Ronald G. Asch. Sacral Kingship between Disenchantment and Re-Enchantment

From a “comparative and transnational” perspective (p. 3), Ronald G. Asch's book deals chronologically with the “common heritage of sacral and sacerdotal monarchy” in early modern France and England (p. 154). Warning against the assumption that the institution and the theory of monarchy underwent a significant change that saw the affirmation of secularization, Asch argues that the appeal to the sacred remained key to representations of kingship “well beyond the early eighteenth century” (p. 2). The book is thus an attempt to dismiss the idea that the historical trajectory that led to the formation of the modern, bureaucratic, and centralized state was one where religion had no place. Embodying the roles of king and priest, monarchs resorted to sacral images, symbols, and language in order to confer stronger authority to their power. This is why Asch speaks of the “re-enchantment” (p. 10) of the French and English monarchies between 1587 and 1688.

Appeal · Art · Disenchantment · Institution · Monarchy · Political science · Politics · European Political History Analysis · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Religious studies