Cary Nederman Lineages of European Political Thought Explorations Along The Medieval Modern Divide From John of Salisbury To Hegel

Lineages of European Political ought
Lineages of European Political

ought Explorations along the Medieval/
Modern Divide from John of Salisbury to Hegel
Cary J. Nederman
The Catholic University of America Press

Washington, D.C.
Copyright 2009
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum re-
quirements of American National Standards for Information
SciencePermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nederman, Cary J.
Lineages of European political thought : explorations along
the medieval/modern divide from John of Salisbury to Hegel
/ Cary J. Nederman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8132-1581-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Political
scienceEuropeHistory. 2. Political scienceEarly
works to 1800. 3. Philosophy, Medieval. I. Title.
JC111.N43 2009
320.092'24dc22 2008042403
For Karen Lynn Bollermann,
rough good timesand bad

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction. Why Study Medieval Political Thought? xiii
Pa rt I . Historiographies of the Early European

T
radition: Continuity and Change
1. The Legacy of Walter Ullmann 3
2. Quentin Skinners State: Historical Methodology
and the Formation of a European Tradition 13
3. Pathologies of Continuity: The Neo-Figgisites 29
4. A Middle Path: Alexander Passerin dEntrves 49
Pa rt I I . Dissenting Voices and the Limits of Power

5. Toleration and Community: Functionalist
Foundations of Liberty 63
6. The Royal Will and the Baronial Bridle:
The Bractonian Contribution 81
7. Political Representation: Modern Theory and
Medieval Practices 99
8. For Love and Money: Theorizing Revolt in
Fourteenth-Century Europe 122
Pa rt I I I . Republican Self-Governance and

Universal Empire
9. Brunetto Latinis Commerical Republicanism 141
10. Marsiglio of Padua: Between Empire and Republic 160
11. Translatio Imperii: Medieval and Modern 177
12. Christianity and Republicanism: Another Look 190
viii contents
Pa rt I V. The Virtues of Necessity: Economic Principles of Politics

13. The Origins of Policy in Twelfth-Century England 201
14. Economic Liberty and the Politics of Wealth 222
15. Money and Community: Nicole Oresme 235
16. Christine de Pizans Expanding Body Politic 248
Pa rt V. Modern Receptions of Medieval Ideas

17. The Persistence of Economic Nationalism: John Fortescue 261
18. Virt, Foresight, and Grace: Machiavellis Medieval Moments 277
19. Arguing Sovereignty in the Seventeenth Century:
Bractons Readers 304
20. Hegel on the Medieval Foundations of the Modern State 323
Bibliography 343
Index 369
Acknowledgments
I never intended to make a career out of the study of medieval

political theory. But twenty-five years after I completed a disser-
tation on the development of national traditions of state theo-
ry in France and England between 1250 and 1350, I find myself
still churning the waters of a field of research that continues to
be compelling and infinitely rewarding. Many friends and fellow
scholars have nurtured me over the past quarter of a century in
pursuing this endeavor. The litany of those to whom I owe a debt
begins with my doctoral supervisors, John Brckmann and Neal
Wood (now, sadly, both deceased), and runs through colleagues
of long standing, such as Kate Forhan, Paul Sigmund, Constan-
tin Fasolt, Marcia Colish, Walter Nicgorski, Jim Muldoon, Ant-
ony Black, John O. Ward, and Constant Mews, as well as of more
recent vintage, including Bettina Koch, Takashi Shogimen, Ger-
son Moreno-Riao, and Vasileios Syros. Finally, my colleagues in
political theory at Texas A & MJudy Baer, Lisa Ellis, Ed Portis,
and Diego Von Vacanohave been an important source of sup-
port and also criticism of many of the ideas contained in this vol-
ume. I hold none of the above responsible for my mistakes (which
I may perhaps be seen to be repeating in the present book), but I
do thank them for rendering my work less error-ridden as a result
of their careful and patient appraisals of my scholarship.
The impetus for this volume came from David McGonagle,
director of the Catholic University of America Press. Dave not
only solicited the manuscript but convinced me of the viability
of drawing together a series of my investigations, published and
unpublished, around the theme of the relationship between me-
dieval and modern categories in the history of Western political
thought.
ix
x ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s
My current doctoral student Mary Elizabeth Sullivan provided vital

technical assistance as well as proving to be a fount of precise advice and
helpful commentary. She also prepared the bibliography and the index.
Additionally, I wish to acknowledge the next generation of scholars whom
I have had the privilege of teaching at Texas A & M as well as with whom
I have sometimes collaborated. These include Hassan Bahsir, Daniel Betti,
Michael Burnside, Jesse Chupp, Phil Gray, Sara Jordan, Roberto Loureiro,
Christie Maloyed, Mary Beth Sullivan, Ann Wilson, and Peyton Wofford.
They have indeed taught me infinitely more than any knowledge I have
conveyed to them.
The Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas
A&M University supported some of the research represented in this
book, as did the Political Science departments at several institutions with
which I have been affiliated over the years, including the University of Al-
berta, the University of Canterbury, Siena College, the University of Ari-
zona, and Texas A & M. To all of these institutional homes I owe a large
measure of gratitude.
A number of the chapters contained in this volume are significant-
ly revised and updated versions of papers that have appeared previously
as book chapters and journal articles. I wish to thank the following jour-
nals and publishers for their kind permission to draw upon these already
published materials: Chapter 1, Pensiero Politico Medievale 2 (2004): 11
19; Chapter 2, Canadian Journal of Political Science 18 (June 1985): 33952;
Chapter 3, History of Political Thought 17 (Summer 1996): 17994; Chapter
5, Cary J. Nederman and John Christian Laursen, eds., Difference and Dis-
sent: Theories of Toleration in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Lanham,
Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996), 1737; Chapter 6, History of Political
Thought 9 (Winter 1988): 41529; Chapter 7, Alberto Melloni and Massi-
mo Faggioli, eds., Representatio: Mapping a Key Word for Churches and Gov-
ernance. Proceedings of the San Miniato International Workshop, October 13
16, 2004 (Mnster: LIT Verlag, 2006), 4159; Chapter 8, Istvn P. Bejczy
and Cary J. Nederman, eds., Princely Virtues in the Middle Ages, 12001500
(Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2007), 179201; Chapter 9, Political Theo-
ry 31 (2003): 64463; Chapter 10, History of Political Thought 16 (Autumn
1995): 31329; Chapter 11, Journal of the History of Ideas 65 (2005): 115;
Chapter 12, American Political Science Review 92 (December 1998): 91318;
Chapter 13, Constant J. Mews, Cary J. Nederman, and Rodney Thom-
son, eds., Rhetoric and Renewal in the Latin West 11001500: Essays in Hon-
ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s xi
or of John O. Ward (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2003), 14968; Chap-

ter 14, Robert J. Bast and Andrew C. Gow, eds., Continuity and Change:
The Harvest of Late-Medieval and Reformation History (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
2000), 319; Chapter 15, History of Political Thought 21 (Spring 2000): 115;
Chapter 16, Eric Hicks, ed., Au Champ des critures: Actes du IIIe Colloque
International sur Christine de Pizan (Lausanne, 1822 juillet 1998) (Paris:
Honor Champion diteur, 2000), 38397; Chapter 17, History of Politi-
cal Thought 26 (2005): 26683; Chapter 19, Political Science 40 (July 1988):
4966; Chapter 20, Journal of Politics 49 (1987): 499519.
This book almost didnt see the light of print at all. In the winter of
20062007, I despaired that I could accomplish the kind of synthetic proj-
ect that I originally envisioned. But a magical week as the guest of Karen
Bollermann in Scottsdale, Arizona, turned around my thinking and per-
mitted me to write what forms the introduction to the present volume as
well as to conceptualize its contents with clarity. I dedicate this book to
Karen in love and deep appreciation for the myriad ways in which she has
made me a better scholar and a better person.
Introduction
W h y S t u d y M e d i e va l P o l i t ica l
Thought?
There is surely no field of study within the broad tradition of

Western political theory that has been so grossly underrepre-
sented in recent English-language scholarship as the Latin Mid-
dle Ages. Numerous reasons may be adduced for this fact, but
I suspect that many of them can be traced to a deeply ingrained
pedagogical prejudice that is reproduced each semester in class-
rooms throughout the English-speaking world. Princeton Univer-
sitys Paul Sigmundhimself one of the few political scientists
whose career has run counter to this trendis fond of citing a
survey in which college-level political theory instructors identi-
fied the teaching of medieval thought as among their most oner-
ous and unpleasant tasks.1 Consequently, student exposure to
the Middle Ages, when it occurs at all, is generally confined to
St. Augustine (who is more properly a late classical figure) and St.
Thomas Aquinas (who, for all his brilliance and originality, rep-
resents merely one current in the stream of medieval thought).
Academic discomfort with a millennium of theory has effectively
achieved canonical status: shunned in graduate as well as under-
graduate curricula, the topic is likewise disregarded in textbooks
and anthologies, a situation that only exacerbates the ignorance
of another generation of students of Western political philosophy
about the Latin Middle Ages.2
1. The survey was by Steven Brzezinski and Sami Hajjar, Teaching Political The-
ory: Preliminary Findings (Laramie: University of Wyoming [mimeo], n.d.).
xiii
xiv in t r o d u c t i o n
Scholars who favor the introduction of issues such as gender, class, and
race into the teaching of political theory will likely recognize this resistance
to change as a source of their own intellectual frustrations. But just as they
have scored considerable success in breaking the patterns that keep a static
canon in place, so there is some hope for those dissatisfied with the deep re-
luctance of political theorists to confront fully and accurately the ideas of
the Middle Ages. As contemporary political theorists redefine the canon
and explore the margins of the Western tradition, the opportunity exists for
a reevaluation of the chronological and conceptual constructions that have
forced the Middle Ages deep into the background of scholarly attention.
Perhaps a growth of interest in the vast body of political literature written
during the Middle Ages will be hastened by the discovery, for example, that
medieval Europe produced one of the earliest and most profound feminist
theorists, Christine de Pizan, or that medieval thinkers were deeply con-
cerned with such issues as group and individual rights, diversity, commu-
nity, economic and social exclusion and deprivation, and political and reli-
gious dissent, which continue to be salient in recent times.
The prospect of recovering and renewing the largely overlooked medi-
eval dimension of Western political theory thus offers a source of stimula-
tion and challenge. This is not merely true in the case of discovering what
2. For example, only Augustine and Aquinas are represented in Michael L. Morgan, ed.,
Classics of Moral and Political Theory (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992) and in Peter J. Steinberger,
ed., Readings in Classical Political Thought (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000), while the medieval se-
lections in Mitchell Cohen and Nicole Fermon, eds., Princeton Readings in Political Thought: Es-
sential Texts since Plato (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996) are limited to Augustine,
Aquinas, and Christine de Pizan, the same authors singled out by Joseph Losco and Leonard
Williams, eds., Political Theory: Classic and Contemporary Readings (2nd ed.; Los Angeles: Rox-
bury Publishing, 2003). Slightly more coverage is afforded by Andrew Bailey et al., The Broad-
view Anthology of Social and Political Thought (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2008), which in-
cludes Al-Farabi and Marsiglio of Padua as well as Augustine, Aquinas, and Christine. Likewise,
among recent textbooks, Brian R. Nelson, Western Political Thought from Socrates to the Age of
Ideology (2nd ed.; Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1996) covers only Augustine and Aquinas;
Edward Bryan Portis, Reconstructing the Classics: Political Theory from Plato to Marx (Chatham,
N.J.: Chatham House, 1994) leaps from Augustine directly to Machiavelli, and Leslie Paul
Thiele, Thinking Politics (Chatham, N.J.; Chatham House, 1997) devotes one paragraph each
to Augustine and Aquinas. Such nearly complete omission of the Middle Ages is almost univer-
sal in texts and collections of readings designed for undergraduate students. There have been a
couple of notable counterexamples, however: George Klosko gives considerable coverage to me-
dieval authors and topics in his two-volume History of Political Theory: An Introduction (Fort
Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 19931995); and the second volume of the multivolume se-
quence on A History of Political Thought authored by Janet Coleman and Iain Hampsher-Monk
(Oxford: Blackwell, 19922000) concentrates on the medieval and Renaissance periods; but note
that its author, Coleman, is one of the few political theorists who specializes in that field.
w h y s t u d y m e d i e va l p o l i t ica l t h o u g h t xv
we share with the thought of the Middle Ages. Indeed, the very other-
ness, the foreignness, of the medieval world may have salutary decenter-
ing effects upon our complaisant contemporary assumptions about politi-
cal life and its relation to a whole host of other philosophical questions.
The hollowness of an end of history thesis, for instance, is problematized
once we see how pervasive that claim has been in past times as well. We
continue to live on the edge of history, and what Janet Coleman says of
William of Ockham holds no less true at the beginning of the twenty-first
century: By knowing ones past, one understands ones present and one
makes ones future.3
The proposal that familiarity with the works of medieval political phi-
losophy has resonance in the present must be distinguished from sheer
presentism or uncritical anachronism. It is folly to turn to the past (an-
cient, medieval, or modern) to solve all the current problems of Western
political theory. But confronting the intellectual power and range of medi-
eval authors extends our own horizons, helping us to appreciate both the
particular dilemmas and the more enduring challenges posed by politics,
while also supplementing and enriching the discourses and frameworks
available to us.4 In speaking of the role that political theory ought to play
in the inquiries of political scientists, Terence Ball has called for Lakatosian
pluralism and tolerance toward a variety of theoretical research programs.5
It seems that a similar plea must be made for the study of the political
ideas of the Latin Middle Ages. Careful investigation of medieval politi-
cal theory proliferates and diversifes the tools that political theorists today
have at their disposal for discussion and debate about the fundamental is-
sues of politics. Crying that this represents a postmodern patina6 only
defers and submerges the question of why we ought to bother reading me-
dieval texts at all in the twenty-first (or any subsequent) century.
3. Janet Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 537.
4. Some of these methodological issues have received more complete attention from Mar-
garet Leslie, In Defence of Anachronism, Political Studies 18 (1970): 43347. Leslies position,
in sum, is that the contemporary thinker, whether he calls himself political philosopher or po-
litical scientist, must suffer if he has not available to him for use in grasping the political experi-
ence of his own time the rich vocabulary of the past (443).
5. Terence Ball, Is There Progress in Political Science? in Terence Ball, ed., Idioms of In-
quiry: Critique and Renewal in Political Science (Albany: SUNY Press, 1987), 1344.
6. A phrase that historian George Garnett thoughtlessly employs to describe my own work
on Marsiglio of Padua; see Garnett, Marsilius of Padua and The Truth of History (Oxford: Ox-
ford University Press, 2006), 8.
xvi in t r o d u c t i o n
At the same time, we must be prepared to accept the medievalness

