This Is Why The Bible Was Important In Medieval Politics

In contemporary politics, biblical verses are sometimes used to mobilize supporters or to support policy decisions. Most recently, Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited Romans 13 to justify this administration's policy of separating the children of asylum seekers from their parents. Later that same day, Pres. Trump's Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders echoed Attorney General Sessions by pointing to biblical injunctions that urge people to obey the law.

In response, opponents of the policy pointed to the problematic (modern) history of the use of that verse, or focused on the need to properly contextualize what Paul may have meant in his letter to the Romans.

One might also look to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who has been known to fill his twitter feed with individual bible verses. This, as might be expected, has caused some groups to ask him to stop and led others to claim that he's misusing/ misunderstanding Scripture.

The debate here doesn't really seem to be about the Bible per se. What I mean is that no one's really arguing that the Bible doesn't actually say that (even if they maybe should, given the acts of interpretation required of all translations). Instead, the argument is really centered around interpretation - what that verse really means. And arguing about how best to understand the Bible as it relates to politics has a very, very long history.

Although there are many examples from earlier periods, I've recently been struck by the tradition - and arguments - around the biblical verses used in the Middle Ages, specifically how they were used by the king of France at the end of the 11th century to speak volumes about memory, power, legitimacy, and the proper role of religion in politics.

The story starts with a king - Philip I of France (1060-1108). He was a tremendously interesting figure for any number of reasons, not least of which being that in 1092 he ran off with the Count of Anjou's wife and took her for his own. This arrangement was further complicated by the fact that King Philip I was also already married. Nevertheless, he put his first wife (Bertha of Holland) aside and married again, this time to Bertrada of Montfort.

The papacy was not happy about this, the family of Philip's first wife (which included the powerful count of Flanders) was not happy about this and perhaps understandably the count of Anjou was not particularly happy about this. Philip I had to tread carefully.

So, that makes one of the first official documents he issued after his marriage all the more curious because it conveys a surprising strength and confidence.

It's a weird document.

The document itself details a donation to the monastery of Marmoutier in Tours, France. That's weird because Marmoutier was a monastery that wasn't really aligned with the king, but it was connected to the count of Anjou - the ex- (or maybe still-) husband of Philip's new wife.

The document is also weird it directly cites verses from the Bible, which was very uncommon in contemporary royal documents of this type. It starts with a reference to Romans 13:1 (!) to say that all power comes from God, but links that verse to the Book of Wisdom 6:7 and the suffering that the powerful must endure, before concluding with a rough paraphrases Luke 12:48 that reminds the reader that with great power comes great responsibility.

Context is important here. The fact that bible verses are not common in these royal documents alerts us that there's something special, something important going on here. Why here and why now?

And that points us to tradition. And in the roughly 1,o00 years of Christian commentaries before our 11th-century donation to the monastery of Marmoutier, only one other author - 1 - links these specific verses together. It's a letter from an archbishop to a king, dating to the late 9th century.

In that letter, the archbishop directly connected these verses as mirrors of each other. They were a challenge and a warning. They reminded the king about the burdens of his office, about the responsibility the king owed to God Who put him on the throne and to the people he ruled. But the verses were also meant to comfort the king. If the king acted on God's behalf, God would support him with victories and prosperity.

So what does this all mean?

If we read the biblical verses from the 11th-century document within this tradition, we can see that our author was conjuring the ghosts of the past. The 11th-century author used those biblical verses to suggest that his king sat squarely, legitimately within tradition. Philip I was just like his 9th-century predecessors and even possibly like the ideal King David, who himself took another man's wife and still found God's favor.

In other words, these three brief biblical references taken together, put into proper historical context, and read within their tradition, were saying that Philip I - in taking his new wife, patronizing this new monastery - was acting entirely within his rights, that his power derived from God and that he would in fact be rewarded for acting as he did. In other words, these three brief biblical references taken together, put into proper historical context, and read within their tradition, say much, much more than they might seem. 

In the end, we have to remember that Bible verses, when referenced in political or cultural contexts, are never "naked." The tradition they're clothed in shimmers like a prism, appearing differently depending on your particular point-of-view. The person who deployed that verse, however, is counting on their audience looking at the prism just right, the light refracted just so, revealing the truth of what that verse "really means." By paying attention to context and tradition when we see these verses, we can start to see more of the colors on display and therefore more of what's really going on. And this is a lesson as important to understanding the medieval world as it is to understanding our own.