Pouvoir royal et commentaires de la Bible (1150-1350)

Kingly Power and Bibtical Commentaries (1150-1350). A preliminary study of the king in high medieval exegesis, this article postulates a tight (though not rigid) formal relationship between the potestas of the king and those of the "mystical" kings, thebishop, Christ, the just man, and reason. Political conceptions shape the discourse on these non-earthly princes. Hence political ideas can be recovered from "allegorical" texts that seemingly do not deal with politics. Through the hermeneutical interaction of these figures emerges the portrait of a christomorphic dual-natured king, loved and feared, humble and majestical, meek and terrible, merciful and punishing. The monarch emanates two auras of splendor which express the ambiguity of power. The second, negative aspect of the ruler manifests itself in the hunt, a display of the coercitive violence of the prince over the animality which inheres in his vicions subjects. Medieval exegesis also shows the progressive promotion of its earthly king from being characterized by anger to being granted wisdom and knowledge. Globally, there seems to have been a progressive bettering of the commentators' opinions on kingship (and a growth in their interest in politics), culminating with Nicolas of Lyra. This Franciscan is both a political realist, sensitive to the practical needs and means of power, and a devout propagandist of the French kings. His revolutionary exegetical style is the formal shell of a thought foreshadowing Commynes and Machiavelli. This in the dark years of the dynastic change to the House of Valois, juste before the Hundred Years' War.Buc Philippe. Pouvoir royal et commentaires de la Bible (1150-1350). In: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations. 44ᵉ année, N. 3, 1989. pp. 691-713