1

Crown-giving and king-making in the West, c. 1000 c. 1250

Bjrn Weiler

Between the tenth century and the thirteenth kingship emerged as the natural form of
government in the West.1 Monarchical rule was not, of course, something new to this
period, and it was by no means limited to the Carolingian heartlands of medieval
Europe.2 It was, however, something that became both more widespread, and that
became normative. To put this in less abstract terms: alongside the successor
kingdoms of the old Carolingian Empire in East and West Francia and Burgundy, of
Anglo-Saxon England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland, new regnal entities emerged with
increasing frequency. Some of these like the kingdom of Jerusalem established after
1099 were created through conquest, but the majority emerged from older, pre-
existing polities. In Christian Iberia, for instance, the twelfth-century rulers of
Portugal joined those of Castile, Aragon, and Navarre in claiming a royal title; new
regnal entities emerged with the conversion to Christianity of Norway, Denmark,
Sweden and Hungary;3 and old principalities, such as Bohemia, Bulgaria, Sicily,
Serbia or Armenia, increasingly sought and sometimes received recognition as
kingdoms. Similarly, rule by kings was increasingly perceived as the norm across the
Latin West there was a reason, after all, as Theodore Andersson and rmann
Jakobsson have shown, why the earliest surviving literary output from the peasant
republic of Iceland, for instance, dealt with the history not of the Icelandic settlement

1
For a view to the contrary see the superb survey by Michael Borgolte, Europa entdeckt seine Vielfalt
(Stuttgart: Eugen Ulmer, 2002), p. 25. However, while royal authority was perhaps not felt or exercised
in the regions (Dalmatia and the Baltic) referred to by Professor Borgolte, some type of royal lordship
was still, in theory, accepted.
2
See, for instance, Early medieval kingship, ed. P.H. Sawyer and I.N. Wood (Leeds: the editors, 1977);
Wang Ji-hui, The concept of kingship in Anglo-Saxon and medieval Chinese literature: a comparative
study of Beowulf and Xuanhe Yishi (Beijing: Peking University Press, 1996); The kingship and
landscape of Tara, ed. Edel Breathnac (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005); Benjamin Hudson, Viking
pirates and Christian princes: dynasty, religion, and empire in the North Atlantic (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005). The literature on pre-modern non-Western kingship is vast. The following
may, though, offer a route into the subject: Francis Oakley, Kingship. The politics of enchantment
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2006); Roger T. Ames, The art of rulership: a study in ancient Chinese political
thought (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983); Kingship in Indian history, ed. Noboru
Karashima (New Delhi: Manohar, 1999); Kingship in Asia and early America. XXX International
Congress of Human Sciences in Asia and North Africa, ed. A.L. Basham (Mxico City: Colegio de
Mxico, 1981); Lisa J. Jucero, Water and ritual: the rise and fall of classic Maya (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 2003); Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods. A study in Ancient Near Eastern religion
as the integration of society and nature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948).
3
Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy. Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus, c.900-
1200, ed. Nora Berend (Cambridge, 2007), provides an excellent systematic overview.
 2

period, but the Norwegian monarchy. 4 In a similar vein, even those, like the dukes of
Poland, who ceased to claim the title, still sought to maintain the status of king, while
others, like the twelfth-century Welf dukes of Bavaria and Saxony, who never
obtained a royal title, still acted as if they had, or at least as if they should have had.5
The Central Middle Ages were, in short, also an age of kingship.

It is thus all the more surprising that, isolated case studies apart,6 modern scholars
have paid relatively little attention to high medieval kingship. Investigations have
instead focussed on the early medieval, and in particular the Carolingian case,7 or on
learned discussions of kingship and power in the period after c. 1250.8 This relative
neglect may be rooted in the fact that, although kingship became more common,
writers in the High Middles Ages did not seem to theorise about it. Instead of the
learned treatises on royal governance, so popular under the Carolingians,9 we have to
rely on a medley of saints lives, chronicles, charters, letters, liturgical sources etc.
Outlining the theories of royal power underpinning these texts would, however,

4
Theodore M. Andersson, The king of Iceland, Speculum 74 (1999), 923-34; rmann Jakobsson,
Our Norwegian friend: the role of kings in the family sagas, Arkiv fr nordisk filologi 117 (2002),
145-60.
5
Historia Welforum, ed. and transl. Erich Knig, Schwbische Chroniken der Stauferzeit (Stuttgart,
1938; repr. Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1978). We will be dealing with the Polish example further down
in this chapter.
6
John W. Baldwin, The government of Philip Augustus: foundations of French royal power in the
Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Sverre Bagge, From gang leader to the
Lords anointed: kingship in Sverris saga and Hkonar saga Hkonarsonar (Odense: Odense University
Press, 1996); Ludger Krntgen, Knigsherrschaft und Gottes Gnade: zu Kontext und Funktion sakraler
Vorstellungen in Historiographie und Bildzeugnissen der ottonisch-frhsalischen Zeit (Berlin:
Akademie Verlag, 2001); Philip Line, Kingship and state formation in Sweden, 1130-1290 (Leiden &
Boston: Brill, 2006); Hans Jacob Orning, Unpredictability and presence. Norwegian kingship in the
high Middle Ages, transl. Alan Crozier (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2008).
7
Walter Ullmann, The Carolingian Renaissance and the idea of kingship (London: Methuen, 1969);
Simon MacLean, Kingship and politics in the late ninth century. Charles the Fat and the end of the
Carolingian Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Das frhmittelalterliche
Knigtum. Ideelle und religise Grundlagen, ed. Franz-Reiner Erkens (Berlin & New York: de
Gruyter, 2005); Roman Deutinger, Knigsherrschaft im ostfrnkischen Reich (Ostfildern: Thorbecke,
2006); Eric Goldberg, Struggle for empire: kingship and conflict under Louis the German, 817-876
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006). See, however, the important exceptions of Kings and kingship
in Medieval Europe, ed. Anne Duggan (London: Kings College Centre of Late Antique & Medieval
Studies, 1993); and Die Macht des Knigs: Herrschaft in Europa vom Frhmittelalter bis in die
Neuzeit, ed. Bernhard Jussen (Munich: Beck, 2005). Henry A. Myers, Medieval Kingship (Chicago:
Nelson-Hall, 1982), despite its title, passes over the Central Middle Ages quickly, and is primarily
concerned with a clash between Germanic and Roman notions of kingship.
8
J.H. Burns, Lordship, kingship, and empire: the idea of monarchy, 1400-1525 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1992); M.S. Kempshall, The common good in late medieval political thought: moral goodness
and material benefit (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999). See also the classic study by Wolfgang Berges,
Die Frstenspiegel des hohen und spten Mittelalters (Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1938).
9
See the classic survey by Hans Hubert Anton, Frstenspiegel und Herrscherethos in der
Karolingerzeit (Bonn: Ludwig Rhrscheid, 1968).
 3

exceed the scope of the present chapter. Instead, the following will focus on just one
stage in the king making process the claiming of a royal title and on a very
specific set of cases realms whose rulers had not previously claimed the title or
status of king.10 It will use these examples to explore a series of more general
questions about the political culture, about the material, social, and cultural context of
political power in high medieval Europe. The focus reflects a sizeable gap in modern
historical writing,11 and the fact that one of the novelties surrounding kingship in this
period was, after all, the creation of entirely new regnal entities. This is not to argue
that these new kingdoms emerged out of a void, with no pre-existing traditions of
rulership,12 but rather that many of the concerns chief among them the need for
recognition and legitimacy that faced anyone who sought to claim royal power were
even more pronounced in the case of new kingships. It is with how recognition was
sought and described that we will primarily be concerned.

Once a monarchy was established, confirmation was normally the prerogative of a

rulers leading subjects. The thirteenth century in particular witnessed various efforts
to turn this often nominal role into a right to oversee, and, at times, control royal
actions: most famously perhaps in the Golden Bull of Hungary (1222), the English
Magna Carta (1215), or the role of the German princely electors in imperial politics
from c. 1281. A similar development occurred with regard to the external recognition
of kingship: with knighting perhaps the closest parallel,13 those awarding or
confirming a royal title often sought to derive from this act a right of oversight over
the newly created realm. New rulers thus faced the dual challenge of, on the one hand,

10
It thus also proposes a somewhat different focus from Percy Ernst Schramm, Herrschaftszeichen:
gestiftet, verschenkt, verpfndet. Belege aus dem Mittelalter, Nachrichten der Akademie der
Wissenschaften in Gttingen: Philosohisch-Historische Klasse 1957, 159-226, which concentrates on
insignia as gifts or pawns, and which does, not for instance, include papal crown-giving or king-
making in general.
11
Which has been concerned with the succession to, rather than the creation of, kingship. See, for
instance, Bart Jaski, Early Irish kingship and succession (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000); Andrew W.
Lewis, Royal succession in Capetian France: studies on familial order and the state (Cambridge/MA:
Harvard University Press, 1981); Making and breaking the rules: succession in medieval Europe, c.
1000-c.1600 /tablir et abolir les normes: la succession dans lEurope mdivale, vers 1000-vers 1600,
ed. Frdrique Lachaud and Michael Penman (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008).
12
Christianization, ed. Berend provides a useful check on any such tendency, while also outlining the
difficulty of establishing pre-Christian traditions of rulership.
13
Jacques Le Goff, The symbolic ritual of vassalage, in his Time, Work and Culture (Chicago, 1980),
237-87; Zbigniew Dalewski, The Knighting of Polish dukes in the Early Middle Ages: ideological and
political significance, Acta Poloniae Historica 80 (1999), 15-43; Bjrn Weiler, Knighting, homage,
and the meaning of ritual: the kings of England and their neighbours in the thirteenth century, Viator
37 (2006), 275-300.
 4

needing to gain recognition of an often disputed title, and, on the other, to fend off the
unwanted attentions of those who had raised them to their royal dignity. How they or
those recording their deeds sought to negotiate this challenge, in turn, throws light on
the cultural horizons of political power (the norms, ideals and expectations of royal
lordship), its means and mechanisms (the process of establishing kingship), and an
emerging set of quasi-international and transregnal procedures and institutions called
upon to arbitrate and validate, but also to challenge and thwart royal aspirations.
Exploring how kings were made thus raises questions relevant beyond the immediate
geographical focus of the materials we are dealing with, and goes to the heart of what
drove the political development of the high medieval West.

The following will proceed in two steps. The first will set the scene by offering two
case studies the rise to kingship of Boleslaw I Chobry of Poland (c. 999/1000), and
of Roger of Sicily (c. 1130). These examples have been chosen for a number of
reasons. They allow us to trace both commonalties and differences: all new kings
faced similar challenges, but the form these challenges took, and how they were
handled, reflect specific historical circumstances, pre-existing traditions and
conventions. Just because a phenomenon was universal does not mean that it was
uniform. These cases are, furthermore, reasonably well documented. This does not
mean that we have a great wealth of materials to work with, but rather that the
elevation to royal status formed an often central focus of the narratives recording
them. The sources, finally, allow us to deal with a series of methodological issues
the Polish materials were written several generations after the events described, and
thus reflect the practice of established kingship more so than its origins. The Sicilian
sources, by contrast, while contemporary or at least near-contemporary, were also
composed by authors with only limited access to the royal court, and who may not
even have witnessed the events they record. Our materials thus sought to report the
initial king-making in terms that sought either to incorporate or fend off subsequent
challenges, or to fit them into an established pattern of how kingship was meant to be
conveyed. This may not help us if we want to find out what actually happened, but it
makes these materials invaluable for the questions this paper seeks to pose: what can
the portrayal of king-making tell us about the social, cultural and political practice of
royal power in the Central Middle Ages? These questions, in turn, will be explored
further in the second part of this paper, where we will move from individual case
 5

studies to a more thematic line of enquiry. This will allow us not only to place the
examples of Poland and Sicily within a broader European background, but also to
sketch out a phenomenology of royal power and of power relations in the high
medieval West as a whole.

