Talk:Divine Right of Kings

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Contents

[edit] Philosophy

No mention of Hobbes? Wasn't Leviathan the major work that debunked the Divine Right of Kings and proposed that political shitthe entire article in seventeenth century English. (grin) --Ihcoyc

[edit] The Bible

-I think there's some trouble with speculating as to Paul's motivations for writing what he did. I do believe someone else said "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" though of course what he meant was not an inch of Jewish land for the damn Romans. What Paul is writing is almost certainly just common belief. Whether he emphasized it in order to pacify the rulers is another story, but in that era (as in fact many still believe today) people were successful either because of God's favor or because of their alliance with other supernatural powers. the librarian

I also rewrote that part to make it more waffly. The theme of reassuring nervous Romans is something that Bible scholars have seen in many parts of the New Testament, from the deflection of blame from Pilate to the Jews in the synoptic Gospels, to these passages in the Epistle to the Romans. Still, it is a contemporary interpretation. --Ihcoyc

One good point, a couple of dodgy ones.

  1. at last, someone else writes mediæval, spelt like that. Obviously a proper historian! :)))
  2. The Divine Right of Kings wasn't merely associated with R. Catholicism. Luther too wrote and spoke in similar terms, as did others;
  3. It wasn't simply to increase the position of the central monarch vis-a-vis his subjects that this concept developed; it was frequently to strengthen the centralised monarchy vis-a-vis local noblemen, many of whom in earlier times had been almost semi-autonomous, with ordinary people viewing their local nobleman rather than a far away king as the 'real' source of power.

I've made changes (about five words in total) to make these points. JTD 02:48 Jan 30, 2003 (UTC)

The association of the divine right of Kings with the Catholic or crypto-Catholic Stuart dynasty in England is an important part of the story, at least for English history. Protestant Englishmen tended to associate the divine right of kings with Catholicism, Inquisitions, Bloody Mary, prelacy, and other forms of autocratic rule; and the whole ball of wax was in turn associated with their traditional enemies, the French and Spanish. This became an integral part of the Whig version of patriotic myth. --Ihcoyc

[edit] Japan and China

No they didn't...

However, Chinese and Japanese emperors and Egyptian pharoahs and all other kings in history have routinely claimed the same right, basing in on their own religious beliefs.

Chinese and Japanese emperors most certainly did not claim divine right of kings......

-- Roadrunner

Yes they did, in fact the Japanese Emperor to this day claims to be directly descended from a Goddess, Jimmu.

But unlike Medieval European kings, Japanese Emperors have not in the last 1000 years been able to use this to exercise any real power.

Hlavac: I point out below that there were political machinations in the Japanese court, but the people surrounding the emperor used the "divine right." There were surely political machinations throughout Japanese and Chinese history where the reigning emperor didn't get to use his power, was a figurehead or otherwise circumscribed, but those who acted on his behalf, or in his name, most defintely used the idea that the emperor was chosen by the heavens, or a greater being(s) -- but a "god" in the broad general sense at least. Thus the emperor, or those who claimed to speak for him, exercised what we in the west call a "divine right of kings."

Chinese history is filled with emperors who claimed they were the representative of the heavens on earth.

Name two.

Hlavac: any brief look at Chinese history will show that every emperor claimed to the representative of heaven on earth.

No they didn't. A brief look at Chinese history will make it look like they did, but if you delve deeper into Chinese imperial political theory, you will find that the Emperor was not heaven's representative on earth.
The closest thing that you can get is mandate of heaven which is very different from divine right of kings. Peasant leader leads revolt kills oppressive king. Mandate of heaven says that peasant leader is right and is now the legitimate king. Divine right of kings says king is right and that the peasant leader can never be legitimate king. Totally different.
Chinese emperors played an important role in mediating heaven and earth, but they were in no way sent by heaven. One could argue that they were less heaven's representative to earth than earth's representative to heaven.
This is *exactly* why I object to using divine right of kings to describe Chinese Emperors. You see the term son of Heaven and then start assuming the Chinese Emperors acted like European monarchs when in fact they did not.

Chinese Emperors engaged in exactly the sort of absolute rule that European monarchs did.

No they didn't. Chinese Emperors were subject to Confucian restrictions that were unknown to European monarchs.

And European monarchs claim to mediate between the earth and god. That one stressed the communication a little more strongly in one direction or the other is a semantic difference.

It was quite different. See the peasant rebellion example.
Just as an example, the term "son of Heaven" was intended to imply that the Emperor was subordinate to heaven and not a representative of heaven. Quite different from "son of God."

