Empty bottles of gentilism: kingship and the divine in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages (to 1050)

I. Prolegomenon: the cosmic kingship in Mediterranean antiquity. Historical orientation: Hellenic, Hellenistic, Hebraic, and Roman antiquity

Ancient affections: the archaic pattern of royal sacrality and the Hellenistic legacy

Abrahamic departures: the Hebraic and Christian contribution

II. The long twilight of the sacral kingship in Greek and Latin Christendom (c. 300-c.1050). Historical orientation: the heirs of Rome

Patristic affirmation: the Greek fathers and the Eusebian tradition in Christian Rome, Byzantium, and Russia

Patristic reservation: the Latin fathers from Tertullian to Augustine

The early Medieval west (i): sacral kingship in the Germanic successor kingdoms

The early Medieval west (ii): fidelity, consent, and the emergence of "feudal" institutions

The early Medieval west (iii): the clerical order and the rise of the papal monarchy.