Probably around 1253, an unknown cleric produced a Life of St Stanislas, the bishop
of Krakw murdered in 1079 by King Boleslaw II of Poland. After recounting the
prelates martyrdom, the anonymous author remarked on the many evils that
subsequently befell the realm: not only had the royal title, won through humility and
piety by Boleslaw I, been lost by the patricidal deeds of Boleslaw II, but the kingdom
of the Poles had ever since been ravished by civil war. Just as the bishop had been
decapitated, so Poland, too, had been deprived of its leader; just as the saints remains
had been dispersed, so Poland, too, had been subjugated by many lords. However, just
as, through divine good will, the saints remains had become one again, so Poland,
too, could be united once more.14 Immediately following this, the hagiographer
recounted that he had read, in the annals of Poland and the Life of St Stephen of
Hungary, how Duke Mieszko (a misidentification on the part of the authors
informants) had once sought and failed to receive a crown from the pope. Adding to
his sources, the anonymous author explained why God had looked unkindly on these
royal aspirations: the Poles preferred injustice over justice, dogs over humans,
oppressing the poor over obeying divine laws.15

A number of important themes emerge from this account, perhaps most importantly
the link between virtue and kingship. Boleslaw I had gained the crown by his inherent
virtue and humility, Boleslaw II lost it by murdering saintly prelates; Stephen of
Hungary had, implicitly, received his crown through virtue and justice, Mieszko had
failed to carry off a royal diadem because of his and his peoples cruel and violent
disposition. The contrast with St Stephen was, we may assume, carefully chosen.
After all, the earliest Vita of St Stephen, the Legenda major, produced c. 1083, also

14
Vita Sancti Stanislai Cracoviensis Episcopi (Vita Maior), ed. Wojciech Ketrzyski, Monumenta
Poloniae Historica iv (Llow, 1864; repr. Warsaw, 1964), cap. 26, pp. 391-2.
15
Vita Sancti Stanislai, 392-3.
 6

emphasised the virtuous origins of Stephens kingship: Geza, Stephens father, had
sought to convert his people, but was warned in a vision that, as he had spilled much
blood, it would fall to his as yet unborn son (Stephen) to spread the Faith.16 After
Gezas death, Stephen embarked upon the conversion project with great energy.17 In
the year 1000, the Legenda tells us, he reaped the fruits of his pious endeavours, and
was, through divine benevolence, with papal blessing, and having been acclaimed by
bishops and clergy and counts and the people, called king (rex appellatur). On
assuming the insignia of power, Stephen issued, jointly with the prelates, laws
designed to protect property, ban his people from attacking each other without due
judgement, and from oppressing widows and orphans.18 In the Legenda, Stephens
glory may partly have been punishment for his fathers sins, yet this also meant that
Stephen was able to complete the conversion of his lands because he led a good life.
He led a good life, moreover, that encapsulated key duties of kingship: he was to the
Church a forceful protector and generous patron; a keeper of good law; a font of
justice; a protector of his people; and of those who could not protect themselves. That
is, already by the later eleventh century Stephen was remembered primarily as
someone who had ensured the right ordering of Hungarian society. This status was
vigorously maintained well into the thirteenth century and beyond: the great
legislative endeavours of the thirteenth century, for instance, including the Golden
Bull, defined the laws of King Stephen as the ideal status quo ante that was to be
restored.19 The Polish Vita of St Stanislas thus played on the Hungarian kings well
established reputation as a law-giver and protector of the Church, and it was this
context that gave the Life its meaning and its edge: the text centred on the role of the

16
Legendae S. Stephani Regis ed. Emma Bartoniek, in: Emerich Szentptery (ed.), Scriptores Rerum
Hungaricarum, 2 vols. (Budapest, 1937-8), caps. 2-5, ii, pp. 378-81. On the text see also C.A.
MacCartney, The medieval Hungarian historians. A critical and analytical guide (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1953), 162-5; Gbor Klanickzay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses.
Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe, transl. va Plmai (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002), 124-7.
17
Legenda Maior, caps. 6-7, ii, pp. 381-3. Much of the advice was concerned with matters of
ecclesiastical organisation: Stephen divided his lands into ten dioceses, and, with the popes approval,
declared the archbishopric of Esztergom to be the metropolitan see of this new church province:
Legenda Maior, cap. 8, ii, pp. 383-4.
18
Legenda Maior, cap. 9, ii, p. 384. See also: Jacek Banaszkiewicz, Slavonic origines regni: hero the
law-giver and founder of monarchy (introductory survey of problems), Acta Poloniae Historica 69
(1989), 97-131.
19
The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, transl. and ed. J. Bak, G. Bnis and J.R. Sweeney,
(2 vols., Bakersfield/CA: Charles Schlacks, 1989), i, 34, 42, 48. See also: Lszlo Veszprmy, The
invented eleventh century of Hungary, in: The Neighbours of Poland in the 11th Century, ed. Piotr
Urbaczyk (Warsaw: DiG, 2002), 137-54.
 7

successors of St Stanislas as guardians of the Polish royal insignia, and thus as judges
on the legitimacy of those who desired to unite the realm under their dominion. The
emphasis on the Piasts past depravity thus both explained the failure of Polish
kingship, and established a set of norms by which those would have to abide who
sought to resurrect it.

The Vita also reflected an established tradition of painting a stark contrast between
saintly rpads and perfidious Piasts. In fact, when the anonymous author referred to
information he had found in the Life of St Stephen, he probably referred to Bishop
Hartwics reworking of the Legenda from c. 1120. According to this version, the duke
of the Poles (identified as Mieszko), had requested a crown from the pope. The pontiff
had commissioned a particularly splendid specimen, about to be dispatched to the
Polish court, when, on the eve of that crown-giving embassy, he experienced a vision,
in which Gods messenger announced that, the following morning, emissaries from an
unknown people the Hungarians would come before him, and that it was to them
that the crown should be given. As soon as the pope heard of Stephens many
accomplishments with Gods aid he had subjugated many nations and converted
many infidels he handed over the crown, and joyfully conceded all the other
demands, too, that the kings emissary put before him.20 This was by no means the
first reference to the Piasts' failure to get a crown, nor was this a theme limited to
Hungary and Poland. In the middle of the eleventh century, for example, when
composing the Life of St Romuald of Salerno, Peter Damian recounted yet another
version of an abortive attempt by a Polish king to have his title confirmed by the pope
(involving, this time, saints refusing to engage in simoniac practices).21 This imagery
probably fed on the difficulties that both Boleslaw I and his successors encountered in
maintaining their royal status. Boleslaw may have received his crown from Emperor
Otto III in 1000, but already Ottos successor, Henry II (1002-1024) had insisted on
Boleslaws vassal status,22 and in 1032 Conrad II even forced Mieszko II to relinquish

20
Legenda S. Stephani regis ab Hartwico episcopo conscripta, cap. 9, Scriptores Rerum
Hungaricarum., ii, pp. 412-4. On the text: Macartney, Medieval Hungarian Historians, 165-70;
Klanickzay, Holy Rulers, 142-3.
21
Petri Damiani Vita Beati Romualdi, ed. Giovanni Tabacco, Fonti per la storia dItalia (Rome, 1957),
cap. 37, pp. 59-60.
22
Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, ed. and transl. Werner Trillmich, Ausgewhlte Quellen zur
deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters (Darmstadt, 1957, repr. 1974), vi. 90-1, pp. 338-9.
 8

his insignia and title.23 In combination with the murder of St Stanislas,24 it was
perhaps this failure to hold on to a royal crown that coloured later representations, in
Poland as elsewhere, of the origins of Piast kingship.25

However, exactly because Piast kingship was much disputed, other writers looking
back to the monarchys early days went to quite extraordinary lengths to emphasise
the legitimacy and rightfulness of that initial claim to kingship. They may thus not
necessarily give a historically accurate depiction of what happened, but they more
than compensate for this by outlining what, from their later vantage point, where the
defining characteristics of kingship. Probably the most important of these later
testimonies is the earliest full narrative of Polish history, the Gesta Principum
Polonorum, produced c. 1110 by an unknown cleric, probably from France (and hence
often referred to as the Gallus Anonymus), but living in Poland.26 The Gesta is
divided into three parts, centring respectively on the achievements of Boleslaw I (r.
992-1025), the decline of ducal power under his successors, and its revival under the
third Boleslaw, also known as Wrymouth (r. 1102 1138). Here, I would like to focus
on the key encounter of the duke with Emperor Otto III at Gniezno in 1000.27 Otto,

23
Przemyslaw Urbaczyk and Stanislaw Rosik, The kingdom of Poland, with an appendix on Polabia
and Pomerania between paganism and Christianity, in Christianization ed. Berend, 263-318, at p. 289.
24
The Hungarian kings, too, had faced the hostility of their imperial neighbours, and Emperor Henry
III (1039-56) had even seized the royal crown and presented it, as a token of his triumph, to the papal
court: Das Register Gregors VII., ed. Erich Caspar, 2 vols. MGH Epistolae Selectae (Berlin: Hahn,
1920-3), ii. no. 13, i, p.145. See also, for a more detailed account, Gbor Varga, Ungarn und das Reich
vom 10. bis zum 13. Jahrhundert. Das Herrscherhaus der rpden zwischen Anlehnung und
Emanzipation (Munich, 2003), pp. 91-141. Imperial hostility can thus not be the sole reason for
explaining differences between the Hungarian and the Polish experience.
25
Including the earliest narrative of Polish history, written c. 1110: Gesta Principum Polonorum. The
deeds of the princes of the Poles, ed. and transl. Paul W. Knoll and Frank Schaer, with a preface by
Thomas N. Bisson (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2003), ii.27, pp. 96-7.
26
On the text see the classic article by Thomas Bisson, On not eating Polish bread in vain: resonance
and conjuncture in the Deeds of the Princes of the Poles (1109-1113), Viator 29 (1998), 275-89; the
important summary of the current state of knowledge by Piotr Oliski, Am Hofe Bolesaw
Schiefmunds. Die Chronik des Gallus Anonymus, Die Hofgeschichtsschreibung im mittelalterlichen
Europa, ed. Rudolf Schieffer and Jarosaw Wenta (Toru, 2006), 93-106; and the essays collected in
The Gallus Anonymous and his chronicle in the context of the 12th century historiography from the
perspective of recent research, ed. Krzysztof Stopka (Krakw: Polska Akademia Umiejtnoci,
forthcoming).
27
The event has triggered a rich literature, of which most recently: Henryk Samsonowicz, Die
deutsch-polnischen Beziehungen in der Geschichte des Mittelalters aus polnischer Sicht, Polen und
Deutschland vor 1000 Jahren. Die Berliner Tagung ber den Akt von Gnesen, ed. Michael Borgolte
(Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002), 19-28; and Klaus Zernack, Die deutsch-polnischen Beziehungen in
der Mittelalterhistorie aus deutscher Sicht, ibid., 29-42; Jerzy Wyrozumski, Der Akt von Gnesen und
seine Bedeutung fr die polnische Geschichte, ibid., 281-292; Roman Michaowski, Polen und
Europa um das Jahr 1000. Mit einem Anhang: zur Glaubwrdigkeit des Berichts von Gallus Anonymus
ber das Treffen in Gnesen, in Der Hoftag von Quedlinburg 973. Von den historischen Wurzeln zum
 9

Gallus informs us, driven by a desire to visit the shrine of St Adalbert of Prague, his
erstwhile teacher,28 passed through the lands of Boleslaw. The latter greeted Otto with
such generosity and splendour that the emperor was at a loss as to how he might
respond. Eventually, he addressed the duke in the following terms:
So great a man does not deserve to be styled duke or count like any
of the princes, but to be raised to a royal throne and adorned with a
diadem in glory. And with these words he took the imperial diadem
from his own head and laid it upon the head of Boleslaw in pledge of
friendship. And in such love were they united that day that the
emperor declared him his brother and partner in the Empire, and called
him a friend and ally of the Roman people. And what is more, he
granted him and his successors authority over whatever ecclesiastical
honours belonged to the empire in any part of the kingdom of Poland
or other territories he had conquered or might conquer among the
barbarians (). So Boleslaw was thus gloriously raised to the kingship
by the emperor ().29