of medieval thought, that is, to recognize that the authors and texts un-
der examination cannot be extracted from important intellectual, cultural,
and historical assumptions characteristic of the Latin Middle Ages. This
may not seem exceptional, but it represents a trend that runs counter to
a great deal of recent scholarship, the aim of which has been to demon-
strate important and unbroken continuities between medieval and early
modern thought. In his introduction to The Cambridge History of Political
Thought, 14501700, for instance, J. H. Burns noted the increasing erosion
of traditional lines of demarcation between medieval and modern: .....
the period from the late fifteenth century to the end of the seventeenth
saw neither innovation nor even the unfolding of what had been implic-
it or latent, but rather the fuller and faster development of tendencies al-
ready explicitly present and manifest in late medieval society.7 Brian Tier-
ney, Francis Oakley, and Kenneth Penningtonhistorians all, it should be
notedhave in recent times taken to constructing direct genealogies from
medieval to modern political discourse regarding such topics as individual
rights, constitutional government, consent, and popular sovereignty.8
The larger warrant for this trend seems to be Quentin Skinners in-
fluential two-volume text, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought,
a work noteworthy not least for uncovering the medieval, often Scholas-
tic, roots of ideas that have conventionally been regarded as modern in
provenance. The central thesis of Foundations is the claim that between
the late thirteenth century, and ..... the end of the sixteenth,...... the main
elements of a recognisably modern concept of the State were gradual-
ly acquired.9 Although Tierney, Oakley, Pennington, and their devotees
had pursued lines of research similar to Skinners for a number of years
before publication of the Foundations, the impressive success of the latter
7. J. H. Burns, Introduction, The Cambridge History of Political Thought 14501700, ed.
Burns with Mark Goldie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 2, 3.
8. Brian Tierney, Religion, Law, and the Growth of Constitutional Thought, 11501650 (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Tierney, Origins of Natural Rights Language: Texts
and Contexts, 11501250, History of Political Thought 10 (1989): 61546; Kenneth Pennington,
The Prince and the Law, 12001600: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition (Berke-
ley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993); Francis Oakley, Christian Obedi-
ence and Authority, 15201550, in Burns and Goldie, eds., The Cambridge History of Political
Thought, 15992; Oakley, Nederman, Gerson, Conciliar Theory and Constitutionalism: Sed
Contra, History of Political Thought 16 (Spring 1995): 119. More will be said about this school
of interpretation in chapter 3 of the present volume.
9. Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1978), 1: ix.
w h y s t u d y m e d i e va l p o l i t ica l t h o u g h t xvii
has licensed these neo-Figgisites (as I have termed them, for reasons dis-
cussed in chapter 3 below) to become far more speculative, and even reck-
less, in their claims about the modernity of important features of medi-
eval political thought, especially (although not exclusively) its ecclesiology.
In pursuing this position so baldly, the neo-Figgistes filter out much of
the uniquely medieval character of their subject matter. Ironically, this
school falls victim to an especially virulent strain of presentism. Consider
Tierneys comment in the conclusion to his Wiles Lectures concerning the
epoch between 1150 and 1650:
The period we have been discussing is one of significant change in almost every
sphere of activity. Arts changed, and architectureand artillery. Science changed,
and society. New theologies appeared, and new ways of economic life. Astrono-
mers discovered a new heaven, and explorers a New World. But through this all,
improbably, patterns of constitutional theory persisted that had originally grown
out of the structure of medieval society and the encounter of medieval Christian
intellectuals with the secular thought of Greece and Rome.10
In sum, the changes separating medieval from modern patterns of political

thought were largely cosmetic and unworthy of sustained analysis. Consti-
tutionalism, as well as natural rights and sovereignty, which are all suppos-
edly modern doctrines, can in fact be traced to medieval origins, according
to proponents of the neo-Figgisite framework.11
At the same time, a different group of scholars, unconvinced by the ad-
vocates of unremitting continuity, have swung the historiographical pen-
dulum in the diametrically opposite direction. The spirit of this position
has been captured by Marcia Colish in her splendid set of reflections on
the question When Did the Middle Ages End? Surveying the question
from the perspective of each of the major topics of interest to the intellec-
tual historian, she has this to say about political thought:
The issue of the location of sovereignty within the state was not settled for early
modern Europe until the seventeenth century in most countries....... These early
modern arrangements, departures as they were from medieval political thought at its
most basic, sometimes made use of it, from the conciliarists to Marsilio of Padua to
10. Tierney, Religion, Law, and the Growth of Constitutional Thought, 105 (emphasis added).
11. For a sampling of the relevant scholarship, see Brian Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights
(Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997); Pennington, The Prince and the Law; and Francis Oakley, The
Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church 13001870 (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2003).
xviii in t r o d u c t i o n
Aquinas to Magna Carta to the theological distinction between Gods absolute and
ordained power. Still, the discontinuities are clearer here than the continuities, and
the passing of medieval paradigms more visible in political theory than elsewhere.12
Various grounds have been adduced for this passing. Perhaps the best
known argument is that proposed by John Pocock. In his magisterial opus
The Machiavellian Moment, Pocock demonstrated precious little patience
with the positing of any persistent structure of political thoughtin gener-
al, and especially in Florencebefore and after c. 1400. Thus, fourteenth-
century minds visualized Florentine citizenship in a context of universal
order and authority, which could be both hierarchically and apocalypti-
cally expressed.13 A century later, by contrast, to affirm the republic .....
was to break up a timeless continuity of the hierarchical universe.14 Po-
cocks conscious inspiration for his argument was the so-called civic hu-
manist thesis associated with the name of Hans Baron.15 Baron famously,
if not uncontroversially, asserted that the political crisis of Florentine gov-
ernance in 1402 generated a rapid transformation of thought and prac-
tice that swept throughout Europe and fundamentally altered the terms of
public discourse.16 Barons argument entailed, then, the postulation of a
profound break between early modern and medieval conceptions of poli-
tics and the nature of political lifein particular, concerning the active
character of citizenshipto which Pocock more or less wholly subscribes.
Nor has Pocock eschewed this argument in his later historical investiga-
tions. In the third installment (titled The First Decline and Fall) of Barba-
rism and Civilization, the grand work that has mainly occupied him for
the last three decades,17 Pocock returns to the postulation of historical dis-
continuity. Pococks principal historiographical project in that volume is
the demonstration that the Decline and Fall trope highlighted by Gib-
bon reflects a clear-cut Renaissance invention arising from the innovations
(or perhaps renovations) of the Florentine civic humanist circle. Pocock
12. Marcia Colish, When Did the Middle Ages End? Reflections of an Intellectual Histo-
rian, in Alasdair A. MacDonald and Michael W. Twomey, eds., Schooling and Society: The Or-
dering and Reordering of Knowledge in the Western Middle Ages (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 222.
13. J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlan-
tic Republican Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 50.
14. Ibid., 53.
15. Ibid., 5558.
16. For recent evaluations of the Baron thesis, see the contributions to James Hankins, ed.,
Renaissance Civic Humanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
17. J. G. A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion: Vol. 3. The First Decline and Fall (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003).
w h y s t u d y m e d i e va l p o l i t ica l t h o u g h t xix
himself repeatedly invokes this in order to identify Decline and Fall as

a standard for delineating medieval political thought from succeeding
modes of engaging in the enterprise of political theory.18
Pocock sees one important emblem of univeralism (translatio imperii)
replaced by a token of historicism (Decline and Fall). Constantin Fasolt,
in The Limits of History, goes Pocock one better. Fasolt focuses on a single
discursive formation, the lord of the world, and argues that the logic of
dominus mundi is mutually incomprehensible on either side of the medi-
eval/modern divide. Hence, the meaning of world empire for a medieval
individual such as Bartolus of Sassaferrato remains ever hidden from and
inscrutable to a modern person like Hermann Conring in the early sev-
enteenth century, let alone to later historians.19 Fasolts major thesis is in
effect a corollary to Pococks insistence upon an overarching view of his-
tory that emphasizes break and rupture. Fasolt merely adds that if we take
the incommensurability of the worldviews (theologies/cosmologies/ histo-
riographies) on either side of what Sverre Bagge calls the great divide20
between medieval and modern seriously, then the medieval mind-set,
with its emphasis on universalism, providentialism, and so forth, is perma-
nently inaccessible to the modern mode of thinking. The period of the Lat-
in Middle Ages becomes, in Fasolts terms, Orientalized, rendered Other
in a manner that simultaneously attracts and repulses.21 The persistence of
historians efforts to cross this insurmountable divide simply reflects their
attraction to and longing for an Otherness that is permanently beyond
their grasp. This, so it seems, is the core of the politics of history. One
irony here is that the harder the historian works on the project of recuper-
ating the Middle Ages through the deployment of the techniques of mod-
ern historical scholarship (data, evidence, textual fidelity, and the like), the
less accurate she or he will be in the task of historical recovery.22
We seem confronted, then, with two wholly incommensurable histo-
riographical visions: the continuity thesis and the rupture thesis. So,
18. Ibid., 98100.

19. Constantin Fasolt, The Limits of History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004),
esp. 1645.
20. Sverre Bagge, Medieval and Renaissance Historiography: Break or Continuity? Euro-
pean Legacy 2 (1998): 1337. See also Peter Haidu, The Subject Medieval/Modern: Text and Gover-
nance in the Middle Ages (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).
21. Fasolt, The Limits of History, 49, 22728.
22. For a more extensive critical appraisal of Fasolts historiographical principles, see Ian
Hunter, The State of History and the Empire of Metaphysics, History and Theory 44 (2005):
289303.
xx in t r o d u c t i o n
how are we to evaluate these competing claims about the great divide
between medieval and modern mind-sets? My own view, evolved over a
quarter-century of study and reflection concerning the matter, is that bal-
ance is the key to conceptualizing the multiple lineages of European po-
litical thought. There are some good reasons for adopting a Heraclitean
approach to these questionsnamely, conceiving of the river of histo-
ry as a site of continuity as well as of change.23 As Jacques Barzan once
wrote, History, like a vast river, propels logs, vegetation, rafts, and debris;
it is full of live and dead things, some destined for resurrection; it mingles
many waters and holds in solution invisible substances stolen from distant
soils.24 In this vein, I think that it is simply mistaken to endorse the his-
torical conclusion that there was no divide to be crossed from the Middle
Ages to modernity.25 Yet to cut off the Middle Ages as a frame or context
for modern trends in political thought seems to me to dismiss without rea-
son the compelling observation once made by Janet Coleman:
There are important reasons why certain issues keep cropping up over the centu-
ries in philosophical, theological and scientific circles, and one of these is that as a
literate civilisation, we have constructed our pasts from inherited texts, taken what
we see as relevant to our own situations while discarding the rest until the next
generation picks up the threads dropped by its fathers. Certain kinds of questions
do not seem to have received definitive answers at any time, and we repeat the
analyses, moving backwards and forwards, in every generation.26
The obvious solution is to split the difference in Heraclitean fashion by

moving beyond either/or dichotomies and acknowledging that the flow of
history involves both difference and sameness. What we reap from this ap-
proach is the recognition that categories such as medieval and modern
23. I am unconcerned about the question of whether this represents the authentic teach-
ing of Heraclitus himself. What I am trying to express is well captured by the entry on Hera-
clitus in Ted Honderich, ed., The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1995), 352: ..... structure is ..... unity-of-opposites. This appears in many examples,
static or dynamic, from everyday life: People step into the same rivers, and different waters
flow on them; A road, uphill and downhill, one and the same. ..... These remarks and their
generalizations are not meant to infringe the law of non-contradiction; rather they trade on
it to point out a systematic ambivalence (between polar opposites) in the essential nature of
things.
24. Quoted by Arthur Krystal, Age of Reason, The New Yorker, 22 October 2007, p. 103.
25. Bettina Koch does an admirable job of enumerating some of these reasons in the in-
troduction to her Zur Dis-/Kontinuitt mitttelelterlichen politischen Denkens in der neuzeitlichen
politischen Theorie (Berlin: Duncker & Himblot, 2005), 1355.
26. Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories, xvii.
w h y s t u d y m e d i e va l p o l i t ica l t h o u g h t xxi
can and should be gainfully deployed, yet always with the understanding
that they are provisional and potentially fluid. If we fail utterly to invoke
the terminology of medieval and modern, however, then we lose some
important elements in the understanding of the distinctive contributions
of each era to the history of Western political ideas. Yet if we insist on the
absolute character of the language of periodization, then we likewise do
not comprehend the complex interplay between doctrines articulated at
one time and those at another.
As scholars of intellectual history, the comparison of texts to contexts,
as well as of texts to other texts, form key features of our enterprise and
calling. There is, however, no reason to suppose that such contexts must be
absolute, self-contained, and fixed in order for there to be a point to con-
textualization. I am untroubled by the possibility that one might interpret
and evaluate texts in a multiplicity of contexts, whereas some scholars have
evinced discomfort with such hermeneutical uncertainty. Constantin Fa-
solt, for example, worries, The real question is, Which context? Historical,
linguistic, philosophical, divine and deconstructive? Or dancing, cook-
ery, and sports?27 My answer is, Yes! By this, I mean that there may be
many contexts that enrich the meaning of words and concepts in different
ways. We can and should, if we are careful, invoke each and all of them to
explore and expand myriad interpretations. One or more of those mean-
ings may instruct us in how the authors and readers of the original time
and place would have understood a text. But other contexts and attendant
meanings, equally valid and fruitful in their own ways, may reveal ideas
that, although never intended by their authors, are nonetheless compel-
ling. My point here, quite simply, is that historically minded scholars need
to become comfortable on the unsteady ground that stems from the rec-
ognition that there are many potentially necessary, indispensable, or useful
contexts for a given text, rather than some single correct and final context.
In turn, this realization in no way undermines the worthiness or validity
of the quest of serious historians to achieve more accurate (or at any rate,
plausible) understandings. A multiplicity of contexts and interpretations is
not a counsel of despair, but an invitation to explore.
The chapters contained in the present book all illustrate facets of the
historiographical and methodological considerations and reservations that
I have expressed. Part I surveys in greater detail some of the major contri-
butions to the debate about the historiography of medieval and mod-
27. Fasolt, The Limits of History, 210.