Hlavac: No European monarch ever claimed he was the "son of God." Merely that he was "annointed" by God. European monarchs also said they were subordinate to heaven, why, they even said they were subordinate to the pope, who was closer to God then they were.

To confuse the existing semantical differences between the west and the east -- for instance that our concept of God and heaven are different than eastern concepts -- is to deny the underlying fundamental belief in both parts of the world that the ruler felt he was annointed 'from above' to rule us below.

But the fundamental belief was *not* the same. Chinese imperial theory legitimized the ability of the population to overthrow the emperor. European royal theory did not. This is not an issue of semantics. For example, a Chinese emperor could lose the mandate of heaven by governing badly. A European king could not lose divine right of kings.
Many a king in Europe lost not only his divine right, but often his head. And many a king or prince was overthrown or killed by other kings or princes who claimed a better mandate from heaven than the loser had.
Whoa there. When European monarchs started losing their heads (Charles I and Louis XVII) it was because people rejected the divine right of kings, and the whole point of the divine right of kings was to end all of the medieval wars over who was really the king.
This actually had implications in the 20th century. Both Europe and Japan had imperial theories in which the Emperor reigned but did not rule. It's really hard to use Chinese imperial theory to justify a constitutional monarchy.
Hlavac -- I am not justifying constitutional moarchy. I'm pointing out that rulers in antiquity to virtually this day claim(ed) to rule by the grace of god -- as defined in those cultures, with all the nuances of political machinations by real individuals. But the right to rule came from something else other than the rights of people to rule themselves.

Hlavac

A lamppost is not the same as a fish even though both are not bears. The divine right of kings is different from modern democratic theory. So is the idea of the mandate of heaven. It doesn't mean that the two are similar.

There were supporter of a constitutional monarchy in China. Mandate of Heaven just gives the right of a king to rule but doesn't specify how he rules. Indeed some even says that Mandate of Heaven now gives Communist Party to rule China. The question in my mind is: Could a king lose his divine right during his rule? If the answer is yes, then there is really no fundamental difference between divine right and mandate of heaven. Wshun

No. One important aspect of the European concept of divine right of kings was that the king could not lose this right. Even he was overthrown, he still was the legitimate king. Very different from the mandate of heaven Roadrunner

[edit] Over-broad statements

I've removed the following:

The Divine Right of Kings refers to a worldwide doctrine claimed by nearly every monarch who has sat on any throne at any point in the past, that states as principle: The ruler is annointed by god(s) to rule his people. Though there were different religions, different gods, different codification of the principle, different historical periods and different names for the principle, however, the principle remained the same. As early as Hammurabi the divine right was put into a legal code. No monarch ever claimed to rule by any other principle. Every monarch tied himself to his state's religion and his rule was blessed by the clergy of his religion.

It is factually incorrect and mixing up concepts of royal god-given rights with the Divine Right fo Kings, which is a specific concept that existed in a specific area of the the world in a specific timeframe. Please stop mixing up a broad-based concept that existed in some (by no means all) monarchies and the DRoK, which specifically refers to something different, namely christian monarchies in the pre-mediæval and mediæval eras who based their concept of rulership on biblical and christian church teachings. FearÉIREANN 00:10 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)


The DRoK is a specific and formal political and religious doctrine, hence it is capitalised. The chaos not capitalising it causes was shown here earlier when some user completely misunderstood the term, thinking that it was talking generically about claims to regal divinity and regal god-given authority. This article not about some generic concept but about a specific, narrow definition of a specific concept. Things are capitalised to make it clear to the reader that you are talking about the specific, not the generic, concept. In the edit war perpetuated by the user who had the wrong idea about what was being discussed and ignored everyone else pointing out that he was missing the point, the name was inadvertently left lowercased in the opening paragraph. It should have been uppercased and bold italicised. That has now been corrected. FearÉIREANN 21:19, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Can you categorically say that no present person believes in the divine right of kings? This is the impression given; it should be rewritten to say that it has greatly fallen out of favour, but the categorical statement is something of a POV. --Daniel C. Boyer 02:14, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Middle ages

I've had to fix the article in several places when "medieval" and the "Middle Ages" were mentioned incorrectly. While there exist several definitions of Middle Ages, they all end about in 1500, with events such as the Reformation, the discoveries of the Americas and the collapse of the Byzantine empire. Certainly, neither Bossuet nor Louis XIV belong to the Middle Ages. They belong to early modern history, and more specifically to the ancien régime. David.Monniaux 10:23, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This article seems to be awfully keen to attach DRoK to the middle ages, but this, although technically not false, is nonetheless misleading. The DRoK is a doctrine that was not well-developed or popular in the middle ages, finding full expression only after the reformation. Thomas Aquinas and the Mediæval Scholastics wrote works that can hardly be construed as supporting DRoK- quite the contrary, they affirmed numerous instances in which disobedience was permissible. It should also be noted that the Mediæval Church sought to guard its position against overly powerful Kings and Emperors (cough-Holy Roman Emperor-cough), and was not terribly keen on DRoK, at least in practice.

