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6 - Retrospective: Some Long-Term Continuities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2023

D. L. d'Avray
Affiliation:
University College London
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Summary

Some continuities run through the long period from the late Roman empire to the Counter Reformation. An archive existed well before the empire in the West collapsed. Throughout the period papal government was largely demand driven. To settle disputes in far-away localities of which the popes knew little, they delegated authority to men on the spot who were not paid for their services. The papacy lacked the resources to fund a ‘Weberian’ bureaucracy, but was adept at devising rules to run systems that circumvented its own shortcomings, and thus it was able to meet the expanding demand for its services.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Power of Protocol
Diplomatics and the Dynamics of Papal Government, c. 400 – c.1600
, pp. 186 - 195
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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