnchad for over a decade from his first claim in 1075.107 The alliance of Enna and Donnchad, however, did not last long and in 1088 they went to war with one another, with the forces of Dublin fighting alongside Donnchad, and Enna fortified Waterford for his defense.108

102 Annals of Innisfallen, s.a. 1072 - https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T100004/index.html Ó Corráin, “Irish Regnal Succession,” 19–21. See also, Seán Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052–1171” Ériu 43 (1992): 101–102. 103 Annals of Ulster, s.a. 1075 - https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T100001A/; Annals of Innisfallen, s.a. 1075. 104 Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man,” 102. 105 Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man,” 103-104. Though it is important to note that there was ongoing conflict during Donnchad’s rule, such as in 1077 when the Annals of Ulster record Tairdelbach’s ravaging of Leinster land. Annals of Ulster, s.a. 1077. For Tairdelbach’s death see, Annals of Ulster, s.a. 1086. 106 Ó Corráin, “Irish Regnal Succession,” 21. 107 For a fascinating analysis of systems of claiming kingship in Ireland via gatherings, see Patrick Gleeson, “Kingdoms, Communities, and Óenaig” Journal of the North Atlantic 8 (2015): 22–51. 108 Annals of Innisfallen, s.a. 1088, say that it was by Muirchertach. Though Ó Corráin says by Conchobar, Ó Corráin, “Irish Regnal Succession,” 22; and the Annals of Ulster say by his own people. Annals of Ulster, s.a. 1089.

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Donnchad was defeated though, and the next year, 1089, was killed.109 This should have enabled Enna to take the throne, finally having a son of Diarmait on the throne of Leinster, seventeen years after his father’s death, but in the same entry with which the Annals of Innisfallen announce Donnchad’s death, they announce Muirchertach ua Briain’s imprisonment of Enna. Muirchertach was one of the three sons of Tairdelbach, and the one who had both survived and defeated the others to claim his father’s position.110 It was Muirchertach who claimed the thrones of both Dublin and Leinster for himself.111 Duffy makes the statement that “he [Muirchertach] had, of course, no prospect of realizing his claim to Leinster.”112 While I hesitate to criticize Duffy’s work, it seems clear from the path of events that while it would be difficult for Muirchertach to hold Leinster, he could certainly claim it, especially as he had imprisoned one of the main contenders for the throne. I believe that Duffy’s denial of the possibility rests on two premises, the first of which is simply the knowledge that it did not happen, and the second is that Leinster had to be ruled by Leinstermen. Given the plethora of kings in the whole of Ireland and their interlocking relation­ ships, it should not be improbable that an Ua Briain king could make a claim, and attempt to enforce it, for rule over Leinster. This is just another aspect of our discussion of succession that seems grounded in a rote understanding of systems, rather than an acknowledgement that the politics of the day was more flexible than such systems typically allow for. Ó Corráin lays out this particular discussion of succession, and many others, in his “reappraisal”in great detail following his initial discussion of patterns of succession. But what can be seen here is that while a powerful ruler such as Diarmait, was able to foster loyalty and even have his sons as corulers, that did not guarantee him the ability to pass power on to those sons. Similarly, we can see that the larger family pool, as suggested by Ó Corráin and others, also had a claim to power. Nor can we say that either lineal nor lateral succession was entirely operative, but rather there were multiple people who could claim power and it was by their own power that they took the throne or did not. While so much scholarly attention has been paid to Irish kingship, we can see through these brief examples, that what ends up happening is not that much different than what we see elsewhere in the arc of medieval Europe. And reinforces our ideas that succession was regularly irregular, and often con­ tested, and that was normal, not the opposite.

109 110 111 112

Annals of Innisfallen, Annals of Innisfallen, Annals of Innisfallen, Duffy, “Irishmen and

s.a. 1089. s.a. 1086. s.a. 1089. Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man,” 105.

Understanding Succession 121

Hungary

The Kingdom of Hungary is a good example for a discussion of succession because we can see multiple succession patterns, as well as conflicts re­ garding succession. As always, this will not be a thorough examination of the entirety of the period but will focus on a few instances of interaction. The first is a particular moment of conflict in the middle of the eleventh century, and the second is a more prolonged conflict in the twelfth century. Both conflicts involve not just internal succession processes but the intervention of neighboring polities attempting to sway the conflict in their favor. In the middle of the eleventh century, Andrew was ruling as Hungarian king. He and his brothers, Béla and Levente, had fled Hungary earlier in their lives and returned only later. It is difficult to determine if there was a set succession process before Andrew’s reign, given the instability of rule after the death of King St. Stephen. Márta Font has suggested that “From the first third of the eleventh century (1038) to the year 1132, the method of handing over power within the dynasty remained unclear.”113 Others though have put forward the idea that lateral succession was predominant or that the idea of senioritas, as seen earlier in Poland as well (Chapter 2), was common practice.114 Pál Engel follows this logic and notes that Andrew gave Béla “the eastern part of the kingdom, together with the title of ‘duke’.”115 Thus, it seems that Andrew would be succeeded by his brother Béla, upon his death. Nora Berend suggests, though, that while the Árpádian royal family would produce the next king, “that still left great scope for contestation, as no rules regulated the specific order of succession.”116 With no clear-cut

113 Márta Font, “The Rulership of the Árpádian Dynasty in the 10th-13th Centuries,” in Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe: Power, Rituals and Legitimacy in Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, ed. Grischa Vercamer and Dušan Zupka (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022): 85. 114 Martyn Rady, “‘They brought in an ax as king; they elected and installed him’: The royal succession in later medieval Hungary,” in Making and Breaking the Rules: Succession in Medieval Europe, c. 1000–1600, ed. Frédérique Lachaud and Michael Penman (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2008): 61n2; Dániel Bagi, Divisio Regni: The Territorial Divisions, Power Struggles, and Dynastic Historiography of the Árpáds of 11th- and early 12thcentury Hungary, with Comparative Studies of the Piasts of Poland and the Přemyslids of Bohemia (Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities, 2020). 115 Pál Engel, The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526, transl. Tamás Pálosfalvi (London, New York: I. B. Tauris, 2005), 30. 116 Nora Berend, Przemysław Urbańczyk and Przemysław Wiszewski, Central Europe in the High Middle Ages: Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, c. 900–c. 1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 176. There is a good deal of scholarship on this issue within Hungary, as noted by Dániel Bagi, “The Dynastic Conflicts of the Eleventh Century in the Illuminated Chronicle,” in Studies on the Illuminated Chronicle, ed. János M. Bak and László Veszprémy (Budapest, Central European University Press, 2018): 143–145.

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FIGURE 3.5 Árpád rulers, mid-11th to mid-12th century.

precedent, we can only look at the progress of events to see if there was a succession practice. In 1058, Andrew crowned his five-year-old son Salomon as his co-king (See Figure 3.5).117 Not only does this fit into the model of corulership, or even anticipatory association, discussed in Chapter 2, but it could also be a shift in the succession patterns. In fact, Salomon’s very name might be indicative of such a shift, as Johanna Dale notes that the biblical succession from David to Solomon was seen as emblematic of good, lineal succession practices, which rulers wanted to model.118 The succession was certainly a shift, given internal political wrangling over it. Engel tells of a “tradition” that the brothers met and that Béla willingly chose the ducal position, knowing that anything else “would cost him his life.”119 Dániel Bagi adds more to this discussion, noting the problematic episode as recorded in the Illuminated Chronicle, where Béla is essentially forced to choose the position

117 The Illuminated Chronicle: Chronicle of the Deeds of the Hungarians from the FourteenthCentury Illuminated Codex, ed. And transl. János M. Bak and László Veszprémy (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2018), 174–175. 118 Johanna Dale, Inauguration and Liturgical Kingship in the Long Twelfth Century: Male and Female Accession Rituals in England, France and the Empire (York: York Medieval Press, 2021), 56. 119 Engel, The Realm of St Stephen, 31.

Understanding Succession 123

of duke, at threat of his own life.120 The Illuminated Chronicle was compiled in the fourteenth century, but it has been suggested that it contains much earlier material, and multiple chroniclers’ work.121 It says that Andrew’s “love for his son overcame justice” and that Béla resented being placed below the child, but also that “others say” that Béla had agreed to the coronation.122 Similarly, the thirteenth-century Deeds of the Hungarians, by Simon of Kéza, records that Andrew “obtained the agreement of his brother Béla and Béla’s sons Géza and Ladislas” for Salomon’s succession.123 The fact that Simon of Kéza took pains to say this indicates that he believed that it was out of the ordinary for a lineal succession to occur. These two sources reflect the idea that the shift in succession practice was viewed, at the time of their writing, as irregular, but that it is possible, and Bagi thinks likely, that there was an agreement to make it so.124 Soon after Salomon’s coronation, Béla fled to Poland where he had con­ tacts and marital family, his wife being the daughter of Mieszko II. It is possible that Andrew knew how contentious crowning his son might be, as at the same time he arranged for the engagement of young Salomon to Judith, the daughter of the German ruler Henry III.125 This is certainly the position of I. S. Robinson who also credits the marriage’s reinforcement of Salomon’s claim to Béla’s invasion a few years later in 1060. Andrew died during the invasion, and his widow, Anastasia took Salomon and Judith to the German Empire while Béla took the Hungarian throne.126 Béla’s reign

120 Bagi, “The Dynastic Conflicts of the Eleventh Century in the Illuminated Chronicle,” 151–152, 183–185, 189–190. 121 János M. Bak and Ryszard Grzesik, “The Text of the Chronicle of the deeds of the Hungarians” in Studies on the Illuminated Chronicle, ed. János M. Bak and László Veszprémy (Budapest, Central European University Press, 2018): 5–24. It is also important to include that Bak, elsewhere, has pointed out that the Illuminated Chronicle is much more likely to talk about coronation than other sources for this period of east central European history. János M. Bak, “Legitimization of Rulership in Three Narratives from Twelfth-Century Central Europe” Majestas 12 (2004): 58. 122 The Illuminated Chronicle, 174–175. 123 Simon of Kéza, The Deeds of the Hungarians, ed., transl. László Veszprémy and Frank Schaer (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1999), 130–131. 124 Bagi, Divisio Regni, 200–203. 125 The Illuminated Chronicle, 174–175; I. S. Robinson, Henry IV of Germany, 1056–1106 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 34–35. 126 Lampert of Hersfeld, The Annals of Lampert of Hersfeld, transl. I. S. Robinson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), s.a. 1061. Talia Zajac also provides a fascinating analysis of Anastasia’s role in gaining German support for her son’s claim to the throne. Talia Zajac, “Remembrance and Erasure of Objects Belonging to Rus’ Princesses in Medieval Western Sources: The Cases of Anastasia Iaroslavna’s ‘Saber of Charlemagne’ and Anna Iaroslavna’s Red Gem,” in Moving Women, Moving Objects (400 – 1500), eds. Tracy Chapman Hamilton and Mariah Proctor-Tiffany (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2019): 40–42.

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was a short one and it seems it was initially uncontested by Salomon who was, admittedly, still a minor. Inexplicably, in 1063, Béla sent envoys to Salomon and his family in the German Empire, seeking to make peace and potentially restore Salomon to the throne.127 These overtures were rejected and Henry IV, Salomon’s brother-in-law, invaded on his behalf later that year.128 Béla died, accidentally, in the attack, and his sons fled to Poland, leaving Salomon to occupy the throne.129 While it may have been a positive gesture for Béla to open negotiations, it is perplexing in terms of under­ standing the ramifications for the succession of the Hungarian throne. Was he truly intending to turn power over to his nephew? If so, what would become of him and of his children? As yet, it seems there are few examples of any precedent for how succession could be handled peaceably. After a year of preparation, Géza, Béla’s oldest son, attacked Salomon with troops from his mother’s home in Poland. The cousins eventually made peace, and Salomon assigned Géza as a duke, subordinate to him, much as their fathers had arranged matters years earlier.130 Salomon ruled as king for ten years, during which time the two acted cooperatively on endeavors, including in Dalmatia, and they are pictured in the Illuminated Chronicle sitting together, Salomon with a royal crown and Géza with a ducal cap, receiving visitors.131 Discontent did develop by the early 1070s, when the Illuminated Chronicle records that Géza sent his brother Ladislaus first to Rus and then to Moravia to seek aid from relatives against Salomon.132 During the lead up to this request for assistance, Salomon had been plotting to remove Géza, and possibly Ladislaus, and his mother Anastasia had been a voice of moderation, telling him to be content with his rule as king, and to keep his cousins as dukes.133 Whether this is after-the-fact rationalization, or

127 “Annales Altahenses maiores” edentibus Wilhelmo de Giesebrecht et Edmundo L. B. ab Oefele Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores vol. XX (Hannover: Impensis Bibliopolii Avlici Hahniani, 1868), s.a. 1063 128 Bernold of St. Blasien, Chronicle, in Eleventh-Century Germany: The Swabian Chronicles, ed. And transl. I. S. Robinson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008): s.a. 1063; Berthold of Reichenau, Chronicle, in Eleventh-Century Germany: The Swabian Chronicles, ed. And transl. I. S. Robinson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), s.a. 1063 [second version]. 129 Béla was “was “mortally injured by the baldachin of the throne, which collapsed on him just before the battle.” Nora Berend, Przemysław Urbańczyk and Przemysław Wiszewski, Central Europe in the High Middle Ages: Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, c. 900 - c. 1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 176. The collapse of the throne has been interpreted by some as a punishment for Béla’s violation of his oath to support Salomon. Bagi, Divisio Regni, 202–203. 130 Berend, Urbańczyk and Wiszewski, Central Europe in the High Middle Ages, 177. 131 The Illuminated Chronicle, 188–191. Illuminated Chronicle image, p. 78 132 The Illuminated Chronicle, 210–211. 133 The Illuminated Chronicle, 230–231.

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a realistic portrayal of events by the chronicler, the picture we are given is one in which Salomon was not content to have his cousins as his sub­ ordinates, despite the fact that he had no heir of his own. Conflict erupted between the two parties in 1074 when Salomon was expelled from Hungary and Géza took the throne.134 Salomon sought help from his brother-in-law Henry IV, but the German-led attack was not successful and Géza main­ tained his throne.135 Once again, we have a conflict in which the ruler is ousted in favor of another potential heir to the throne. As Berend noted, the heirs are all from the Árpádian family, but there is no smooth system of succession as yet demonstrated. The conflict continued in Géza’s reign, at least initially, as he sought to make peace with the deposed Salomon and rule jointly.136 This may have been inspired by Géza’s relationship with Pope Gregory VII who wrote to him in 1075 calling him duke and urging him to reconcile with Salomon, who was referred to as king.137 Such a reconciliation never came about and Géza died in 1077, but it is worth wondering what would have happened if it had. Would the two have ruled jointly as kings? It seems unlikely that Géza would have returned to a place of subordination under Salomon, but it is possible. More possible if we imagine an agreement akin to that of Empress Mathilda and Stephen of Blois when they agreed that Stephen would reign as king, but Mathilda’s son, Henry II, would be the heir to the throne. Of course, none of that happened in Hungary, but it might have given us more insight into how the succession process was conceived by the principal players. Instead, Ladislaus, Géza’s brother inherited the rule of Hungary, and continued to fend off challenges from Salomon for nearly two decades. While the transition from Géza to Ladislaus looks like a straightforward lateral succession, given the attempt to reconcile between Géza and Salomon, and Salomon’s continued existence, it is certainly not. And Ladislaus’s own choice of heir seems to confirm this lack of process. He had no male children of his own, his daughter Piroska married the Roman emperor John and took the name Irene (we will see them in Chapter 5), so if one accepts the idea of a lateral succession process, his elder brother Géza’s elder son, Coloman, should have been the natural heir, but this was not the case. The Illuminated Chronicle records that Ladislaus attempted to force Coloman to become a bishop and that Coloman fled upon hearing this.138 Of course, it also notes

134 135 136 137

Simon of Kéza, The Deeds of the Hungarians, chs. 60–62. Berthold of Reichenau, Chronicle, s.a. 1074. The Illuminated Chronicle, 242–243. H. E. J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073-1085 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 445. See the relevant letters in The Register of Pope Gregory VII, 1073-1085, Ed. and transl. H. E. J. Cowdrey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 2.44, 2.70. 138 The Illuminated Chronicle, 262–263.

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at Coloman’s death that he had been a bishop before he was the king.139 Some of this may derive from the fact that the Illuminated Chronicle was written during the rule of descendants of Álmos, Coloman’s brother and rival for the throne.140 But, it is still relevant to note that in the chronicle, the author does include that Coloman was being passed over for Álmos, indic­ ative of Coloman being the elder and thus, most likely, the heir. An earlier source, the Annales Posonienses gives us a different take on the succession when it says that at Ladislaus’s death, both brothers (Coloman and Álmos) inherited the throne.141 Though in the next entry, which the editor also re­ dates to 1095 (contemporary with the first entry and with Ladislaus’s death, the chronicler says, “Coloman was crowned king and his brother Álmos put on the diadem.”142 This information accords with what we see elsewhere where Álmos is a duke and is subordinate to Coloman, who was the king. But the entire succession further upsets any sense of process that might be present. With no direct male issue to Ladislaus, Coloman should have been the natural heir in a lateral succession system. However, Ladislaus worked to disenfranchise Coloman, including sending him into the church, as a way to have his preferred heir, Álmos, take the throne. Álmos struggled against Coloman for the entirety of the latter’s reign, seeking and receiving help from a variety of allies, including those in the German and medieval Roman empires, but he was never successful in taking the throne from his elder brother. In approximately 1113, Coloman tried a new strategy to ensure the succession of his son, Stephen, and he ordered the blinding of both Álmos and Álmos’s son Béla; as well as the castration of the infant Béla143 (Figure 3.6). The Illuminated Chronicle includes a picture of this event. Coloman, seated on the left, is depicted as a hunchback. While it is possible that he had some physical deformity, it is much more likely that this depiction of him

139 The Illuminated Chronicle, 280-281; Simon of Kéza also says that Coloman was a bishop before he was king. The Deeds of the Hungarians, ch. 64. 140 Bagi is clear that Coloman’s “chronicler tried to prove that the line of Bela had from the very beginning the same or even better right to rule in Hungary then [sic] Andrew’s and Solomon’s rights.” But that “When Álmos’s line came to the throne, a new chronicler changed the textes [sic] written about Coloman, presenting him as tyrant and oath breaker.” Bagi, “The Dynastic Conflicts of the Eleventh Century in the Illuminated Chronicle,” 141. 141 “Annales Posonienses.” Emericus Madszar, ed Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum. Emerus Szentpetery, ed. Vol. 1 of 2. (Budapest: Academia Litter. Hungarica atque Societate Histo. Hungarica, 1937), s.a. 1097 [1095, ed.]. 142 “Annales Posonienses.” s.a. 1098 [1095, ed.]. 143 The Illuminated Chronicle, 276–279; “Annales Posonienses.” s.a. 1117. For a brief analysis of this event see, Bagi, “The Dynastic Conflicts of the Eleventh Century in the Illuminated Chronicle,” 147–148. Bagi also compares this event to Bolesław III’s blinding of Zbigniew, which is mentioned in Chapter 2.

Understanding Succession 127

FIGURE 3.6

The Blinding of Álmos (Cod. Lat. 404. Illuminated Chronicle - © National Széchényi Library).

was used to indicate moral failings, and others have noted the similarities with antique and biblical parallels as well.144 The fact that the chronicle was written later, knowing the descendants of Álmos had succeeded undoubtedly affected this portrayal.145 In the top right, Álmos is laying down, in the process of being blinded. While in the bottom right, there is a fascinating scene, where Álmos’s son Béla lies naked, presumably preparatory to being castrated, but the man assigned to the task is instead castrating a dog. The text of the chronicle notes that the man then showed the dog’s testicles to Coloman to demonstrate that the castration had been carried out.146 Though ultimately unsuccessful, this was a clear attempt to remove Álmos and his

144 Bagi, Divisio Regni, 197–198. 145 Bagi has a similarly illuminating discussion of Bolesław III’s nickname of “Wrymouth” which may also have been an indicator of a moral failing, rather than a physical issue. Bagi, Divisio Regni, 198–199. 146 The Illuminated Chronicle, 276–279. The blinding is recorded elsewhere too, for instance in Otto of Freising. The Two Cities: A Chronicle of Universal History to the year 1146 A.D. Charles Christopher Mierow, transl. (New York: Octagon Books, 1966), bk. 7:21.

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son Béla from the line of succession. Blinding had a long history in the Roman Empire as a tool to deprive usurpers and potential heirs from holding power. It was also used occasionally elsewhere in eastern Europe at this time, though not always (as here) for its original, intended purpose.147 Beyond the blinding, the very obvious attempt to remove the possibility of Béla pro­ ducing heirs was an even surer way to protect Coloman’s own son’s ability to inherit and pass down the royal line. In fact, the Illuminated Chronicle records that on his deathbed, Coloman ordered one of his men to apprehend Álmos to prevent him from succeeding to the throne.148 In the denouement to the story of Árpádian succession in this period, after a ten-year rule, and with no son of his own, Stephen II, Coloman’s son, sought out his cousin Béla, known as “the Blind” and made him the heir to the throne. He did this, at least in part, to avoid passing the throne to his own half-brother, Boris, the son of Coloman by his second wife, Euphemia whom Coloman had repudiated for infidelity. Despite the claims by Hungarian sources for Boris’s out-of-wedlock conception, both Bohemian and German sources record him as the son of Coloman.149 So, once again, we see a shift in what we would like to call a pattern of succession. Instead of a lateral inheritance passing to his brother, Stephen calls on a cousin, incredibly wronged by Stephen’s own father, to rule the kingdom after Stephen’s death. What this suggests, at least to me, is that as much as we might like to look at Figure 3.5 and see a regular pattern of succession passing laterally down through the generations; instead, we have a much more chaotic series of individual choices and events based upon personal preference, changing ideals and other variables not even discussed. This certainly does not appear as a “system” even one with variations. Conclusion

As seen in these examples from multiple locations in the arc of medieval Europe, succession was less of a system than is commonly discussed, and more

147 Christian Raffensperger, “The Optics of Byzantine Blinding in Medieval Eastern Europe” in Radical Traditionalism: The Influence of Walter Kaegi in Late Antique, Byzantine, and Medieval Studies, ed. Christian Raffensperger and David Olster (New York and London: Lexington Books, 2018), 115–135. 148 The Illuminated Chronicle, 278–281. 149 The Illuminated Chronicle, 276–277; “Cosmae Chronicon Boemorum cum con­ tinuatoribus,” Fontes Rerum Bohemicarum, tom 2, ed. Jos. Emler (Prague: Nákladem musea Království Českého, 1874), s.a. 1132; Otto, Bishop of Freising, The Two Cities: A Chronicle of Universal History to the year 1146 A.D. Charles Christopher Mierow, transl. (New York: Octagon Books, 1966), bk 7:21. For an analysis of Boris’s life see Christian Raffensperger, “Identity in Flux: Finding Boris Kolomanovich in the Interstices of Medieval European History” The Medieval Globe 2:1 (2016), 15–39.

Understanding Succession 129

based on personal ideas about who a ruler wanted to succeed, or just as often who they did not. Additionally, it is clear that even such preferences were not always the case because rulers often died without naming an heir or their heir was unable to govern. The clear-cut ideas about succession and systems of succession that predominate in medieval studies are often based on western European (Anglo-French in particular) models and again become more regular in the thirteenth century. What we see in the arc of medieval Europe, the majority of Europe, is that succession is neither clear cut nor regular. Dániel Bagi, in a survey of twentieth-century historiography pointed out just this thing for his area of focus – East Central Europe – noting that conflicts amongst the kin group “can be traced back precisely to the underdeveloped nature of the rules governing succession.”150 Thus we see lateral or collateral succession is much more common than is typically recognized in medieval studies as a whole, and yet even those instances of what “should be” lateral succession occasionally end up interspersed with lineal succession based upon a ruler’s desires. The example above regarding Andrew and his son Salomon is certainly one well-known one, but we can see similar examples elsewhere, such as in Rus, where collateral succession is well studied, but occasionally a powerful ruler of Kyiv will attempt to have their son succeed them, such as in the case of Volodimer Monomakh and his son Mstislav. Another point that needs to be made about succession practices is that peaceful successions have been privileged as normal and proper. And thus, when there are instances of internecine conflict to determine a new ruler, they can be looked down upon as negative. However, Weiler has recently noted that “dynastic instability was a recurring feature in the regnal politics of high medieval Europe”151 adding that in the German Empire “Between 1125 and 1308 only two rulers did not face a rival candidate for the throne - Frederick Barbarossa and his son Henry VI.”152 And even a century before that, the succession to Henry II was “anything but smooth” as “Henry left no heirs, [and] he even failed to designate a successor.”153 Hans Jacob Orning has gone further, specifically in regard to Norway, to suggest that, “Conflicts were a natural mode of pursuing one’s interests against opponents of roughly similar status.”154 If we

150 Bagi, Divisio Regni, 41–42. 151 Paths to Kingship, 135. 152 Björn Weiler, Kingship, Rebellion and Political Culture: England and Germany, c. 1215–c. 1250 (Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), 29. 153 Björn Weiler, “Describing Rituals of Succession and the Legitimation of Kingship in the West, ca. 1000-ca. 1150” in Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval Mediterranean: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Alexander Daniel Beihammer (Leiden: Brill, 2013): 119. 154 Hans Jacob Orning, “Conflict and Social (Dis)order in Norway, c. 1030-1160” in Disputing Strategies in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. Kim Esmark, Lars Hermanson, Hans Jacob Orning, and Helle Vogt (Leiden: Brill, 2013): 66.

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expand our time frame, we could see that conflict is much more common than is often accepted. Damián Fernández had noted, for Visigothic Spain, “royal succession was not smooth – in fact there were few cases of peaceful accessions to the throne” nevertheless, the kingdom stayed unified.155 The lesson we can draw from all of this is that, once again, the “normative” image of peaceful succession, father to son, displayed in a lot of medieval studies scholarship is anything but normal. Conflict is normal, differing modes of succession are normal, having no discernible pattern (or one with multiple deviations) is normal; and finally, that including the arc of medieval Europe into analyses will give us a better, more accurate picture of medieval Europe as a whole, than a persistent focus on just the West.

155 Damián Fernández, “Statehood, Taxation, and State Infrastructural Power in Visigothic Iberia,” in Ancient States and Infrastructural Power: Europe, Asia, and America, ed. Clifford Ando and Seth Richardson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 246.

PART II

Ecclesiastical Relations

4 RULERS AND THE CHURCH

It is difficult to discuss rulers and rulership in medieval Europe without acknowledging the presence, and importance, of the relationship with Christianity. All of the rulers under discussion in the volume were, or became during their lifetimes, Christian. And due to the universal claims of the medieval Christian Church, this affected their status both within their realms, as well as in the wider Christian world. Thus, it is essential to include in such a study as this some discussion of the relationship between the rulers and the church (the relationship between the rulers and monasticism is dealt with in the next chapter). While this discussion could be the subject of an entire volume (or several), the discussion here will be focused on one specific topic: the ways in which rulers in the arc of medieval Europe utilized, or attempted to utilize, the Christian eccle­ siastical structures in their realms to reinforce their own secular power bases. Before beginning with examples of this phenomenon, however, given the geographic breadth of the territory under discussion, it is necessary to discuss the idea of medieval Christianity and especially, the still persistent idea of an eleventh-century Church Schism between “East” and “West.” It is true that in 1054 there was a brief interlude in which there were multiple ex­ communications between the Roman and Constantinopolitan Churches. This incident, though, was quickly patched up and the two churches remained in communion with one another. For modern scholars, however, the incident became a touchstone to add to a line of events that stretched back to the primacy of Rome over the other patriarchates, Iconoclasm, and forward to the 1204 Sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade and

DOI: 10.4324/9781003388296-7

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other events of the thirteenth century, such as the Fourth Lateran Council.1 Instead of adopting this ahistorical approach, I would like to refocus attention upon an idea originated by Peter Brown – micro-Christendoms: “a local Christendom, that is, which mirrored the majestic certainty of a ‘true’ Christianity, preserved somewhere in distant lands.”2 While Brown’s idea focused upon the early medieval period, in Reimagining Europe I attempted to extend this date and apply the concept to the eleventh and twelfth cen­ turies as well.3 The argument is that there were multiple regions in medieval Europe, all of which identified as Christian, and which were in communion with one another, but who were ecclesiastical and political rivals. In Reimagining Europe, I talked about the example of priests and bishops being consecrated in Anglo-Saxon England to serve in Scandinavia, and how they were waylaid by the Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen because that was “his” territory; or the tussle between Rome, Constantinople, and the Franks over the conversion of Bulgaria.4 Utilizing the micro-Christendom model, we can move away from the anachronistic division of Europe into an East and West in the eleventh and twelfth century, still talk about a Christian medieval European world, but also acknowledge that there were individual, regional, peculiarities. Thus, for the purposes of this chapter, Rus, whose metropolitan was subject to the patriarch of Constantinople, participates in the same Christian world as Hungary and Norway whose archbishops report (at least theoretically) to the pope in Rome. To add just one more example, relevant to what will be discussed below: the Life of King Stephen by Hartvik was written in the early twelfth century about the early eleventh-century sainted ruler. In it, Hartvik notes that Stephen founded a monastery in Jerusalem, a group of canons in Rome, and a church in Constantinople – covering his ecclesiastical bases and bridging micro-Christendoms while staying within the wider Christian world.5 Viewing medieval Europe in this way not only is more accurate to the time under examination (witness the numerous marriages between Rus and the rest of medieval Europe which required no “re-conversion”) but also demonstrates the utility, once more, of looking at the arc of medieval Europe as an analytical tool.

1 This is true for scholars of both “East” and “West.” Though those in the West have used it offensively to “other” “Orthodox” Europe, while scholars in the East have often used it defensively as a way to try and empower themselves and their historical forebearers. 2 Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200–1000 (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2003 [2nd Edition]), 359. 3 Christian Raffensperger, Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus’ in the Medieval World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 138–142. 4 Raffensperger, Reimagining Europe, 142–155. 5 “Hartvic, Life of King Stephen of Hungary,” transl. Nora Berend in Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology, ed. Thomas Head (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 2000): 386.

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Further, it is important to note that this chapter, and Chapter 5 following, move away from the rhetorical model of Part 1 of this book. The chapters in Part 1 made claims that the normative ideas regarding titulature, corulership, and succession were incorrect and needed to be modified with information from the arc of medieval Europe to more accurately express what was happening broadly. Part 2 shifts the focus to reinforcing existing under­ standings of the way that the ecclesiastical structure, inclusive of mon­ asteries, related to the political elites. By demonstrating that the same types of interactions between secular and ecclesiastical leaders were happening in the arc of medieval Europe as in the more often discussed regions of England and France, it will help scholars of those areas appreciate the similarities throughout a wider Europe. The end result is the same as in Part 1, en­ couraging a new way of looking at medieval Europe as a whole. Paul Hollingsworth has suggested that the addition of the church as a whole and churchmen, in particular, as agents on the ground, not only added a new element to the political process but shifted the terms on which rulers engaged with others. Apropos of rulers themselves, he says that “Political power in medieval Rus’ was intensely intimate and contingent. It relied on the constant creation and cultivation of an extensive network of personal relationships through which wealth, social standing, and political authority could be acquired and sustained.”6 This is an excellent expression of a commonly understood way of looking at rulership in medieval Europe. Power was personal and relied on personal relationships to engage others. Such an idea can be seen in this book, but even more so in studies discretely focused on families such as Gerd Althoff’s Family, Friends, and Followers.7 Hollingsworth takes this picture one step further and says that with the addition of churchmen, the political framework inherently changes: the growing presence of churchmen in their towns reshaped the societal space in which acts of rulership took place by adding a new and enduring network of relations and a fresh and extremely powerful set of expecta­ tions that an East Slavic prince had to take into consideration as he sought to define his circle of supporters and solidify and extend his authority in his town or domain.8

6 Paul A. Hollingsworth, “Holy men and the transformation of political space in medieval Rus’” in The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown, ed. James Howard-Johnston and Paul Antony Hayward (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 187. 7 Gerd Althoff, Family, Friends, and Followers: Political and Social Bonds in Early Medieval Europe, transl. Christopher Carroll (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 8 Hollingsworth, “Holy men and the transformation of political space in medieval Rus’,” 190–191.

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A key reason for this shift is the network that churchmen brought with them. Though they are not typically bound by kin networks (although we know many high-ranking churchmen often derived from elite families), churchmen were bound into a network all their own via their connections to the church. They were, inherently, part of a community that had powerful backing and was integrated into a wider span of history and geography than any other single political unit.9 Whether this was explicitly made clear to rulers and individuals or not, it was certainly implicit as churchmen spoke for the Church and therefore, had the backing of a millennium of authority behind them. Thus, it seems clear that political power must change to accommodate the relationship with this new power center in the polity. And while Hollingsworth is focused on Rus, these ideas apply more broadly to the arc of medieval Europe as well. The current chapter uses some of these ideas as a base with which to examine the ways in which rulers in the arc of medieval Europe adapted to having an ecclesiastical presence in their realm and how they attempted to use it to enhance their own power structures. Through examination of examples from Rus, Norway, Hungary, and Croatia, we can see the ways in which secular rulers worked with and through ecclesiastical leaders and organizations to increase their own power. Similarly, we will see ways in which the Church and churchmen attempted to push back on royal authority and engineer shifts in the larger power structure from one oriented towards secular rule to one oriented towards religious power. Within that frame­ work, the majority of the sections also engage with the well-known Gregorian Reform movements which, while specialists know better, have been seen as affecting all of medieval Europe. Each of the case studies also focuses on the ways that secular rulers appointed, attempted to appoint, or manage the selection of ecclesiastical leaders. This was a way for the secular rulers to help control, or at least utilize, the wider network of which the ecclesiastics were a part, as referenced by Hollingsworth. Where this leaves us then is, once again, with similarities in the arc of medieval Europe in regard to the way that the power dynamic between the secular and religious rulers was managed during the period of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Rus

Rulers throughout world history have sought endorsement from a higher power. In Christian medieval Europe, this is typically believed to have come from ecclesiastical coronation and ordination, but as we have seen in regard to Scandinavia in Chapter 3, this is not necessarily the case for the majority

9 Hollingsworth, “Holy men and the transformation of political space in medieval Rus’,” 193.

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of our period, or for the arc of medieval Europe as a whole. In the case of Rus, there were many rulers, as has been noted, and we do not see any evidence of ecclesiastical coronation or ordination for a single one of them in the period under discussion.10 The typical formula for a ruler taking the throne was that they “sat on the throne of their father,” with occasional additions of brother, uncle, or grandfather.11 The lack of evidence of ecclesiastical involvement has not stopped some scholars from suggesting otherwise, however. For example, Andrzej Poppe has said that “It is a misconception to say that Rus’ princes were not God-anointed.”12 Poppe relies for his evidence on comparison to the medieval Roman Empire, where he suggests that the Roman emperors experienced an act of anointing that “was not a material one, which was so important for rulers from Latin culture, but it was a spiritual, invisible, and imperceptible act taking place directly between the celestial emperor and the terrestrial one. Therefore in the Byzantine refined and subtle understanding of these matters, there was no place for and no necessity of mediation by the church’s hierarchy.”13 The medieval Roman Empire did not have formal anointing of rulers until approximately the thirteenth century, though there are statements that rulers were anointed “in the womb.”14 While the Roman Empire is not our subject here at the moment, I have included it in the arc of medieval Europe and a discussion of its practices is relevant, both in general and as a model for other polities in the Christian world.15 For Rus, there is no specific example of a

10 Oleksiy Tolochko, “Problems of the Rurikids and Sacral Legitimisation” in Monotheistic Kingship: The Medieval Variants, ed. Aziz al-Azmeh and János M. Bak (Budapest: Central European University, 2004): 249. 11 There are multiple examples from primary sources, but Jonathan Shepard addresses this in the current context as well, Jonathan Shepard, “Rus’” in Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’, c. 900–1200, ed. Nora Berend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007): 395. See also the discussion in Chapter 3. 12 Andrzej Poppe, “The Christianization and Ecclesiastical Structure of Kyivan Rus’ to 1300” in Christian Russia in the Making (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate Variorum, 2007), 349n102. 13 Poppe, “The Christianization and Ecclesiastical Structure of Kyivan Rus’ to 1300,” 349n102. 14 Poppe, “The Christianization and Ecclesiastical Structure of Kyivan Rus’ to 1300,” 349n102. For the anointing see, Ruth Macrides, J. A. Munitiz, Dimiter Angelov, “The Ceremonies” in Pseudo-Kodinos and the Constantinopolitan Court: Offices and Ceremonies, ed. Ruth Macrides, J. A. Munitiz, Dimiter Angelov (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2013): 424–425. 15 Judith Herrin discusses the coronation practices for the medieval Roman Empire briefly in “Byzantium: Imperial Order, Constantinopolitan Ceremonial and Pyramids of Power” in Political Culture in the Latin West, Byzantium and the Islamic World, c. 700-c. 1500: A Framework for Comparing Three Spheres, ed. Catherine Holmes, Jonathan Shepard, Jo van Steenbergen, and Björn Weiler (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2021), 297. There she specifically points out that anointing does not happen until the thirteenth century.

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ruler receiving any such anointing, except for one letter from the Kyivan metropolitan, a Constantinopolitan appointee from the Roman Empire named Nikifor who spent seventeen years in Rus, who says that the Rusian ruler Volodimer Monomakh was consecrated and anointed in the womb.16 Beyond the difficulty of just having one piece of evidence upon which to build the idea of anointing in Rus, the other pieces of Metropolitan Nikifor’s letter to Volodimer Monomakh seem to suggest a wider issue. Oleksiy Tolochko has analyzed the two letters of Nikifor to Monomakh, in com­ parison with other writings from Rus, particularly Monomakh’s own “Testament” for particularly this issue of sacral legitimation.17 Tolochko notes that Metropolitan Nikifor emphasizes a model of rulership which is reflective of his own ideas, and medieval Roman ideas, rather than those present in Rus. For instance, he says that secular rulers are “personally chosen and elevated to the office by Divinity”; says that the duties of a ruler are “to protect the faith, to ensure its orthodoxy, and to act as a guardian of the church”; and he describes the ideal ruler as a sedentary one.18 All of these are ideas that might resonate with modern medievalists, but they were not necessarily apropos for a Rusian audience. If we compare these ideas with those from Monomakh’s own “Testament” we see an entirely different vision of rulership and the responsibilities of a ruler emerge. Volodimer Monomakh, writing for his sons, breaks down the primary duties of a ruler as: “war, the royal hunt, running the estate, dispersing charity and protecting the clergy, and finally, praying to God.”19 The main place of overlap between the two perspectives on rule is in regard to the protection of the clergy; an idea which fits in well with the common medieval perception of the ruler as defensor ecclesiae (historically an idea not associated with Rus).20

16 Poppe, “The Christianization and Ecclesiastical Structure of Kyivan Rus’ to 1300,” 349n102. The letter is printed in full in Epistoliarnoe nasledie drevnei rusi XI-XIII: issle­ dovaniia, tektsy, perevody. D. S. Likhachev and N. V. Ponyrko, red. (Saint Petersburg: Nauka, 1992), 66–71. 17 Tolochko, “Problems of the Rurikids and Sacral Legitimisation,” 249–268. Ponyrko has made available both of Nikifor’s letters to Monomakh in his Epistoliarnoe nasledie drevnei rusi XI-XIII, 66–73. 18 The first letter of Nikifor to Monomakh outlines all of these in more detail, but they are laid out in brief at the beginning of the letter. Epistoliarnoe nasledie drevnei rusi XI-XIII, 66–67. 19 Tolochko, “Problems of the Rurikids and Sacral Legitimisation,” 259; Simon Franklin and Jonathan Shepard, The Emergence of Rus, 750–1200 (New York: Longman, 1996), 314. And for the original primary source, in English, see The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text, transl. and ed. Samuel Hazzard Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (Cambridge, Mass.: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1953), 206–215. 20 For more on the idea of Defensio Eccleasiae in the arc of medieval Europe see, Radoslaw Kotecki, “The Idea of Defensio Ecclesiae and its Resonances in Earlier Medieval Poland (X/ XIth-XIIIth Century)” Roczniki Historii Kosciola 4:59 (2012): 51–84.

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That point of similarity aside, Monomakh and Nikifor largely differ on what the core values are for a ruler. One difference is that Monomakh stresses that a ruler is largely itinerant to best deal with the variety of problems that occur.21 A clear departure from Nikifor’s final point about the ideal ruler being sedentary – reflective of the life of a medieval Roman ruler perhaps, but not a Rusian one. Where this leaves us is with the idea that while Nikifor’s letters are certainly interesting sources, they are reflective of ideas that originate in the milieu of the Roman empire, rather than in that of Rus; and thus, should be taken as an attempt to propagate his vision of Roman ideas, rather than to express Rusian ones. This impression is only reinforced by the knowledge that most metropolitans in Rus were appointed in Constantinople and did not speak Slavonic, a fact which is noted explicitly for Nikifor who “expressed regret that he had to ‘stand speechless among you’ for lack of knowledge of the language.”22 Given all of this, it is understandable that Nikifor was not best expressing a Rusian perspective on rulership, and as such we cannot use his views as particularly reflective of Rus. Despite the lack of any ecclesiastical involvement in ordination or coro­ nation, we do see the church attempting to create a new framework within Rus, both for themselves and for the rulers, as articulated by Hollingsworth. The implementation of Christianity in Rusian society created a situation in which churchmen became “partners with the princes in bearing the central belief system of Rus’ society.”23 A particular way that they made their presence felt was by inserting themselves into the process of conflict man­ agement among the ruling clan of Rus, and attempting to mitigate conflict amidst the clan.24 While I have argued elsewhere that these conflicts between clan members were a way that individuals attempted to create better posi­ tions for themselves in the clan hierarchy, the churchmen were focused on

21 Tolochko, “Problems of the Rurikids and Sacral Legitimisation,” 259; You can see this most clearly in the frenetic pace that Monomakh suggests for a ruler on The Russian Primary Chronicle, 210–211. 22 Shepard, “Rus’” 401. Internal Quote to Metropolitan Nikifor. Poppe expresses the view, however, that even if metropolitans arrived not being able to speak the local language, they would have learned. Andrzej Poppe, “Leontios, Abbot of Patmos, Candidate for the Metropolitan See of Rus’,” in Christian Russia in the Making (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate Variorum, 2007), 2. 23 Hollingsworth, “Holy men and the transformation of political space in medieval Rus’,” 191. This view would be disagreed with by Shepard who has suggested the diametrically opposite idea that “There is little detailed evidence on how the Church envisaged that Christian Rus’ society should function, since no formal ecclesiastical code of conduct or legislation seems to have been issued.” Shepard, “Rus’,” 389. 24 Hollingsworth, “Holy men and the transformation of political space in medieval Rus’,” 197–199.

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ending violence.25 Per Hollingsworth, “they focused on the dangers of unchecked feuding among the princely kinsmen” as part of a larger attempt to “contain and even end the cycles of violence generated by personal or princely feuds.”26 Hollingsworth’s argument that this is a Christian outlook on conflict within a ruling clan finds resonance in Lisa Wolverton’s in-depth look at Cosmas of Prague. She, too, suggests that what Cosmas is doing is not glorifying the Přemyslids, but rather calling them out for their internal conflicts with one another.27 Seeing the similarity in Cosmas, and one might suggest in Gallus Anonymous as well (whose rationale for the text itself is to deal with conflict between his patron Bolesław III and his half-brother Zbigniew28), reinforces Hollingsworth’s point about churchmen attempting to reshape political culture. From a practical standpoint, there are multiple instances of churchmen acting as intermediaries, mediators, and peacemakers in Rusian conflicts. Interestingly, within Rus, the churchmen who do so are as often as not monastic mediators, as opposed to regular clergy. Perhaps because of the prominence of the Caves Monastery in Kyiv (discussed in Chapter 5), we see that “In both the twelfth and the first half of the thirteenth centuries, half of the dioceses were occupied by bishops who had formerly been monks at the Kyivan Caves Monastery.”29 Bishops too had to be careful not to overstep their authority as they had few means in our period of independent support beyond gifts from members of the ruling family; similarly, they needed the ruling family to support them in their own ecclesiastical power structure.30 Thus, they often acted within the framework of the larger clan, even when

25 Christian Raffensperger, Conflict, Bargaining, and Kinship Networks in Medieval Eastern Europe (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2018); Hollingsworth, “Holy men and the transformation of political space in medieval Rus’,” 198. Compare as well Hans Jacob Orning’s ideas about the importance of conflict for the management of governance. Hans Jacob Orning, “Conflict and Social (Dis)order in Norway, c. 1030–1160” in Disputing Strategies in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. Kim Esmark, Lars Hermanson, Hans Jacob Orning, and Helle Vogt (Leiden: Brill, 2013): 45–82. 26 Hollingsworth, “Holy men and the transformation of political space in medieval Rus’,” 198. 27 Lisa Wolverton, Cosmas of Prague: Narrative, Classicism, Politics (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2015), 184–196, 197–204. 28 Zbigniew Dalewski, “A New Chosen People? Gallus Anonymus’s Narrative about Poland and its Rulers” in Historical Narratives and Christian Identity on a European Periphery: Early History Writing in Northern, East-Central, and Eastern Europe (c. 1070–1200) ed. Ildar H. Garipzanov (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2011), 145–166. 29 Poppe, “The Christianization and Ecclesiastical Structure of Kyivan Rus’ to 1300,” 356. Poppe is here relying on information from the Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery which helpfully lists the monks who became bishops in Rus. The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, trans. Muriel Heppell (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1989), 118–119. 30 Shepard, “Rus’,” 405.

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calling for peace. For instance, the Povest’ vremennykh let (PVL) records a lengthy story under the year 1097 about the blinding of Vasilko, a member of the Volodimerovichi clan.31 After the blinding, when nearly the entire clan had turned against Sviatopolk, the ruler in Kyiv and potential agent behind the blinding, the chronicle records that the Kyivans sent both Metropolitan Nicholas and the previous ruler’s widow to speak with Volodimer Monomakh, the leader of the forces opposed to Sviatopolk, in an attempt to head off hostilities.32 While it seems that the metropolitan, as the highest ecclesiastical figure in Rus, should be in charge of this expedition, and the message contains one of unity versus “the pagans” (nomadic steppe peoples); the relevant text places the onus of mediation on the queen. They both made their appeal to Volodimer together, but then Volodimer is said to have ho­ nored her explicitly as a mother, she was his stepmother, because he loved his father and always obeyed him. The metropolitan was respected because Volodimer “revered ecclesiastical rank”. And after this is related, it is the queen who returns to Kyiv and relays the exchange to Sviatopolk, cementing the peace.33 The text is important to look at in its larger context because, while the metropolitan is an important figure, the presence of the queen, Volodimer’s stepmother, is even more so, and crucial to the peace. Thus, while ecclesiastical figures do attempt peace-making, elements of the ruling clan are also constituent members of the process, and often the dominant ones. The twelfth century sees more examples of ecclesiastics as peacemakers. For instance, in 1128, the hegumen of the St. Andrews Monastery acted as an intermediary to stop Mstislav, the ruler of Rus, from making war on another member of the clan.34 This is a particularly interesting moment for the interactions between rulers and church because Mstislav had sworn a solemn oath on the cross to fight on behalf of his kinsman against another, and Hegumen Grigorii was attempting to absolve him of that promise.35 Due to the lack of a current metropolitan in Rus, a fact noted in the chronicle, the abbot called together a general church council to absolve Mstislav of his oath for the greater good of keeping the peace in Rus.36 In 1136, there is another instance of cross kissing to end a conflict, with the metropolitan as an in­ termediary, but despite his being the bearer of the cross of peace, the

31 32 33 34 35

PVL, s.a. 1097. PVL, s.a. 1097. PVL, s.a. 1097. Hypatian Chronicle, s.a. 1128. For more on cross-kissing see, Yulia Mikhailova and David K. Prestel, “Cross Kissing: Keeping One’s Word in Twelfth-Century Rus’” Slavic Review 70:1 (2011): 1–22. 36 Hypatian Chronicle, s.a. 1128.

