This study uses the analysis of communication practices and strategies to argue for a new understanding of papal power in the years 1050 to 1250. Historians frequently argue that the high medieval papacy increased the scope and effectiveness of its authority through the creation, maintenance, and use of centralized governmental institutions. According to this view, legates, councils, delegated justice, legal codification, and a remarkable production of letters all allowed the bishops of Rome to reach into the far corners of Christendom to shape in profound ways the spiritual, political, and economic trajectories of medieval Europeans. But how effective were those institutions? To what degree was the papacy able to implement policy at the local, national, and international levels? The following study attempts to answer this question by considering the specific communicative mechanisms and strategies that the papacy employed in a variety of policy realms. Four case studies analyze the papacy’s efforts to: 1) resolve the York-Canterbury primacy dispute at the turn of the twelfth century; 2) mobilize political support during the papal schism of 1159; 3) reform the Church in the wake of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215; and 4) convene the Council of Rome to fight Emperor Frederick II in 1240. Each case reveals innovations in papal communication practices while simultaneously highlighting key limitations in the papacy’s ability to implement its will. The papacy, once a model of institutional centralization for medieval historians, suddenly appears much less centralized—and, in many cases, much less effective—of an institution than many scholars had led us to believe. This conclusion forces us to rethink what we know about one of the single most important institutions in European history.

Italie phare selon les mots de Jacques Le Goff, Italie proie durant les invasions étrangères ou simple « expression géographique » selon le prince de Metternich, l’Italie a depuis son premier souffle offert à l’histoire du monde de nombreux visages. A ce titre, elle fait figure de véritable étrangeté dans le paysage européen actuel. Une Italie politique et religieuse dans une Europe intensément laïque. Une toute jeune nation au milieu de patries millénaires. Un pays où, encore aujourd’hui, politique et religion marchent main dans la main. Où les consciences s’éveillent à la messe comme dans l’isoloir. Un pays où l’humain cherche désespérément à toucher du doigt le divin. Où le divin lui-même devient humain en la personne des successeurs de Saint-Pierre, pendants aussi appréciés que redoutés des dirigeants temporels italiques. Or, si l’Italie occupe une telle place pour notre humanité, c’est avant tout du fait de la dichotomie qui l’a toujours habitée. Âme guerrière et conquérante autant qu’émanation sanctifiée de la religion catholique, elle est la terre qu’humain et divin se sont disputés pendant des décennies. Et c’est à la Renaissance que ce combat atteint son apex. Car temporel et spirituel furent animés d’une même tension créatrice dans leur âpreté à « faire l’Italie » et leurs affrontements incessants allaient façonner l’essence même de l’Italie d’aujourd’hui, lui donnant ce caractère bicéphale qui est probablement l’un des aspects les plus constitutifs de l’identité italienne actuelle. Et lui confère une spécificité sans pareille en Europe / Italy lighthouse according to Jacques Goff’s words, Italy prey during the French and Spanish invasions ou simple « geographic expression » according to the prince of Metternich ; Italy has since her very first breath given the world history many visages. As such, Italy is a true strangeness in our modern European landscape, deeply proud of still exposing today the two side of her personnality. A politic and religious Italy in a very secular Europe. A very young nation among millenial homelands. A country transcended by its stormy story, by its intrinsic fragilities. A country where today, politic and religious are walking together. Where the minds awakes during the mass or in the voting booth. A country where human is begging for divine. Where divine himself becomes human in the sanctified person of St-Peters’s successors, equivalent as appreciated as feared of Italic secular leaders. And whose power exceeds the Vatican confines to radiate in the whole world, making Italy a real beacon illuminating the whole planet. Or, if Italy occupies such a place in our humanity, it is because of the dichotomy who always inhabited it. Warrior soul and hallowed emanation of catholicity, Italy is the place that human and divine have fought about during centuries. And this quarrel reaches its climax during the Renaissance era. Where temporal and spiritual power were also guided by a same creative strenght in their acerbity to do Italy et their ceaseless quarrels were going to shape the very soul of modern Italy, giving her this two-headed dimension which is likely the most constituent aspect of Italian identity. And gives this Nation an unparalleled specificity in Europe

The anti-episcopal drive which took place during the first fifteen months of the Long Parliament has long been ignored as a problem worth studying for its own merits. Usually the episcopal crisis of 1640-1642 is considered to be part of a larger crisis since the expulsion of the bishops from the House of Lords was a prelude to the English Revolution. Yet the anti-episcopal drive is of great interest and significance both in itself and in the fact that it was the first time in English history that a popular outcry changed the constitutional foundation of the English Government. It is difficult to isolate this subject from the many other political currents of which it is a part, but this study intends to do so as much as possible. However, the fact remains that in fifteen months, from 3 November, 1640 when the Long Parliament commenced, to 15 February, 1642 when the bishops were excluded from the Lords, a popular revolution had already taken place. There were four major areas in which the popular voice expressed itself in the period under discussion. There were anti-episcopal riots in London. Hundreds of petitions came to Parliament from all over the country demanding that the bishops be removed from their temporal jurisdictions. Anti-prelatical sentiment was spread by means of pamphlets during the great pamphlet war of 1641. In Parliament, the anti-episcopal leadership wedded their own cause of constitutional reform to the popular cause against the bishops. In the end, the combination of these four factors resulted in the successful passage of laws needed to deprive the episcopate of their constitutional right to sit in Parliament. The anti-episcopal drive of 1640-1642 had its roots in the popular antipathy towards the episcopal office. The bishops were deprived of their voice in Parliament because the English people wanted them removed from the Lords. The English Revolution had already begun. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate