Lordship, Kingship, and Empire: The Idea of Monarchy, 1400-1525 (The Carlyle Lectures 1988)

This is a study of the ideology of monarchy in late medieval Europe. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, European monarchies faced a series of crises and conflicts, which gave rise to intense debate as to the nature and authority of monarchy in its various forms. From such debates and polemics emerged many of the ideas that were to sustain the later confrontation between "absolutism" and "constitutionalism." Burns examines the ideas generated by various "crisis of monarchy" in France, England, the Spanish kingdoms, and what still claimed to be the "universal" monarchies of Empire and Papacy. This is a lucid and stimulating exploration of a major and previously neglected topic in the history of political thought by one of its leading historians.Burns, J. H. is the author of 'Lordship, Kingship, and Empire: The Idea of Monarchy, 1400-1525 (The Carlyle Lectures 1988)', published 1992 under ISBN 9780198202066 and ISBN 0198202067.