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Paul Kershaw, Björn Weiler. Paths to Kingship in Medieval Latin Europe, c. 950–1200. , The American Historical Review, Volume 129, Issue 3, September 2024, Pages 1323–1324, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhae338
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Central to many influential axioms on kingship in Isidore’s Etymologiae was the understanding that kingship—the state of being a king—was rooted in process, the proper discharge of the office’s burden. To be a king was an identity constituted by action; being was a matter of doing. Björn Weiler clearly shares this verbal conception of kingship with the Visigothic bishop of Seville. For Weiler, however, it’s the plural rather than the singular that matters. However exceptional the position of king might be, the processes of king-making, of identifying, asserting, affirming, and sustaining a ruler were collective endeavors in which many groups, elite and non-elite, were active participants. And, in the same way that there were many participants, so, too, were there many moments, points of tension and opportunity. For Weiler more particularly, being a king was an ongoing process of becoming, one that began before any formalized rites of inauguration and continued long after, when an individual’s promise—and promises—had to be realized, and be seen to be realized.