Gallus sought hard to emphasise just how little Boleslaw was beholden to the
emperor for this gift. Ottos visit thus interrupted a lengthy account of Boleslaws
numerous accomplishments: it was preceded by a list of Boleslaws conquests and
Church patronage,30 and served chiefly to illustrate the dukes power and wealth. In
Boleslaws time, the chronicler informs us, every knight and every lady of the court
wore robes instead of garments of linen and wool; () gold in his days was held by
all as common as silver, and silver deemed as little worth as straw.31 Nor was the
crowning the end of Gallus account: he reports how the emperor spent another
three days at the Polish court. Every day, the dishes and plates, the carpets and
tapestries exceeded those of the previous day in splendour and value. On the final day,

neuen Europa (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2006), pp. 51-72. The maximalist view is represented by
Johannes Fried, Otto III. und Boleslaw Chrobry: das Widmungsbild des Aachener Evangeliars, der
"Akt von Gnesen" und das frhe polnische und ungarische Knigtum, second edition (Stuttgart:
Steiner, 2001).
28
See also Johannes Fried, Der hl. Adadlbert von Gnesen, Archiv fr mittelrheinische
Kirchengeschichte 50 (1998), 41-70.
29
Gesta principum Polonorum, i.6, pp. 34-9. See also the useful remarks by Jaroslaw Dudek, Emperor
Otto IIIs advent at Gniezno in March 1000 as evidence of the presence of the Byzantine ceremonials
at the first Piasts court?, Byzantinoslavica 63 (2005), 117-30.
30
Gesta principum Polonorum, i.6, pp. 30-5.
31
Gesta principum Polonorum, i.6, pp. 34-7.
 10

Boleslaw commanded that the cups and goblets, the bowls and plates and the
drinking horns [and] the wall-hangings and the coverlets, the carpets and the
coverings be carted to the emperors chamber, alongside various vessels, robes and
precious stones. All these, the chronicler stressed, were, however, tokens of honour,
not a princely tribute (pro honore, non pro principali munere).32

We should note the emphasis on parity in the Gestas account: the crown placed on
Boleslaws head was a token of friendship, and duke and emperor acted as equals
throughout.33 Even the gifts exchanged reflected this relationship: Otto presented
Boleslaw with a copy of the Holy Lance (among the most prestigious items in the
imperial relic collection),34 and Boleslaw Otto with the arm of St Adalbert. It is even
possible to argue that Boleslaw shamed the emperor: when, at the end of the three day
feast, Boleslaw filled the imperial chamber with gifts, there was no record of gifts
being given in return (thus depicting Otto as unable or unwilling to respond in kind).35
While the emperor was furthermore described as returning home joyfully, laden with
presents, the next chapter reports how Boleslaw attacked the Ruthenians.36 There was
a clear contrast between imperial embarrassment over so splendid a welcome turning
into joy over the rich gifts received, and Polish valour, the root, after all, of
Boleslaws kingship. This is not to say that Ottos confirmation did not matter: it was
only when describing events after the Gniezno conference that Gallus referred to
Boleslaw as king.37 However, for it to be fully effective, Boleslaws kingship had to

32
Gesta Principum Polonorum, i.6, pp. 38-41.
33
Which reflected Ottos own view, it seems: Ludger Krntgen, The emperor and his friends: the
Ottonian realm in the year 1000, Europe around the Year 1000, 465-88. Matters changed with the
succession of Henry II in 1002: Knut Grich, Eine Wende im Osten: Heinrich II. und Boleslaw
Chobry, in: Otto III. Heinrich II. Eine Wende?, ed. Bernd Schneidmller and Stefan Weinfurter
(Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1997), 95-167.
34
Peter Worm, Die Heilige Lanze. Bedeutungswandel und Verehrung eines Herrschaftszeichens,
Arbeiten aus dem Marburger Hilfswissenschaftlichen Institut (2000), 179-216; Percy Ernst Schramm,
Die "Heilige Lanze", Reliquie und Herrschaftszeichen des Reiches und ihre Replik in Krakau. Ein
berblick ber die Geschichte der Knigslanze in his, Herrschaftszeichen und Staatssymbolik.
Beitrge zu ihrer Geschichte vom 3. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert, 3 vols. (Hanover: Hahn, 1954-6), vol. 2
(Hanover, 1954), 492-537.
35
I am grateful to Gerd Althoff for this suggestion.
36
The lord of the Ruthenians acted in a most un-king-like fashion: sitting in a boat, he remarked that,
while he was good at fishing, Boleslaw was good at fighting, and then took flight. Gesta Principum
Polonorum, i.7, pp. 40-3.
37
Previously, he had avoided any specific title, though he had referred to Poland as a regnum, a
kingdom, which Boleslaw ruled after the death his father, who, however, was labelled dux: Gesta
Principum Polonorum, i.6, pp. 30-31
 11

be a token of respect, acknowledgement of his might and virtue, but also of his parity
with Otto, and not something that, in any way, placed him in the emperors debt.

This emphasis reflected both the fraught relations with Ottos heirs, and the self-
inflicted misfortunes of later dukes.38 While the Gestas author studiously avoided
reporting the murder of St Stanislas in detail,39 the subsequent loss of kingship
became one suffered by the dynasty as a whole, not just the individual ruler. Among
Boleslaw Is successors, only his namesake, Boleslaw II (who had committed the
killing), was thus labelled king.40 These developments influenced the Gestas
depiction of events: the Gniezno episode could be read as dismissing exactly the kind
of claims later emperors made on the Polish rulers. It is also worth noting that the
only other encounter between an emperor and a duke described in detail was the
humiliation inflicted upon Henry V, when, in 1109, he sought to claim a tribute from
Boleslaw III.41 The sections on Boleslaw Is reign conclude with a list of his
accomplishments his magnificence and power (magnificencia et potencia),42
virtuous nobility (virtute et nobilitate gloriosi Bolezlay),43 arrangements for the Polish
Church,44 or that he never harmed the poor and powerless.45 Boleslaw set the standard
against which his successors could be measured, and only one of them (Boleslaw III)
was not found wanting. The fortunes of Polish kingship were therefore rooted in the
virtues and vices of individual rulers, not the gift of a crown by one great lord to
another. The Piasts had earned their throne by pious, just and martial deeds, and they
had forfeited it because they failed to maintain these high standards. It was the ruler
alone who could gain, and it was the ruler alone who could forfeit the status of king.
Yet we also have to be careful not to overinterpret the Polish and Hungarian sources:
we are, after all, dealing with texts written several generations after the events they
record. That, in their emphasis on virtue and might, and the desire to limit the

38
Gesta Principum Polonorum, iii. 2-3, pp. 226-9.
39
Gesta Principum Polonorum, ii.27, pp. 96-7.
40
Gesta Principum Polonorum, i.23, pp. 88-9; i.30, pp. 104-5. It was only with Boleslaw III that
matters changed again, but then only through allusion and rather opaque references. The Gesta thus
report the son to Boleslaw of royal stock (ii.40. pp. 192-3), but never record a coronation or the full
claiming of a royal title.
41
Gesta Principum Polonorum, iii. 2-15, pp. 226-47. This includes a poem, allegedly composed by the
German soldiers, in praise of Polish valour: iii.11, pp. 240-3.
42
Gesta Principum Polonorum, i.8, pp. 46-9.
43
Gesta Principum Polonorum, i.9, pp. 48-51.
44
Gesta Principum Polonorum, i.11, pp. 54-57.
45
Gesta Principum Polonorum, i.12, pp. 56-9.
 12

authority of those who had first recognised a claim to kingship, they are nonetheless
representative of broader European trends, will become apparent once we set them
alongside our second case study, the king-making of Roger of Sicily in 1130.

II

At some point during the 1130s, Abbot Alexander of Telese produced a short treatise,
the Ystoria Rogerii Regis Sicilie Calabriae atque Apulie, History of King Roger of
Sicily, Calabria and Apulia.46 Its first part is taken up with the many campaigns
through which, by 1130, Roger II had united under his lordship the various Norman
principalities of Sicily and Southern Italy. Book two opens with Roger and his leading
men taking stock. Some barons eventually approached the duke and declared that
someone as powerful as he really should hold the rank of king, not duke. Roger, they
further suggested, should use Palermo as his capital, as many kings had resided there
in ancient times.47 Roger pondered this friendly and praiseworthy suggestion, and
called an assembly to Salerno. There he took the advice of learned Churchmen and
most competent persons, as well as certain princes, counts, barons and others whom
he thought trustworthy. Roger charged them with investigating whether in the past
there really had been kings of Sicily. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they found this to have
been the case, and furthermore explained that Roger ought to be raised to the royal
dignity (in regiam dignitatem promoveri debeat). He held, after all, Sicily, Calabria
and Apulia, as well as other lands, and did so not only by force of conquest, but also
by inheritance.48 Roger therefore called an assembly to Palermo for Christmas Day

46
Alexandri Telesini Abbatis Ystoria Rogerii Regis Sicilie Calabriae atque Apulie, ed. Ludovica de
Nava, with a historical commentary by Dione Clementi, Fonti per la storia dItalia (Rome, 1991).
Translations follow that produced by Graham Loud, and available online at
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/history/weblearning/MedievalHistoryTextCentre/Telese%202.doc (last
accessed 28 March 2008).
47
Alexandri Ystoria Rogerii, ii.1, p. 23. For secondary accounts see G.A. Loud, The Latin Church in
Norman Sicily (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 150-8; Hubert Houben, Roger II. von
Sizilien. Herrscher zwischen Orient und Okzident (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,
1997), 53-4, and Josef Der, Papsttum und Normannen. Untersuchungen zu ihren lehnsrechtlichen und
kirchenpolitischen Beziehungen (Cologne and Vienna: Bhlau, 1972), 214-5; Reinhard Elze, Zum
Knigtum Rogers II. von Sizilien, in Festschrift fr Percy Ernst Schramm zu seinem 70. Geburtstag, 2
vols., (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1964), ii, 102-116, at 105; Rudolf Hiestand, Zur Geschichte des
Knigreichs Sizilien im 12. Jahrhundert, Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und
Bibliotheken 73 (1993), 52-69, at 52-7. Thomas S. Brown, The political use of the past in Norman
Sicily, in The Perception of the Past in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. Paul Magdalino (London:
Hambledon, 1992), 191-210.
48
Alexandri Ystoria Rogerii, ii.2, pp. 23-5.
 13

1130, ordering that all the men of dignity, power and honour from his lands and
provinces should gather together. The audience at Palermo, too, approved the
promotion to the kingship for him to who had been given such great and virtuous
might, so hat he might overcome the wicked and preserve justice.49 The chronicler
then proceeded to give the most general sketch of the coronation itself: Roger was led
to the cathedral, received unction, and assumed the royal dignity.50 Far greater
attention was given to the festivities surrounding the occasion: words could not
describe its splendour;51 the royal palace was bedecked with draperies, the pavement
strewn with carpets, and the horses of Rogers entourage adorned with gold and
silver;52 finest meals were served, with cups and plates of gold and silver, and the
glory and wealth of the royal abode was so spectacular that it caused great wonder
and deep stupefaction so great indeed that it instilled not a little fear in all those who
had come from so far away.53 With the coronation festivities concluded, Roger,
pondering how he could give his realm the peace it so urgently desired, decided to
wage war on the men of Amalfi.54

Much of this should sound familiar. Like Boleslaws, Rogers might, too, surpassed
that of a mere prince, and had to be recognised by a title that reflected this fact. As in
Poland, quasi-royal status manifested itself in the lordship over many lands; as at
Gniezno, the dukes elevation resulted in a truly festive celebration;55 as in Poland,
the festive display was a token of strength. There are equally rich parallels with the
Hungarian case, not the least in the emphasis placed on the role of the people in
establishing Rogers kingship. Roger, after all, only claimed the royal title after he
had been urged to do so three times: by his close entourage; wise and prudent
counsellors; and the great men of the realm.56 We are, moreover, in the fortunate

49
Alexandri Ystoria Rogerii, ii.3, p. 25.
50
Alexandri Ystoria Rogerii, ii.4, p. 25.
51
Alexandri Ystoria Rogerii, ii.4, p. 25.
52
Alexandri Ystoria Rogerii, ii.5, p. 26.
53
Alexandri Ystoria Rogerii, ii.6, p.26.
54
Alexandri Ystoria Rogerii, ii. 7, p. 26 (desire to restore peace and overcome rebels, and demanding
castles from the men of Amalfi, with their refusal and his ire); ii.8-11, pp. 27-8 (the war against the
men of Amalfi).
55
This should not be read as an indication of direct borrowing, but rather reflects shared elements of
material culture: Sybille Schrder, Macht und Gabe: materielle Kultur am Hof Heinrichs II. von
England (Husum: Matthiesen, 2004); Karl Leyser, Frederick Barbarossa, Henry II and the hand of St.
James, EHR 90 (1975), 481-506.
56
This also neatly encapsulates the tripartite division of assembly proposed by Gerd Althoff,
Colloquium familiare - Colloquium secretum - Colloquium publicum. Beratung im politischen Leben
 14

position that a document survives that seems to be the ordo, the account of the liturgy,
for Rogers coronation,57 which, like the Hungarian materials, focuses on the duties of
kingship: before the coronation itself, for instance, Roger had to promise that he
would maintain the Faith, be a protector and defender of the Church, and that he
would rule and defend with justice the kingdom he had been granted by God.58
Similarly, after Roger had received unction on his hands, but before he received it on
his head, the presiding archbishop offered a prayer, requesting that God grant the king
the ability to be a strong protector of the fatherland and a guardian of abbeys and
churches, victorious in battle, and a terror to his enemies, yet pious, generous and
approachable to the great men of his realm.59

