Evil Lords: Theories and Representations of Tyranny from Antiquity to the RenaissanceNikos Panou, Hester Schadee Evil Lords uses the prism of bad rule or tyranny to enhance our understanding of political discourse from the ancient world to the Renaissance, elucidating premodern notions of sovereignty as well as the relation between ethics and politics, the individual and society, power, and propaganda. Eleven chapters present case studies exploring Hebrew, Graeco-Roman, Byzantine, early, high and late medieval, and Renaissance conceptions and representations of bad or tyrannical government. Since bad rule is always a perversion of the norm, its shifting conceptualizations shed light on historically specific assessments of what constitutes acceptable and legitimate political behavior. Meanwhile, political debate also reflects specific power structures, authorial intent, and audience expectations. Each of the essays, therefore, examines bad rule and its agents within the ideological frameworks and societal patterns of the respective periods, thereby painting a picture of historical and intellectual change. Despite these often profound variations, however, the volume also shows that it is meaningful to think of a Western tradition of tyranny in the premodern world that derived from shared roots in Classical and biblical thought and was further defined by ongoing cross-fertilization spanning two millennia. Thus, Evil Lords offers scholars and students of Western political theory, history, and literature a critical framework through which to revisit the longue durée of premodern political reflection. |
Contents
| 1 | |
1 The Discourse of Tyranny and the Greek Roots of the Bad King | 11 |
The Foreignness of Tyranny in the Hebrew Bible | 27 |
3 Discourse of Kingship in Late Republican Invective | 43 |
4 Imperial Madness in Ancient Rome | 61 |
Barbarian and Roman Rulers and the Shaping of Merovingian Kingship | 81 |
Imperial Legitimacy and Usurpation in Early Byzantium | 99 |
Tyrants and Tyranny in Carolingian Texts | 119 |
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Common terms and phrases
accusation Agathocles ancient Aquinas archaic aristocratic Aristotle bad king bad rule barbarian Bartolus behavior biblical bishop bishop of Tours Brutus Byzantine Byzantium Caesar Caligula Cambridge Carolingian century chapter Chilperic Christian Cicero citizens concept constitutional context cultural Deuteronomy discourse of tyranny discussion divine elite emperor empire evil lords example foreign Greek Gregory of Tours Gregory’s Hebrew Bible Hiero History human humanist Ibid idem imperial madness infelicitate Isidore Israel John of Salisbury kingship late Latin legitimate literary Machiavelli medieval Merovingian Middle Ages mirrors for princes modern monarchy Monumenta Germaniae Historica moral Munich narrative Nederman Nero Niccolò Patrologia Latina Persian perspective Poggio Political Thought Pontano Prague Rabanus Rabanus Maurus regimine principum regnum reign Republic republican role Roman Rome royal ruler Sedulius Scottus Senate social sources speech term tyrant texts tradition transl treatise tyrant usurpation vernacular vices virtue Wenceslas Wenceslas IV