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chronicle is quite clear that the peaceful victory was attributed to the ruler of Kyiv, Iaropolk.37 There are examples as well of churchmen participating in attempts at peace, even if they do not work out as planned. For instance, in 1140, the Novgorodians sent their bishop as one messenger among many to the ruler in Kyiv seeking a new ruler for their city.38 Vsevolod Olgovich, the ruler of Kyiv, did not care for their request, or rather for whom they wanted as ruler, and imprisoned them, the bishop included, for a year. A particularly inter­ esting example of Rusian rulers’ regard, or lack thereof in this case, of ecclesiastical officials are the events of 1101 when the ruler of Rus, Sviatopolk, captured and imprisoned Iaroslav Iaropolchich, a member of his family and the larger clan who had revolted against him.39 The metropol­ itan, together with other ecclesiastics, intervened on Iaroslav’s behalf and took him to the monastery of SS. Boris and Gleb where he was freed. Despite this intervention, the chronicle records that in 1102, Iaroslav fled from Kyiv (one can assume he was imprisoned or at least on house arrest once more), but was subsequently captured and put back in chains, only to die later in the year.40 Though the metropolitan, and some portion of the ecclesiastical es­ tablishment, intervened to keep peace within the clan and prevent intra-clan violence, nevertheless Iaroslav still met his death.41 The attempt by churchmen active within Rus to shift patterns of behavior was very much an uphill battle, and one that did not always succeed. If, in fact, one were to look for instances of peacemaking in just the Hypatian Chronicle for the twelfth century, they can be found with some regularity, but ecclesiastical officials are involved, or at least their presence is noted, in only a bare handful of those attempts to make peace. Thus, while the churchmen attempted to inculcate the idea that “blessed are the peacemakers” in the rulers of Rus, it was not particularly successful, and intraclan conflict continued. It has been suggested that one of the ways that rulers attempted to garner support for themselves was to create new bishoprics in their territories.42 This would enhance their own authority by dint of seeming ecclesiastical endorsement of their activities. Poppe gives two examples of this kind of

37 38 39 40

Hypatian Chronicle, s.a. 1136. Hypatian Chronicle, s.a. 1140. PVL, s.a. 1101. PVL, s.a. 1102. For more analysis of this event see Raffensperger, Conflict, Bargaining, and Kinship Networks, 86. 41 Hollingsworth also finds this example particularly apropos of the reality of the attempt to shift patterns of behavior in Rus. “Holy men and the transformation of political space in medieval Rus’,” 212–213. 42 Shepard, “Rus’,” 394.

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activity involving the sons of Iziaslav Iaroslavich, who, after their father’s death, created new bishoprics for themselves in their towns.43 The elder son was Iaropolk, who was given the towns of Vladimir and Turov to rule, and Poppe suggests that he created the see of Vladimir at this time. The younger, Sviatopolk, was later given Turov (after Iaropolk’s death), and Poppe sug­ gests that he created a bishopric in that city because he wanted to reinforce his authority as well as because he was used to having one from the time when he was the ruler of Novgorod. All of that “indicates not only that the social elite had been Christianized, but that collaboration with the church had become characteristic of princely authority.”44 One problem with this hypothesis, however, is that there is no specific information telling us when those sees were created, nor is there information about the rationale for their creation. The PVL, our main source for eleventh-century Rus, records those two rulers taking up their territories but does not contain any information about the creation of those bishoprics.45 Similarly, the Paterik of the Kyivan Caves Monastery records the career of monk, and later hegumen, Stefan, and notes that he will become the bishop of Vladimir, but does not provide any dated information for when that might happen, or additional context.46 It also mentions a bishop Lavrentii in Turov, but again, there is no information about when that diocese was founded or the circumstances under which it was created.47 These lacunae present a problem when making sweeping statements about the importance of creating bishoprics for rulers who would like to cement their power. Moving into the twelfth century, the problem continues, though there are also better examples of attempts to create ecclesiastical power centers to accompany royal centers. One of the problematic situations is the creation of the see of Smolensk, which the Hypatian Chronicle dates to 1137.48 Jonathan Shepard has noted that this see was created by Rostislav Mstislavich of Smolensk to better his political position.49 This assertion is problematic, though, given that Rostislav was ruling Smolensk by 1127, and thus this is a decade into his rule.50 Moreover, it is not a particularly

43 Poppe, “The Christianization and Ecclesiastical Structure of Kyivan Rus’ to 1300,” 355. 44 Poppe, “The Christianization and Ecclesiastical Structure of Kyivan Rus’ to 1300,” 355. 45 PVL, s.a. 1078, 1088. The PVL, under the year 1091, records the existence of a bishop Stefan at Vladimir, so it was in existence by that time. 46 The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, Discourse 8, p. 86. Additional information is provided about Stefan in the Life of Feodosii, but again not about his assumption of the bishopric. “The Life of Feodosii” in The Hagiography of Kievan Rus’, transl. Paul Hollingsworth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992): 33–96. 47 The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, Discourse 14, p. 119. 48 Hypatian Chronicle, s.a. 1137. 49 Shepard, “Rus’,” 394. 50 See the Laurentian Chronicle, s.a. 1127 where Rostislav is already in position in Smolensk.

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important moment for Rostislav, though perhaps he was developing his power base, and the Hypatian chronicle which records the creation of the bishopric does not even mention Rostislav, or anyone else, as the initiator of the creation.51 The closest it comes is the note that Bishop Manuel came to the “God-loving king Mstislav,” the then-deceased father of Rostislav. Rostislav will eventually become a major player in Rusian politics, and be the progenitor of a particularly influential family, and thus, it makes sense that his power base of Smolensk would have a bishopric. However, the source base does not allow for a rationale as to why it happened, or why at that particular time. There is much more evidence for the creation of local metropolitans or new metropolitanates. In the eleventh century, there was a unique situation in which there were suddenly three metropolitans in Rus at the same time. The see of Rhosia, in Greek, was the single largest ecclesiastical territory subordinate to the patriarch of Constantinople, and thus it would make sense to have it be divided into smaller units, but there is little evidence to suggest that the creation of multiple metropolitans was driven by Byzantium.52 The locations of the three metropolitans are coterminous with the three main political centers of the time in which they were created – Kyiv, Chernigov, and Pereiaslavl. It has been suggested by many that the rule of Iziaslav Iaroslavich in Rus was actually a triumvirate, with his two brothers, Sviatoslav and Vsevolod, who ruled, not inconsequentially in Chernigov and Pereiaslavl.53 Poppe has suggested that because of the triumvirate, each of the three needed their own metropolitan to maintain their authority.54 While the centers of political and ecclesiastical rule mirror one another, there is no extant evidence or explanation for why the metropolitanates were created at that time. Further, it seems as if at least Ephraim, the metropolitan of Pereiaslavl, was Rusian, which would be an oddity for the time as most metropolitans were from the medieval Roman empire. Ephraim, though, is noted in the Paterik as being a member of the ruler’s household, and then a monk at the Caves Monastery before becoming metropolitan.55 Interestingly, it is the PVL that records Ephraim as a metropolitan, including

51 Hypatian Chronicle, s.a. 1137. 52 Poppe, in an older article, does, however, suggest that it was. A. V. Poppe, “Russkie mi­ tropolii konstantinopol’skoi patriarkhii v XI stoletii” Vizantiiskii Vremennik 28 (1968): 98–104. 53 A.V. Nazarenko, “Mitropolii iaroslavichei vo vtoroi polovine XI veka,” in Drevniaia Rus’ i Slaviane (Moscow: RAN, 2009): 207–245. 54 Poppe, “The Christianization and Ecclesiastical Structure of Kyivan Rus’ to 1300,” 351. 55 The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, Discourse 8, p. 37; Discourse 9, p. 92; Discourse 14, p. 118. For an interesting treatment of Ephraim, see D. G. Khrustalev, Razyskaniia o Efreme Pereiaslavskom (Sankt-Peterburg: Evraziia, 2002).

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a reference to a metropolitan church in Pereiaslavl, while the Paterik (and the PVL later) mentions him with only the title of bishop.56 Thus, we are left with a bit of a mystery as to why these metropolitanates were created and subsequently dissolved in such a fashion. We do have later examples of deliberate attempts to create a new me­ tropolitanate to mirror political power. One of the earliest is from the 1160s, when Andrei “Bogoliubskii” [God-Lover] attempts to elevate his local bishopric to a metropolitanate.57 Andrei was an important ruler and was following in his father’s footsteps of growing Vladimir-Suzdal in the region between the Volga and Oka rivers, to the northeast of the traditional Rusian heartland of the Dnieper River. Not only was he well known as a church builder and city founder, but he also translated the famous icon of the Mother of God to the area from Kyiv – potentially as another way to increase the authority of his rule and of his region.58 Andrei’s attempt needs to be situated not only within the political context of his feeling separate from the authority of Kyiv but also within the religious context of a con­ tested choice of metropolitan, Klim Smoliatich.59 Andrei wanted to do two particular things with his change. First, he wanted to shift the current episcopal center of Rostov to Andrei’s own political base of Vladimir on the Kliazma. Second, he wanted to raise the status of this episcopal see to a metropolitanate. He even chose a candidate and proposed him to the Patriarch of Constantinople.60 We do not have Andrei’s proposal extant, but we do have the patriarch’s response – a deliberate no. Patriarch Luka Chrysoberges said unequivocally that there would only be one see for Kyiv and all of Rus and that would be administered from Kyiv.61 This policy would not change until over a century later. In this example, though it failed, we at least have an unequivocal attempt to create an ecclesiastical power center coterminous with a political one, and, in particular, a growing political power center. The failure of the attempt, though, also speaks to the dichotomous relationship between ecclesiastical and political power centers in Rus. Andrei’s proposed metropolitan ended up imprisoned in Kyiv, and the bishopric stayed in Rostov, rather than moving to Vladimir.62

56 57 58 59 60 61

PVL, s.a. 1090, 1091. The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, Discourse 8, p. 41. Shepard, “Rus’,” 394. Franklin and Shepard, The Emergence of Rus, 351. Franklin and Shepard, The Emergence of Rus. Franklin and Shepard, The Emergence of Rus, 362–363. “Gramota velikogo patriarkha Luki ko kniaziu Ondreiu Rostovskomy Bogoliubskomu” in Pamiatniki drevene-russkago kanonicheskago prava (Sankt Peterburg: 1880): 63–76. 62 In fact, not only was Bishop Feodost imprisoned, but Metropolitan Constantine II had him mutilated. Poppe, “Leontios, Abbot of Patmos, Candidate for the Metropolitan See of Rus’,” 9–10.

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Rostov, though an early site of political power for the Volodimerovichi clan, had not had a particular resident ruler since the days of Boris Volodimerovich in the early eleventh century.63 And yet, it was the site of the bishopric that Andrei was trying to move in the second half of the twelfth century. This is just one of a few examples of this disconnect between ecclesiastical and political power centers in Rus. A list of bishops from the year 1091 in the PVL records bishops for Pereiaslavl, Vladimir, and Chernigov, all seats of major families of the Volodimerovichi clan; but then it also includes a bishop for Iurev.64 Iurev was a town on the Ros River, south of Kyiv, which did not have its own ruling member of the Volodimerovichi clan in the period under discussion; and was most likely under the control of the ruler of Kyiv. A nearly identical list is included in the Paterik, which adds only one name, and that is Antonii of Poroskii.65 Muriel Heppell, the translator and editor of the text, says in a note that “the geo­ graphic designation following Antonij’s name does not correspond to any see known to exist in the eleventh century.”66 It is possible that this term is a reference to “Porosia”, the region of the Ros River, of which Iurev was a part and Antonii was the previous bishop.67 However, neither Iurev nor Porosia, as a whole, were major political centers, but managed to have their own ecclesiastical centers. Another, perhaps even more interesting situation, is found in the see of Belgorod. Belgorod was described by the PVL as a “small town ten versts from Kyiv” (roughly twenty-five kilometers).68 Yet, this small town, which the PVL notes was founded by Volodimer Sviatoslavich in 991, or at least fortified then, had a bishopric by 1015, at Volodimer’s death.69 Further, Gerhard Podskalsky has suggested that this see was ranked second after only Kyiv in the Metropolitanate of Rus, until the time when Novgorod became an archbishopric.70 This “small town” was evidently ecclesiastically important, as its bishop played a role in the consecration of

63 PVL, s.a. 1015. 64 PVL, s.a. 1091. The first mention of the see of Iurev occurs in 1072 when the bishop assisted in the translation of the relics of Ss. Boris and Gleb. 65 The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, Discourse 9, p. 92. 66 The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, 92n258. 67 See the reference to Antonii of Iurev in The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, Discourse 6, p. 16. As well as Heppell’s comment on this at 92n258. 68 PVL, s.a. 1097. 69 PVL, s.a. 991. The suggestion that there was already a bishopric there comes from Paul Hollingsworth, “Introduction” The Hagiography of Kievan Rus’ (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992): lxxxii. See the list of bishoprics created by Andrzej Poppe for Gerhard Podskalsky, Christentum und Theologische Literatur in Der Kiever Rus’ (988–1237) (Munich: C. H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1982), 280. 70 Podskalsky, Christentum und Theologische Literatur in Der Kiever Rus’, 31. Podskalsky references a list of suffragans of the metropolitan of Kiev that includes another small town – Kanev.

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the church dedicated to the Mother of God in the Caves Monastery in 1089, along with the metropolitan and the bishops of Chernigov, Rostov, and Iurev.71 Despite this ecclesiastical importance, Belgorod did not receive its own independent ruler from the Volodimerovichi clan until 1117, when Mstislav Volodimerich was brought there to assist his father, the ruler of Kyiv, who was in declining health.72 As in the example of Iurev, once again we do not see a clear mapping of ecclesiastical and political power, which, while not completely undermining the importance of both sides, does call into question the idea of whether the bishop needs a ruler and the ruler needs a bishop, as advanced above. While the common belief that rulers wanted to enhance their rule and their authority with ecclesiastical support makes clear sense to us as modern scholars; when looking for evidence of it in medieval documents from Rus, it becomes harder to find. There are certainly examples like that of Andrei Bogoliubskii of rulers attempting to create their own ecclesiastical centers to reinforce their own power centers. But there are many more ambiguous examples that we have taken as reinforcements of political power, though we are not sure when or why the see was created. Finally, we also see ecclesi­ astical centers, which do not map to political centers. What was the reason that those were created? All of these complicate our understanding of the relationship between rulers and the ecclesia in the arc of medieval Europe; but they also allow us to build a more accurate picture of the past, even if they also inspire further study. Hungary

Ecclesiastical and royal power were closely tied together in Hungary from the beginning, at least according to later sources. The Life of St. Stephen, composed by Bishop Hartvik, was written in the early twelfth century, from two earlier lives of the saint.73 Perhaps drawing on those two earlier ver­ sions, Hartvik says that the “pope called Istvan apostle and granted him the right to rule by both [secular and ecclesiastic – CR] laws.”74 This was an

71 72 73 74

PVL, s.a. 1089; The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, Discourse 6, p. 16. Laurentian Chronicle, s.a. 1117. “Hartvic, Life of King Stephen of Hungary,” 375. Nora Berend, József Laszlovszky and Béla Zsolt Szakács, “The Kingdom of Hungary,” in Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’, c. 900–1200, ed. Nora Berend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007): 344. “Moreover, he sent the king a cross to be worn as a sign of apostleship, saying ‘I am apostolic, but he is truly by his own merit Christ’s apostle, through whom Christ converted so many people. Therefore we relinquish to his disposition as the divine grace instructs him the churches together with the people, to be governed according to both laws.’” “Hartvic, Life of King Stephen of Hungary,” 384.

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essential part of Hartvik’s argument, as he created a Stephen who was both the secular ruler of Hungary, as well as the founder and functional head of its ecclesia, rebutting ideas that Hungary was indebted either to the German Empire or the papacy for its church structure.75 Stephen was said to be able to install “bishops and priests in churches, giving estates and servants as well as liturgical objects to them, and overseeing monastic life.”76 This way of life would be challenged by the Gregorian Reforms, but the touch of those re­ forms would be only lightly felt in Hungary, with kings maintaining control over synods throughout the eleventh century, as well as maintaining the ability to appoint clergy, even if by proxy, into the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Another document purporting to be quite early is the Admonitions of St. Stephen, which are supposedly his instructions to his son, Emeric, who was to be his heir.77 They are extant only from later medieval document collections but are believed by most to have been authentically written, though not by Stephen himself, in the early part of the eleventh century.78 These Admonitions reinforce the later lessons from Hartvik’s Life about the relationship of the king to the church; how the king must defend the faith and the Church, and that he is also responsible for the Church.79 And while the Admonitions are filled with biblical quotations to reinforce the points raised, there are also three admonitions that have no quotations and seem almost entirely secular and perhaps based upon local tradition. These are, “IV. On Honouring Magnates and Warriors,” “VI. On the Reception and Fostering of Guests,” and “VIII. On Sons Following [their Elders].”80 “On Honouring Magnates and Warriors” tells the future king that, “The fourth ornament of rulership is the fidelity, strength, diligence, comity, and trust of the magnates, counts, and warriors.”81 As can be seen, this is a crucial aspect of rulership, but not one reinforced by biblical precedent. The sixth and eighth admonitions similarly do not have biblical quotations, but both instead offer examples from the Roman past to reinforce the ideas about guest right and succession as appeals to ancient (if not biblical) authority.82 These Admonitions, which could of course be examined much more indepth, are, in many ways, a blending of the Testament of Volodimer

75 “Hartvic, Life of King Stephen of Hungary,” 376–377. 76 Nora Berend, József Laszlovszky and Béla Zsolt Szakács, “The Kingdom of Hungary,” 343. 77 For a full English translation see J. Bak and James Ross Sweeney, “De institutione morum ad Emericum ducem” The New Hungarian Quarterly 29:4 (1988): 98–105. 78 Nora Berend, József Laszlovszky and Béla Zsolt Szakács, “The Kingdom of Hungary,” 343. 79 For instance, the first and second most important admonitions are “On the Observance of the Catholic Faith” and “On the Reverence for the Clerical Order.” “De institutione morum ad Emericum ducem,” 100. 80 “De institutione morum ad Emericum ducem,” 102–104. 81 “De institutione morum ad Emericum ducem,” 102. 82 “De institutione morum ad Emericum ducem,” 103–104.

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Monomakh, which values martial skill and honoring one’s warriors and allies, and Metropolitan Nikifor’s recommendations to the same ruler, which focus on Monomakh’s ecclesiastical obligations. These examples represent a vision of the close-knit relationship between royal and ecclesiastical authority that would come to characterize this period of Árpádian Hungary. Traditional historiographical interpretations have set the foundation of the ecclesiastical system of Hungary at the feet of King St. Stephen.83 This idea is, in large part, a construct of the Life of St. Stephen, which, among other things, says that Stephen “having divided his territories into ten bishoprics, he made the church of Esztergom the metropolitan and master of the others”.84 However, a more revisionist approach has come to the fore, which suggests that while King St. Stephen played a major role in the Christianization of Hungary, he did not create the ten bishoprics during his reign, but that they were founded over the course of the tenth and eleventh centuries.85 We do have contemporary evidence for Stephen’s foundation of bishoprics, from the words of Thietmar of Merseburg, writing in the early eleventh century, who says that, Stephen “established bishoprics in his kingdom.”86 While Herman of Reichenau notes at Stephen’s death that, “he had built many churches and bishoprics.”87 An early twelfth-century doc­ ument, a translation from Greek into Latin, says that Stephen “set up and furnished” the Veszprémvölgy convent as well as granting lands to it.88 Returning to the twelfth-century Life of St. Stephen, there is also the sug­ gestion that the papacy signed off on the early establishment of those bish­ oprics, as would have been normal at the time.89

83 Jean W. Sedlar, East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000–1500 (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1994), 164; Pál Engel, The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526, transl. Tamás Pálosfalvi (London, New York: I. B. Tauris, 2005), 42. 84 “Hartvic, Life of King Stephen of Hungary,” 383. 85 Nora Berend, József Laszlovszky and Béla Zsolt Szakács, “The Kingdom of Hungary,” 350–351. For a detailed review of the foundation of the various dioceses in Hungary see, Gábor Barabás, “The Christianization of Hungary,” in Chrystianizacja “Młodszej Europy”, edited by Józef Dobosz, Jerzy Strzelczyk and Marzena Matla (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2016), pp. 115-36. 86 Ottonian Germany: The ‘Chronicon’ of Thietmar of Merseburg, transl. David A. Warner (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), Bk. 4, ch. 59. 87 Herman of Reichenau, “Chronicle,” in Eleventh-Century Germany: The Swabian Chronicles, transl. I.S. Robinson (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2008), s.a. 1038. 88 Boris Stojkovski, “The Greek Charter of the Hungarian King Stephen I,” Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta LIII (2016): 130. Despite this statement, Stojkovski also discusses the possible founders of the convent. 89 Nora Berend, József Laszlovszky and Béla Zsolt Szakács, “The Kingdom of Hungary,” 335.

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Of course, none of these sources record the purpose of the founding of bishoprics, beyond the religious purposes discussed above in regard to St. Stephen’s Admonitions. But modern scholars have attempted to discern a pattern in the foundations of those bishoprics related to the rationale for their founding and their locations.90 László Koszta has suggested that St. Stephen had an agenda to utilize the ecclesiastical system to reinforce his personal political power. He suggests that St. Stephen’s intent was to create, what I would term, a micro-Christendom of his own, modeled on what he was able to observe in both the German and medieval Roman empires.91 This idea, discussed in the introduction to this chapter, seems to fit the Hungarian model created by both medieval and modern commentators. As we will see in this section, the Hungarian church appropriated from both the German empire and the medieval Roman empire; was subordinate to the papacy; and yet maintained a level of independence from it – all indicative of a micro-Christendom. Koszta’s theory of St. Stephen’s intent hinges on the identification of ecclesiastical centers with royal power centers.92 Esztergom was both a political center for Stephen’s court and the site of the archbishopric (at least the first one – see below) for the kingdom of Hungary. Collocating those power centers was especially important as a way to reinforce political and ecclesiastical authority, with Constantinople being the best example in Stephen’s time (not to mention before and after) with a sedentary ruler located in the same city as the head of a major micro-Christendom. The pope in Rome did not have secular power in the same way, and the multiplicity of archbishoprics in the German Empire precluded the same sense of identifi­ cation. Poland, neighbor, friend, and rival to the Hungarians, had split its ecclesiastical and political centers, as Koszta notes, with an archbishopric at Gniezno, but political centers elsewhere, particularly in Cracow.93 It was not

90 Katalin Szende has recently entered this field with a discussion of the geographic placement of the bishoprics in her forthcoming article, “By Choice of By Force? Natural and ManMade Factors in the Siting of Bishops’ Seats in East Central Europe in the Christianization Period”. 91 László Koszta, “Byzantine Archiepiscopal Ecclesiastical System in Hungary?” In The Carpathian Basin, the Hungarians and Byzantium, ed. Olajos Terézia (Szeged: Tudományegyetem Bizantinológiai és Középlatin Filológiai Tanszéki Csoport, 2014), 134. See as well, Barabás, “The Christianization of Hungary,” 117. 92 László Koszta, “State Power and Ecclesiastical System in Eleventh Century Hungary (An Outline to the Dynamics of the Development of Hungarian Christian Church),” in ‘In my spirit and thought I remained a European of Hungarian origin:’ Medieval Historical Studies in Memory of Zoltan J. Kosztolnyik, ed. István Petrovics, Sándor László Tóth, and Eleanor A. Congdon (Szeged: JATE Press, 2010): 70. 93 Koszta, “State Power and Ecclesiastical System in Eleventh Century,” 70. See also Katalin Szende, “From Model to Rival? Competition or Complementarity in Bishops’ Seats in East Central Europe” Religion and Urbanity Online [forthcoming].

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only with Esztergom, though, that this system of collocation of political and ecclesiastical power functioned. The earliest bishopric in Hungary was most likely Veszprem, which may have been founded by Géza, father of St. Stephen, in the late tenth century.94 Veszprem was in the heart of the ter­ ritory controlled by Géza at the time, and when Stephen added bishoprics in the early eleventh century – an archbishopric at Esztergom, and a bishopric at Győr – they too were in territory already controlled by the Árpád family and Stephen personally.95 As he expanded his control along the Danube and to the east, Stephen created new bishoprics and religious centers in Transylvania, Pécs, Kalocsa, Eger, and Csanád.96 In this way, he was able to create new ecclesiastical centers to parallel, if not assist, the creation of political centralization. Similar situations could be easily seen in the collo­ cation of religious and political centers in Rus at this same time, or in the later system utilized for the expansion of the Baltic Crusade territory in Livonia. What neither Stephen nor his successors seemed to do was create ecclesiastical centers in the regions of any of his political rivals. The territory of the dukes of Hungary will be discussed below in more detail, but they did not have their own ecclesiastical centers which could rival that of the king. As was the case with most early bishoprics in converting polities, the occupants of those bishoprics were foreigners. In the case of Hungary, there was a pronounced south German influence in the creation of the Hungarian ecclesiastical organization, as well as the liturgy.97 But given the place of Hungary as between the German and medieval Roman empires, scholars have suggested for some time that there was a persistent influence from Constantinople on the creation of the Hungarian church.98 One can cer­ tainly note the presence of monasteries following “Orthodox” practice in Hungary.99 Though Marianne Saghy is quite clear when noting that, “To the Árpádian kings, rulers of a multiethnic country, the terms ‘East and West,’

94 Nora Berend, József Laszlovszky and Béla Zsolt Szakács, “The Kingdom of Hungary,” 351. Barabás, “The Christianization of Hungary,” 118, 121.The convent of Veszprémvölgy, discussed above, is located in that ecclesiastical territory. Stojkovski, “The Greek Charter of the Hungarian King Stephen I,” 128. 95 Koszta, “State Power and Ecclesiastical System in Eleventh Century Hungary,” 70. 96 Nora Berend, József Laszlovszky and Béla Zsolt Szakács, “The Kingdom of Hungary,” 351. 97 Nora Berend, József Laszlovszky and Béla Zsolt Szakács, “The Kingdom of Hungary,” 335. 98 The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, vol. 1: 1000–1301, transl. And ed. János M. Bak, Gyorgy Bonis, James Ross Sweeney (Bakersfield, CA: Charles Schlacks, Jr., 1989), xlii. 99 Marianne Sághy, “Greek Monasteries in Early Árpádian Hungary,” in Piroska and the Pantokrator: Dynastic Memory, Healing and Salvation in Komnenian Constantinople, ed. Marianne Sághy and Robert Ousterhout (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2019): 11–38; Stojkovski, “The Greek Charter of the Hungarian King Stephen I.” Stojkovski notes in particular the Byzantine documentary practices included in the charter for Veszprémvölgy.

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‘Roman Catholicism and Greek Orthodox,’ ‘Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation’ used by modern historiography for a compartmentalization of historical reality, would have simply made no sense.”100 It has also been suggested that the Hungarian church adopted saints’ days and lives, which were more common in the Constantinopolitan church than in the Latin one.101 Though some, like Berend and her coauthors, suggest that these customs could be found elsewhere in the Latin world; this presents an interesting parallel to what we can see in Rus where Latin saints and saints’ days were utilized.102 In fact, if we look at the Synod of Szabolcs from 1092, there is a clear difference drawn in canon 31 between “Latins” and “Hungarians.”103 The practice referenced had to do with abstention from meat, and the differing practices noted in this canon dem­ onstrate quite clearly that there were native customs within Hungary, which may have derived from the medieval Roman empire, that were viewed as preferred to those of the “Latins,” identified by the editors as “French, Italians, and Walloons.”104 Expanding upon the historiographic statement of Saghy, we can add the work of Gábor Klaniczay who says that “The twelfth century was still a time when there were no hard and fast boundaries between the Byzantine Church and the Church of Rome.”105 This combi­ nation of ideas helps to strengthen the purpose of a work such as this one, which does not focus upon Latin or Orthodox, East or West, but attempts to shift the discourse to incorporate multiple diverse regions into one discussion to better understand how medieval peoples viewed their own world. This also allows us to see similarities across historiographic divides, which are rarely transcended. One of the largest questions about the medieval Roman influence on the Hungarian church centers on the Archbishopric of Kalocsa. This archbishopric was founded in the middle of the eleventh century as a see with no suffragans, though even this has been opened for debate in modern historiography.106 As

100 Sághy, “Greek Monasteries in Early Árpádian Hungary,” 17. 101 Nora Berend, József Laszlovszky and Béla Zsolt Szakács, “The Kingdom of Hungary,” 336. 102 Marina Miladinov similarly notes the presence of medieval Roman saints in the German Empire in the late tenth century, related to the arrival of Theophano. Margins of Solitude: Eremitism in Central Europe between East and West (Zagreb: Leykam International, 2008), 41. 103 The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, 59. 104 The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, 123n33, 123n34. 105 Gábor Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses: Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe, transl. Éva Pálmai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 104. 106 Koszta, “State Power and Ecclesiastical System in Eleventh Century Hungary,” 71. For a contrasting view see Nora Berend, József Laszlovszky and Béla Zsolt Szakács, “The Kingdom of Hungary,” 351.

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noted above, the see of Esztergom was the center of the Hungarian church, as well as of the kingdom. It is incredibly rare in any Christian ecclesiastical structure to create a second archbishopric so quickly after the Christianization of a territory, especially when that archbishopric is given no suffragan bish­ oprics. The best comparand is actually the example discussed above from Rus, where we saw that for a time in the middle of the eleventh century, there were three metropolitans within Rus – one in Kyiv and two in other centralized locations corresponding with political power centers. Each of those metro­ politans also had no suffragans, though they were not particularly long-lasting, unlike Kalocsa. From the foundation of Kalocsa in the early eleventh century there is an unbroken line of archbishops, and eventually (in the twelfth cen­ tury), the Hungarian church is divided, and Kalocsa received suffragan terri­ tories and bishops.107 Unlike the multiple Rusian metropolitans, Kalocsa was not a political power center, which might have been in need of its own religious authority. Dániel Bagi’s work on the ducatus, the territory of the duke sub­ ordinate to the king of Hungary, has been extensive.108 If we were to parallel the situation between the corulership of the duke and king with the multiple kniazia of Rus, it might make sense that the duke would want his own eccle­ siastical power center to rival that of the king, typically his brother. And while Bagi points out an example of this in Álmos’s foundation of the bishopric of Dömös circa 1107, he takes great pains to note that the relevance of this location was that it was on territory which had been claimed by the king, not by the dukes.109 Adding to the arguments about Álmos’s challenge to royal authority, Béla Zsolt Szakács points out the similarity between the Collegiate Church at Dömös and the cathedral at Esztergom.110 In all of this, Kalocsa, a ready-made center for ecclesiastical opposition to the archbishopric of Esztergom, centered in the king’s royal capital, is never considered. Further, Bagi points out that only the regions of Nyitra and Bihar could be definitively linked with the duke’s territory.111 Neither of these regions is anywhere near Kalocsa.

107 For suffragans see Florin Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages (500–1300), volume 1 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019), 477–478. Though Curta believes it was created as an archbishopric at that time and not earlier. 108 Dániel Bagi, Divisio Regni: The Territorial Divisions, Power Struggles, and Dynastic Historiography of the Árpáds of 11th- and early 12th-century Hungary, with Comparative Studies of the Piasts of Poland and the Přemyslids of Bohemia (Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities, 2020). 109 Bagi, Divisio Regni, 105, 129, 135. 110 Béla Zsolt Szakács, “What did Piroska see at home? Art and Architecture in Hungary around 1000,” in Piroska and the Pantokrator: Dynastic Memory, Healing and Salvation in Komnenian Constantinople, ed. Marianne Sághy and Robert Ousterhout (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2019): 44. 111 Bagi, Divisio Regni, 135, see also the map on p. 386.

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The odd situation with Kalocsa has given rise to a particularly persistent theory, which is that it was the center of a Greek ecclesiastical diocese. István Baán expounds the modern version of this theory and connects the archbishopric of Kalocsa to the Metropolitanate of Tourkia which can be found in documents from the patriarchal court in Constantinople.112 Tourkia, in Baán’s reading of multiple documents, corresponds with Hungary in Greek usage. Also, though it is possible that the me­ tropolitanate was titular at best, he notes that “Documents refer to the presence of Joannes, Metropolitan of Tourkia, at Constantinople in 1028.”113 On the side of Baán is the presence of multiple Greek mon­ asteries in Hungary, noted above, and even a letter from Pope Innocent III, in 1204, who “wrote to King Emeric I: ‘In your realm, there exists only one Latin cenobite monastery, but many Greek’.”114 Similarly, it has been suggested that the first cathedral of Kalocsa was built on a medieval Roman model, though this may have arrived in Hungary from the Italian peninsula as well.115 Unfortunately, as tantalizing as this suggestion may be, it is difficult to reinforce from a broader perspective. Among others, László Koszta has led a series of arguments against the suggestion that Kalocsa had any relation to the Constantinopolitan Church.116 He musters a great deal of support, including even the raw numbers of monasteries to point out the hyperbole of Pope Innocent III, as Koszta cites thirty Latin monasteries in Hungary in our period, compared to only seven Greek ones.117 Though he does acknowledge the important locations and functions of the Greek monasteries.118 Similarly, Koszta points to the lack of widespread Greek influence on the liturgy or in practice in Kalocsa itself, or its eventual suffragans.119 As well as the lack of Greek documents in Hungary. One of the most well-known of them was a translation created by King Coloman at the beginning of the twelfth cen­ tury into Latin to make the foundation document for the Veszprémvölgy

112 István Baán, “The Foundation of the Archbishopric of Kalocsa: The Byzantine Origin of the Second Archdiocese in Hungary,” in Early Christianity in Central and East Europe, ed. P. Urbańczyk (Warsaw: Instytut Archeologii i Ethnologii, 1997): 64–65. 113 Baán, “The Foundation of the Archbishopric of Kalocsa,” 68, for the possibility that it was titular see 67n3. 114 Sághy, “Greek Monasteries in Early Árpádian Hungary,” 20. 115 Koszta, “Byzantine Archiepiscopal Ecclesiastical System in Hungary?” 134n34 where the author cites “Entz 1967, 241” a work which I have been unable to find. 116 Koszta, “Byzantine Archiepiscopal Ecclesiastical System in Hungary?” 127-14 117 Koszta, “Byzantine Archiepiscopal Ecclesiastical System in Hungary?” 127. 118 For the ties between the medieval Roman monastic world and Hungary see Miladinov, Margins of Solitude. 119 Koszta, “State Power and Ecclesiastical System in Eleventh Century Hungary,” 75.

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monastery more widely understandable.120 These arguments against Kalocsa as a Greek foundation have taken hold in much of the wider Anglophone scholarship, such that Florin Curta, in his massive Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, gives it no credence.121 We are left then to wonder at the place of a titular archbishopric in Hungary whose closest parallels are in Rus, even if we cannot know more given the extant source base. One of the defining moments of high medieval Christianity was the Gregorian reforms. Those reforms, initiated by Pope Leo IX, but highlighted by popes Gregory VII and Urban II, secured the position of the papacy as triumphant over secular establishments – or at least this is the common narrative. If one looks beyond the Investiture Controversy between Pope Gregory VII and the German ruler Henry IV (eventually settled at the Concordat of Worms in the early twelfth century between their eventual successors) or the agreement between Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury and Henry I of England, one sees an uneven distribution of the success of such reforms. One of the main issues of the Gregorian reforms was lay investiture, in which lay individuals, and elites, named priests or bishops to churches that they had built or sponsored.122 This too was a tradition in Hungary, as well as in many other places. Jean Sedlar notes that “In practice the most important churches of a country were usually controlled directly by the monarch.”123 Because of this control, the ruler was able to appoint whomever they wanted to positions of hierarchy within the church. Though the Church under Pope Gregory VII and his successors strenuously objected to this conduct, and even excommunicated the German Emperor Henry IV for doing so, repeatedly, the Hungarian rulers never faced such a punish­ ment. Though, under King Coloman in the twelfth century, Coloman did agree to end the practice of lay investiture. This can be seen in a synodal statute issued under the king’s rule, which says clearly that, “No layman shall have control over a church.”124 Similarly, a synodal canon issued under Archbishop Lawrence of Esztergom during the rule of King Coloman states

120 Koszta, “Byzantine Archiepiscopal Ecclesiastical System in Hungary?” 133. For the doc­ ument itself see its inclusion as an appendix to Sághy, “Greek Monasteries in Early Árpádian Hungary,” 11–38, Stojkovski, “The Greek Charter of the Hungarian King Stephen I.” 121 Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 477. 122 For interesting background on the issue among the Ottonians and Salians see, Timothy Reuter, “The ‘imperial church system’ of the Ottonian and Salian rulers: a reconsideration” in Medieval Polities and Modern Mentalities, ed. Janet L. Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006): 325–354. 123 Sedlar, East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 164. 124 The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, 67. For an earlier declaration of Coloman’s on this topic see the information contained in 131n76.

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that “No one shall presume to buy or sell a church.”125 Both of these statements indicate quite clearly conformity to the Gregorian reform prac­ tices. However, both Sedlar and Pál Engel note that these edicts were not often followed in practice, with the king continuing to name candidates for ecclesiastical office, who were simply approved by the local bishop; as well as the tradition of the Eigenkirche persisting into the thirteenth century.126 One of the difficulties of legal history is the differentiation between prescriptive and descriptive law, and it seems that this may have been a case in which the king and the synod were attempting to prescribe behavior (or at least being seen to prescribe it) without actually making a change in the larger institutions. Another area in which the Hungarian church was able to avoid larger trends in the Gregorian reforms was related to clerical celibacy. While agi­ tation for celibacy among the clergy had been growing over the course of the high Middle Ages, it was in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in particular that the papacy made a larger push for it. And yet, over the end of the eleventh and into the twelfth century, Kings Ladislas and Coloman both convened synods that addressed clerical marriage. At the Synod of Szabolcs in 1092, a canon was enacted which said that, “To priests, who married once and legally, we give temporary indulgence on account of the bond of unity and peace of the Holy Spirit for as long as the lord pope shall advise on this.”127 Though the editors of this volume on the laws suggest that this is in the spirit of the Gregorian reforms (though noting that nothing else is in the synod), this is clearly an indication that priests may remain married. King Coloman, in the twelfth century, continued this practice noting that, “In consideration of human frailty, we allow priests to live with restraint with the wives whom they have taken in accordance with legitimate practices.”128 There are multiple other canons in this synod which deal with spouses and even children of clerics, addressing what may have been a pressing issue among the church hierarchy in Hungary at the time. Sedlar suggests that Hungary’s status as a powerful kingdom made it possible for the kings to resist the demands of the papacy; though it is also important to note that

125 The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, 64. 126 Sedlar, East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 165; The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526, 44. For the Latin West see also Daniel Power, “The Latin West: Multiple Elites and Overlapping Jurisdictions” in Political Culture in the Latin West, Byzantium and the Islamic World, c. 700-c. 1500: A Framework for Comparing Three Spheres, ed. Catherine Holmes, Jonathan Shepard, Jo van Steenbergen, and Björn Weiler (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2021): 367–409. 127 The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, 55. 128 The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, 64.

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Hungary’s proximity to the medieval Roman Empire created the possibility for another type of leverage to use against the papacy as well.129 Pope Gregory VII’s active papacy went beyond just the Gregorian reforms in his desire to bring his “dictatus papae” to life. One of the most important ways that he did this was by granting crowns to rulers, attempting to tie them to him and to the papacy – with an implicit statement that they would not be tied to the German Empire. In the arc of medieval Europe alone, he crowned both the Rusian ruler Iziaslav, via his son Iaropolk, and the Croatian ruler Zvonimir.130 The situation in Hungary was similar, in that Pope Gregory VII intervened in the ongoing conflict between King Salomon and his cousin Duke Géza for control of the realm. Salomon was married to the sister of the German ruler Henry IV and relied on German support, which caused Pope Gregory VII intense frustration and prompted him to send a letter to Salomon urging him not to subject himself to an earthly king and noting the ties to the papacy which stretched back to the time of St. Stephen.131 Importantly, the pope does not mention the later story told in Hartvik’s Life of St. Stephen that that saint king received a crown from the papacy; which he surely would have, had it been true.132 To the point of Hungary’s place between the Greek and Latin ecclesiastical worlds, we see Duke Géza marry a medieval Roman princess at this time, which also creates the genesis of what will come to be the royal Hungarian crown.133 While the pope did not want Hungary to be overly reliant upon the German Empire, he also did not want them to turn to the medieval Roman empire either, and he wrote to Duke Géza, as he had to Salomon, urging him to maintain his independence from any foreign crown.134 The ascension of Ladislaus as king opened a new opportunity for Pope Gregory VII, who wrote to the Archbishop of Esztergom to tell him to offer the king a crown as a gift from St. Peter, in an attempt to tie Ladislaus, and Hungary to the papacy.135 Ladislaus, however, was not interested and continued to pursue his own

129 East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 165; One can see this in the arguments of Gyorffy discussed in Nora Berend, József Laszlovszky and Béla Zsolt Szakács, “The Kingdom of Hungary,” 343; See also, H. E. J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 445. 130 Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085, 440, 452. 131 Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085, 443–444; The Register of Pope Gregory VII, 1073–1085, Ed. and transl. H. E. J. Cowdrey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 2.13. 132 “Hartvic, Life of King Stephen of Hungary,” 383–384; Nora Berend, József Laszlovszky and Béla Zsolt Szakács, “The Kingdom of Hungary,” 343. 133 For more on this crown see Cecily J. Hilsdale, “Social Life of the Byzantine Gift: The Royal Crown of Hungary Re-Invented,” Art History 31:5 (2008): 603–631. 134 Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085, 444; The Register of Pope Gregory VII, 2.44. 135 Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085, 443–444; The Register of Pope Gregory VII, 4.25

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foreign policy, which included ties with both the German and medieval Roman Empires. This prompted Pope Gregory VII to write directly to Ladislaus in 1079 to once again tell a Hungarian ruler not to subject himself to an earthly king.136 As with the earlier letters, this too did not work, and Ladislaus and Hungary continued making their own path negotiating between the German and medieval Roman empires and the papacy. Ladislaus did not just stand independent of neighboring religious and political policies, but he also utilized ecclesiastical power to enforce his authority within Hungary. In 1083, he created not one local saint, but five – all as a way to enhance and increase his own authority within the kingdom.137 The tradition of having local saints in medieval Europe was a long one, but increasingly important in the solidification of political power in newly Christianized polities was the sanctification of a member of the local ruling family.138 Though there is debate about the path of such processes, and their appropriation, we can say that Wenceslas in Bohemia is an early example, and then in the middle of the eleventh century there were SS Boris and Gleb in Rus.139 Gábor Klaniczay has suggested that it was from Rus, via the multiple connections between the two polities, that Ladislaus conceived of the idea of creating his own collection of local saints.140 Given the internal political situation in Hungary, referenced above in regard to the conflict between Salomon and Géza, Ladislaus as Géza’s brother and successor, needed to counter any potential claims that he did not represent a legitimate line of rule. To do that, he “initiated the cult of St. Stephen, the founder of the Christian monarchy, in an astute strategic move calculated to offset the multiple illegitimacy of his own position.”141 The connection to St. Stephen as king and saint was essential to Ladislaus’s quest for legitimation. But he did not stop there, also having sainted, at the same time, Emeric, the son of Stephen. Emeric had been Stephen’s designated heir, though he died

136 Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085, 443–444; The Register of Pope Gregory VII, 6.29. 137 Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses, 123–133; Nora Berend, József Laszlovszky and Béla Zsolt Szakács, “The Kingdom of Hungary,” 344. 138 Norman W. Ingham, “The Martyred Prince and the Question of Slavic Cultural Continuity in the Early Middle Ages” In Medieval Russian Culture, ed. Henrik Birnbaum and Michael S. Flier (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984): 31–53. 139 Noted as well by Nora Berend in her preface to the Life of St. Stephen. Hartvic, Life of King Stephen of Hungary,” 377. 140 Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses: 132–133. Berend et al., in a later piece, suggest that one should hold any such decision about transmission in abeyance without more evidence. Nora Berend, József Laszlovszky and Béla Zsolt Szakács, “The Kingdom of Hungary,” 337. 141 Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses, 129.

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prematurely, this was another royal forebearer who could be called upon (and was) for success in military and other campaigns.142 Klaniczay points out that these cults sprang forth at this time, not from any popular move­ ment, but from royal decree and support, reinforcing the idea that Ladislaus created them for his own political prestige. Joining Stephen and Emeric among the newly named saints was Bishop Gerard, a pivotal figure from eleventh-century Hungarian ecclesiastical history who helped to put down pagan uprisings after the conversion, and who was intended to serve a similar function to St. Adalbert.143 Alongside those three politically- and ecclesiastically-motivated canonizations were the sanctification of two as­ cetics, Zoerard and Benedict.144 These last two were not widely venerated and in 1092, when feast days were designated for Stephen, Emeric, and Gerard, no day was assigned to the ascetic saints.145 It is clear from this material that Ladislaus’s canonization of Stephen and Emeric was to help create Árpádian saints who would sanctify the bloodline of which he was a part, and it would help him claim authority from Stephen and his son and heir – all the while creating a cult of St. Stephen as the apostle of the Hungarians.146 Taken all together, the relationship between the political and ecclesiastical authorities in Hungary was one of mutual convenience, but also one which very firmly established and strengthened the power of royal authority. Further, it can be seen that royal authority did not need to conform to German, medieval Roman, or papal models, but was able to utilize elements from the various micro-Christendoms in the creation of its own path to being a medieval European Christian polity. Norway

The first native Norwegian ruling saint, St. Olaf, is essential to begin with because his cult is, from the very beginning, central to the relationship between royal and ecclesiastical power in Norway. Olaf died at the battle of Stiklestadir in 1030 fighting against the forces of King Cnut the Great who had occupied Norway, and who had even made the procession of things to

142 Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses, 130; Simon of Kéza, The Deeds of the Hungarians, ed., transl. László Veszprémy and Frank Schaer (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1999), ch. 44, ch. 74 (where he calls on his sainted forebearers – see also n2). 143 For more on St. Gerard see Miladinov, Margins of Solitude, 135–142. 144 For more on SS. Zoerard and Benedict see Miladinov, Margins of Solitude, 115–127. 145 The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, 38; Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses, 131. 146 Nora Berend, József Laszlovszky and Béla Zsolt Szakács, “The Kingdom of Hungary,” 331.

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claim the Norwegian throne for himself.147 Despite fighting and dying as a man attempting to regain his kingdom, Olaf’s cause became synonymous with that of Norway and he became “rex perpetuus Norvegiae, Norway’s eternal king.”148 The creation of the cult proceeded quickly after Olaf’s death, and by 1032, there was an extant skaldic poem testifying to the deeds of St. Olaf.149 Heimskringla, though written much later, devotes the longest of its books to St. Olaf, and within that, there are several chapters about Olaf becoming a saint.150 Within those chapters, they date the sainthood of Olaf to 1031, one year after the battle of Stiklestadir, which was when Olaf’s body was exhumed by Bishop Grimkel, after hearing reports of its miraculous nature.151 Bishop Grimkel is an important figure in his own right, acting as Olaf’s close advisor during his life, as well as a major figure in his sanctification. It is also worth noting that Grimkel was English, as the cult of St. Olaf bears similarities to Anglo-Saxon royal saints’ cults.152 When Olaf’s body was disinterred, they found it to be sweet-smelling and that the hair, which had grown, refused to burn, laying the foundation for the king’s transition into a saint.153 Soon after, “there occurred many kinds of miracles by the shrine of Saint Olaf.”154 Olaf’s sanctification became a political weapon in the hands of contem­ porary writers. Aelgyfu, regent for Cnut’s son, Sven, in Norway, denied Olaf’s sanctity, and she was punished, we are told, by bad weather harming Norway.155 Similarly, her brief time in Norway was paired with an increasing number of miracles at the shrine of St. Olaf, which helped to cement him as a figure of national pride against the Danes, as much as a sainted ruler. Though the latter was certainly essential, as he “became a political ideal for later kings.”156 Though he was not the only early saint in Norway, Olaf would become by far the most important. There were fortyseven churches dedicated to him in Norway, and his cult spread through the

147 John Lindow, “St Olaf and the Skalds” in Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. Thomas A. DuBois (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 106. 148 Sverre Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” in Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’, c. 900–1200, ed. Nora Berend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007): 146. 149 Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” 137. 150 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, transl. Lee M. Hollander (Austin, Tx.: University of Texas Press, 1964), chs. 240–246 (pp. 526–533). 151 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 244 (pp. 527–528). 152 Lindow, “St Olaf and the Skalds,” 106; Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” 137. 153 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 244 (pp. 528–530). 154 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 244 (p. 530). 155 Lindow, “St Olaf and the Skalds,” 108. 156 Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” 146.