xxii in t r o d u c t i o n
ern political thought. The doyen of the field for much of the twentieth
century, Walter Ullmann, has long ceased to be widely cited by scholars,
but his influence lingers in many of the views held by later figures such as
Quentin Skinner, Brian Tierney, and Francis Oakley. The chapters con-
tained in Part I aim to provide a critical assessment of the strengths and
limitations of these historians. I close the section with an examination of
the moderate and nuanced views of Alexander Passerin dEntrvesa lit-
tle-remembered, but still meritorious, contemporary of Ullmannwho
sought to split the difference in understanding the relation between the
Middle Ages and modernity.
Part II turns to one of the major themes addressed by political theo-
rists in the modern as well as medieval worlds, namely, the expression of
political, cultural, and religious discontent about the uses of power. It has
often been pointed out that the materials of modern constitutionalism and
political liberalism may be found in the soil of the Middle Ages. The stud-
ies in this section both confirm and challenge this view: we find authors
such as John of Salisbury and Marsiglio of Padua who defended liberty of
conscience and judgment, as well as thinkers in the vein of Henry de Brac-
ton and William of Pagula who proposed the need for political remedies
to the abuse of power. Yet these theories assumed a profoundly different
conception of political life and the foundations of legitimate power than
one finds in the modern era: the universal acceptance of certain theological
and moral premises, and doctrines of communal solidarity, precluded the
articulation of recognizably secular and liberal principles of toleration, dis-
sent, protest, and revolt.
Part III addresses the recurrent medieval obsession with the twin polit-
ical institutions of empire and republic. In particular, I examine the com-
plex relationship between the key themes of republicanism and universal
empire moving into the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, revealing that
they are not mutually exclusive doctrines either philosophically or chron-
ologically. Against the view held by Baron and Pocock, the chapters con-
tained in this section reveal important continuities in republican argu-
ments over four centuries or so starting with Brunetto Latini in the 1260s.
Yet other authors, such as Jean Gerson, followed paths to republicanism
that proved to be dead-ends in the modern period and thus deserve to
be conceived of as distinctively medieval. At the same time, as my exami-
nations of Marsiglio of Padua in the fourteenth century and Nicholas of
Cusa in the fifteenth century suggest, republican doctrines persisted side-
w h y s t u d y m e d i e va l p o l i t ica l t h o u g h t xxiii
by-side with the belief in the legitimacy of imperial power expressed by a

universal lord over all of the world. Empire was not strangled to death by
the force of a republican renewal starting in the fifteenth century (or at any
other time). Rather, the imperial ideal in its essentially medieval form en-
joyed a long and fruitful life well into modernity.
Part IV, on political economy, shows how questions about the regula-
tion and organization of the material welfare of the members of the politi-
cal community constituted a widespread and persistent theme of political
thought from the twelfth century onward. This claim stands in marked
contrast to the standard view of the Latin Middle Ages as highly moral-
istic, if not ascetic, in its general attitude toward questions of economic
exchange and physical improvement. On his journey to God, man needs
bodily sustenance as well as spiritual guidance. Moreover, because that
journey is not, by most men, undertaken alone but as members of societ-
ies, part of their spiritual guidance must relate to the means of their cor-
poreal existence. Thus, from the High Middle Ages onward, political theo-
rists recognized that one of the indispensable roles of government was the
promotion of the material well-being of the populace, alongside moral and
religious ends. This constituted, indeed, one of the principal bequests of
medieval European political thought to its modern heirs.
By way of a coda, the concluding set of chapters in Part V investigates
several examples of the uses of medieval themes by more modern authors.
I start with John Fortescues economic nationalism at the end of the fif-
teenth century, and move through Machiavelli and various seventeenth-
century English writers, closing with Hegels effort to revive significant
features of medieval political life as a remedy for some of the discontents
of the modern liberal and capitalist order. This part illustrates the large va-
riety of ways in which medieval ideas might shape and impact modern
thought, stressing the diversity of receptions found during later times. The
modern audience for medieval thought proves as broad and also as capa-
cious as do the ideas contained in medieval texts themselves.
Beyond their specific contributions to the expanding literature on me-
dieval political ideas and discourse, the studies contained in this volume are
meant to alert political theorists to the many exciting prospects afforded
by study of the Latin Middle Ages. The latter, indeed, has impelled much
of my work as a political theorist, in which role, as Fasolt has observed, I
have been especially active in drawing medieval subjects to modernists
attention.28 I believe that it is possible to achieve this goal without plead-
xxiv in t r o d u c t i o n
ing for full-blown anachronism or for a return to a problematic perennial

ideas approach to intellectual inquiry. It is necessary to acknowledge the
pastness of the Middle Ages in relation to modern and postmodern con-
cerns. Likewise, we should heed Fasolts pointed caution against the recent
scholarly tendency (which he associates with Tierney and Pennington) to
praise medieval people for being just as enlightened as modern people.29
While I doubt that the present book will satisfy the historiographical hard-
liners on either side of the question about the medieval/modern divide
(and it may well infuriate both), I hope that my plea for moderation, sup-
ported by myriad examples of why a nuanced approach to interpretation is
necessary and fruitful, will find a receptive audience among those who are
prepared to read the historical record in its own terms, not on the basis of
a fixed schema.
On the whole, I seek to protect against a most egregious kind of for-
gettingalbeit a loss of memory encouraged by the conceits of the Renais-
sance and of modernity in generaloccasioned by the erasure of a millen-
nium of Western culture and thought from our historical memories. Such
a lacuna does not mean that the Latin Middle Ages lacks impact upon us:
it is present, although subterranean, in the written record of civilization of
which Janet Coleman speaks. If we refrain from showing any conscious re-
gard for the Middle Ages, however, we ignore (at our real peril) some of the
main defining elements of our intellectual inheritance. To incorporate sen-
sitivity to the theoretical complexities of the Latin Middle Ages into the
study of Western political thought neither glorifies the medieval past nor
yields to the cries of cultural conservatives. History is not a shackle, just as
it is not the fount of all wisdom. To forget moments of our intellectual his-
tory because they cannot be made immediately relevant to the present
or indeed to render them relevant by wrenching them from their historical
situationdenies the manifold ways in which contemporary political para-
digms and discourses have emerged and been built up over the millennia.
This is a lesson of which scholars in many fieldspolitical theorists, philos-
ophers, and even some historiansseem increasingly to need reminder.
28. Ibid., 241, n. 13.

29. Constantin Fasolt, Sovereignty and Heresy, in Max Reinhard, ed., Infinite Boundar-
ies: Order, Disorder and Reorder in Early Modern German Culture (Kirksville: Sixteenth Century
Journal Publishers, 1998), 383, n. 4.
Pa rt I
Historiographies of the
Early European Tradition
Continuity and Change