Obviously, these promises express the ideology more so than the reality of power.
Even so, characteristic features of Sicilian kingship emerge. Among them was the
identity of the people involved in Rogers elevation: the people, as far as they are
referred to, consisted of the great men of the realm, the prelates and abbots of the new
kings domains (the multitude is relegated to crowding the streets of Palermo). The
degree to which the ordo defines accessibility as the monarch being approachable to
the great men of his kingdom, is unusual. Across Europe, a chief token of true royal
virtue was exactly that the monarch granted the poor and powerless, those, that is,
who could not protect themselves, easy access to his person.60 This was by no means
confined to old monarchies: even the Gallus Anonymus, after all, who, otherwise,
pays so little attention to the Piasts subjects, listed among Boleslaw Is many virtues

des frheren Mittelalters, Frhmittelalterliche Studien 24 (1990), 145-67. For the wider historical
context: D.R. Clementi, A twelfth-century account of the parliaments of the Norman kingdom of
Sicily in the Liber de regno Sicilie, 1154-1169, Parliaments, Estates and Representation 19 (1999), 23-
56.
57
Reinhard Elze, The ordo for the coronation of Roger II of Sicily: an example of dating by internal
evidence, in: Coronations. Medieval and Early Modern Monarchic Ritual, ed. Jnos M. Bak (Berkeley
et. al.: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 165-78.
58
Elze, The ordo, p. 171.
59
Ibid., p. 173. See also Thomas Dittelbach, The image of the private and the public king in Norman
Sicily, Rmisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana 35 (2005), 149-72, especially at 169-71.
60
In 1024, for example, Emperor Conrad II even interrupted his coronation procession to do justice to a
widow, a peasant and orphan. When chided by his entourage for delaying the coronation, he used this
as an opportunity to talk programmatically about the importance of doing justice to those who could
not protect themselves, and how unworthy he would be of his royal dignity if he failed to perform this
duty: Widonis Opera, ed. Harry Bresslau, MGH SSrG sep. ed., Third edition (Hanover & Leipzig:
Hahn, 1915), pp. 26-7. In the twelfth century, similarly, Walter Map praised the king of England for the
easy access he allowed those in need of royal justice: Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium. Courtiers
Trifles, ed. and transl. M.R. James, revised by C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1983), v.6, 484-7.
 15

that he went out of his way to do justice, and the Legenda, lest we forget, defined St
Stephens love of justice as seeking to offer access to royal justice for those to whom
it had previously been denied. Roger II was meant to be considerably more selective
in the choice of those who might approach his royal person.

Despite the list of duties in the ordo, there was, moreover, little in Teleses account
about the drawing up of laws or of acting with due care towards the poor (beyond a
vague and general reference to pursuing evildoers and doing justice). This reflects the
narrative focus of the Ystoria, which was above all a history of wars and campaigns.
It also was a history of intrigues and plots against Roger, and therefore points to the
inherent weakness of Rogers position. This ease of rebellion was not, however, just a
matter of Rogers unscrupulous pursuit of power, and of the enmities he had thereby
incurred: it also highlights a tradition of Norman lordship going back to the eleventh
century, which was simultaneously rooted in the origins of ducal power as emerging
from an election of a first among equals, and the ferocity with which challenges to
that authority were subsequently handled. The among contemporaries fabled
tyranny of Norman lordship was a token of weakness, of the ease with which ducal
and royal power was challenged.61 That Alexander stressed both the role of the people
and Rogers ferocity and might, reflects this tradition, as does the emphasis on Roger
as someone who was to be available first and foremost to the leading men of his realm
(who, after all, were the descendants of the first dukes peers and equals). It does not,
however, explain, why Roger may have chosen so circuitous and potentially
dangerous a route to kingship: after all, founding a claim to kingship on popular
election alone, and be it by the great men of the realm, could also grant them the right
to depose the king should he prove useless or a tyrant.62

The reasons for Alexanders imagery can be found in the wider context of Rogers
kingship. Other, roughly contemporary accounts thus stress that the royal title was

61
This condenses the rather more sophisticated argument of Theo Broekmann, Rigor Iustitiae.
Herrschaft, Recht und Terror im normannisch-staufischen Sden (1050-1250) (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2005), pp. 30-57, 123-140.
62
See, for example, Emperor Henry IV and King John of England. Lamperti Monachi Hersfeldensis
Annales, ed. Oswald Holder-Egger, transl. Adolf Schmidt, annotated Wolfgang Dietrich Fritz, Freiherr
vom Stein Gedchtnisausgabe (Berlin-Ost, Rtten & Loening, 1962), 418-23; I.S. Robinson, Henry IV
of Germany, 1056-1106 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 143-70; Matthaei Parisiensis
Chronica Majora, ed. H.R. Luard, Rolls Series, 7 vols. (London: Longman & Green, 1872-83), ii
(London, 1874), pp. 454-5.
 16

bestowed on Roger not by his people, but the pope. A marginal, roughly
contemporary entry in a manuscript of the Chronicle of Romuald of Salerno, for
instance, reports, how, on Christmas Day, the prelates of Calabria, Apulia and Capua
had consecrated Roger, placed a crown on his head, and ordered everyone to call him
king, and had done so at the Popes command.63 Falco, notary in neighbouring
Benevento, similarly reports how, in 1130 Roger demanded that the pope crown him
king.64 Pope Anaclete II did not, however, perform the ceremony, which instead
devolved to a papal legate, who, on Christmas day 1130, performed the deed
although, Falco stressed, it was the archbishop of Palermo who put the crown on
Rogers head.65 We do, in fact, have a papal charter, issued in September 1130,
several months, that is, before the coronation at Palermo, in which Anaclete
confirmed not only Rogers kingship, but also specified that the royal dignity would
remain Rogers and his heirs, even if a future pope failed to renew this privilege.66

The problem with all this was that, Roger apart, only a handful of Roman aristocrats
acknowledged Anaclete II as pope the majority of European princes and churchmen
sided with Anacletes rival, Innocent II.67 Rogers royal title was therefore the gift of
a schismatic, and as illegitimate as the person who had bestowed it. This was not a
matter only of prestige: in the mid-1130s, Roger nearly lost his kingdom, when
Emperor Lothar III swept through Southern Italy in an attempt to depose him.68 The
illegitimacy surrounding his kingship also explains the fervour with which Roger
pursued Anacletes rival. In fact, in 1139 he took captive Innocent II and did not
release him until he had confirmed Rogers title and Anacletes privileges.69 By
claiming merely to resurrect a dormant tradition of kingship, and by emphasising that

63
Ystoria Rogerii Regis, pp. 343-4.
64
Falcone de Benevento, Chronicon Beneventanum, ed. Edoardo DAngelo (Florence: Sismel, 1998),
p. 106.
65
Falcone, Chronicon, p. 108.
66
Hartmut Hoffmann, Langobarden, Normannen, Ppste. Zum Legitimationsproblem in Unteritalien,
Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 58 (1978), 137-80, at 172-6.
The document is, in fact, worth noting for the degree to which it surrendered papal prerogatives in
Sicily, and to which it granted the king authority over the Sicilian Church. Houben, Roger II, p. 54. See
also Loud, Church in Norman Italy, 255-9.
67
I.S. Robinson, The Papacy, 1073 - 1198. Continuity and Innovation (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990), 69-76, 382-6.
68
Houben, Roger II, pp. 71-3.
69
Houben, Roger II., p. 74.
 17

the title had not been sought by Roger, but had been forced upon him by his people,
Alexander passed over the air of illegitimacy surrounding Rogers royal aspirations.70

How does this compare to the Hungarian and Polish examples? On a most elementary
level, none of Rogers successors were forced to surrender their crown. His
neighbours in Byzantium and the West alike may have viewed Roger as a parvenu
and upstart, but, having been unable to dislodge him or his heirs, they sought to
embrace them as allies.71 In fact, when, in 1194, the kingdom of Sicily passed into the
hands of the Western emperors, it did so by right of marriage, not conquest.72 There
was thus no need to develop a legitimising narrative that extended beyond the
immediate circumstances of Rogers initial bid for power. Disputes over royal
legitimacy in Sicily, too, soon focussed on the individual king, not the dynasty as a
whole.73 Moreover, unlike our other sources, Falco and Alexander produced very
different kinds of text: not lives of a saint or accounts of the emergence, rise and fall
of a royal dynasty, but texts aimed specifically at recording contemporary events. This
is not to say that they lacked an interpretive thrust a desire to read events with an
eye on Gods intervention in human affairs, for example, or to assess the legitimacy or
illegitimacy of acts committed by their peers, neighbours and contemporaries. These
were still, however, concerns profoundly different from those of the anonymous
author of the Legenda of St Stephen or the Gallus Anonymous. Yet, there also are
remarkable convergences: there was a shared emphasis on the power and might of the
ruler, who never sought the title himself, acted as a just and forceful protector of his
people, and who owed his new status only to his own deserts. These parallels even
extend to the specific challenges facing a new king: recognition was sometimes
sought (as in Sicily), and sometimes granted (as in Poland and Hungary), sometimes

70
Helene Wieruszowski, Roger II of Sicily. Rex tyrannicus in twelfth-century political thought,
Speculum 38 (1963), 46-78.
71
Timothy Reuter, Vom Parven zum Bndnisparter: das Knigreich Sizilien in der abendlndischen
Politik des 12. Jahrhunderts, in: Die Staufer im Sden. Sizilien und das Reich, ed. Theo Klzer
(Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1996), 43-56.
72
Gerhard Baaken, Unio regni ad imperium. Die Verhandlungen von Verona 1184 und die
Eheabredung zwischen Knig Heinrich VI. und Konstanze von Sizilien, Quellen und Forschungen as
Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 52 (1972), 219-97; reprinted in his: Imperium und Papsttum.
Zur Geschichte des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Karl-Augustin Frech
and Ulrich Schmidt (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna: Bhlau, 1997), 81-142.
73
G.A. Louid, William the Bad or William the Unlucky? Kingship in Sicily 1154-1166, Haskins
Society Journal 8 (1996), 99-114.
 18

conveyed by the people (implicitly in the Legenda of St Stephen, explicitly in

Alexander of Telese), more often by forces external to the new realm (the emperor or
pope), but it always required that the limits of the authority be defined that those
could claim who first had granted a crown. We seem to be dealing with depictions
that, while certainly rooted in a specific moment in time, and of a particular region,
realm or kingdom, are nonetheless universal. The point has therefore come at which
to move from a series of case studies to a more broadly thematic analysis of king-
making and crown-giving in the Central Middle Ages.