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Baltic merchant networks, creating churches of St. Olaf in both German and Rusian ports. The cult of St. Olaf would be used by later kings to enhance their own authority or attempt to, but we can also see elements of the development of the cult and its independence from foreign connections over the course of the next century and a half of development of royalecclesiastical relations in Norway. From the time of its Christianization under Olaf Tryggvasson and St. Olaf, Norway, like all of Scandinavia, fell under the aegis of the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen. From the writings of Adam in his History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, we know a great deal about the see and its affairs. This information includes the creation of bishoprics in the middle of the tenth century, ostensibly to attend to affairs in Scandinavia, but also (modern scholars have suggested) to buttress the claims of the archbishop to be an archbishop with suffragans.157 For Norway, specifically, Adam notes that there were particular problems in the creation of suffragan bishops, as the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen was not the only one interested in the Christianization of the kingdom. The rulers of Norway, from the first Christianizers through at least Harald Hardrada, also utilized Anglo-Saxon bishops and priests to assist in the Christianization of their realm.158 It is worth discussing in a bit of detail why that may have been the case and what it meant for the relations between royal and ecclesiastical power. Adam of Bremen notes that the “first bishop, a certain John, came from England to Norway, and he converted and baptized the king with his people.”159 This John appears earlier in Adam’s History as well, where he is included among a group of English priests and bishops who went to Norway to do mission work and who baptized Olaf Tryggvasson.160 In that instance, Adam takes pains to point out that “the mother church at Hamburg did not, I say, look askance even at strangers if they bestowed grace upon her chil­ dren.”161 Such a statement, though, seems in contravention of later events, which demonstrate that the mother church did, in fact, take a very strong view against such interventions! The case of King Cnut, though not directly related to Norway, will serve as an initial example, as after Cnut’s conquest

157 Peter Sawyer, “The Organization of the Church in Scandinavia after the Missionary Phase,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 12/13 (1988/1989): 481. 158 Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” 139. 159 Adam of Bremen, The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Francis J. Tschan, transl. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), Bk IV, ch. xxxiv (33). 160 Adam of Bremen, The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Bk II, ch. xxxvii (35). 161 Adam of Bremen, The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Bk II, ch. xxxvii (35).

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of England, he created new bishops throughout his territories (including Denmark) and chose them from England.162 Adam is much clearer this time in his statement about the consequences of operating outside of the desig­ nated system of ecclesiastical sees and the subordination of Scandinavian bishoprics to the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, saying, “Our archbishop Unwan took offense at this and is said to have seized Gerbrand [one of the appointed bishops] as he was returning from England.”163 Gerbrand, “persuaded by necessity,” Adam tells us, made his devotions to Archbishop Unwan and promised him his fidelity. This attitude of requiring strict observance of the rights and privileges of the archbishop of HamburgBremen seems much more in keeping with the attitude that we will see play out in Norway in the mid-eleventh century, than the earlier statement about Bishop John. King Harald Hardrada, brother of St. Olaf, had a difficult relationship with the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, who claimed dominion over the church in Scandinavia, but he did seem to have a vision for his relations with the Church as a whole. Adam records that Harald “did not know of any archbishop or authority in Norway save only Harold himself.”164 While this may not reflect Harald’s actual words, and there is a host of scholarship on the purposes of Adam’s writing,165 Harald’s deeds do confirm this sentiment. A scholium appended to Adam’s History noted that Harald “sent his bishops to Gaul [to be confirmed]; he also received many who came from England.”166 In the instance of John, mentioned above, the archbishop was fine as long as people were being converted to Christianity, but this was not the case under Harald. Adam stipulates that the archbishop was the only one designated to consecrate bishops for Scandinavia, and that the designation had come from the Apostolic See itself.167 Furthermore, the archbishop complained to the pope, who wrote a stern letter to King Harald telling him that it was unacceptable to have bishops consecrated in England or France,

162 Adam of Bremen, The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Bk II, ch. lv (53). 163 Adam of Bremen, The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Bk II, ch. lv (53). 164 Adam of Bremen, The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Bk III, ch. xvii (16). This view is still considered common in modern scholarship as well. Note that Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide say that the king “functioned as the head of the Norwegian church in the early period, until the foundation of the church province.” “The Kingdom of Norway,” 149. 165 For one recent example, which reviews the historiography, see Lukas G. Grzybowski, The Christianization of Scandinavia in the Viking Era: Religious Change in Adam of Bremen’s Historical Work (Amsterdam: Arc Humanities Press, 2021). 166 Adam of Bremen, The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Bk III, ch. xvii (16); schol. 68 (69) 167 Adam of Bremen, The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Bk III, ch. xvii (16).

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as Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen was the vicar of the pope for Scandinavia.168 Adalbert took direct action, in addition to his complaints to the papacy; he particularly ordered one of Harald’s bishops, Asgot, to be “apprehended as he was returning from the city of the Apostles.”169 Asgot was held by Archbishop Adalbert until he “he had tendered the oath of fealty” to the archbishop. This kidnapping of a bishop to gain his ends demonstrates quite conclusively the fracture in the relationship between Harald and the designated archbishop for Scandinavia. Yet, this does not mean that Harald was himself not a Christian, or not trying to increase the Christianization of his populace. There are multiple instances, even in Adam of Bremen, clearly a source biased in favor of the archbishop, where Harald is attempting to spread Christianity in Norway through the addition of new bishops. For instance, Adam notes that Adalbert, whom he calls a metro­ politan in this section, appoints two bishops for Norway, but that he also keeps “bishops consecrated elsewhere, provided they acknowledged obedi­ ence.”170 The aforementioned Asgot is just one of the bishops included in the list which follows that statement.171 Finally, it is possible to add that even though Archbishop Adalbert complained to the pope about King Harald’s behavior, it was the pope, though not necessarily the same one, who con­ firmed Asgot and Bernhard in their offices.172 King Harald, it seems, was attempting to build the Norwegian church, though without bowing to the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen. Elsewhere, I have characterized this as an attempt to build his own micro-Christendom.173 Even within this frame of relations between rulers and the church, that label still seems to fit, and helps best to explain how and why Harald was behaving as he was; utilizing the church for the development of his kingdom, but without recourse to foreign intervention. King Harald was succeeded by Olaf Kyrre (1066–1093), and it was most likely during his reign that the first permanent bishoprics were created in Scandinavia.174 Before that time, bishops in Norway (and Scandinavia generally in earlier times) were itinerant and could often be found traveling

168 Adam of Bremen, The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Bk III, ch. xvii (16); Schol. 69 (70). 169 Adam of Bremen, The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Bk III, ch. xvii (16); Schol. 68 (69). 170 Adam of Bremen, The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Bk III, ch. lxxvii. 171 “For example, Meinhard, Osmund, Bernhard, and Asgot, and many others.” Adam of Bremen, The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Bk III, ch. lxxvii. 172 Adam of Bremen, The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Bk IV, ch. xxxiv (33). 173 Raffensperger, Reimagining Europe, 144–146. 174 Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” 149.

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as part of the king’s entourage.175 During this time, there was an attempt to instill the Gregorian Reforms in the Norwegian church, and it is possible that they “obtained some important privileges to this effect, concerning the ap­ pointment of priests and episcopal elections without royal interference.”176 But Peter Sawyer notes that the proprietary church movement was still strong in Norway in the eleventh century, and that churches were often collocated with the dwellings of important individuals, rather than in central places.177 By itself, Sawyer’s comment points out the disconnect between our ideas about an overlap of political and ecclesiastical centers; highlighting, as it does, the importance of people not placed in political authority in Scandinavia. Though the reform movement is particularly associated with the eleventh century, it sees reinforcement in Norway in the mid-twelfth century, when the church gains increasing privileges (as discussed below). At that time, the magnate Erling Skakke, and later his son, King Magnus Erlingsson, made firm commitments to the Church that laymen would stay out of ecclesiastical appointments.178 This was part of a particular arrangement that increased ecclesiastical power, rather than a larger com­ mitment to the reforming movement. Later in that century, however, King Sverre will attempt to undermine some of those reforms in his own relations with the Church, as he rolled back the restrictions of King Magnus, and defended lay appointment to local churches, in particular.179 One reform measure that did not take hold, at least until the thirteenth century, was a prohibition on clerical marriage, which was still noted as a regular occur­ rence in the mid-twelfth century by Cardinal Nicholas Brakespear.180 The relationship of the church in Norway to the ruler changed dramati­ cally in the middle of the twelfth century. At that time, there was a struggle for rule within Norway, often anachronistically termed a civil war.181 In an attempt to resolve the conflict, one of the parties resorted to an increased tie with the ecclesiastical establishment to reinforce their claim to authority. And in 1163/64, Archbishop Eystein crowned the seven-year-old Magnus

175 Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” 142. 176 Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” 149. 177 Peter Sawyer, “The Organization of the Church in Scandinavia after the Missionary Phase,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 12/13 (1988/1989): 483. See also, Sverre Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom: State Formation in Norway, c. 900–1350 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2010), 294. 178 Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 294. 179 Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 294. 180 Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” 156–157. Brakespear himself later became Pope Adrian IV. 181 Sverre Bagge makes the very astute point that Scholars regard “peace as the normal con­ dition and war as needing a special explanation”. From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 40.

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Erlingsson as king of Norway, the first to use the title “king by the grace of God.”182 This was the first ecclesiastical coronation in Norway and repre­ sented a huge step forward for ecclesiastical claims to precedence in the kingdom. At this point the archbishopric of Norway was only about a decade old, having been created in the 1150s by Cardinal Brakespear during his visit.183 Heimskringla relates not just the coronation itself, but the dis­ cussion between Erling, father of Magnus, and Archbishop Eystein.184 During the conversation, the existence of the archbishopric plays a role in the call for a coronation, as does precedent from other realms. In particular, after Eystein criticizes Magnus as not being the son of a king, he was instead the son of the daughter of a king and traced his descent through the female line, Erling points out that William the Bastard of England and Sven Ulfsson of Denmark were crowned as kings without being the sons of kings. We see here both a recognition of a new authority, the archbishopric, but also the call to precedent in other places, both inside and outside of Scandinavia, that is taking place. That, however, is not all of the discussion betwixt the two. The bulk of the conversation is about honor, rights, and privileges and an attempt to increase them in a mutually profitable way. The scene, as written by Snorri, plays out much as a scene from The Godfather or The Sopranos might, with each side making subtle accusations while offering vague as­ surances that if one supports the other, they will get what they want, but if support is lacking, they will get what they deserve. The gist of the conver­ sation, of course, as narrated by Snorri, is that if Eystein would like to increase the Church’s prerogatives within Norway, he will support Magnus against the other claimants to the throne.185 There is little specificity in regard to what claims will be made, or what prerogatives will be granted, but those details will come later. The ultimate result of the conversation is the coronation itself, at which there are numerous guests of honor, in part simply because they were in Norway at the time, but their very presence serves to reinforce the honor being accorded to Magnus Erlingsson. Snorri details this by noting that “at the coronation there were five other bishops, the papal legate, and a multitude of clerics.” On the secular side, we see that “Erling Skakki, together with twelve landed men and the king swore oaths to

182 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 22, pp. 806–7; Hans Jacob Orning, Unpredictability and Presence: Norwegian Kingship in the High Middle Ages, transl. Alan Crozier (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 64. 183 Morkinskinna: The Earliest Icelandic Chronicle of the Norwegian Kings (1030–1157) Transl. Theodore M. Andersson and Kari Ellen Gade (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2000), ch. 99. 184 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 21, p. 807. 185 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 21, pp. 805–7.

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obey the laws.”186 The collection of individuals draws to mind the procla­ mation of Alfonso VII as emperor, discussed in Chapter 1. There, too, we saw a host of powerful individuals whose very presence lent mystique to an occasion and who could be listed as endorsing it by their location in the room where it happened. Sverre Bagge, in analyzing Snorri’s text, suggests that the author has overstated the bargaining aspect of what was going on at the time. Eystein was not oppositional to Erling and his son Magnus but instead had been in their camp for some time.187 Additionally, this was the period in which elites began to enter the church in greater numbers, and so there were a host of familial connections that were now layered on top of any discussion of a seeming binary of royal-ecclesiastical connections. When Heimskringla an­ nounces Eystein’s succession as archbishop, it clearly says that “The people of the Trondheim District gave him a good reception, because most of the leaders there were connected with him by kin or by other relationship, and all were close friends of his.”188 The details of the support offered to the church by the newly crowned king, or his father as he was only a child, come in the additional documents which accompanied the coronation: the Oath of Coronation, the Letter of Privileges to the Church, and the Law of Royal Succession. The Oath of Coronation clearly states that the king promised his obedi­ ence and fidelity to the Church.189 Beyond that, King Magnus also expressly states his loyalty to Pope Alexander III, taking a position in the Church schism of the time. Some have noted the schism’s relationship to the conflict over rule in Norway and suggested a correlation, though it is difficult to confirm beyond the power politics, both secular and ecclesiastical, of the day.190 Much of the remainder of the coronation oath details the king’s duties to defend the Church and priests and take care of widows and orphans.191 This is information that is central to the idea of defensor ec­ clesiae, and is familiar to us from the Admonitions and Metropolitan Nikifor’s letter to Volodimer Monomakh, discussed above. We can also see this information reinforced in the ecclesiastical privileges granted at this time. Bagge summarizes the issue regarding the privileges nicely, as well as

186 187 188 189

Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 22, p. 807. Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 60. Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, 802. Erich Hoffman, “Coronation and Coronation Ordines in Medieval Scandinavia,” in Coronations: Medieval and Early Modern Monarchic Ritual, ed. János M. Bak (Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1990): 126; Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” 148. 190 Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom: 47–49. 191 Hoffman, “Coronation and Coronation Ordines in Medieval Scandinavia,” 126.

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tying it into topics discussed here in regard to other areas: Magnus Erlingsson’s privilege to the Church “elaborates on the king’s subordination and obedience to God, on the heavy responsibility laid upon him to rule justly, and appeals for God’s aid and protection, according to the example of David, whom God took away from the herd and anointed as king.”192 All of these draw on the same source material from the early church relating to the ruler’s duty of obedience to God and to the Church.193 The Law of Royal Succession of 1163/1164 has been taken as a potent signifier of the deal made between the royal and ecclesiastical powers, as it “expresses the Church’s perception of the monarchy as an office established by God.”194 The Law also gives particular powers to the archbishop, who has a voice and vote in the succession, and it utilized church powers to excommunicate pretenders to the throne who challenged the ecclesiastically-designated candidate 195 Finally, the Law confirmed the other two documents of this time in subordinating the ruler to the Church and especially to the arch­ bishop in Trondheim.196 However, it is extremely important to note that no single coronation ever took place according to this practice.197 It was a document created at this moment and for the ratification of Magnus Erlingsson’s kingship, and though written as a code for future practice, it was not used in that way.

192 Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 158–159. 193 Weiler talks about the relationship between kings, church, and God at length. For instance, “Kingship was established when a ruler organised the Church in his kingdom. By ex­ ercising their royal duties, newly enthroned kings similarly demonstrated their oversight of the Church, normally framed as the restoration of moral rigour and religious vigour.” Björn Weiler, Paths to Kingship in Medieval Latin Europe, c. 950–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 363. 194 Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” 147. It is important to note however, that this is a very different view than we see in the saga sources, as Bagge also notes that “There is little trace in Snorri of the ecclesiastical and monarchical idea of the king holding an office on God’s behalf.” Sverre Bagge, Society and Politics in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991), 131. 195 Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 166; Bjørn Bandlien, “Civil War as Holy War? Polyphonic Discourses of Warfare During the Internal Struggles in Norway in the Twelfth Century,” in Christianity and War in Medieval East Central Europe and Scandinavia, ed. Radosław Kotecki, Carsten Selch Jensen and Stephen Bennett (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2021): 232. 196 Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 167. 197 Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 167. Which should not surprise us in the slightest. Robert Bartlett, quoting Jeroen Duindam has noted this phenomenon on a wider scale, “as has been pointed out, ‘no system of dynastic reproduction and succession ever steadily conformed to its own rules’.” Robert Bartlett, Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 104, citing Dynasties: A Global History of Power, 1300–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 88–89.

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One of the most important items for discussing ecclesiastical support of kingship comes across in multiple documents, and that is a statement about the crown of St. Olaf. “Magnus pledged to be a knight in St. Olav’s army … and imitate the virtues … of the martyr King Olav who himself was the knight of God.”198 This call back to St. Olaf is an essential element of the utilization of the saint’s cult as a way to reinforce royal authority. However, in this particular instance, it is not just the king who is using it, but it is being used to reinforce ecclesiastical authority to make someone king. According to the privileges, which were written by Archbishop Eystein, the crown belonged to Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim and must be returned there after the coronation.199 A clear interpretation of this is that because the archbishop controlled the crown, he controlled the king, and thus the king was subordinate to the church, and to the archbishop.200 Given that the text was likely written by the archbishop, and the archbishop gained power via the Laws of Succession to help choose the king, this makes sense. The tie with St. Olaf is made stronger via a charter issued to the cathedral church at Trondheim issued by King Magnus soon after the coronation. In it, he “he commended his realm to the saint, the ancestor of the royal dynasty, and received it from him as a fief.”201 Though, one must keep firmly in mind, when attempting to interpret these events through the lens of ecclesiastical and royal ties, that the events of Magnus Erlingsson’s coronation were a onetime affair and were not repeated. In fact, at King Magnus’s death, we see a new situation arise with his challenger, King Sverre. Sverre began challenging Magnus for the throne of Norway in the late 1170s and killed Magnus in 1184. Throughout his reign, he refused to en­ dorse the ecclesiastical privileges that King Magnus had agreed to at his coronation in 1163/64.202 Sverre’s reign has been presented as an attempt to regain powers ceded to the Church by King Magnus. Hans Jacob Orning suggests that one of Sverre’s goals was to have the clergy obey the king, like other Norwegians.203 This was, of course, unacceptable to the pope, and Sverre was excommunicated for his actions.204 But despite that, Sverre too had his own ecclesiastical relations, and supporters. In fact, he was able to

198 Bandlien, “Civil War as Holy War?” 236. 199 Bandlien, “Civil War as Holy War?” 236. 200 Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” 148. We see a reinforcement of this in 1217 when Hakon Hakonsson was elected king but “the clergy in Nidaros refused to release the shrine of Saint Olaf on which the oath was to be sworn.” Orning, Unpredictability and Presence, 77. 201 Hoffman, “Coronation and Coronation Ordines in Medieval Scandinavia,” 126. 202 Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” 148. 203 Orning, Unpredictability and Presence, 68. 204 Orning, Unpredictability and Presence, 67–68.

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reconcile with Archbishop Eystein in 1183, just before the death of King Magnus, but Eystein’s successor Erik was not as amenable, and he fled to Denmark rather than deal with King Sverre.205 But the most famous state­ ment of ecclesiastical relations made by King Sverre was his “A Speech Against the Bishops” from circa 1200. This speech was a statement about his principles of a national church, against those of the power of the archbishop and the exactions that the archbishop took on the people. In some ways, it can be seen as a throwback to the situation that Harald Hardrada had attempted to develop in the middle of the eleventh century. The speech did not, in any way, deny the church, but it specifically emphasized “the king’s relationship to God and the subjects’ duty to obey him.”206 In that way, “The ecclesiastical idea of rex iustus was combined with elements of tradi­ tional National Church ideas in a powerful ideology of the king as God’s representative on earth who was responsible for governing the Church as well as the people.”207 Sverre especially wanted to be crowned king, though Archbishop Erik, often in exile, categorically denied him an ecclesiastical coronation. Sverre’s Saga, a contemporary saga of the time, tells a story in which Sverre had a dream in which Samuel anointed him the way that he had anointed David, in the biblical story.208 We have already seen how impor­ tant such biblical precedents were in creating legitimacy, having discussed King Andrew of Hungary’s designation of his son Salomon as king, as being akin to David’s designation of Solomon.209 Eventually, in 1194, Sverre was crowned, but by the bishop of Oslo rather than the Norwegian arch­ bishop.210 Though Sverre’s position is often contrasted with that of King Magnus, the Church continued to maintain, and even grow its power in Norway during the period following Sverre’s rule.211 From the very beginning of Christianization in Norway, we see an inti­ mate tie between royal and ecclesiastical power. This led to the development of St. Olaf’s cult, ties with the Anglo-Saxon church, the alienation of the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen and the pope, and also, eventually, the creation of an independent archbishopric in Trondheim. The twelfth century

205 Hoffman, “Coronation and Coronation Ordines in Medieval Scandinavia,” 127; Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 61. 206 Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” 148. 207 Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 63. 208 I Samuel 16:13. Sverrissaga, transl. J. Stephton (1899), ch. 10. 209 Weiler points out that, “The first three kings of Israel (Saul, David and Solomon) were especially important. Indeed, with the exception of Joshua and the Maccabees, no other rulers feature as prominently in high medieval accounts.” Paths to Kingship, 40–41. 210 Hoffman, “Coronation and Coronation Ordines in Medieval Scandinavia,” 127. There is controversy however about this coronation as English sources suggest that it was coerced. For discussion see Orning, Unpredictability and Presence, 214–215. 211 Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 63.

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also saw the intensification of the relationship with the church hierarchy and a concomitant increase in its privileges as a way to enhance the power and legitimacy of one ruler. This was, though, not necessarily a repeatable trend, at least not immediately, as the interest in maintaining a local microChristendom continued strong. Croatia

The example of Croatia is different in one major respect from the other examples utilized in this chapter. Rus, Norway, and Hungary were all Christianized in the medieval period and, in fact, most of them are part of what has been referred to by Jerzy Kłoczowski as Younger Europe due to the later Christianization.212 Croatia, on the other hand, or at least Dalmatia, was part of the Roman Empire and was Christianized in antiquity, thus the history of ecclesiastical relations is a long one. For that reason, we will start a bit earlier, but with a primary focus still on the eleventh century and we will see similar issues in regard to the ways that the rulers of Croatia attempted to utilize church hierarchy and organization to buttress their own rule and the conflicts that arise in regard to ecclesiastical subordination and reform, or lack thereof. Tomislav was the ruler of Croatia in the early tenth century. He played a major role in negotiating the political position of the territory between the medieval Roman Empire, the Franks, the Bulgarians, and the papacy.213 During his rule, he received recognition of his importance from both the medieval Roman Empire, with the title of proconsul, and the papacy, with the title of rex.214 It is, however, his relations with the ecclesiastical hier­ archy which are our focus here, and there are two major church councils that were held in Split during his rule which comprise our focus. Before we begin the discussion of them, however, it is worth noting that nothing about these church councils is assured as the record of them is quite late, and John Fine notes that there are multiple things to be unsure of in regard to the docu­ ments.215 Nevertheless, as the documents have been accepted by many scholars, we will move ahead with our analysis of them.

212 Jerzy Kłoczowski, Młodsza Europa: Europa Środkowo-Wschodnia w kręgu cywilizacji chrześcijańskiej średniowiecza (Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1998). 213 John V.A. Fine, Jr., The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century, (Ann Arbor, Mich.: The University of Michigan Press, 1983), 262–264. 214 Sedlar, East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 47, 49; Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 325. 215 Fine, Jr., The Early Medieval Balkans, 266–267.

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The first church council took place in Split in 925. At the council, a papal legate from Pope John X, recognized Tomislav’s political power over Dalmatia with the confirmation of his rule over the ecclesiastical domain of Salona, now called Split.216 Though the papacy was recognizing Split as the heir to Salona, this was still a momentous choice as it also involved the creation of an archbishopric of Split (the first holder of the role was John) and recognized its power over the entirety of the territory held by Tomislav.217 The fact that the territory administered by the archbishop was coterminous with the territory held by Tomislav ended up implying, at the very least, that Tomislav had an independent ecclesiastical establishment.218 The rationale for this though is important for us to attempt to understand, and two particular decisions at the 925 council are relevant to that under­ standing. Both of those decisions hearken back to the idea of microChristendoms. The first of them has to do with the subordination of the bishopric of Nin to the new archbishopric of Split. There were multiple ecclesiastical influences in Dalmatia and Croatia and Nin, it has been sug­ gested, was related to the Frankish influence extending southwards from the Carolingian world.219 Much as in regard to the ecclesiastical independence of Bulgaria in the prior century, in which Franks, Romans, and the papacy vied for the conversion of Bulgaria; the Franks wanted to have a role and thus a political foothold here as well.220 The papal affirmation of Split over Nin solidified power in the hands of Tomislav, and Archbishop John, who would be loyal directly to the papacy and not to, or through, another in­ termediary.221 Similarly, the second decision also was an attempt to ensure the ecclesiastical independence of Croatia. This decision has been interpreted as momentous, in regard to modern politics in the Balkans, especially during the nineteenth-century nation-building era; with the gist of the 925 decision

216 The documents regarding this council have been collected and presented in the following collection. Codex Diplomaticus regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae, Vol. 1, 743–1100, ed. Academia scientiarum et artium Slavorum meridionalium (Zagreb: Izdavački zavod Jugoslavenske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti, 1967), #23–26. One can also see further discussion in Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 326–328. 217 Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 326–328; Archdeacon Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops of Salona and Split, ed. Transl. Damir Karbić, Mirjana Matijević Sokol, and James Ross Sweeney (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2006), ch, 11 (52–55). 218 Curta says this flat out – “Croatia was a kingdom with its own church” Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 326. 219 Fine, Jr., The Early Medieval Balkans, 267. 220 Richard E. Sullivan, “Khan Boris and the Conversion of Bulgaria: A Case Study of the Impact of Christianity on a Barbarian Society,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 3 (1966): 53–140. 221 The bishop of Nin took this so badly that at a church council in 928, the bishopric of Nin was dissolved, and its territory subordinated to Split.

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being that the language of the liturgy would be Latin and not Slavonic.222 Slavonic was the language of the liturgy which had taken hold in Bulgaria which was under the ecclesiastical control of Constantinople, at least until the Bulgarian Church became autocephalous a few years after this in 927.223 Bulgaria was also a power in the Balkans, and thus a potential threat politically and military to the Croatians, though Tomislav was able to defeat Symeon of Bulgaria when the latter invaded.224 Bulgaria was also a threat ecclesiastically. What if the Slavic-speaking inhabitants of the Balkans could have church services in their own language, rather than in Latin? That kind of draw worried the papacy on an ecclesiastical level and potentially worried Tomislav on a political level in regard to whether his people’s political al­ liances would follow their ecclesiastical alliances. Thus, the decision to prohibit the Slavonic liturgy; though noting that it was not explicitly for­ bidden, it simply was not preferred so as not to alienate any practitioners. These steps helped align the papacy and Tomislav’s interests in regard to the development of the church in Croatia and Tomislav’s solidification of power there as well. In many ways, Tomislav’s reign was the highlight of tenth-century Croatia. By the middle of the eleventh century, Dalmatia had largely been lost to Croatian rulers, though we do see Peter Krešimir IV (1058–1074) call himself, “king of the Croatians and Dalmatians” in a document of 1060.225 Peter Krešimir’s reign allows us to talk about a common theme which is the eleventhcentury papal reform movement and their implementation in different regions. Peter Krešimir’s reign is one of the most well documented inside Croatia, as he leaves numerous charters.226 Moreover, the charters speak to the many donations to monasteries and nunneries which Peter Krešimir made and which he also confirmed from previous rulers.227 One can, with good reason, suggest

222 Codex Diplomaticus regni Croatiae, #23. 223 For conflicting views on this see Jonathan Shepard, “A marriage too far? Maria Lekapena and Peter of Bulgaria” in The Empress Theophano: Byzantium and the West at the turn of the first millenium, ed. Adalbert Davids (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995):121–149; Mirosław J. Leszka and Jan M. Wolski, “The Church,” in The Bulgarian State in 927–969: The Epoch of Tsar Peter I, ed. Mirosław J. Leszka and Kirił Marinow, transl. Lyubomira Genova, et al. (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2018): 303–346. 224 Fine, Jr., The Early Medieval Balkans, 263–264. 225 Codex Diplomaticus regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae, #64; Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 331. 226 Florin Curta, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1250 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 261. The charters, as noted earlier, can be found in Codex Diplomaticus regni Croatiae. 227 Neven Budak, “Foundations and Donations as a Link between Croatia and Dalmatian Cities in the Early Middle Ages (9th–11th c.),” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 55:4 (2007): 486–489.

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then that Peter Krešimir was a ruler interested in ecclesiastical establishments, and perhaps as a consequence, there was a church council held during his reign.228 This council was led by a papal legate and by the archbishop of Split and laid out the main items of church reform – “Celibacy, simony, priestly beards, and the ordination of Slavs who did not read or speak Latin were the main points on the council’s agenda.”229 These are common measures that we have seen in other parts of the arc of medieval Europe, though we do not have enough of a documentary base to indicate what the enforcement of these measures was like with any uniformity. In Hungary and Norway, we could see, for instance, that clerical marriage was not always as opposed as the papacy may have liked. In Croatia, there are particular elements that address the position of the Latin Church in the Balkans. The opposition to beards was clearly a way to differentiate the Latin Church from the Constantinopolitan one, as was the prohibition on the Slavonic liturgy. The Slavonic Liturgy was allowed in areas under the jurisdiction of the Constantinopolitan Church,230 and, as noted at the Council of Split in 925, it was a persistent issue in regard to Croatia. The fact that its presence is still being addressed over one-hundred years later indicates that it has not been solved in any particular way. Further, we will see that it continued to be an issue later in the eleventh century under the last of the Croatian kings, Zvonimir. Zvonimir, who appeared as a ban under Peter Krešimir IV and in docu­ ments with him seemingly as co-ruler, succeeded Peter Krešimir IV and continued his policy of promising the papacy that he would enforce the papal reform project.231 There is some debate about the origins of Zvonimir and his attachment to the Trpimirović dynasty.232 The question, if not the spe­ cifics, is relevant here because of the lengths to which Zvonimir goes for legitimation – specifically in accepting coronation from a papal legate, a first in Croatian history.233 We have already seen the involvement of Pope

228 Codex Diplomaticus regni Croatiae, #67. 229 Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 332. 230 One could also discuss the presence of it in central Europe, where it was also being cracked down upon at this same time. The Register of Pope Gregory VII, 7.11. 231 Archdeacon Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops of Salona and Split, ch. 16 for the two rulers mentioned together. Curta discusses the continuation of the papal reform, though we will also see the burgeoning relationship with Pope Gregory VII more in this chapter. Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 335. 232 Skoblar says he was, and details a bit about the debate, Magdalena Skoblar, Figural Sculpture in Eleventh-Century Dalmatia and Croatia: Patronage, architectural context, history (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), 103. For the other side see Budak, for instance, Budak, “Foundations and Donations,” 488–489. 233 Maja Petrinec and Marina Vicelja suggest instead that it was Peter Krešimir IV who was the first Croatian ruler crowned. “Croatian ducatum and kingdom at the borders of the empires” in The Legacy of Charlemagne – 814–2014, ed. Dirk Callebaut and Horst von Cuyck (Gent: Provincial Government of East Flanders, 2014): 277.

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Gregory VII in the affairs of the arc of medieval Europe above and referenced his provision of crowns. In 1075, a papal legate named Gebizo crowned Zvonimir as king of the Croatians and Dalmatians in the Basilica of St. Peter in Salona.234 During the ceremony, Zvonimir received the banner, sword, scepter, and crown from the legate, and pledged fidelity to Pope Gregory VII and his successors.235 Zvonimir’s oath rings familiar given what we have already seen in this chapter, as he “he would maintain justice, especially to churches; he would enforce celibacy upon all clergy in major orders; he would protect the poor, widows, and orphans; he would institute among the laity a proper marriage discipline; he would prohibit the slave trade; and he would ensure the observance of lawfulness and equity in all things.”236 Zvonimir’s oath contains a mix of items that we have seen already including protecting the churches, women, children, and orphans, as well as items of the Gregorian Reforms such as clerical celibacy and marriage discipline. Though the document seems to come from Zvonimir, in multiple places he says, “I, Demetrius, who is also named Zvonimir … ”,237 it expresses an ecclesiastical vision for the relationship between ruler and church that is common across the arc of medieval Europe, in territories typically delineated as Latin and Orthodox, both. A consistent part of Zvonimir’s oath involved lawfulness, justice, and discipline. This is why Magdalena Skoblar has put forward the idea that the Church of St. Peter where Zvonimir was crowned was additionally dedicated to Moses.238 Coronation by a papal legate in the Church of St. Peter would be a natural fit to reinforce the papal connections with St. Peter as the founder of the papacy in Rome. The dedication of the church to Moses, widely known as a lawgiver, would reinforce Zvonimir’s rule even further, especially in regard to the particular elements of the oath noted above. Further, Moses was also associated with rule, particularly imperial rule in the Roman Empire, both ancient and medieval, and as such became a potent association for a ruler looking to cement his political power in the Balkans where one had to negotiate between the Roman Empire and Rome.239 Skoblar further makes the argument that there is an image of the coronation

234 Codex Diplomaticus regni Croatiae, #109. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII, 441. 235 Codex Diplomaticus regni Croatiae, #109. 236 Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII, 441. I have used Cowdrey’s nice summary rather than pull individual text from the document, but each of the items comes from, Codex Diplomaticus regni Croatiae, #109. 237 Codex Diplomaticus regni Croatiae, #109. 238 Skoblar, Figural Sculpture in Eleventh-Century Dalmatia and Croatia, 118, 141–143. 239 Skoblar, Figural Sculpture in Eleventh-Century Dalmatia and Croatia, 141–143. For Moses as ruler see Francis Oakley, Empty Bottles of Gentilism: Kingship and the Divine in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (to 1050) (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), 85.

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of Zvonimir which was originally from Salona, though later moved and repurposed in Split. That image shows Zvonimir seated on a throne holding a cross and orb, crowned with a Byzantine-style crown, while at his feet is a man performing proskynesis; demonstrating an appropriation of medieval Roman elements amidst the celebration of this Croatian king’s crowning by a papal legate.240 (Figure 4.1) Thus, Zvonimir’s coronation allowed him to forge a relationship with the papal legate and the papacy which both reinforced his rule as well as created a symbiotic relationship with the church which would serve each in their own way. One practical way that this coronation helped Zvonimir, beyond the theoretical assistance of legitimacy, was when Pope Gregory VII sent a letter to a knight named Wezelin who was in opposition to Zvonimir a few years later.241 In the letter, the pope threatens the wrath of St. Peter if Wezelin moves against Zvonimir. It is possible that Wezelin was backed by Henry IV and that this move was part of the wider investiture controversy fought between the pope and emperor, often through proxies.242 The incident with Wezelin advanced Zvonimir’s cause, but the agreement with the papacy also had benefits for the papacy. In addition to expanding the size of Pope Gregory VII’s party vis-à-vis Henry IV, his alliance with Zvonimir allowed Pope Gregory VII to address the continuing issue with the Slavonic Liturgy in Croatia. As we have already seen, the penetration of the Slavonic Liturgy into Croatia and Dalmatia had been a concern of the papacy for one hundred and fifty years by this time. The fact that it was still a concern tells us that the prior synods outlawing the practice had not helped as much as the papacy may have liked. The situation had gotten worse in the recent past, as prior to the papacy of Gregory VII, there was a controversy between rival popes Alexander II and anti-pope Honorius II.243 Anti-Pope Honorius II had agreed to support the Slavonic Liturgy in Dalmatia as a way to gain support in the region; this was particularly welcomed in Krk where the bishop was a supporter of the Slavonic Liturgy. According to the history of Archdeacon Thomas, Pope Gregory VII sent legate Gerald for a synod at Split, the pri­ mary purpose of which may have been to restore the bishopric of Nin, which had been removed in the synod of 928; a secondary purpose though may

240 The panel is much discussed by Skoblar, Figural Sculpture in Eleventh-Century Dalmatia and Croatia, 141–142. Petrinec and Vicelja disagree with Skoblar and believe the image to be Peter Krešimir IV. “Croatian ducatum and kingdom at the borders of the empires,” 277, fig. 10. 241 Codex Diplomaticus regni Croatiae, #135; The Register of Pope Gregory VII, 7.4. 242 Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 335n46. 243 Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 335. Some of this is obliquely referenced in Archdeacon Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops of Salona and Split, 77–87.

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FIGURE 4.1

Baptistry at Split showing an enthroned ruler who could be Zvonimir – photo credit Zoran Alajbeg.

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have been the Slavonic Liturgy.244 At this time, Pope Gregory VII wrote a letter to the Danish king Sven Estridsson asking him if he had a son available to send on a military mission to buttress Latin Christianity in the Balkans.245 The exact language of the letter, “not far from us there is a certain extremely rich province near the sea which base and cowardly heretics are holding, in which we should like one of your sons to become general and prince and defender of Christendom” inclines most scholarly readers of the document towards an interpretation that it was aimed at the Slavonic Liturgy in Croatia and Dalmatia, and perhaps explicitly at Krk which is an island in the Adriatic.246 Despite all of this preparation, it seems that little to no direct action was taken against the bishop of Krk and proponents of the Slavonic Liturgy. This may have been because Zvonimir himself opposed such action. We do not have definitive evidence of such opposition, but Curta has pointed out that Zvonimir was friendly with the bishop of Krk and supported a monastery there during his reign.247 Which could lead us to the interesting conclusion that while Zvonimir received ecclesiastical support for his reign, and against Wezelin, he was unwilling to pursue papal aims which may have been a stated or unstated quid pro quo for such support. These actions demonstrate, once again, one of the ways in which rulers utilized ecclesias­ tical support for their own ends in this period. Another way that Zvonimir utilized ecclesiastical support was through his creation of the bishopric of Croatia. The ruler of Croatia had, at least in the eleventh century, an itinerant bishop who moved around with him and was known as the bishop of Croatia.248 Archdeacon Thomas records “The kings of the Croats wanted to have, as it were, a special bishop, for which they petitioned the archbishop of Split … He held many parishes and had estates and possessions throughout nearly the whole kingdom of Croatia, because he was the royal bishop and attended the king’s court.”249 There are two things of particular interest about this. The first is that it was Zvonimir, as king, who initiated the process of creating a new bishopric for his religious advisor who is noted by Thomas as “one of the leading men at the court.”250

244 Archdeacon Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops of Salona and Split, 86–89. The reference in Archdeacon Thomas to Gerald’s dealings with the imprisoned Wolfgang, may represent a reference to the Slavonic Liturgy, as he was the primary character in the earlier story about Krk. 245 The Register of Pope Gregory VII, 2.51. 246 The Register of Pope Gregory VII, 2.51; Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 440–441, 456; Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 335. 247 Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 336. 248 Skoblar notes that the earliest reference to this bishop is from the reign of Stephen I (1030–1058). Figural Sculpture in Eleventh-Century Dalmatia and Croatia, 85. 249 Archdeacon Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops of Salona and Split, ch. 15 (69–71). 250 Archdeacon Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops of Salona and Split, ch. 15 (69–71).

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Following Archdeacon Thomas’s identification of the location of this see “in the church of Saint Mary near the castle of Knin,” Skoblar has pointed out that re-excavation of a nearby site has shifted the conclusion that the site was a monastery to a royal residence.251 The collocation of a residence for the king and the see of the royal bishop would demonstrate quite tangibly the way that Zvonimir was attempting to utilize ecclesiastical connections to buttress his reign and his relationships. It would also be another data point in our ongoing look at the ways in which rulers collocated ecclesiastical power centers with their own, or did not; clearly not a one-to-one ratio in the arc of medieval Europe, or more broadly. We can add that Zvonimir was especially close to archbishop Lawrence of Split and referred to him as his “spiritual father.”252 The connection between the two seems to have been strengthened when Zvonimir returned the churches of St. Stephen and St. Mary in Solin to the control of the arch­ bishop.253 The churches had originally been endowed by Queen Helen and given to the archbishop of Split. Helen had been the wife of Michael Krešimir II (949–969) and the mother of Stephen Držislav (969–997) and is also known from material finds of the tenth century.254 The churches were known as royal resting places, akin to the dynastic mausolea that will be discussed in Chapter 5; though it seems that while Archdeacon Thomas notes that Michael Krešimir is buried there “along with many other kings and queens” none are specified, and there are also other sites for royal resting places.255 Nevertheless, control of the churches at some point between their foundation and the rule of Zvonimir passed into the hands of monks and while Archdeacon Thomas notes that they “assiduously performed their rites and services” Zvonimir fulfilled his royal predecessor’s wish and transferred them back to the control of the archbishop of Split.256 This was not the only instance in which Zvonimir transferred lands or reconfirmed land transfers and foundations to Split, and signifies the close tie that he had with Archbishop Lawrence. Though we noted above that Zvonimir may have been disappointing to Pope Gregory VII in his enforcement, or lack thereof, of the Slavonic Liturgy, Zvonimir’s cultivation of Archbishop Lawrence and

251 Archdeacon Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops of Salona and Split, ch. 15 (69–71); Figural Sculpture in Eleventh-Century Dalmatia and Croatia, 86–87. 252 Codex Diplomaticus regni Croatiae, #125. 253 Archdeacon Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops of Salona and Split, ch. 16 (90–91). 254 Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 329–330. 255 Archdeacon Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops of Salona and Split, ch. 16 (90–91). 256 Skoblar notes that Zvonimir referred to his “royal predecessors,” especially when reiter­ ating older foundation documents. Figural Sculpture in Eleventh-Century Dalmatia and Croatia, 106.

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his royal bishop created ecclesiastical ties that he was able to use to reinforce his own political power. Zvonimir’s death in 1089 is often connected with the first crusade and his desire to assist the papacy by calling out Croatian troops. Jean Sedlar repeats the common refrain that the peasants and people of Croatia declared that they had no wish to fight for the pope, and Zvonimir died in the ensuing riot.257 Borislav Grgin, however, points out that this is a much later story, and does not appear in any contemporary sources.258 Accepting Grgin’s point it becomes difficult to use Zvonimir’s death as another example of his devotion to the papacy; rather this is a later story, for a later political pur­ pose and does not reflect Croatia’s, or Zvonimir’s actual relationship to the papacy. His death does, though, provide a different religious connection and that is his regional sainthood. Zvonimir, in life, had married Helena, the sister of the Hungarian king Ladislaus I. After his death, the Hungarian kings used that connection to take over Croatia and Dalmatia and they leaned on their connection to Zvonimir to help support that claim. They also attempted to use the cult of St. Stephen to help unite the entirety of their realm, including moving the head of St. Stephen to Zagreb.259 In Croatia itself, Zvonimir “was also revered as a saint by certain segments of the Croatian Church.”260 Thus, this ruler who was crowned by a papal legate to reinforce his authority, but did not stamp out the Slavonic Liturgy; who created close connections with his archbishop and royal bishop became a saint, remembered for his dedication to the church, even if not precisely to the ways that he used it to reinforce his own rule. Conclusion

In so many ways, the few examples addressed here are only the tip of the iceberg. In each of those cases (Rus, Norway, Hungary, and Croatia) much more could be said, not to mention examples from the rest of the arc of medieval Europe. To add just a few things not covered in depth elsewhere; while ecclesiastical coronation was addressed briefly in the chapter on Succession and for Rus, it could also be expanded upon for all of the relevant cases. There are also numerous topics that could fit under the rubric for this chapter, such as cases where kingdoms were willed to the papacy. Just within

257 Sedlar, East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 163. See also, Petrinec and Vicelja, “Croatian ducatum and kingdom at the borders of the empires,” 280. 258 Borislav Grgin, “The Impact of the Crusades on Medieval Croatia,” The Crusades and the Military Orders: Expanding the Frontiers of Medieval Latin Christianity, ed. Zsolt Hunyadi and József Laszlovszky (Budapest: Central European University, 2001):167–171. 259 Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses, 148. 260 Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses, 149.

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the arc of medieval Europe, Mieszko I willed his realm to the papacy to avoid it passing into the control of the German Empire.261 Of course, his heirs ruled after him without consultation with the papacy, but the papacy did not forget this gesture.262 In Hungary, the first life of St. Stephen notes that he willed his kingdom to the Virgin Mary, but that it was appropriated by the papacy.263 And in Iberia, we discussed Alfonso VI’s claim to the imperial title in the chapter on titulature, but it is also relevant here, as Bernard Reilly suggests, that Alfonso VI claimed the title, possibly, in response to papal claims of suzerainty over Iberia.264 Following a victory over Henry IV in the Investiture Controversy, and the switch in León-Castile from the Mozarabic to the Roman Liturgy, Pope Gregory VII claimed for himself control of the peninsula as a whole. We have already seen in this chapter that this pope was active throughout medieval Europe, giving a crown to Zvonimir of Croatia and the kingdom of Rus to Iziaslav Iaroslavich. All of these affairs are deeply interwoven not only between secular and ecclesiastic, but throughout the breadth of medieval Europe. Nevertheless, the points raised in this chapter help to demonstrate some of the commonalities across this territory. One of the key points to take away from this examination is that there seems to be no major difference in the ways that political rulers utilized, or attempted to utilize, the ecclesiastical structure of their realms across what is often referred to as the “OrthodoxLatin” divide. The creation of an archbishop of Kalocsa without suffragans only has a parallel in Rus with the mid-eleventh-century creation of three metropolitans, none of whom beyond Kyiv have suffragans of their own. Similarly, we see that the ways that the rulers related to ecclesiastical leaders are the same across that “boundary.” Whether it is Tomislav’s creation of an archbishopric to solidify his political power, or Andrei Bogoliubskii’s

261 Tadeusz Manteuffel, The Formation of the Polish State: The Period of Ducal Rule, 963–1194 transl. Andrew Gorski (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1982), 54. It could also be noted, following Ernst Kantorowicz that popes, beginning with Gregory VII, claimed rule over the German Empire, and that Pope Innocent III even claimed to be its ruler during an interregnum. Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), 335. 262 “included in Saint Peter’s domain were now, in this order, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Burgundy, France, Gascony, Spain (beginning with the province of Tarragona), England, Wales, Dacia, Norway, Sweden, Scotland, Ireland, Sardinian, and Outremer.” Thomas N. Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009), 416. On the same subject see, J. P. Canning, “Introduction: politics, institutions and ideas,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c. 350–1450, ed. J. H. Burns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988): 345–346. 263 “Hartvic, Life of King Stephen of Hungary,” 376. 264 Bernard F. Reilly, The Kingdom of Leó n-Castilla Under King Alfonso VI, 1065–1109 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), 103.

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attempt to do the same, the goal has no connection to the particular religious confession. Instead, these examples reinforce the idea that there was a common playbook for rulers dealing with their ecclesiastical elites across the arc of medieval Europe. Eroding the “Latin-Orthodox” divide is only one of the takeaways of the chapter, however. Another is the simple commonality of the way that rulers relate to their ecclesiastical counterparts. We see examples throughout the region of shared values being articulated by ecclesiastical leaders – protecting the church and churchmen, most of all – as a way to attempt to shift or influence political rulers’ behavior. At the same time, we see resistance among those political leaders to change. They may hold synods or approve of the ecclesiastical code of conduct, but their actions and the inclusion of different value systems in their documents paint a clear picture of the ways that they wanted to operate and continued to do so. This can be most clearly seen in the different articulation of values in Metropolitan Nikifor’s letter to Volodimer Monomakh and in Monomakh’s testament, or in the text of the Law of Royal Succession versus the reality of the ways that rulers both before and after this time were chosen. The resulting image of relations between political leaders and their ecclesiastical elites should strike a familiar chord for scholars of western Europe who have examined similar interac­ tions. The arc of medieval Europe is no outlier, nor does it need to be sec­ tioned off in either the history of historiography. Part 2 of this book aims to demonstrate the commonalities of ecclesiastical relations between the arc of medieval Europe and throughout the medieval world.

5 MONASTIC LEGITIMATION OF RULERSHIP

The 1063 reconsecration of the dual monasteries of San Pelayo and San Juan Bautista in León-Castile by King Fernando I and Queen Sancha marked the birth of one of the most famous Iberian monasteries – what would become San Isidoro. In addition to the typical reasons for patronizing ecclesiastical establishments (e.g., savior of souls), the foundation of this mixed commu­ nity by the royal couple enhanced their power in the realm and provided a place for their burial, as well as a further center of power for Sancha and her female kin.1 Sancha lived in a palace complex which was part of the mon­ astery and she was known as the domina of the monastery during her life­ time. Furthermore, this position seemed to have been continued by her female descendants through the first half of the twelfth century as additional royal women patronized the monastery to add to their own personal power and that of the kingdom. In the first decade of the twelfth century, Alexios Komnenos and his wife Eirene Doukaina, emperor, and empress of the medieval Roman empire, founded matching monasteries in the city of Constantinople. Alexios’s foundation was the monastery of Christ Philanthropos, while Eirene’s was the monastery of Theotokos Kecharitomene, neither of which has been preserved to this day. The two monasteries were connected, divided only by a wall, and were intended as a burial place for themselves, as well as a place for their families to find refuge at need. This was especially true of

1 Therese Martin notes that though it resembles a double monastery, there was no formal rule making it a double monastery, thus the preferred “mixed community.” Personal communi­ cation, 1/11/2021. DOI: 10.4324/9781003388296-8

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Kecharitomene as it contained within it a suite of apartments for the royal family, and the founding document reinforced the role of the empress and her female descendants, including the famous Anna Komnene, in the or­ dering of the monastery. Towards the end of the twelfth century, we see the rulers of Wales using Cistercian monastic foundations as part of their battleground for supremacy both within pura Wallia and from the Anglo-Normans. The Lord Rhys, Rhys ap Gruffudd, re-founded the Cistercian monastery of Strata Florida in 1165 as a way to claim it for himself, and for Wales, from the AngloNorman founders, as well as to provide a foundation for himself and his family to build on. This was a deeply political act and engendered resentment from other Welsh rulers who resented the Lord Rhys’s intention to become ruler of all of Wales. The way that those rulers manifested their displeasure, beyond military means, was through the foundation (or refoundation) of monasteries as can be seen with Owain Cyfeiliog’s foundation of Strata Marcella in 1170 and Cadwallon’s foundation of an abbey in 1176. Towards the very end of the century, we can also see this when Morgan ap Caradog and his family took the territory around Margam Abbey and began patronizing it as a way to claim it for themselves and from the AngloNorman Marcher lords who founded it. All of these examples, spreading from Iberia to Constantinople to Wales, are from medieval Europe and yet traditionally they have been studied in silos that keep them apart from one another – whether those have been Western European, Orthodox, Cistercian, and so on.2 Yet, if we take the time to examine even these areas, not to mention many others, we can see that there are medieval European trends in ruling families’ roles in the founding of monastic establishments, especially in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. This broader view enhances our understanding of the past and gives us multiple frames in which to view and understand what hap­ pened and why – certainly many more than can be offered in this chapter.

