Epilogue

Abstract

Papal overlordship of rulers continued to have importance in the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and even up to the eighteenth century. Papal authority, papal lordship, was always most useful as a tool; as a tool to legitimize the conquest of the New World in the fifteenth century; as a tool to legitimize the conquest of the Canary Islands in the fourteenth century. Throughout this book, the recurring theme has been that petitioners—especially kings—got the most out of papal lordship because, through such lordship, they were able to instrumentalize and weaponize papal authority. The relationships between popes and kings were built and constructed mutually, not imposed by an over-mighty papal monarchy.