Kingship and messianic language and ideologies pervade the Apocalypse; however, readers rarely appreciate the extent to which this rhetoric shapes the text. The Introduction explores how and why these lenses have been relegated or ignored altogether in modern scholarship.

Perhaps most influential was F.C. Baur’s notion of the decisive victory of “Pauline” Christianity over “Petrine” Christianity, whereby the “primitive Jewish” conceptions of a coming Messiah of the latter were replaced with “universal” non-Jewish Christologies of the former. This degradation of Jewish messianism in Paul paved the way for future commentators to make even further-reaching claims. For example, Wrede argued that Jesus own self-understanding was non-messianic, while Bousset claimed that gentile Christian communities appropriated Jewish messianic claims, but divested them of their erstwhile Jewish connotations and eventually replaced them altogether.

The so-called Postwar Turn identified the anti-Jewish underpinnings of this trajectory, recognizing both the extent and importance of messianic ideologies throughout New Testament Christologies, including especially in Pauline epistles and Gospel texts.

Kingship and messianic language and ideologies pervade the Apocalypse; however, readers rarely appreciate the extent to which this rhetoric shapes the text. The Introduction explores how and why these lenses have been relegated or ignored altogether in modern scholarship.

Perhaps most influential was F.C. Baur’s notion of the decisive victory of “Pauline” Christianity over “Petrine” Christianity, whereby the “primitive Jewish” conceptions of a coming Messiah of the latter were replaced with “universal” non-Jewish Christologies of the former. This degradation of Jewish messianism in Paul paved the way for future commentators to make even further-reaching claims. For example, Wrede argued that Jesus own self-understanding was non-messianic, while Bousset claimed that gentile Christian communities appropriated Jewish messianic claims, but divested them of their erstwhile Jewish connotations and eventually replaced them altogether.

The so-called Postwar Turn identified the anti-Jewish underpinnings of this trajectory, recognizing both the extent and importance of messianic ideologies throughout New Testament Christologies, including especially in Pauline epistles and Gospel texts.

Luxurious dress and jewelry were important in public self-representation in Perso-Anatolian and Etruscan cultures. What distinguishes jewelry use in these societies is that jewelry was equally significant for elite males as it was for females. In fact, most of the visual evidence for jewelry in the East comes from ornaments worn by soldiers, court officials, and kings. Persian, Anatolian, and Lydian women are rarely represented in the surviving art, making it unusually difficult to reconstruct the jewelry styles and types they favored. Etruscan men, too, showed themselves with rings, bracelets and armbands, necklaces, and earrings. This chapter examines the male adoption of jewelry and explores the meanings of personal ornaments in both cultures.

The Conclusion to the work summarizes the new perspectives on Zhou ritual that emerge from this analysis. Western Zhou royal ritual, it argues, offers a case study of how ritual continues to shape ideas of self and belonging long after its performance. The book thus stands as an argument for the indispensable role of material-cultural theory in ritual studies.

The fourth chapter discusses the question of why now – why did customary law become the subject of vigorous written output at this particular thirteenth-century moment? The answer lies in the politics of customary law or, more specifically, the changes in both society and legal culture that created new zones of competition between secular and ecclesiastical courts. Competition between the temporal and spiritual jurisdictions was, of course, not new. The investiture controversy that began in the eleventh century, based in the conflict over the right of appointment of church officials, showed this to be a key issue of the high medieval period. The nature of competition manifested in the coutumiers was a little different. The coutumiers aimed to theorize, regularize, and professionalize the secular courts in the face of ecclesiastical courts, which had already gone through the same process and offered a competing forum at a time when boundaries were still being defined.

This chapter documents how Thailand’s practice of Sacred Buddhist Kingship builds on the Lèse-majesté Law, with the aim of providing a first analysis of how the dual process of secularization of blasphemy and sacralization of royalty via lèse-majesté throughout Thai modern history worked towards the King’s consolidation of power. In the first part, it will sketch a brief overview of the historical evolution of the Thai lèse-majesté law including its pre-modern antecedents, before turning to an analysis of the law of lèse-majesté as defined by judges and other members of the legal profession in Thailand. In the second part, the chapter turns to a thorough examination of key case-studies from the early 21st century, discussing the judicial procedures of exception implemented to punish and absolve lèse-majesté offenders.

Robert Lingat argued that in Siam’s traditional legal system, based on an Indian model, law was based on custom and morality, encoded in texts descended from the Indian dharmasastra, and the king was primarily an enforcer and could legislate only within these codes. In the mid-20th century, Prince Dhani Nivat adopted this argument in his construction of a theory of moral kingship for the ninth reign. The argument thus became sacrosanct. However, there is little evidence of dharmasastra-thammasat in Siam—only one ambiguous reference in 500 years of history and no text found, compared to hundreds in Myanmar. Meanwhile there is strong evidence of royal law-making back to at least the 15th century. Laws were made by royal decree or by court judgements handed down by the king or his deputy. Law codes were compiled and preserved by royal scribes, and enforced in a system of courts with the monarch at its apex. The Thammasat that heads the Three Seals Law (the collection of old laws assembled in 1805) is very different from those in Myanmar and elsewhere. The first part appears to be copied from a Myanmar source, but the codification of customary and moral principles, which forms 90 percent of the Myanmar texts, is completely missing. Instead the latter part of Thai Thammasat is an index to the whole Three Seals Law. This must have been compiled in a relatively late recension of the whole code, probably in the late 17th or 18th century. Appreciating the royal role in law-making offers a better understanding of the late Ayutthaya state, and a different perspective on Siam’s legal tradition.

It will be useful before we proceed further to orientate the reader briefly as to the existing literature on Thai legal history. It should be stressed that this subject has a rich literature, but it is spread over the last 300 years and is in at least three languages (Thai, English, and French). This review contains only the major items and is not intended as a complete list, but rather as a starting point for further research.

For a society to be labelled “complex” in the conventional sense it must be one touched by processes of institutionalisation, requiring that structure be embodied in designated ranks and roles. Those positions can be ascribed or achieved, distinguishing between those positions gained by birth-right and those by selection or competition.1 A role may require certain experience, skills, or specialised knowledge that is actively learnt, but like status exists only within a matrix of human relations – no lone person can stand resplendent as king or queen. Titles, therefore, serve to specify two, sometimes overlapping, purposes, defining aristocratic privileges as well as functional specialisations. These political personas need to be maintained and communicated through the medium of symbols (e.g. Cohen 1974, 1981). Elite distinction is most often expressed by special insignia or attire, but it can include everything from subtle codes of etiquette to grandiose architectural statements. Where items can be fashioned from rare and exotic materials, or highly charged with artistry and aesthetic value, the projection of eminence will be all the more effective (Clark 1986; Robb 1999; Joyce 2000).