2 Interestingly, Archaeology has managed to avoid this conundrum or is in the process of overcoming it – see The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology, ed. by Tom Davis, David Pettegrew and William Caraher (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), The Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism, ed. Bernice Kaczynski (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). I would also note that I have found at least two recent studies that do engage with comparative material. One is the final chapter in Therese Martin’s Queen as King in which she ties together other female foundations. Therese Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectural Propaganda in Twelfth-century Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2006); while the other is Jozsef Laszlovszky, “Local tradition or European patterns? The grave of Queen Gertrude in the Pilis Cistercian Abbey” in Medieval East Central Europe in a Comparative Perspective: From Frontier zones to Lands in Focus, ed. Gerhard Jaritz and Katalin Szende (London and New York: Routledge, 2016): 81–98, which engages with foundations in Iberia as well as Hungary and Poland.

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What this chapter sets out to do is to look broadly at how secular rulers used monastic institutions to reinforce their own rule, and the symbiosis that was created through that process – but in a larger context of seeing this phenomenon throughout medieval Europe. Barbara Hill noted that “Monastery-building is perhaps the most visible sort of patronage, and visibility may have been its purpose.”3 Thus, focusing on rulers’ endowment of monastic institutions is a way to see what they valued and how they made that patronage manifest. Moreover, Hill suggests that “The community would be very aware of its patron because of the frequent readings of the typikon and especially the elaborate commemoration services carried out weekly for the founder and her family.”4 Though there may be differences between western and eastern monasticism, which will be discussed next, similar phenomena are in effect in both places as monasteries are used as sites of religious power, but also demonstrative instances of political patronage. The people in the surrounding communities would likely know the identity of the founders and donors, thus enhancing their image with said commu­ nity. As instances of political patronage, monasteries are an ideal focus for a work on rulers and rulership. And while the chapter is broadly comparative, one simply cannot cover every bit of medieval Europe, thus I have tried to take a representative sampling of areas from throughout the arc of medieval Europe. Yet, within the instances discussed this chapter demonstrates the interaction between monastic foundations and rulership to see larger patterns. Three themes reoccur throughout this chapter, themes which can already be seen in the initial examples offered in the introduction. First, Vlada Stanković, in his study of Komnenian monasticism, noted that the purpose of Komnenian monastic foundations was to enhance the power of the family, rather than that of the larger clan.5 To define terms for clarity, a clan (often referred to as a royal family or dynasty) is “a group which claims descent from a common ancestor;” while the family is a subset of that clan “com­ prising nuclear families, or slightly extended family groups.”6 Stanković’s argument is in contravention to the traditional interpretation of monastic foundations which reflexively refer to such foundations as “dynastic” mausolea, implying multiple generations of burials. It seems much more likely, following this examination, that especially in the eleventh and twelfth

3 Barbara Hill, Imperial Women in Byzantium 1025–1204: Power, Patronage, and Ideology (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), 165. 4 Hill, Imperial Women in Byzantium 1025–1204, 165. 5 Vlada Stanković, “Comnenian Monastic Foundations in Constantinople: Questions of Method and Context” Belgrade Historical Review 2 (2011): 49, 51. 6 Christian Raffensperger, Conflict, Bargaining, and Kinship Networks in Medieval Eastern Europe (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018), 4–6.

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centuries individuals founded sites for their own aggrandizement and burial, and perhaps that of their close kin, but not for a larger clan purpose; as their sons, daughters, and grandchildren did the same later. It is largely only in the middle of the thirteenth century that a shift to dynastic mausolea is seen, and in those cases, there are often translations of prior burials to create such a dynastic establishment.7 The second overarching point that stands out is the impressive role of women as founders of monastic foundations, and the powers that they have as founders. Multiple scholars over the last several decades have added women to the mix of political culture in medieval Europe, and begun calling for a rethinking of the idea of political culture to be inclusive of women as a whole – and this study helps give further impetus to such calls.8 Royal women from throughout medieval Europe were founders of monasteries, engaged in the management of them, lived in them (within orders and without), and were buried in them – all by their own agency. These royal women were influential power brokers not only for themselves but for their families, enhancing the power of the royal family, and potentially clan, as well as other networks of power in which they participated.9 Much as with the idea of dynastic mausolea, this too seems to be a phenomenon that shifts in the middle of the thirteenth century, when Constance Berman noted a crack-down on female monasticism, following a flourishing of female Cistercian foundations in the late twelfth century.10 The third point that becomes clear through this examination is that there exist very different source bases for the territories examined throughout medieval Europe. Iberia, for instance, has multiple chronicle sources, excellent material culture preserved, in addition to monastic foundation

7 For a similar sentiment regarding San Isidoro and the “Pantheon,” see Martin, Queen as King, 42, 77. Robert Bartlett also highlights the difficulty of “generaliz[ing] about the his­ tory of dynastic mausolea.” Robert Bartlett, Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 259. 8 Therese Martin notes this beautifully in regard to women’s involvement with art and architecture when she says that though there was a lot of work being done, “this scholarship seemed to make little impact on the field of medieval art history as a whole” and further the studies which were done, “studies rarely crossed from a niche into a larger dimension.” Therese Martin, “The Margin to Act: A Framework of Investigation for Women’s (and Men’s) Medieval Art-Making” Journal of Medieval History 42:1 (2016): 2. 9 Lucy Pick talks about this a great deal in her excellent, Lucy Pick, Her Father’s Daughter: Gender, Power, and Religion in the Early Spanish Kingdoms (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2017). Barbara Hill, already cited, does the same for Komnenian women. Hill, Imperial Women in Byzantium 1025–1204. 10 Constance Hoffman Berman, The Cistercian Evolution: The Invention of a Religious Order in Twelfth-Century Europe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 233–234.

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documents. The medieval Roman Empire is similar in that one can read the typika (founding documents) for the monasteries throughout Constantinople with only the click of a button given the excellent preservation and publi­ cation of scholarship. But, despite the textual survivals, there is little pres­ ervation of the Komnenian monasteries discussed in the text, apart from Christ Pantokrator. The situation is not the same in, for instance, Rus where there are very few chronicle sources for the period and little in the way of additional documentation or material culture. The vagaries of source pres­ ervation are especially worth noting in such a broad examination as they can create the appearance of difference where no difference was intended. As a final codicil to this point, Stavroula Constantinou reminds us that many, though not all, of the sources written about medieval women were written by medieval men and written for their own purposes.11 Though this chapter contains multiple foundation documents written by, or in part by, women, this is an important point to remember as we attempt to reconstruct the relationships, and gender dynamics, of the medieval world. As always, the entirety of medieval Europe cannot be covered here and thus in lieu, I have chosen what I believe to be a representative sampling from the arc of medieval Europe. Examples in this chapter come from Wales, Iberia, Poland, the medieval Roman Empire, Serbia, and Rus. The goal of these choices is to provide enough variety and difference from throughout Europe to see larger trends, similarities, and differences, and attempt to understand the role monastic foundations had in the formation of royal power. Wales

In the second half of the twelfth century, Lord Rhys came to dominate Wales, uniting the majority of the territory, often known as pura Wallia under his own rule. One of the ways that he marked his claim was with the refoundation of the Cistercian abbey of Strata Florida in 1165.12

11 Stavroula Constantinou, “Male Constructions of Female Identities: Authority and Power in the Byzantine Greek Lives of Monastic Foundresses” in Female Founders in Byzantium and Beyond, ed. Lioba Theis, Margaret Mullett and Michael Grünbart (Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2012): 43–62. 12 David Stephenson, Medieval Wales, c. 1050–1332: Centuries of Ambiguity (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2019), 15. There is a wide range of dates for Lord Rhys’s actual refoundation, driven in part by the lack of contemporary source material. “The earliest grant belongs to Rhys and has been closely dated by Pryce to between 1165 and 3 March 1182, probably occurring almost immediately after his repossession of Ceredigion.” Jemma Bezant, “The Medieval Grants to Strata Florida Abbey: Mapping the Agency of Lordship” in Monastic Wales: New Approaches, ed. Janet Burton and Karen Stöber (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013): 78.

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Strata Florida was a daughter house of Whitland, which itself was a daughter of Clairvaux.13 This origin was especially important, and a reason for the success of the Cistercians among the native Welsh nobility – “As members of a European-wide religious order which, unlike the Benedictine foundations of an earlier phase of monastic expansion in Wales, had no links with English or Norman houses, no connotations of alien settlement, they brought international contacts, prestige and status for a monastic patron to rival that of other rulers, and more material benefits.”14 The move by Lord Rhys to claim Strata Florida for himself set off a drive among other Welsh rulers who were rivals to the Lord Rhys, or at least attempting to avoid acknowledging his rule over them, to found their own Cistercian houses. In 1170, Owain Cyfeiliog founded the abbey of Strata Marcella, also as a daughter of Whitland.15 And a few years later, in 1176, Cadwallon founded a Cistercian house, another daughter of Whitland.16 It seems clear that these other Welsh lords were attempting to utilize their monastic foundations to claim the benefits noted above (“brought inter­ national contacts, prestige, and status”) akin to those claimed by the Lord Rhys. They too wanted a Cistercian monastery to advance their interests, as well as a direct claim to Whitland (and via it to Clairvaux) rather than to Strata Florida (and thus Lord Rhys).17 One way that we can see the effect of such claims is that just a year after Owain Cyfeiliog founded Strata Marcella he was at war with Lord Rhys; a war in which Lord Rhys was triumphant.18 Similarly, after a battle with Cadwallon, Lord Rhys ordered the founding of the first daughter house of Strata Florida at Llantarnam (or Caerlon) in 1179.19 It was around this time as well that he founded his first female monastic foundation – Llanllyr – also as a daughter of Strata Florida.20 These monastic foundations, daughters of his

13 Huw Pryce, “Patrons and Patronage among the Cistercians in Wales” Archaeologia Cambrensis 154 (2005): 82. 14 Janet Burton and Julie Kerr, The Cistercians in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2011), 45. 15 Stephenson, Medieval Wales, 107; Burton and Kerr, The Cistercians in the Middle Ages, 45–46. 16 Stephenson, Medieval Wales, 107. 17 The benefits of a Cistercian monastery were many for the Welsh lords, including preserving their history, copying manuscripts, and “spiritual support for their regimes and practical expertise and assistance in the formation of their political power.” Burton and Kerr, The Cistercians in the Middle Ages, 46. 18 Stephenson, Medieval Wales, 107. 19 Stephenson, Medieval Wales, 107. 20 Burton and Kerr, The Cistercians in the Middle Ages, 52.

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first, were meant to demonstrate his claims to power for himself as a ruler as well as to show his victory over other contenders for the throne of pura Wallia.21 The Lord Rhys did not just patronize Cistercian monasteries, however; he also founded a Premonstratensian monastery at Talley.22 Though not as much is recorded about this house, its inhabitants do appear later, providing us with some evidence of the purpose of such foundations. For instance, the abbot of Talley, Iorwerth was elected as bishop of St. David’s in 1215.23 A native Welshman as bishop was especially important for the Welsh lords, and his naming was a concession for King John, at this particularly pivotal time of his reign. One of Iorwerth’s main assistants at St. David’s was Maredudd ap Rhys, the son of the Lord Rhys, who was archdeacon of Cardigan, and may have come with him from Talley.24 Though this chapter does not explicitly discuss the placing of family members in monastic foundations, it is clearly one of the implicit rationales for the creation of such foundations and another way to advance familial power.25 Much as the Lord Rhys had claimed Strata Florida for himself, Morgan ap Caradog claimed Margam in the 1180s. After the death of William, Earl of Gloucester in 1183, Morgan led a revolt against the Marcher lords in the region and took control of the territory in which the Cistercian abbey of Margam lay.26 It seems that the initial impetus of Morgan was to found a daughter house of Margam, but it did not thrive and thus he put his efforts, and eventually those of his family, into supporting Margam, thereby claiming it “as a means of consolidating political authority over Marcher territory.”27 Morgan died ca. 1208, but his sons continued the family’s patronage of Margam, though to a lesser extent than their father had – perhaps suggestive of one of the larger themes herein about the prevalence of family, or even individual, patronage versus dynastic patronage. Monastic foundations were not only important as ways to demonstrate, or claim, power, and international ties; they also became places for burials of

21 It is possible to demonstrate this through the evidence that Lord Rhys gave land to Strata Florida which did not fall under his specific control as lord of Deheubarth, suggesting that he was able to give land from elsewhere in Pura Wallia. For information on the land grants see, Bezant, “The Medieval Grants to Strata Florida Abbey,” 82. 22 Pryce, “Patrons and Patronage among the Cistercians in Wales,” 84. 23 Huw Pryce, “The dynasty of Deheubarth and the church of St Davids,” in J. Wyn Evans and Jonathan M. Wooding (eds), St David of Wales: Cult, Church and Nation (Woodbridge, 2007), 308. 24 Pryce, “The dynasty of Deheubarth and the church of St Davids,” 308. 25 In fact, including family members had initially been planned as part of this chapter, but was cut due to space constraints. 26 Pryce, “Patrons and Patronage among the Cistercians in Wales,” 85. 27 Pryce, “Patrons and Patronage among the Cistercians in Wales,” 85.

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the ruling family.28 Scholars typically suggest that the monastery became the burial place for the dynasty. For instance, Huw Pryce, who has worked extensively on dynastic patronage of monasteries in Wales, says, “Strata Florida became a mausoleum for the family of the Lord Rhys.”29 And yet, as Pryce notes, “Rhys himself was buried at St. David’s.”30 It was not just Lord Rhys who was not buried in his own family mausoleum, however. Nest, the sister of Lord Rhys, also chose to be buried elsewhere, in this case with her son, at Glamorgan.31 And two of Rhys’s sons, Maredudd ap Rhys and Rhys Gryg were buried at St. David’s with their father.32 Rhys Gryg, in particular, presents a problem for the claim of Strata Florida as a dynastic mausoleum as he promised his body to Strata Florida in 1198, but later changed his mind.33 The fact that St. David’s has been called “the holiest place in Wales” gives ample impetus for a ruler claiming to control all of pura Wallia to be buried there.34 It also supplies us with a fascinating comparison to the ex­ ample of Rusian kings, discussed later, who choose to be buried in the Kyivan Caves Monastery, “the holiest monastery in Rus,” rather than in their family foundations. Another son of Lord Rhys, Gruffudd, was reportedly buried in Strata Flordia along with his wife, Matilda of Braose, both having taken monastic vows first.35 This presents an interesting issue, given the rarity of female burials in Cistercian monasteries in Wales, though it presents a nice parallel with some other couples buried together, discussed elsewhere in this study.36 It also supplies us with the first burial of a member of Rhys’s family in the main monastery which he patronized. Though it would not be the last as “Documentary sources, and perhaps some associated physical remains, indicate that at least ten members of the house of Deheubarth were buried at Strata Florida.”37 And in the case of Margam, Morgan ap Caradog’s sons,

28 Andrew Abram, “Monastic Burial in Medieval Wales” in Monastic Wales: New Approaches, ed. Janet Burton and Karen Stöber (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013): 103–115; For the nature of lay burials in Cistercian monasteries broadly see Emilia Jamroziak, The Cistercian Order in Medieval Europe, 1090–1500 (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), 101. 29 Pryce, “Patrons and Patronage among the Cistercians in Wales,” 85. 30 Pryce, “Patrons and Patronage among the Cistercians in Wales,” 85. See also, Pryce, “The dynasty of Deheubarth and the church of St Davids,” 306. 31 Pryce, “Patrons and Patronage among the Cistercians in Wales,” 85. 32 Abram notes the problem with this, given Rhys’s significant patronage of both Strata Florida and Talley. “Monastic Burial in Medieval Wales,” 108. 33 Pryce, “The dynasty of Deheubarth and the church of St Davids,” 308. 34 Abram, “Monastic Burial in Medieval Wales,” 108. 35 Abram, “Monastic Burial in Medieval Wales,” 107. 36 Abram, “Monastic Burial in Medieval Wales,” 110. 37 Abram, “Monastic Burial in Medieval Wales,” 109.

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“Lleision, Owain and Morgan Gam all sought burial in the abbey.”38 What we see then is an interesting mix of claim and reality. The Lord Rhys was instrumental in spreading Cistercian monastic foundations amongst the Welsh rulers in the twelfth century, often by claiming or refounding existing houses. The repurposing of those houses for Welsh use also resulted in their use as family mausolea, if not the dynastic (multi-generational) use that is often claimed. Further, we can begin to see the value of a broader com­ parative picture as items of similarity appear here that will begin to tie together the disparate regions under examination. Iberia

Moving to Iberia, we can see similar trends in the Christian kingdoms of the northern part of the peninsula. In multiple instances, through León-Castile, Aragon, and Portugal, rulers (both male and female) founded monasteries to help reinforce their royal power. In addition, these monasteries became associated, especially over time, with the larger reforming monastic orders in medieval Latin Europe, and finally, the monasteries often served as burial places for those founders and, often, their immediate families. One of the most famous monastic foundations in Iberia, still being intensively studied, is the monastery of San Isidoro.39 San Isidoro was not founded as San Isidoro, but as a double monastery dedicated to San Pelayo and San Juan Bautista, by King Fernando I and Queen Sancha in the middle of the eleventh century.40 Sancha played a large role in the foundation of the monastery, as can be seen from the 1063 charter where her voice can be heard directly, and at a much greater length than Fernando, and in which she notes not only the presence of both male and female monastics, but her role as a primary benefactor – naming “herself queen and ‘ruler (domina) of that monastery’.”41 Such a claim to authority over the monastery is nicely demonstrative of the ways that rulers thought about their foundations, even

38 Pryce, “Patrons and Patronage among the Cistercians in Wales,” 86. 39 Therese Martin, the leading expert on San Isidoro (and frequently cited here), is leading a team to investigate San Isidoro’s Treasury. For the book-length publication of the initial research see The Medieval Iberian Treasury in the Context of Cultural Interchange (Expanded Edition), ed. Therese Martin (Leiden: Brill, 2020). 40 Martin, Queen as King, 30–31. 41 Martin, Queen as King, 31, 51. It is interesting to note the similarity to the account of the Merovingian St. Radegund who was never a nun but was still the “domna et mater” of the monastery she founded, according to her life. I do not suggest a larger connection than that, given the time differential, but nevertheless, it is perhaps indicative of larger trends that are understudied. Gábor Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses: Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe, transl. Éva Pálmai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 76.

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if we do not see it as clearly stated elsewhere. Not only did Sancha play a large role in the founding of the monastery itself, she also lived in a palace within the monastic complex. Therese Martin in her study of San Isidoro notes that there was a “long-lived tradition in Spain of building palaces within monasteries,” we can also see this phenomenon at Theotokos Kecharitomene in Constantinople.42 Following Fernando and Sancha’s foundation of the monastery, it was the women of Sancha’s line who played the most defining roles in promoting and expanding it. Sancha’s daughters, the infantas Urraca and Elvira, especially Urraca, took over its management after her death.43 Urraca, without ever taking monastic vows, lived in the palace complex within the monastery for most of her life, and she worked to grow the monastery’s endowment, and increase its footprint, in line with her brother Alfonso VI’s contemporaneous goals for León-Castile.44 Her role as an advocate for the monastery, yet not a monastic herself, emphasizes the important role that the royal family played in the life of the monastery as well as the very public connection between the two. It was under Queen Urraca, Alfonso VI’s daughter and successor, that the monastery expanded enormously, with new tributes to Isidore of Seville, including relics as a pilgrimage destination, as a way to rebrand the mon­ astery from the lesser-known San Pelayo.45 Given Urraca’s history of donations to the monastery and her participation in its affairs, Martin has characterized it as a “physical manifestation of her dynasty at the heart of her kingdom.”46 Urraca’s children, the Infanta Sancha and King Alfonso VII made their own changes to San Isidoro, and it was Sancha who was the last of the royal line to regularly make her home there. Two decades after Alfonso’s elaborate crowning as emperor, the monastery of San Isidoro was rededicated in the mid-twelfth century with a who’s who of Iberian ecclesiastics signing on as witnesses as well as, “the most excellent Emperor Alfonso, the Infanta Lady Sancha, King Sancho, King Fernando, the Infanta Constanza.”47 Such a public ceremony reinforces the connection between the royal family and the monastery, a connection visible to all, especially when repeated in successive generations. The Infanta Sancha has pride of place here after her brother the

42 Martin, Queen as King, 33, 33n7. 43 Martin, Queen as King, 62. Martin ties this whole process as well into the infantazgo and we can see from the Chronicle of Compostela that “Fernando I ‘granted the hereditary rights of holding and possession of truly all the monasteries of his kingdom to his two daughters, namely Urraca and Elvira’.” 44 Martin, Queen as King, 62. 45 Martin, Queen as King, 111–112. 46 Martin, Queen as King, 104. 47 Martin, Queen as King, 154.

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emperor, and in fact, the thirteenth-century chronicler, Lucas of Tuy, re­ ferred to Sancha as the bride of San Isidoro for her patronage and association with the monastery.48 However, it was also Sancha and Alfonso VII who ended the double monastery and gifted San Isidoro to the Augustinian canons in 1148.49 This was one of the last double monasteries and its donation to one of the reform movements was not just a part of the pro­ gression of Christianity in the west, but also a sign of Sancha’s wish, fol­ lowing on her mother Queen Urraca’s refashioning of San Isidoro, that the monastery be more open to pilgrims – something the canons were better suited to do.50 The gift to the Augustinians also included the majority of the palace complex in the monastery, and Sancha was the last to live there, retaining some rooms for herself.51 Though San Isidoro became the main site of royal burials in the thirteenth century (as we have seen some royals were buried there since the eleventh century), this creation of a central burial site for the dynasty was very much a phenomenon of that time (Figure 5.1). In fact, there was a deliberate reconstruction (or construction) of tombs in the mid-thirteenth century for translated bodies of royals who had been buried elsewhere.52 It is actually quite difficult to discern who was buried at San Isidoro, when, and why.53 At some point after the construction of the monastery, Fernando and Sancha moved some of the bodies of her ancestors to be buried there, as a way to enhance the rulership of her husband Fernando, who was the son of the ruler of Castile.54 Garcia, brother of Alfonso VI, who was imprisoned for most of his life by his brother, was buried at San Isidoro after his death in 1090.55 And finally, the Infanta Sancha was buried at San Isidoro in the twelfth century.56 This is an interesting pattern, and perhaps an exception to

48 Martin, Queen as King, 154. 49 Rose Walker, “Leonor of England, Plantagenet Queen of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, and her foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas. In Imitation of Fontevraud?” Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005): 359. 50 Martin, Queen as King, 158–162. 51 Though they may not have known of each other, from our vantage point we can see a continuing comparison to the activities of Anna Komnene and her mother at Kecharitomene, the former of whom was active at this time in the medieval Roman Empire. 52 Martin, Queen as King, 174, 176, 176n58. 53 Rocío Sánchez Ameijeiras provides a breakdown of what is known, and can be known about the burials both from the present state of preservation, as well as what existed at various times in the past. “The Eventful Life of the Royal Tombs of San Isidoro in León,” transl. Nicola Stapleton, in Church, State, Vellum, and Stone: Essays on Medieval Spain in Honor of John Williams, ed. Therese Martin and Julie A. Harris (Leiden: Brill, 2005): 479–520. 54 Martin, Queen as King, 42. 55 Martin, Queen as King, 67. 56 Martin, Queen as King, 162–163.

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FIGURE 5.1

The Royal Pantheon at San Isidoro (© Museo San Isidoro de León-Derechos reservados. Prohibida la reproducción total o parcial).

other locations that are examined in this chapter, as the royal burials span generations and even though there are certainly other sites of burial for royals (Toledo, Santiago de Compostela, Sahagun), San Isidoro is a per­ sistent contender.57 In the twelfth century, the rise of the Cistercians is one of the main nar­ ratives of monasticism, as seen already in regard to Wales, and León-Castile is no different. Specifically, we can see the order’s involvement with the royal family in the foundation of Santa Maria la Real, typically known as Las Huelgas, which was a Cistercian nunnery founded by Alfonso VIII of Castile and his wife Leonor in 1187.58 Alfonso VIII was of the line of Urraca and Alfonso VII who played such a role in shaping San Isidoro; while Leonor was

57 One potential comparand is the burial place of queens of Vladimir-Suzdal in Rus discussed later. 58 Carlos Estepa, “The Strengthening of Royal Power in Castile under Alfonso XI” in Building Legitimacy: Political Discourses and Forms of Legitimacy in Medieval Societies, ed. Isabel Alfonso, Hugh Kennedy, and Julio Escalona (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004), 199.

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the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine.59 The charter of the abbey, which is still extant, notes both that the king and queen were founders, as well as the connection to the Cistercians. “‘Alfonso, by the grace of God king of Castile and Toledo and his wife Alienor, queen, with the agreement of his daughters Berengaria [Berenguela] and Urraca, have built to the honour of God and of his holy mother the Virgin Mary a monastery in the vega of Burgos, called Santa Maria Regalis, in which the Cistercian rule is to be observed forever’.”60 Listing the members of the royal family, inclusive of the women makes sure that the family is connected to the monastery not only in the foundation document, but in the eyes of God and in those who witness the ceremony, as well as those of the monks who pray for the lives and souls of the founders. Similarly, the charter makes it quite clear that the institution was founded explicitly for women – “‘Among the other mon­ asteries that have been built to the honour of God and his worship, a monastery built for women dedicated to God earns great merit with God’.”61 The reinforcement of the position of both daughters, “with the agreement of his daughters Berengaria [Berenguela] and Urraca,” reinforces the importance of female participation in the foundation document. The Cistercian connection of Las Huelgas was particularly important, both for the house itself and for Alfonso VIII’s aspirations to wider power. Las Huelgas was granted descent directly from Cîteaux, meaning that it was a daughter house of the center of Cistercian monasticism. It was important for Alfonso VIII’s claim to be emperor that he had some level of ecclesiastical control as well, and as such we see a link between his political claims and his religious ones such that, “Just days before Abbot Guy II accepted the nunnery as a special daughter (specialis filia) of Cîteaux in Burgos, the terms of the marriage of Alfonso IX and Berenguela were formalized in Palencia, after two years of negotiations.”62 The marriage of Alfonso VIII’s daughter Berenguela to

59 There has been much discussion of the connection between Fontevraud abbey in France, which Eleanor sponsored in her later years, though did not found, and Las Huelgas founded by Leonor. For a discussion of this connection, as well as an extended rebuttal to it, see Walker, “Leonor of England, Plantagenet Queen of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, and her foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas. In Imitation of Fontevraud?” 346–368. 60 Quoted in Walker, “Leonor of England, Plantagenet Queen of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, and her foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas. In Imitation of Fontevraud?” 354. 61 Quoted in Walker, “Leonor of England, Plantagenet Queen of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, and her foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas. In Imitation of Fontevraud?” 353. 62 James D’Emilio, “The Royal Convent of Las Huelgas: Dynastic Politics, Religious Reform and Artistic Change in Medieval Castile” Studies In Cistercian Art and Architecture 6 (2005): 203. He examines the political ramifications more fully throughout the early part of the article, as well.

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Alfonso IX of León helped to end political hostilities and cement a political/ familial relationship, while the relationship made with Cîteaux allowed for a direct descent for Las Huelgas, enhancing its sanctity and ecclesiastical cachet. Las Huelgas’s position as a special daughter of Cîteaux also allowed it another privilege, which was to call a general chapter of female Cistercian monasteries in Iberia.63 This rare privilege gave Las Huelgas dominance over the other Cistercian female monasteries in Iberia, independent of what kingdom they were in, or who had founded them.64 This, in fact, caused much delay in the actual implantation of the decree; especially as Cîteaux seemed unwilling to enforce this, eventually suggesting the enforcement of the general chapter rather than requiring it, so as not to antagonize any of the other Iberian kingdoms.65 Though it was clear that Alfonso VIII had worked to create a special position for Las Huelgas to enhance his own royal, and perhaps imperial, power via the dominance of his monastery over others in Iberia. The special position of Las Huelgas ended up acting as a practical barrier to the other Iberian kingdoms founding Cistercian monasteries, at least briefly, for fear that they would be subordinated to Las Huelgas, and thus Alfonso VIII and Castile.66 The political importance of Las Huelgas continued within the family of its founders. James D’Emilio notes that Leonor most likely expected the foun­ dation to provide a refuge for herself and her female kin – and a special place was indeed reserved for them in the monastery.67 Bishop Lucas of Tuy records that Alfonso VIII “‘has built the palace of the king next to the house of God’, just as Solomon did’.”68 The record of a royal palace inside of, or adjacent to, the monastery is similar to what was seen at San Isidoro, and will be seen at Theotokos Kecharitomene in Constantinople. The charter which founded Las Huelgas maintains no special place for Leonor, or her female kin, as does the typikon at Theotokos Kecharitomene, but we do see actual power practiced by those women during their lifetimes. Queen Leonor may have influenced the selection of the second abbess, Maria Gutierrez, who was the widow of her mayordomo, Martin Gonzalez.69 The family of

63 D’Emilio, “The Royal Convent of Las Huelgas,” 194–195. 64 Iberia is one of the most fascinating places to study the differences between ecclesiastical boundaries and political ones. Bartlett notes, for instance, that the archbishop of Compostella had suffragans in León, Castile, and Portugal. Blood Royal, 411. 65 D’Emilio, “The Royal Convent of Las Huelgas,” 199. 66 James D’Emilio, “Widows and Communities: Cistercian Nunneries and Their Architecture in the Kingdom of León (1150–1300)” Cîteaux: Commentarii cistercienses 66:3 (2015), 252–253. 67 D’Emilio, “The Royal Convent of Las Huelgas,” 208. 68 Quoted in Walker, “Leonor of England, Plantagenet Queen of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, and her foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas. In Imitation of Fontevraud?” 361. 69 D’Emilio, “The Royal Convent of Las Huelgas,” 208.

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Martin Gonzalez was active in Leonor’s court and multiple members of it served her in various capacities, thus it does not seem unlikely that Martin’s widow could also have continued to serve her queen. Following the annul­ ment of Leonor’s daughter Berenguela’s marriage, she too took on some administrative roles at the monastery, as can be seen in her administration of the funerals of her family which were held at the monastery.70 Though it was not until a vacancy in the position of abbess that a member of the royal family took direct charge of the monastery – in this case, Constanza, another daughter of Leonor, who did eventually end up taking holy orders.71 As D’Emilio has noted, “What began as an interim authority soon became recognized lordship over the monastery by resident princesses.”72 In the next generation, Berenguela, daughter of King Ferdinand III became a major figure in the life of the monastery, appearing regularly in its documentation. This was eventually recognized by her brother, Alfonso X, who named her “‘sennora e mayor del monasterio’, and for the next quarter century, she clearly overshadowed the abbesses in the direction of the house.”73 These direct connections between the ruling family and the monastery helped to make clear to all those involved who had founded the monastery, who maintained it, and thus who accrued the associated prestige. Though there were no special provisions for control by members, male or female, of the royal family in the administration of Las Huelgas, we see them happening regardless. Further, we can see such broader trends in this chapter, clearly an advantage in using a wider lens when examining medieval Europe. Finally, Las Huelgas also became the burial site for Alfonso VIII and Leonor, as well as multiple of their children.74 D’Emilio, following the broader scholarly trend, has named Las Huelgas the site of dynastic burials for the family, though as we will see (and have seen elsewhere) this is not quite the case.75 Alfonso VIII declared his intention to be buried at Las Huelgas in a charter of 1199 which was repeated in his 1214 will.76 Similarly, we see two of Alfonso VIII and Leonor’s children buried there as

70 Walker, “Leonor of England, Plantagenet Queen of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, and her foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas. In Imitation of Fontevraud?” 362, 365. 71 D’Emilio, “The Royal Convent of Las Huelgas,” 208–209. “Princess Constanza ordered an inventory of the abbey’s properties in 1232, and her exercise of authority was reflected by continuing references to her and Princess Constanza of Leon in 1222.” 209n65. 72 D’Emilio, “The Royal Convent of Las Huelgas,” 209. 73 D’Emilio, “The Royal Convent of Las Huelgas,” 209. 74 Walker, “Leonor of England, Plantagenet Queen of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, and her foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas. In Imitation of Fontevraud?” 365. 75 D’Emilio, “The Royal Convent of Las Huelgas,” 214. 76 For more on the actual tomb of Alfonso VIII and Leonor of Castile see, Tom Nickson, “The Royal Tombs of Santa Creus. Negotiating the Royal Image in Medieval Iberia” Zeitschrift für Kuntsgeschichte 72:1 (2009): 10.

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well, Fernando and Henry I, all of whom died between 1211 and 1217.77 Later Berenguela was buried there as well, but when her son Ferdinand III (in whose favor she abdicated) took power, he chose as his burial site the cathedral in Seville.78 Going back before Alfonso VIII there was no prece­ dent for a larger dynastic burial site with burials at Toledo, Santiago de Compostela, and elsewhere. What we see at Las Huelgas then is in line with what we have seen at a variety of other locations – a burial site for family, not clan.79 All in all, Las Huelgas is not just a fascinating site in its own right, but one that provides us with a great deal of material to draw comparisons with other contemporary sites in medieval Europe. In Aragon, it was King Berenguar IV who brought in the Cistercians and founded the monastery of Poblet for them in the early 1150s.80 This mon­ astery, though, did not become his burial place, as he was buried alongside his father at Santa Maria de Ripoll, which was known as the family mau­ soleum of the rulers of Barcelona, though the actual burials there are spo­ radic. Ramon Berenguar IV’s son, Alfonso II with his wife Sancha also founded a Cistercian monastery, a daughter of Poblet, dedicated to Saint Maria the White and called the Monasterio de Piedra in 1194. There are two interesting connections to earlier Iberian practice that we have discussed. The first is that Sancha was the daughter of Alfonso VII of Castile, and thus the relative of Urraca and Teresa who were powerful founding figures of other monasteries that have been, and will be, discussed herein – not to mention aunt to Alfonso VIII who founded Las Huelgas with his wife Leonor. It certainly seems possible that apart from the gestalt of the times, there could also be a familial impulse to participate in the founding of similar monasteries. The second is that despite founding the Monasterio de Piedra, Alfonso II was buried in his father’s foundation of Poblet.81 It is quite possible that the easiest explanation for this is that Alfonso II died in 1196 and the Monasterio de Piedra was simply not ready. Queen Sancha was involved with another foundation as well, the female foundation of Sigena in 1188.82 Sigena was particularly interesting for several reasons: one was that it was a female foundation of the Hospitalers, and unlike Las Huelgas it was

77 Walker, “Leonor of England, Plantagenet Queen of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, and her foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas. In Imitation of Fontevraud?” 365. 78 Walker, “Leonor of England, Plantagenet Queen of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, and her foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas. In Imitation of Fontevraud?” 365. 79 Though again, as will be seen below, there are a series of reburials in the late thirteenth century that are trying to revive Las Huelgas as a dynastic, rather than familial, site. Nickson, “The Royal Tombs of Santes Creus,”10. 80 Nickson, “The Royal Tombs of Santes Creus,” 10. 81 Nickson, “The Royal Tombs of Santes Creus,” 10. 82 Walker, “Leonor of England, Plantagenet Queen of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, and her foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas. In Imitation of Fontevraud?” 357.

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not autonomous; another is that it demonstrated once again the major role of royal women in managing their own foundations. “At Sigena, Sancha’s role is very clear and interventionist: all the nuns and monks, including the prioress, were subordinate to her as dominatrix,” though none of her family followed in that role.83 Finally, while Alfonso II was buried at Poblet, Sancha was buried in her foundation of Sigena at her death in 1208; marking once again the separation in the idea of dynastic burial sites from the reality. Yet, looking forward into the middle of the thirteenth century, much as at San Isidoro, we can see the purposeful construction of Poblet as the preferred destination for royal burials of the Aragonese royal family. Similar trends can be seen in the kingdom of Portugal, where religion too played a crucial role in balancing political interests. Even in the creation of the kingdom, we can see the conflict between Queen Teresa and her son King Afonso Henriques and their backing of rival ecclesiastical camps at Braga and Santiago de Compostela.84 After Teresa’s death, Afonso Henriques and his wife created a pair of Augustinian monasteries, Santa Cruz in Coimbra and Santa Marinha da Costa in Guimarães in the early 1130s.85 Though not located together, the foundation of two monasteries by the ruling couple are part of a larger trend that we see throughout this chapter. Santa Cruz was also initially intended as a mausoleum for Afonso Henriques and his family. Though his mother Queen Teresa had been buried at Braga, helping to empower that location, Afonso Henriques, his wife Mafalda, and their son Sancho I were all buried at Santa Cruz.86 In keeping with the theme of monasteries as family, not clan, institutions, we see soon after this the cre­ ation of Alcobaça as the new dynastic foundation by the time of Afonso Henriques’s grandson Afonso II.87 Afonso Henriques and Mafalda’s granddaughters were also avid participants in monastic foundations. Teresa, who was briefly Queen of León from 1190 to 1194 founded a Cistercian female monastery in Villabuena but is more well known for her reformation

83 Walker, “Leonor of England, Plantagenet Queen of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, and her foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas. In Imitation of Fontevraud?” 358. 84 Miriam Shadis, “The First Queens of Portugal and the Building of the Realm” in Reassessing the Roles of Women as ‘Makers’ of Medieval Art and Architecture, vol. 2, ed. Therese Martin (Leiden: Brill, 2012): 682. 85 Shadis, “The First Queens of Portugal and the Building of the Realm,” 684. 86 Shadis, “The First Queens of Portugal and the Building of the Realm,” 684. 87 Interestingly, Afonso Henriques endowed this Cistercian monastery in 1153, but it was very much a work in progress for more than fifty years and monks did not move in until sometime in the thirteenth century. At that time, we see it become the main spot for the burial of rulers and their families, potentially beginning with Urraca of Castile, wife of Afonso II. Shadis, “The First Queens of Portugal and the Building of the Realm,” 673, 689–691. See also, Burton and Kerr, The Cistercians in the Middle Ages, 50–51.

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of Cistercian female monasticism, known as the reform of Lorvão.88 Her sister, Sancha, founded a monastery at Cellas, which Teresa then took over after Sancha’s death. And finally, Mafalda, the youngest sister, was a sponsor, and eventually abbess of São Pedro e São Paulo de Arouca. Arouca began life as a Benedictine double monastery but switched to a solely female monastery in the middle of the twelfth century.89 Miriam Shadis, whose research underlies my understanding of Portuguese monasticism, concludes her piece on Arouca saying that it, “was a female, royal institution, and perhaps not subject to the usual Cistercian aesthetic – comparable in this way to Las Huelgas in Burgos.”90 One of the more well-known members of the Portuguese royal family who joined a monastery was Mafalda, the youngest daughter of Afonso Henriques and his wife Mafalda. Mafalda was associated from a young age with the monastery of Bouças which she received from her mother, but then she became associated with the monastery of São Pedro e São Paulo de Arouca in the 1190s, potentially taking holy orders and joining the mon­ astery in 1199.91 Before and during her tenure within the monastery of São Pedro e São Paulo, Mafalda was referred to as “regina.” This titulature indicates her importance within the political hierarchy even while she is acting as a member of the monastic order.92 In fact, Mafalda’s story has further developments as she was removed from the monastery in 1215 to make a dynastic marriage with Enrique I of Castile. This attempt, motivated by her brother Afonso II failed quite quickly and Mafalda returned to the monastery where she continued to refer to herself as “’domna Maphalda Dei gratia regina’.”93 The continued use of a royal title (as discussed in Chapter 1) cements the connection between monastic and political establishments dis­ cussed throughout this chapter. Finally, after the reform of Lorvão, initiated by her sister Teresa, Mafalda transitioned the monastery of Arouca to the Cistercians. This is an interesting moment in Iberian monasticism that shows both the continued relevance of the Cistercians in the early thirteenth century, as well as the importance of female royals in shaping monastic policy and foundations.

88 89 90 91 92

Shadis, “The First Queens of Portugal and the Building of the Realm,” 693. Shadis, “The First Queens of Portugal and the Building of the Realm,” 696. Shadis, “The First Queens of Portugal and the Building of the Realm,” 698. Shadis, “The First Queens of Portugal and the Building of the Realm,” 696–697. This titulature is part of a larger context of Portuguese corporate rule wherein we see Mafalda’s older brother and sister referred to jointly with their father Afonso Henriques as king and queen. Jitske Jasperse, “Of Seals and Siblings: Teresa/Matilda (d. 1218), Queen of Portugal and Countess of Flanders” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies https://doi.org/10.1 080/17546559.2020.1805120, 5. See also the discussion of “queen” in Chapter 1. 93 Shadis, “The First Queens of Portugal and the Building of the Realm,” 697.

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As can be seen then, the themes of monasteries as family foundations, the importance of royal women as founders and as administrators of mon­ asteries, and the role of monasteries as family burial places continue throughout multiple Iberian kingdoms. These examples, interesting and wellstudied in their own right, are also useful comparisons to other monastic foundations throughout medieval Europe. Poland

Poland presents an interesting case study and requires a moment of political overview to note that while one clan (which is typically referred to as the Piasts, though I have called them the Mieszkowice elsewhere) ruled the polity (as duchy or kingdom depending on ruler), after 1146 there was a lack of political cen­ tralization throughout the polity. However, it is essential to understand that the same clan ruled throughout Poland, whether it was the portion known as Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, or Silesia.94 Thus, from the outset, one might suspect that each of the families comprising the larger clan would then create their own monastic foundations to secure their power in each section of Poland, though this does not appear to be the case. It is clear, especially from the thirteenth century onwards that members of the clan used monastic endowments as tools for holding and claiming power, though the evidence from earlier is much slimmer.95 The first monastic establishment in Poland was created by Bolesław I in the early part of the eleventh century.96 Unfortunately, we have no record of it, and even the records of the first monasteries of the eleventh century, are often only extant in twelfth-century versions or new grants to the monastery. For instance, the first Benedictine monastic house was Tyniec, founded circa 1044.97 Our records of Tyniec though are largely from the 1125 charter from a papal legate of Pope Calixtus II.98 That charter “confirmed past grants to the monastery by King Bolesław I the Brave (992–1025) and Duke Bolesław III the Wrymouth (1102–1138)” thus allowing us to talk about it as an eleventh-century

94 Piotr Górecki whose voluminous work on Polish monasticism underlines this study provides a clear definition of this when he says, “By ‘Poland’ in this period I mean the lands that were ruled by Piast dukes who traced their descent to Bolesław III the Wrymouth, and through him to the legendary Piast, to Mieszko I and to Bolesław I the Brave.” Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 1100–1250 (New York and London: Holmes and Meier, 1992), 29n1. 95 Paul Milliman, ‘The Slippery Memory of Men’: The Place of Pomerania in the Medieval Kingdom of Poland (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013), 68, 79. 96 Przemysław Urbańczyk and Stanisław Rosik, “The Kingdom of Poland, with an Appendix on Polabia and Pomerania between paganism and Christianity” in Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’, c. 900–1200, ed. Nora Berend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007): 286. 97 Urbańczyk and Rosik, “The Kingdom of Poland,” 286. 98 Górecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 18.

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foundation.99 A further charter, circa 1136, includes a fascinating grant to the monastery from Queen Judith, most likely the daughter of Bolesław III, in which she grants her own land – Ksieginice – to Tyniec.100 This grant is important to us for two reasons, one is that Ksieginice literally means “queen” in Old West Slavic, which validates the importance of her title and its translation as regina in the Latin documentation.101 The second is that this land was hers and hers to give to the monastery, reinforcing her role in the continuation, if not foundation of the monastery, not to mention the continued connection between ruling family and monastery. The source base for Polish monasticism becomes richer after 1150. In fact, Piotr Górecki has noted that “Before 1150, writing was used, for purposes of record, so seldom that we can safely assert, in this period, a state of nearcomplete pre-literacy.”102 The increase in written records in the second half of the twelfth century coincides with the arrival of the Cistercians, leading to rulers enhancing their own authority through Cistercian foundations.103 One of the first Cistercian houses in Poland was at Lubiąż in Silesia.104 It was founded sometime in the 1160s or 1170s, though we know of it first from its 1175 foundation charter from Duke Bolesław the Tall. In it, Duke Bolesław makes clear that he is founding the house not as a house of workers, but as “‘literate celebrators of divine matters and contemplators of the heavens’.”105 This role was an important one for Bolesław as it enhanced his authority through a tie to the heavens and those who serve God, reinforcing his position as patron, as well as his secular power in his territory. Reinforcing the source difficulties, this is the only known charter from Bolesław the Tall’s 39-year reign.106 The sources get richer in the reign of his successor, Henry the Bearded.

99 Górecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 18. 100 Monumenta Poloniae Historica 1 ed. August Bielowski (Lwow and Krakow: Akademia Umiejetnosci, 1864), 518; Górecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 68. 101 Górecki (Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 68) follows the traditional translation of duchess, however, one could make an easy comparison between the titu­ lature arguments in Christian Raffensperger, The Kingdom of Rus’ (Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2017) that as kniaz’ (the East Slavic version) is “king,” the feminine should be “queen.” See Chapter 1 of the present work, as well. 102 Piotr Górecki, The Text and the World: The Henryków Book, Its Authors, and their Region, 1160–1310 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 64. 103 Górecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 14–15. 104 Górecki notes the late boom of Cistercian monasticism in Poland saying, “around the midtwelfth century, when the Cistercian establishment in Western Europe consisted of almost 350 monasteries, the foundations in all of Poland included exactly two communities, Jędrzejów in Little Poland, and Łekno in Great Poland.” A Local Society in Transition, 78. 105 Górecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 124, quoting the founda­ tion document. 106 Górecki, The Text and the World, 65.

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The most well-known of the monastic foundations of the time of Henry the Bearded was his creation of the female monastery of Trzebnica alongside his wife, Hedwig, sometime in the 1190s.107 A bit of background on Hedwig is necessary to help understand her influence in this situation. Hedwig “was the daughter of Berchtold IV of the Andechs, prince of Meran,” and from the age of five, she lived in Kitzingen Abbey in Franconia, where her aunt was abbess, until her marriage to Henry.108 It was not long after her arrival in Silesia in 1194 that the first foundation documents for the female monastery of Trzebnica were issued by both Henry I the Bearded and Hedwig in 1202.109 This was not the only time that the couple acted corporately when making donations to ecclesiastical establishments, nor should it be surprising given what we have seen elsewhere in medieval Europe, or in Poland’s own past with the gift of Queen Judith earlier.110 The first abbess for Trzebnica came from Kitzingen Abbey, where Hedwig had been raised, cementing a connection to the German monastery.111 This could also be one of the reasons that Polish Cistercian monasteries have often been considered to be founded by the German Empire, or by Germans; though that might also be the thirteenthcentury recruitment of Germans by those same monasteries.112 Trzebnica became one of the main monastic establishments in Poland, and it received multiple grants, not just from Henry I and Hedwig, but from other Piast rulers as well.113 In fact, late in the reign of Henry I, there was an attempt to set up joint control over land between Trzebnica and Lubiąż.114 By that time, the abbess of Trzebnica was Gertrude, the daughter of Henry I and Hedwig.115 Gertrude’s name and signature can be seen on multiple documents relating to

107 Górecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 18. Grzegorz Pac has an excellent overview of possible early (eleventh century) female monasticism in Poland in his Grzegorz Pac, Women in the Piast Dynasty: A Comparative Study of Piast Wives and Daughters (c. 965–1144), transl. Anna Kijak (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022), 340–394. 108 Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses, 203; Laszlovszky, “Local tradition or European patterns?” 91. 109 Górecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 18. 110 For other joint endowments see, Górecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 105. 111 Laszlovszky, “Local tradition or European patterns?” 91. 112 Burton and Kerr, The Cistercians in the Middle Ages, 50; Górecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 262. 113 Górecki, The Text and the World, 65. 114 Górecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 267. 115 Gertrude was the second abbess of the monastery. It is interesting to consider the parallel with the monastery created by Queen Melisende of Jerusalem for her sister Iveta, with the intention (according to William of Tyre) for Iveta to be the abbess – something which took place after the initial abbess got the monastery up and running. Jaroslav Folda, “Melisende of Jerusalem: Queen and Patron of Art and Architecture in the Crusader Kingdom” in Reassessing the Roles of Women as ‘Makers’ of Medieval Art and Architecture, vol. 1, ed. Therese Martin (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 441–442.

