PapalEmotions · Emotions, gender, and authority at the curia of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216)
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-09-02 → 2021-09-01
- EU contribution
- €207,312
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
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Results in brief
Emotions, gender, and authority at the curia of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216)
The Marie Skłodowska Curie Action (MSCA) ‘Emotions, Gender, and Authority at the Curia of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216)’ examined how one of the most prominent popes of the Middle Ages, Innocent III, and his curia used emotive language to assert authority at times during which it was challenged, and how they used emotional signification to convey an exclusively male form of authority. The research questions the status of the papal office as an ‘agender’ institution and develops the study of emotions in papal writing as a previously untapped resource for the examination of papal authority. These areas of research are important for society because they provide an insight into the deep history of the male monopoly over highly professionalised and powerful societal roles; contribute to our understanding of how men’s emotions are policed and read; and of the socio-political uses of emotion by prominent rulers. The objectives of this MSCA were to make two critical inventions in the existing literature. 1) to demonstrate the centrality of emotions to the communication of papal authority in the writings of Innocent and his curia. 2) to show that a gendered approach to emotions enables us to understand how gendered discourse shaped the communication of authority. Both are critically important for understanding how emotions have been leveraged as political tools. Innocent’s pontificate was a watershed moment in the development of papal authority and provides an excellent case study for how emotions were employed rhetorically and narratively in curial texts in times of crisis, reform, and renewal.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
By the end of the twelfth century, the papacy had become one of the most influential institutions in Latin Christendom. Using ideas and approaches from gender studies and the history of emotions, this interdisciplinary project investigates how the pope and his curia used emotions to communicate papal authority, and how this was shaped by contemporary ideas about gender. It focuses on the pontificate of Innocent III (1198-1216), which was a period of both crisis and renewal within the Latin Church. Scholars of clerical masculinity have fruitfully analysed depictions of emotional expression in central-medieval episcopal texts to determine how clerical authors used emotional signification to convey an exclusively male authority. Few studies, however, exist on papal emotions, and scholars have not examined the role played by gender in the ways in which central-medieval popes conveyed their authority. The project makes use of a variety of sources including papal letters, sermons, and biographies. These documents are rich with gendered emotional coding, and I focus on how expressions of sorrow, anger, and emotive pastoral imagery were used in instances when the pope faced challenges to his authority. I argue that examining expressions of emotion sheds light on how the papal curia’s rhetorical manipulation and use of discourses of masculinity influenced the way in which it communicated papal authority. In doing so, I provide an innovative framework for the use of emotional discourse to understand masculine hegemonic authority. This project will be developed at CGS Aalborg (host) and IAHR Vienna (secondment) to allow me to collaborate with outstanding researchers in the history of papal communication at these institutions, ensuring that my project is at the cutting edge of research and will develop my career. The results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed open access articles, a popular history magazine article, a podcast, and workshops for high-school pupils.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- AALBORG UNIVERSITET · AalborgCoordinatorDenmark
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union