1
T h e L e g ac y o f Wa lt e r U l l m ann
f
o r s t u d e n t s o f m e d i e va l political thought who
worked during the second half of the twentieth century,
it was impossible to escape the influence of the doyen of
that field, the Cambridge University professor of medieval his-
tory Walter Ullmann.1 A generation ago, Ullmann was ubiqui-
tous. Yet the reputation of Ullmann (who died in 1983) has un-
dergone a precipitous decline, to the point that now he is all but
invisible. As of the first decade of the twenty-first century, Ull-
manns voluminous writings are almost entirely out of print.2 It is
indeed remarkable that a defining figure of twentieth-century me-
dieval studies should disappear from the scholarly scene at a rate
of speed that is truly breathtaking. During the 1960s, it would
have been nearly unthinkable to write about medieval legal, po-
litical, and social thought without substantial reliance upon and
reference to Ullmanns erudition. By the early 1980s, when J. H.
Burns prepared his introduction to the Cambridge History of Me-
1. The initial impetus for this chapter was an observation about Ullmanns fate
I heard twice (and independently) during the 2001 Medieval Congress at Kalama-
zoo, Michiganmade once by James Muldoon and again by Francis Oakley. For
those unfamiliar with Ullmann, a place to start is the forward and bibliography
contained in Brian Tierney and Peter Linehan, eds., Authority and Power: Studies on
Medieval Law and Government Presented to Walter Ullmann on His Seventieth Birth-
day (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), viiviiii, 25774.
2. One of Ullmanns Variorum Collected Studies Series volumes remains avail-
able, according to the online Books in Print, along with a German edition of A
Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages; several more of Ullmanns works can
be obtained from Books on Demand.
3
4 h is t o r i o g r ap h i e s o f t h e e a r ly t r a d i t i o n
dieval Political Thoughtwhich did not, however, see the light of print un-
til 1988Ullmann was already classed with Otto von Gierke and the Car-
lyle brothers as magisterial but pass figures.3
I do not propose to offer any definitive explanation of this state of af-
fairs, although I have heard several offered in recent times. Many schol-
ars probably know some of the reasons why Ullmann came to be discard-
ed. His difficult personality apparently alienated many of his own research
students; his increasingly rigid style of interpretation made it difficult to
extend research beyond the famous fixed paradigm he constructed; his ten-
dency in his later years to find creative new ways to repeat himself was
surely maddening. I also suspect that the larger political context of the
waning of cold war rhetoricand eventually, the end of the cold war it-
selfmay have had some impact on Ullmanns declining status, especially
among those who did not read him carefully to start with. Doubtless, oth-
er plausible explanations for Ullmanns vanishing act may be adduced.
Before meditating on the legacy of Walter Ullmann as a scholar, it may
be necessary to offer some preliminary observations about the course of his
career. His publications from the 1940s, such as his book on Lucas de Pen-
na and his Maitland lectures (published as Medieval Papalism), live up to
the highest standards of rigorous scholarly inquiry.4 In particular, Ullmann
worked out the main elements of one of his pet themes, namely, how legal
ideas shaped the central trends of medieval political thought. The scholar-
ship in these early works is meticulous, and although some of it has clear-
ly been superceded in the ordinary course of academic progress, what he
wrote remains worthy of attention. I see little inkling in this first phase of
his career of the later Ullmann. By contrast, it is clear that by the middle
1950s, Ullmann had turned to the textbookish simplifications for which he
became well known and eventually notorious. The hierocratic thesis gets
fleshed out in The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages (1955)
3. J. H. Burns, Introduction, in J. H. Burns, ed., The Cambridge History of Medieval Po-
litical Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 46. On the connection be-
tween these three figures, and especially Ullmann and Gierke, see Antony Black, Editors In-
troduction to Otto von Gierke, Community in Historical Perspective, ed. Antony Black, trans.
Mary Fischer (Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1991), xxix. Some further context for
Ullmann is provided by Francisco Bertelloni, Die Entmicklung der Historiographie des Mit-
telalterichen Politischen Denkens in den Letzten Hundert Jahren, in Ruedi Imbach and Al-
fonso Majier, eds., Gli studi di filosofia medievale fra otto e novecento (Rome: Edizioni di Storia
e Letteratura, 1991), 20931.
4. Walter Ullmann, The Medieval Idea of Law as Represented by Lucas de Penna: A Study in
Fourteenth Century Legal Scholarship (London: Methuen, 1946) and Medieval Papalism: The Po-
litical Theories of the Medieval Canonists (London: Methuen, 1949).
t h e l e g ac y o f wa lt e r u l l m ann 5
and the full contrast between ascending and descending models of au-
thority debuts in Principles of Government and Politics in the Middle Ages.5
By the time Ullmann produced his widely read and influential A History of
Political Thought: The Middle Ages, published by Penguin in 1965 and re-
printed many times, the fundamentals of his interpretation were well es-
tablished.6 The ensuing years until his death were to witness numerous
additional books, but few novel ideas and instead increasingly shrill re-
statements of already familiar views.
The intellectual arc of Ullmanns scholarly career, then, might lead one
to expect mainly a catalogue of discredited ideas. In fact, however, this
conclusion is not fully justified. While some of his major teachings have
indeed been demolished, his impact lingers in less obvious, but equally
important, ways. Thus, any death notice for Ullmanns historiography of
early European political thought, while it may yet prove to be necessary,
is presently premature. In the current chapter, I shall defend this claim.
But before I do so, it may be useful to identify the elements in Ullmanns
scholarship that have been already laid to rest. I have in mind two of Ull-
manns better known large theses: first, the modeling of the entire sweep
of medieval thought as a conflict between descending or hierocratic or
theocratic and ascending or populist conceptions of power; and second,
the treatment of the mid-thirteenth century introduction of Aristotles Pol-
itics as a watershed in medieval political philosophy that directly produced
the transformation to modernity.
For those who have not been exposed to the weight of Ullmanns
scholarship, it will be helpful first to recount these two teachings prior
to explaining the reasons for their ultimate rejection. According to Ull-
mann, rulers during the Middle Ages claimed for themselves, and general-
ly conducted themselves on the basis of, theocratic and hierocratic author-
ity. The theocratic king, he said, so far from belonging to the people,
stood in principle and in his government outside and above the peo-
ple....... All power came from above to the king, who transmitted parts
of it downwards.7 The authority of the ruler, in other words, descended
from God through him. Ullmann did not view this thesis as merely ideo-
logical; on the contrary, hierocratic doctrine was implemented by medi-
5. Walter Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages (London: Methuen,
1955) and Principles of Government and Politics in the Middle Ages (London: Methuen, 1961).
6. Walter Ullmann, A History of Political Thought: The Middle Ages (Harmondsworth,
Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1965) and reprinted under the title Medieval Political Thought.
7. Ullmann, Principles of Government and Politics, 128, 130.
eval royal governments and accepted by their subjects as the basis of legiti-
macy. In turn, several implications followed from the fundamental thesis.
First, no subject possessed any right against the king, since the royal head
alone was the ultimate bearer of authority.8 Second, the monarch was the
sole and authoritative judge of the public good and utility: The theocratic
ruler alone was considered to be in a position to determine what was re-
quired to promote the public weal.9 Finally, participants in royal admin-
istration held no jurisdiction independent of the king because the power
of all hierarchically lower-placed officers could eventually be traced back
to the royal origin.10 Ullmann admits that the diffusion of the descend-
ing model was not uniform throughout Europeestablishing itself more
firmly in France, for instance, than in either England or Italyyet he as-
serts that its marks are to be found in every region.11
Standing alongside the descending doctrine is a conception of power
that is diametrically opposed to it, namely, the ascending thesis. On this
contrasting view, the authority of government arises from a grant of the
people, in whom ultimate authority resides and whose will limits the in-
dependence of rulers. Ullmann claimed that the sources of this idea dur-
ing the Middle Ages varied widely. One was feudalism, which conceived
the king as legally bound to seek the counsel and aid of his nobles in all
matters touching upon the common needs of the realm. In this regard, the
relation between the ruler and his peopleor at any rate, those of aristo-
cratic birthtook on a noticeably contractual cast: the latter cooperate on
condition of their consultation about and consent to the kings enterpris-
es. Consequently, Ullmann noted, The feudal function of the king pro-
vided the only platform on which a lawand hence governmentcould
be conceived to which he himself was subjected.12 The second element
of the ascending theme in the Middle Ages derived from the historical
soil of local public associations, such as guilds, villages, urban communes,
and religious orders. Developments on the lower rungs of society put into
practice the populist themes of communal consent, limited government,
and participatory citizenship. While these populist manifestations on the
lower and lowest levels of medieval society were harmless and not influ-
ential, they nonetheless enlivened the idea that government arises from a
mandate from the masses.13 Finally, and most importantly for Ullmann,
the ascending thesis was invigorated by the translation and circulation af-
8. Ibid., 131. 9. Ibid., 134.
10. Ibid., 135. 11. See ibid., 21011.
12. Ibid., 152. 13. Ibid., 24.
ter about 1250 of Aristotles Politics, the naturalistic and populist doctrines
of which confirmed previous expressions of ascending thought and legiti-
mated a nonhierocratic vision of political order. According to Ullmann,
The influence of Aristotle from the second half of the thirteenth century
onwards wrought a transmutation in thought that amounts to a concep-
tual revolution.14 Specifically, the Politics revealed to the Middle Ages the
fundamentally natural ends and purposes of human society, the citizen as
an active participant in politics, and the urban community as the basic
building block or unit of human association. Moreover, Aristotle upheld
the principle that political philosophy itself constituted a distinct disci-
pline, with its own unique vocabulary, independent of theological consid-
erations and worthy in its own right for the sake of human happiness. All
of these Aristotelian notions were intellectually hostile to long-maintained
Christian attitudes toward the foundations of earthly political life.
Ullmann presented these theses as an historical narrative of alterna-
tion. In the era of the Roman Republic, and among the Germanic tribes of
northern Europe, the ascending model predominated. But as these two so-
ciopolitical cultures fused, and came under the sway of the Christian reli-
gion and church, the descending conception spread to the point of achiev-
ing hegemony in the European society of the early Middle Ages. To be
sure, the ascending theme did not entirely disappear: feudal and popular
manifestations maintained it in muted form throughout the medieval pe-
riod. But the main stimulus for the replacement of the hierocratic with the
populist perspective in the later Middle Ages was the reintroduction of Ar-
istotelian political theory. Ullmanns account of the transformation of the
political world of medieval Europe is in an important sense idealistic, that
is, idea-driven: feudalism and local associations may have prepared the
ground for Aristotles reception, but it was the new Aristotelian teachings
about the state that directly produced the supercession of the descending
by the ascending theme.15 The Philosopher caused the conceptual revo-
lution through which hierocratic models of society and government were
displaced. In turn, this overcoming of the theocratic doctrine after 1250
ushers in modernity for Ullmann: In fact and in theory the Aristotelian
avalanche in the thirteenth century marks the watershed between the Mid-
dle Ages and the modern period.16 Ullmanns historiography thus directly
challenges the customary picture of the European Renaissance and Refor-
14. Ullmann, A History of Political Thought: The Middle Ages, 159.
15. Ullmann, Principles of Government and Politics, 24.
16. Ullmann, A History of Political Thought: The Middle Ages, 159.
mation as affording the decisive chronological break with the Dark Ages.
The salient themes of modern social thought and institutions, already im-
plicit in the populism of feudalism and voluntary local groupings, were
rendered explicit and compelling by the Aristotelian revolution. The bases
of modern public lifeconstitutional, democratic, naturalisticmay be
found lurking in the intellectual terrain of medieval Europe.
The broad contours of Ullmanns interpretive edifice have long since
been definitively demolished. In 1973, Francis Oakley published Celestial
Hierarchies Revisited, a sweeping critique of Ullmann that appeared in
Past and Present.17 Oakley effectively destroyed the ascending/descending
framework that Ullmann had posited as the key means of organizing polit-
ical thought and practice during the Middle Ages. Oakley also challenged
many of the details of Ullmanns readings of figures and texts central to the
validation of his larger interpretive project. Oakley, whose wit and intelli-
gence are always most penetrating when he is engaged in critique of other
scholars, produced a tour-de-force that defies summary. It is not too great
an exaggeration to say that the rapid decline of Ullmanns fortunes during
the last three decades can be traced quite directly to Oakleys article. While
Ullmanns work continued to be cited for some years following Oakleys
attack, reliance upon his ascending/descending scheme became increasing-
ly reserved and qualified among scholars, who often made reference to the
caveats noted in Celestial Hierarchies Revisited. Following in Oakleys
wake, other scholars commenced a more or less systematic reappraisal of
Ullmanns leading hypotheses. Some research demonstrated how Aristo-
tle was appropriated by medieval thinkers with equal or greater force as a
proponent of absolutistic monarchy, papal as well as secular. Hence, there
was nothing intrinsically populist about Aristotle or the medieval inter-
pretation of him. Other scholarsmyself includedshowed how the cir-
culation of the Politics did not induce the conceptual revolution posited
by Ullmann, but instead reconfirmed and reinforced doctrines that were
widely known and employed before the middle of the thirteenth centu-
ry.18 Finally, additional research revealed that the alleged philosophical in-
commensurability between the ascending and the descending schemes did
17. Francis Oakley, Celestial Hierarchies Revisited: Walter Ullmanns Vision of Medieval
Politics, Past and Present 60 (1973): 348.
18. Cary J. Nederman, Nature, Sin and the Origins of Society: The Ciceronian Tradition
in Medieval Political Thought, Journal of the History of Ideas 49 (JanuaryMarch 1988): 326,
and Aristotelianism and the Origins of Political Science in the Twelfth Century, Journal of
the History of Ideas 52 (AprilJune 1991): 17994.
not correspond to the actual writings and statements of many medieval

authors. Thus, the elements of Ullmanns framework that were most pro-
vocative and attracted the greatest attention may safely be declared dead
and buried among serious scholars. By 1992, Antony Black was able to de-
clare the ascending/descending model simplistic, calling it the kind of
generalization that would be laughed at by specialists in other fields.19
So why did I claim earlier that much remains alive that derives from
Ullmanns thought? Permit me to enumerate a few contributions of Ull-
mann that persist today (for good or for ill). One of the main features of
Ullmanns general historiographical outlook was his insistence upon an es-
sential continuity of Western political thought commencing in circa 1250:
pace a once-dominant trend of scholarship, modernity was not a radical
break with the past, via the humanism of the Renaissance or the religious
pluralism of the Reformation. Rather, the primary lessons of modern po-
litical writing resonated with the doctrines of the later Middle Ages. At
present, Ullmanns general conclusion represents a view to which histori-
ans of Western political thought widely subscribe. In the introduction to
the Cambridge History of Political Thought, 14501700, J. H. Burns eloquent-
ly summarizes this trend: Neither humanism nor Protestantismto say
nothing of the continuing vitality of other intellectual and spiritual tradi-
tionsretains in recent historiography quite the appearance it formerly
had. This is in part a result of lengthening the chronological perspectives,
of recognizing the significance of what might be called protohumanism
and of earlier instances of the genus renaissance; or of acknowledging
that the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation are themselves part
of a much longer age of reform in western Christendom.20 Walter Ull-
mann could hardly have made the point more succinctly. The emphasis on
continuity that he pioneered is now everywhere on display. The words of
Brian Tierney, widely regarded to be the most influential historian of me-
dieval political ideas of the last generation in the English-speaking world,
may suffice: It is impossible really to understand the growth of Western
constitutional thought ..... unless we consider the whole period from 1150
to 1650 as a single era of essentially continuous development.21 Or more
19. Antony Black, Political Thought in Europe, 12501450 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1992), 12.
20. J. H. Burns, Introduction, in J. H. Burns with Mark Goldie, eds., The Cambridge
History of Political Thought, 14501700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 3.
21. Brian Tierney, Religion, Law, and the Growth of Constitutional Thought, 11501650
briefly still: Seventeenth-century writers were often thinking medieval

thoughts,22 a claim that Tierney supports with reference to consent, le-
gitimation, rights, representation, sovereignty, and a host of other politi-
cal concepts.
Tierney, who wrote his first major book, Foundations of the Concil-
iar Theory (published in 1955), as a thesis under Ullmanns supervision,
must be credited with keeping alive two other aspects of his supervisors
scholarship: one substantive, the other methodological. One of Tierneys
best known views is the claim that the roots of modern constitutionalism
may be traced, via the conciliarism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centu-
ries, to lessons derived from canon law. (This is a position, of course, to
which many others, such as Oakley, James Muldoon, and Kenneth Pen-
nington, also subscribe.)23 It perhaps needs to be remembered, however,
that this idea was pioneered by Ullmann himself in the appendix to his
1948 book The Origins of the Great Schism.24 Focusing on Cardinal Zab-
arella, who would also be a pivotal figure in Tierneys book, Ullmann dem-
onstrated how Zabarellas training as a canon lawyer shaped his conciliar
commitments, so that the cardinal derived his theory of the superiori-
ty of the Council..... through interpretations of canon law by thirteenth-
century canonists.25 Ullmanns remarkable observation puts his vision of
conciliarism at a distance from the Carlyles, John Neville Figgis, Charles
McIlwain, and others who had written on the topic: for him, as for later
scholars, conciliar theory arose not as an external and heretical challenge
to papal authority but as an entirely orthodox expression of long-standing
teachings about ecclesiology. Hence, a major component of the current
historiography of European political ideas has definite roots in Ullmanns
scholarship.
A second living dimension of Ullmanns legacy that resonates in Tier-
ney (and others) concerns the reduction of historically complex patterns
of intellectual continuity and change to a simplistic and rigid scheme of
interpretation. Certainly, this reductionism constitutes one of the most
bothersome features of the ascending/descending model, in the sense that
it eliminates theoretical nuance and ambiguity, filters out authors who do
22. Ibid., 105.