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this and other donations to the monastery; and though this joint control does not end up working out, Gertrude’s rationale for it deliberately calls back to her grandfather Bolesław I the Tall’s original donation charter for Lubiąż of 1175. In her statement saying that “the nuns had abandoned their share in that interest to the monks of Lubiąż,” she said that the nuns were not laborers but were contemplators, in line with Bolesław’s idea that his monks would be, “‘literate celebrators of divine matters and contemplators of the heavens’.”116 Such knowledge of her grandfather’s foundation document provides us with further information about what was known of the foundation documents of these monasteries among the elite. Even before the death of Henry I, Hedwig had made Trzebnica her home; though she never took monastic vows, and remained engaged in politics in her realm; including acting as de facto regent for her son Henry II.117 We do not know if she had her own quarters in the monastery, as we see elsewhere in medieval Europe, though the fact that she never formally took monastic vows does indicate that it is probable.118 Hedwig made Trzebnica a place for the women of her family, much as we will see with Theotokos Kecharitomene in the medieval Roman Empire, and similar to San Isidoro and Las Huelgas in Iberia. When she arranged the marriage of her son Bolesław to Agnes of Bohemia, Agnes was sent to Trzebnica to come of age. When Gertrude’s engagement to Conrad of Wittelsbach fell through, she went on to become the abbess of Trzebnica in 1223.119 Further, “Anne, Hedwig’s daughter-in-law, was a frequent guest at Trebnitz Abbey” lending additional support to the idea that Hedwig may have had her own quarters within the abbey for herself and her non-monastic guests.120 Though we are lacking any formal documentation stating Hedwig’s disposition of control of the monastery, as we have elsewhere, the list of abbesses of the monastery confirm that it was a place of refuge for Hedwig’s female kin. “Until 1515 all abbesses in Trzebnica nunnery came from the ruling ducal family or other related dynasties of the Polish kingdom.”121 Perhaps the culmination of Gertrude’s tenure as abbess, and the crowning moment of Hedwig’s story, is Hedwig’s consecration as a saint in 1268.122 The tomb of St. Hedwig at Trzebnica made the monastery into a pilgrimage spot, similar to that of San

116 117 118 119 120 121

Górecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 267–268, 124. Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses, 203, 251. Pac, Women in the Piast Dynasty, 341, 370 reinforces this claim. Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses, 251. Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses, 251. Jamroziak, The Cistercian Order in Medieval Europe, 146. For a list of women, see Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses, 251. 122 Jamroziak, The Cistercian Order in Medieval Europe, 103.

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Isidoro, sanctifying the creator of the monastery and reinforcing royal authority. Emilia Jamroziak has noted that Trzebnica was founded, in part, as a burial place for Henry I and Hedwig and their family.123 We see both of them, as well as one of their sons, Konrad, buried there in the first half of the thirteenth century. Gertrude, the second abbess of Trzebnica, and daughter of Henry I and Hedwig was also buried in the monastery, which would be logical as abbess. All of which does seem to make this monastic foundation a burial site for this particular branch of the family, even if not for the Piast clan as a whole. Here, as in Iberia, one must also contend with the impulse by later his­ torians and writers to create a dynastic mausoleum. According to Dániel Bagi, Jan “Długosz tried at the end of the Middle Ages to create a Piast necropolis, into which he placed not only the dynasty’s first great king, but almost all his descendants.”124 Długosz, writing in the fifteenth century, was an amazing source for his time, but much of his reconstructions of early Polish history are problematic. For instance, we have limited information on the earliest burials for the Piasts. Mieszko I and Bolesław I Chrobry, late tenth- and early eleventh-century rulers of Poland, were most likely buried in Poznan Cathedral. Władysław Herman and his wife Judith were buried in Płock where they had founded a cathedral church.125 Their son, Bolesław III is often assumed to have been buried there as well, but this information comes, once again, from Długosz, and only Długosz. Similarly, we have no definitive information about the burial place of Władysław’s other son and heir, Zbigniew.126 By the later twelfth and early thirteenth century there is a shift to burials “In the Wawel, the cathedral dedicated to St. Wenceslas in Cracow.”127 Perhaps, much as we see the later addition of record keeping in the Piast lands, there is a lacuna of monastic burials as has been seen else­ where in medieval Europe, barring a few examples such as those at Trzebnica. We must, however, stick closely to our source base, even when acknowledging its shortcomings, though it means we do not know as much about the eleventh century, for instance, as we might like.

123 Jamroziak, The Cistercian Order in Medieval Europe, 103. 124 Dániel Bagi, Divisio Regni: The Territorial Divisions, Power Struggles, and Dynastic Historiography of the Árpáds of 11th- and early 12th-century Hungary, with Comparative Studies of the Piasts of Poland and the Přemyslids of Bohemia (Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities, 2020), 107. For the material that Bagi uses from Dlugosz see Ioannis Dlugossii (Jan Długosz), Annales seu cronicae incliti regni Poloniae (Varsaviae: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1970), Bks III and IV, pp. 75–76. 125 Urbańczyk and Rosik, “The Kingdom of Poland,” 291. 126 Bagi, Divisio Regni, 108–109. 127 Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses, 344.

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Medieval Roman Empire

Moving into the medieval Roman world, we see a different set of monastic rules and a distinct lack of orders, though largely the same principles for foundations as have been seen elsewhere. The category of orders, specifically their lack, is of particular interest, as the focus thus far has been on monastic foundations associated with orders like the Cistercians, Augustinians, and Premonstratensians.128 Alice-Mary Talbot notes, “With few exceptions, each Byzantine monastery was an individual and separate entity, with its own rule, or typikon, that prescribed the regulations for the organization and administration of that specific monastery.”129 This is but one of the differences that we have in examining one of the most well-known microChristendoms of medieval Europe.130 And yet, the similarities outnumber the differences as we can note that monasteries throughout medieval Europe were often founded by members of royal, or noble, families; were designed to laud the donor and create a path for them into heaven; and potentially as a place to live out their golden years, and for their bones to rest after their death – thus creating a base similarity that we can use to attempt to view medieval Europe as a whole.131 The focus in this section will be on foundations erected by the Komnenoi dynasty, which came to power in the late eleventh century.132 The first

128 Alice-Mary Talbot, Varieties of Monastic Experience in Byzantium, 800–1453 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019), 4. 129 Talbot, Varieties of Monastic Experience in Byzantium, 5. 130 I would suggest that perhaps we might be looking at supra-micro-Christendoms here, though that could be taking the original point made by Peter Brown a bit far. For Brown’s original conception see, Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200–1000 (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2003 [2nd Edition]), 358–359. And for my addendum to the concept, see Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus in the Medieval World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 136–185. 131 Talbot, Varieties of Monastic Experience in Byzantium, 7; Milan Kašanin, “Introduction,” Studenica, ed. Mihailo Maletić, transl. Madge Tomašević (Beograd: Književne Novine, 1968), 5. Or in the words of Elif Demirtirken, “A monastery was able to accommodate a variety of functions – residence, commemoration, burial – all of which revolved around the concept of the family.” “Imperial Women and Religious Foundations in Constantinople,” in Piroska and the Pantokrator: Dynastic Memory, Healing and Salvation in Komnenian Constantinople, ed. Marianne Sághy and Robert Ousterhout (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2019): 191. 132 It is important though to note that imperial women participated in monastic foundations before this time period as well. For a fascinating analysis of female foundations from the entire middle Byzantine period see Dorothy Abrahamse, “Women’s Monasticism in the Middle Byzantine Period: Problems and Prospects” Byzantinische Forschungen 9 (1985): 35–58. Barbara Hill explicitly notes that, “All the early empresses from Maria of Alania to Eirene Piroska founded or co-founded monasteries.” Barbara Hill, Imperial Women in Byzantium 1025–1204: Power, Patronage, and Ideology (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), 174.

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monastery erected by a member of the family was the Church of Christ Pantepoptes (All-Seeing) endowed by Anna Dalassene, mother of Alexios Komnenos.133 The choice of name of this monastery was an odd one, as there is not a single other monastery dedicated to this image of Christ. It seems, how­ ever, to have been important to Anna Dalassene’s vision of Christ, or perhaps even herself, and was repeated by her children as well in their typika, if not explicitly in dedication.134 This monastery not only occupied a central point in the district which would come to be called the Komnenian Quarter but would also provide a model for later Komnenian monastic constructions. A debated part of this model is the idea that Anna Dalassene had apartments within the monastery, which seems to have been created as a male monastery, or whether she took orders herself.135 We do know that Anna Dalassene designated this monastery as her final resting place and had her own tomb constructed therein.136 Though she was ultimately interred there, this monastery did not become a familial resting place as many of the later Komnenoi built their own foundations and were buried within them, as will be seen next.137 The first foundation of the dynasty itself was a joint foundation built by Alexios Komnenos and his wife Eirene Doukaina circa 1110.138 This monastic complex was actually a separate male and female monastery, divided in the middle by a wall.139 The male monastery was devoted to Christ Philanthropos, while the female monastery was dedicated to Theotokos Kecharitomene (Full of Grace).140 While the typikon, the founding document, is not extant for the

133 Vlada Stanković, “Comnenian Monastic Foundations in Constantinople: Questions of Method and Context” Belgrade Historical Review 2 (2011), 52–53; Vlada Stanković and Albrecht Berger, “The Komnenoi and Constantinople before the Building of the Pantokrator Complex” in The Pantokrator Monastery in Constantinople (Byzantinisches Archiv 27), ed. S. Kotzabassi (Berlin-Boston, 2013), 21–25. 134 Stanković discusses this more broadly. “Comnenian Monastic Foundations in Constantinople,” 47–71. 135 Abrahamse, “Women’s Monasticism in the Middle Byzantine Period,” 48, 48n35. 136 Stanković, “Comnenian Monastic Foundations in Constantinople,” 55. 137 In her survey of the female foundations of the Middle Byzantine period, Abrahamse notes the prevalence of emperors constructing foundations and being buried in them. For ex­ ample, Basil I founded the monastery of Euphemia in Petrio, and his daughter Theodora became a nun there; but later not only was Theodora buried there but Basil I himself. “Women’s Monasticism in the Middle Byzantine Period,” 38–39. 138 Stanković, “Comnenian Monastic Foundations in Constantinople,” 56. 139 Alice-Mary Talbot makes the point that this was a return to double monasteries after a nearly 300-year absence of them in the medieval Roman Empire. This is particularly in­ teresting because we see a great deal of female monastic activity in the Merovingian period in the West, that seems to be resuscitated in ideas of the High Middle Ages. Alice-Mary Talbot, “Women’s Space in Byzantine Monasteries” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 52 (1998): 118. 140 Leonora Neville, Anna Komnene: The Life and Work of a Medieval Historian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 134.

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Christ Philanthropos monastery, the typikon of Theotokos Kecharitomene has been preserved and it is a fascinating document testifying to the purpose of the monastery as a safe haven for not just Eirene Doukaina, but also her daughters Eudokia and Anna, as well as future female descendants.141 The typikon clearly laid out that Eirene Doukaina was not just the founder, ktetorissa, of the monastery, but also held ephoreia, guardianship over the monastery.142 This gave her immense power over the monastery, though she agreed to share that power with her husband, Alexios, and then after her death passed it first to her daughter Eudokia who was a nun in the monastery, and after Eudokia’s death (before Eirene Doukaina) then to Anna (and further on to female relatives, as specified).143 It even specifies that the founder’s power does not end at her death, as Contantinou notes, “Through miracles of protection and vengeance … she defends her convent from trespass, plunder, attack and subversion.”144 Constantinou’s evocation of the power of the founder helps us to understand the implicit importance, and interconnection, between the ruling family and the monastery in the minds of the inhabitants of the monastic foundation. The typikon further lays out the royal holdings which are found inside the monastery and are held by Eirene Doukaina, who retired to the monastery after Alexius’s death in 1118, and Anna Komnene.145 Leonora Neville sums up the description by saying that the typikon describes, “a set of palatial dwellings within the boundary circuit of the monastery, but clearly demar­ cated as separate from the residences of the nuns.”146 This also includes quite a unique apartment built just for Anna Komnene located on the wall separating the Christ Philanthropos monastery from Theotokos Kecharitomene. The occupant of the apartment could see down into the Christ Philanthropos monastery courtyard and was almost literally between the two, male and female, monasteries. Furthermore, it was directly stipulated that after the death of Anna Komnene herself, this apartment was to be destroyed and the

141 “Kecharitomene: Typikon of Empress Irene Doukaina Komnene for the Convent of the Mother of God Kecharitomene in Constantinople,” transl. Robert Jordan in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents: A Complete Translation of the Surviving Founders’ Typika and Testaments, ed. John Philip Thomas and Angela Constantinides Hero (Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2000): 649–724. 142 “Typikon of Empress Irene Doukaina Komnene for the Convent of the Mother of God Kecharitomene,” Sec. 1. 143 “Typikon of Empress Irene Doukaina Komnene for the Convent of the Mother of God Kecharitomene,” sec. 1, 3, 80. In a fascinating sidenote, Anna Komnena passes it on to her daughter whose name was Eirene Doukaina, after her grandmother. 144 Constantinou, “Male Constructions of Female Identities,” 61. Citing the typikon passage which states, “but even if we are absent in the body, you should think that we are present with you in spirit.” 145 “Typikon of Empress Irene Doukaina Komnene for the Convent of the Mother of God Kecharitomene,” sec. 79. 146 Neville, Anna Komnene, 134.

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wall between the monasteries was to be raised.147 All of this speaks to the unique position of the founder, and her female descendants, as both part of the monastery and separate from it. They can reside within the monastery, males as well as females, and exercise the power of guardianship over the monastery, but they are not part of the monastic establishment. There are even stipula­ tions that the family can join the nuns for liturgy, but rarely, though the female descendants of Eirene (and Eirene herself) can regularly attend services and eat with the nuns.148 This situation presents an interesting comparison with both San Isidoro and Las Huelgas, discussed earlier, wherein the members of the royal family founded the nunnery, could live within it, and even place someone in charge of the foundation. Both Eirene and Alexios also stipulated that their monasteries would be their final resting places, serving the same function as we saw with Christ Pantepoptes for Anna Dalassene.149 It seems clear, however, that while the royal couple was content to be buried in their foundations, they did not desire the creation of a familial necropolis, as neither of them transferred any of their deceased relatives to their own monasteries.150 In fact, we know from the typikon of Theotokos Kecharitomene that Eirene Doukaina specifically stated that the only female descendants of hers who could be buried within the monastery were those who had taken holy orders.151 Thus, we can see that these personal monastic establishments seem to have been just that, personal, rather than relating to the good of the Komnenoi as a whole, at least in burials; akin to what we have seen elsewhere in medieval Europe. Though for Theotokos Kecharitomene it is equally clear that Eirene Doukaina’s intention was to provide for her female descendants in perpetuity. The most famous of the Komnenian foundations was the Pantokrator monastery founded by John II and his wife Eirene Piroska (see Figure 5.2). This monastery, the typikon of which is dated to 1136, was the culmination of the ideas of the prior Komnenoi monastic foundations.152 In this case,

147 “Typikon of Empress Irene Doukaina Komnene for the Convent of the Mother of God Kecharitomene,” sec. 79; Neville, Anna Komnene, 135. 148 “Typikon of Empress Irene Doukaina Komnene for the Convent of the Mother of God Kecharitomene,” sec. 80. 149 Stanković, “Comnenian Monastic Foundations in Constantinople,” 56. 150 Stanković and Berger, “The Komnenoi and Constantinople before the Building of the Pantokrator Complex,” 26. 151 “Typikon of Empress Irene Doukaina Komnene for the Convent of the Mother of God Kecharitomene,” sec. 76. 152 “Pantokrator: Typikon of Emperor John II Komnenos for the Monastery of Christ Pantokrator in Constantinople,” transl. Robert Jordan in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents: A Complete Translation of the Surviving Founders’ Typika and Testaments, ed. John Philip Thomas and Angela Constantinides Hero (Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2000): 725.

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FIGURE 5.2

Christ Pantokrator Monastery (photo credit – Vlada Stanković).

instead of side-by-side monasteries for the emperor and empress as at Christ Philanthropos and Theotokos Kecharitomene, the Pantokrator has two churches – the Pantokrator itself in the south and the Theotokos Eleousa in the north; with the Church of the Archangel Michael between them and with all three of the foundations connected.153 We see similarities here with the Theotokos Kecharitomene typikon in at least two particulars. The first is the idea that the family line was important to help maintain the future of the monastery. John II notes, “I wish this monastery to be respected, defended and supported first by my very dear son the basileus Lord Alexios and then in turn by the leading member of our family.”154 This was much more deliberately stated in Eirene Doukaina’s document, but we see here a similar

153 “Typikon of Emperor John II Komnenos for the Monastery of Christ Pantokrator,” 725. For an extended discussion of the layout and construction of the complex see Robert Ousterhout, “Piroska and the Pantokrator: Reassessing the Architectural Evidence,” in Piroska and the Pantokrator: Dynastic Memory, Healing and Salvation in Komnenian Constantinople, ed. Marianne Sághy and Robert Ousterhout (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2019): 225–259. 154 “Typikon of Emperor John II Komnenos for the Monastery of Christ Pantokrator,” sec. 70.

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sentiment of the monastery’s management staying within the family. The second is the provision of personal quarters for the monastic founder. The typikon of the Pantokrator has several lacunae, but a crucial one is just at this spot. However, there is enough information to suggest that John had quarters built inside of the monastery for himself, and potentially for other members of the family – just as we have seen elsewhere.155 The Church of the Archangel Michael was designed to serve as an imperial necropolis, though Talbot notes that the Church of the Archangel Michael was not considered to be part of the monastery proper, which began with the Pantokrator.156 This was an important difference as it allowed women to participate in functions at the church, and at the Eleousa, whereas they could not in the monastery.157 The burial complex, known as a heroon, is interesting for multiple reasons, including the use of this archaising word.158 The typikon seems to indicate that the burial complex would be for Piroska-Eirene, John II, and their eldest son and heir, the basileus Alexios.159 In reality, however, the Pantokrator complex has the most Komnenoi burials of any of the monasteries discussed. The first to be buried there was Eirene Piroska who died in 1134. She was followed by her son Alexios, but also his brother Andronikos, in violation of the typikon.160 At John II’s death in 1143, he too was buried in the heroon. And his heir, Manuel followed him at his own death in 1180, though Manuel also buried his first wife, Bertha Eirene of Sulzbach, there in 1158 at her death.161 The progressive evolution of this burial site is well expressed by Robert Ousterhout who notes that, “as the complex grew, it was transformed from the mausoleum of the imperial couple, to a family mausoleum, and ultimately to a dynastic one.”162 Thus, though, John II and Piroska-Eirene may have intended the monument to represent them and their heir Alexios, it was used for others, and one may suggest that Manuel purposefully used it as a way to connect himself to his father’s legacy, within the larger Komneni clan.

155 “Typikon of Emperor John II Komnenos for the Monastery of Christ Pantokrator,” sec. 65. 156 Talbot, “Women’s Space in Byzantine Monasteries,” 15. 157 Demirtirken suggests, however, that the model of construction allowed for entrance to the burial complex for commemoration by male and females, monks and lay people. “Imperial Women and Religious Foundations in Constantinople,” 186. 158 Ousterhout, “Piroska and the Pantokrator,” 253. 159 “Typikon of Emperor John II Komnenos for the Monastery of Christ Pantokrator,” sec. 44. 160 Michael Jeffreys is quite clear in his analysis of the typikon that the other children of Piroska-Eirene and John II were to be buried elsewhere, “Piroska and the Komnenian Dynasty,” in Piroska and the Pantokrator: Dynastic Memory, Healing and Salvation in Komnenian Constantinople, ed. Marianne Sághy and Robert Ousterhout (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2019): 103, 108–109. 161 Stanković, “Comnenian Monastic Foundations in Constantinople,” 64, 67. 162 Ousterhout, “Piroska and the Pantokrator,” 234.

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Not only through a positive association, his wife’s and his own burial, but also through a negative one – opposition to new monastic foundations in Constantinople, thus denying other branches of the family the chance to build their own commemorative centerpieces.163 We see this familial (versus clan) aspect most clearly in the fact that John II’s brother, Isaac, was not included in this dynastic remembrance, and further was held captive in the monastery complex while Manuel solidified his claim to the imperial throne.164 After Manuel released Isaac, the latter left Constantinople with his family and retainers and traveled to Thrace. There, he built a new monastic foundation (giving up on plans to rededicate the monastery of Christ the Chora in Constantinople) dedicated to Theotokos Kosmosoteira.165 In his typikon, Isaac, mentions commemora­ tion of his parents, the emperor Alexios and empress Eirene, but there is no mention of his brother John II, or nephew Manuel, or even his sons John and Andronikos; instead multiple of his retainers are mentioned by name and are commended to the superior of the monastery.166 In fact, one of those retainers, his secretary Michael, built himself an enclosure within the mon­ astery (while he acted as architect) and maintained his presence there – giving another example of lay individuals maintaining a residence inside of a Komnenian monastery.167 Wrapping up his analysis of these Komnenian foundations, Stanković notes that “Isaac was surrounded exclusively by his most devoted clients, thus making his endowment a mausoleum of his oikos [household] rather than of his genos [family].”168 In examining the Komnenian use of monasticism to cement their power, we can recognize two prevailing trends that are similar to what we have seen and will see, elsewhere in the arc of medieval Europe. The first is that multiple members of the dynasty founded their own monastic establishments to enhance their individual, or familial, power – not that of the clan. Though the monastery

163 Demirtirken, “Imperial Women and Religious Foundations in Constantinople,” 186. 164 “Typikon of Emperor John II Komnenos for the Monastery of Christ Pantokrator,” 725. 165 “Kosmosoteira: Typikon of the Sebastokrator Isaac Komnenos for the Monastery of the Mother of God Kosmosoteira near Bera,” transl. Nancy Patterson Ševčenko, in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents: A Complete Translation of the Surviving Founders’ Typika and Testaments, ed. John Philip Thomas and Angela Constantinides Hero (Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2000): sec 89; For a larger discussion of Isaac, his foundations, and his place amongst the Komnenoi see, Vlada Stanković, “From Christ the Savior to Virgin Mary the Savior of the World: Sebastokrator Isaac and His Place Within the First Purple-Born Generation of the Komnenoi,” unpublished paper. 166 “Typikon of the Sebastokrator Isaac Komnenos for the Monastery of the Mother of God Kosmosoteira,” sections 86 and 107, for example. 167 “Typikon of the Sebastokrator Isaac Komnenos for the Monastery of the Mother of God Kosmosoteira,” sec. 107. 168 Stanković, “Comnenian Monastic Foundations in Constantinople,” 62–63.

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of Christ Pantokrator seems, on the surface, to be an aberration, in reality, it was in aid of enhancing John II’s own familial line, as opposed to that of either his brother Isaac or his sister Anna, both of whom had their own monastic foundations. This leaves us with the repeated idea that monastic foundations, like much of medieval politics, were for the advancement of individuals and individual families, rather than the clan or dynasty as a whole.169 The second point to take away from all of this is once again the importance of royal women in the creation of monastic foundations and as participants in monasticism. Among the Komnenoi, we see incredibly important foundations by both Anna Dalassene and Eirene Doukaina – the latter of which was passed down to Anna Komnene and was designed to maintain in the female line in perpetuity. These were mainstays of the Komnenian quarter of Constantinople and markers of the power of the family. In fact, one might argue given the above, that John II’s erection of Christ Pantokrator was as much about diminishing those founda­ tions as it was about lauding his own line. Serbia

In the medieval kingdom of Serbia, we can see a similar use of monasticism to signal the importance of a ruler or ruling family; especially in the example of Studenica. Medieval Serbia maintained a vibrant monastic culture largely dating to the end of the twelfth century and the rise in eminence of St. Sava, son of Stefan Nemanja. It is also possible to observe patterns of foundations in Serbia which are akin to elsewhere, most famously in the conception of monastic foundations being “in the desert” despite their locations. For the Cistercians in the Latin world, this was a common topos of foundation documents.170 Byzantine typika, including the typikon for the monastery of the Theotokos Kosmosoteira include reference to the desert, in that particular case – “a deserted area, formerly nothing but thickets.”171 In Serbia, we see the locations for monastic estab­ lishments were often in valleys, away from urban centers.172 All of this is, of

169 Barbara Hill notes this clearly when she says that, “In the typika of Attaleiates and Eirene and in the will of Boilas, only the limited circle of the immediate family is concerned, not the wider kin network.” Imperial Women in Byzantium 1025–1204, 175. 170 Burton and Kerr, The Cistercians in the Middle Ages, 15–16, 57–59. Though for a con­ sideration on what the desert meant to early Cistercians see, Benedicta Ward, “The Desert Myth: Reflections on the Desert Ideal in Early Cistercian Monasticism” in One Yet Two: Monastic Tradition East and West, ed. M. Basil Pennington (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1976): 183–199. 171 “Typikon of the Sebastokrator Isaac Komnenos for the Monastery of the Mother of God Kosmosoteira,” sec. 2. 172 Dimitri Obolensky, Six Byzantine Portraits (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 120. One can see a similar sentiment in Milan Kašanin, “Introduction,” Studenica, ed. Mihailo Maletić, transl. Madge Tomašević (Beograd: Književne Novine, 1968), 6.

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course, a self-conscious callback to St. Antony’s monastic foundation in the desert and the beginnings of monasticism.173 The monastery of Studenica was founded in 1183 by Stefan Nemanja as a private foundation but was inseparable from the politics of the time. This was a period during which Nemanja’s own star was rising precipitously. He was the youngest of four brothers, and yet due to his connection with Manuel Komnenos, he was given the honor of being named grand župan of Serbia – an honor that came with a second baptism (later heralded by his son St. Sava) and renaming as Stefan Nemanja.174 Nemanja’s seizure of power perturbed his brothers, to say the least. The eldest brother, possibly named Tihomir, who had previously held the title of grand župan revolted directly and was defeated.175 Nemanja began erecting a series of monasteries after his second baptism, beginning with the foundation of the monastery of St. Nicholas, known col­ loquially as Toplica.176 Toplica was clearly bothersome to Nemanja’s brothers, who revolted again. Why, we might ask, was the erection of a new monastery such a problem? Perhaps it was akin to the refoundation of Strata Florida by Lord Rhys and then the foundation of Llantarnem by him, discussed above. These monasteries were claims to not just ecclesiastical, but also tem­ poral power and enforced the idea in the minds of all, one might suggest in the mind of God as well, of the power of the ruler. Apropos of this point, Vlada Stanković points out that, “the strong reaction of Nemanjaʼs older brothers against his activities becomes understandable, as do their correct recognition of the youngest brotherʼs aspirations for predominance over them,” if we understand that “his ktetorship was an unequivocal political statement.”177 The brothers of Nemanja were able to briefly imprison him and he es­ caped, we are told in the Life of St. Symeon, with the aid of St. George.178

173 Which, quite interestingly, was not nearly as remote or isolated as the desert fathers are typically assumed to have been. Darlene Brooks Hedstrom, The Monastic Landscape of Late Antique Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 76–85. 174 Vlada Stanković, “Changes in Identity and Ideology in the Byzantine World in the Second Half of the Twelfth Century: The Case of Serbia,” in Identities and Ideologies in the Medieval East Roman World, ed. Yannis Stouraitis (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022): 391-392. For his title of grand zhupan resulting from his second baptism and naming see, Selected Charters of Serbian Rulers (XII-XV Century): Relating to the Territory of Kosovo and Metohia – Part One ed. and transl. T. Živković, S. Bojanin and V. Petrović (Athens: Centre for Studies of Byzantine Civilization, 2000), 24. 175 John V.A. Fine, Jr., The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century, (Ann Arbor, Mich.: The University of Michigan Press, 1983), 244. 176 Jelena Erdeljan, “Studenica: A New Perspective?” in Serbia and Byzantium, Proceedings of the International Conference Held on 15 December 2008 at the University of Cologne, ed. M. Angar and C. Sode (Frankfurt, 2013), 41. 177 Stanković, “Changes in Identity and Ideology in the Byzantine World ,” 392. 178 Stefan Prvovenchani, Zhitije Svetog Simeona, ed. And transl. Tomislav Jovanovich (Despotovats, 2019), 56–63.

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Soon after his miraculous escape, Nemanja built a new monastery – the monastery of St. George at Ras (Đurđevi Stupovi) – to honor the saint who had saved him from his imprisonment.179 Of interesting note regarding these early foundations, or even the slightly later one of St. Panteleimon in Niš, is that none of them were named for Stefan’s own patron saint – St. Stephen.180 This is, of course, odd, but we see that St. Stephen is posthumously honored in many of the foundations which also honor St. Simeon (Stefan Nemanja’s monastic name, by which he was sainted). Stefan Prvovenčani (FirstCrowned), second son, heir, and successor to Nemanja began building a new monastery in 1208 at Žiča (see Figure 5.3), which had a painted program dedicated to St. Stephen – and which program became standard fare for Serbian royal foundations including at Mileševa, Sopoćani, and Morača.181 This was one of several ways that Stefan tried to tie his reign to his father’s and thus reinforce his legitimacy. The most famous of Nemanja’s foundations was Studenica which, despite being founded by him, is inseparable from the legacy of his son, St. Sava. After Nemanja’s death in Hilandar in 1199, it was St. Sava who translated his body back to Studenica in 1207, which helped to solidify its position in the creation of the Nemanjid dynasty and polity.182 In the words of Jelena Erdeljan, the translation “define[d] this place as the nucleus of the Nemanide dynastic cult and the seed out of which grew both the kingship of the Nemanides and the autonomy of the Serbian church.”183 Studenica maintained its role as the center of the Nemanjid dynasty, but it is important to note (akin to what we have seen earlier) that this role was also a contested one among the heirs to Stefan Nemanja’s throne. Stefan Prvovenčani wrote his own life of St. Simeon, praising his father’s accomplishments, in particular those which lauded him versus his elder brother Vukan who also sought the throne.184 Radoslav, grandson of Nemanja, built a new exonarthex at Studenica, intended to be his own burial place, as well as side chapel honoring St. Simeon – like his father (Stefan Prvovenčani), deliberately connecting his

179 Erdeljan, “Studenica: A New Perspective?” 41–42. 180 For a brief description of the monasteries and their architectural features see, Florin Curta, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1250 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 336–337. 181 Antony Eastmond, “‘Local’ Saints, Art, and Regional Identity in the Orthodox World after the Fourth Crusade” Speculum 78:3 (2003): 711, 711n18. Florin Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages (500–1300), volume 1 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019), 664. 182 Eastmond, “‘Local’ Saints, Art, and Regional Identity in the Orthodox World after the Fourth Crusade,” 708. 183 Erdeljan, “Studenica: A New Perspective?” 35. 184 Eastmond, “‘Local’ Saints, Art, and Regional Identity in the Orthodox World after the Fourth Crusade,” 714. For Vukan’s rebellion see, Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 662–663.

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FIGURE 5.3 Painted program at Žiča – photo credit Jelena Erdeljan.

own rule to that of Nemanja.185 However, this did not work out, in the end for Radoslav, as he was usurped by his brother Vladislav; and yet, once deposed Radoslav stayed at Studenica becoming the monk Jovan.186 Despite his depo­ sition, Radoslav’s chapel to St. Simeon left a clear signal of his intent via two painted programs. On the south wall was the series of rulers of Serbia founded by Nemanja, beginning with him (as St. Simeon), followed by Stefan Prvovenčani, and then Radoslav.187 Vukan, who battled Stefan Prvovenčani, and Vladislav, who battled and usurped Radoslav, are omitted from this pro­ gram. Thus, providing us with a reminder that while Studenica may seem to have been a monastic establishment of the Nemanjids, it was, in reality, designed to enhance members of the ruling family from within the larger clan – much the same way that we saw the claims made for Christ Pantokrator in Constantinople versus its reality.

185 Eastmond, “‘Local’ Saints, Art, and Regional Identity in the Orthodox World after the Fourth Crusade,” 708. 186 Eastmond, “‘Local’ Saints, Art, and Regional Identity in the Orthodox World after the Fourth Crusade,” 716, 716n32. 187 Eastmond, “‘Local’ Saints, Art, and Regional Identity in the Orthodox World after the Fourth Crusade,” 716n32.

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As has already been seen, multiple members of the Nemanjid clan did leave behind power, willing or otherwise, and join monastic communities. Stefan Nemanja himself abdicated his throne in 1196 (to help cement his son Stefan Prvovenčani’s position) and became a monk for the remainder of his life, beginning in his foundation of Studenica.188 Shortly thereafter, however, Stefan Nemanja, now the monk Simeon, moved to Mt. Athos where he founded the Hilandar monastery with his son Rastko, who had previously also become a monk known as Sava.189 Thus, in this one example, we have two family members, father and son, becoming monks. The latter, Sava, was incredibly influential in the ecclesiastical sphere – becoming the first auto­ cephalous archbishop of Serbia in 1219.190 As we also saw, Radoslav, grandson of Nemanja, ended up as a monk at Studenica following his usurpation, though we cannot know how willingly his monastic vows were taken. At the same time as Stefan Nemanja abdicated his throne and took monastic vows, entering Studenica, his wife Anna did the same, entering a monastery dedicated to the Virgin Mary at Ras.191 This was the last royal couple to enter monastic life together until late in the thirteenth century. Stanković, writing on the ties between Serbia and Byzantium, has noted a parallel between the retreat into a monastic foundation of Stefan Nemanja and Anna, as similar to what happened among the Komnenoi.192 However, given the examples that we have seen here it is difficult to view the parallel directly. Eirene Doukaina and Alexios Komnenos erected their monasteries together but Eirene Doukaina did not enter her monastery after Alexios’s death, but only much later in her life when she was approaching death. We see no similar pair entering their own foundations in the other examples discussed. Moreover, it is possible to extrapolate these examples to a much larger sample size and view the Nemanjid and Komnenoi examples in a broader European picture where we see similar instances of royal family members founding

188 Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 661. 189 Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 661. For the monastic foundation document (typikon) see, Selected Charters of Serbian Rulers (XII-XV Century): Relating to the Territory of Kosovo and Metohia – Part One ed. and transl. T. Živković, S. Bojanin and V. Petrović (Athens: Centre for Studies of Byzantine Civilization, 2000), 21–26. 190 Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 664. 191 Stanković, “Changes in Identity and Ideology in the Byzantine World,” 393. 192 Stanković, “Changes in Identity and Ideology in the Byzantine World,” 393. “Retreating to oneʼs monastery, designed as the founderʼs mausoleum, was a well-established and highly symbolical practice of the Komnenoi from the time of Alexios I Komnenosʼ ascension to the throne onward, which had changed the topography of Constantinople in a strongly ideological manner, and Stephen Nemanja’s and Annaʼs simultaneous taking of the monastic vow, followed by the retreat to their respective monasteries was a perfect imitatio of the Komnenian imperial practice.”

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monasteries and entering them – without necessarily needing to draw a con­ clusion about the particular direction, or even existence, of influence. Rus

Mykhailo Hrushevsky, writing over one hundred years ago, claimed that “Each prince of Kyiv built a patronal monastery, which bore his Christian name” from the time of Iaroslav the Wise (d. 1053) to Vsevolod Olgovich (d. 1146).193 This pattern is in keeping with what has been seen elsewhere. Each ruler of Kyiv, king in my parlance, would erect his own monastic foundation, regardless of whether his father or grandfather had done the same. Unlike many of the other locations in medieval Europe though, we are lacking significant information about these foundations. Instead of foundation documents or full descriptions, we are often left with sparse mentions in chronicles that have to be pieced together.194 The earliest monasteries in Rus were ones erected by Iaroslav and his wife Ingigerd and dedicated to their respective patrons SS George and Irene, listed in the Povest’ vremennykh let (PVL) as occurring in 1037.195 Though neither of these monasteries still exist today, the PVL is quite clear about the existence of the monasteries and their connection to Iaroslav and Ingigerd.196 Though these are earlier than the monasteries established by Fernando I and Sancha, Alexios Komnenos and Eirene Doukaina, or Afonso Henriques and Mafalda, we can see the similarities of spouses erecting paired monasteries. Each of Iaroslav’s three sons who succeeded him as the ruler of Kyiv was also said to have created their own monasteries in the city as well. Iziaslav,

193 Mykhailo Hrushevsky, History of Ukraine-Rus. Vol. 2, The Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries, trans. Ian Press, ed. Christian Raffensperger and Frank E. Sysyn, with the translation and editorial assistance of Tania Plawuszczak-Stech (Edmonton and Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 2020), 240. The same sentiment is found in: Simon Franklin and Jonathan Shepard, The Emergence of Rus, 750–1200 (New York: Longman, 1996), 304. 194 Scott Kenworthy in his review of monasticism in Rus and Russia notes that “The scholarship on medieval and modern Eastern Christian monasticism remains far less developed than that on Western Christian counterparts, and studies in Western languages are few.” Further, the section on Kyivan Rus’ within this article is a mere half a page. Scott Kenworthy, “Russian Orthodox Monasticism from 988–1917” in The Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism, ed. Bernice M. Kaczynski (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 1. 195 PVL, s.a. 1037. 196 The Povest’ vremennykh let is the earliest native Rusian source. Written or compiled in the late eleventh to early twelfth century, it is extant only from the late thirteenth century. The definitive edition is The Povest’ vremennykh let: An Interlinear Collation and Paradosis, Compiled and edited by Donald Ostrowski, with David Birnbaum and Horace G. Lunt (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), though the English version is The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text, transl. and ed. Samuel Hazzard Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (Cambridge, Mass.: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1953).

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the eldest successor, founded St. Demetrius’s monastery (after his patron saint), most likely in 1062.197 However, both the PVL and the Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, the narrative source which supplies the history of the holiest monastery in Rus, record the event under the year 1051 where they also add two quite interesting notes. The first is that the monastery was founded to compete with the Caves Monastery and potentially supersede it.198 This is, however, not actually true as Muriel Heppel has demonstrated that relations between the two were quite good for a number of years.199 This statement of hostility may reflect a later reality but not one from the middle of the eleventh century. The second note is a commentary on Iziaslav’s founding of the monastery of St. Demetrius where the author says, “Many monasteries have indeed been founded by emperors and nobles and magnates, but they are not such as those founded by tears, fasting, prayer, and vigil.”200 Such an observation might have an interesting bearing on the ecclesiastical author’s perspective on the purposes of monasteries and the role of royalty in creating them. Another overlap between the Paterik and the PVL is the indication that Iziaslav, as founder, had the ability to choose the hegumen, abbot, of the monastery.201 Similar to what was seen with Queen Leonor’s selection of Maria Gutierrez at Las Huelgas. Further, there is some evidence of a continuing familial investment in this monastery, which is not entirely common. Iziaslav’s son Iaropolk, who was murdered in 1086, was laid to rest in the Church of the Holy Apostle Peter, which he had built, inside of his father’s monastery of St. Demetrius in Kyiv.202 Sviatopolk, another son of Iziaslav, also contributed to the monastery of St. Demetrius, adding the Church of St. Michael in 1108.203 This was also the church where he was buried upon his death in 1113, potentially creating at least a bit of a suggestion that this could have been intended as a family necropolis.204 Though there is little mention of a relationship between the monastery and the Iziaslavichi branch of the family for nearly a century, in 1190 the Church of St. Michael becomes the burial place for Sviatopolk’s namesake, Sviatopolk Iurevich, his great-grandson.205 The fact of St. Michael’s having been built by his ancestor is explicitly mentioned in the chronicle record. It is

197 The Russian Primary Chronicle, n187. 198 The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, trans. Muriel Heppell (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1989), 22; PVL, s.a. 1051. 199 The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, 22n85. 200 PVL, s.a. 1051; The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, 22. 201 The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, 51. 202 PVL, s.a. 1086. For the rationale behind the construction of the church see, Raffensperger, Reimagining Europe, 169. 203 PVL, s.a. 1108. 204 Hypatian s.a. 1113. 205 Hypatian s.a. 1190.

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certainly interesting as well because Sviatopolk Iurevich and his family had not had much to do with Kyiv since the days of Sviatopolk Iziaslavich. Instead, they had been ruling in Turov, and yet chose not to be buried there. It is possible, of course, that this sudden shift was not sudden and reflects simply a lack of data. Alternatively, this could have been a deliberate attempt to revive honoring the most famous member of their branch of the family at a period of ongoing clan conflict. The second Iaroslavich to rule in Kyiv was Sviatoslav. Though we have no contemporary entry from a chronicle recording his foundation of a monas­ tery, there is a note from the time of his grandchildren – that in 1147 his grandson Igor Olgovich was buried in the monastery of St. Simeon in Kyiv, alongside his father (Oleg Sviatoslavich) and grandfather (Sviatoslav Iaroslavich).206 Though there is no explicit statement that Sviatoslav founded this monastery, it is typically treated as his foundation in the sec­ ondary sources; in fact, Martin Dimnik calls it “the patrimonial monastery of his descendants.”207 Unfortunately, there is little other evidence of the monastery and its connection to the family line, or the purpose to which the monastery was put by the family. Even the naming of the monastery rep­ resents a problem in this regard, as Sviatoslav Iaroslavich’s Christian name was, most likely, Nikolai – not Simeon.208 It has been suggested that there is a correlation between the Izbornik of 1073, which was originally made for Symeon of Bulgaria, but which Sviatoslav had a copy of, and the naming of the monastery, but nothing definitive can be said.209 The next, and last, son of Iaroslav to rule in Kyiv was Vsevolod. In 1070, the PVL records that “In this year was founded the Church of St. Michael in Vsevolod’s monastery.”210 Samuel Hazzard Cross, the editor of the English version of the chronicle, notes that this is most likely a reference to the Vydubichi monastery, in fact in the Hypatian version of the text it is ex­ plicitly referred to as “at Vydobychi,”211 which later becomes more prom­ inent under Volodimer Monomakh, though again there are not many references to it.212 Much like the monastery of St. Simeon above, this too

206 Hypatian s.a. 1147. 207 See, for example, Martin Dimnik. The Dynasty of Chernigov 1054–1146 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1994), 113–116. Dimnik also doubts the dating of the foundation of the monastery as post-Sviatoslav’s usurpation as Sviatoslav “must have” founded his monastery before Vsevolod’s in 1070. 208 A. F. Litvina, and F. B. Uspenskii, Vybor imeni u russkikh kniazei v X-XVI vv.: Dinasticheskaia istoriia skvoz’ prizmu antroponimiki (Moskva: Indrik, 2006), 609–610. 209 Litvina, and Uspenskii, Vybor imeni u russkikh kniazei, 609–610; Dimnik. The Dynasty of Chernigov 1054–1146, 113–116. 210 PVL, s.a. 1070. 211 Hypatian s.a. 1070. 212 The Russian Primary Chronicle, n222.

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was not founded in honor of the baptismal saint of its patron. Vsevolod’s baptismal name was Andrei, as was recorded in multiple sources.213 In fact, we see that over a decade later, Vsevolod founded a church of St. Andrew, his patron saint, and beside it a monastery for his daughter Ianka who took holy orders.214 It is possible that the monastery of St. Andrew was a double monastery, as there is an abbot Gregorii noted in the twelfth century as being honored by both Volodimer Mononamkh and Mstislav Volodimerich, the son and grandson of Vsevolod Iaroslavich respectively.215 St. Michael’s is seen again in the late eleventh century as a site at which members of the Volodimerovichi clan gather to make peace amongst themselves to best face the ongoing Polovtsy attack.216 It is interesting in this instance that though Sviatopolk Iziaslavich was ruling in Kyiv, he chose to meet with Volodimer Monomakh Vsevolodich at the foundation of the latter’s father. Perhaps this was a gesture of respect for Volodimer, or per­ haps there was not as much connection to the particular “family” mon­ asteries as has been suggested. Another piece of evidence in this regard is that neither Vsevolod nor his son Volodimer was buried in the monastery of St. Michael. Instead, they are both interred in St. Sophia, perhaps because both died as sitting rulers of Kyiv and St. Sophia was the metropolitan church in Kyiv.217 If we remove the idea of a family monastery as necropolis, it re­ moves some of the connection with the ruling family, as well as the subse­ quent importance. A final note on this particular family within the Volodimerovichi and their monastic impulses is that Mstislav Volodimerich, grandson of Vsevolod, founds his own monastery in Kyiv dedicated to St. Feodor in 1129.218 The implication of this is that Mstislav did not feel that he wanted or needed to add on to either of the existing clan foundations of St. Michael’s or St. Andrew’s, but decided instead to create his own – for himself and his family. When Mstislav’s son Rostislav died in 1168, he asked to be buried in his father’s monastery of St. Feodor, “next to his ances­ tors.”219 Given that the monastery had just been founded four decades before, there were not many ancestors to be had there, reinforcing both the idea that the monasteries were family, not clan, based, but also the

213 214 215 216 217 218

Litvina, and Uspenskii, Vybor imeni u russkikh kniazei, 507–508. PVL, s.a. 1086. Hypatian s.a. 1128. PVL, s.a. 1093. Hypatian s.a. 1126. Hypatian s.a. 1129, 1147. Though the 1129 entry merely notes the creation of a “church” by 1147 this is noted as a monastery. Feodor was the Christian name of Mstislav, who also had a Scandinavian nickname (Harald) after his mother’s roots in Anglo-Saxon England. Litvina, and Uspenskii, Vybor imeni u russkikh kniazei, 581–582. 219 Hypatian, s.a. 1168. Translation from Lisa Heinrich, “The Kievan Chronicle: A Translation and Commentary” (PhD Dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1977), 291.

Monastic Legitimation of Rulership 221

construction of the idea of the monastery as mausolea in the source base. In fact, we can see the overall brief nature of such foundations as over a hundred years later, Mstislav’s great-great-grandson, Danilo Romanovich, removed icons from the monastery of St. Feodor to transport them to his own new foundation – the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Mother of God in Kholm – thus creating another family foundation separate from that of the larger clan.220 This process of foundation, burial, and new foundation can be seen within this one branch of the larger clan to have progressed over multiple generations. Instead of creating a single monastery to act as a mausoleum for the family, every couple of generations, one of the members created a new monastery, once (at least) even pillaging from prior family monasteries in the process. All of which further reduces the idea of a longterm clan connection to one monastery. The main, often called the most holy, monastery in Rus was not any of these royal foundations but instead was the Kyivan Caves Monastery. The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery records the foundation of the monastery, as well as a variety of what has been termed discourses re­ garding the monastic founders and participants, and of course, inciden­ tally, other information in the history of Rus. Often the Paterik coincides with information from our few chronicle records of early Rus. The Paterik records that Antonii, one of the original eremitic monks living in a series of natural caves immediately south of Kyiv, asked the ruler of Rus, Iziaslav Iaroslavich, for a grant of land to construct a proper monastery, as the number of individual monks had grown greater than their current situation could sustain.221 King Iziaslav agreed and deeded the monks land, which then became the Caves Monastery. The PVL confirms the creation of the monastery in the same words as the Paterik, indicative of either common source material or borrowing from one to the other.222 As was noted above, the monks of the Caves prided themselves on not being founded by rulers but “by tears, fasting, prayer, and vigil.”223 The Volodimerovichi rulers of Kyiv did certainly have some influence over the Caves Monastery, but all deferred to its importance, reinforcing its pride of place, and many endowed it with lands, money, and people over the years.

220 Hypatian s.a. 1159. For the familial connection see the exemplary work of Dariusz Dąbrowski, Genealogia Mścisławowiczów: Pierwsze pokolenia (do początku XIV wieku) (Cracow: Avalon, 2008). 221 The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, 22. One could also compare the idea of monks in natural caves to the idea of desert foundations, as this too is a topos of the earliest monastic foundations. 222 PVL, s.a. 1051. 223 PVL, s.a. 1051; The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, 22.

