Two recent trends in scholarship necessitate a reevaluation of the persistent myth of a unitary, teleologically secular Enlightenment. The first is the recognition that a unitary Enlightenment with a preordained set of goals is a later ideological construction. A second trend problematizes the relationship between religion and Enlightenment by pluralizing the Enlightenment, thus making more space for the “religious” motivations and inspirations of so many of the men and women typically denominated as “enlightened.” This chapter explores the ambivalent relationship between the popes and a “Catholic Enlightenment” that was engaged in theology, secular scholarship, and political and societal reform. On one hand, the papacy is often cast as the primary enemy of enlightened Catholicism. And yet Italy, and indeed Rome itself, boasted very significant enlightened Catholic intellectuals, rulers, and networks throughout the eighteenth century, including, arguably, certain popes. This chapter seeks to make sense of this seemingly paradoxical situation.

In this chapter I suggest that anthropology’s project of the reflexive and explicit “comparison of embedded concepts” provides useful tools for Ottomanists. Reflexivity and explicit comparison, especially with the present, would bring debates usually left to historiography – concerning comparison, theory, and archives – to the fore, highlighting the contributions of Ottoman history to rethinking our present. Given my emphasis on comparison with the present, I begin with a consideration of presentism and argue that all histories involve an often-unspoken comparison with the present and our contemporary concepts. I then introduce how anthropological comparison operates, especially in making comparison explicit and reflecting on the anthropologist’s position and process. I end with an initial place where Ottomanists could put this reflexivity and explicit comparison to use: a more explicit discussion of how each historian constructs, accesses, and approaches their archive while reflecting on what counts as an archive.

This chapter examines papal–imperial relations during the thirteenth century. It focuses on series of oaths sworn by prospective emperors to popes from Innocent III (r. 1198–1216) to Nicholas IV (r. 1288–92), part of broader negotiations over imperial rights on the Italian peninsula and obligations toward the Papal States. Historians often associate this era with the apex and subsequent decline of the so-called medieval “papal monarchy,” as characterized above all by its dramatic conflicts with the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire. The history of those solemn pledges allows us instead to discern a remarkable continuity in papal attitudes toward imperial monarchs, envisioned as partners in the reform of the Church, the defense of the faith, the eradication of heresy, and crusades to recover the Holy Land. By the late thirteenth century, however, for reasons endogenous to their respective spheres of influence, both parties began to lose interest in the realization of those increasingly anachronistic oaths.

This chapter examines the foundations and evolution of papal legation in the Middle Ages. It frames the development of this ecclesiastical office in the context of burgeoning papal authority and its reception in Christian lands. And it posits the growth of legation as a natural and effective response to the Roman Curia’s administrative, bureaucratic, and legal needs.

The origins of a papal state reach back to the patrimonies accumulated in late antiquity. In the eighth century, the papacy allied with the Franks who defeated the Lombards and forced them to donate lands to the papacy, most of which had formerly belonged to Byzantium. A series of documents down to the eleventh century (Pactum Ludovicianum, Constitutio Romana, Ottonianum, Henricianum) spelled out the territories assured to the popes and mutual papal and imperial rights in those lands. Political strife in Italy and then the Roman commune severely attenuated papal control of its territories. Innocent III began a process of “recuperation” based on the old documents and he inaugurated institutional reforms and innovations. Across the thirteenth century, judicial and financial reforms enhanced papal rule of a First Papal State while battles with the German Empire and then the Angevin kingdom in the south represented constant challenges.

I propose to situate my contribution in a long chronological sequence that goes from the pontificate of Pius IX to the “Vatican II moment” (including the pontificate of Paul VI). The chapter is structured around three axes. The first takes into account the doctrinal and dogmatic developments that sanction papal primacy without detaching them from the socio-political context. The second evaluates the refusals and acceptance of the model thus developed by questioning the concept of “romanity,” the practices that result from it and the institutional and doctrinal impasses, sensitive under the pontificate of Pius XII. The third axis analyzes the development of the idea of collegiality before the Council and evaluates the conciliar debates before understanding how the pontificate of Paul VI assumes and renews the pontifical heritage of the previous century in the context of the crisis of the 1960s and 1970s.

