Frédérique Lachaud & Michael A Penman 
Absentee Authority across Medieval Europe [PDF ebook] 

An interdisciplinary approach to a crucial part of the systems of medieval authority and governance.


In the medieval world, what happened when a figure of recognised authority was absent? What terminology, principles and solutions of proxy authority were developed and adopted? Did these solutions differ and change over time depending on whether the absence was short or long and caused by issues of incapacity, minority, disputed succession, geography or elective absenteeism? Did the models of proxy authority adopted by ruling dynasties and large institutions influence the proxy choices of lesser authority?

The circumstances and consequences of absentee authority, a major aspect of the systems of medieval power, are the focus of this volume. Ranging across the realms of medieval Europe (but with a focus upon the British Isles and France), its essays embrace a wide variety of experience – royal, parliamentary, conciliar, magnatial, military, ecclesiastical (papal to parochial), burghal, household, minoror major, male or female, exiled, captive or infirm – and explore not merely political developments, but the dynastic, diplomatic, financial, ideological, religious and cultural ramifications of such episodes.


Frédérique Lachaud is Professor of medieval history at the Université de Lorraine, France; Michael Penman is Senior Lecturer in history at the University of Stirling, Scotland.


Contributors: James Bothwell Michelle Bubenicek, Léonard Dauphant , Bruno Dumézil, Laurent Hablot, Torsten Hiltmann, Tom Horler-Underwood, Robert Houghton, Olivier de Laborderie, Frédérique Lachaud, Hans Jacob Orning, Michael Penman. Norman Reid

Mục lục

Introduction: Absentee Authority across Medieval Europe – Frédérique Lachaud and Michael A Penman

Incarnating Authority, Exercising Authority: The Figure of the King in the Merovingian Era – Bruno Dumézil

Ubi armae ibi princeps: Medieval Emblematics as the Real Presence of the Prince – Laurent Hablot

While the Bishop’s Away… Absentee Bishops of Parma during the Investiture Conflict – Robert Houghton

An Inconceivable Absence: Usurpers and Illegitimate Rulers in the Genealogical Rolls of the Kings of England, from the late thirteenth to the early fifteenth centuries – Olivier de Laborderie

Local Loyalty and Absentee Authority in Thirteenth-Century Normandy: the Evidence of the Querimoniae Normannorum (1247) – Tom Horler-Underwood

Representation and Authority in Thirteenth-Century England and Gascony – Frédérique Lachaud

Internal Exiles: Exclusion from the Fourteenth-Century English Court and Kingdom – J. S. Bothwell

‘Si grant charté a Paris. par defaulte du roy’: Governmental Practice and the Customary Geography of the Absence – Léonard Dauphant

Was the Couple a Palliative to the Absence of the Prince? The Political Role and Influence of Margaret of Flanders during the Reign of Philip the Bold, Duke and Count of Burgundy (1384-1404) – Michelle Bubenicek

Guardian – Lieutenant – Governor: Absentee Monarchy and Proxy Power in Scotland’s Long Fourteenth Century – Norman Reid

Guardian – Lieutenant – Governor: Absentee Monarchy and Proxy Power in Scotland’s Long Fourteenth Century – Michael A Penman

Absentee Authority in Late Medieval Iceland, as Viewed from the Literary Sources – Hans Jacob Orning

Representatives of Kings and ‘Kings’ as Representatives: Authority and its Representation in Professional Groups in Late Medieval and Early Modern France – The Example of the King of Minstrels and of the King of Mercers – Torsten Hiltmann

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ROBERT HOUGHTON is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Winchester, UK.