The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.2028  Monday, 20 October 2003

[1]     From:   Martin Steward <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Friday, 17 Oct 2003 12:53:59 +0100
        Subj:   RE: SHK 14.2025 Basileus

[2]     From:   Clifford Stetner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Sunday, 19 Oct 2003 15:08:24 -0400
        Subj:   Re: SHK 14.2025 Basileus


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Martin Steward <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 17 Oct 2003 12:53:59 +0100
Subject: 14.2025 Basileus
Comment:        RE: SHK 14.2025 Basileus

"a basileus king was a hereditary king... So there's at least an
etymological link between religion and hereditary kingship in the Greek
language, made clear in the English cognate word 'basilica.'  Does
anyone know of any evidence that this sort of etymological argument is
at all relevant to the construction of the doctrine of Divine Right?
That is, was such a rhetorical strategy employed by 16th- or
17th-century proponents of Divine Right?"

Do you mean, apart from the fact that James's key text on divine right
was called "Basilikon Doron"? And that the posthumous Caroline
hagiography was called "Eikon Basilikae"?

These are a good place to start, I'd suggest.

m

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Clifford Stetner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Sunday, 19 Oct 2003 15:08:24 -0400
Subject: 14.2025 Basileus
Comment:        Re: SHK 14.2025 Basileus

>Does anyone know of
>any evidence that this sort of etymological argument is at all relevant
>to the construction of the doctrine of Divine Right?  That is, was such
>a rhetorical strategy employed by 16th- or 17th-century proponents of
>Divine Right?

The series of texts from James I's Basilica Doron through Icon Basilica
to Milton's Iconoclastes constitutes an argument regarding divine right.

1) Hart, Vaughan. Art and Magic in the Court of the Stuarts.

"The Triumph was, however, unlike the masque in enabling the king to
spread his solar virtue to the city at large through his actual
presence. James himself made reference in Basilikon Doron (1603) to the
concept of the God-King spreading the light of his virtues down through
the descending hierarchy of a heavenly ordered society via his physical
presence:

Remember then, that this glistering worldly glory of Kings, is given
them by God, to teach them to preasse so to glister and shine before
their people, in all workes of sanctification and righteousness, that
their persons as bright lamps of godliness and virtues, may, going in
and out before their people, give light to all their steps. (James I
1918:12)" 161

"...in his Palladio [Inigo] Jones noted that this antique portico was
taken in part from the Temple of Peace in Rome. This temple, also known
as the Basilica of Maxentius, was [thought to] have been the repository
of the plundered trea     

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