[edit] Dieu et Mon Droit

This is completely inaccurate. The motto refers to the claim to the throne of France, not England or Britain. --Daniel C. Boyer 13:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes and No. Yes, it refers to the throne of France, and, no, because the thrones were united at the time (the King of England was also the King of France), so it applies to both. --24.166.17.187 02:59, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stuarts

Immensely flawed in every aspect. The Saxons lost the right of deciding their monarch in 1066. Besides, it's fluffy Whig history and Ivanhoe. 68.110.9.62 04:54, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

"As mentioned above, many Divine Right rulers created absolutisms, and most rulers were greatly disliked by their citizens'. This is far fetched. What about Louis XI, Henri IV and Louis XV le Bienaimé just to give you 3 examples related to the French monarchy.86.120.169.89 21:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Structure

A detailed examination of mediaeval Geste, Trouvère and Cour d'Amours rooted in the Court of Acquitaine c1180 should be undertaken to extract the heirarchic model of chivalry which this concept depends on, and its relationship to Feudalism and the breakdown of the serf economy following the Dlack Death in 1348-50. The autonomy of the heirarchy was circular at the top, however, until c1440 when Pope Eugene (Eugenius) IV dispensed with the Vatican Council which hitherto kept the papacy under the thrall of the top European monarchs, France, England, the Holy Roman Emperor(Germany), Spain and Portugal. I suspect you will find that it crystallised either in Charles V of Spain or Phillip II, and certainly it became a fully-fledged concept in the early 17th Century absolutist monarchies. Jelmain 09:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Limitations to Monarch's power

"It is related to the ancient (not now) Catholic philosophies regarding Monarchy in which the monarch is God's viceregent upon the earth and therefore subject to no inferior power. However, in Roman Catholic jurisprudence the monarch is always subject to the following powers which are regarded as superior to the monarch:

(1) The Old Testament in which a line of kings was created by God through the prophecy of Jacob/Israel who created his son Judah to be king and retain the sceptre until the coming of the Messiah, alongside the line of priests created in his other son, Levi. Later a line of Judges who were, in effect, kings, was created alongside the line of High Priests created by Moses through Aaron. Later still, the Prophet Samuel re-instituted the line of kings in Saul, under the inspiration of God.

(2) The New Testament in which the first Pope, St Peter, commands that all Christians shall honour the Roman Emperor (1 Peter 2:13-17) even though, at that time, he was still a pagan emperor.

(3) The endorsement by the popes and the Church of the line of emperors beginning with the Emperors Constantine and Theodosius, later the Eastern Roman emperors, and finally the Western Roman emperor, Charlemagne."

What on Earth is the deal with the first two? Are they claiming that a Catholic monarch's power was bound by that of the Old Testament's kings, Judges and High Priests? Or is it saying that these were subject to the priesthood of their day and therefore drawing a parallel to the situation that the Church wanted between it and the Catholic Monarch? If it is it should say so.

Number 2, if anything justifies the Catholic Monarch (Or at least the Holy Roman Emperor, a Catholic monarch) as above the church. Is it supposed to literally imply that the Catholic monarch is considered subordinate theoretically to the Roman Emperor? (Presumably not the one at Constantinople!)

The point I'm making is that even theoretically Catholic monarchs were and are not considered subordinate to defunct offices such as the Judges of Israel or the Roman Emperor. I'm sure there were very valid reasons for their inclusion, which I've probably failed to even realise, but at the moment they don't make those reasons clear... So, whoever does understand them, would you please explain their inclusion? Furius (talk) 08:37, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality Problems!

We have got loaded language here. And I quote:

"The reasoning was impeccable. If a subject may overthrow his superior for some bad law who was to be the judge of whether the law was bad? "

This is objectivity at its worst.

[edit] EB 1911

The 1911 Encyclopedia, under the subject of "Kings", is quite interesting on divine right. I'll quote at length; I may have a go at incorporating some of this into the article at some point, though very happy for someone else to have a go sooner.

