Political Thought and Eleventh-Century Populism

The Meek, the Many, and the Meritorious during the Age of the Gregorian Reform

MacLeod, Jason

The populist movements of the eleventh century (the Peace of God, Gregorian Reform, and the First Crusade) did not simply mark an important pivot in the greater history of the West. Taken together, they also represent a fascinating phenomenon unto themselves. R. I. Moore characterized them as the products of a ‘bizarre but temporarily effective’ alliance of the clergy and people, while Richard Landes and Thomas Head claimed that they heralded the ‘emergence of the crowd on the stage of European affairs.’ This book is the first comprehensive study to consider the textual records of that alliance/emergence from an intellectual perspective. Through an in-depth analysis of ten eleventh-century writers, the author Jason Macleod argues that a distinctive strand of political thought entwines its way through the textual legacy of these movements.
From relatively obscure monastic hagiographers such as Letaldus of Micy to Pope Gregory VII to ‘best-selling’ crusade chroniclers like Robert the Monk, eleventh-century clergymen framed the populist fervour of their age in discernible patterns for contemporary consumption, while leaving a textual legacy rich with political implications for the future. While optimistic reformers romanticized the empowerment of the Meek and the Many in shades of vox populi, vox Dei, more sceptical observers pragmatically recast such activity as dangerous exemplars of God’s wrath employed to correct elites’ behaviour. Ultimately, this book contends that the body of political thought considered herein represents the earliest textual legitimization of political power for those inherently disempowered by lack of noble birth, wealth, or education in the medieval West.