Clare Monagle

The Trial of Ideas: Two Tellings of the Trial of Gilbert of Poitiers

In 1148 Gilbert of Poitiers, bishop and magister, was brought to trial at the Council of Reims. He was charged with committing heresy in his application of the rules of grammar to the three persons of the Trinity. Most notable among his accusers was Bernard of Clairvaux, who had brought the matter to the attention of the pope. The adversarial structure of the trial, and the luminaries involved, meant that many of the key issues of intellectual life in the period were brought into sharp relief, particularly the question of the applicability of human language to the understanding of sacred doctrine. Otto of Freising and John of Salisbury both provide accounts of the trial, in which they engage heavily with both the political and theological issues of the clash between Bernard and Gilbert. This article considers the manner of their narration of the trial, and the place that their accounts hold in their broader historiographical narrative. This consideration, in turn, will enable a more nuanced sense of the i...

Theology, practice, and policy at the turn of the thirteenth century: the papacy and peter Lombard

Famously, the Fourth Lateran Council took place in 1215 and offered a bold new wave of papal legislation. Importantly, the Council confessed cum petro, with Peter Lombard. This was an unprecedented endorsement of a scholastic theologian. By confessing cum petro, the papacy placed Peter Lombards Sentences at the heart of its bold reforming agenda. There has been very little historical analysis of the meanings of this endorsement. This article will attempt to situate the logic of this endorsement within the larger context of the Council, as well as the increasing formalisation of the Schools of Paris, which culminated in the founding of the University of Paris in that same year.

The Politics of Nothing: Sovereignty and Modernity

The title of this special issue of Culture, Theory and Critique is inspired by Georges Bataille’s famous formulation: ‘Sovereignty is NOTHING’ (1980: 300). Bataille’s statement may appear too obscure or ‘metaphysical’ in a world that became obsessed with questions about sovereignty after the events on September 11, 2001. The present collection of articles seeks to highlight how indispensable the nothing is in thinking questions about sovereignty in modernity. This will become apparent after a brief consideration of the way sovereignty is mobilized to explain contemporary social phenomena, as well as of the current status of the theoretical debate about sovereignty. Olivier Roy has argued that the actions of Islamic fundamentalists should be understood as emanating from the desire to attain to pure religion. This manifests itself as a war on culture. The fantasy of the creation of a panIslamic community encompassing the globe is based on a desire for deculturation, that is, the desire to institute particular norms or values (such as dress codes or eating proscriptions) as if those would be enough to lead to each individual’s salvation. Ultimately such a fantasy can never hope to achieve anything. Like the idealistic urban terrorist from the 1970s in the West – e.g. the Red Brigades in Italy and Germany – Islamic fundamentalism is a rebellion without a cause because it fails to aspire to creating sovereign entities.1 Now, if this analysis is correct, then it seems paradoxical that the US and their allies responded to the terrorist threat through imperialist gestures such as the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Such imperialism is an attempt to bolster their own sovereignty, even though sovereignty does not seem to be the issue for the fundamentalists they are pursuing. The upshot of this paradox at the heart of global politics since 2001 is that sovereignty has suddenly erupted as an urgent issue in a variety of fields – philosophy, political science, legal theory, international relations and so on. However, as Jen Bartelson has recently showed, the debate in all these fields is marred in the trenchant opposition of those who argue that the forces of globalization have diminished the power of state sovereignty, and those who

The politics of extra/ordinary time: Encyclical thinking

Abstract This article reads the papal encyclical as a genre in political thought. As a form, the encyclical authorizes itself through the ontological surety provided by Christian revelation, juxtaposed with an intervention into contemporary and contested politics. As explicitly theological texts, encyclicals trouble normative notions of the political. At the same time, however, they do significant political work in the world. This article reads the genre as a form, attempting to disaggregate the theological and the political inhering within, while recognizing their inextricability. The object of the article is, thus, to reckon with the encyclical, and to take it seriously in the post-secular.

Poor Maternity: Clare of Assisi's letters to Agnes of Prague

During the first half of the thirteenth century, Clare of Assisi and Agnes of Prague sustained a long epistolary relationship. Clares part of the correspondence is extant, and reveals much about the intersection of the language of gendered piety and political ambition in this period. This article seeks, in particular, to place Clares use of maternal imagery within the context of her attempts to build patronage networks in order to support her ambitions to secure the ‘Privilege of Poverty’ for herself and her sisters, the right to live without landed endowments and claustration.

John of Salisbury and the Writing of History

John of Salisbury made the statement regarding the utility of historical writing in the Prologue of his Historia pontificalis . In this work, he repeatedly described conflict between important men (and very occasionally women) over issues of primacy, whether it was primacy of orthodoxy, in land-holding, or in ecclesiastical status. He depicted a cast of frail egos attempting to strengthen their position in the world and the attempts of the Pope to manage those egos. The Historia pontificalis has received little attention in the historiography of medieval historical writing. One of the largest sections of the Historia pontificalis is that which concerns the trial of Gilbert of Poitiers, which took place just after the official business of the Council of Reims in 1148. Johns final vignette in his account of the Crusade concerns the decision of Kings Louis and Conrad to abandon their attack on Damascus. Keywords: Council of Reims; Gilbert of Poitiers; Historia pontificalis; John of Salisbury; King Conrad; Kings Louis; medieval historical writing

A Sovereign Act of Negation: Schmitt’s Political Theology and its Ideal Medievalism

Abstract This article argues that Carl Schmitt’s political theology is premised on an idealised and totalising vision of the Middle Ages. That is, he casts modern political concepts as debased and corrupt in comparison to the proper politics of the Medieval Church, as he sees it. Drawing on a historically contextualised reading of the Fourth Lateran Council, which took place in 1215, the article’s author argues that Schmitt’s medieval comparison is much more complicated than he suggests. Schmitt’s historical vision is, thus, a wilful projection of unity onto a diverse and distant past.

Teaching and Learning in Northern Europe, 1000–1200 (review)

Parergon 24.2 (2007) Henry.’ He adds, in a rare self-reflective moment, ‘However that interpretation may be an Old Testament bias.’ But as Herbert of Bosham, that well-known ChristianHebraist, would have been able to explain, Spigelman here speaks better than he knows, since in Christian exegesis, Daniel was a type of Christ, a comparison which Herbert, if not Becket himself, was eager to advance. In conclusion, this book may be read with pleasure by anyone wishing to (re)familiarize themselves with the complicated and drawn-out quarrel between the archbishop and the king. Moreover, it would be a fine introduction to the material for undergraduates who might find Barlow and Urry supplying more information than they need. Sabina Flanagan University of Adelaide

Contested knowledges: John of Salisbury's Metalogicon and Historia Pontificalis

John of Salisburys Metalogicon is a text concerned with education, and its role in the production and maintenance of virtue in students. It defends the broadness of the Trivium against those who seek specialisation in education. This article seeks to contextualise the Metalogicon, and stake a claim for its intellectual import, through a reading of another of Johns works, the Historia Pontificalis, where John uses the trial of Gilbert of Poitiers to explore similar issues.