The Papacy and the Establishment of the Kingdoms of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal: Twelfth-Century Papal Political Thought on Incipient Kingship

This article examines the political thought of the twelfth-century papacy, considering how popes of this era responded to the establishment of the kingdoms of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal. It compares the intellectual strategies used by popes to justify why these three polities were kingdoms rather than any other type of political unit. It is suggested that, to make their cases, popes advanced a range of arguments, many of which echoed the political ideas of Gregory VII. The article concludes by linking its findings to the wider question of how the twelfth-century papacy responded to the expansion of Latin Christendom.