Canto XX The poets proceed around the mountain, and hear a voice of one of the avaricious calling out the whip of the cornice, examples of virtuous poverty. Dante approaches the speaker, who is Hugh Capet, origin of the Capetian house of Kings of France. He castigates his descendants.

Hugh Capet’s denunciation of the members of his house show that avarice is not only the disordered desire for material goods, but also for power. This is significant, given Dante’s political concerns. It was the Capetian Charles of Valois whose intervention in Florence lead to the downfall of the ‘white’ Guelfs, and with them Dante himself, but more to the point the Capetians were rivals to the Holy Roman Emperor, and promoted the Papal cause with a view to limiting Imperial power. Today I sat in a meeting where important matters were discussed which potentially impact on the lives and families of individual people. Power has to be exercised, and sometimes hard choices must be made. Hugh Capet’s discourse, about the exercise of power on a grand scale, reminds us that the power we exercise at any level is easily misused. The pursuit of power for its own sake can result in damage to others, and ultimately to ourselves.

Dante speaks with Hugh Capet

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/medieval/jpegs/holkham/misc/48/1000/04800474.jpg