III

A start can be made by asking what made kingship so desirable a commodity. After,
all, while our new rulers (or, at least, those recording their deeds) went to
extraordinary lengths to show just how little a royal title really meant, once a title had
been granted, they (or their successors) went to equally extraordinary lengths to keep
it. Part of the answer may rest with the fact that kingship recognised and reflected the
power of the individual ruler: all our sources stress that new kings had excelled at
expanding their ancestral lands, and that they had done so through conquest and
warfare. Kingship also brought with it rights and duties that exceeded those of a mere
count or duke: it resulted, for instance, in the right to oversee a kingdoms Church.
Otto also handed Boleslaw control over those churches previously under imperial
control, and the papal privilege confirming Rogers royal status similarly allowed him
to oversee the Sicilian Church. Very similar imagery was used in the Historia
Welforum, a family history of the Welf dukes of Bavaria and Saxony, produced about
1170. A key theme of the text was the quasi-royal nature of the Welfs: though they
never acquired a royal title, they possessed all the qualities, and they performed all the
functions, of kings. This included oversight over, protection and patronage of those
imperial churches within their domains.74 A unity, however imperfect, of
ecclesiastical and political organisation marked out a politys distinctiveness. Such
thinking had driven attempts, for example, across eleventh and twelfth-century
Scandinavia to curtail the authority of the archbishops of Bremen,75 or of successive

74
Historia Welforum, 20-21.
75
Eljas Orrmann, Church and society, in: The Cambridge History of Scandinavia. Vol. I: Prehistory
to 1520, ed. Knut Helle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 421-62, at pp. 428-31.
 19

Portuguese kings to establish Braga as metropolitan see independent of Santiago de

Compostella.76 In fact, when in February 1204 Pope Innocent III announced that he
was sending Cardinal Leo of St Croce to present Ioannitsa of Bulgaria with a crown
and to bestow upon him the title of king, he also confirmed that, henceforth,
Ioannitsas kingdom would, in archdiocese of Trnovo, have its own Church
province.77 However, while Innocent also pointed out the exact limitations of royal
power in relation to the Church,78 further down the ecclesiastical hierarchy few such
scruples existed.

Writing c. 1170, Helmold of Bosau reported a dispute between the archbishop of

Hamburg and the duke of Saxony over the investiture of bishops. At one stage, the
archbishop and his court argued that by rights investiture belonged to the emperor, the
dignity of whose office and proximity to God raised him above the other sons of man.
Bishops invested by mere princes, by contrast, would remain mere servants.79 The
authority legitimately to intervene in the appointment of prelates, to draw on their
expertise and skills freely and without dependence on other rulers, was what separated
the king from a mere duke. It also marked out all the more clearly the special
relationship between the ruler and the divine. In fact, as Haki Antonsson has recently
demonstrated,80 it was especially among those kingdoms newly forged in the eleventh
and twelfth century that a process of state formation the development of a sense of
shared regnal identity and community coincided not only with the creation of an
indigenous church and church organisation, but also with that of indigenous
communal patron saints, such as St Olafr in Norway, St Knud in Denmark, or St Eric

76
Carl Erdmann, Das Papsttum und Portugal im ersten Jahrhundert der portugiesischen Geschichte,
Abhandlungen der Preuischen Akademie der Wissenschaften: Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 1928
(No. 5), 1-63.
77
Die Register Innocenz III. Band VII: 7. Pontifikatsjahr, 1204/1205, ed. Christoph Egger et. al
(Vienna: Verlag der sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997), nos 1-12, pp. 3-27. For an
English translation of select items from this correspondence see Thomas Butler, Monumenta Bulgarica.
A bilingual anthology of Bulgarian texts from the ninth to the nineteenth centuries (Ann Arbor:
Michigan Slavic Publications, 1996), 217-34.
78
Register Innocenz III., no. 1, pp. 3-6.
79
Helmoldi Presbyteri Bozoviensis Chronica Slavorum, ed. Johannes Lappenberg, revised Bernhard
Schmeidler, MGH SS sep. ed. (Third edition, Hanover, 1937), i.69, pp. 132-3. The statement was, of
course, born out of historically specific and specifically located rivalries, that is, efforts to re-establish a
form of ecclesiastical organisation in those lands recovered during the Wendish Crusade of the 1140s.
Joachim Ehlers, Heinrich der Lwe. Eine Biographie (Munich: Siedler, 2008), pp. 75-9.
80
Haki Antonsson, St. Mgnus of Orkney. A Scandinavian martyr-cult in context (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
 20

of Sweden.81 More importantly, the authority of these saints specifically extended to

the kingdom itself, rarely stretching beyond its borders.82 While there had of course
always been patron saints of specific churches or urban communities, they were
unusual on a regional or even dynastic level: for all their pretensions to royal status,
the Welfs could not claim one patron saint for their various domains, nor could the
counts of Barcelona or those of Anjou. Where such cults did exist on a non-regnal
level, as, for instance, those of St Mgnus on Orkney and St Wenceslas in Bohemia,83
they existed in polities that already formed entities that were geographically or
politically distinct from those around them.

While all this explains why kingship was desirable, it also highlights several of the
reasons why it had to be confirmed. If a claim to kingship was rooted in merit and
virtue, that merit could not possibly be proclaimed by the claimant himself. The
emphasis on virtue furthermore reflects widely held beliefs about the purpose and
nature of royal power, which, in turn, served to reinforce the need for external
recognition. Partly because those who obtained a royal crown were already among the
most powerful and mighty, that power had to be channelled. We may lack learned
treatises about royal power, but we have letters of advice, the coronation liturgy,
historical works dedicated to rulers, law codes, works of Biblical exegesis, and much
more, all of which emphasise the role of kingship as an office, a duty to work for the
common good, a heavy responsibility that was not to be embarked upon lightly. There
even was a belief, originating in the early Middle Ages, but still voiced, for instance,
in fourteenth-century England,84 that successful kingship would also avert natural
disasters, pestilence, famine and foreign invasions.85 It was thus paramount that those

81
See also Michael H. Gelting, The kingdom of Denmark, in Berend (ed.), Christianization, 73-120,
at pp. 87-94; Sverre Bagge and Sbjrg Walaker Nordeide, The kingdom of Norway, ibid., 121-66,
at 141-8; Nils Blomkvist, Stefan Brink and Thomas Lindkvist, The kingdom of Sweden, ibid., 167-
213, at pp. 189-92; Petr Sommer, Duan Tesk and Josef emlika (with additional material on art by
Zo Opac), Bohemia and Moravia, ibid., 214-62, at pp. 235-42. The development reflects broader
trends in the twelfth century: Jrgen Petersohn, Saint-Denis - Westminster - Aachen. Die Karls-
Translatio von 1165 und ihre Vorbilder, DA 31 (1975), 420-54.
82
Antonsson, St Mgnus, 207-20. See also the Capetian parallel: Gabrielle M. Spiegel, The Cult of
Saint Denis and Capetian Kingship, Journal of Medieval History 1 (1975), 43-70.
83
For Orkney see Antonsson, St Mgnus; for Bohemia: Lisa Wolverton, Hastening towards Prague.
Power and society in the medieval Czech lands (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001),
166-73.
84
John of London, Commendatio Lamentabilis Edwardi regis, in: Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I
and Edward II, 2 vols., Rolls Series (London: Longman, Green & Co., 1882-3), ii.3-21, pp. 18-21
85
Pseudo-Cyprianus, De xii Abusivis Saeculi, ed. Siegmund Hellmann, Texte und Untersuchungen zur
Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, 3rd ser. 4 (1910), 1-62. Marita Blattmann, 'Ein Unglck fr
 21

holding a royal title had the moral calibre to perform the duties of kingship, that they
showed the character and disposition that enabled them to resist the temptations of
power, and the ever present danger of slipping into tyranny. In polities with an
established tradition of kingship this could, for example, mean that those seeking to
succeed to the throne had to display reluctance to do so, thereby symbolising
hesitation about the weighty responsibility they were about to shoulder,86 or that they
issued promises of legal and ecclesiastical reform.87 Exactly because kings were
powerful, those seeking to assume the throne had to demonstrate that they intended to
rule not to satisfy their own desires, but to protect and guide their subjects, to do
justice and maintain the peace.

Viewed in this light, we can appreciate more easily the depiction of Boleslaw I, for
instance, as someone who was made king unexpectedly, of St Stephen having his
kingship conveyed by heavenly command, or of Roger II repeatedly asking his people
whether they really did think he should be king. After all, they did not merely seek to
succeed a king, but claimed a royal title that had not previously existed. In doing so,
they inevitably conjured up the spectres of ambition, lust for power, and, ultimately,
tyranny. In fact, a key characteristic of usurpation was that a title was claimed without
proper, external recognition: this had, to German observers, marked out as tyrannical
Boleslaw I (who violated the rights of the empire by seizing the title and insignia of
kingship),88 and Roger II (who usurped the title of king).89 Similar imagery was used

sein Volk. Der Zusammenhang zwischen Fehlverhalten des Knigs und Volkswohl in Quellen des 7. -
12. Jahrhunderts, Frhmittelalterliche Studien 30 (1996), 80-102; Rob Meens, Politics, Mirrors of
Princes and the Bible: Sins, Kings and the Well-Being of the Realm, Early Medieval Europe 7 (1998),
345-57; Aidan Breen, De XII Abusivis: text and transmission, in: Ireland and Europe in the early
Middle Ages: texts and transmission. Irland und Europa im frheren Mittelalter: Texte und
berlieferung, ed. Prinsas N Chathin and Michael Richter (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002,), 78-
94.
86
Bjrn Weiler, The rex renitens and the medieval ideal of kingship, c. 950 c. 1250, Viator 31
(2000), 1-42.
87
As King Henry I of England was said to have done in 1100, or as King Magnus Erlingson of Norway
did on his accession to the throne in the 1150s: Eadmeri Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. M. Rule,
Rolls Series (London: Longman, Green & Co., 1884), 119-20; Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. F.
Liebermann (3 vols, Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1903-16), i. 521-3; Latinske Dokument til Norsk Historie
fram til r 1204, ed. and transl. Eirik Vandvik (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1959), nos. 9 10, pp. 58-
65. In both instances the promise of good governance was also a means of seeking to dispel doubts
about the legitimacy of the kings claim (after all, Henry had seized the throne from his elder brother,
absent on crusade, and King Magnus had obtained the throne after waging a lengthy war against his
rivals).
88
insignia regalia et regium nomen in iniuriam Regis Chuonradi sibi aptavit, Wipo, Gesta
Chuonradi 11, pp. 31-2; Die Annales Quedlinburgenses, ed. Martina Giese, MGH SSrG (Hanover:
Hahn, 2004), 522.
 22

in eleventh-century France when Radulphus Glaber sought to dismiss Duke Conans

claim to the kingship of Brittany,90 and it even penetrated works of fiction: in twelfth-
century England, Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing about the kingship of Vortigern (the
archetypal bad king of the pre-Saxon past), stressed how he had desired, plotted, and
eventually usurped the throne.91 Only tyrants desired a crown, only tyrants laboured
and schemed to get it, and only tyrants refused to have their claims scrutinised and
confirmed by others.

Equally, in order to be valid, kingship had to be confirmed by someone who would

not seek to derive material gains from this, and who did not act under duress. This had
been one of the problems facing Roger II, and, as we have seen, may go some way
towards explaining the rather elaborate he chose to have his kingship confirmed.
Equally, in Geoffrey of Monmouths Historia Regum Britanniae, Vortigern had not
seized the throne straight away. Rather, he had, at first, appointed in Constans a
particularly inept ruler (whom he had subsequently assassinated). More importantly,
when nobody was willing to crown Constans a former monk Vortigern himself
performed the role of bishop and placed the crown on Constans head with his own
hands.92 Kingship was tainted if those confirming or conveying it were of doubtful
moral and political integrity. This even applied to established monarchies: in twelfth-
century England, for instance, the coronation of Henry IIs eldest son had to be
repeated because it had been performed not by the archbishop of Canterbury, who had
been forced into exile by the king, but by that of York.93 Kingship had to be
recognised by those in a position to confirm that the claimants motives were pure.

