Woven and warring cosmologies: in search of the missing theory of early modern politico-legal authority

Our article discusses the potential of the concept of ‘woven and warring cosmologies’ to better understand how various ways of making and ordering early modern politico-legal authority ‘hang together’. Through an exploration of literatures in history of international law (HIL) and Historical International Relations (HIR), which tend to remain legally anchored, focus on practices, or put forward ideational meta-concepts, we find that there is a need to develop a concept that can bring together these dimensions and include more materialist and everyday means of making and ordering authority. We therefore engage with an emerging literature in International Relations (IR) and indigenous studies on cosmologies and argue that existing approaches either assume a false regional and temporal homogeneity, or over-emphasise metaphysical, religious or ideational factors. Instead, we develop a framework of ‘woven and warring cosmologies’ that mitigates against this tendency towards homogeneity and integrates a more materialist focus. Concentrating on early modern Europe, we develop two case studies, Louis XIV (1643–1715) and revolutionary Corsica (1729–1769). In both cases, the construction of authority is cosmological yet woven and warring, shaped by Louis’ deployment of multiple, overlapping, and more or less clashing cosmologies, or in the Corsican case by a bricolage of republicanism, Catholicism, and paganism.