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In fact, the Caves Monastery outstripped any of the royal foundations in Rus as the arbiter of monastic fashion and by the second half of the eleventh century, the abbot of the Caves was referred to as “archimandrite” and was superior to the other abbots within Rus.224 Evidence of the Caves’ holiness can also be construed from the number of elite burials that took place there, rather than in any royal foundation. For instance, Evpraksia Vsevolodovna, daughter of King Vsevolod and Empress of the German Empire, was laid to rest in the Caves Monastery in 1109, after having been a nun elsewhere for several years.225 Or later, the well-known wife of Gleb Vseslavich of Minsk who ruled on her own for 40 years was laid to rest in the Caves alongside her husband.226 The entombment of these royals, not to mention many others, in the Caves Monastery shows the high value of the monastery itself and its draw for members of the royal family. Instead of burial in a centralized location such as the way that contemporary Árpád rulers were buried at Székesfehervár throughout the eleventh and twelfth centuries;227 or burial in family monasteries as has been seen in Constantinople or elsewhere in medieval Europe; the preference among some large stratum of the elite population was for burial at a monastery, but not one associated with any particular branch of the clan. One might suggest that such a choice of burial site reinforced the sanctity of the Caves Monastery, by giving it a higher status than other monasteries, even family-founded ones. Thus, creating a self-perpetuating cycle in which the Holy Caves Monastery was a desirable site of burial because of its holiness and burial there further associated you with those others who chose to be buried there because of its sanctity. When discussing monastic foundations in Rus, we are lacking not just foundation documents, but also the fuller chronicle entries that we have elsewhere and thus we must rely on small notations giving us brief infor­ mation about the foundation of churches or the death of rulers. For instance, the Laurentian chronicle records that in 1146, “Maritsa, daughter of Volodimer [Monomakh Vsevolodich] was laid to rest in a grave in her own

224 Franklin and Shepard, The Emergence of Rus, 307. There is some debate about when this title was applied. Andrzej Poppe suggests that it was not given until the second half of the twelfth century by Metropolitan Michael II. “Leontios, Abbot of Patmos, Candidate for the Metropolitan See of Rus’,” in Christian Russia in the Making (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate Variorum, 2007), 10. 225 PVL, s.a. 1109. For more on Evpraksia see Christian Raffensperger, “The Missing Rusian Women: The Case of Evpraksia Vsevolodovna.” In Putting Together the Fragments: Writing Medieval Women’s Lives. Ed. Amy Livingstone and Charlotte Newman Goldy (New York: Palgrave, 2012), 69–84. 226 Hypatian s.a. 1158. For more on the widowed ruler see, Inés García de la Puenta, “Gleb of Minks’s Widow: Neglected Evidence on the Rule of a Woman in Rus’ian History?” Russian History/Histoire Russe 39 (2012): 347–378. 227 Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses, 343–344.

Monastic Legitimation of Rulership 223

church in which she had been consecrated as a nun.”228 Here we have a royal woman, daughter of one of the most famous Rusian rulers of Kyiv, offhandedly noted as the founder of a monastic church where she had served as a nun. We do not know more about the situation behind the foundation, or much about the church. Though this functions as a worthy example of textual lacunae, it also signals the evident role that royal women in Rus have in creating monastic foundations. In 1161, there is a particularly well-known example associated with Evfrosiniia of Polotsk. In that year, she “commissioned a precious cross of gold and silver decorated with pearls and semiprecious stones for the Monastery of the Saviour in Polotsk that she endowed.”229 This text comes from an inscription on a cross which was held in this monastery, until stolen in 1941 during the Nazi occupation. Evfrosiniia was the monastic name of Predslava, daughter of Sviatoslav Vseslavich, and is one of the most wellknown Rusian women, and saints in the Orthodox Church. Among other, later, sources, her foundation of this monastery is also recorded in a thirteenth-century fresco depicting her as the founder, in the traditional model of holding the church itself in her hand and making of it an of­ fering.230 This gives us not only another example of a royal Rusian woman founding a monastery but a quite well-documented one.231 Polotsk, the region from which this came, also becomes noted for female authority because it contains one of our few known female rulers as well as these female saints.232 To take another example, when Sviatoslav, son of Vsevolod Olgovich dies in 1194, the Hypatian Chronicle tells us that he was laid to rest in “the church of St. Cyril in his father’s monastery.”233 This is the first mention of this as a monastery, and yet in 1179, when Sviatoslav’s mother, Vsevolod Olgovich’s wife, died, it was recorded in the same source that she, “died, having become a nun. And she was buried in Kyiv in St. Cyril’s Church, which she herself had built.”234 Though St. Cyril’s is the same it is not

228 Laurentian, s.a. 1046. See also, Olenka Z. Pevny, “Dethroning the Prince: Princely Benefaction and Female Patronage in Medieval Kyiv” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 29: 1–4 (2007): 76. 229 “Dethroning the Prince,” 76. 230 Talia Zajac, “The Social-Political Roles of the Princess in Kyivan Rus, ca. 945–1240,” in A Companion to Global Queenship, ed. Elena Woodacre (Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2018): 140. 231 Sophia Senyk, Women’s Monasteries in Ukraine and Belorussia to the period of sup­ pressions (Rome: Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 1983), 38–39. 232 García de la Puenta, “Gleb of Minks’s Widow,” 347–378. 233 Hypatian Chronicle, s.a. 1094. English translation for the Hypatian Chronicle from Heinrich, “The Kievan Chronicle.” 234 Hypatian Chronicle, s.a. 1079.

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explicitly mentioned as part of a monastery. And if there was a monastery, was it a double monastery and was that where Maria Mstislavna, Vsevolod Olgovich’s wife, had been a nun? We do not have enough information to be sure. Despite that, both Cross, in 1949, and Martin Dimnik in 1994, felt confident enough to note that Vsevolod founded the monastery in 1140, during his rule in Kyiv.235 This has been challenged by Olenka Pevny who noted the patriarchal nature of the scholarship and, with a return to the primary sources, reinforced the idea that Vsevolod’s wife – as the sources say – actually founded the church.236 The last two examples are from the north and northeast of Rus and, once again, highlight the involvement of Volodimerovichi women in founding monasteries. The first is from Novgorod where, in 1199, the wife of Iaroslav Volodimerich founded a monastery dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin in Mikhailitsa Street (which henceforth became the nickname of the monas­ tery).237 The entry continues beyond the foundation to say that “They ap­ pointed Posadnik Zavid’s widow as igumena [abbess].”238 The posadnik was the mayor of the town and was typically chosen by the town council, thus he was the most important figure in Novgorod after the ruler. In some ways, this person was in fact even more important as they were consistently in Novgorod while the ruler was often away and more often was replaced depending upon the politics of Rus at large. The appointment of the widow of the posadnik indicates not just control over appointments by royal founders, as was noted above in regard to the foundation of the monastery of St. Demetrius by Iziaslav Iaroslavich, but also the figure who was appointed. In this instance, we do not know even the name of this woman who became the abbess of the monastery, but it is not implausible to suggest that she was chosen by the wife of Iaroslav as someone who would advance her interests – whatever those may be. While multiple parallels could be drawn, the clearest one is to the Las Huelgas monastery where Leonor named Maria Gutierrez the second abbess of the monastery. The second example is from Vladimir on the Kliazma where Maria Shvarnova founded a monastery dedicated to the Dormition of the Mother

235 Samuel Hazzard Cross, Medieval Russian Churches, ed. Kenneth John Conant (Cambridge, Mass.: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1949), 20; Dimnik. The Dynasty of Chernigov 1054–1146, 390. 236 Pevny, “Dethroning the Prince,” 61–108. Pevny goes into fascinating detail about the ways that Vsevolod’s wife was erased from the historiography in the nineteenth century; as well as noting the tenuous reasons for claiming St. Cyril as Vsevolod Olgovich’s patron saint. 237 The Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016–1471, ed. and transl. Robert Michel and Nevill Forbes (Royal Historical Society, 1914), s.a. 1199. See also Zajac, “The Social-Political Roles of the Princess in Kyivan Rus, ca. 945–1240,” 139. 238 Novgorod Chronicle, s.a. 1199.

Monastic Legitimation of Rulership 225

of God.239 Maria herself becomes a nun in this monastery in 1206, though she died only a few weeks later.240 Maria’s burial in the monastery was not the first from her family, nor would it be the last. The first occurred just a year after the monastery’s foundation when Maria’s sister Evgeniia was buried there in 1201. In 1205, Maria’s daughter, Elena, was buried in the monastery. And later in the century (1271) Maria Mikhailovna (a descendant) was buried there too. This creates the idea of the site as a necropolis for the dead queens of the Vladimir-Suzdal branch of the Volodimerovichi. While we have family mausolea aplenty in our study, this is similar but different in that it seems to be a rare multi-generational necropolis; however, it was only for female descen­ dants; resulting in its being known as the Queens Monastery. As can be seen, Rus, just like elsewhere in medieval Europe had a plethora of female foundations where royal women exercised power, both inside and outside of the monastery. It is also clear that the monasteries which were founded did function as burial places, but rarely for more than a generation or two – families not clans – apart from the odd (and thus fascinating) Queens Monastery in Vladimir-Suzdal. This evidence, from a region not typically studied in conjunction with the rest of medieval Europe reinforces the importance of such broad-based studies to understand medieval trends. Conclusion

The examples cited here are just a fraction of what could be discussed across the arc of medieval Europe. One could discuss the various Scandinavian monastic foundations, such as the earliest female foundation in Sweden – Vreta – which was “founded by King Inge I and Queen Helena around 1000.”241 In fact, it is possible that Helena became a nun there. Later, at the time of the larger wave of Cistercian foundations, many other monasteries were established such as Alvastra, established by King Sverker I and Queen Ulfhild. Not only did this eventually become a royal burial place, but the Exordium Magnum Cisterciense records that the impetus for the foundation was due to Queen Ulfhild.242 Extending outside of the arc a bit, we could add in Queen Melisende in Jerusalem founding a monastery for her sister.243

239 Laurentian Chronicle, s.a. 1200. See also Zajac, “The Social-Political Roles of the Princess in Kyivan Rus, ca. 945–1240,” 139. 240 Zajac, “The Social-Political Roles of the Princess in Kyivan Rus, ca. 945–1240,” 140. 241 Nils Blomkvist, Stefan Brink, and Thomas Lindkvist, “The Kingdom of Sweden” in Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’, c. 900–1200, ed. Nora Berend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007): 196–197. 242 Blomkvist, Brink, and Lindkvist, “The Kingdom of Sweden” 197; Burton and Kerr, The Cistercians in the Middle Ages, 48. 243 Folda, “Melisende of Jerusalem,” 441–443.

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Thus, it is possible to see that the examples here scratch the surface and present evidence for wider trends that further examples would help to solidify. Looking at a wider sample pool, as this study does, we can go beyond the questions and models that are typically advanced in studying medieval monastic foundations such as “was Las Huelgas modeled on Fontevraud?” or “Do Serbia and Rus follow Byzantine monastic styles?” Instead, we can see that while there is certainly merit to those questions, looking at medieval Europe more widely gives us different answers. For instance, despite the split between monastic orders and personal foundations, something seems to happen in the first quarter of the twelfth century – we see female monasteries founded as far apart as Constantinople and León that are created by queens, are burial places for their families, and manifest direct royal power. While we might not be able to specify why this is happening, it demonstrates a clear pattern of female role in rulership that has largely been undervalued in a broad spectrum survey, especially when dealing with both political and ecclesiastical roles in conjunction. Another fascinating discovery when comparing foundations throughout Europe is the prevalent role that royal women played in creating, main­ taining, and ruling those foundations. This is the case in multiple different locations, giving more evidence to the much-needed reassessment of female political power in the middle ages – moving beyond the idea of adding in Eleanor of Aquitaine or another “exceptional” woman to reevaluating our understanding and perception of the medieval political processes as a whole. This revision to our understanding might help with a broader rationale for why there are similarities across Europe. Women traveled across Europe as part of the dynastic marriage system, and in so doing they brought with them their own entourage, language, culture, and religious habits. Once they were ensconced in their new, marital, home they were not necessarily cut off from their natal family and people, with ideas and information, could have con­ tinued interacting with them. All of which could help provide a possible explanation, or at least the start of one, for the larger web of commonalities, or similarities, seen in this chapter. The final trend that can be seen is the broad-based conclusion that Vlada Stanković came to regarding medieval Roman monasteries – that they are founded for families and family glory not for the larger clan or dynasty. This is the case not just in Constantinople, but we see the same thing in Rus, throughout Iberia and elsewhere. A ruler, and often his wife, found a monastery (or double monastery) and it is their burial place. Typically, two generations later a new ruler, even if related to the first one, will create their own monastic foundation and endow it as their own resting place for their family. Seeing this in more places allows us to call into question the model of Westminster or Saint-Denis which were self-consciously constructed as

Monastic Legitimation of Rulership 227

dynastic mausolea in the thirteenth century via the translation of bodies from other resting sites.244 Separately from Stanković, Therese Martin noted that “the modern idea of a ‘pantheon of kings,’ where generation after generation would be interred, was not the norm in the Spanish Middle Ages.”245 Seeing examples from medieval Europe broadly, we can expand Martin’s sentiment that perhaps such dynastic burial places were not the norm in the middle ages in general, at least not until their self-conscious creation in the middle of the thirteenth century. Such a realization allows us to continue to complexify our understanding of the medieval past and allows us to more accurately talk about individuals and families as actors, not dynasties and clans. Throughout all of these regions and across these different topics, one consistent principle is that rulers and ruling families utilized monastic foundations as a way to broadcast their power to a wider audience and to connect their secular rule with religious authority. Seeing these commonal­ ities reinforces the idea that we need to continue to develop broader studies of medieval Europe that are inclusive of the entirety of the continent and are not restricted to the West or East, or by confession.

244 Walker, “Leonor of England, Plantagenet Queen of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, and her foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas. In Imitation of Fontevraud?” 363. 245 Martin, Queen as King, 42.

PART III

Decentralizing Rulership

6 WEAK POWER POLITIES, CLAIMSMAKING, AND ITINERANT RULERSHIP

“The Anglo-American historiographical tradition was built around Whig notions of state building and modernization. The common purpose of both Anglo-American and French historiography was to show how the rise of impersonal institutions shaped the state.”1 Just over twenty years ago, Joseph Huffman so characterized the conceptual boundaries which hemmed in the writing of medieval history of the West. His argument was that by creating a medieval Europe based on an idea of early modern England and France subsequently read back in time, his own subject of Germany was disadvantaged; and thus, its path was described as special, a Sonderweg. The fact that Germany was not moving along a path toward centralization and increasing power of the ruler was different, thus “special,” compared to what was seen for England and France. Huffman’s argument would sound familiar to scholars working on eastern Europe in particular. The picture of eastern European governance given in the scholarly literature is one of decentralization and devolution of power, a marked, and pointed, contrast to what was going on in the idealized Western Europe. We saw in Chapter 2 the ways that some eminent Russian scholars view the medieval polity of Rus as “a mafia-like network of merchants and warlords”; “a non-territorial, quite mobile system of tribute-collection and constant warfare based on giftgiving, pillage, and a certain degree of dynastic charisma.”2 The clear

1 Joseph P. Huffman, The Social Politics of Medieval Diplomacy: Anglo-German Relations (1066–1307) (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2000), 5. 2 Valerie A. Kivelson and Ronald Grigor Suny, Russia’s Empires (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 17, 22. DOI: 10.4324/9781003388296-10

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implication in the context of Russia’s Empires is that Rus was not like the centralized governmental structures with strong rulers of later times, but it also places Rus, by implicit comparison, into a negative relationship with the perceived centralization of the West. Huffman’s book was published in 2000 and Russia’s Empires in 2017. These are not archaic problems in our field which have been solved and which we have moved past – they are still present, I would even go so far as to suggest that they are omnipresent, in the ways that we approach rulership in medieval Europe. The discussion of governance, rule, and state structure in regard to medieval Europe is not a new one, of course. Max Weber’s ideas about state still require a de rigeur mention in most scholarship about the topic and they are now over one-hundred years old. But because of that inclusion, scholars used and reacted against those ideas in seminal works such as those by Joseph Strayer, Susan Reynolds, Rees Davies, and many more.3 Instead of rehashing that ground, I would like to begin with a different theoretical formulation of governance based on the ideas developed by Clifford Ando and Seth Richardson in their 2017 Ancient States and Infrastructural Power.4 This book was an attempt to bring new ideas of political theory to bear on the modern understanding of ancient and medieval polities, with multiple chapters focused on the Roman Empire, ancient and medieval. Their work will supply the foundation for the first two points to be addressed in this chapter. (1) Medieval polities were “weak” and the rulers were weak actors who had to engage with the weak elites to rule. (2) Medieval rulers, and those who worked on their behalf, often made grandiose claims for themselves and their power that were not accurate to the time that they were made. The third point builds on a common misconception of rule, which has often resulted in the mischaracterization of polities in the arc of medieval Europe. (3) Centralization of power in one place, a capital, is a modern ideal but not a medieval reality. Rulers were much more likely to be itinerant and have multiple power centers in the arc of medieval Europe, and that is okay. These three points will set up our ideas

3 Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. and transl. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958): 77–128; Joseph R. Strayer, On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press [Princeton Classic Edition], 2005); Susan Reynolds, “The Historiography of the Medieval State” in M. Bentley, ed. A Companion to Historiography (London, Routledge, 1997); Susan Reynolds, “There were States in Medieval Europe: A Response to Rees Davies” Journal of Historical Sociology 16:4 (2003): 550–555; Rees Davies, “The Medieval State: The Tyranny of a Concept?” Journal of Historical Sociology 16:2 (2003): 280–300. 4 Ancient States and Infrastructural Power: Europe, Asia, and America, ed. Clifford Ando and Seth Richardson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017).

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about rulership and, ideally, establish a framework for discussing medieval Europe more broadly. The idea of “weak” states might sound pejorative, but it is certainly not intended to be. It stands as a contrast to “strong” states which might be better labeled as “despotic.” Ando has suggested that there has been a “fetishization of despotic over infrastructural power … As well as the identification of despotic power with monarchy.”5 Power in this formulation is a spectrum running from one end (strong) in which a ruler can largely do what he or she wants with little check on their authority to weak in which a ruler has very little personal power and therefore must work with other actors to gain results (weak). The ideas advanced by Richardson and Ando directly relate as well to the centralization of power in the hands of the ruler, itself a common view in medieval studies scholarship, versus a shared power apparatus. Centralization can be equated to “despotic power,” following the ideas of Michael Mann, which Richardson uses in his theoretical work.6 We see the high value placed on centralization in such formative works as Chris Wickham’s Framing the Early Middle Ages where “the centralization of legitimate enforceable authority (justice and the army)” is the first of his five criteria for an ideal state and is a common theme throughout the work.7 But it is not just with Wickham that we see this phenomenon. Mogens Herman Hansen, who also has utilized sociological theories focused on ideas of centralization, observes that, “A state is a centralised legitimate government in possession of the sole right to enforce a given legal order within a territory over a population.”8 As one might expect, such ideas have not been universally adopted and even in Framing the Early Middle Ages where he highlights centralization, Wickham also notes that moderns tend to view centralization as “inevitable, desirable, and therefore logical and not needing explanation.”9 Or similarly, Donald Luscombe who suggests that, “The twentieth-century inclination to view large-scale feudal monarchies as instruments of progress in the Middle Ages, and to question private rights and other obstacles to the development

5 Clifford Ando, “Introduction: States and State Power in Antiquity,” in Ancient States and Infrastructural Power: Europe, Asia, and America, ed. Clifford Ando and Seth Richardson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 4. 6 Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power: Volume 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012 [New Edition]). 7 Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 303. 8 Mogens Herman Hansen, “Introduction: The Concepts of City-State and City-State Culture” in A Comparative Study of Thirty City-State Cultures: An Investigation Conducted by the Copenhagen Polis Centre, ed. Mogens Herman Hansen (Copenhagen: The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 2000), 13. 9 Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 345.

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of sovereignty, should be kept in check.”10 This process has led to the normalization of centralization as a process and thus polities which do not conform to that normalization are viewed as abnormal – a process often discussed in regard to many of the areas within the arc of medieval Europe. This is not to say that ideas of strong power polities are definitive for western Europe. Many specialists point out what we would call the “weak” power of those polities. In the same volume as Luscombe’s caution, Raoul van Caenegem discusses the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire and suggests that modern notions of centralization of power in the hands of the state are not particularly helpful to us for medieval Europe; even while himself being a hearty proponent of the power of kings over their vassals.11 Van Caenegem’s examples often focus on medieval France and he notes explicitly that, “the kings of France themselves, although they always remained the nominal heads of the whole country and received the royal anointing from the Church, became in fact one regional dynasty among many others.”12 This same fact is noted later by Thomas Bisson, “Everyone knew who was king in the lands between the Meuse and Loire valleys. But they needed him less than in the South and their scribes easily omitted his regnal year. This was the country of ‘Franks’ - that is, of (now) those who spoke French; and if these French Franks had a king as always, they looked to lesser lords - to counts, viscounts, castellans, even knights, as well as to bishops, abbots, and priors for protection and justice.”13 And most recently by Robert Bartlett, “Although the king of France had an undisputed position as sole consecrated monarch in the kingdom, real power in most areas was in the hands of the great dukes and counts.”14 If we translate these authors’ language into the theoretical framework utilized in this chapter, we can quite easily see that even the king of France was a weak actor and required cooperation and corporate action with his, weak, elites to function as ruler of the whole. He was not a strong actor who could order his minions to do his bidding. And yet, despite this excellent scholarship underlining the weak power exercised

10 Similarly, “We must be cautious of imposing our ideas of what is a normal unit of government on societies that still only vaguely suggested the outlines of a later system of national kingdoms.” D. E. Luscombe, “Introduction: The Formation of Political Thought in the West,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c. 350–1450, ed. J. H. Burns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988): 158. 11 R. van Caenegem, “Government, Law and Society,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c. 350–1450, ed. J. H. Burns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988): 179. 12 van Caenegem, “Government, Law and Society,” 175. 13 Thomas N. Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009), 128. 14 Robert Bartlett, Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 65.

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by these rulers, the perception is still often one of increasingly centralized power and strong rulers; as noted by the continued need to point out the problems with the normalization of the view of centralization by van Caenegem in 1988 and Wickham in 2005. Point two has to do with claims making, the idea that “the state generates the most evidence for its ‘powers’ as it is trying to usher them into being, before it actually has them.”15 Seth Richardson’s research, quoted here, is on Babylon, though I would suggest that the ideas he is using are broadly applicable. His main point for Babylon is that it is perceived in a particular way: “Babylon appears to have been an infrastructurally powerful state that regulated elite and civil relations through a comprehensive package of social utilities: law, commerce, taxation, institutions, theology, knowledge, caretaking, and ethnic identity, all backstopped by a control of violence.”16 Anyone who has had to teach world history has seen this view, in microcosm, in their textbooks and probably taught it to their students. However, this view is, as he demonstrates, not at all true. Instead, the Babylonian polity worked to emphasize these characteristics, especially in their written documentation, even though it could not actualize them in practice. When later kingdoms, empires, and eventually historians, read these documents they all believed in the reality of the documents generated viathe agency of the Babylonian court, rather than in what was actually happening on the ground as seen through an array of other, more marginal, evidence.17 This idea is not one that has spread widely in medieval studies and thus there is not an array of scholarship to bring to bear on the issue, but we are quite cognizant of the fact that our sources must be interrogated thoroughly and especially for legal sources, we are used to asking whether the document is prescriptive or descriptive. These are the same questions that Richardson is asking and utilizing the plethora of evidence available to him, has been able to answer. We do see similar phenomenon in medieval Europe, and in particular, we will see claims making in the medieval Roman Empire, Ireland, and Iberia, though more could be added as well. One particularly interesting example of claims making are those made by chroniclers after the deaths of rulers. For instance, in Ireland we see that rulers upon their death are often given more grandiose recognition and titles than they had in life. Maél Sechnaill died in 1022 and the annals of Tigernach honored him thusly, “Maelseachlainn the Great, son of Donnchadh, overking of all Ireland,

15 Seth Richardson, “Before Things Worked,” in Ancient States and Infrastructural Power: Europe, Asia, and America, ed. Clifford Ando and Seth Richardson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 18. 16 Richardson, “Before Things Worked,” 20. 17 Richardson, “Before Things Worked.”

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and the tower of supporting generosity and nobleness of the whole west of the world, died in Cró Inis of Lough Ennell in the 43rd year of his reign.”18 While Maél Sechnaill was a great king, it was highly debatable whether he was overking of all Ireland at the time, as we discuss below. This claim then is part of the rhetoric of the annalist in attempting to honor him, but also to create an idea that there is an overking of all Ireland. We see a similar phenomenon in Rus where rulers are also honored on their death with more grandiose titles than they had in life. In 1125/6, “The Christ-loving Great King of all Rus died.”19 Volodimer Monomakh is further praised as a warrior for Rus, a lover of his brothers and the poor, and compared to the sun in his ability to give light to the land. Monomakh may have been a fine ruler, but he was not necessarily all of that, certainly not in his slightly more than a decade of rule in Kyiv. But the chronicler would very much like us to think so, especially since it was his children who were endowing monasteries and paying for the chronicle writing. Claims like these about Maél Sechnaill and Volodimer Monomakh will then make up the second theme dealt with in this chapter as we see medieval rulers creating claims for themselves that they hope to actualize over time, even if they cannot at the particular moment of the claim. The third, and final, section of the chapter deals with capitals and itinerancy. Going back to Wickham, he highlights the creation of the Visigothic capital at Toledo as a means of political and religious centralization in their Iberian kingdom.20 Toledo was created in the center of the territory controlled by the Visigoths, even though the area itself was not particularly rich because they were interested in a central place. Aristocrats gathered in that central place, even while the richer peripheral areas became more distant from one another. Peter Brown, following the words set down by Isidore of Seville, notes the importance of Toledo as a central place as well, “Toledo [the new royal capital] was spoken of as a ‘new Jerusalem.’ Its hilltop crowned with palaces and shrines, it was a solemn urban theater where bishops and kings together acted out the great hope of a self-sufficient ‘micro-Christendom’.”21 And centuries later when Toledo was taken from the Muslims, Alfonso VI crowned himself as imperator in the city, a conscious callback to its centrality in the past.22 Wickham also points out the obvious parallel, and possible inspiration, with Constantinople.23 But

18 19 20 21

Annals of Tigernach - https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T100002A.html, s.a. 1022. Laurentian Chronicle, s.a. 1125; Hypatian Chronicle, s.a. 1126. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 94–95 Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200–1000 (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2003 [2nd Edition]), 366. 22 Wolfram Drews, “Imperial Rule in Medieval Spain: Christian and Islamic Contexts” The Medieval History Journal 20:2 (2017): 296–297. 23 Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 95.

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despite these examples, and despite the potent idea of centralization the majority of medieval polities in the arc of medieval Europe, did not actually have one capital, and their rulers were not sedentary. That reality though is in contrast with the idea and ideal of centralization, and sedentarization, which has become viewed as normative for polities of all stripes, and where it is not present, polities are often viewed as nonnormative. Again, as noted in regard to point one on weak polities, specialist literature undermines this normativity when discussing the peregrinations of rulers, and yet, somehow, the overarching assumption about centralization and sedentarization has continued to dominate the field of medieval studies scholarship, especially when it can be used to create opposition between western and eastern polities. These three themes then will define our understanding of rulership in the arc of medieval Europe. It is certainly true that there is a wealth of topics, and information, which could be examined in this context, but these three ideas, all focused around disrupting our focus on the normativity of centralized rule will help to fashion a new framework for viewing medieval rulership. Weak Power Polities

“No one doubts but that ancient empires sought the cooperation of local elites, or that (some) local elites collaborated, so as to cement and extend their local hegemony.”24 But we have heretofore typically treated these local ties as either being coopted by a central government, or as outliers. Instead, Clifford Ando goes on to suggest, in his introduction to Ancient States and Infrastructural Power, that we see these local elites as part of the spectrum of governance. If we can quote Ando further on this point he says, “Being wholly unable to govern their territories directly and, indeed, largely uninterested in doing so, ancient empires delivered the control of territories into the hands of local elites, who facilitated the extraction of wealth by the center in exchange for material and ideological support of their own continuance.”25 The use of local elites allowed the empire to exercise control, and thus what we tend to see in the literature is the empire as the actor, not the local elites; the local elites have become absorbed into the idea of direct imperial action.26 This is directly related to our point two about claims

24 Clifford Ando, “Introduction: States and State Power in Antiquity,” in Ancient States and Infrastructural Power: Europe, Asia, and America, ed. Clifford Ando and Seth Richardson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 9. 25 Clifford Ando, “The Ambitions of Government: Territoriality and Infrastructural Power in Ancient Rome,” in Ancient States and Infrastructural Power: Europe, Asia, and America, ed. Clifford Ando and Seth Richardson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 116. 26 Ando expounds further on this idea as well, see “The Ambitions of Government,” 119–120.

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making, which is intrinsically connected, though separated here only for the purposes of making the arguments as clear as possible. Ando’s goal in his argument about the cooptation of local rule by elites is to break down our modern ideas of the ways that ancient states functioned, but we can see the same concepts applied to medieval polities quite regularly. One can go back to the foundational work of Janet Nelson on the Carolingians who made the point that “Power-sharing was built into the fabric of the Carolingian Empire.”27 Moving slightly later into the Middle Ages, Luscombe has said “Small-scale, virtually independent lordships were not anarchic if they supplied a need for government when monarchy was ineffective or absent.”28 This is half of a great quote in that he recognizes the importance of weak powers interacting with one another to rule, but still privileges the idea of monarchy and central power. This privileging of central power is part of the challenge that we face in rewriting the narrative of medieval power centers to move away from the idea of centralization. It is also part of the broadening of our source base, where possible. Documents from the center will reflect, typically, central power. Utilizing a multiplicity of documents, as well as archeological material, will broaden our understanding of the actual implantation of power throughout a polity, as has been done well in many locations. David Sneath, in a work on nomadic states in Eurasia, offered the model of the headless state, in a book of the same name.29 His headless state is “a configuration of statelike power formed by the horizontal relations between power holders, rather than as a result of their mutual subordination to a political center.”30 Such an idea has been adopted and developed by Donald Ostrowski for use in Rus, but has not been widely seen in scholarship on the European middle ages.31 There has been, however, reaction to the idea of a stateless society, which is, in part, what Sneath is offering, though stateless societies are typically discussed as part of premodern African governance in the sub-Saharan region.32 An opponent of the idea of stateless-ness in

27 Nelson, “Kingship and Empire,” 211–212. 28 Luscombe, “Introduction,” 158. 29 David Sneath, The Headless State: Aristocratic Orders, Kinship Society and Misrepresentations of Nomadic Inner Asia (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). 30 Sneath, The Headless State, 1–2. 31 Donald Ostrowski, “Systems of Succession in Rus’ and Steppe Societies” Ruthenica XI (2012): 29–58. 32 John Gledhill critiques the historiography on this subject (12–15) and then talks about stateless societies and their relationship to states (ch. 1). John Gledhill, Power and Its Disguises: Anthropological Perspectives on Politics (London, Boulder, Colo.: Pluto Press, 1994). One can see the same terminology in studies though on medieval France in regard to kinship networks. For example, Patrick J. Geary, “Living with Conflicts in Stateless France: A Typology of Conflict Management Mechanisms, 1050–1200” in Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1994), 125-62.

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medieval Europe is Björn Weiler who argues the fact, “That many of the functions associated with modern states had to be shouldered by individuals has led some observers to class high medieval polities as stateless societies.”33 Weiler suggests that the presence of distributed governance does not make for a lack of a state given that all of these individuals considered themselves to be “part of a transpersonal entity that transcended individual lifespans, and that was unified by customs and practices according to which rulers and leading subjects were supposed to operate.”34 Bisson though points out that we tend to assume that individuals who did things for the government held “offices,” and thus operated within a bureaucratic framework, Weiler’s “transpersonal entity.”35 Bisson gives, as one example Roger of Salisbury who appears in the sources as operating on behalf of the king, but is never credited with a particular office. He is an individual, an elite, working on behalf of the ruler, but not necessarily assigned a particular role within government. Untangling the threads of centralized power and the existence of the state is difficult, on both sides of the argument, as state power is often juxtaposed with centralized power. I believe it can be clearly seen in the scholarship that though there is considerable evidence for power being held by the localities and individuals and those having to work in conjunction with a ruler, there is still a persistent mode of discussing medieval polities as centralized states and thus creating and reinforcing that as normative. This section attempts to look at a few examples from the arc of medieval Europe and see where power was decentralized to bolster the arguments that this was a normative mode of power distribution in medieval Europe more broadly. Beginning with Rome, it is often seen as the quintessential empire, ruling from a capital and governing a large chunk of western Afro-Eurasia; thus a strong state where a central ruler acts throughout the realm. Fergus Millar, though, has suggested that the Roman government was not, in fact, present in the provinces to the degree that most have typically assumed.36 Ando, following Millar’s argument, points out that the center, Rome itself, was reactive to the provinces, rather than proactively establishing policy for the region.37 Further, he suggests that little has been done to follow up on Millar’s work due to the image of Rome as a centrally governed empire being so pervasive in the scholarship. Rome was a constant source of legitimation

33 Björn Weiler, Paths to Kingship in Medieval Latin Europe, c. 950–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 34. 34 Weiler, Paths to Kingship in Medieval Latin Europe, 36. 35 The Crisis of the Twelfth Century, 14. 36 Fergus Millar, “The World of the Golden Ass” The Journal of Roman Studies 71 (1981): 63–75. 37 Ando, “Introduction: States and State Power in Antiquity,” 5.

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and ideas for medieval European political actors, and is an enduring model of empire and governance for modern scholars.38 The continuation of Rome in the east, Constantinople, is also seen as a model capital and a model of centralization as well. Though the medieval Roman Empire had a sedentary emperor, or emperors, who did not travel regularly unless on military affairs, not to mention the only fully functioning system of taxation, Constantinople did not function as the sole administrative center for the realm. Leonora Neville in her Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society made the persuasive argument that central control from Constantinople was not as pervasive as had previously been claimed, an idea which Nathan Leidholm has expanded upon in his work on the nobility both in Constantinople and in the more remote provinces.39 This juxtaposition of administrative centers throughout the realm and the integration and negotiation between the two builds on Neville’s work as well to create an image of the medieval Roman Empire that is not a strong centralized polity, to paraphrase Dmitri Obolensky, a high-pressure zone which flows outwards to the areas around it.40 Instead, even in this archetypal centralized empire we see some level of weak power interaction between the ruler(s) and the elites, between what is typically referred to as center and periphery. It is not just the traditional category of elites who participate in rulership as weak actors in conjunction with the ruler, but members of the royal family as well. Each member of the ruling family may themselves be a weak actor and thus require the cooperation of others to rule. We see this in several of the examples discussed here, but we will begin with Hungary where there was both a king and a duke from the Árpád family who negotiated rule between them in many ways. Márta Font, who has written extensively on

38 This could be shown in any number of ways, but I am particularly fascinated by those who venture into the realm of comparing Rome to modern times, such as Edward J. Watts, “The Fall of Rome and the Lessons for America.” Time December 15, 2018. Accessed online at https://time.com/5478197/the-fall-of-rome-and-the-lessons-for-america/; Tom Holland, “America is not Rome. It just thinks it is” The New York Review of Books August 6 2019. Accessed online at https://www.nybooks.com/online/2019/08/06/america-is-not-rome-itjust-thinks-it-is/; Tim Elliot, “American is Eerily Retracing Rome’s Steps to A Fall. Will It Turn Around Before It’s Too Late?” Politico 11/3/2020 – accessed online at https://www. politico.com/news/magazine/2020/11/03/donald-trump-julius-caesar-433956; Cullen Murphy, “No, Really, Are we Rome?” The Atlantic April 2021 – accessed online at: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/no-really-are-we-rome/618075/ 39 Leonora Neville, Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 950–1100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Nathan Leidholm, “Governing the Byzantine Empire” How Medieval Europe was Ruled, ed. Christian Raffensperger (New York: Routledge, 2023): 107–125. 40 D. Obolensky. “Byzantine Frontier Zones and Cultural Exchanges.” Actes du XIVe Congrès International des Études Byzantines. (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1974): 303–313.

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medieval Hungary has qualified the kingdom as “nothing else but a territory united under the rule of the royal dynasty” though given the breadth of the kingdom “the royal court where the monarch abode and the government of the entire country were separated.”41 The fact that the Árpáds were the unifying factor of Hungarian rule does not, especially in Font’s view, take away from the idea that the king utilized distributive power in ruling the kingdom. Power sharing, or decentralization of political power, in Hungary runs through two threads. The first is the presence of a power-sharing agreement in which a brother of the king served as duke and held power within an area of the realm. The second is the existence of a group of nobles who helped to govern the realm in conjunction with the king. Both groups will be discussed as a way to demonstrate the weak power interactions between the king and other magnates, including his own brother; and show the interactions that made rule possible within the polity. Dániel Bagi has written the definitive work on the division of the Hungarian realm and power sharing.42 In it, he discusses (among many other topics) the historiography of this issue in Hungary concluding that modern opinion is that the duke, typically the brother or a cousin of the king, exercised nearly regal authority, though was still subordinate to the king.43 While this fits into the co-rulership model discussed earlier in the book, it is also highly relevant here because we can see both the king and the duke as weak actors who need to work together to buttress royal power. Bagi recapitulates a story in which King Salomon and Duke Géza exchanged members of their retinues as hostages for their respective good conduct, tying their respective courts more closely together.44 One of the duke’s main functions was also defense of the land, “numerous passages in the Hungarian Chronicle support the contention that Hungary’s kings and dukes each maintained their own separate armies.”45 We see the thin line between the

41 Márta Font, “The Dynasty of the Arpads and Their Method of Ruling,” in ‘In my spirit and thought I remained a European of Hungarian origin’: medieval historical studies in memory of Zoltan J. Kosztolnyik, ed. Eleanor A. Congdon (Szegad: JATEPress, 2010): 102. 42 Dániel Bagi, Divisio Regni: The Territorial Divisions, Power Struggles, and Dynastic Historiography of the Árpáds of 11th- and early 12th-century Hungary, with Comparative Studies of the Piasts of Poland and the Přemyslids of Bohemia (Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities, 2020). 43 Bagi, Divisio Regni¸ 110–111. 44 Bagi, Divisio Regni¸ 113. For the chronicle entry see, “Chronici Hungarici compositio saeculi XIV,” ed. Alexander Domanovszky, in Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum, vol. 1 (Budapest: Academia Litter. Hungarica atque Societate histor. Hungarica, 1937), ch. 113, p. 378. 45 Bagi, Divisio Regni¸ 116. Here he cites “Chronici Hungarici compositio saeculi XIV,” chs. 106 (pp. 371–372) and 121 (p. 387).

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king and the duke clearly in the laws of King Coloman which contain a stipulation that “When the king or the duke enters any county, he shall be given a war horse from the county.”46 The law, dating from the end of the eleventh or early twelfth century, provides for no difference in establishing the military needs (the war horse) of the duke or the king. All of which fits into Bagi’s synthesis of the scholarship and primary sources on the power and rule of the duke vis-à-vis the king. His conclusion is that the duke held a portion of everything in the realm, one third, not necessarily a specific third of the territory, but one-third of the territory in general, as well as one-third of all things. The two then were able to act throughout the realm together, unless there was a particularly bad relationship between them as in the case of Coloman and Álmos in the twelfth century.47 Thus, for Bagi, the duke and king were corulers, though with one subordinate to the other, also allowing us to speak of them as weak actors who required one another. The collected laws of the kingdom of Hungary contain edicts by, or ascribed to, kings Stephen, Ladislas, and Coloman.48 A feature of the laws, especially those of Ladislas and Coloman is a preface that establishes the wider participation in lawmaking in the realm. The laws of Ladislas state, “At the time of the most pious King Ladislas, we, the magnates of the kingdom, held an assembly on the Holy Pannonian Mountain and sought to determine how to prevent the deeds of evil men and how to promote the affairs of our people.”49 While the laws of Coloman state that he “assembled the magnates of the kingdom and reviewed with the advice of the entire council the text of the laws of the said King Stephen of holy memory.”50 Font interprets this language to mean that the king ruled in conjunction with his council, rather than acting just on his own.51 Which conclusion makes sense given the text of various laws, including the first of the laws of Coloman which includes all of the relevant parties, “It pleased the king and the general council that the possessions given to monasteries and churches by the holy King Stephen shall remain undisturbed.”52 János Bak sees this same use of language in the Gesta Hungarorum where it is focused very much on

46 “The Laws of Coloman” in The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, vol. 1: 1000–1301, transl. And ed. János M. Bak, Gyorgy Bonis, James Ross Sweeney (Bakersfield, CA: Charles Schlacks, Jr., 1989), 28. 47 Bagi, Divisio Regni¸ 136–137. 48 The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, vol. 1: 1000–1301, transl. And ed. János M. Bak, Gyorgy Bonis, James Ross Sweeney (Bakersfield, CA: Charles Schlacks, Jr., 1989). 49 “The Laws of Ladislas” in The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, vol. 1: 1000–1301, transl. And ed. János M. Bak, Gyorgy Bonis, James Ross Sweeney (Bakersfield, CA: Charles Schlacks, Jr., 1989), 12. 50 “The Laws of Coloman,” 25. 51 Font, “The Dynasty of the Arpads and Their Method of Ruling,” 105. 52 “The Laws of Coloman,” 26.

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the “ruler’s decisions being approved by the other leaders.”53 Similarly, the phrase “He and his nobles” is quite common in the text, reinforcing the idea of decentralization of rule. Of course, this text must be put into its chronological context as it was written by an unknown author in the early thirteenth century by someone conversant with Hungarian history and working at the royal court.54 It is possible that at that time, the situation was different than it was in the earlier period, but given the similarity in language between the extant sources it seems likely that there was a royal council that worked with the king in determining the laws of the realm and its functioning. The Illuminated Chronicle, a fourteenth-century chronicle written after the time of the Árpáds, also contains information about power-sharing in our period. One episode, in particular, is evocative – when a group of nobles, presumably the same men of the council, given the small circle of elite actors in medieval Hungary, were able to change the course of the king’s war in Rus during the reign of King Stephen II. He had invaded Rus at the request of the Rusian ruler of Volodimer, to whom he was distantly related.55 The invitation to help a kinsman is important, but Stephen II had additional motivation, described by the Illuminated Chronicle as “wishing to avenge the injury done to his father,” adding a particularly personal desire for battle.56 Despite the king’s own commitment to the campaign, the nobles did not share the feeling, especially after the king gave the order “that they should storm the castle and must choose between capturing its fortifications on this very day or dying.”57 Instead of following orders, the men met in “council” to discuss and debate the options available to them. The Illuminated Chronicle notes that the nobles were divided into two camps on the issue, but it only reports on the decision of those opposed to the king’s continued actions in Rus: including mentioning Cosmas of the Pázmány kindred by name. Those opposed to the war stated so unequivocally and threatened to

53 János M. Bak, “Legitimization of Rulership in Three Narratives from Twelfth-Century Central Europe” Majestas 12 (2004): 54–55. 54 See Anonymus, The Deeds of the Hungarians, ed. And transl. Martyn Rady and László Veszprémy (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2010), xix-xxiv. 55 The Illuminated Chronicle: Chronicle of the Deeds of the Hungarians from the FourteenthCentury Illuminated Codex, ed. And transl. János M. Bak and László Veszprémy (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2018), ch. 155. The Illuminated Chronicle refers to him as Bezen, though it is most probably Iaroslav Sviatopolchich. See Christian Raffensperger, Conflict, Bargaining, and Kinship Networks (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2018), 158–159. 56 The injury could be the defeat of Coloman in Rus in 1099, or his supposed cuckolding by his Rusian wife. Illuminated Chronicle, n763. For the defeat in battle see PVL, s.a. 1097 and 1099. For Coloman’s half-Rusian son see Christian Raffensperger, “Identity in Flux: Finding Boris Kolomanovich in the Interstices of Medieval European History” The Medieval Globe 2:1 (2016), 15–39. 57 Illuminated Chronicle, ch. 155.

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return to Hungary and elect a new king if Stephen did not withdraw. The nobles went so far as to begin to withdraw their men from the campaign, effectively putting an end to it by removing the people responsible for the fighting and dying. Stephen, accepting his fate, returned to Hungary with his nobles and their armies, capitulating to his role as a weak actor unable to act unless in conjunction with his elites.58 In their notes to the text, Bak and László Veszprémy point out that the challenge to royal authority by the nobles on the Rusian campaign is rare in medieval Hungarian history.59 Font would suggest otherwise, contextualizing it in relation to the royal council operating within Hungary in conjunction with the rule of the king himself.60 Context is, of course, everything for historians and seeing the actions of these nobles in defying their king alongside the nobles acting as a royal council in conjunction with the king gives us a better notion of the circumscription of the king’s personal power in the kingdom of Hungary. Moving to Iberia we see a similarity with the events of 1138 in Poland discussed in Chapter 2. In 1063, Fernando I of León-Castile set up a division of his lands amongst his children. Bartlett has put this clearly, but tersely as, “the eldest Sancho, received Castile; the second son, Alfonso, Leon; and the third, Garcia, Galicia.”61 The problem with this is that it excludes the female children of Fernando who were also included in the division. The Historia Silense, the earliest source to describe this event, says that there was a great council and briefly states the same division among the males as Bartlett includes, but then also says that, “he handed over to his daughters all the monasteries of his entire kingdom.”62 I would suggest that the assignment of the royal monasteries of the whole, united, realm to the royal daughters indicates Fernando’s intent for the realm to remain united, not for it to split into various regions, and that this is a devolution of pieces of the central authority to the various children.63 Bernard Reilly, who has written extensively on this period would agree with that assertion noting, “These

58 In an interesting addendum to this story, the Illuminated Chronicle, so as not to short Stephen’s warlike ardor, immediately includes mention of two more campaigns before closing out the chapter. One of those campaigns was undertaken just with “warriors of the court,” the implication being that he would not have to worry about recalcitrant nobles on that occasion. Illuminated Chronicle, ch. 155. 59 Illuminated Chronicle, n765. 60 Font, “The Dynasty of the Arpads and Their Method of Ruling,” 105. 61 Bartlett, Blood Royal, 203. 62 Historia Silensis, ed. Juan A. Estévez Sola (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018), ch. 43, (p. 227) The passage continues that they should live in the monasteries, or hold them, until they marry. 63 Lucy Pick has written on the assignment of these monasteries to the females of the royal line and the impact that had on royal rule. Her Father’s Daughter: Gender, Power, and Religion in the Early Spanish Kingdoms (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2017).

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boundaries irresistibly suggest that there were not to be three equal kingdoms carved out of the legacy of Fernando el Magno but rather two subordinate ones under the hegemony of Leon, the traditional major power of the Christian north.”64 Such an arrangement is akin to the division of Piast lands after 1138 wherein the eldest would receive not just his own portion, but the major power centers of the central part of the realm as a way to reinforce his own rule over the collective of the family. Two differences only arise, one is that there is no separate portion, it is Alfonso’s portion which contains some of those same centers, such as León itself, and the base fact that Alfonso was the second son, not the eldest. Historians of Spain have traditionally noted the assignment of such important land to the second son as a key factor in the internal fighting that followed but given the example from Poland in the next century when it was the eldest son who received the key territories, in addition to his own, it is not necessarily the case. The connection to weak actors and power-sharing is, or should be, clear. Fernando, who had spent a good portion of his rule creating his own powerful kingdom, was not interested in creating a lasting centralized polity with a sedentary ruler in a central capital. Instead, he divided his land amongst his sons, and his daughters, giving each control of a portion of the realm. Reilly rebuts the historiographic commonplace that this was a tradition that Fernando absorbed from Navarre, instead suggesting that the division has much more to say about medieval systems of personal rule.65 The ruler was not able to stay in one place and rule the entirety of a realm, he needed to move around. Furthermore, to ensure his rule over a broad territory, he needed trusted subordinates and family was seen as a way to ensure that trust – this would be a concept that Alfonso VI would deploy later in his rule as well, even given his own fighting with his brothers.66 The roles of Urraca and Elvira, particularly the former about which more is known, are crucial to this endeavor as well. Initially, the sisters supported an alliance of Sancho and Alfonso to oppose García.67 For instance, in 1070, Urraca and Elvira are at the court of Sancho in 1070, though why is unknown.68 And in 1071, we see a fascinating document, discussed at length by Lucy Pick. This document restoring the see of Túy, following on García’s earlier attempt to do the same, was issued by Urraca in her own name, with her brother García’s name in second place, demonstrating her vital importance to the process and, in fact, her dominance.69 After the exile of García later

64 65 66 67 68 69

Reilly, The Kingdom of Leó n-Castilla Reilly, The Kingdom of Leó n-Castilla Reilly, The Kingdom of Leó n-Castilla Pick, Her Father’s Daughter, 108. Reilly, The Kingdom of Leó n-Castilla Pick, Her Father’s Daughter, 116.

Under King Alfonso VI, 15. Under King Alfonso VI, 15–16. Under King Alfonso VI, 16. Under King Alfonso VI, 60.