Kingship had, moreover, to be recognised by someone whose authority exceeded that

of ones rivals and enemies. In order for an act of recognition to be morally valid, it
had to come from someone who would not have acted out of fear or obeisance in
doing so. This would, ideally, mean someone who would not from this act derive any

89
Otto of Freising and Rahewin, Gesta Frederici, i.3, pp. 126-7.
90
Rodulfus Glaber, Historiarum libri quinque. Five Books of History, ed. & transl. John France
(Oxford, 1989), ii.4, pp. 58-9.
91
Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain. An edition and translation of De gestis
Britonum [Historia Regum Britanniae], ed. Michael Reeve, transl. Neil Wright (Woodbridge: Boydell
& Brewer, 2007), pp. 122-3.
92
Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain, pp. 118-9.
93
Anne Heslin [Duggan], The Coronation of the Young King in 1170, Studies in Church History 2
(1965), 165-78.
 23

claims of political overlordship, and someone who had the moral or political authority
to defend the legitimacy of this title against possible detractors. Thus, while in Sicily
the people may have pushed Roger into claiming a throne, he still was eager to ensure
recognition from the pope. In approaching the pope Roger was, moreover, typical for
how high medieval kings sought to have their titles awarded. Not everyone did,
however, seek recognition through the formal giving of a crown: after 1143, the rulers
of Portugal, for instance, simply styled themselves king in corresponding with the
pope, and did so until, in 1178, the papal chancery at last relented and addressed them
as kings in return.94 In many cases, approaching the papacy was made easier by the
fact that, at least until the later eleventh century, the bishops of Rome lacked the
political muscle to turn a largely honorific role into one of real political significance.
More importantly, they possessed the moral clout with the aid of which the attentions
of ones immediate neighbours might be seen off: the kings of Hungary may thus
have approached the curia so as to bypass the claims of both the German and the
Byzantine emperors Emperor Henry III (1039-56) had, after all, at one point seized
the Hungarian royal insignia,95 and in the 1050s, the Byzantine emperor, Constantine
X Monomachos, sought to impose his authority by offering a crown, and claiming for
himself the right to choose between rival claimants to the throne.96 Under such
circumstances, approaching the successor of St Peter could prove a way of
sidestepping the awkward consequences of dealing with ones secular neighbours.97

94
Robinson, The Papacy, pp. 302-3. See also Kurt Villards Jensen, Crusading at the fringe of the
Ocean: Denmark and Portugal in the twelfth century, in: Medieval History Writing and Crusaing
Ideology, ed. Tumoas M. S. Lehtonen and Kurt Villards Jensen with Janne Malkki and Katja Ritari
(Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2005), 195-206; Johannes Fried, Der ppstliche Schutz fr
Laienfrsten. Die politische Geschichte des ppstlichen Schutzprivilegs fr Laien (11.-13. Jhdt.),
Abhandlungen der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften: Philosophisch-historische Klasse
(Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1980), 140-2.
95
Register Gregors VII., ii. no. 13, i, p.145. See also Zoltan J. Kosztolnyik, The relations of four
eleventh-century Hungarian kings with Rome in the light of papal letters, Church History 46 (1977),
33-47.
96
Zoltn J. Kosztolnyik, The Monomachos crown, domestic intrigue and diplomatic reality prevalent
at the Hungarian court during the mid-eleventh century, Chronica. Annual of the Institute of History,
University of Szeged 1 (2001), pp. 30-44.
97
Papal king making was also no different from the prestige to be had from securing papal recognition
for a saints cult, for instance, a monastic foundation, or a war of conquest. In all these cases,
furthermore, prestige accrued not only because of papal kudos, but also because getting papal
confirmation was rather expensive business. Asking the pope to confirm a royal title finally reflected
his idealised position as someone above the fray and rivalries of secular politics. So far, surprisingly
little work has been done on expectations of the papacy, as opposed to papal self-perception.
Investigating the degree to which the rise of papal monarchy drew on and reflected what the faithful
across Europe expected the see of St Peter to accomplish would thus be a worthwhile undertaking. For
a case study of the degree to which pressure from below could mould as well as reflect papal doctrine
 24

The papacy continued to be the preferred source of recognition for a claim to

kingship, even when, from the pontificate of Gregory VII (1073-85) onwards,
successive pontiffs sought to convert symbolic capital into hard political currency. It
was thus by approaching the curia that in 1318 the barons and clergy of Poland
revived Polish kingship,98 and it was to the papal court that the Scottish barons and
clergy turned with the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320 to win recognition of Scottish
sovereign kingship.99 The papacys role was recognised even by those in competition
with it: when, in 1251, Henry III of England (1216-1272) sought to establish his
dominant position north of the border, he secured a papal mandate confirming that
nobody could be elected or crowned king of Scotland without Henrys permission.100
In the 1040s, after Henry III had seized the Hungarian royal crown, he similarly
presented it to the pope,101 and while, in the later twelfth century, the imperial court
may have protested when Innocent III sought to provide Lewon II of Armenia with a
crown, it did, in the end, settle for a compromise: the new crown was presented by
imperial envoys (and had an imperial eagle added to it).102 That is, those who desired

see Kathleen G. Cushing, Reform and the papacy in the eleventh century: spirituality and social change
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005).
98
For a short survey: Percy Ernst Schramm, Das polnische Knigtum. Ein Lngsschnitt durch die
polnische Geschichte (im Hinblick auf Krnung, Herrschaftszeichen und Staatssymbolik), in: his
Knige und Ppste: Gesammelte Aufstze zur Geschichte des Mittelalters, 4 vols. (Stuttgart:
Hiersemann, 1968), iv, 570-92; Paul W. Knoll, The Rise of the Polish Monarchy: Piast Poland in East
Central Europe, 1320-1370 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972). See also the case of Serbia:
Maria Luise Burian, Die Krnung des Stephan Prvovencani und die Beziehungen Serbiens zum
Rmischen Stuhl, Archiv fr Kulturgeschichte 23 (1933), 141-51. Sarah Layfield is preparing a study
of papal king-making, and discussion will therefore here be kept to a minimum.
99
Walter Bower, Scotichronicon, ed. D. E. R. Watt et al., 9 vols. (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University
Press, 1987-1998), xiii. 3, vol. 7 (1996), 6-9.
100
Anglo-Scottish Relations 1174-1328. Some Selected Documents, ed. and trans. E.L.G. Stones
(London, 1965), no. 9.
101
Register Gregors VII., ii. no. 13, i, p.145.
102
Claudia Naumann, Der Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI. (Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern: Peter
Lang, 1994), 30-42, 204-210, and Peter Halfter, Das Papsttum und die Armenier im frhen und hohen
Mittelalter. Von den ersten Kontakten bis zur Fixierung der Kirchenunion im Jahre 1198 (Cologne,
Weimar and Vienna: Bhlau, 1996), 189-244. For the negotiations see Tschamtschean, a roughly
contemporary Armenian chronicler, as cited by A. H. Petermann, Beitrge zu der Geschichte der
Kreuzzge aus armenischen Quellen, in Abhandlungen der kniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften
zu Berlin aus dem Jahre 1860 (Berlin, 1861), 81-186, at 150, 152-5. For the wider background: Rudolf
Hiestand, Precipua tocius christianissimi columpna - Barbarossa und der Kreuzzug, in: Alfred
Haverkamp (ed.), Friedrich Barbarossa: Handlungsspielrume und Wirkungswesen des staufischen
Kaisers (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1992), 51-108; Peter Halfter, Die Staufer und Armenien, in: Snke
Lorenz and Ulrich Schmidt (ed.), Von Schwaben bis Jerusalem. Facetten staufischer Geschichte
(Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1995), 187-208. See also the comparable debate concerning Bulgaria: James
Ross Sweeney, Innocent III, Hungary and the Bulgarian coronation: a study in medieval papal
diplomacy, Church History 42 (1973), 320-34.
 25

to curtail or prevent access to royal power appealed to papal authority as frequently as

those who sought to claim or establish royal status.

Obviously, popes, too, sought to derive political influence from their king-making
role. This was most obviously the case with imperial elections.103 Equally, though,
those whose forebears had called upon the curia to confirm the creation of kingship
found that later popes might view this as granting them a degree of oversight, a duty,
in fact, to intervene in the affairs of such new realms. A short sketch of papal-
Hungarian relations during the pontificate of Gregory VII (1073-85) may suffice by
way of illustration.104 Already in October 1074, barely a year into Gregorys
pontificate, King Solomon had thus been chided for taking his kingdom in fief from
the emperor, not the Holy See. 105 In April 1075, Gregory returned to this theme: he
desired to make peace between Geza and his brother, and to give Hungary a king, not
a kinglet (at rex ibi, non regulus fiat),106 that is, one recognised by Gregory, not his
imperial adversary. When, in the end, neither Geza nor Solomon succeeded, but
Lszlo I, Gregory tried yet again to ascertain papal prerogatives: in 1077, he ordered
his correspondents to ensure that Lszlo send emissaries to Rome to acknowledge his
obligations towards the Holy See.107 Being a faithful son of the Roman Church
entailed more than St Stephen might have bargained for, and it contextualises Rogers
insistence on a papal privilege confirming, first, that Sicilian kingship would continue
even if Anacletes successors refused to do so, and, second, the exact nature of royal
control over the Sicilian Church. It also makes the dogged yet low-key fashion in
which the rulers of Portugal had pursued their royal title seem less peculiar. That is,
while papal authorisation was still sought, papal authority could be bypassed, reduced,
or even challenged (the declaration of Arbroath was, for instance, also a letter of
protest against papal support for Edward II of England). Nor was this type of evasive
action limited to papal king-making: shortly after Lewon II had received that papal-

103
Regestum Innocentii III Papae super negotio Romani Imperii, ed. Friedrich Kempf, Miscellanea
Historiae Pontificiae xii, (Rome, 1947), nos. 14, 29, 136.
104
See also: Rudolf Schieffer, Gregor VII. und die Knige Europas, Studi gregoriani per la storia
della Libertas Ecclesiae 13 (1989), 189-211; H.E.J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII, 1073-1085 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1998), 443-8.
105
Gregory VII, Register, ii. no. 13, i, pp. 145-6. Similar commands to give the papacy its due had
been directed to Solomons rival, Duke Geza in March 1074 and 1075: ibid. i, no. 58, i, pp. 85-6; ii, no.
63, i, pp. 218-9.
106
Gregory VII, Register, ii, no. 70, i, p.230.
107
Gregory VII, Register, iv.25, i, p. 340.
 26

imperial crown, he also received one from the Byzantine emperor. Faced with the
choice of alienating either his immediate neighbour or those whose support he needed
to keep that neighbour at bay, Lewon simply wore both crowns together.108

IV

Lewons example should also warn us against viewing the power relations in evidence
here too rigidly. Frequently, those being made kings had as much to gain from the
exchange as those who made the king; equally, there were circumstances when being
the junior partner still brought with it considerable rewards; and not every act of
receiving a crown inevitably resulted in a prolonged battle to define just what this
meant for the relationship between king and king-maker. After all, in order for claims
of overlordship to be made, conditions had to exist in which they could be voiced. In
Hungary, for instance, Gregory VII had been able to arrogate the right to choose a
king because there was a succession dispute, and because one candidate had
approached him to invalidate the claims of another. German emperors, similarly, had
been able to intervene because a disputed succession had forced rival candidates to
muster support from outside their kingdom. Only rarely did those seeking to control
royal power intervene without having first been called upon to do so. There is, for
instance, no evidence that Henry III had sought to use that papal mandate when
dealing with Alexander IIIs enthronement as king of Scots in 1251, and this may
partly have been the case because there was no rival candidate to support or dismiss.
When, on the other hand, during the 1290s, Edward I established his claim to lordship
over Scotland, he was able to do exactly because Alexander had left no undisputed
heir, and because the Scottish barons had called upon to choose for them a king.109 In
fact, approaching a neighbouring ruler for confirmation could be the lesser of two
evils: not long after the death of Boleslaw I, for instance, a succession dispute ensued,
with one candidate approaching the emperor for support.110 Similar pressures applied

108
Petermann, Beitrge, 152-3; La Chronique attribue au connetable Smbat, transl. Grard Ddyan
(Paris, 1980), 72-3. In fact, one contemporary chronicler claimed that the Caliph at Baghdad, too, sent
Lewon gifts for this coronation: Petermann, Beitrge, 152.
109
A.A.M. Duncan,The process of Norham, Thirteenth Century England v. Proceedings of the
Newcastle Upon Tyne Conference 1993, ed. P.R. Coss and S.D. Lloyd (Woodbridge: Boydell &
Brewer, 1995), 207-30; for the wider background, G.W.S. Barrow, Robert Bruce and the Community
of the Realm of Scotland (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1988), 39-53.
110
Wipo, Gesta Chuonradi, 29, pp. 47-9.
 27

in twelfth-century Denmark, when, in 1152, rival claimants for the throne asked for
their dispute to be arbitrated at the imperial court,111 and it was probably a driving
factor in 1204, when Ioannitsa of Bulgaria offered his support to the crusaders
assembled outside Constantinople in exchange for recognition of his royal title.112
Sometimes, the gains clearly outweighed the risks.

