New article in History of Political Thought

My most recent article, "Melchizedek as Exemplar for Kingship in Twelfth-Century Political Thought", is now published in the latest issue of History of Political Thought.  Following is the abstract:

This article examines the use of Melchizedek as an exemplar for kingship in the twelfth century, considering interpretations offered in the Norman Anonymous, Bernard of Clairvaux’s de Consideratione and John of Salisbury’s Policraticus. While the Norman Anonymous provides a Christological and royalist reading of Melchizedek’s roles as king and priest, de Consideratione offers a more nuanced explanation of papal power without significant regard for disputes of secular and ecclesiastical liberties. The Policraticus, on the other hand, advances a theory of divinely elected, non-hereditary kingship on the basis of Melchizedek’s being ‘without genealogy’. The interpretation of the Policraticus stands in tension with a prominent rabbinic teaching that Melchizedek is identical to Shem, the son of Noah, and so possessive of a lineage that raises interesting (though not insurmountable) challenges for the non-hereditary kingship theory advanced in the Policraticus.

Please email me if I can help you by sending a PDF of the article.



Also published in this issue is an article by Vasileios Syros, "Linguistic Contextualism and Medieval Political Thought: Quentin Skinner on Marsilius of Padua".  I wrote my Melchizedek article for a seminar with Prof. Syros in 2009, and at the time Prof. Syros was working on this article.  I had the opportunity to read a draft and offer some thoughts on it, and he's kindly acknowledged me in the published version.