Medieval overlapping jurisdictions hold ontological priority over modern simple space

Evidence

John Milbank’s arguments for decentering are different from Connolly’s, and they are linked to a specifically medieval historical experience. His contrast between what he calls “enlightenment simple space” and “gothic complex space” has implications for a Europe of nation-states: “complex space has a certain natural, ontological priority, simple space remains by comparison merely an abstracting, idealizing project… . This is the case because there is no such thing as absolute non-interference; no action can be perfectly self-contained, but always impinges upon other people, so that spaces will always in some degree ‘complexly’ overlap, jurisdictions always in some measure be competing, loyalties remain (perhaps benignly) divided.” — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 869

Categorization

• DEFINE: Milbank’s ‘gothic complex space’ vs ‘enlightenment simple space’ distinction — a key conceptual opposition in the secular-modern critique.
• XREF: This medieval ‘complex space’ of divided loyalties anticipates the messy religio-political entanglements Cooper documents in US Christianity — undermining the clean secular/religious split Asad targets. — connects to: In medieval England real property rights conferred political jurisdiction, not just ownership — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 1389; Exclusive territorial national jurisdictions are a recent twentieth-century invention — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 191
• SEED: The ‘no action can be perfectly self-contained, no space absolutely non-interfering’ principle offers a crisp analytic frame for critiquing any ‘neutral’ secular public sphere — an essay could deploy it against liberal neutrality claims.