Moreover, even in cases where there was a clear hierarchical relationship, dependant
status was not necessarily rejected by the subservient party. In 1158, for instance,
Emperor Frederick Barbarossa granted Duke Vladislaw of Bohemia the right to wear
a crown, and did so in recognition of the dukes past loyalty and that of his
forebears.113 Vincent, a canon at Prague Cathedral, who provides the most detailed
narrative of the event, saw no need to invalidate the emperors reading: Barbarossa
had crowned Vladislaw for his faithful service, and the news led to much rejoicing
across Bohemia. When, subsequently, the new king sought to muster a contingent of
Bohemian nobles to participate in an imperial campaign in Italy, opposition was
directed not at the kings participation, but the fact that he had planned to do so
without first consulting his nobles.114 There was thus no concern over Vladislaws
subservient status. At best, while the imperial charter had specified that he could wear
a circulus, a garland type headgear, Vincent had described the item as a diadem, that
is, a more elaborate type of crown.115 The acceptance of imperial power may have
been made easier by the fact that Bohemia had traditionally experienced very little

111
Otto of Freising and Rahewin, Gesta Frederici, ii.5, pp. 290-1. This should perhaps be read
alongside the less than enthusiastic remarks on the event by Saxo Grammaticus, writing in the early
thirteenth century: Saxo Grammaticus, Danorum Regum Heorumque Historia Books x-xvi. The text of
the first edition with translation and commentary in three volumes, ed. and transl. Eric Christiansen, 3
vols. British Archaeological Reports 84, 118 (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1980 and 1981),
xiv.8, 2 (1981), pp. 378-9. See also: Odilo Engels, Friedrich Barbarossa und Dnemark, in Friedrich
Barbarossa, ed. Haverkamp, 353-85; Martin Groh, Das Deutschlandbild in den historischen Bchern
der Gesta Danorum, in Saxo and the Baltic region. A symposium, ed. Tore Nyberg (Odense:
University Press of Southern Denmark, 2004), 143-60.
112
Robert de Clari, La Conqute de Constantinople, ed. and transl. Peter Noble (Edinburgh: Socit
Rencesvals British Branch, 2005), 64, pp. 76-9.
113
Die Urkunden Friedrichs I., ed. Heinrich Appelt et. al, MGH Diplomata, 7 vols. (Hanover: Hahn,
1975-1990), no. 201, vol. i (1975), p. 337. It is perhaps worth noting that this was personal, not
dynastic kingship: until 1232, each new ruler of Bohemia had his royal title confirmed by the emperor,
and only after that date did the title become hereditary [Codex Diplomaticus et Epistolaris Regni
Bohemiae, ed. Gustav Friedrich et. al., 9 vols. (Prague, 1904-93), iii. no. 11]. This raises interesting
questions in the context of succession to a ruler, as opposed to the establishment of a new title, and will
therefore have to be the subject of a separate investigation.
114
Vincentii Pragensis Annales, MGH SS 17 (Hanover: Hahn, 1861), pp. 667-8. On the text see Jana
Nechutov, Die lateinische Literatur des Mittelalters in Bhmen, transl. Hildegard Bokov and Vclav
Bok (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna: Bhlau, 2007), pp. 86-7.
115
Witold Maisel, Rechtsarchologie Europas (Cologne, Vienna and Weimar: Bhlau, 1992), 213-4.
 28

imperial intervention,116 but it was still the royal dignity that mattered to Vincent, and
it was on the royal dignity that his account had focussed.117

Vladislaws case highlights the degree to which external recognition of kingship

raised the standing of the ruler in the eyes of his subjects, and should thus alert us to
the role of that audience. Furthermore, the audience mattered equally to those giving
and those receiving a crown. After all, being asked to give, or at least perceived as
able to give, a crown signified power, moral rectitude and political legitimacy (as
there was no point in asking a weak ruler, one notorious for his moral failings, or one
with serious doubts about his right to wield such power). It was perhaps for these
reasons, too, that Frederick Barbarossa, who had only just himself been elected king
(and had, in the process, bypassed the claims of his predecessors under-age son),118
so willingly decided the Danish succession in 1152, and it may even have played a
factor in events at Gniezno (which occurred not long after Emperor Otto III had come
of age). It may also explain the curious crown-giving bonanza that swept across
Germany after 1198, when two rival claimants had been chosen for the imperial
throne: one took the opportunity to convey a royal title onto yet another duke of
Bohemia,119 while his rival responded by holding a festive diet at Cologne, where he
solemnly crowned the relics of the Three Kings.120 Clearly, giving crowns and making
kings was a token of might, power and rectitude.

116
Wolverton, Hastening towards Prague, pp. 228-63.
117
See also the parallel case of Wales: in 1240, King Henry III gave Dafydd ap Llewellyn a lesser
kind of crown, called a garland, as insignum of the principality of North Waler, and Dafydd declared
himself to be in everything subject to the king of England: diadema minus, quod dicitur garlonde
insigne principatus Northwalliae, per omnia tamen subiciens se regi Angliae, Tewkesbury, 115. For
the Welsh view, which does not make mention of the Crown, Brut y Tywysogyon or The Chronicle of
the Princes. Peniarth Ms. 20 Version, transl. Thomas Jones (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1952),
p. 105. This was no straightforward submission, but an attempt by Llewellyn ap Iowerth to strengthen
his position in relation to the other Welsh princes: Huw Pryce, Negotiating Anglo-Welsh relations:
Llewellyn the Great and Henry III, in England and Europe in the Reign of Henry III (1216-1272), ed.
Bjrn Weiler with Ifor Rowlands (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 13-30, passim and at 21-2 on the act
of Gloucester; R.R. Davies, The Age of Conquest. Wales, 1063-1415 (originally published as
Conquest, Coexistence and Change. Wales 1063-1415, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987; repr.
Oxford, 1991), 239-50.
118
Jan Paul Niederkorn, Friedrich von Rothenburg und die Knigswahl von 1152, in: Von Schwaben
bis Jerusalem, 51-60; Gerd Althoff, Friedrich von Rothenburg. berlegungen zu einem
bergegangenen Knigssohn, in: Festschrift fr Eduard Hlawitschka zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Karl
Schnith and Roland Pauler (Kallmnz, 1993), 307-16; Ferdinnad Opll, Friedrich Barbarossa
(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1990), 33-5.
119
Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, ed. Johann M. Lappenberg, MGH sep. ed. (Hanover: Hahn, 1868), 219;
Annales Marbacenses Qui Dicuntur (Cronica Hohenburgensis cum Continuatione et Additamentis
Neoburgensibus), ed. Hermann Bloch, MGH SSrG sep.ed. (Hanover & Leipzig: Hahn, 1907), 74.
120
Bernd Ulrich Hucker, Kaiser Otto IV. (Hanover: Hahn, 1990), 22-35; 95-101; 567-70.
 29

It thus comes as no surprise that, just as some later observers might seek to invalidate
the hierarchichal relationship established by crown-giving, others might seek to invent
occasions on which the great status of their protagonist was demonstrated by his
giving of crowns and making of kings. More importantly, as our next and final
example will show, this need not necessarily carry with it claims to political authority
over the new king. When, early in the thirteenth century, an unknown Icelander
produced a history of the Norwegian kings, commonly known as Morkinskinna, he
dealt at some length with the adventures of King Sigurd, who, in 1107-10, had
embarked on a crusade to the Holy Land. The story of Sigurds adventures is a long
list of honours: while wintering in England, he was received splendidly and
honourably,121 and when Sigurd arrived in the Holy Land, King Baldwin had the
streets of Jerusalem decked out with carpets and precious stones, hosted a most
splendid feast in the kings honour, and provided him with a relic of the Holy
Cross.122 The account of Sigurds crusade ends with a lengthy report on his glamorous
sojourn at the Byzantine court. In between, the king and his band conquered several
castles in Spain, and generally wreaked havoc upon Muslims and unfaithful
Christians.123 In the course of their travels, they also reached Sicily, where Sigurd
received a splendid welcome from Roger II: during a feast lasting several days, Roger
most willingly served on the king. On the seventh day of festivities Sigurd repaid this
kindness by leading Roger to the throne and installing him as king of Sicily.124 The

121
Morkinskinna. The Earliest Icelandic Chronicle of the Norwegian Kings (1030-1157). Translated
with introduction and notes by Theodore M. Andersson and Kari Ellen Gade (Ithaca, 2000), caps. 61-
3, pp. 313-25 for Sigurds campaign; cap. 61, p. 314 for his reception at the court of King Henry. I am
grateful to Haki Antonsson for this reference. The episode goes well beyond what other contemporary
or near-contemporary sources report: Theodorus Monachus, Historia De Antiquitate Regum
Norwagiensium, in: Monumenta Historica Norwegiae. Latinske Kildeskrifter til Norges Historie i
Middlealderen, ed. Gustav Storm (Kristiana, 1880), 65-6; grip a Nregskonungasgum. A twelfth-
century synoptic history of the kings of Norway, ed. and transl. M.J. Driscoll (London: Nordic Society
for Viking Research, 1995), 71-5; Fagrskinna. A catalogue of the kings of Norway, transl. Alison
Finlay (Leiden and Boston: Brill) 2004), caps. 87-9, pp. 255-7. For his time in England see: William of
Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. and transl. R.A.B. Mynors, R.M. Thomson and M.
Winterbottom, 2 vols., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998-9), iii, 20, i, pp. 480-1; iv, 410, i, pp.
740-3. A good general survey is provided by Gary B. Doxey, Norwegian crusaders and the Balearic
Islands, Scandinavian Studies 68 (1996), 139-60; Jensen Crusading.
122
Morkinskinna, cap. 61c, pp. 321-2. On the relic of the Holy Cross see also Haki Antonsson, Saints
and relics in early Christian Scandinavia, Medieval Scandinavia 15 (2005), 51-80. On the idea of
kingship in Morkinskinna, though focusing on Haraldr Hardradi, see rmann Jakobsson, The
individual and the ideal: the representation of royalty in Morkinskinna, Journal of English and
Germanic Philology 99 (2000), 71-86.
123
Morkinskinna, cap. 61, p. 316-20.
124
Morkinskinna, cap. 61a, pp. 320-1.
 30

story was taken up and expanded a few decades later in Snorri Sturlusons
Heimskringla, which added that Sigurd granted Roger the right that there should
always be a king of Sicily, although in the past there had been only counts or dukes.125

We may safely assume that Sigurd had not engaged in king-making: Roger had barely
entered his teens when Sigurd would have visited Sicily, and Sigurd was, in fact, dead
by the time Roger did become king. What matters here, though, is the anonymous
authors concern with and representation of Sigurds fame. That, in turn, had been
reflected not only in the many splendid receptions he was given, but also in the fact
that he bestowed a royal title upon someone known for his power and might: Roger
was a powerful monarch, who conquered all of Apulia and subdued a large number
of islands in the Mediterranean. He was called Roger the Great.126 There was no
claim to lordship over Sicily, and the text predates the attempts, from the 1240s
onwards, of Hakon IV to become a major player on the European scene.127 Rather,
Sigurds Sicilian sojourn was testimony to the power of Norwegian kings, and it was
to a domestic Norwegian audience that this message was conveyed. The episode also
matters because it subtly inverts the imagery in the Gallus Anonymus account of
Boleslaw Chobrys elevation. Whereas, in the Gesta Principum Polonorum, the
crown-giving had been embedded in a narrative of parity and mild imperial
embarrassment, in Morkinskinna it served to highlight the superiority of Sigurd, not
Roger. Moreover, just as Otto had told Boleslaw that he could not be just one of the
princes, and according to Alexander of Telese his close advisors Roger that he
was too powerful to be a mere duke, so Sigurd, too, crowned Roger because of his
many conquests. Sigurd, in turn, had merited the right to enthrone Roger because of
his rectitude, martial exploits, wealth and might. Kingship was a personal accolade,
but so was the ability to make kings. Just as someone desiring a throne needed

125
Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla: history of the kings of Norway, transl. Lee M. Hollander (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1964), p. 385.
126
Morkinskinna, cap. 61b, p. 321.
127
Martin Kaufhold, Norwegen, das Papsttum und Europa im 13. Jahrhundert. Mechanismen der
Integration, HZ 265 (1997), 309-42; idem, Eine norwegische Biertaufe: Probleme liturgischer
Normierung im 13. Jahrhundert, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fr Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische
Abteilung 83 (1997), 362-76; Bruce F. Gelsinger, A thirteenth-century Norwegian-Castilian alliance,
Medievalia et humanistica. Studies in medieval and Renaissance culture NS 10 (1981), 55-80.
 31

confirmation from someone of undisputed moral integrity, so those conveying a

crown could gain prestige only by awarding it to those truly deserving the honour.128

