WRITING AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ... - Cornell University

to authority a direct relationship between sign and signified—a relationship restored by the
coming of Christ and the representation of the deity into human flesh—and not a defense of the
rights of infidels as human beings.
8. Metaphors Vindicated: Towards a New Discourse of Authority
In his dealings with the Canaries, Eugene was dealing with more than the discovery of
non-Christian lands. He was carefully navigating a new relationship between metaphors and the
expression of authority after the advent of the Wycliffite challenge to the sovereignty of the
Church. Otherwise, if we think that Eugene meant to protect the Canarians because of a
humanitarian interest, we cannot understand why, within a year of having mounted such a
vigorous and multi-pronged defense of their liberty, he rescinded his ban on slavery and even
permitted a Portuguese crusade over the Islands and other infidel territories in his Rex regum. 115
This bull, granted to Duarte I, within months after he complained about the limitations which the
ban on slavery placed on his colonial ventures, would set the foundation for future Roman
Pontiffs to dispose of infidel lands. 116
From the Papacy’s abrupt return to Hostiensis’s arguments, we can conclude that the real
bulwark against the taking of infidel lands and lives was not its fundamental immorality or
illegality. Rather, what is obvious from analyzing the rhetoric of Eugene’s letters is that, after the
Council of Constance, the taking of infidel lands was perceived as furthering a discourse on
authority inimical to the legitimacy of the Church. In enslaving infidels simply because they
were infidels, Christian rulers affirmed that ecclesiastical and monarchical dominium depended
on the proper exercise of authority—on its proper representation by a sovereign’s actions. As
115 Ibid. 5.270-275.
116 Muldoon Popes 134.
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