23. Most recently, see Francis Oakley, The Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the
Catholic Church, 13001870 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
24. Walter Ullmann, The Origins of the Great Schism: A Study in Fourteenth-Century Eccle-
siastical History (London: Methuen, 1948), 191231.
25. Ibid., 202.
not fit the structure, and imposes cramped interpretations upon texts. Yet
it seems to me that Tierney and some of his fellow scholars follow the same
sort of reductionist path, inasmuch as they ascribe the main contributions
of medieval thought to modern timesincluding rights, constitutional-
ism, and rule of lawto a single and exclusive source: the doctrines of
high medieval jurists (especially canonists). Given this master narrative,
nonjuristic authors are judged by the yardstick of their dependence upon
legal texts and ideas. The importance or irrelevance of a given medieval
writing is evaluated according to the measure of reliance: John of Paris,
or Marsiglio of Padua, or William of Ockham is significant in the histori-
cal record solely because he incorporates legal materials and thus fits the
preexisting scheme. Such an approach imposes artificial and forced inter-
pretations upon texts just as surely as did Ullmanns discredited dualistic
model. Tierney and those who share his framework thus seem susceptible
to the identical charge of a priorism that Oakley and other scholars once
leveled against Ullmann. The Tierneyite school would be well admonished
to heed the warning (in the spirit of Fustel de Coulanges) made by Oak-
ley about Ullmann, namely, that he succumbs to the dangers of anachro-
nism, of historical narcissism, of finding their own attitudes reflected all
too readily in those of ancient peoples whose modes of thought were in
reality fundamentally alien to theirs.26 This hermeneutic tendency associ-
ated with Ullmann lives on.
Perhaps the most popular manifestation of Ullmanns legacy is one that
has received, to my knowledge, no previous attention. Several members
of the British comedy troupe Monty Python were students at Cambridge
or Oxford during the 1960s and two of them specialized in the subject of
medieval studies.27 Whether they heard Ullmann lecture, or merely read
one or more of his then-ubiquitous books, they evidently were exposed to
his ascending/descending model and eventually incorporated it into one
of the most famous scenes of their 1974 film Monty Python and the Holy
Grail. From what origin other than the magisterial Walter Ullmann might
have arisen the following dialogue?
26. Oakley, Celestial Hierarchies Revisited, 47.

27. Terry Jones, of course, continues to research and publish as an independent scholar
of late medieval English literature; see Chaucers Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary
(London: Methuen, 1985).
arthur: I am your king.

old woman: Well, I didnt vote for you.
arthur: You dont vote for kings.
old woman: Well, how did you become king, then?
arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in purest shimmering samite, held
Excalibur aloft from the bosom of the waters to signify that by Divine Providence
..... I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur ..... that is why I am your king.
dennis the peasant: Look, strange women lying on their backs in ponds hand-
ing over swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power
derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
arthur: Be quiet!
dennis: You cant expect to wield supreme executive power just because some wa-
tery tart threw a sword at you.
arthur: Shut up!
dennis: I mean, if I went around saying I was an Emperor because some moist-
ened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, theyd put me away.
arthur: Shut up, will you. Shut up!
dennis: Ah! Now, we see the violence inherent in the system. Come see the vio-
lence inherent in the system. Help, help, Im being repressed!28
I can think of no more fitting memorialization of Walter Ullmanns vi-

sion of medieval political thought than this tribute by the Pythons. The
idea of which Ullmann ultimately failed to convince the scholarly com-
munity enjoys a far more robust and vital existence at the cinemas and on
the video screens of the world than in academic texts. And so, this feature
of Ullmanns scholarship, academically deceased though it is, is perhaps far
more alive than most of us could possibly dream for our own intellectual
visions.
28. Monty Python and the Holy Grail [screenplay final draft] (London: Methuen, 1977),
911.
2
Q u e n t in S k inn e r s S t at e
Historical Methodology and the Formation
of a European Tradition

h e e x t e n t to which the work of Quentin Skinner, particular-
ly following publication of The Foundations of Modern Politi-
cal Thought,1 has captured the attention and imagination of
political theorists is little short of remarkable. As Kari Palonen
recently commented, Skinners international reputation is due
above all to his two volume book The Foundations.......2 Seldom
has a scholarly endeavor generated such extensive dissection as the
Foundationsa function, no doubt, of the breadth and scope of
its intellectual vision. Briefly, the Foundations concentrates upon
three aims: first, to narrate the development of early modern po-
litical thought through its late medieval background; second, to
illustrate Skinners intentional method of historical inquiry,
through which linguistic conventions and ideologies become the
central focus for the study of political ideas; and third, to account
for the appearance in sixteenth-century Europe of a demonstrably
modern concept of the state.3 In light of the vast range of materi-
1. Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); henceforth cited as Foundations.
2. Kari Palonen, Quentin Skinner: History, Politics, Rhetoric (Oxford: Polity
Press, 2003), 61. A volume assessing the magnitude of Skinners accomplishment
has lately been published by Annabel Brett and James Tully, with Holly Hamilton-
Bleakley, eds., Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge:
3. Skinner, Foundations, 1: ixxvi.
13
als that Skinner is compelled by his goals to address, it is hardly surprising

that the Foundations failed to generate much consensus among those who
have offered evaluations of its merits. Some have lauded Skinners interpre-
tive skill with the texts, authors, and problems treated by the Foundations,
while others have declared his analyses unoriginal, superficial, and even de-
ceptive. Some have praised the rigor of the Foundations, while others have
maintained that many of its failings may be attributed to Skinners adher-
ence to precisely these rigid strictures of method.4 Considered as a whole,
the critical literature inspired by the Foundations speaks not in a single
tongue, but with a confusion of voices.
Yet with regard to one aspect of the Foundations at least, there appears
to be consensus. Skinners critics have expressed virtually unanimous suspi-
cion that in his attempt to elucidate the formation of a modern theory of
the state, he moved away from the methodological principles he espoused,
in both the Foundations and his earlier writings. In the Foundations,
Kenneth Minogue observes, Skinner takes us through the acts and re-
sponses of Europeans over several centuries, only to arrive at a point out-
side of history when we have acquired an unhistorical something called
the modern concept of the state. Suddenly at this point, we move into
analysis and schema, and Skinner has abandoned history.5 Antony Black
similarly concluded that Skinner himself departs from his strictly contex-
tual approach when he says that sixteenth-century theories of the state .....
were long-standing acquisitions, taken up by later thinkers.6 For Michael
Oakeshott also the identification of the state as a theoretical construct in
the Foundations is unhistorical and anachronistic,7 while Ian Shapiro
maintained that Skinners treatment of the state ignores the intention-
alist historical methodology that he had previously defended.8 Regardless
4. Essentially positive reviews of the Foundations include those by Julian Franklin in Politi-
cal Theory 7 (November 1979): 55258; Ralph Giesey in Renaissance Quarterly 33 (Spring 1980):
6062; S. T. Holmes in American Political Science Review 73 (1979): 113335; and John Pocock
in Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 3 (Autumn 1979): 95113. Stern criticism of
the Foundations is offered by Antony Black in Political Studies 28 (1979): 45157; Donald Kelley
in Journal of the History of Ideas 40 (1979): 66373; Cary J. Nederman in Renaissance and Refor-
mation 17 (1981): 22933; Michael Oakeshott in Historical Journal 23 (1980): 44953; and Judith
Shklar in Political Theory 7 (November 1979): 44952.
5. K. R. Minogue, Method in Intellectual History: Quentin Skinners Foundations, Phi-
losophy 56 (October 1981): 543.
6. Black review in Political Studies, 454.
7. Oakeshott review in Historical Journal, 452.
8. Ian Shapiro, Realism in the Study of the History of Ideas, History of Political Thought
3 (Winter 1982): 548.
q u e n t in s k inn e r s s t at e 15
of whether they generally applaud or condemn Skinner, these commen-

tators (and others besides)9 agree that the Foundations contains a tension
between its emphasis on the theme of the state and the methodological
precepts it upholds.
In the present chapter, I propose a different evaluation of Skinners
achievement. First, I demonstrate that Skinners description of the emer-
gence of the concept of the state in the Foundations is in fact fully con-
sistent with his long-standing methodological precepts. But second, I in-
dicate how this consistency imposes upon Skinner an impoverished view
of the historical basis for any coherent tradition of discourse such as that
of the modern state. Accordingly, I suggest some correctives to Skinner
that allow us to address theoretical traditions in a more intelligible relation
to the actual contours of historical practice. Whereas most critics of the
Foundations would argue that the concept of the state and analogous per-
sistent traditions of discourse resist historical analysis, it is my contention
that we must revise our view of the manner in which history is relevant to
the study of such traditions of political thought.
Skinners claim in the Foundations to have produced a history of po-
litical thought with a genuinely historical character10 stems from his pre-
vious investigations into the issues posed by the connections between po-
litical theory and action. To this inquiry, Skinner imported many of the
tools provided by linguistic analysis and literary hermeneutics. Skinners
methodological scheme rests on the principle that an adequate historical
account of any text of political theory may be given just by recovering the
authors intention (or intended meaning) in writing. In turn, Skinner says
that we locate a theorists intention (what he was doing)11 by setting his
text within the context of the prevailing ideological conventions and de-
bates of his time. As a result, Skinner asserts that the history of political
theory must be written essentially as a history of ideologies. Skinner
9. Others who have pointed to the same problem include D. E. G. Boucher, On Shklars
and Franklins Reviews of Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Political The-
ory 8 (August 1980): 407, and New Histories of Political Thought for Old? Political Studies
31 (1983): 118; and John Gunnell, Interpretation and the History of Political Theory: Apology
and Epistemology, American Political Science Review 76 (June 1982): 325.
10. Skinner, Foundations, 1: xi.
11. Quentin Skinner, Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas, History and
Theory 8 (1969): 57, discusses the connection between saying and doing. Although Skinner
has republished this and his other main methodological essays as volume 1 of Visions of Politics:
Regarding Method (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), I will refer to the original
versions of these papers.
construes ideology as the normative vocabulary available to any given

agent for the description of his political behavior, from which the theorist
draws his language by virtue of his status as a social and political actor.12
Ideology thus bridges the realms of political theory and political practice,
and constitutes the primary object of study for the historian of political
thought.
A salient feature of Skinners methodological statements has been re-
jection of the usual techniques of the intellectual historian. Skinner is a
stern critic of the anachronism and reification that result from the at-
tempt to identify perennial problems or to describe the evolution of an
idea.13 He insists that there simply are no perennial problems, so that
it must be a mistake even to try ..... to write histories of ideas tracing the
morphology of a given concept over time.14 Skinner renounces these con-
trivances of the intellectual historian on the grounds that they all rest on a
crucial fallacy: that an agent can eventually be said to have meant or done
something which he could never be brought to accept as a correct descrip-
tion of what he had meant or done.15 A text cannot truly mean anything
that its author himself could not have intended it to mean. This point may
seem trivial. But as Skinner has amply documented, much of the scholar-
ship that passes for the history of political theory has disregarded exactly
the requirement that any reading of a text be historically credible as well as
exegetically plausible.16
How, according to Skinner, is the historian to establish the actual
meaning, or at least the range of possible meanings, of a statement or text?
Skinners dismissal of any and all traditions, that is, of ideas whose es-
sential meaning remains the same over a long stretch of time,17 leads
him to confine meaning to a narrow boundary, both linguistically and his-
torically. In a remark that has often been quoted, Skinner declares that in
every instance political language is inescapably the embodiment of a par-
ticular intention, on a particular occasion, addressed to the solution of a
particular problem, and thus specific to its situation in a way that it can
only be naive to try to transcend.18 This interpretive precept lies at the
12. Skinner, Foundations, 1: xiii.
13. Skinner, Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas, 8, 11.
14. Ibid., 50, 48.
15. Ibid., 28.
16. Quentin Skinner, Some Problems in the Analysis of Political Thought and Action,
Political Theory 2 (August 1974): 279.
17. Skinner, Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas, 37.
18. Ibid., 50.
core of Skinners method and he has sought to illustrate it through his de-
tailed analyses of various texts and issues.
A series of articles on Hobbess Leviathan offers a cogent application
of the historical method Skinner has devised. Skinner views the theory of
obligation in the Leviathan as an adaptation, refinement, and extension of
an ideological debate immediately present to him. The composition of the
Leviathan, he points out, coincided with the so-called Engagement Con-
troversy that occurred during the English Civil War.19 The Controversy
was formed out of the partisan conflict over the grounds of obligation to
government, which arose from the need of political agents of Presbyterian
and Royalist persuasion to legitimize a shift in allegiance from the Eng-
lish Crown to the de facto authority of the Commonwealth. The aim of
the participants in the debate (known as engagers for their advocacy of
engagement to the Commonwealth) was to convince the Presbyterians
and even the Royalists of their duty to obey the new government.20 Ul-
timately, their arguments produced the assertion of the right of a de fac-
to power to rule over loyal subjects by virtue of conquest. In turn, Skin-
ner claims that this controversy not only provided Hobbes with significant
primary source materials, but also constituted the most appropriate con-
text for grasping Hobbess intentions in composing the Leviathan. Hob-
bes intended his great work precisely as a contribution to the existing de-
bate around the rights of de facto powers. Indeed, the main arguments of
the Leviathan cannot even be seen as particularly novel or original.21 In
this instance, the consistency of method and application is beyond doubt;
Skinner has assimilated the Leviathan to a particularized intention, occa-
sion, and problem in just the fashion he elsewhere advocates.
It should be stressed that in both his methodological and his substan-
tive work Skinner retains a commitment to an implicit conception of his-
tory imbedded in his insistence on the strict specificity of intentions, oc-
casions, and problems. In principle and in practice, Skinners approach
requires a direct correspondence between an ideological debate or event
and a political theory or idea, because theory is wholly concerned with ex-
19. The details of the debate are summarized by Skinner in Conquest and Consent:
Thomas Hobbes and the Engagement Controversy, in G. E. Aylmer, ed., The Interregnum:
The Quest for Settlement, 16461660 (London: Archon Books, 1972), 7998; and The Context
of Hobbes Theory of Political Obligation, in Maurice Cranston and R. S. Peters, eds., Hobbes
and Rousseau (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Doubleday, 1972), 10942.
20. Skinner, Conquest and Consent, 80.
21. Ibid., 97.
18 h is t o r i o g r ap h i e s o f t h e e a r l y t r a d i t i o n
hibiting a legitimate basis for a definite action or set of actions.22 No mat-

