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Political Canonization and Political Symbolism in Medieval England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

John M. Theilmann
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Extract

Political legitimacy was a shifting concept in medieval England. On the one hand were the tangible aspects of power such as control over appointments and the purse; on the other were the symbolic attributes of power. Baronial rebels were able to gain control over the material aspects of political power on more than one occasion, and they also tried to establish control over the symbolic aspects of legitimacy. Here, they usually failed, for medieval people generally failed to accept baronial use of political symbols as legitimating future developments. Monarchs, on the other hand, were more successful in exploiting the symbolic aspects of kingship to further legitimate their power.

The simultaneous success and failure of royal and baronial efforts at establishing legitimacy bear further scrutiny. After viewing the problem of the establishment of legitimacy, this essay focuses on two related episodes during the reign of Richard II: the attempted canonizations of King Edward II and Richard FitzAlan, earl of Arundel. Richard II's reign is chosen for three reasons. First, there was a clearly articulated struggle between king and barons that was fought out in both the physical and symbolic arenas. Second, the process of political canonization produced a royal and a baronial saint during the reign. Although not premeditated on either side, there was a conjunction of events and a desire by the king and the barons to manipulate the symbolic aspects of these events during the reign. The final reason for subjecting saintly symbolism in Richard's reign to examination is that the process of political canonization reached its zenith then.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , July 1990 , pp. 241 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1990

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70 Henry IV disregarded the holy oil of Saint Thomas and was unafraid of a political cult that sprang up in his reign, that of Richard Scrope, archbishop of York, whom Henry had executed in 1405. But Henry was alarmed by the threat of papal censure for the execution and had a legal fiction created to avoid excommunication (see Foedera [n. 19 above], 8:446Google Scholar; Calendar of the Entries in the Papal Registers, 1404–1415, p. 98). Once a cult sprang up in York Minster, decisive action was taken to destroy the tomb that was its locus (see Raine, James, ed., The Fabric Rolls of York Minster, Surtees Society, 35 [Durham, 1859], pp. 194–96Google Scholar). Nonetheless, Henry's anger or fear of the cult seems to have soon declined. In January 1408, leave was given to Thomas Parker, who had received some of Scrope's possessions, and three others to found a chantry to celebrate a mass for the souls of several people, among them “Richard, late archbishop of York” (Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1405–1408, p. 305).

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76 The political aspects of the cult of Henry VI are described in McKenna, J. W., “Piety and Propaganda: The Cult of King Henry VI,” in Chaucer and Middle English Studies in Honour of Rossell Hope Robbins, ed. Rowland, Beryl (London, 1974), pp. 72–88Google Scholar; Wolffe, Bertram, Henry VI (London, 1981), pp. 3–21, 351–58Google Scholar; Anglo, Sydney, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy (Oxford, 1969), pp. 40–43Google Scholar. The political impact of the cult of Henry VI may have been diminished by a breakdown of the consensus regarding royal saints that dated from the reign of Richard II. Richard's overtly political attempt at securing Edward II's canonization brought the immediate political motivation of royal cults into the foreground, revealing them to be another tool for asserting royal power. In doing so, the potential unifying power of the royal saint was weakened (see Elder and Cobb [n. 3 above], p. 21).

77 Lander (n. 57 above), p. 41.

78 McKenna, J. W., “Popular Canonization as Political Propaganda: The Cult of Archbishop Scrope,” Speculum 45 (1970): 605–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Davies, R. G., “After the Execution of Archbishop Scrope: Henry IV, the Papacy, and the English Episcopate, 1405–8,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 59 (1976–1977): 40–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McNiven, Peter, “The Problem of Henry IV's Health, 1405–13,” English Historical Review 100 (1985): 754–59Google Scholar.

79 Various aspects of the use of ritual to glorify the French monarchs are discussed in Hallam, Elizabeth M., “Royal Burial and the Cult of Kingship” (n. 9 above), pp. 359–80Google Scholar, and “Philip the Fair and the Cult of Saint Louis,” Studies in Church History 18 (1982): 201–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brown, Elizabeth A. R., “The Ceremonial of Royal Succession in Capetian France: The Funeral of Philip V,” Speculum 55 (1980): 266–93Google Scholar; Giesey, Ralph E., The Royal Funeral in Renaissance France (Geneva, 1960)Google Scholar, and “Models of Rulership in French Royal Ceremony,” in Rites of Power, ed. Wilentz, Sean (Philadelphia, 1985), pp. 41–64, and references thereinGoogle Scholar.