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Universal monarchy

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A universal monarchy is a concept in which one monarchy is deemed to have sole rule over the entire world.[1] Though a theoretical concept, many monarchs aspired to obtain large empires over vast territories.[2]

Overview

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Dante Alighieri pioneered the idea of universal monarchy.

The concept of universal monarchy was pioneered by the Florentine poet Dante Alighieri, who argued that all wars and conflict would be ended if the world were ruled by a monarch that held sway over the entire world.[3] He would expand on this idea in his political work, De Monarchia, in which he states that peace cannot exist where there is division in society.[4] In De Monarchia he also praises the Holy Roman Empire, and promotes the monarchy as a guarantor of "universal peace".[5] Giovanni Botero leaned positively on the idea of universal monarchy, stating that "the human bloodline would be very content" if the world lived under a "single prince", because his power would be similar to God’s.[6]

Portrait of Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant argued against a world monarchy on the grounds that it would be prone to tyranny.[7] He stated that a "universal despotism" would end "in the graveyard of freedom".[8] He instead advocated for league of independent republican states akin to the intergovernmental organizations that would emerge over a century and a half later.[9] However his views on a world regime were complex[10]

Politics

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Many states have been seen as attempting to aspire to universal monarchy. In the 17th century, English commentators claimed that The Holy Roman Empire under the Habsburgs "had for a long time aspired after a Universal monarchy".[11][12] Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of Spain, was also viewed as aspiring to universal rule.[13][14] Charles V's empire encompassing much of western Europe and the Americas "was the nearest the post-classical world would come to seeing a truly worldwide monarchy, and hence the closest approximation to universal imperium."[15] Though some historians view this characterization as an anachronistic evaluation of Charles V's actual motives and the realities of the political situation at the time.[16]

The idea of a sole sovereign emperor would re-emerge in the West with Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire.[17] The idea of the Holy Roman Empire possessing special sovereignty as a universal monarchy was respected by its surrounding powers and subject states, even while the empire was weakened by severe fragmentation.[18] Frederick III's iconic phrase "All the world is subject to Austria" is an expression of the idea that all states are subject to one monarchy.[19] The medieval hierocrats argued that the Pope was a universal monarch, rather than the emperor.[20]

The idea of a universal monarchy based on predominance rather than actual total rule would later become synonymous with France attempting to establish hegemony over western Europe.[21] Louis XIV, stylized as the "Sun King" around which all the other monarchs were subordinate satellites, exemplified the universal monarch. In 1755, during the reign of his successor Louis XV, Duke Adrien Maurice de Noailles, a member of the Council of State and formerly a key foreign policy advisor to the king, warned of a British challenge for "the first rank in Europe" through the domination of Atlantic commerce. Noailles wrote, "However chimerical the project of universal monarchy might be, that of a universal influence by means of wealth would cease to be a chimera if a nation succeeded in making itself sole mistress of the trade of America."[22]

Napoleon was also characterized as aspiring to world monarchy.[23] Many among Europe’s governing classes thought that Napoleon sought a form of worldwide supremacy extending beyond Europe, an impression created by France’s forceful and expansionist conduct overseas.[23] Philip Dwyer states though that Napoleon’s actual goals remain unclear because although his occasional pronouncements stoked such anxieties, the real constraints on his policies meant that a world spanning monarchy could only be a fantasy.[23]

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ Turan, Ebru (28 April 2026). The Race for Universal Monarchy: Apocalypticism and the Ottoman–Habsburg Rivalry in the Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-56260-7.
  2. ↑ Schröder, Peter (2017). "The Concepts of Universal Monarchy and Balance of Power in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century—A Case Study". International Law and Empire. pp. 83–100. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198795575.003.0005. ISBN 978-0-19-879557-5.
  3. ↑ Dante Alighieri, The Banquet [Convivio]. Translated by Kate Forham in Readings in Medieval Political Theory 1100–1400, Cary J. Nederman and Kate Langdon Forhan (eds.), London: Routledge, 1993. Reprinted 2000 by Indianapolis: Hackett.
  4. ↑ "World Government". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2021.
  5. ↑ Koskenniemi, Martti; Rech, Walter; Fonseca, Manuel Jiménez (2017). International Law and Empire: Historical Explorations. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-879557-5.
  6. ↑ Raviola, Blythe Alice (2025). "Monarchy, universalism, imperialism in Giovanni Botero's Relazioni universali". History of European Ideas. 51 (5): 1027–1042. doi:10.1080/01916599.2024.2360278.
  7. ↑ Deudney, Daniel H. (16 December 2010). Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-3727-4.
  8. ↑ "Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose", Kant: Political Writings, 1991, pp. 41–53, doi:10.1017/CBO9780511809620.004, ISBN 978-0-521-39185-6
  9. ↑ Deudney 2007, pp. 10, 155–6.
  10. ↑ Pogge, Thomas (2009), “Kant’s Vision of a Just World Order”, in The Blackwell Guide to Kant’s Ethics, Thomas E. Hill (ed.), Chichester: Blackwell, pp. 196–208.
  11. ↑ Steinmetz, George (1999). State/Culture: State-formation After the Cultural Turn. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8533-9.
  12. ↑ Kleinschmidt, Harald (24 October 2011). Charles V: The World Emperor. The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-7440-3.
  13. ↑ Lesaffer, Randall (2003). "Charles V, Monarchia Universalis and the Law of Nations". Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis/Legal History Review. 71: 79. doi:10.1163/157181903100362698a.
  14. ↑ Scott, Hamish (23 July 2015). The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350-1750: Volume II: Cultures and Power. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-102000-1.
  15. ↑ Armitage, David The Ideological Origins of the British Empire Cambridge University Press (2000) p. 32
  16. ↑ Turan, Ebru (28 April 2026). The Race for Universal Monarchy: Apocalypticism and the Ottoman–Habsburg Rivalry in the Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-56260-7.
  17. ↑ Bryce, James The Holy Roman Empire p. 209
  18. ↑ Brissaud, Jean A History of French Public Law John Murray (1915) p. 77
  19. ↑ "AEIOU". Die Welt der Habsburger. Retrieved 2 August 2018.
  20. ↑ Sisson, Keith (2016). "Popes over Princes: Hierocratic Theory". In Sisson, Keith; Larson, Atria A. (eds.). A Companion to the Medieval Papacy: Growth of an Ideology and Institution. Leiden: Brill. pp. 122–23. ISBN 978-9004299856.
  21. ↑ Simms, Brendan & Riotte, Torsten (Editors) The Hanoverian dimension in British History, 1714–1837 Cambridge University Press (2007) p. 168
  22. ↑ Shovlin, John (2010). "Selling American Empire on the Eve of the Seven Years War: The French Propaganda Campaign of 1755-1756". Past and Present (206): 121–149. doi:10.1093/pastj/gtp046.
  23. 1 2 3 Dwyer, Philip (2010). "Napoleon and the Universal Monarchy". History. 95 (319): 293–307. doi:10.1111/j.1468-229X.2010.00487.x.
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