'The theory of the "divine right" of kings, as at present understood, is of comparatively modern growth. The principle Divine that the kingship is "descendible in one sacred Right of family," as George Canning put it, is not only still Kings. that of the British constitution, as that of all monarchical states, but is practically that of kingship from the beginning. This is, however, quite a different thing from asserting with the modern upholders of the doctrine of "divine right" not only that "legitimate" monarchs derive their authority from, and are responsible to, God alone, but that this authority is by divine ordinance hereditary in a certain order of succession. The power of popular election remained, even though popular choice was by custom or by religious sentiment confined within the limits of a single family. The custom of primogeniture grew up owing to the obvious convenience of a simple rule that should avoid ruinous contests; the so-called "Salic Law" went further, and by excluding females, removed another possible source of weakness. Neither did the Teutonic kingship imply absolute power. The idea of kingship as a theocratic function which played so great a part in the political controversies of the 17th century, is due ultimately to Oriental influences brought to bear through Christianity. The crowning and anointing of the emperors, borrowed from Byzantium and traceable to the influence of the Old Testament, was imitated by lesser potentates; and this "sacring" by ecclesiastical authority gave to the king a character of special sanctity. The Christian king thus became, in a sense, like the Roman rex, both king and priest. Shakespeare makes Richard II. say, "Not all the water in the rough rude sea can wash the balm off from an anointed king" (act iii. sc. 2); and this conception of the kingship tended to gather strength with the weakening of the prestige of the papacy and of the clergy generally. Before the Reformation the anointed king was, within his realm, the accredited vicar of God for secular purposes; after the Reformation he became this in Protestant states for religious purposes also. In England it is not without significance that the sacerdotal vestments, generally discarded by the clergy - dalmatic, alb and stole - continued to be among the insignia of the sovereign (see Coronation). Moreover, this sacrosanct character he acquired not by virtue of his "sacring," but by hereditary right; the coronation, anointing and vesting were but the outward.and visible symbol of a divine grace adherent in the sovereign by virtue of his title. Even Roman Catholic monarchs, like Louis XIV., would never have admitted that their coronation by the archbishop constituted any part of their title to reign; it was no more than the consecration of their title. In England the doctrine of the divine right of kings was developed to its extremest logical conclusions during the political controversies of the 17th century. Of its exponents the most distinguished was Hobbes, the most exaggerated Sir Robert Filmer. It was the main issue to be decided by the Civil War, the royalists holding that "all Christian kings, princes and governors" derive their authority direct from God, the parliamentarians that this authority is the outcome of a contract, actual or implied, between sovereign and people. In one case the king's power would be unlimited, according to Louis XIV.'s famous saying: "L' Nat, c'est moi I" or limitable only by his own free act; in the other his actions would be governed by the advice and consent of the people, to whom he would be ultimately responsible. The victory of this latter principle was proclaimed to all the world by the execution of Charles I. The doctrine of divine right, indeed, for a while drew nourishment from the blood of the royal "martyr"; it was the guiding principle of the Anglican Church of the Restoration; but it suffered a rude blow when James II. made it impossible for the clergy to obey both their conscience and their king; and the revolution of 1688 made an end of it as a great political force. These events had effects far beyond England. They served as precedents for the crusade of republican France against kings, and later for the substitution of the democratic kingship of Louis Philippe, "king of the French by the grace of God and the will of the people," for the "legitimate" kingship of Charles X., "king of France by the grace of God." The theory of the crown in Britain, as held by descent modified and modifiable by parliamentary action, and yet also "by the grace of God," is in strict accordance with the earliest traditions of the English kingship; but the rival theory of inalienable divine right is not dead. It is strong in Germany and especially in Prussia; it survives as a militant force among the Carlists in Spain and the Royalists in France (see Legitimists); and even in England a remnant of enthusiasts still maintain the claims of a remote descendant of Charles I. to the throne (see Jacobites).'

--Merlinme (talk) 17:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] His, Her, It's, Them's, All Y'Alls. Gender Issues

While we SAY Divine Right of Kings, we MEAN Divine Right of Monarchs. Therefore, I say and mean that it also applies to queens and empresses, or at least CAN. Therefore, to wit, am reverting reversion of reversion of subtle sexism reversion. Ratagonia (talk) 18:47, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


Why would you change the name? That's really backwards. Just mention it includes Queens as well. Beam 19:50, 26 April 2008 (UTC)