The norms of power and “specula principum” in the French area

Abstract

Political theorising, as observed in the kingdom of France in the last centuries of the Middle Ages, is neither uniform - other models of government existed - nor linear, so much so that the vagaries of context influenced and inflected the norms of royal power from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. Nevertheless, we can identify a religious, political and historical underpinning that was almost invariably repeated like antiphons in the artes gubernandi, even as the norms evolved to transform the king from minister Dei to magister hominum.