The European Dimension of a Group of Power: Ecclesiastics and the political State Building of the Iberian Monarchies (13th-15th centuries)
30.11.2025
Project status
concluded
Execution period
2013-2014
REF
PTDC/EPH-HIS/4964/2012
Main research unit
Interdisciplinary Centre for History, Culture and Societies of the University of Évora
Additional research units
Centre for History of the University of Lisbon, Centro de Estudos de História Religiosa, Center for the History of Society and Culture of the University of Coimbra, Instituto de Estudos Medievais, Centro de Investigação Transdisciplinar «Cultura, Espaço e Memória»
Principal Investigator
Hermínia Vasconcelos Vilar (UÉvora)
Research team
This project aims, firstly, to reassess the role and the importance of the ecclesiastics, particularly the members of the secular clergy, in the construction of a space for its social mobility and for the circulation of cultural and political models common to the entire European Christianitas; and secondly, following a broader comparative analysis, it aims to study, as case studies, the contribution of such an elite of Power in the affirmation of the Iberian Monarchies in Portugal, Castile, and Aragon between the 13th to the 15th century. For this purpose, we established five main objectives: 1) reconstitution of the universe of the ecclesiastical elite, paying particular attention to those serving in the King’s private chapel and who received and exercised administrative and diplomatic roles either as officials in the royal Curia or as his diplomatic representatives; 2) definition and analysis of the mobility circuits of the Portuguese, Castilian, and Aragonese episcopacy at the Iberian and European scales, with special attention given to university training and the holding of benefits in different places of Christendom and the securing of offices in the ecclesiastical and/or political structures; 3) characterisation of the social and cultural profiles of those ecclesiastics closely connected to the political structure, i.e., to define career typologies and the ways in which political and ecclesiastical paths interacted and influenced each other in the 13th to the 15 century, applying a comparative approach to study the different kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula; 4) expand our knowledge for the above-mentioned period; and 5) articulate the research with work already being developed within the context of collaboration established between the PI and several researchers of the team with the Groupe de Recherce Européene (GDRE) from CNRS on the project At the Foundations of the Modern European State: the Legacy of the Medieval Clergy.
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