Lordship, Kingship, and Empire

Abstract This is a study of the ideology of monarchy in late medieval Europe. In the 15th and early 16th centuries, European monarchies faced a series of crises and conflicts, which gave rise to intense debate as to the nature and authority of monarchy in its various forms. From such debates and polemics emerged many of the ideas that were to sustain the later confrontation between ‘absolutism’ and ‘constitutionalism’. This book examines the ideas generated by various crises of monarchy in France, England, the Spanish kingdoms, and what still claimed to be the ‘universal’ monarchies of Empire and Papacy.