ter how abstract or general a theorists language and concepts, his project
is still located essentially within the narrow context of tangible political
occurrences and ideological controversies. As a corollary to this emphasis
on specificity, Skinner views history itself as a chain of atomized historical
units extended without interconnection across time. Skinners history is
episodic, composed of isolated events and conflicts (like the Engagement
Controversy), multiplied and strung along a chronological scale. To an ex-
tent, Joseph Femia has already recognized Skinners implicit atomization of
history: Skinner writes the history of political thought as if it were mere-
ly a series of disconnected intellectual events. But if every historical utter-
ance and action is a unique event, historical inquiry itself becomes impos-
sible....... If historical events are sui generis, then we cannot write history;
we can only pile up documents.23 But even Femia insufficiently appreci-
ates how crucial an atomized history is to Skinners methodology. Indeed,
the entire notion of an authors intention, at least on Skinners treatment,
depends upon the historians ability to relate it to some well-defined occur-
rence. Similarly, the conception of history as a series of unrelated episodes
allows Skinner to reject the existence of determinate ideas to which var-
ious writers contribute,24 insofar as the reference points of political lan-
guage and concepts are irredeemably altered from one momentary context
to another. Thus, Skinners atomized history forms neither an arbitrary nor
a contingent aspect of his approach to historical inquiry. By construing
history solely in terms of particularized and unconnected events, and by
assigning the historical dimension of theory wholly to these isolated ep-
isodes, Skinner purports to detect the possible meanings that an author
might have intended to convey.
It might seem correct, then, to charge that Skinner introduces into The
Foundations of Modern Political Thought an unhistorical (in his sense) ele-
ment when he seeks to indicate something of the process by which the
modern concept of the State came to be formed.25 Here we encounter
22. Skinner, Some Problems in the Analysis of Political Thought and Action, 298.
23. Joseph V. Femia, An Historicist Critique of Revisionist Methods for Studying the
History of Ideas, History and Theory 20 (1981): 127.
24. Skinner, Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas, 38.
25. Skinner, Foundations, 1: ix. As Skinner remarks in the final sentence of the Foundations,
With this analysis of the State as an omnipotent yet impersonal power, we may be said to en-
ter the modern world: the modern theory of the State remains to be constructed, but its foun-
dations are now complete (ibid., 2: 358).
the source of the allegation that the Foundations embraces an unresolved

tension. On the one hand, at the heart of Skinners investigations in the
Foundations lies the argument that the evolution of political thought be-
tween 1300 and 1600 was inextricably linked to the emergence of the idea
that there is a separate legal and constitutional order, that of the State,
conceived as the basis of government and the sole source of law and le-
gitimate force within its own territory, and ..... the sole appropriate object
of its citizens allegiance.26 In effect, a decisive shift occurs for Skinner
with the progressive reorientation of political theory away from the ideal
of personal monarchic rule and toward the recognition of an administra-
tive entity distinct from its head. Echoing the lesson of Walter Ullmann,
Skinner asserts that this shift commenced with the recovery of Aristotles
Politics at the end of the thirteenth century and was completed only in
the sixteenth century when the vocabulary of the state proper (status) re-
placed in common parlance that of the medieval kingdom (regnum) and
the corporation (universitas). Skinner would therefore appear to maintain
that a sort of thematic unity governed the course of European political
writing over a period of more than three hundred years. Yet, on the other
hand, the precepts of Skinners approach demand that political concepts
and texts be historiodegradable: dissolvable into circumstance.27 Since
the modern idea of the state, which constitutes the focus of a continuous
tradition, resists such episodic treatment, Skinner seems to have violated
his own methodological code. It is little wonder that we hear the accusa-
tion that Skinner is at odds with himself regarding his treatment of the
state as a theoretical construct in the Foundations.
Nevertheless, to infer the existence of an irresolvable contradiction with-
in the Foundations, the presence of which Skinner (with all his methodolog-
ical acumen) was unaware, is to draw a hasty conclusion. In fact, Skinner
himself speaks of preconditions provided by a set of otherwise unrelated
intellectual events imbedded in quite narrowly conceived controversies. To
seek these preconditions for the notion of the modern state requires the
scholar to investigate totally unconnected occurrences spread in no special
order throughout the late medieval and early modern periods. The princi-
ple that the supreme authority within each independent regnum should
be recognized as having no rivals within its territories, for instance, arose
from the early fourteenth century dismissal of the legal and jurisdictional
26. Ibid., 1: x.
27. Minogue, Method in Intellectual History, 545.
powers of the Church.28 Similarly, the notion of the state as a secular en-
tity held to exist solely for political purposes originated in the realization
during the Religious Wars of the sixteenth century that if there were to be
any prospect of achieving civic peace, the powers of the State would have to
be divorced from the duty to uphold any particular faith.29 In short, each
characteristic aspect of the modern concept of the state was devised incre-
mentally, in isolation from the other components out of which the idea of
the state was to be molded. Consequently, history in the Foundations re-
mains essentially episodic, although Skinner is now addressing several par-
ticularized events instead of a single one. But not only is Skinner not con-
cerned about the formation of the state as a historical phenomenon, it is
thoroughly irrelevant to his argument how (or even whether) the state as a
historical phenomenon was being formed. The historical factors that served
as a catalyst for the theoretical preconditions for the modern notion of the
state are treated by Skinner as scattered and unconnected. The process by
which the theory itself was created stands in no relation to any actual, es-
sential historical process. The intellectual elements that contributed to the
founding of the state as a theoretical construct would have appeared, Skin-
ner implies, regardless of the historical appearance of any political institu-
tion or system resembling the modern state itself.
Still, we may be justified in asking, would these scattered elements have
coalesced into a coherent theory without some minimal historical model
or exemplar of the modern state? Here Skinner hints that France, England,
and perhaps Spain provide the material preconditionsa relatively uni-
fied central authority, an increasing apparatus of bureaucratic control, and
a clearly defined set of national boundariesfor the consolidation of var-
ious intellectual preconditions into the singular conceptual and linguis-
tic construct of the state.30 Yet Skinner makes no effort to associate these
material preconditions with specific ideological debates or controversies.
Nor could he assimilate the material circumstances he identifies to any
well-defined dispute. For centralization, bureaucratization, and territorial
unification must be treated as long-term historical processes rather than as
definite events. The actual formation of the state in early modern Europe,
unlike one of Skinners historical episodes, necessarily involved a subtle
and continuous development, characterized by a long series of occurrenc-
es that did have some essential interconnection. This fact is regularly ac-
28. Skinner, Foundations, 2: 351. 29. Ibid., 2: 352.

30. Ibid., 2: 354.
knowledged by historians of all historiographical predilections. Perry An-

derson describes the transformation of the medieval monarchy into the
early modern absolutist state as a protracted and difficult process of ad-
aptation and conversion, across succeeding generations necessitated by a
great, silent, structural force impelling a complete reorganization of feudal
class power.31 Joseph Strayer similarly concludes that the historian must
study the whole period from 1100 to 1600 in order to account fully for the
shift in loyalty from family, local community or religious organization to the
state....... At the end of the process, subjects accept the idea that the interests of the
state must prevail, that the preservation of the state is the highest social good. But
the change is usually so gradual that the process is hard to document; it is impos-
sible to say that at a certain point on the time scale loyalty to the state becomes the
dominant loyalty.32
Although their reasons are very different, both Anderson and Strayer insist
that the historical appearance of the modern state occurred neither sud-
denly nor as the result of a particular incident or set of events. Rather, cen-
tralization and the other crucial aspects of the development of sixteenth-
century states in Western Europe can only be fully comprehended when
their origins are traced well back into the Middle Ages.33 The relationship
between the modern state in theory and in practice thus cannot be reduced
to several (or any number) of narrowly specified moments or episodes.
So, in propounding his interpretation of the emergence of the modern
idea of the state, Skinner becomes constrained by his own atomized con-
ception of history. For the isolated intellectual preconditions to coalesce
into an analysis of the State as an omnipotent yet impersonal power,34
the long-term historical process of state formation must be underway or
have reached something of a culmination, as even Skinner tacitly admits.
Yet because the Foundations remains dedicated to a conception of history
as wholly composed of discrete ideological conflicts, Skinner is prevent-
ed from offering a truly historical account of the manner in which such
dispersed preconditions were integrated into a coherent theoretical state
31. Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London: NLB, 1974), 47.
32. Joseph R. Strayer, On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1970), 910.
33. An excellent example of how these broad historical processes might be narrated is af-
forded by Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer, The Great Arch: English State Formation as Cultur-
al Revolution (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985).
34. Skinner, Foundations, 2: 358.
tradition unique to early modern Europe. In a sense, then, the widespread

criticism of Skinners treatment of the modern theory of the state in the
Foundations has merit. But this does not mean, as one might consequent-
ly assume, that the appearance of uniquely modern discourse about the
state cannot be assimilated to history at all. The difficulty, on the contrary,
lies not with historical interpretation generally, but with Skinners artifi-
cial and narrow vision of history. It should therefore be possible to specify
corrective measures to Skinners approach that allow us to address the state
tradition in a manner precluded by his method.
To understand why authors conceptualized the state in its modern form
at the time and place they did, it is necessary to investigate two factors.
First, we must establish how the special historical qualities of the modern
state coalesced as a result of the patterns of class relations, political insti-
tutions, property holding, and other relevant features of European society
already beginning in medieval times. Second, we must integrate the intel-
lectual antecedents of the notion of the modern statethe elements that
Skinner takes to reflect scattered ideological debatesinto this process of
historical development. Taken together, these two spheres of inquiry help
to explain why the supposedly unconnected intellectual preconditions of
early modern state theory were retained and transmitted by thinkers in the
decades and even centuries prior to their amalgamation. This approach to
the modern tradition of the state does not require us to revert to the tech-
nique of tracing the self-contained history of a determinate idea in order
to disclose the existence of perennial or recurrent issues. Rather, what
is sought is the incorporation of a historical dimension within our very no-
tion of an intellectual tradition.35 And the starting point for this rethink-
ing of tradition must be the elaboration of our assumptions about history.
Tradition-oriented interpretations of the history of political thought
35. This distinguishes my approach from the concept of tradition proposed by J. G. A. Po-
cock. For Pocock, whose fear of reductionism has long been apparent (see Politics, Language
and Time [New York: Atheneum, 1971], 10, and his Communication in Political Theory 3
[August 1975]: 318), what is crucial is the autonomy of the history of political language (Poli-
tics, Language and Time, 13). As a consequence, when Pocock sets out to write history (as in
The Machiavellian Moment), his historical agents are players of language games. The contex-
tual effort is not primarily one of identifying economic interests, or affective political connex-
ions, or psychic motivations, but the recovery of linguistic conventions (Mark Goldie, Ob-
ligations, Utopias, and Their Historical Context, Historical Journal 26 [1983]: 730). Pococks
traditionalism, as the history of abstraction (Politics, Language and Time, 39, 4041, 237
39), is not very far removed from the customary history of ideas approach that Skinner has
so effectively criticized.
may be viable and valuable when the basis for the continuity of the tradi-
tion is taken to be the continuity of history itself. The historian of politi-
cal ideas must acknowledge, in particular, that historical social contexts
are not separate, isolated, water tight compartments. Despite fundamen-
tal changes and disjunctions, there is always continuity in the form of a
residue of the past in the present, of persistent social structures, institu-
tions, arrangements, and patterns of human conduct.36 If from the out-
set we understand history in this fashion, it becomes possible to speak of
recurrent questions and issues presented to a theorist during any given age
that are nevertheless historically constituted. A historically charged con-
ception of tradition must, in the first place, rest on the recognition that
political language and ideas are born and continue to exist as tools with
which to confront problems raised by historical practice. Insofar as ques-
tions reappear to successive generations of theorists, even if they are an-
swered quite differently, a tradition is formed and will persist until its his-
torical source has evaporated. For example, the development of modern
theories of the state may be described in terms of the historical displace-
ment of the fragmented and particularized medieval organization of po-
litical power in favor of the entrenchment of public authority in a singu-
lar institutional body. This process continued to be problematic in various
late medieval and early modern European locales until the hegemony of
the state was itself firmly establishedthat is, until sometime after 1600.
During the 1320s, Marsiglio of Padua sought to establish order among the
various lords and corporate bodies competing for the primary loyalty of
the populace by insisting upon superior obligations and jurisdiction. But
Marsiglio is careful never to claim that lesser intermediary powers should
be suppressed.37 In the sixteenth century, Bodin was still faced with such
particularistic units of association and was pressed to reconcile them with
the authority of territorial monarchic rule. Bodin, too, upholds the neces-
sity of intermediary political bodies, as do late medieval and early mod-
ern European authors generally.38 But for Rousseau, working in the mid-
eighteenth century, the suppression of particularism is viewed as a cru-
cial precondition for social harmony. The political assumptions that unite
36. Neal Wood, The Social History of Political Theory, Political Theory 6 (August 1978):
360.
37. Marsiglio of Padua, Defensor Pacis, ed. Richard Scholz (Hannover: Hahnsche Buch-
handlung, 1933), 1: 12.
38. Jean Bodin, The Six Books of the Commonwealth, ed. Kenneth D. McRae (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), Book 4, chaps. 46.
Marsiglio and Bodin are much more distant from Rousseau, writing in the
shadow of fully formed modern states.39 As this example illustrates, histor-
ical developments apparent only over long periods of time can regulate tra-
ditions by posing recurrent issues in need of theoretical inspection and also
by fixing the limits of those very traditions.
A genuinely historical reading of a theoretical text must therefore tran-
scend the authors self-ascribed intention regarding his own activity. As
Femia has acknowledged, Because expressions may contain more than an
agent is aware of, the analyst can never, in his quest for understanding,
concentrate exclusively on the reconstruction of conscious purposes.40
But we are thereby left with a difficulty that is largely obviated by an in-
tentionalist approach such as Skinners. How is the historian of political
thought to establish with precision the appropriate historical context for
an authors work? How do we know which historical processes and forces
were of concern to a given text or thinker? How do we know what to in-
clude, and what to exclude, in a historical analysis of political theory? Any
adequate response to these questions must begin by acknowledging that a
theorist brings to the text a vast range of historically constituted principles,
assumptions, and values, imbedded deep in his contemporary experience,
which influences both the shape and the substance of his thought. Inso-
far as the elements of an authors historical experience function as hidden
premises, unexamined postulates buried far beneath his stated words and
concepts, it becomes the primary task of the historian to uncover them
and to relate them to a particular text or tradition.
Consequently, the study of the history of political theory must aim at
reconstituting the theorists subject matter, his historical world. What is
required, in effect, is the integration of a constellation of available histori-
cal informationpolitical, social, economic, intellectual, biographical
into a coherent picture of the setting in which a text was composed. The
historian of political thought must therefore be apprised of the research
of colleagues in other fields of historical study so as to reconstruct with
the greatest accuracy the range of historical contexts relevant to a given
theory.41 In this way, we are able to go beyond the generalized injunction
39. On the importance of these themes, see Ellen Wood, The State and Popular Sovereign-
ty in French Political Thought, History of Political Thought 4 (Summer 1983): 29498, 30115.
40. Femia, An Historicist Critique of Revisionist Methods for Studying the History of
Ideas, 132.
41. A recommendation already proposed by Wood, in The Social History of Political The-
ory, 34546, and Shapiro, in Realism in the Study of the History of Ideas, 578.
to be historical. By familiarizing ourselves with the theorists historical