What, then, does all this tell us about the theory and practice of kingship in the
Central Middle Ages? To begin, we have seen that the experience of royal power
unfolded in response to traditions, political challenges and historical circumstances
specific to each regnal community. The path to kingship in Piast Poland, by force of
context and circumstance, had to be a very different one from that taken in Armenia,
for instance, Bohemia, Portugal or Sicily. This comes as no surprise, and would not
merit our attention, were it not also the case that we have been able to identify a set of
shared mechanisms, ideals and norms that provided the wider ideological and political
framework before which each regnal experience unfolded. To put this in less abstract
terms: although the experience of Portugal, Armenia etc. was different, their rulers
nonetheless resorted to similar means by which to obtain a crown or ascertain their
right to one; the rulers themselves or those recording their deeds evaluated or judged
royal pretensions with reference to a set of norms that, while reflecting culturally and
historically specific circumstances, would easily have been understood across the
Latin West. The imagery of Sigurds crowning of Roger II contained so many
parallels with the Gallus account of Ottos crowning of Boleslaw not because of so
far undetected channels of cultural exchange,129 but because both events were

128
Though, obviously, there also was the issue of legal right to consider, and it was perfectly possible
for legitimate rulers to be killed for their subsequent political ineptitude: all those recognizing a title
did was confirm the legitimacy of an initial claim. See, for instance, Wipo, Gesta Chuonradi, 29, p. 48.
In this sense, the pressure on those giving a crown was less severe than that on those receiving one.
Such thinking may also have been behind the crusaders refusal in 1204 to award Ioannitsa of Bulgaria
a royal crown: he had, after all, started out as keeper of one of the imperial horse farms, who, to avenge
an insult from a palace servant, embarked on a career of plunder and raiding. Robert de Clari makes,
however, no explicit link between the two, though the ordering of his narrative seems to imply that
Ioannitsas rumoured pedigree had partly motivated the crusaders in their decision. La Conqute de
Constantinople, 65, pp. 78-81. It was for very similar reasons, too, that much was made of Roger IIs
dalliance with the anti-pope (both being usurpers, they each heightened and marked out more clearly
the moral depravity of the other). See, for instance, Otto of Freising, Chronica sive de duabus
civitatibus, ed. Walter Lammers, transl. Adolf Schmidt, Freiherr-vom-Stein-Gedchtnisausgabe (Berlin
(East): Rtten & Loening: 1960), vii.18, pp. 528-9.
129
And which, even if they did exist, would not invalidate the thrust of my argument: if the Icelandic
text borrowed from the Gallus Anonymus, then this still suggests a shared culture of describing
kingship.
 32

described with reference to a shared pool of expectations as to how a royal title was
granted or obtained, of what made a king a king.

This concept of kingship, in turn, centred on issues of power and might. As we have
seen, only those whose power exceeded that of their immediate peers and
predecessors could claim a royal title. Manifesting this power normally took the form
of conquest as we have seen in Poland, Hungary, Sicily and Bulgaria but could
also mean great wealth (Poland and Sicily) or the fact that the prospective ruler had
united under his lordship many once disparate lands (Sicily). Counts and dukes
became kings once they were deemed too powerful to be mere princes. Such thinking,
to some extent, merely reflected the realities of power: while the duties of kings were
not dissimilar to those of other lords that is, to maintain the peace, do justice, defend
the Church and the poor they were exercised on a far grander scale. Kings had to do
justice and maintain the peace not only in their own domains, but across the realm as
a whole,130 and they did so partly because of their special relationship with God (who
had, after all, placed them above other lords for a reason). This explains why, not just
in newly established kingdoms, princes were chosen to be kings because of their
power and might.131 Yet that power and might also had to be channelled and, if
possible, curtailed: it had to be exercised for the good of the people, not that of the
ruler. Hence the general emphasis on a new kings virtuous conduct, military prowess
and great piety. Contrary to popular (and some recent scholarly) imagination,132
medieval politics was not solely about the unfettered pursuit of material gain.

Moreover, all this reflected the practicalities of power. A royal title was worth little
unless it was accepted by others. In order for that title to be recognised, however, a
ruler had to be seen to conform to basic principles of rulerly behaviour and action.

130
Bjrn Weiler, Kingship and lordship: kingship in dynastic chronicles forthcoming in: The Gallus
Anonymous, ed. Stopka.
131
See, for instance, Chronica de Gestis Consulum Andegavorum, in: Chroniques des Comtes dAnjou
et des Seigneurs dAmboise, ed. Louis Halphen and Ren Poupardin (Paris: Picard, 1913), p. 69; for
further examples see Bjrn Weiler, Suitability and right: imperial succession and the norms of politics
in early Staufen Germany, in Making and Breaking the Rules, ed. Lachaud and Penman, 71-86; idem,
Kingship, usurpation and propaganda in twelfth-century Europe: the case of Stephen, Anglo-Norman
Studies 31 (2000), 299-326.
132
J. T. Rosenthal, The king's "wicked advisers" and medieval baronial rebellions, Political Science
Quarterly 82 (1967), 595-618; Richard W. Kaeuper, Chivalry and violence in medieval Europe
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). See also the thoughtful remarks by Gerd Baaken, Recht und
Macht in der Politik der Staufer, HZ 221 (1975), 553-70. reprinted in his Imperium und Papsttum,
143-58.
 33

Internally, within a regnal community, few would choose a king who had a reputation
for plundering his people, being parsimonious in his patronage or otherwise prone to
display the traits of a tyrant.133 There was a reason, after all, why, from the twelfth
century, succession also involved both promises and symbolic demonstrations of good
conduct, and why, from the thirteenth, the limits of royal power were defined in a
more and more formalised fashion.134 The same applies to the external recognition of
kingship: there was no point investing ones prestige in appointing useless tyrants, or
kings so weak that they had to be bailed out again the moment they paraded a crown
before their unwilling subjects. Furthermore, as in the case of domestic recognition,
receiving external acknowledgement involved an increasingly elaborate catalogue of
dos and donts: when, in the 1130s, Pope Innocent II endorsed Stephen of Blois as
king of England, he listed as the kings main duties that he should be a man who
loved the religious, a cultivator of peace and justice, a most fervent comforter of
widows and orphans, and a pious defender of those, who, through their own
impotence, could not defend themselves.135 When, in 1204, Innocent III
acknowledged Ioannitsa of Bulgaria as king, his list of royal duties ran to four pages
in the modern printed edition. The more kingship became established, the more
elaborate, too, became the mechanisms put in place to define and direct its exercise.

It was partly the need to confirm the moral suitability of kings from which the
successors of those who had first recognised a kingdom could derive a right, or even a
duty, to intervene in its affairs. This is not the place to explore the phenomenon,136
but we should note that it echoes a pattern central to the argument of this
investigation: the very acknowledgement of power also brought with it a need to
define its limitations, and the possibility that was what intended as triumph could turn
into humiliation and defeat. This was not only the case with those would-be kings

133
See also, though falling well outside the chronological span of this paper, Walter Bower,
Scotichronicon, v.1-6, vol. 3 (1994), pp. 3-17. On the wider theme: K. D. Farrow, The
historiographical evolution of the Macbeth narrative, Scottish Literary Journal i (1994) 5-23.
134
Which, intriguingly, coincided with an increasing formalisation of the rules of succession. Exploring
this aspect exceeds the limits of a chapter like this, and will require a separate investigation. In the
meantime see John Gillingham, At the deathbeds of the kings of England, 1066-1216, in Herrscher-
und Frstentestamente im westeuropischen Mittelalter, ed. Brigitte Kasten (Cologne, Weimar and
Vienna: Bhlau, 2008), 509-30.
135
Historia Ricardi, Priore Ecclesiae Haugustaldensis, De Gestis Regis Stephani, in: Chronicles of the
Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, vol. III, ed. Richard Howlett, Rolls Series (London:
Longman, Green & Co., 1886), 147-8.
136
Which, by right belongs to an exploration of the rules of succession to, not the creation of, kingship.
 34

whose inability to establish their kingship turned them into archetypal tyrants and
usurpers, but also of those like the Polish Duke Mieszko whom we have encountered
at the beginning of this paper, who so eagerly sought, but were unable to obtain, a
crown. Exactly because kingship rested on a claim to virtue, a failure to display that
virtue offered the opportunity to challenge or even reject the initial claim. We have
seen this principle applied in the case of Piast kingship, but this does not exhaust its
applications. When, in the 1240s, the English chronicler Matthew Paris reported on
the succession of King John in 1199, he put a warning into the mouth of the presiding
archbishop: John had been chosen to perform the duties of a king, but he could forfeit
the right to kingship, should he corrupt the crown.137 Matthew could draw on a long
tradition of attempts to curtail royal power,138 and on an even longer tradition of
disrupted crown-wearings and coronations meant to highlight the pretensions or even
the weakness of a royal claim.139 Assuming power also required the promise to wield
it carefully and, increasingly, the means and mechanisms to ensure that such promises
were kept. If a ruler failed to abide by these norms, it fell to his barons either to
dispose of him, or to ensure that he did not abuse his power. Exactly because gaining
a royal title was also a matter of political and military might, it contained the seeds of
its own disempowerment.

Such risks were, finally, pragmatic as well as ideological, and applied to those
granting as well as to those seeking a crown. Saxo Grammaticus offers a warning
example as to the latter: in 1152, King Sven of Denmark, eager to flaunt his present
glory at the spectators, and desiring to impress Frederick Barbarossa with his royal
dignity, responded willingly to an invitation that he visit Germany. However, on his
arrival, he was not only forced to become the emperors vassal, but also had to cede

137
Matthaei Parisiensis Chronica, ii, pp. 454-5.
138
Bracton, De Legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae, ed. George E. Woodbine, 4 vols. (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1915-42), ii. 110. In fact, among contemporary observers outside England, the
seditious nature of the English was to become something approximating a national characteristic.
Bibliotheca mundi seu speculi maioris Vincentii Burgundi praesulis Bellovacensis, ordinis
praedicatorum, theologi ac doctori eximii, tomus quartus qui Speculum Historiale inscribitur (Douai,
1624), 1260; The Historia Occidentalis of Jacques de Vitry, ed. J. F. Hinnebusch, Spicilegium
Friburgense 17 (Fribourg: Herder, 1972), 92.
139
Geoffrey Koziol, England, France, and the Problem of Sacrality in Twelfth-Century Ritual, in:
Cultures of Power. Lordship, Status, and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. T.N. Bisson
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 124-48, has collated such episodes for twelfth-
century England.
 35

the province of Zeeland to one of his rivals.140 Equally, being asked to give a crown
was both a token of respect and standing, and a most weighty responsibility. If those
granting a crown overplayed their hands, they could forfeit whatever standing they
might have hoped to gain (there was a reason why Ioannitsa of Bulgaria and Lewon of
Armenia had not limited their approaches to just the papal court).141 Ultimately, it was
the ability successfully to negotiate these conflicting demands and challenges that
made a prince a king.

Of course, such new found status had to be justified to and defended against rivals
both at home and abroad; it had to be demonstrated and made manifest by the
successful governance of the realm, and it had to be made permanent by arranging the
succession of ones progeny to that royal dignity. Each of these steps posed new and
different challenges, but these challenges reflected and amplified those that each new
king had faced at the outset of his reign. This paper can thus not claim to have
explored kingship in its entirety. Like kingship, it is but a first step. I hope, though, to
have sketched the framework of ideals and norms, of means and mechanisms by
which political power was gained and lost, claimed, granted or disputed. I also hope
to have shown how exploring kingship and its creation can offer us a window both
into the bewildering complexity of medieval political life, and the means by which
contemporaries sought to evaluate, understand and order that complexity.

140
Saxo Grammaticus, Danorum Regum Historia. xiv.8, pp. 378-9.
141
In fact, when seeking to secure the succession of his nephew, Lewon willingly bypassed the pope,
and requested an embassy from the emperor instead: Wilbrandi de Oldenburg Peregrinatio, in:
Peregrinatores Medii Aevii Quatuor, ed. J.C.M. Laurent, second edition (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1864), pp.
152-90, at pp. 174, 176-7.