CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2008
| Author | Covaci, Valentina |
|---|---|
| Title | Historical Exemplarity in Giles of Rome's De ecclesiastica potestate and De renunciatione pape |
| Summary | This study addresses the problem of historical reasoning in Giles of Rome’s De ecclesiastica potestate and De renunciatione pape. Giles of Rome, who was successively a master of theology at the University of Paris, prior general of the Augustinian Order, and archbishop of Bourges, is considered an outstanding figure among political thinkers of the Latin Middle Ages. These two tracts were written during Boniface VIII’s pontificate and were meant to uphold his view of an imperialized papacy. They have been researched in modern scholarship from different standpoints but the aspect of historical argument in Giles’ political writing was rather neglected. In this thesis I examine this particular topic. I analyze the historical argument in the aforementioned works in the particular circumstance of historical exemplarity. I focus on the historical exempla which Giles of Rome used to give the strength of precedent to political models which suited his papalist purposes. Thus, I refer to three types of exempla: biblical, Christian and canonical. The conclusion is that Giles of Rome used the power of tradition inherent to the exempla which he introduced in his tracts, to justify the sovereign claims of the papal monarchy. This allowed him to defend Boniface VIII’s hierocratic claims, contested by his adversaries, by anchoring them in the history of papal institution. Justified by precedent they could not be the dangerous novelties of a heretical pope. |
| Supervisor | Aziz Al-Azmeh |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2008/covaci_valentina.pdf |
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