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that year, the sisters, especially we are told Urraca, become partisans of Alfonso VI and supported him against Sancho. But within that time, when Alfonso is captured by Sancho, it was Urraca who bargained with Sancho for his release.70 The relationship between the siblings, male and female, is an essential part of this period, as all bear some part of the collective power, and Alfonso VI, in this case, needed the support of his sister. In 1073, Urraca helped to gather a force to oppose Sancho, which she then handed over to Alfonso after Sancho’s death and Alfonso’s escape, or release, from Toledo. All in all, it is all five children of Fernando who played a role in controlling, establishing, and wielding power after the death of their father. This can be seen in the documents validating Alfonso’s ‘sole’ rule. The “first three documents after his restoration describe him as acting ‘together with the consent’ of Urraca.”71 Alfonso VI may have been the king, but he was not alone.72 Though León-Castile would be reunified under Alfonso VI, the tradition of the utilization of different actors and power structures, indicative of our definition of a weak polity, continued during his reign. For instance, Alfonso VI worked with his sisters in granting the monastery of San Juan de Hérmedes de Cerrato to the Cluniac order.73 Clearly, the sisters retained control over the royal monasteries, despite the fact that they had married,74 and thus they needed to be consulted and to participate in most monastic endeavors in the kingdom. The Infanta Urraca, Alfonso’s sister as opposed to his daughter who would become Queen Urraca, was one of his closest advisors and maintained her own court, as well as occasionally traveling with her brother.75 Therese Martin points out that the Historia Silense “lauded her as one of Alfonso’s most trusted counselors, noting that as Alfonso worked ‘to assure the governance of the kingdom, he called upon his sister, Urraca, and others of the most illustrious men,’ numbering the infanta among the highest ranking men surrounding Alfonso.”76 The chronicler took pains to mention Urraca, but not a single one of the men who surrounded Alfonso. Martin details further participation in Alfonso’s rule by his family, not just his sisters, but his wives as well. It was his second wife, Queen Constanza, who arranged marriages for multiple of his children, even

70 Reilly, The Kingdom of Leó n-Castilla Under King Alfonso VI, 64. 71 Pick, Her Father’s Daughter, 151, Citing Gambra, Alfonso VI, 2: nos. 11–13. 72 Pick further notes that Elvira also ascribed to Alfonso’s charters beginning later in 1073. Her Father’s Daughter, 151. 73 Pick, Her Father’s Daughter, 153. 74 For which see the argument against the anti-marriage stipulation of the Historia Silense in Therese Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectural Propaganda in Twelfth-century Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 63–65. 75 Martin, Queen as King, 63 76 Martin, Queen as King, 66; Historia Silensis, ch. 9 (p. 143).

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those who were not her own.77 From her native Burgundy she brought in Count Raymond to marry her own daughter Urraca, as well as Enrique to marry her stepdaughter, Teresa. Similarly, Count Raymond of Toulouse was brought in to marry another stepdaughter, Elvira. Martin points out that this was part of a plan on the part of Queen Constanza, not just to participate in the governance of the realm, but also to bring a French influence across the Pyrenees.78 The participation of Alfonso’s family would continue as he called on the next generation for support as well. Rulership in Ireland is a complex topic, as was noted in the first section of this book. But it is definitely a place where rulers utilized a wide array of subordinates, often members of their family or clan, to exercise power on their behalf. Each of those rulers could then be conceived of as a weak actor, requiring relationships with other weak actors to exercise power. The first example of this will return to control over Dublin during the time of conflict between two figures who both viewed themselves as rulers of Ireland (discussed more below in regard to claims-making) – Máel Sechnaill and Brian Boru. Máel Sechnaill was the last person to claim the title of king of Tara, often considered to be the overking of all of Ireland.79 In the 980s, Máel Sechnaill took control of the town of Dublin from the Hiberno-Norse, Vikingdescended locals for the most part, who were ruling it at the time.80 The Annals of the Four Masters refer to this as the “Babylonian Captivity of Ireland,” likening the Irish to the Jews and the Vikings to the Babylonians.81 Given the extremity of that statement, it seems likely that the Irish would want nothing more to do with the Vikings, but that is not the case. Máel Sechnaill does not expel the Ostmen, which is how they identified themselves as ‘men from the east’, from Dublin, nor does he even put his own men to rule over the city, nor does he make it his own capital. Instead, he keeps the local Ostmen rulers in charge. Máel Sechnaill may be king of Tara and theoretically overlord of Ireland, but this did not entitle him to autocratic power. Instead, he needed to work with local constituencies to guarantee his power base – the essence of weak power politics. We see such cooperation later in the 980s when Máel Sechnaill allies himself with Glúniarainn, the king of Dublin, his half-brother, to make war on forces from Waterford and Leinster.82 Cooptation of other

77 78 79 80

Martin, Queen as King, 71. Martin, Queen as King, 72–74. Bart Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000), 227. Seán Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man, 1052–1171” Ériu 43 (1992): 94–95; Clare Downham, Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ívarr to A.D. 1014 (Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press, 2007), 51–52. 81 Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters, transl. John O’Donovan (Dublin, 1849), s.a. 980, p. 713. 82 Downham, Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland, 56.

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forces, by kinship, remuneration, or cooperation toward a shared goal was an essential means of making weak power politics happen. This is not a critique of Máel Sechnaill or his ability to muster resources, but rather a statement about the way that medieval polities typically worked. In Ireland, we see his main rival for power over all of Ireland, Brian Boru, did the same thing in Dublin a decade later. The Annals of Ulster note that in 999 he sacked the city, and then in 1000, the Annals of Innisfallen tell of how afterwards, the Ostmen rulers of the city gave hostages to Brian and he “gave the fort to the foreigners.”83 Duffy notes that both of them “were either unwilling or unable to overthrow the reigning Dublin dynasty” and thus they coopted it for themselves.84 They ruled there, but only via the local Ostmen. Both demonstrated their power as weak actors, in our terminology, though the Ostmen rulers of Dublin were also weak actors. The latter could not exercise sole, positive control over their territory, nor could the former conquer it and rule without the Ostmen – thus the only solution possible was cooperation between the weak actors to provide rulership. We can also see power as negotiated in institutions known as óenaig, which Patrick Gleeson has compared to a moot or thing in Scandinavian sources. Óenaig have a long history in Ireland as places where markets were held, races were run, and most importantly “wherein ties of allegiance, kinship and political economy were negotiated, agreed, and renewed.”85 The Annals of Ulster notes that Máel Sechnaill attempted to revive such an óenach in 1007, and that there “Ferdomnach was installed in the successorship of Colum Cille by the counsel of the men of Ireland in that assembly.”86 Though we have a preference for dividing political and ecclesiastical power, this was not always the case in the medieval world, and here we have a classic example of the ways in which the two were deeply interconnected. This óenach was a site where multiple rulers assembled and where they, and “the men of the Ireland” were able to choose an ecclesiastical personage to hold office. Such a situation makes clear the weak power politics that we are discussing. Máel Sechnaill did not, himself, create Ferdomnach as abbot of Kells (the position which had become the successor to Columba – Colum Cille – after the flight from Iona due to Viking attacks in the early ninth century). Instead, we see him call the óenach, requiring attendance at it, and then multiple rulers participated in the event. They

83 Annals of Ulster, s.a. 999; Annals of Innisfallen. Accessed online at CELT (https://celt.ucc. ie//published/T100004/index.html), s.a. 1000; Downham, Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland, 58. 84 Duffy, “Irishmen and Islemen in the Kingdoms of Dublin and Man,” 95. 85 Patrick Gleeson, “Kingdoms, Communities, and Óenaig” Journal of the North Atlantic 8 (2015): 34. 86 Annals of Ulster, s.a. 1007.

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acted corporately, pooling their individually weak power, to create rulership throughout the island, as the most celebrated ecclesiastic position was filled. Jaski notes as well that events like óenaig were intended to be mandatory for subordinate rulers, though that was not always the case in practice.87 At this particular óenach of 1007, he says that there were seven kings missing, though there are no records of any repercussions for them.88 The tradition of the óenach continued after Máel Sechnaill’s death in 1022. We see it being called in 1033 by Donnchad son of Gilla Patraic. The Annals of Ulster note simply that Donnchad arranged the óenach after he had become king of Leinster.89 But the Annals of the Four Masters, a later source though often fuller because of it, says that present were “the chiefs of the laity and clergy of Leinster and Osraighe.”90 The Annals of the Four Masters reinforces the importance of such events as a site of the gathering of a variety of political powers. Jaski, in his brief interpretation of this event further suggests that the reason that Donnchad called the óenach was to reinforce his position as ruler of Leinster.91 These gatherings, much as Scandinavian things which could make or break kings, were ways that rulers could interact with their people and given the context of a body of men, inclusive of political and ecclesiastical elites, it seems likely that such a body could be, or was, used to enforce and reinforce claims to authority.92 Such a situation is recognized by John Francis Byrne in his study of Irish Kings and High Kings when he notes that, “The king entered into a contract with other kings, and this was formally ratified by his tuath, on whose behalf he acted.”93 Creating a situation in which a ruler who was a weak actor could derive power through cooperation with other weak actors who were his subordinates as a way to rule a broad territory. Norway, though a land of fewer kings than Ireland, also exhibited characteristics of a weak power polity in the way that the kings negotiated with their elites, rather than exhibiting any claims to formal ruling structures or absolute power. Hans Jacob Orning has discussed this a great deal in

87 Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession, 53. Interestingly for the purposes of this chapter, we can see a similar case in the laws of King Coloman of Hungary where, due to the difficulty and expense of traveling to the royal court, gatherings headed by a noble were to be held in each district. Attendance at such gatherings was required for elites. “The Laws of King Coloman,” 26, 27. 88 Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession, 53n89. 89 Annals of Ulster, s.a. 1033. 90 Annals of the Four Masters, s.a. 1033 (p. 827) 91 Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession, 53. 92 Gleeson talks as well about hierarchies of assemblies as part of this process. Gleeson, “Kingdoms, Communities, and Óenaig,” 37. 93 Francis John Byrne, Irish Kings and High-Kings (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1973 [2001 2nd edition]), 43.

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multiple publications and expresses the concept clearly, “The limits to royal power were not prescribed in laws, but were a matter of practical concern, which was disclosed if a king proceeded so far as to estrange himself from his men’s wishes.”94 Orning elaborates this idea much further in his Unpredictability and Presence which touches on the themes of this chapter, without using the weak power label. Instead, he takes the two main elements from his title to discuss the ways that kings utilized their personal presence in front of their people and unpredictable actions, to make sure that their commands were obeyed.95 These two modes express our own ideas of weak power well and demonstrate that the king could not command subordinates effectively but needed to work cooperatively with them to rule. One of the ideas highlighted by Orning is that rulers worked to persuade and incentivize their followers to act on their orders. “The king had to appeal actively to the allegiance of his retainers if he wished to obtain their backing, and he depended on them seeing a personal interest in supporting him.”96 The idea that the king needed to be a persuader builds on the work of Sverre Bagge whose evocatively titled book, From Gang Leader to the Lord’s Anointed, discusses examples of such persuasion in regard to Sverri’s saga.97 After narrating a series of such instances of negotiation between Sverri and his men, instances which went both ways, Bagge concludes that “Sverrir has no authority in the classical military sense,” what we could name strong power.98 But once Sverri has convinced his men to follow him in an attack, through appeals to personal gain in particular, they will follow his commands as a general on the battlefield, even to complex maneuvers.99 The crux of Bagge’s analysis of Sverri’s saga rests on his analysis of Sverri’s speeches to his men, as narrated by the saga author. Rather than taking such

94 Hans Jacob Orning, “Conflict and Social (Dis)order in Norway, c. 1030–1160” in Disputing Strategies in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. Kim Esmark, Lars Hermanson, Hans Jacob Orning, and Helle Vogt (Leiden: Brill, 2013): 65. 95 Hans Jacob Orning, Unpredictability and Presence: Norwegian Kingship in the High Middle Ages, transl. Alan Crozier (Leiden: Brill, 2008). For example, “Because the king’s presence is not firmly internalized in his subjects, his personal presence is crucial for achieving subordination, and because his exercise of power takes place in encounters with his subjects, unpredictability is necessary to create the element of fear on which his domination must rest.” (93) 96 Orning, Unpredictability and Presence, 127. 97 Sverre Bagge, From Gang Leader to the Lord’s Anointed: Kingship in Sverris saga and Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar (Odense: Odense University Press, 1996). This same idea is apparent in other works of Bagge’s as well, such as “Kingship in Medieval Norway: Ideal and Reality,” in European Monarchy:Its Evolution and Practice from Roman Antiquity to Modern Times, ed. Heinz Duchhardt, Richard A. Jackson, David Sturdy (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1992): 41–42. 98 Bagge, From Gang Leader to the Lord’s Anointed, 24. 99 Bagge, From Gang Leader to the Lord’s Anointed, 24–25.

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speeches as rhetorical devices to motivate the troops, a la Shakespeare’s famous words put in the mouth of King Henry V before Agincourt, he views them as accurate representations of negotiation between a ruler and his men.100 If we follow Bagge then and accept these speeches as representative of historical reality, if not quotations, then we can see that Sverri is regularly engaging in council with his men. Take the following two examples: “I wish now to take counsel with you, whether you would rather with such strength as we have, or flee away.”101 “I will, therefore, that we now take counsel together: shall we offer resistance with such force as we have, or do you think it better to abandon the ships and go on shore?”102 The saga author continues on from these quotes to have Sverri carry the day and his men do his bidding, but it is certainly possible given what Bagge and Orning, among others, have argued that the consultation noted here is no rhetorical device, even if it is used rhetorically by the author.103 Such consultation also fits in with our weak power actors, wherein the king needs to negotiate with his men to make action happen. Similarly, Sverri’s Saga also has Sverri offering rewards to his men, incentivizing them to participate in battle.104 “[W]hoever slays a baron, and can bring forward evidence of his deed, shall himself be a baron; and whatever title a man shall cause to be vacant, that title shall be his: he shall be King’s man who slays a King’s man, and he shall receive good honour besides.”105 Such a reward system for participation fits not only with our weak power actors, but with other systems of mobilizing elites to work on a ruler’s behalf, in a medieval world without autocratic power.106

100 See particularly his concluding thoughts on this in the section on rhetoric, Bagge, From Gang Leader to the Lord’s Anointed, 33. 101 Sverrissaga, transl. J. Stephton, accessed online at http://jillian.rootaction.net/~jillian/ world_faiths/www.northvegr.org/lore/sverri/index.html, Ch. 52. 102 Sverrissaga, ch. 88. 103 Orning, Unpredictability and Presence, 127; Bagge, From Gang Leader to the Lord’s Anointed, 33. 104 Which Orning notes Unpredictability and Presence, 127–128. 105 Sverrissaga, ch. 35. 106 I have argued for something similar in Conflict, Bargaining, and Kinship Networks, 109–110. That work draws on much of the kinship-related conflict arguments with a base in William Ian Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1990). Miller also discusses similar situations, see 140–142.

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Bagge notes that the situation in regard to Sverri is different from that of Haakon, his other main focus, but Orning disagrees, pointing out that the two sources examined by Bagge may express a difference, but when one examines the practical evidence of interactions recorded by a variety of sources, one sees that not just Sverri, but Haakon also, utilize such techniques of persuasion to motivate their forces.107 We can similar examples of such negotiated rule elsewhen as well. For instance, Orning, in a different publication, narrates a conflict between King Magnus Barefoot and an elite landowner named Sveinke.108 Sveinke, a supporter of Magnus’s co-king Harald, had refused to swear to Magnus after Harald’s death, which set in train Magnus’s attempts to expel Sveinke from Norway. Essentially, as related in Morkinskinna, Magnus does not have the power to do so by himself.109 Instead, he must work within the framework of his elites to negotiate with Sveinke. Sveinke is not threatened by the king who has no functional power to do anything to him, thus is not a strong ruler in our framework. As we saw above, the king’s power arises from the relationships that he builds and then activates with his elites. The elites in this case were unwilling to support King Magnus in a unilateral action against Sveinke, one of their own. Thus, the elites themselves, other local landowners, negotiated with Sveinke on the king’s behalf and offered him sureties that his exile would be temporary, and his lands protected. It was only through these negotiations that Sveinke left, not through direct action of King Magnus. Morkinskinna, admittedly a thirteenth-century Icelandic text, puts these words into Sveinke’s mouth, “I do this for your sake and not the king’s, for I find in you true friendship now as before.”110 When Sveinke’s decision was reported to King Magnus, Morkinskinna offers a nice companion quote in Magnus’s words to the landowners who had acted as go-betweens, “You have conducted yourselves worthily in this matter, and for your sake we will do as you request.”111 The landowners though get the last word and it is a terse statement that sums up the argument of this chapter, “Those are kingly words” they say in response to Magnus.112 “Kingly words” in the conception of the Morkinskinna author at least were not orders to be carried out, but agreement and compromise with elites as middlemen and both potential

107 Orning, Unpredictability and Presence, 136. 108 Orning, “The governance of high medieval Norway,” How Medieval Europe was Ruled, ed. Christian Raffensperger (New York: Routledge, 2023): 159–175. 109 The story is related in Morkinskinna: The Earliest Icelandic Chronicle of the Norwegian Kings (1030–1157) Transl. Theodore M. Andersson and Kari Ellen Gade (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2000), ch. 56. 110 Morkinskinna, ch. 56 p. 296. 111 Morkinskinna, ch. 56 p. 296. 112 Morkinskinna, ch. 56 p. 296.

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belligerents working with and through the elites. This is the height of weak power actors working together to rule. Crucially, our takeaway from Orning’s argument, and these examples, is that the king could not give orders and expect to be obeyed. Instead, he needed to work with his elites to enable the ruling of the kingdom. This cooperation had to be in the interests of both parties, otherwise nothing would get done; both parties, in this case, are weak actors, in Richardson’s terminology, and therefore need to work together to create rulership for the kingdom of Norway as a whole. Rulership was deliberately chosen as a key term for this book, and included in the title, because some of the traditional terms such as “kingship” do not adequately express the collectivity of rule that we see in the arc of medieval Europe, or more broadly. The examples from Iberia, Ireland, Hungary, and Norway included here could be enhanced with others from Rus and elsewhere in eastern Europe. Rulers cooperated and delegated power to subordinate nobles, which is well studied in regard to western Europe. But we also see, perhaps especially see, in the arc of medieval Europe the way that ruling elites ruled as a collective over a particular area. Rulership is fungible in a way that we are just not comfortable with in modern times and with modern terms. Orning gives us a great summation of this idea, “This leads to the possibility that medieval kingship was not just weaker than later state power, but also that it functioned in a way that was qualitatively different.”113 If we replace “kingship” with “rulership” we end up with a succinct expression of the ideas of this chapter. Medieval rulership was qualitatively different than the later medieval or early modern examples which we often read back into time. It is better then to examine that rulership on its own terms, and broadly, to best conceive of how it worked, and did not work, at the time. Claims-making

Claims-making is an essential tool for looking at, and understanding, the evidence of the past. Medievalists are good at source criticism and bias already. But adding in claims-making to help us understand the differentiation between what the rulers themselves, or their designated authors, said about their power and reach versus the reality on the ground visible via other sources helps us better understand both what rulers wanted to have been happening, or be seen to be happening, and what was happening. Their claims, typically, have been reiterated by later rulers, and their writers, and modern (especially earlier) historians to create an idealized perception of

113 Orning, Unpredictability and Presence, 322.

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rulers’ power in the middle ages. Theresa Earenfight, noting this problem, has suggested that, “Institutions are empty shells that a society fills with cultural presumptions and that shift shape to accommodate changing needs.”114 Claims-making is already part of some modern scholars’ analysis of medieval Europe, though without the name. Bisson has noted this phenomenon quite explicitly in regard to France. He specifically gives the agency to the authors of the documents, rather than the ruler himself, noting “It was prelates or their scribes who thrust on King Philip I of France an iconic language of deference that is seldom found in the charters of his contemporary William the Conqueror.”115 As noted earlier in the chapter as well, Bisson also took pains to point out the claims-making done by the king of France to pronounce himself ruler over the entire territory of the Franks, even while exhibiting positive control over the Ile de France only.116 Thus, we see our image of medieval polities, their power, and their authority shifting over time as scholarship looks once more at the inner workings of rulership, rather than at their portrayal. Alice Taylor has done this recently for Scotland, looking once more at the law codes for the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and pushing back the idea of a centralized, bureaucratic government later than has traditionally been supposed.117 One of the most high-profile and widely accepted claims made in the medieval period is that of the “Holy Roman Empire.” Grischa Vercamer has discussed these claims, and the rationale behind them. Having lost prestige following their defeat in the Investiture Controversy and signing of the Concordat of Worms in the early twelfth century, Frederick Barbarossa embarked on a campaign to re-endow the empire with a foundation that would provide a base for growth. In 1165, he arranged for the canonization of Charlemagne, and in the 1160s broadly, he introduced “the sacrum to the name of the imperium, thus emphasising its independence from the sancta ecclesia.”118 The connection of the empire directly to God, without the mediation of the church, and the creation of a type of ur-national saint in Charlemagne was, for Vercamer, a “pragmatic” response to the shift in power structures in the twelfth century. Both of those events of the 1160s

114 Theresa Earenfight, The King’s Other Body: María of Castile and the Crown of Aragon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 42. 115 Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century, 79. 116 Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century, 128. 117 Alice Taylor, The Shape of the State in Medieval Scotland, 1124–1290 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 13. 118 Grischa Vercamer, “Rulership and Power in Western Medieval Europe: A Theoretical and Conceptual Introduction,” in Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe: Power, Rituals and Legitimacy in Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, ed. Grischa Vercamer and Dušan Zupka (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022): 51.

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also, from the perspective of this chapter, look like claims-making actions in which Frederick Barbarossa was staking out a position that was much more hopeful than actual as a way of bringing it into eventual actuality. The separation between rhetoric and actual power is remarked upon by Vercamer, who also notes Karl Ubl’s similar interpretation of these events and returns the impetus for some of these changes to the clerical authors, as we saw that Bisson did above.119 Despite such cogent arguments about claims-making, Barbarossa’s claims, though certainly aspirational at the time, have become enshrined in modern scholarship.120 Some claims which we must question are not medieval at all, but modern. David Crouch points out that we should “ask ourselves whether the apparently dominant kingship of Norman and Angevin England was more than a documentary veneer the sheen of which duped nineteenth-century historians, and continues to mislead us.”121 Such an idea is in keeping with the statement by Gledhill that, “Imperial governments always claimed to be masters of all they surveyed, but lacked the administrative, communicative and military infrastructures to make that claim a reality.”122 Anthony Kaldellis has written about the same phenomenon as Crouch in regard to the medieval Roman Empire, pointing out the manifold ways that Enlightenment scholars, as well as much more recent ones, have misread documents through their own lens. Following on Earenfight’s idea of institutions as an “empty shell,” Kaldellis says that Enlightenment thinkers used the medieval Roman Empire to “discuss contemporary problems indirectly” and that “they were not interested in the historical truth about Byzantium.”123 And yet, we have absorbed these scholars’ ideas about the past and taken them as gospel as we have diligently cited our predecessors over the decades and even centuries. The differences between “Byzantium” and “the West” have become, for Kaldellis, “programmatic” and it is difficult then to strip that out of any analysis we make of governance, politics broadly, religion, and so forth.

119 Vercamer, “Rulership and Power in Western Medieval Europe,” 53 citing Karl Ubl, “Herrschaft. Begriff.,” in Enzyklopädie des Mittelalters 1, ed. Gert Melville and Martial Staub (Darmstadt: WBG, 2008): 9–44. 120 See for example the mammoth Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire by Peter Wilson which starts well before Barbarossa’s claim to holiness for his empire. Peter Wilson, Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire (Cambridge: Mass.: Belknap, 2020). 121 David Crouch, “A Norman Conventio and Bonds of Lordship in King Stephen’s Reign,” in Law and Government in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of Sir James Holt, ed. G. Garnett and J. Hudson (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 320. 122 Gledhill, Power and Its Disguises, 17. 123 Anthony Kaldellis, The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in New Rome (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015), 8.

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The question of claims-making in medieval sources can be accurately summed up in two quotations from Alice Rio. The first lays out a common issue for anyone who works with legal sources, “The question of the relationship between law and practice in the early middle ages is often posed as one of enforcement: that is, to what extent written law, however grandly stated, may actually have applied on the ground.”124 For legal scholars then, the concept of claims-making, even if not the term, will be quite common as one needs to determine how much of the legal code was actual and how much aspirational. But pushing further, Rio has suggested that the more we dig into medieval sources for law, her particular focus, what we find is, “a curious picture of rulers and ruled acting as if they were running along parallel, disconnected tracks: kings behaved as if they controlled a big state; most people knew they lived under a small one.”125 This sentiment is the crux of the concept of claims-making and will be examined in this chapter in regard to numerous examples spread throughout the arc of medieval Europe. The examples given in this section highlight the grandiose claims made in the primary sources and show that rulers were claiming much more power than they actually had, and that by and large, scholars have bought into those claims of power. Though we will also see that some claims, or claims for some polities, are accepted by modern scholars much more readily than others. The medieval Roman Empire is, as everyone knows, the bureaucratic empire par excellence in the Middle Ages. However, Neville, nearly twenty years ago now, pointed out that, “the bureaucratic model does not fit Byzantine realities particularly well.”126 Much as with the modern and early modern conceptions of medieval polities discussed above, the medieval reality of the polity is something else entirely. The same is true for the differences between the claims made by the medieval Roman government and the reality of what went on. The first and most important concept for understanding medieval Roman rule was taxis – order. In Neville’s words, “Order, taxis, was the paramount virtue of imperial ceremonial because beautiful arrangement and order in imperial ritual allowed the emperor to better imitate God, who ordered and arranged creation.”127 Examples of the demonstration of order could be the ritual processions through the city of Constantinople, or the reception and dining which are detailed in the tenth-century Book of Ceremonies.128 The emperor

124 Alice Rio, “Introduction” in Law, Custom, and Justice in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Proceedings of the 2008 Byzantine Colloquium, ed. Alice Rio (London: Centre for Hellenic Studies, 2011): 1. 125 Rio, “Introduction,” 2. 126 Neville, Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 5. 127 Neville, Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 14. 128 Constantine Porphyrogennetos: The Book of Ceremonies, transl. Ann Moffatt and Maxeme Tall (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

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in those ceremonies was placed in a central position and seemed to hold the position of Christ’s vice-regent on earth, governing as Christ would in heaven. The reality, of course, was much different. Neville’s 2004 book focused on the provinces, and it is here that we see the lack of imperial control made clear. “For all the power of the imperial administration, people in the provinces were free to do whatever they liked so long as government interests were not affected.”129 This is a far cry from the image of the ruler as god-like in his level of authority, with his eye and his hand stretching forth to cover the entirety of his realm. Similarly, after reviewing multiple legal cases initiated by individuals in the provinces, Neville comes to the conclusion that the emperor had little interest in what was going on there, especially, as noted in the preceding quote, if it did not affect his personal interests.130 We can see a similar disconnect between ceremony and reality in the monetization of the economy in the early part of our period under discussion. For instance, the emperor would hold a public ceremony in the spring where the main officials would approach the emperor, bow down to him, reinforcing authority, and receive their pay in coinage from him. This created an indelible link between the emperor and his functionaries, but the ceremony was also created, in its ideal form, to allow coinage to circulate from the emperor and imperial court to the functionaries and thence throughout the realm. The reality, however, was that those same officials would return for another ceremony in the fall to meet with the emperor, bow down, and pay their taxes, returning the same money back to the emperor that they were given in the spring.131 The ritualization created an image of the state as a monetized one, that was not backed up in the reality of what was happening in the economy. The final example of claims-making in the medieval Roman Empire is perhaps the most well-known and that is the use of titles to claim territory and people for the empire and incorporate them into a wider sense of the empire’s structure. The Dalmatian territories are particularly known for this and can provide us with several examples in the period under discussion. Emperor Michael IV, in the first half of the eleventh century, granted imperial titles to Ljutovid of Zahumlje “in return for his obeisance and loyalty.”132 The title was just part of the Roman attempt to integrate

129 130 131 132

Neville, Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 136. Neville, Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 149. Neville, Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 22. Paul Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier: A Political Study of the Northern Balkans, 900–1204 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 129. He was granted the titles, “protospatharios epi tou Chrysotrikliniou, hypatos, and strategos of Serbia and Zahumlje.”

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Ljutovid into their system though, as they also granted him gold and silver. One of the reasons that Michael IV granted such high titles to this leader was as an attempt to control the Dalmatian coast, particularly against the Dukljan ruler Stefan Vojislav. Vojislav presents a problem for our situation as he too was granted imperial gifts to stay loyal to the medieval Roman Empire, but he chose not to do so, or at least only when it suited his purposes.133 Ljutovild would end up leading a joint Slavic and Roman force against Vojislav in 1042, only to lose, and have Stefan Vojislav become the major power in the region.134 After Vojislav’s death, there was contention among his heirs for control of the realm, but Michael, one of his five sons, seems to have become dominant. Given Vojislav’s strengthening of Duklja, Michael was also a threat to the medieval Roman Empire and Skylitzes records a clear quid pro quo arrangement whereby Michael received the title protospatharios, and the money that went with it, and in return he promised the friendship of himself and his people.135 In summarizing such titlegranting episodes, Neville astutely points out that, “One expects that in exchange for their salaries the foreign princes were supposed to refrain from attacking the empire.”136 Thus, we can challenge the claim made by the title by asking, was the recipient actually integrated into the empire? Or, instead, was this really a way for the emperor and his court to buy off potential threats to the empire? Again, we may turn to Neville, “The distinction between tribute payment and stipend payments was fine yet ideologically strong.”137 The empire granted stipend payments to title holders and the stated purpose of giving said titles was to integrate other rulers in a subordinate position into the empire, but perhaps the reality of the situation was that the titles and their associated stipends were simply incentives to not raid the empire – a substantial difference than the claim made. Claims-making can quite easily be seen in Ireland, given the multiplicity of rulers, their weak power status, as discussed above, and their much grander titles. Interestingly, the claims made, though, often come from later sources in an attempt to create a hierarchical world of kings and high kings that never existed in quite that way. For instance, the seventeenth-century Annals

133 Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier, 125. 134 John V.A. Fine, Jr., The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century, (Ann Arbor, Mich.: The University of Michigan Press, 1983), 206. 135 John Skylitzes, A Synopsis of Byzantine History, 811–1057, transl. John Wortley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 442. It is also possible, though not directly related to claims-making that Michael was married to a member of Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos’s family at this time as well. Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier, 140. 136 Neville, Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 30. 137 Neville, Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 30.

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of the Four Masters begins many years with an annotation of who is the “sovereign of Ireland” at the time, or counting the years of that ruler’s reign. To take just one example, “The first year of Brian, son of Ceinneidigh, son of Lorcan, in sovereignty over Ireland.”138 The problem is that these same designations do not appear in the same way in sources dating from much earlier periods. The perception of Irish kingship often revolves around a hierarchy of kings with either the king of Tara or a high king (ardrí) at the apex. Such a system of regularization is thought to have originated with the Annals of the Four Masters as it does not appear in the medieval law codes which do lay out multiple types of kings and their functions, though there is no high king or ruler of all of Ireland.139 However, that does not mean that such titles did not appear, nor that people did not claim them. At, and just before, the beginning of our main chronological focus of this book, there is a fascinating example of this issue of claims-making via titles, and the historiographical impact of such. The king of Tara at the time was Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill. However, the rulership of Tara as rulership of all of Ireland is a contested issue which has been discussed numerous times through the years. T. M. Charles-Edwards covers this debate in his work, highlighting the differentiation between those who view it as a “national monarchy” and those who say it is one king among many.140 CharlesEdwards’ view is that it was largely the latter, but could be more, depending upon the personal power of the holder of the title. Charles Doherty, in a similar vein, though following a different track, points out the importance of the title, its exceptional nature, and the idea of Tara as a capital.141 The historiographic debate highlighted by these two authors is key to our understanding of this issue. Was Máel Sechnaill the king of Ireland? Or just a king of Ireland? Here is where we need to return once more to the sources to note that while Máel Sechnaill was certainly an important king, he was also increasingly challenged by Brian Boru. The two battled for nearly twenty years, each attempting to gather a majority of the subordinate clans and kings under their respective banners.142 This section takes a look at their conflict and the ways that they used claims-making to engage with one another. Two of the most commonly used Irish annals are those from Ulster and Innisfallen. Both record the important military events of 980. I provide here the version from the Annals of Ulster: “The battle of Temair was won by

138 Annals of the Four Masters - Online at https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T100005B/, s.a. 1002. 139 Byrne, Irish Kings and High-Kings 41–42; T. M. Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 518–519. 140 Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland, 482. 141 Charles Doherty, “Kingship in Early Ireland” in The Kingship and Landscape of Tara, Ed. Edel Bhreathnach (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005), 11. 142 Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession, 227.

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Mael Sechnaill son of Domnall against the foreigners of Áth Cliath and the Isles, and very great slaughter was inflicted on the foreigners therein, and foreign power ejected from Ireland as a result.”143 The Annals of Innisfallen have a similar, though more terse, account. But the Annals of Tigernach introduce an entirely different element into the story, “The battle of Tara gained by Maelseachnaill the Great son of Domhnall son of Donnchadh son of Flann, by the king of Ireland, over the Foreigners of Dublin … ”144 Introduced here by the Annals of Tigernach is the idea, the claim, that Máel Sechnaill is the “king of Ireland,” a claim not made in either of the other relevant examples, though it is reflected in the much later Annals of the Four Masters.145 Claims-making is not restricted to rulers making claims on their own behalf, but due to the issues with literacy and the production of writing in the premodern world, chroniclers and others can also be authors of such claims, made on behalf of their lords. The bias of the Annals of Tigernach in favor of Máel Sechnaill becomes evident with entries over the next decades. For instance, in 991, all three annals under discussion (Ulster, Innisfallen, and Tigernach) have the death of a Donnchad, heir to Tara (or Ireland in the case of Innisfallen).146 However, both of the former place the blame for the killing directly at the feet of Máel Sechnaill, while the Annals of Tigernach blame Conchobhar son of Cearbhall. Another instance of pro-Máel Sechnaill entries comes with a particularly evocative entry in the year 1000, “The first revolt through treachery of Brian and the Connachtmen against Maelseachlainn the Great.”147 While the Annals of Ulster and the Annals of Innisfallen have entries relating to Brian’s steadily increasing power, the Annals of Tigernach defame Brian while continuing their inflation of Máel Sechnaill. The annalist(s) composing the Annals of Tigernach are clearly making claims on the basis of Máel Sechnaill, and are partisans of him against his rival Brian Boru. In so doing, they grant him greater titles, and acclaim, as a way to increase his authority for those who are reading their record, thus shaping a narrative about the events. The most common place to see the titles “king of Ireland” or “high-king of Ireland” is at the death of a ruler, during the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. We see this in regard to the deaths of both Brian Boru in 1014 and Máel Sechnaill in 1022, but we can also see it for Domnall ua Néill in 980.148

143 144 145 146 147 148

Annals of Ulster, s.a. 980. Annals of Tigernach - https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T100002A.html, s.a. 980. Annals of the Four Masters - Online at https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T100005B/, s.a. 979. Annals of Ulster, s.a. 991; Annals of Innisfallen, s.a. 991; Annals of Tigernach, s.a. 991. Annals of Tigernach, s.a. 1000. Annals of Ulster, s.a. 980, 1014, 1022 – for example. The relevant pages of Tigernach are missing and so there are no entries for 1014 to tell if they would have recognized Brian Boru as high king, an interesting question.

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The annalists are interested in honoring the deceased ruler, but also in creating the idea that there was a unity to be ruler over, and that someone did that. Beyond the claim of ruler of Ireland, the authors of all three of the annals under discussion add an additional claim of “heir-designate” of Ireland. Staying within the same period as discussed above, we see several examples of this phenomenon. 1014 – “Murchad, royal heir of Ireland”149 1017 – “Donnchad son of Donnchad ua Congalaig, heir designate of Ireland, was killed by his own people.”150 1021 – “Aodh son of Flann son of Flann son of Maelseachlainn, crown prince of Ireland, was killed by Ó Maightheacháin one of the Fir Bili.”151 Each of those entries utilizes the same phrase in Gaelic, rígdamna Erenn, even if the translation is slightly different between the Annals of Tigernach and the other two sources. All of these entries are also recording the death of the individuals involved, thus the parallel to the “king” and “high king” of Ireland. The use of the title of “heir-designate” is a similar way to talk about the unity of the island and its people, as well as to simplify the complex succession process. Jaski points to this phenomenon of the annalists as a “claim that only the near descendants of a king or the heads of other branches are worthy to succeed him in the kingship.”152 The problem with this claim is that it is just that; Irish succession laws were immensely complex and numerous people could be considered for any post of the various hierarchies of king, as laid out in the laws, and narrated at much length for modern audiences by both Jaski and Donnchadh Ó Corráin.153 Jaski in particular notes the problem with “heir-designate of Ireland,” with reference to Ó Corráin when he says that the king or high king of Ireland was not a heritable title, and thus even though one could have it, or claim it, they could not pass it on.154 Such an argument reinforces the idea that this was a claim, and no more. That said, the claim itself is important. The annalists, and it is important that it is shared across the three annals under discussion which we

149 150 151 152 153

Annals of Innisfallen, s.a. 1014. Annals of Ulster, s.a. 1017. Annals of Tigernach, s.a. 1021. Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession, 243. Donnchadh Ó Corráin, “Irish Regnal Succession: A Reappraisal” Studia Hibernica 11 (1971): 7–39. 154 Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession, 242. Similarly, “The high-kingship achieved by some Irish rulers from the ninth century to the twelfth remained without legal validity: it was never an institution, but merely a prize to be won.” Byrne, Irish Kings and High Kings, 261.

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have seen had different perspectives on other matters, were interested in constructing an idea in the minds of their readers that not only was there a ruler of Ireland, in toto, but that there could be an heir to such a position as well. This would create a more unified whole of the entirety of Ireland, and perhaps put it in conjunction with other kingdoms that appear in the annals, such as that of Scotland whose own kings appear with some regularity, and even occasionally appear as high king of Scotland.155 Much as we saw with Richardson’s examples of the power of the ruler of Babylon being highlighted beyond the reality on the ground, these Irish annalists created a world for current and later readers that did not reflect reality, but aspiration. One of the most evocative claims that was made in the arc of medieval Europe has been discussed in a different context in this book already and that is the claim to be emperor of Spain. While this was discussed apropos of the imperial title, here we will revisit the issue in light of the idea of claimsmaking. The claim being made is explicitly acknowledged in Wolfram Drews’ analysis of the title when he notes that medieval actors “used specific imperial titles for different purposes at different times in order to, for example, distinguish themselves from other rulers or to make political claims.”156 These claims were not always actualized on the ground, but in the best tradition of claims-making were the kinds of things that rulers were hopeful would be eventually true, or be seen to be true, even if they were not strictly speaking, true at that moment. Per Drews again, “They were interested in the symbolic capital which could be provided by imperial titles that were used in an open political field in which rulers wanted to gain an advantage over several rivals.”157 The example discussed in Chapter 1 focused upon the imperial title of Alfonso VII, but he was not the first ruler in Iberia to claim such a title for himself. Beginning in the tenth century, rulers of León began to claim imperial titles for themselves.158 This pretension of imperial rule is a claim made in this period and into the eleventh century only by the Astur-Leonese rulers.159 Drews suggests that this originated in the tenth century as a way to differentiate them and demonstrate their dominance over the newly founded

155 Annals of Ulster, s.a. 995, 1093, 1094, 1106. Byrne also has a lengthy aside on comparisons with England and the continent, Irish Kings and High Kings, 259. 156 Wolfram Drews, “Imperial Rule in Medieval Spain: Christian and Islamic Contexts” The Medieval History Journal 20:2 (2017): 313. 157 Drews, “Imperial Rule in Medieval Spain,” 313. 158 Drews, “Imperial Rule in Medieval Spain,” 293–294; Hélène Sirantoine, Imperator Hispaniae: Les Idéologies Impériales dans le Royaume de León (IXe-XIIe Siècles) (Madrid: Casa de Velazquez, 2012), 100–101. 159 Therese Martin, Queen as King: Politics and Architectural Propaganda in Twelfth-century Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 83.

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kingdom of Navarre.160 Their use of the title, and its pretensions of dominance, however, continued intermittently throughout the tenth and into the eleventh century, even as the number of Christian polities in the Iberian peninsula multiplied. Three particular developments are important for the continuation and elaboration of the idea of an emperor of Spain in the eleventh century. The first is during the rule of Fernando I who united Castile and León via his marriage to Sancha. In addition to that feat, which added heft to his claim to Iberian supremacy and connected him via Sancha to the Astur-Leónese ideas about imperial power, the couple ordered the construction of a basilica known as San Isidoro and dedicated to Isidore of Seville, to which they translated Isidore’s relics.161 The erection of San Isidoro appropriated the spiritual weight of Isidore of Seville, his residence, and claims on the Visigothic Toledan past of the peninsula to claim authority for this new Leónese-Castilian political entity. The second development comes during the reign of Fernando and Sancha’s son, Alfonso VI. Pope Gregory VII in the summer of 1077 sent a letter to “the ‘kings, counts, and other princes of Spain’ … in which he reasserted the papal suzerainty over the peninsula.”162 Reilly suggests that Alfonso VI responded to this declaration with his first claim to the imperial title, “imperator totius hispaniae” as a way to not only claim dominance over the multiple rulers addressed by Pope Gregory VII, but as a way to rebut the pope’s claim to control Iberia.163 Hélène Sirantoine, who has written extensively on this issue of Iberian titles, would agree in general as she notes that Alfonso VI’s use of the title was “an expression of hegemony over Castile-León and the Christians of Spain.”164 The final development, also in Alfonso VI’s reign builds upon his parent’s claims to Toledo via the legacy of Isidore of Seville, Alfonso managed to take the city of Toledo itself from its Muslim rulers.165 After this time, Alfonso VI adopts the title, Toletani imperii magnificus triumphator (glorious triumphant [ruler] of the empire of Toledo).166 This title takes the tie to the Visigothic past one step further than the translation of Isidore’s relics and

160 Drews, “Imperial Rule in Medieval Spain,” 294. 161 Drews, “Imperial Rule in Medieval Spain,” 296; Martin, Queen as King, 30. 162 Reilly, The Kingdom of Leó n-Castilla Under King Alfonso VI, 102. For Gregory’s letter see The Register of Pope Gregory VII, 1073–1085, Ed. and transl. H. E. J. Cowdrey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 4.28 – to whit, “by ancient statutes the kingdom of Spain has been handed in law and in proprietorship to blessed Peter and the holy Roman church.” 163 Reilly, The Kingdom of Leó n-Castilla Under King Alfonso VI, 103. 164 Sirantoine, Imperator Hispaniae, 412. 165 Reilly narrates the conquest of the entire taifa polity in light of broader Iberian politics. Reilly, The Kingdom of Leó n-Castilla Under King Alfonso VI, 161–184. 166 Drews, “Imperial Rule in Medieval Spain,” 296; Sirantoine also notes this title shift Imperator Hispaniae, 413.

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proclaims Toledo as the center of the empire, though it was not that, given his own, and his descendants, perambulations through multiple centers (as seen later in this chapter). These three developments mark key moments in the claims making of the León-Castile polity. We could certainly expand this discussion further with the evidence noted in Chapter 1 about Alfonso VII and his imperial titulature, though it would simply repeat the idea we have seen here that the ruler was making a grand claim that was not necessarily actualized. Proceeding from the title of emperor to another grand claim made by these rulers, let us take a moment to examine the claim that the Leónese rulers controlled “all of Spain.” We have already seen that Alfonso VI adopted this title in 1077, possibly as a response to papal claims of dominance in Iberia.167 It is patently obvious that, despite Alfonso VI’s successes against the Muslim taifa kingdoms, that his was not the only polity in Iberia, and that he did not control the entirety of Hispania, which makes this such a terrific example for our discussion of claims-making.168 Navarre and Aragon, just to name two other Christian polities would have had serious reservations about acknowledging any claim to suzerainty over them by Alfonso VI. Yet, he used this title regularly throughout his reign.169 Alfonso’s heir and successor Urraca also claimed rule over the whole of Spain in her titulature, even if she rarely used “imperatrix” opting for “regina” much more often.170 By the time of Urraca’s rule, it is certainly not possible to say that she was the ruler of all of Spain, given her conflicts with Alfonso I the Battler of Aragon, her one-time husband and multiple time foe, or her ongoing conflicts with her sister in the nascent kingdom of Portugal. But the use of the claim persisted and was passed down to her own son and successor, Alfonso VII. Alfonso VII was not only not ruler of all of Spain, he was not even the only emperor in the peninsula. Alfonso I the Battler, his step-father, was still also using the imperial title intermittently, though less after he lost possession of Toledo to Urraca and Alfonso VII in 1117.171 Alfonso I only gave up all claims to the imperial title in an 1127 agreement with Alfonso VII, paving the way for Alfonso VII’s eventual coronation as emperor in 1135.172 But despite Alfonso I’s cession of the title of emperor, it

167 Reilly, The Kingdom of Leó n-Castilla Under King Alfonso VI, 103. 168 Though Sirantoine does note that the claim to such a title may have encompassed the taifa kingdoms in Alfonso’s mind. Sirantoine, Imperator Hispaniae, 412. 169 Bernard F. Reilly, The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VII, 1126–1157 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 36. 170 Reilly, The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VII, 36; Martin, Queen as King, 181. 171 Martin, Queen as King, 181–182. 172 Martin, Queen as King, 182.

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did not lessen the number of polities in Iberia independent of Alfonso VII. In fact, Alfonso I’s successor and brother Ramiro II even had as a subordinate ruler the self-styled king of Pamplona, García, who was subject to his “imperium.”173 Thus, the claim made by three generations of Leónese rulers that they ruled “all of Spain” was not ever actualized on the ground, but was designed to aggrandize themselves and their position with the hope and idea that it would eventually become a reality. “The state generates the most evidence for its ‘powers’ as it is trying to usher them into being, before it actually has them.”174 This idea, succinctly expressed by Richardson is the essence of the claims-making idea. None of these polities discussed, to slightly rephrase, has the powers that it claims with their titles and titular formations, but they (or their chroniclers) would very much like to have those powers. As always in this volume, the examples highlighted here are just a few of the many which could be drawn upon in the arc of medieval Europe. And as in this chapter as a whole, this is not an idea confined only to the arc but is a commonplace for medieval rulership more broadly – with rulers and their polities claiming more powers than they have as a way both to create those powers in potentia as well as convince others that they are more powerful than they might otherwise seem. Central Places and Itinerant Rulership

Given our modern ideas of states, capitals seem normative. Though both Wickham and Luscombe’s cautions earlier in the chapter about reading such modern ideas back into the past need to be kept in mind. But, even for medieval people, we suspect that capitals were still a normative idea given that the Roman Empire had one and that there is a wide discourse on the spread of Romanitas throughout medieval Europe in the Middle Ages.175 Rome, as an idea, certainly was something that was evocative for many rulers who were looking to claim power for themselves, but in practicality, Rome itself was not always a great example of a capital. For instance, during the era of Diocletian and the third-century crisis, four cities became the political centers for the empire. Trier, Milan, Sirmium, and Nicomedia all housed emperors, either augusti or caesars, testament to the decentralization of the capital but also of the power structure. As is well known, Constantine reunited the empire in the next century and founded the city of

173 Reilly, The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VII, 48, Citing “January 1135. Pub. Ubieto Arteta, Documentos, pp. 65–66. May 1135.” 174 Richardson, “Before Things Worked,” 18. 175 One particularly good example of the scholarship on this for early medieval Europe is Anthea Harris. Byzantium Britain and the West: The Archeology of Cultural Identity, AD 400–650. (Charleston, SC: Tempus Publishing, 2003).

