Theology in the Medieval Public Sphere: Scholastic Theologians and the Franco-Papal Conflict

In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, Pope Boniface VIII and the French King Philip IV clashed over the demarcation of royal and papal jurisdiction. This dissertation examines the role of theologians trained in the University of Paris in that dispute. It argues that this role, as well as the broader conflict, should be understood in terms of a medieval public sphere. Contrary to the common stereotype of medieval society as a static feudal hierarchy, these theologians engaged in a dynamic public dispute about the nature of authority in their society. Both the pope and the king needed to convince people of their conflicting claims to authority, and scholastic theologians provided arguments for both sides of the conflict. Drawing on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, this dissertation argues that the theologian was a special ‘character’ in medieval society, a privileged narrator who provided stories of how a Christian society ought to function. As the Franco-papal conflict unfolded, theologians intervened on the various questions under dispute, the legitimacy of Boniface’s election after the resignation of his predecessor Celestine V, clerical exemptions from taxation, and the pope’s ability to intervene in temporal matters. In doing so, they crafted narratives which legitimized the actions of the king or the pope. The concept of the common good played an important role in these narratives, providing a theoretical framework for theologians to discuss the public sphere in which they were acting.