Via Regia

The Frankish monk Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel is reputed to have written the first mirror for princes, the Via Regia in 813. As desceribed by Michael Edward Moore in A Sacred Kingdom: Bishops and the Rise of Frankish Kingship, 300-850 , Smaragdus aimed to reshape institutions “in accordance with Christian principles’ (293).

Love of neighbor, for instance, became “a principle of government. The ‘neighbor was interpreted in a universal way to mean ‘every faithful Christian.’ The king’s duty to offer charity and love was thus extended into a social principle and a manner of governing.” In this way, government became a “vehicle for man’s rectification and salvation. Love as a ‘royal virtue’ could reform the kingdom – ending heresy and conflict by bringing about consensus.”

Based on promises in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, Smaragdus believed that a Christian king who kept “the mandates of the Lord” could expect success in war. One of the mandates was renunciation of slavery, and other mandates included protection of vulnerable, the poor, orphans and widows: “Protection of the poor was now a measure of royal justice” (294). If a king kept these mandates, Smaragdus said, God would make good this wish: “May He place the necks of your enemies to be trampled underfoot, and under your leadership, nay He defend the kingdom of the faithful from the snares of its enemies” (293).