world, we may begin to identify what problems might have been posed for
theoretical inspection during his era. And it is for the attempted solutions
to these problems that we must turn to the text or texts. The recognition
that fourteenth-century European society was beset with conflict between
privatized lordship and the emerging power of the centralized royal state,
for example, facilitates a more thorough and precise insight into Marsiglio
of Paduas ordering of political units in a community and his doctrine of
individualized consent to rulership.42 Furthermore, when a variety of au-
thors over a period of time address the same problem(s), and especially
when they do so within a shared linguistic or conceptual framework, it be-
comes possible to speak of a tradition. So, to continue the example, Mar-
siglios thought shares important features not only with his direct contem-
poraries, but also with historically distant authors, such as Bodin and the
Huguenot constitutionalists, who confronted quite similar problems about
relations between autonomous forms of political power, arising recurrently
during the process through which the modern state crystallized.43
Note that his approach does not presume intention. Instead, it allows
that the real or full significance of the problems that history presents may
not have been consciously acknowledged by the theorist. Whether such an
express realization in fact occurs does not matter, since it is unreasonable
to ascribe to any person at any time a full measure of critical self-awareness
about the assumptions imbedded in ones experience of historical circum-
stances and conditions. In the study of past political thought, what counts
is the historians discovery of the problems that may have been thrust upon
and addressed by an historically located theorist in the very activity of the-
orizing about politics during a given age. Once these historical problems
are identified, the hidden premises, assumptions, and experiences that led
a thinker to articulate the theoretical perspective ultimately adopted begin
to come into focus. In this way, the historian arrives at a text with more
precise knowledge of the principles that its author utilized in writing, but
which remained always unelaborated because they formed so common an
element of daily existence as to be inconspicuous. Historical problem
rather than ideological/conventional intention ought thus to be taken as
the constitutive feature of the language, ideas, and texts that the historian
of political thought investigates.
42. For the relevant passages from Marsiglio, see Defensor Pacis, 1: 12.
43. See Bettina Koch, Zur Dis-/Kontinuitt mitttelelterlichen politischen Denkens in der
neuzeitlichen politischen Theorie (Berlin: Duncker & Himblot, 2005), esp. 14068.
The methodological approach proposed at present does not implicitly

attribute to the study of history the status of an objective science. Obvi-
ously, no form of historical investigation is utterly immune from the in-
tellectual and ideological presumptions of its own age. Yet, in light of the
tools and techniques afforded by modern historical scholarship, it requires
no leap of faith to admit the possibility of minimizing the impact of ones
own immediate historical experiences and of increasing ones understand-
ing of a past era in depth and scope. Indeed, to assert the contrary is to
place oneself under pain of historical solipsism. But the opinions and par-
adigms adopted by historians change and grow in response to historio-
graphical criticism and factual discoveries. As a result of the refinement of
historical concepts, and the general improvement of historical knowledge,
one must be prepared to reexamine and revise interpretations of political
texts and theories. Acknowledging the historicity of texts does not imply
the discredited positivistic claim that there can be only one true read-
ing of any treatise or doctrine. Rather, the study of the history of political
theory, like all forms of historical scholarship, is a matter of degree. Some
interpretations are bound to be more valid or more plausible than others
when judged in historical terms.44 No scholar would dream of approach-
ing Hobbes as though he were writing about the fifth-century Greek polis
instead of the seventeenth-century state. What gives the thought of Hob-
bes, or any author, its unique contours is the specificity of the circum-
stances it confronts and the intellectual materials on which it draws. It is
left to the historian of theory, relying on the available textual and historical
evidence, to capture and identify the ways in which the theoretical ideas
and principles of the past interacted with their surroundings.
The study of the past can, if we allow it, build a bridge between the
present and the future through which our own attitudes and values are re-
shaped. Contextualizing political theory should not mean that we reduce
its classic or even minor texts to mere relics or fossils. On the contrary, tru-
ly historical interpretations of past theories and traditions should assist us
in liberating ourselves from our own unelaborated premises and experi-
ences and should generate critical self-reflection. For example, evaluation
of the usefulness of the state as a category of political analysis and an ob-
ject of political discourse currently is inseparable from a historical under-
44. Richard Ashcraft, One Step Backward, Two Steps Forward: Reflections on Contem-
porary Political Theory, in John S. Nelson, ed., What Should Political Theory Be Now? (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1983), 537 and passim.
standing of the modern concept of the state. While the idea of the mod-
ern state has proven remarkably elastic,45 it cannot be stretched infinitely.
Have the political, economic, and technical trends of recent timessuch
as superpower politics, multinational corporations, global terror networks,
and intercontinental nuclear delivery capabilitiesrendered the state in its
modern incarnation dispensable and irrelevant? Or does the state remain
a significant factor in the lives and behavior of political agents and a force
with which political theorists (and political scientists generally) need to
reckon? Any formulation of an answer to these questions already assumes
that the respondent has adopted a view of what the modern state is (or
ought to be) and how it functions (or ought to function) within the exist-
ing range of political institutions and concepts. In turn, the persuasiveness
of ones answers rests on identifying the features that lend the modern state
its characteristic form. So far from deducing these factors out of philo-
sophical thin air, they are to be found only through the historical study of
the theory and practice of the state. Just in order to comprehend the rel-
evance of the state to contemporary political investigation and reflection,
we must come to terms with the historical dimensions of the modern state
tradition. We today are faced with much of the intellectual and material
residue of past thought and practice. Our own concepts and problems
have been fixed by our inheritance. If we can discover what this residue
meant in its earlier applications, we shall be better qualified to assess some
of the presuppositions that haunt our political world. Recovering the his-
torical dimension of political theories provides indispensable aid in solving
the problems and conflicts that currently demand our attention.
To locate the historical dimension of a tradition in the fashion advo-
cated in the present chapter is to determine the common limitations with-
in which a set of theorists worked by identifying the historical problems
which all those sharing the tradition took to be crucial and indispensable.
The continued existence of such historical limitations regulates the tra-
dition, endowing it with coherence and unity as a tradition. In the case of
the emergence of the modern concept of the state, we may speak of a se-
quential historical process (involving the accretion of public functions
by territorial monarchs, the suppression of traditional localized and priva-
tized rights and liberties, and so forth) that began to pose urgent prob-
lems for political authors perhaps as early as the twelfth century. These
45. Kenneth H. F. Dyson, The State Tradition in Western Europe (Oxford: Martin Robin-
son, 1980), 2.
28 h is t o r i o g r ap h i e s o f t h e e a r l y t r a d i t i o n
problems presented a persistent challenge to the organization of Western

European political life during the following centuries, thus encouraging
a series of theoretical confrontations with political reality that, taken as a
whole, compose a singular tradition of thought. While the solutions var-
ied widely, depending upon a given authors education, class loyalty, locale,
and the like, the essential similarity of the questions that history pressed
upon thinkers assured that all were contributing to a fundamentally cohe-
sive tradition. Only when history is conceived as such a continuous pro-
cess, instead of as a string of disconnected episodes, may we begin to elu-
cidate a genuinely historical account of the formation of a recognizably
modern theory of the state.

3
P at h o l o g i e s o f C o n t in u i t y
The Neo-Figgisites
lt h o u g h t h e cas u a l o bs e rv e r might presume

that the study of medieval political thought is a staid and
perhaps even arcane enterprise, scholarship in the field has un-
dergone dramatic, almost cataclysmic, changes during the past
half-century. Large numbers of previously unknown or unavail-
able texts have been edited or translated, surprising new connec-
tions have been uncovered, and entirely fresh lines of interpreta-
tion have been pursued. Scholarly interest in medieval topics has
been stimulated, in particular, by the growing recognition that we
must abandon a strict division between medieval and modern
political mentalities. As the introduction to the present volume
revealed, a sizeable body of literature now emphasizes instead the
presence of important continuities between medieval and early
modern theories of government and community.
To appreciate the extent and depth of these developments,
one need only turn to a group of scholars who broadly owe their
inspiration to John Neville Figgiss Studies of Political Thought
from Gerson to Grotius: 14141625, a set of lectures originally de-
livered in 1900 but largely neglected during the early part of the
twentieth century.1 Figgis maintained that the essential elements
1. Figgiss book began as the Birkbeck Lectures; it was first published in 1907,
with a second edition in 1916 and a later reprint with a new introduction by Garrett
Mattingly (New York: Harper & Row, 1960).
29
of modern political thoughtin particular, the idea of limited or constitu-

tional government and of popular sovereigntyemerged out of the crisis
in church government created by the Great Schism and were given earliest
theoretical expression by the conciliarist authors of the late fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries.2 Thus, for Figgis, the year 1414, which marked the set-
tlement of the schism at the Council of Constance, ushered in the dawn of
the modern age of political thought. That a General Council, representa-
tive of the whole church, could actually depose a legitimately elected pope
and appoint its own candidateand could do so on the basis of a theo-
ry of conciliar supremacyconstituted, according to Figgis, a definitive
break with all previous ideas of government and its relation to the commu-
nity over which it rules.
More recent scholars who have found inspiration in Figgiss basic
thesismost prominently, Brian Tierney, Francis Oakley, Kenneth Pen-
nington, and Antony Blackhave not been content simply to repeat his
historiography, but instead have greatly expanded his insights both chron-
ologically and conceptually.3 In particular, this group of scholars has devel-
oped Figgiss basic doctrine in two important directions. First, where Fig-
gis had drawn his conclusions based on brief and generalized observations
about the figures associated with conciliarism, his successors have under-
taken more thorough and detailed study of the major and minor contrib-
utors to the conciliar theory of Constance and his era. Specifically, the
neo-Figgisite literature has sought to examine the differences as well as the
similarities that distinguish the various proponents of conciliar doctrines.4
2. The substance of Figgiss argument is contained in ibid., pp. 4170.
3. It is for this reason that I once broadly described them (and will continue to do so in
this chapter) not simply as Figgisites, but as neo-Figgisites. See Cary J. Nederman, Consti-
tutionalismMedieval and Modern: Against Neo-Figgisite Orthodoxy (Again), History of Po-
litical Thought 17 (Summer 1996): 17994. Explicit recognition and appreciation of the contri-
bution of Figgis may be found in Francis Oakley, Figgis, Constance, and the Divine of Paris,
American History Review 75 (1969): 36886. and Brian Tierney, Religion, Law, and the Growth of
Constitutional Thought, 11501650 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 26.
4. Among these contributions to the study of conciliar theory may be included Francis
Oakley, The Political Thought of Pierre dAilly (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964); Oak-
ley, Natural Law, Conciliarism and Consent in the Middle Ages (London: Ashgate/Variorum
Reprints, 1984); Oakley, The Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church
13001870 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Paul E. Sigmund Jr., Nicholas of Cusa and
Medieval Political Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963); John B. Mor-
rall, Gerson and the Great Schism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1960); Antony J.
Black, Monarchy and Community: Political Ideas in the Later Conciliar Controversy, 14301450
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); and Black, Council and Commune: The Con-
ciliar Movement and the Fifteenth Century Heritage (London: Burns & Oates, 1979).
t h e n e o - f i g g isi t e s 31
The second major aspect of the renovation of Figgis was the realization
enunciated by Walter Ullmann (as we saw in chapter 1) and fully fleshed
out by later scholars who were mainly his students (Brian Tierney, most es-
pecially) that the basic precepts of conciliar thought were themselves root-
ed in a tradition of canon law that dated as far back as the twelfth-century
decretists.5 While challenging Figgiss view that conciliarism was strictly
a product of its time and place, the neo-Figgisites have lent the weight of
several centuries of legal and political convention to the main claim that
central modern political doctrines had their genesis in the ecclesiological
thought of the Latin Middle Ages.
The termini of the continuity between medieval and modern remain
a matter of debate among those who subscribe to the neo-Figgisite frame-
work. For some, the period of continuity is extensive. Tierney, for instance,
has traced a direct lineage from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries, or
as he succinctly states, from Gratian to Madison.6 Likewise, the geneal-
ogy of the ius commune recounted by Pennington stretches from 1100 to
1600.7 Other scholars have remained closer to Figgiss original emphasis
on the decisive character of the relationship between the conciliarism of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the parliamentarianism of early
modern times. Thus, for Oakley, the road from Constance to 1688 was a
direct one8 and the constitutionalist tradition to which the Conciliarists
had given so powerful an expression flowed on into the sixteenth, seven-
teenth, and, indeed, eighteenth centuries.9 Similarly, for Black conciliar-
ist writings were a major source of precedent and, occasionally, inspiration
for men of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.10 The precise dates of
5. Among Tierneys more significant studies in this connection are The Canonists and
the Mediaeval State, Review of Politics 15 (1953): 37889; Foundations of the Conciliar Theory
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955); Medieval Canon Law and Western Constitu-
tionalism, Catholic Historical Review 52 (April 1966): 117; and Religion, Law and the Growth
of Constitutional Thought. Many of Tierneys other studies have been collected and published
under the title Church Law and Constitutional Thought in the Middle Ages (London: Ashgate/
Varorium Reprints, 1979).
6. Tierney, Religion, Law and the Growth of Constututional Thought, xi.
7. Kenneth Pennington, The Prince and the Law, 12001600 (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1993), 8.
8. Francis Oakley, On the Road from Constance to 1688: The Political Thought of John
Major and George Buchanan, Journal of British Studies 1 (1962): 31.
9. Francis Oakley, Legitimation by Consent: The Question of Medieval Roots, Viator
14 (1983): 323.
10. Antony Black, The Conciliar Movement, in J. H. Burns, ed., The Cambridge History
of Medieval Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 587.
the chronology seem less significant to me than the broad agreement on

