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A Constellation of Authority

Castilian Bishops and the Secular Church During the Reign of Alfonso VIII

Kyle C Lincoln author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Pennsylvania State University Press

Published:3rd Jan '23

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

A Constellation of Authority cover

An in-depth study of Castilian bishops, politics, and the church during the long Twelfth Century.

During the long reign of Alfonso VIII, Castilian bishops were crusaders, castellans, cathedral canons, and collegiate officers, and they served as powerful intermediaries between the pope and the king of Castile. In A Constellation of Authority, Kyle C. Lincoln traces the careers of a septet of these bishops and uses this history to fill in much of what really happened in thirteenth-century Castile.

The relationships that local prelates cultivated with Alfonso VIII and the Castilian royal family existed in tension with how they related to the reigning pope. Drawing on diocesan archives, monastic collections, and chronicles, Lincoln reconstructs the complex negotiations and navigations these bishops undertook to maintain the balance among the papal and royal agendas and their own interests. Lincoln examines the bishops' ties to crusades and political influence, the growth of canon and Roman law, religious and church reform, and the canonization of local leaders. In the process, he makes the case that the medieval past is best illuminated by the combined luminescence of a “constellation of authority” represented, at least in part, by a conglomerate of bishops.

Through seven case studies, each examining a prelate in his individual historical context, A Constellation of Authority improves our understanding of the politics of thirteenth-century Castile and provides an important foundation for further consideration of the ties between Castile and the broader European medieval world. It will appeal to medieval Hispanists and historians of the medieval church and episcopacy.

A Constellation of Authority is a significant accomplishment from a promising young scholar. By piecing together the evidence of numerous cases into a coherent picture amidst the relative absence of existing literature, Lincoln demonstrates considerable acumen as well as intellectual courage. Readers will come away with an increased appreciation of the crucial role that bishops played in the social and political order of Castile, and indeed of all Latin Christendom, in the age of Alfonso VIII.”

—Sam Zeno Condera SJ Church History


“A very readable and well-researched series of case studies.”

—Jesse D. Mann The Medieval Review


“As a work of Iberian ecclesiastical history, A Constellation of Authority participates in the vigorous scholarly conversation of the last few decades. As a study of the twelfth-century Castilian episcopate, it is wholly original—its painstaking archival research has uncovered previously unknown documentary evidence.”

—Janna Bianchini, author of The Queen’s Hand: Power and Authority in the Reign of Berenguela of Castile

ISBN: 9780271094373

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 23mm

Weight: 481g

230 pages