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Constantinople on the Bosporus which would become the centralized capital par excellence of the Middle Ages. Constantinople remained the seat of imperial government for the medieval Roman empire, which Wickham refers to as, “a highly centralized state, defended by a set of regional (‘thematic’) armies whose autonomous tendencies were kept in check by fiscal control from the capital, Constantinople, and by the trained troops (tagmata) which were based there.”176 A similar sense of Constantinople as the center is articulated by Niels Gaul who, in writing about the tenth-century texts attributed to emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos, De Cerimoniis and De Thematibus, sees the city as the center of not just the medieval Roman Empire, but an articulation of a wider Christian space.177 Others, such as Garth Fowden, note Constantinople as the center in relation to a periphery in multiple periods, and in fact suggest Constantinople as an ur-center in some ways.178 When modern historians write of the “Byzantine Empire” Constantinople is often seen as a stand in for the empire as whole and the emperor ruling Constantinople as the only governance of the realm.179 This is so common as to not need much more discussion, Constantinople was the capital, power flowed from there, case closed. While we have examined the extent of the reality of the claims made and the strong, or weak, power of the Roman ruler, it is well known that the emperor, or emperors, were largely sedentary and based full-time in Constantinople.180 They were not itinerant, though they sometimes engaged in military campaigns away from the capital, particularly in our period with losses at Manzikert in the east and Alexius Komnenos’ campaigns in the west against the Normans. But largely there was an imperial center in

176 Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 31. 177 Niels Gaul, “Zooming in on Constantinople: Introductory Notes on the Interplay of Center, Province and Periphery in the Tenth-Century Byzantine Empire” in Center, Province and Periphery in the Age of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos: From De Ceremoniis to De Administrando Imperio, ed. Niels Gail, Volker Menze and Csanad Balint (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2018): 1–21. 178 Garth Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). 179 This can be seen in a variety of publications, but recently especially see Judith Herrin, “Byzantium: Imperial Order, Constantinopolitan Ceremonial and Pyramids of Power” in Political Culture in the Latin West, Byzantium and the Islamic World, c. 700-c. 1500: A Framework for Comparing Three Spheres, ed. Catherine Holmes, Jonathan Shepard, Jo van Steenbergen, and Björn Weiler (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2021), 290–329. One could also see the entries in The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies, ed. E. Jeffreys, J. Haldon, and R. Cormack (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 180 Mark Whittow, “The Second Fall: The Place of the Eleventh Century in Roman History,” in Byzantium in the Eleventh Century: Being in Between; Papers from the 45th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Exeter College, Oxford, 14-6 March 2012, ed. Marc D. Lauxtermann and Mark Whittow (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), 113.

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Constantinople – a location that writers of the period simply referred to as “the city” as if there were no other.181 The idea of a centralized capital was adopted by others, Toledo was discussed briefly above, but the most common example of the early medieval period is Charlemagne’s foundation of Aachen. Despite this foundation, Charlemagne himself was largely itinerant throughout his reign, participating in military campaigns nearly every year, keeping him away from any kind of center, and keeping government (such as it was) with him. Louis the Pious may have managed to keep more to a central place, but once infighting with his children began, that too set him on the move. The inheritors of central European power, the Ottonians were famously itinerant. John Bernhardt has written a whole book on this subject, which stretches into the Salian dynasty as well.182 Even before Bernhardt, Janet Nelson emphasized the same principle noting the itinerancy of the Ottonian and Salian rulers, though she points out the continuation of Aachen and its importance saying, “Conrad’s regnum consisted of several regna, and its ‘archthrone’ was at Aachen.”183 If we combine this brief German example, with the French ones seen in the introduction to the chapter, we can see that Constantinople, while perhaps a model or an ideal, was not imitated in the way that moderns would like to think as a medieval capital throughout the continent. Thus, when we turn now to the arc of medieval Europe, we will see that the decentralized polities there are more similar than different to those in western medieval Europe. Grischa Vercamer suggests that contrary to the experience of the German Empire, itinerant kingship was not practiced in East Central Europe.184 He follows this assertion with the statement that, “All three polities [Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary] sooner or later developed central places of power.” While it is certainly true that they all eventually developed central places of power, it does not naturally follow that they never had itinerant kingship. Itinerant kingship can certainly be seen in the sources for both Hungary and Poland in the period under examination in this volume. Márta Font states quite clearly that in Hungary, “The royal court lacked a constant place or

181 See, for example, entries in Michael Attaleiates, The History, transl. Anthony Kaldellis and Dimitris Krallis (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press [Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library], 2012). 182 John W. Bernhardt, Itinerant Kingship and Royal Monasteries in Early Medieval Germany, c. 936–1075 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 183 Nelson, “Kingship and Empire,” 243–244. 184 Grischa Vercamer, “The Holy Roman Empire and East Central Europe (High Middle Ages): Politics and Influences,” in Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe: Power, Rituals and Legitimacy in Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, ed. Grischa Vercamer and Dušan Zupka (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022): 367.

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seat during the reign of the Arpads.”185 She sees it as completely normal that the king and his entourage traveled around the realm, eating up the resources of the seventy-two counts and their regions, and providing justice and rule wherever they went. Julia Burkhardt, in the same volume as Vercamer’s article, notes that creating a capital for Hungary was quite difficult and that there were multiple centers for different purposes, political, ecclesiastical, and commercial.186 In fact, there is a whole book on the multiple capitals of Hungary, Medium Regni, which discusses the roles that these individual centers played over the course of the Middle Ages.187 This slim volume agrees with the opinion offered by Font: It has to be known that in the first centuries of the Middle Ages the sovereigns had no seats, thus - at least in the present meaning - no capital either. The kings and princes regularly travelled through their country, and they either stayed in one of their mansions or palaces scattered around the country or were invited by the prelates and ecclesiastical boards … The government of the country was where the sovereign was staying.188 Medium Regni, which informed Burkhardt’s view, emphasizes the ecclesiastical significance of Esztergom as it was the home of the main archbishop of Hungary. Arnold of Lübeck called it the “principal place in Hungary” in the twelfth century.189 Székesfehérvár was the prominent second city and was the place where rulers were crowned, and later buried. It is noted as the capital in sources from the medieval Roman Empire due to the coronations taking place there.190 And in discussing King Salomon in 1063, the Annales Altahenses called it “his kingdom’s metropolis.”191 Medium Regni further

185 Márta Font, “The Dynasty of the Arpads and Their Method of Ruling,” in ‘In my spirit and thought I remained a European of Hungarian origin’: medieval historical studies in memory of Zoltan J. Kosztolnyik, ed. Eleanor A. Congdon (Szegad: JATEPress, 2010): 104. 186 Julia Burkhardt, “Assemblies in the Holy Roman Empire and the East Central European Kingdoms: A Comparative Essay on Political Participation and Representation,” in Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe: Power, Rituals and Legitimacy in Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, ed. Grischa Vercamer and Dušan Zupka (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022): 202. 187 Julianna Altmann, et al., Medium Regni: Medieval Hungarian Royal Seats (Budapest: Nap Kladó, 1999). 188 Medium Regni, 5. 189 The Chronicle of Arnold of Lübeck, transl. Graham A. Loud (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), Bk. IV, ch. 8 (p. 148). 190 Medium Regni, 67. 191 “Annales Altahenses maiores” edentibus Wilhelmo de Giesebrecht et Edmundo L. B. ab Oefele Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores vol. XX (Hannover: Impensis Bibliopolii Avlici Hahniani, 1868), s.a. 1063, p. 813.

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discusses Buda and Visegrád as centers of the kingdom. Even from this brief look we can see the common opinion that the rulers were itinerant, and that the idea of capital or central place was more variable in the middle ages than in our modern definition of state. Given that medieval sources considered both Esztergom and Székesfehérvár the capital, which would we as modern historians choose to prioritize? The reality seems to be that the Hungarians prioritized both, akin to what we saw in regard to corulership and corporate rule (in Chapter 2). They did not have our modern sense of requiring a fixed place or certain order. The situation in Poland is similar, at least initially. János Bak, in an analysis of the Gesta Principum Polonorum (GPP) notes that the text “describes in the greatest of detail the famous Bolesław I Chrobry’s wellorganized itinerant rulership.”192 Bolesław was not the first of the Polish rulers, that would be his father Mieszko, but he is an immensely powerful ruler, who managed to maintain rule among his father’s territories and expand, albeit briefly, into Bohemian territory as well. Despite this attested itinerancy, a central place, or multiple central places, are hard to escape in the literature.193 Cracow is the city which is typically depicted as the capital of Poland.194 It first became important as a royal center during Casimir’s reconstitution of a Polish kingdom during the second quarter of the eleventh century.195 But if we return to the GPP, we can see that in the context of its account of the political history of this period, Cracow is one center among many. To be fair, it does seem to be a center that gets mentioned with some regularity. For instance, in narrating a morality tale about Bolesław II, he is pictured “seated in his court in front of the palace” in Cracow.196 Similarly, at the end of the GPP when Bolesław III is confronting the German Emperor, the latter threatens to march on Cracow, though he neglects to do so, taking Wrocław instead.197 But there are other centers as well.

192 János M. Bak, “Legitimization of Rulership in Three Narratives from Twelfth-Century Central Europe” Majestas 12 (2004): 53. 193 Zbigniew Dalewski, writing about “the Piast Rulership” begins his piece by focusing on the many tenth century central places which have been excavated as a way to attempt to better understand the early history of Piast rule. Zbigniew Dalewski, “The Piast Rulership,” in Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe: Power, Rituals and Legitimacy in Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, ed. Grischa Vercamer and Dušan Zupka (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022): 111–114. 194 Given the citations thus far, this is the case for both Vercamer and Burkhardt. Vercamer, “The Holy Roman Empire and East Central Europe (High Middle Ages),” 367; Burkhardt, “Assemblies in the Holy Roman Empire and the East Central European Kingdoms,” 202. 195 Nora Berend, Przemysław Urbańczyk, and Przemysław Wiszewski, Central Europe in the High Middle Ages: Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, c. 900–1300 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 162. 196 Gesta Principum Polonorum, Bk 1, ch. 26 (93–94). 197 Gesta Principum Polonorum, Bk. 3, ch. 13 (245), Bk. 3, ch. 15 (247).

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The multiplicity of centers becomes particularly clear when the anonymous author of the GPP narrates the division of territory between Władysław II and his sons in the later 1090s.198 Władysław assigns territory to his two sons, Zbigniew and Bolesław, and keeps “the chief seats of the realm in his own hands.” The plural is not a mistake, as we see immediately following this a statement that when Władysław dies, Bolesław would have the “principal seats of the realm – in Wrocław, in Cracow, and in Sandomierz.”199 The plural seats are delineated here and they include not just Cracow, but Wrocław and Sandomierz as well. Such a model fits in well with the picture that we have seen above for Hungary, and is common more widely in medieval Europe, that there are multiple royal centers, not just one. Even in this source, we see this reinforced later as the brothers, Zbigniew and Bolesław, disagree and multiple royal centers are discussed as part of their allocation, and reallocation, of land.200 This last example brings us into the beginning of the twelfth century, when the rulership picture shifts in Poland and we see the division of the realm into multiple pieces, all ruled by members of the Piast clan. In 1138, when Bolesław III died, he left what has been known as a “Testament” dividing his lands up amongst his children. The eldest was to have a section in the middle of the realm, reminiscent of Lothar’s portion in Louis the Pious’s division of the Carolingian empire. This portion contained Cracow itself. Władysław, the then current eldest son was to have Silesia as his personal territory to pass on to his own children. The next oldest son, also named Bolesław, was to receive Mazovia and eastern Kujavia, Mieszko had Wielkopolska, and finally Henryk had Sandomierz and Lublin.201 If we look just at the three designated “principal seats of the realm” from above (Wrocław, Cracow, and Sandomierz), we can see that they are now located in three of the five different territories. Cracow is in the portion of the senior ruler, Wrocław in Władysław’s personal portion, and Sandomierz in Henryk’s territory. I would suggest that this breakdown confounds our attempts to understand central places and designate them. Neither Bolesław (IV), eldest son of Bolesław III and his second wife, nor their next eldest son Mieszko, received one of those main three cities which we saw in the GPP as “principal seats of the realm.” Bolesław (IV) had Plock, and Mieszko had Poznan in their

198 199 200 201

Gesta Principum Polonorum, Bk. 2, ch. 7 (133). Gesta Principum Polonorum, Bk. 2, ch. 8 (133–135). Gesta Principum Polonorum, Bk. 2, ch. 21 (157). “Chronica Polonorum.” in Monumenta Poloniae Historica. Tom 3. ed. Ludwik Čwikliński, 578–656. (Lwów: W Komisie księgarni gubrynowicza I schmidta, 1878), 630. See also, Tadeusz Manteuffel, The Formation of the Polish State: The Period of Ducal Rule, 963–1194 transl. Andrew Gorski (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1982), 118, and map 5 (117).

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respective territories, so should we add them to the list of central places earlier? They certainly became so, to some extent at least, over the course of the twelfth century as these regions developed. But the main takeaway from all of this is that there were multiple centers recognized as important, and we might not always know all of them, or think of them in the same way as people did at the time. When the author of the GPP wrote of the “great royal city named Alba” in Pomerania, did that became a major center for the Piasts? Or was it identified as such simply to aggrandize its conqueror? Whatever royal centers we identify, we must acknowledge that the term is plural for our period, not singular. In an example akin to both of these, Norway was a polity with multiple power centers in different regions, and with different purposes. The geography of Norway helps to dictate this, as, in the period under discussion, it was unified largely through maritime contacts; the name itself symbolized the North Way that one travelled through the various constituent territories. Three centers in particular came to be core areas of the kingdom of Norway, Oslo in the east, Bergen in the west, and Nidaros (Trondheim) in the north.202 Bergen and Nidaros were trading centers, as can be seen in the Morkinskinna narrative of the former town’s creation, “A trading town was established in Norway that was more magnificent than any previous one, with the exception of the center at Niðaróss. That town was called Bjǫrgvin [Bergen].”203 In addition, Nidaros was also a place where surplus agricultural materials could be gathered, as was Oslo – a key function of a central place being its ability to feed the ruler and court.204 This tradition of feasting is well documented in Morkinskinna and we even see a clear reference to the multiplicity of “royal residences and feast halls.”205 We see two of these centers late in our period as home to some of the first castles in Norway. King Sverre Sigurdsson built “Sion in Trondheim in 1180 as well as a castle in Bergen in the 1190s.”206 In general, Sverre Bagge notes that there was a “strong connection between the rise of the monarchy and the rise of towns.”207

202 My discussion of this is informed from reading the work of Hans Jacob Orning. In particular, the overview in his “The governance of high medieval Norway (c. 1100–1350)” in How Medieval Europe was Ruled (in process). 203 Morkinskinna: The Earliest Icelandic Chronicle of the Norwegian Kings (1030–1157) Transl. Theodore M. Andersson and Kari Ellen Gade (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2000), ch. 53, p. 280. 204 Orning, “The governance of high medieval Norway (c. 1100–1350)” 205 Morkinskinna, ch. 53, p. 280. For more feasts, one can see ch. 14 (p. 151), ch. 30 (p. 192), ch. 37 (p. 219) for just three examples. 206 Sverre Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom: State Formation in Norway, c. 900–1350 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2010), 80. 207 Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 125.

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Multiple examples exist of the transit of rulers throughout the realm, particularly between these points. For instance, after the death of King Magnus in 1047, his co-ruler King Harald traveled north to Nidaros where he convened the “Eyrarþing, and all Norway swore fealty to him at that meeting.”208 Once they had proclaimed him “sole monarch over the whole land” he “traveled east to Oslo and received the hospitality due the king.”209 And Morkinskinna further reports that he received that hospitality in “the king’s hall.” In the early twelfth century, while King Sigurd was away in Jerusalem, earning his moniker of “Jerusalem-farer” his brother King Eystein had “built the great hall in Bjǫrgvin, the greatest and most famous wooden building in Norway” as well as having “the Church of the Apostles constructed in the king’s compound in Bjǫrgvin.”210 Here we have multiple compounds or halls of the king, in multiple towns adding to our understanding of the multiple centers of power. This example is also of interest given that in Chapter 3 we saw that upon their accession to the throne “Sigurðr ruled the eastern part of the country and was entitled to official entertainment and the revenue” while “King Eysteinn ruled the north around Thrandheimr.”211 Bergen, where Eysteinn built his grand wooden building and the Church of the Apostles in the king’s compound was not in the Trondheim region, nor was it in the eastern territory allotted to Sigurdr. Eystein, especially while Sigurd was gone, was king over all of the territories and acted as such in the multiple centers of the realm. Chapter 100 of Morkinskinna shares a particularly relevant passage dealing with all of the royal centers in one story. It concerns the sons of King Harald Gille, each of whom was by a different woman, their joint rule, and struggle for power.212 This particular incident occurs circa 1155. After the death of King Sigurd in battle with his brother King Inge, Inge went north to Trondheim and their other brother, King Eysteinn, went to Vík, near Oslo.213 The two were at odds over the death of Sigurd and were each trying to rally support, eventually leading to them meeting for battle that summer near Bergen. Both parties though chose negotiation over conflict and an agreement on payment and outlawry for participants in the events around Sigurd’s death were decided. Following this meeting, the two kings moved on and switched positions, with Ingi going east to the Oslo region and Eystein going north to Trondheim. The interaction between the brothers contains all

208 209 210 211 212

Morkinskinna, ch. 29, p. 187. Morkinskinna, ch. 30, p. 192. Morkinskinna, ch. 64, p. 326. Morkinskinna, ch. 60, p. 313. A brief recap of the story can be found in Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom, 43. 213 Morkinskinna, ch. 100, p. 402.

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three of the main power centers, as well as letting us know that each of them, at least in the middle of the twelfth century was not exclusively tied to one particular area. They needed to make their progress throughout the realm, to all of the major centers, as a way to continue to repeat and reinforce their authority. We could expand these examples throughout the arc of medieval Europe. Just briefly from Iberia, we can see the example of Alfonso VI of LeónCastile who lived a life of itinerancy. Bernard Reilly’s in-depth look at his life and rule shows Alfonso moving almost ceaselessly throughout his realm. For instance, after his marriage to Berta they traversed the realm with major stops at Valladolid, Sahagún (outside of León), and Oviedo.214 With the king moved a court of varying size, though often small. Two of the main figures of that court were his daughter Urraca and her husband Count Raymond. This Raymond was the count of Galicia and Portugal, while Elvira’s husband was Count Raymond of Toulouse. In a grant of 1093, Alfonso VI made Count Raymond the second most powerful man in the kingdom after himself, and we see both Raymond and Urraca signing documents jointly with Alfonso VI, such as in 1094 when the three signed a document choosing a new bishop for Compostela.215 Reinforcing Reilly’s conclusions about the itinerancy of medieval rulers, as well as our own and others, we see Raymond and Alfonso VI not just moving jointly but separately around the realm of León-Castile reinforcing their own power structures, as well as the kingdom’s as a whole. As a whole, the idea that medieval European polities needed to be centralized is problematic, given that so many of them were not. There may have been aspirations to centralization, to model the Roman or medieval Roman empires in a whole variety of ways, including the creation of a capital and an ideal of sedentary rulership. But in practice, we simply do not see that level of centralization operative on the ground. Such a claim is not breaking new theoretical ground, rather its place here is to compound the examples offered elsewhere in order to help overturn the historiographical conception that a medieval polity needs a center. This preconception is still extant in the literature and is especially seen in regards to eastern European (writ broadly) polities, whose modern authors often feel that their medieval subject areas need to have a central place to be similar to the medieval West and to take their place in the full spectrum of medieval Europe. Clearly, one does not need this, and the more examples we can adduce will help to demonstrate

214 Reilly, The Kingdom of Leó n-Castilla Under King Alfonso VI, 250. 215 Historia Compostellana, ed. Emma Falque Rey (Turnhout: Brepols, 1988), Bk.1, ch. 5, p. 18; Reilly, The Kingdom of Leó n-Castilla Under King Alfonso VI, 239, 246.

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that to the wider scholarly world and reshape how we think and write about medieval Europe as a whole. Conclusion

Injecting the idea of weak power polities and claims making into our discussion of rulers and rulership in the arc of medieval Europe shifts the theoretical framework from one traditionally focused on the idea of state, often founded in a discourse on Max Weber, and centralization to a new and different model that seems quite applicable not just to this region but to all of medieval Europe. While the majority of medieval European rulers may have aspired to rule strong, centralized polities under their command, this was quite rare. And when rulers were particularly strong, they were often viewed as tyrannical.216 Instead, it was much more common to see weak rulers negotiating their power with weak elites. Even in the heartland of western Europe we see this in an excellent example offered by Raoul van Caenegem, “The king of France, in a conflict with one of his vassals, accepted arbitration by another of his vassals: thus in 1022 Robert the Pious actually submitted his quarrel with Odo II of Blois to Duke Richard II of Normandy, who summoned both parties to his court.”217 These are not the actions of a strong, centralizing ruler. They are more much more akin to what we have seen in regard to Norway and elsewhere wherein rulers needed to cooperate with their elites to create rulership as a whole. Similarly, those same rulers, knowing that they were not as strong as they would have liked to be, offered up claims to greatness or at least greater rule for themselves, such as claiming to be the emperor of all of Spain, rather than just the ruler of one polity among many. These claims, whether articulated by rulers themselves, or on their behalf by chroniclers, moneyers, etc. were a way to attempt to claim power through rhetoric in the hope that such rhetorically based claims would one day be actualized. In the discipline of modern Anglophone medieval studies we can see how those claims have been accepted, or not, by modern scholars and promoted for some places over others. Medieval France is a kingdom that gets written about as a centralized whole, even though the ruler did not exercise much power for most of our period beyond the Ile de France. Meanwhile, no one outside of Iberia typically refers to any ruler of León as an emperor or takes seriously their claim to be the ruler of all of Spain. As Richardson noted for Babylon, sometimes the claims are successful, even wildly successful, but not often during the lifetime of those who initially articulated the claim.

216 Luscombe, “Introduction: The Formation of Political Thought in the West,” 158. 217 van Caenegem, “Government, Law and Society,” 181.

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The issue for capitals and itinerant rulership is quite the same, as the existence of multiple capitals undermines our preconceptions regarding the goal of centralization. The multiple capitals in Poland, Hungary, and Norway and the ways that rulers utilized those capitals for different purposes, or to situate their power at particular times, provides plentiful examples of that fact. Similarly, the ruling families of those polities were also often sharing power together. The Hungarian king and duke, brothers or cousins, were co-regal and the latter had control over 1/3 of the realm, even if was not a consistent set of territory. Urraca and Elvira were vital to the ambitions of not just Alfonso VI, but Sancho and García as well, because they all wielded a level of power together. All of which leads us to the point that the historiographical construct of a centralized medieval state as the reality, or even the goal, is simply incorrect. While there is detailed scholarship on this, noted in the introduction to this chapter, for the west, it is much less true broadly speaking for the eastern half of Europe. There, there is still a sense that itinerancy, a lack of a capital, a lack of single rule is a defining factor of eastern European “otherness.” This has led scholars to try and find a capital, a ruler, and other things that will make their polity more like the idealized vision of England or France. Instead of encouraging this, we need to publish and publicize a more accurate version of the decentralized medieval polities throughout Europe, making it acceptable, normative even, to have capitals and rulers, rather than the singulars of those. Only in that way will it become acceptable for the polities in the maligned eastern half of Europe, in particular, to acknowledge the pluralities of power that were normal there, and everywhere. Utilizing the theoretical basis offered here gives us a new way to talk about medieval polities and their internal interactions in a way that gets away from some problematic, reified concepts. And while herein we have discussed them for the arc of medieval Europe, the same concepts can be applied broadly to all of medieval Europe. If we do so, we can develop our understanding of the way that rulership worked throughout the continent rather than reading modern nation-states or conceptual boundary markers (East and West) into the past. That, I would suggest, is the future of medieval Europe.

CONCLUSION

There is so much that one could do to study rulers and rulership in the arc of medieval Europe, or, of course, in medieval Europe as a whole. The purpose of this book has not been to do everything, merely to sketch out a framework that encourages us to question some of the received wisdom about how we view rulers and rulership, typically as kings and states, and focused on western Europe, while utilising material from a broad swathe of territory not typically looked at together. There is room still to tackle major issues. One example, expounded upon here is taxation. Ernst Kantorowicz in his classic, though much debated, The King’s Two Bodies has a trenchant quote on the issue of medieval taxation: “Public taxation, in the earlier Middle Ages, was always extraordinary and always ad hoc, for taxes fell due not on the return of a certain date, but on the return of a certain event.”1 While Kantorowicz’s words were written decades ago, Daniel Power reiterates their sense quite recently in his discussion of the Latin West where he talks about the concessions that rulers, even strong ones, had to give their elites in exchange for taxation resulting in the idea that, “One of the most varied powers in Latin Christendom was the ability to raise direct taxation.”2 Taxation, despite these difficulties, has remained at the center of discussions about medieval states and the ability of medieval polities as a whole to extract

1 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), 284. 2 Daniel Power, “The Latin West: Multiple Elites and Overlapping Jurisdictions,” in Political Culture in the Latin West, Byzantium and the Islamic World, c. 700-c. 1500: A Framework for Comparing Three Spheres, ed. Catherine Holmes, Jonathan Shepard, Jo van Steenbergen, and Björn Weiler (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2021), 382.

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resources from their populations. Moreover, it is often thought that taxation becomes the sine qua non for establishing statehood. The main proponent of a modern theory of taxation in the medieval period is Chris Wickham.3 His breakdown of the three main types of polities in early medieval Europe hinges around taxation, and he highlights more generally the idea that resource availability and acquisition are essential to differentiating between the effective powers that rulers had.4 He sums this up most effectively by noting that he “will concentrate on the differences between strong and weak states; the basic difference being in the role of taxation.”5 In his analysis of early medieval taxation, or the lack thereof, he walks through the Roman Empire which “was territorially unified by its tax system” and when the empire fell in the west, the biggest challenge was “the collapse of the tax system.”6 Mark Whittow, citing Wickham’s ideas, stated clearly that, “At its most fundamental, what differentiated the Roman state from any in the high medieval west was the fact that Rome was based on taxation.”7 Moreover, he emphasises the monetisation of the economy and the salaried army, the latter of which Wickham emphasises in general, as hallmarks of that taxing impetus of the empire.8 Whittow’s ideas on the medieval Roman Empire largely coincide with those of Wickham on the early medieval period for the Roman Empire.9 Timothy Reuter discussed taxation at length in multiple articles and came to the conclusion that “Before the mid-eleventh century, calculable forms of income such as taxes or the profits of the exercise of justice played hardly any role.”10 England, Reuter points out, plays an exceptional role in the source record as is so often the case. In this instance, the collections of Danegeld beginning in the ninth century create a basis for taxation, as well as for monetisation, that was unlike almost anything else in medieval Europe at the time.11 In the German Empire, the

3 Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 4 Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 56. 5 Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 56–57. 6 Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 72, 58. 7 Mark Whittow, “The Second Fall: The Place of the Eleventh Century in Roman History,” in Byzantium in the Eleventh Century: Being in Between; Papers from the 45th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Exeter College, Oxford, 14-6 March 2012, ed. Marc D. Lauxtermann and Mark Whittow (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), 112. 8 Whittow, “The Second Fall,” 113–114. 9 Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 125–149. 10 Timothy Reuter, “All quiet except on the Western Front? The emergence of pre-modern forms of statehood in the central Middle Ages” in Medieval Polities and Modern Mentalities, ed. Janet L. Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006): 444. 11 Timothy Reuter, “The making of England and Germany, 850–1050: points of comparison and difference” in Medieval Polities and Modern Mentalities, ed. Janet L. Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006): 293; Reuter, “All quiet except on the Western Front?” 444.

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situation was radically different as Reuter points out that “we know hardly any more about the income of Frederick Barbarossa than we do about the income of Otto I” as evidence for the fact that from the late tenth to the mid-twelfth century, there is little change in the government’s ability to extract resources from the population, or at least in what we can know about it.12 And his big takeaway for taxation in the German Empire is that, “German rulers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries lived largely off direct income from a mixture of dynastic and fiscal possessions (these were often hard to disentangle).”13 Given the wide-ranging work on taxation in medieval Europe that has been done for the Roman Empire and for Western Europe, it is a topic that could be dealt with as well for the arc of medieval Europe. That analysis would help to bring the studies of multiple facets of rulership into accord with the scholarship going on elsewhere in medieval European studies. My intent for mentioning just a bit about taxation is not only to highlight it as an important issue, but to emphasise the importance of the arc of medieval Europe as a discursive framework for further discussions. Through this work I do not hope to create yet another region by which to divide Europe. Rather, I think that the arc of medieval Europe works well as a tool to compare and contrast what we know about western Europe and thus what we think we know about “medieval Europe” as a whole. Further, I hope that this work encourages others to take a broadly comparative approach in looking at such materials. Taxation is just one example that someone might take up to better understand the issue throughout all of medieval Europe via an examination of polities within the arc. The end result should be that the arc of medieval Europe and “medieval Europe” fit together like pieces of a jigsaw where once we saw just one piece, and perhaps thought it was all, now we can see a much larger picture. With an acknowledgement of what more could be done, it is worth looking at what has been done here and what the potential ramifications are for integrating it into the study of medieval Europe. Beginning in Part I where the broadest challenges can be seen. Titles of rulers, multiplicity of rulers, and succession of rulers are not as straight forward or as binary as is typically seen in the secondary literature. When I began talking about changing the titulature of the ruler of Rus from “prince” to “king,” the pushback from western medievalists was immediate – “if we make the Rusian ruler a king, it changes what king means and we have to reevaluate all the titles.”14 At the time I

12 Reuter, “All quiet except on the Western Front?” 446–447. 13 Reuter, “All quiet except on the Western Front?” 447. 14 For the change in titulature see my The Kingdom of Rus’ (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2017). The comment is a distillation of one made to me numerous times in conversations and panel discussions.

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demurred, wanting to keep the focus just on Rus, but the short answer to the comment is in fact “yes.” Yes, we need to change all of the titles. At the very least, as the first part of this book has shown, we need to be aware of what the titles mean and how we use them. If Charlemagne is going to be an emperor because he is called one, then Offa of Mercia should be an emperor as well. If Boris of Bulgaria is called “rex” in the sources, we should call him a “king” rather than a “khan.” And so on given the examples that were discussed in the arc of medieval Europe in the first part of this book. Moreover, kings are not, or should not be, the primary point of discourse. Nor, for that matter, should queens. Rulers works as a term for both kings and queens and allows us to talk about the multiplicity of political actors who made the realm function. Rulers is inclusive of kings and queens who worked together to rule a realm, but it also includes the two kings who ruled together; as well as the king, his wife the queen, and his daughters the queens, as we see in Iberia. Expanding our conception of rulers and rulership allows for a broader framework of what we can see when we look at the source base. It took work in the, comparatively, recent past for us to begin to consider the immense work done by women in the royal household. If we can now take that as a given, and look at how rulers (as a collective) worked to rule, what else will come to light? What new patterns of development will we see? In Part 2 on ecclesiastical relations, we saw a broad array of interactions between rulers and secular and monastic clergy. One of the stand-out items is the similarities across the theoretical religious divide of East and West, Orthodox and Latin. In particular, monasteries and women’s monasteries saw the involvement of female founders and female leaders in Iberia, the medieval Roman Empire and in Rus. The comparative nature of such a project allows us to see such similarities and once they are seen, they are hard to unsee. I suspect that more and more similarities will come to light if we take these examples to heart and begin looking across Europe rather than staying in regional, national, or, theoretical, ecclesiastical silos. In the secular religious world, we see the parallels established with the foundations of bishoprics to advance royal authority, and the especially interesting situation of multiple archbishoprics in Rus and Hungary. The ecclesiastical relations discussed in this part are only the very small tip of the iceberg and can be expanded with numerous additional examples. For instance, if we discuss the ways that elite family members did and did not become ecclesiastics, there would actually be more of a contrast between what we see in Rus versus elsewhere in medieval Europe. It was rare in Rus for elites to join monasteries, unless on their deathbeds, while it was more common in Latin Europe. Also, in this part, we continue the problematisation of dynastic mausolea and their creation. Given the examples for the arc of medieval Europe we see that it is much more common for rulers to honor their own

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family, rather than to create a multi-generational establishment. The dynastic mausolea that we do see, which ties into the idea of dynasty in general, are thirteenth century creations by and large. Adding more data to our study of such concepts helps us to break down the idea of dynasty itself as a mode of analysis for the period under consideration. The third part utilises a new theoretical perspective to help to decentralise our views on rulership. The ideas about weak power polities and weak power players interacting with one another to rule fits what we see going on in the arc of medieval Europe quite well. In examples throughout the arc, we see rulers not as all powerful autocrats, but as ones in need of ruling assistance, as they meet and engage with their elites, also weak actors, to try to come to some accord to move the realm forward. Similarly, utilising the idea of claims making, it is apparent that medieval rulers made grandiose claims for themselves that they were unable to actualise. But those claims have then been taken by modern, and not so modern, scholars as factual representations of authority. Following our tried-and-true practice we have continued to cite those earlier interpretations of authority and understanding and thus perpetuated the claims in a way which the ancient and medieval rulers must love, could they only see it. By utilising this theoretical framework, we inject a new component into the discussion of medieval polities that gets us away from the constant wrangling over states and non-states. Instead, weak rulers were the norm, all over medieval Europe, and those weak rulers, recognising they were weak, also made grand claims for themselves so that people would not think they were weak. This way of looking at medieval power politics is one that can help unite our different regions of Europe in a common methodological understanding of what was going on and why. Finally, the examples of a lack of a single central place and itinerant rulership adds to an existing panoply of examples with the aim of hoping to finally break the still dominant narrative of centralising rulers and rulership as normative and “good.” Breaking such a norm is especially important in the eastern and east central European world where the historiography has internalised the critique of their lack of such things to such an extent that central places are claimed as a way to meet an idealised western criterion for statehood. All of these arguments, taken together, advance our understanding of rulership in the arc of medieval Europe, but also, ideally, will fit into the ways that we understand rulership already so that the study of all of Europe can proceed from here as one, rather than continuing piecemeal.

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INDEX

Adam of Bremen 103, 109, 112–113, 161–163 Afonso Henriques 33–34, 198–199, 217 Alexios Komnenos 70–71, 182–183, 206–208, 211, 216, 217 Alfonso I of Aragon 52–53, 54n170, 264–265 Alfonso VI 32, 52, 180, 191, 192, 236, 244–247, 263–264, 273, 275 Alfonso VII 32–33, 52–55, 166, 191–192, 193, 262, 264–265 Alfonso VIII 193–197 Álmos of Hungary 126–128, 242 Anastasia of Minsk 37, 222 Anastasia Iaroslavna 123–124 Ando, Clifford 13–14, 232–233, 237, 239 Andrei Bogoliubskii Iurevich 145–147, 180–181 Andrew of Hungary 121–123, 129, 169 Anna Iaroslavna 58, 62 Anna Dalassene 71, 206, 208, 212 Anna Komnene 70–71, 183, 207–208, 212 Aragon 52, 54, 190, 197–198, 264 Bagge, Sverre 5, 24–25, 77, 81, 95, 166–167, 250–252, 271 Bagi, Dániel 5, 122–123, 129, 153, 204, 241–242 Bartlett, Robert 2, 4, 32, 59, 60, 62, 64–65, 91–92, 100, 102, 234, 244

Basil II 47, 63, 65, 69 basileus 17–18, 41–45, 47–48, 49–50, 52, 57, 209, 210 Béla I of Hungary 121–124 Béla II the Blind of Hungary 126–128 Bergen 271–272 Bisson, Thomas 41, 234, 239, 254–255 Bolesław I Chrobry 200, 204, 269 Bolesław III 83–86, 87, 91, 140, 200–201, 204, 269–270 Bolesław IV 88, 270 Boris and Gleb (Saints) 142, 146 (Boris as ruler, not saint) 158 Brian Boru 55, 73, 247–248, 259–260 Bulgaria 43–48, 50, 51, 134, 170–172, 219, 279 Byzantium (see Medieval Roman Empire) Capetians 12, 58, 61–62, 88, 93, 99, 100 capitals 90, 153, 232, 236–237, 239, 253, 265–274, 275 Caves Monastery (Kyiv) 140, 143, 147, 189, 218, 221–222 Charlemagne 17, 18, 50, 254, 267, 279 Chernigov 26, 37, 144, 146, 147 Christ Pantokrator 186, 208–211, 212 Christ Philanthropos 182, 206–208, 209 Cistercians 183, 185, 186–190, 193–195, 198–199, 201–202, 225 Cnut the Great 103, 113, 159, 161

306

Index

coinage 23, 24, 62, 63, 65–67 collateral succession 101–102, 102–103, 116, 118–119, 129 Coloman of Hungary 125–128, 154, 155–156, 242 Constantine VII 45, 65–68, 266 Constantine VIII 63, 65, 69 Constantinople 10, 13, 14, 18, 35, 42, 46, 48, 50, 51, 64, 69, 71, 133, 134, 139, 144, 145, 150, 151, 154, 172, 182, 183, 186, 191, 195, 211, 212, 215, 222, 226, 236, 240, 256, 266–267 coronation 9, 17, 23–26, 51, 53–54, 82, 102, 116, 123, 136–137, 139, 165–169, 173–175, 179, 264 Cosmas of Prague 84, 85, 92, 140, 243 Cracow 84, 86, 150, 204, 269–270 Croatia 92, 136, 170–179, 180 Dalmatia 124, 170–172, 175, 177, 179 Denmark 5, 24, 60, 63, 76, 78, 82, 93, 102–109, 114–115, 162, 165, 169 Diarmait mac Máel na mBó 73–75, 76, 118–120 Domnall mac Murchada 75, 118–119 Dublin 73–76, 118–120, 247–248, 260 duke 19, 23, 24, 121, 123, 124, 125, 126, 153, 157, 200, 201, 240–242, 275 Earenfight, Theresa 5, 12, 20, 22, 25, 30, 32, 35, 40, 60, 94, 254 Eirene Doukaina 71, 182, 206–208, 209, 211, 212, 216, 217 Eirene Piroska 208, 210 Eleanor of Aquitaine 30, 194, 226 Elvira (daughter of Fernando I) 191, 245, 247, 275 Emeric (son of King St. Stephen)141 158–159 emperors 11, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 40–56, 57, 62, 64, 65, 67, 69, 70, 71, 83, 87, 92, 125, 137, 155, 166, 175, 182, 191–192, 194, 209, 211, 240, 256–258, 262–264, 266, 269, 274, 279 Emund Gamular Olofsson 111–114 England 1, 7, 8, 9, 13, 17, 22, 26, 32, 43, 58, 60, 61, 62, 74, 76, 100, 108, 134, 135, 155, 161–162, 165, 194, 231, 255, 275, 277

Eric Ejegod 104–106, 107, 108 Eric Emune 106–107, 108, 115 Eric Lamb 107–108 Erling Skakke 164–166 Esztergom 149, 150, 151, 153, 155, 157, 268, 269 Evpraksia Vsevolodovna 35, 89–90, 222 Eystein (Archbishop) 164–165, 166, 168, 169 Eystein Magnusson 28–29, 39, 80–81, 272 Fernando I 182, 190–192, 217, 244–246, 263 Font, Márta 94, 121, 240, 242, 244, 267, 268 France 1, 9, 26, 31, 34, 43, 53, 58, 61–62, 88–89, 90, 100, 135, 162, 231, 234, 254, 274, 275 Frederick Barbarossa 59, 92, 129, 254–255, 278 German Empire 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 13, 32, 35, 42, 50, 52, 57, 62, 83, 87–88, 89, 92, 100, 107–108, 123–125, 126, 128, 129, 148, 150, 151, 159, 161, 180, 202, 222, 267, 269, 277, 278 Gesta Principum Polonorum 83–85, 269 Géza I of Hungary 123–125, 157–158, 241 Gniezno 24, 84, 150 Gregorian reforms 13, 136, 148, 155–157, 164, 174 Gregory VII (Pope) 19, 89, 125, 155, 157–158, 174–175, 177, 178, 180, 263 Gruffudd ap Cynan 74–75 Harald Hardrada 28–29, 77–79, 103, 115, 161–163, 169, 252, 272 Hedwig 202–204 Heimskringla 76, 95, 111–113, 115, 160, 165, 166 Henry I of England 32, 58, 108, 155 Henry II of England 58, 59, 108, 125, 194 Henry IV of the German Empire 35, 60, 83, 89, 124–125, 155, 157, 175, 180 Henry Capet 58, 62 Henry the Bearded 7, 201–203 Herrin, Judith 5, 31, 98

Index 307

Hilandar 48, 49, 214, 216 Hollingsworth, Paul 135–136, 139, 140 Hungary 1, 3, 5, 9, 12, 14, 51, 92, 94, 121–128, 134, 136, 147–159, 170, 173, 179, 180, 240–244, 253, 267–268, 270, 275, 279 Ianka 35, 220 Iaroslav Volodimerich 26, 89–90, 217, 219 Illuminated Chronicle 122–128, 243 Inge of Sweden 114–115, 225 Ingi Halsteinsson 115, 272 Innocent III (Pope) 51, 154 Ireland 6, 18, 25, 55, 71–76, 80, 96, 116–120, 235–236, 247–249, 253, 258–262 itinerancy 14, 90, 139, 163–164, 177, 232, 265–274, 275, 280 Iziaslav Iaroslavich 26, 89–90, 143–144, 157, 180, 217–218, 221, 224 Jaski, Bart 72, 116, 249, 261 John II Komnenos 208–210, 211 Judith (Polish queen) 39, 83, 201, 202, 204 Kaldellis, Anthony 10, 40, 41, 64–65, 98, 255 Kalojan 46, 48, 51 Kalocsa 151–155, 180 kings 11–12, 18, 19, 20, 21–30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 43, 46, 48, 49, 51, 53–54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 73–80, 82, 89–94, 95–96, 97, 102, 103–104, 106, 108, 109–115, 116, 118–120, 121–122, 124–126, 134, 144, 148, 149, 151, 153–158, 159–169, 172, 174, 177, 178, 179, 182, 188, 190, 191, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200, 204, 217, 221, 222, 225, 234, 236, 239, 240–244, 246, 247, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 259–263, 265, 268, 271, 272, 274, 275, 278, 279 kingship 2, 4, 9, 12, 14, 20, 23–26, 40, 59, 60, 77, 79, 80, 82, 90, 95, 96, 99, 103, 105, 116, 117, 120, 167, 168, 214, 253, 255, 259, 261, 267

Knud Lavard 105–107, 108 Kyiv 26, 27, 89–90, 93, 129, 138, 140–147, 153, 180, 189, 217–221, 223–224, 236 Ladislaus of Hungary 124–126, 157–159, 179 Las Huelgas (Santa Maria la Real) 13, 193–197, 199, 203, 208, 218, 224, 226 Leinster 73–75, 117–120, 247, 249 Leo IX (Pope) 103, 155 León-Castile 32–33, 52, 180, 182, 190–191, 193, 244, 246, 264, 273 Leonor 193–196, 197, 224 Lord Rhys (Rhys ap Gruffudd) 55, 183, 186–189, 190, 213 Maél Sechnaill 73, 235–236, 247–248, 259–260 Magnus Erlingsson 81–82, 164–169 Magnus Nielsson 106–107, 110 Magnus Olafsson (son of St. Olaf) 28–29, 77–79, 103, 272 Magnus Barefoot (son of Olaf Kyrre) 28–29, 39, 79–80, 115, 252 Manuel Komnenos 210–211, 213 Margam Abbey 183, 188, 189 Maria Gutierrez 195, 218, 224 Martin, Therese 5, 30, 191, 227, 246 Mathilda (Empress, daughter of Henry I) 32, 108, 125 Medieval Roman Empire 3, 4, 5, 6, 10–11, 12, 13, 18, 28, 32, 41–43, 46, 48, 61–62, 64–71, 74, 78, 94, 98, 126, 137–139, 144, 150–152, 154, 157–159, 170, 175, 182, 186, 203, 205–212, 226, 235, 240, 255, 256, 257–258, 266, 268, 273, 277, 279 Metropolitans 35, 134, 138, 141–142, 144–145, 147, 149, 154, 163, 166, 181 monarchy 9, 12, 20, 22, 25, 34, 60, 77, 94, 96, 99, 158, 167, 233, 238, 259, 271 monasteries 48, 69, 83, 134, 140–144, 147, 154–155, 177–178, 182–184, 187–192, 194–214, 216–226, 246 Morgan ap Caradog 183, 188–189

308

Index

Morkinskinna 28–29, 77–79, 80–81, 115, 252, 271, 272 Mstislav Volodimerich 94, 129, 141, 144, 147, 220 Muirchertach ua Briain 75–76, 120 Munster 74–76, 118 Murchad 73–76, 118–119 Nelson, Janet 23–24, 96, 238, 267 Neville, Leonora 64, 207, 240, 256–258 Niels Svensson 103–108, 115 Norway 9, 14, 24, 28, 39, 60, 76–82, 95, 102, 103, 114, 115, 129, 134, 136, 159–170, 173, 179, 249–250, 252–253, 271, 272, 274, 275 Novgorod 26, 143, 146, 224

Richardson, Seth 13–14, 232–233, 235, 265, 274 Riurikids (see Volodimerovichi) Romanos Lekapenos 44, 66 Rus 4, 6–7, 10, 12, 22, 24, 26, 27, 29, 35, 36–39, 77–78, 89–93, 96, 100–101, 115, 124, 129, 134, 135, 136–147, 151, 152, 153, 155, 158, 170, 179, 180, 186, 189, 217–225, 226, 231, 232, 236, 238, 243, 253, 278, 279

papacy 148–150, 155, 156–157, 158, 163, 170, 171–175, 179–180 Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery 143, 144, 145, 146, 218, 221 Pereiaslavl 26, 144–145, 146 Peter of Bulgaria 44–47 Peter Krešimir IV 172–173 Philip Capet 58, 62, 254 Piasts 87–88, 92, 202, 204, 245, 270 Portugal 21, 25, 33, 34–35, 190, 198, 264, 273 Poland 1, 3, 5, 19, 23, 60, 82–92, 94, 121, 123–124, 150, 186, 200–204, 244, 245, 267, 269, 270, 275 Povest’ vremennykh let (PVL) 27, 35, 141, 143–146, 217–219, 221 primogeniture 94, 98–99, 116, 118

Salomon 94, 122–125, 129, 157–158, 169, 241, 268 San Isidoro 13, 182, 190–193, 195, 198, 203, 208, 263 Sancho I 34, 198 St. Sava 212–214, 216 Saxo Grammaticus 93, 103, 104, 106, 110 Serbia 48, 186, 212–217, 226 Shadis, Miriam 5, 34, 94, 199 Sigurd Jerusalem-Farer Magnusson 28–29, 39, 80–81, 272 Slavonic Liturgy 172–173, 175, 177–179 Split 92, 170–171, 173, 175, 176–178 Stanković, Vlada 184, 211, 213, 216, 226, 227 Stefan Nemanja 48–49, 212–216 Stephen of Hungary (King and Saint) 121, 134, 147–151, 157, 158–159, 178, 179, 180, 242 Stephen II of Hungary 94, 126, 128, 243–244 Strata Florida 183, 186–189, 213 Strata Marcella 183, 187 Studenica 212–216 Sven Estridsson 63, 103, 104, 107, 108, 109, 177 Sverre of Norway 164, 168–169, 271 Sviatoslav Iaroslavich 26, 89, 90, 144, 219 Sweden 25, 63, 76, 82, 103, 109–116, 225 Symeon of Bulgaria 43–44, 46, 50, 172 Székesfehérvár 222, 268, 269

queens 11–12, 18, 20, 21, 30–40, 53, 56, 57, 94, 141, 178, 182, 190–192, 194, 195–198, 201, 202, 218, 225, 246–247, 279

Tairdelbach Ua Briain 118–120 Tara (king of) 247, 259–260 taxation 235, 240, 276–278 Theodora 69–70

Ó Corráin, Donnchadh 71, 72, 73, 99, 117, 120, 261 Olaf (St. Olaf) 113, 115, 160 Olof Skötkonnung 63, 111–112, 115 Onund-Jakob 112–113 Orning, Hans Jacob 9, 60, 81, 87, 129, 168, 249–253 Oslo 169, 271–272 Otto I 50, 278 Owain Cyfeiliog 183, 187

Index 309

Theotokos Kecharitomene 13, 182, 191, 195, 203, 206–209, 211 Toledo 193–194, 197, 236, 246, 263–264, 267 Tomislav of Croatia 170–172 Trondheim 166, 167, 168, 169, 271, 272 Trzebnica 202–204 Urban II (Pope) 10, 155 Urraca (queen of Léon-Castile) 32, 52, 193, 197, 246, 247, 264, 273 Urraca (daughter of Fernando I and Sancha) 191, 245–246, 275 Valdemar 93, 106, 107, 108 Veszprémvölgy 149, 154–155 Vladimir (in Vohynia) 26, 143, 146 Vladimir-Suzdal 145, 224–225 Volodimer Monomomakh Vsevolodich 93–94, 129, 138, 141, 148–149, 166, 181, 219–220, 222, 236 Volodimer Sviatoslavich (St. Vladimir) 26, 89–90, 101, 146

Volodimerovichi 26, 35, 89, 93–94, 100–101, 141, 146–147, 220, 221, 224–225 Vsevolod Iaroslavich 26, 90, 94, 144, 219–220, 222 Vsevolod Olgovich 142, 217, 223–224 Wales 13, 55, 74, 183, 186–190, 193 Waterford 119, 247 Weber, Max 90, 274 Weiler, Björn 2, 4, 7, 9, 19–20, 25, 60, 98–99, 108, 129, 239 Wickham, Chris 17–18, 233, 235, 236, 265, 266, 277 William I 43, 62, 165, 254 Władysław Herman 83–84, 86, 204 Władysław II 86–88, 270 Wrocław 84, 269, 270 Zbigniew 83–85, 204, 270 Zoë 68–70 Zvonimir of Croatia 157, 173–179, 180