This chapter enlightens the papal martial power through three different questions. It first focuses on the military geography of the Pontifical States (Central Italy, Comtat Venaissin, Avignon). Strongholds were key in the affirmation of pontifical political authority. Their locations and features testify to the great care taken in their construction and management. The chapter then investigates the structure of the troops involved in both offensive and defensive enterprises. Cardinals acting as legates or vicars as well as papal officers were expected to exert strong control over companies led by potentially troublesome condottieri and local warlords. At sea, the popes relied mostly on private and foreign contractors. Finally, this chapter describes the socio-cultural composition of armies, intended as micro-societies defined by rules they adopted or developed themselves. Since they served the papacy just like lay principalities, they kept up with commonly shared knightly aspirations and military practices found across Europe.

It is a matter of historical record that the institution of the papacy has developed over the last two millennia, and thus it should not be surprising that the Christian East’s response to the papacy has evolved along with it. At the heart of this process were five key theological questions, including: Is the primacy of Rome grounded in the will of Christ or is it a concilliarly/imperially granted privilege? Is this primacy based on Rome’s apostolic pedigree or was it granted to Rome because of its political importance as capital of the empire? Can the primacy be lost either by imperial translation or the heresy of the Roman Bishop? Does this primacy of Rome grant to the Pope authority and power, or is it a “primacy of honor” that simply acknowledges Rome’s “Firstness” in the taxis (order) of the Church? Does the primacy of Rome involve a unique monarchical power as “mother of all Churches” or is Rome simply the “eldest sister” within the Church’s pentarchical and conciliar structure?

The Ottoman Empire’s territorial and maritime reach throughout its nearly 600-year existence led to a plethora of adversaries at whose expense the empire continued to expand. The resulting boundaries that constantly shifted over time prove to be sites of cultural, socioeconomic, as well as political history. Ottoman borders are critical windows into the dynamics shaping the larger empire, including the great urban centers often located far from these frontiers. The territorial limits (or beginnings) of this multiethnic empire, extending from South Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and Libya, to the Danube and the Caucasus, are crucial tools to gain insights into the complexities that constitute the processes by which the Ottomans administered as much as lived in these regions. Be they witness to the stability that accompanied peace between neighboring states or the frequent volatility caused by war, the empire’s edges served as theaters for intraimperial development that shaped subject and state alike.

This chapter traces the development of perceptions and interactions within the Islamic world of the papacy from the beginnings of Islam in the seventh century until contemporary times. It explores how the first few centuries were marked by ignorance before Christian military victories and political and economic expansion led to increased contacts and knowledge after 1050. It then examines how relations developed between the three great Muslim empires of the early modern world – Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal – and the papacy between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, and well as how contacts expanded from the traditional area of the Mediterranean basin to also encompass Persia and India. Finally, it explores relations in the modern era, including diplomatic contacts between the papacy and the Ottoman sultans in the nineteenth century, the impact of the First World War, and the effects of decolonization on the Islamic world’s relations with the papal curia.

Five contexts conditioned papal relations to enslavement 1500–1800. (1) From Roman times, Christians understood enslavement as morally licit, and Christian thought was necessarily conservative when it came to social action. (2) Centuries of Christian–Muslim military conflict and mutual enslavement in the Mediterranean – and thus religious and not racial concerns – underwrote bulls authorizing Portuguese slaving in Africa. (3) While popes could make recommendations and excommunicate transgressors, the forces of state power and creeping secularism were infinitely greater. Thus, when popes called to cease or modify terms of enslavement, burgeoning capitalist goals often led colonial settlers and individual merchant opportunists to ignore these directives. (4) In Rome, the Papal States, and the early modern Mediterranean, popes employed slaves of various ethnicities to labor throughout their realms. (5) Both at home and overseas, papal will was extended, mediated, and at times altered by a broad universe of agents such as cardinals, nuncios, and missionaries.