Science and Consciousness. Bureaucracy and Preaching in Naples (First Half of the 14th Century circa)

Preaching around Naples during the first half of the fourteenth century casts a precocious light upon a maturing senior bureaucracy which served the so-called << Angevine >> crown.The sermons reaching learned officials and scholars close to the throne were part of a movement to form them as conduits of an ideology of kingship. These discourses conformed particularly with the teaching of court jurists, leaving no doubt as to their doctrinal preeminence in support of the crown. The accumulation of sources does not lend itself to easy summation because it poses the challenge of a << plural monarchy >>. Sages and bureaucrats present themselves as the instruments of a wise and all-powerful prince. They invite society to subordinate itself from the top down by degrees. According to their condition they nonetheless reveal themselves to be masters of science, imbued with grace. Thus are they more than auxiliaries to the king. They collaborate with him towards an end above his person. Intellectualism of power and political theology impose this transcendence.