the part of all associated with the neo-Figgisite school that modern West-
ern political theory took shape under the enormous force and impact of
the preceding religious culture of the Latin Middle Ages to such an extent
that there is an unbroken line of influence. In turn, these developments in
the way in which medieval political writings are approached have become
virtually a new orthodoxyenshrined in reference works and textbooks
such as the Cambridge History of Political Thought series.11
In many ways, the contributions made by neo-Figgiste scholarship
have reinvigorated the study of European political theory in the medi-
eval and early modern period by drawing our attention to the cultural,
religious, and political prejudices that have lead to the postulation of a
great divide between the Latin Middle Ages and modernity. Specifical-
ly, the recognition that theories of spiritual governance might provide a
rich source for doctrines such as rights, limited government, and the rule
of law adds a new and valuable dimension to the study of European po-
litical ideas. But this does not mean that postulation of important conti-
nuities can or should be universalized any more than the imputation of a
complete break between medieval and modern mind-sets. In the pres-
ent chapter, I wish to explore some reasons for doubting the thesis of more
or less total continuity between the political thought of the Middle Ages
(regardless of whether the terminus a quo is fixed in the twelfth century or
in the fourteenth) and of modernity. To some extent, the difficulties I see
with the neo-Figgisite stance are purely methodological, in the sense that
its proponents embrace a highly problematic approach to the study of po-
litical theory. At the same time, I also believe that Tierney, Oakley, and
others concentrate so heavily on the unique features of conciliarism that
they lack appreciation for the points of contact (indeed, profound intel-
lectual congruence) between conciliar theory and broader trends within
medieval political thought. My aim is not to diminish the importance of
conciliarism as a contribution to Western political thought so much as to
place it within a more appropriate series of contexts. I do not deny that
conciliar theory played an important role in the history of constitution-
alism, but I insist that conciliarism was a form of constitutional thought
11. For some important examples, see ibid., pp. 65052; J. H. Burns with Mark Goldie,
eds., The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 14501700 (Cambridge: Cambridge Universi-
ty Press, 1991), esp. 16; and Antony Black, Political Thought in Europe, 12501450 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992), esp. 191.
and practice deeply rooted in the mental world of the Latin Middle Ages
and not directly germane to our own modern political framework and di-
lemmas. This caveat ultimately separates the recent advocates of the neo-
Figgisite position most deeply from my own viewpoint.
A major problem with the work of Figgis and his followers arises from
their unstable and imprecise use of the idea of medieval constitutional-
ism (or constitutionalism in any form) by imputing a priori a straight
and uniform trajectory of intellectual development. Yet inasmuch as they
uphold such a direct lineage from medieval conciliar (or canonistic) ideas
to early modern constitutional theory, they fall prey to a nontrivial meth-
odological objection: the so-called fallacy of the unit idea exposed so pow-
erfully by Quentin Skinner. A cursory glance through Figgiss work sug-
gests that his position was profoundly imbued with the belief that fixed
ideas have a kind of life of their own tied in no important way to their
historical context or origins. In Figgiss first, introductory lecture, this
stance is repeatedly encountered:
These men whose names are only an inquiry for the curious, are bone of our bone,
and their thought ..... is so much our common heritage that its originators remain
unknown.12
[Conciliar theorists] are, though we do not know it, a part of our own world.......
It is not to revive the corpse of past erudition that I have any desire, but rather
to make more vivid the life of to-day, and to help us envisage its problems with a
more accurate perspective.13
Perhaps the most valuable of all lessons which the study of this subject affords is
that of the permanence of fundamental notions amid the most varying forms of
expression and argument.14
Such remarks suggest a scholar who is trying to illuminate the predica-

ment of the present through the prism of the past.15 Figgis accepted the
existence of core ideas that persisted across time without essential change
or development. But such an idea-centered recounting of the history of
political thought has been widely and firmly discredited.16 Ideas are not
12. Figgis, Studies in Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius, 2

13. Ibid., 3.
14. Ibid., 31.
15. Figgiss own contributions as a political theorist are examined by Avigail I. Isenberg, Re-
constructing Political Pluralism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995).
16. Notwithstanding Francis Oakleys recent strenuous effort to revive the unit idea ap-
independent of language, and language itself is always fluid and composed

of ever-shifting spheres of meaning.17 To think otherwise is to suffer from
a case of what Conal Condren has termed Sandwich Island Syndrome,
that is, the distortions arising from the uncritically enthusiastic translation
of the representations of a foreign or historically distant cultural or intel-
lectual system directly into ones own language.18 Figgiss efforts to locate
medieval forebears for early modern constitutionalism depend upon the
sort of categorical anachronism that is a negation of the whole histori-
cal enterprise.19
Of course, neo-Figgisites could claim that they reject this idealistic and
anachronistic feature of Figgiss own approach to the study of constitution-
al thought, just as they eschew (according to Oakley) other of his teach-
ings that have been discredited.20 But to surrender Figgiss belief in per-
manent fundamental notions entails a rejection of the controlling precept
of the neo-Figgisite project, namely, that a certain set of political doctrines
recurred over a period of several hundred years of medieval and early mod-
ern European history in many different contexts and were expressed in
identical ways. As Tierney remarks in the conclusion to his Wiles Lectures,
During the Middle Ages an unusual structure of constitutional thought
arose, the central themes of which are common to medieval law, to
fifteenth-century conciliarism, and to seventeenth-century constitutional
theory. The resemblances are too striking to be mere coincidences.......21
Likewise, Oakley has declared that the conciliarists succeeded in formu-
lating the theoretical principles underlying medieval constitutionalism in
general with such clarity and universality that their formulations reverber-
ated right down to the mid-seventeenth century.22 The universality of
proach in contrast to Skinner and other Cambridge historians in chapter 5 (entitled Anxieties
of Influence: Skinner, Figgis, Conciliarism, and Early Modern Constitutionalism) of Politics
and Eternity: Studies in the History of Medieval and Early-Modern Political Thought (Leiden: E.
J. Brill, 1999), 13887. Oakley seems to me in this chapter only to illustrate by way of his exam-
ples precisely the strength of the position taken by Skinner that pristine ideas do not resonate
(or travel) across time and space.
17. This point has lately been stressed by Antony Black, Political Languages in Later Me-
dieval Europe, in Diana Wood., ed., The Church and Sovereignty, c. 5901918 (Oxford: Black-
well, 1991), 31328, and Political Thought in Europe, 711.
18. Conal Condren, Radicals, Conservatives and Moderates in Early Modern Political
Thought: A Case of Sandwich Island Syndrome? History of Political Thought 10 (1989): 52542.
19. Ibid., 527
20. Francis Oakley, Nederman, Gerson, Conciliar Theory and Constitutionalism: Sed
Contra, History of Political Thought 15 (1995): 9.
21. Tierney, Religion, Law, and the Growth of Constitutional Thought, 103.
22. Oakley, Legitimation by Consent, 321.
certain ideas in fact appears to be a hallmark of the neo-Figgisite enter-

prise. In speaking of the special nature of conciliarism, Figgis remarked,
The constitutionalism of the past three centuries [was raised] to a high-
er power; expressed ..... in a more universal form.......23 One finds this
claim repeated even in Oakleys most recent work as an explanation for the
unique status of conciliar constitutional doctrine.24 The methodological
premise is evident: an idea that achieves such universal appeal is there-
by susceptible to transmission and translation in relatively pristine form
from one historical epoch to another. If this premise is rejectedas it has
been by scholars such as Antony Black, whose own work was originally
grounded firmly in neo-Figgisite orthodoxy25then the entire foundation
of the Figgis thesis crumbles.
Part of the problem is that the neo-Figgiste project presumes a prob-
lematic and outmoded model of transhistorical intellectual influence.
Evidence for the perpetuation of conciliar constitutional doctrines rests
primarily upon the ability to trace quotations or citations employed by
sixteenth- or seventeenth-century figures back to their medieval sources.26
Thus, for instance, Oakley proudly points to passages in the Vindiciae,
Contra Tyrannos or in certain English writings of the seventeenth century
that contain direct echoes of or even quotations from the conciliar divines
of Paris.27 But as a medievalist especially should know, the frequency with
which an author quotes from a source is by no means evidence for genuine
understanding of (let alone concern for) the original meaning or signifi-
cance of the exemplar.28 Early modern authors, no less than their medieval
predecessors, played the game of multiplying authorities in order to lend
the veneer of historical support to their own positions.29 To demonstrate
23. Figgis, Studies in Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius, 40.
24. Oakley, Nederman, Gerson, Conciliar Theory and Constitutionalism, 1314, and
The Conciliarist Tradition.
25. Black, Political Languages in Later Medieval Europe, 31517.
26. Oakley, Legitimation by Consent, 32122, and Figgis, Constance, and the Divines
of Paris, 37376. In Nederman, Gerson, Conciliar Theory and Constitutionalism, Oakley
remarks that seventeenth-century constitutionalists turned instinctively to conciliar writings
(13) and that about their reading of those conciliarists there was nothing at all anachronistic
(14). For a critical view of the influence issue, see Black, Political Languages in Later Medi-
eval Europe, 31415.
27. Oakley, Politics and Eternity, 15572.
28. A point underscored by Conal Condren, in Marsilius of Paduas Argument from Au-
thority: A Study of Its Significance in the Defensor Pacis, Political Theory 5 (May 1977): 205
18; and Cary J. Nederman, The Meaning of Aristotelianism in Medieval Moral and Political
Thought, Journal of the History of Ideas 57 (OctoberDecember 1996): 56385.
29. See J. G. A. Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law (Cambridge: Cam-
that conciliar texts were read and cited in later centuries only proves influ-
ence (in the sense the neo-Figgisites are seeking to uphold) if we embrace
the previously mentioned unit idea and perennial problem approach
to the study of the history of political thought.30 If we consider quotation
and reference, by contrast, to be rhetorical strategies deployed by authors
who are attempting to convince their audience of the validity of given po-
litical theories and practices, then the claim that one thinker or idea may
influence another across a vast expanse of time becomes problematic.
Another difficulty with the neo-Figgisite devotion to a unit idea frame-
work is its encouragement of the illusion that the conciliar tradition has
an internally coherent history. I do not wish to dwell too long on this
point, since it has already been the subject of dissection by Constantin
Fasolt in the course of his attempt to recover the intellectual framework
of William Durandus the Younger. Durandus seems on the face of it to
be a highly contradictory figure: a proponent of republican and concili-
ar theory who neverthless maintained papal supremacy and who, unlike
rough contemporaries such as Marsiglio of Padua, never went far enough
to overturn the papal plenitude of power.31 The apparent conflicts with-
in Duranduss thought Fasolt ascribes instead to the rigid categorical dis-
tinction between papalism and conciliarism (or perhaps more broadly,
absolutism and constitutionalism) that has arisen in modern scholar-
ship.32 Fasolt sees the issue as methodological in nature: in direct contrast
to Oakley, to whom Fasolt refers by name, he shares Quentin Skinners
judgement that it is fundamentally misguided to write intellectual histo-
ry in terms of the history of doctrines.33 For Fasolt, Durandus affords a
prime instance of this, inasmuch as his positions only seem conceptually
inconsistent to the extent that modern classifications are imposed upon
them from without. Our view of the matter changes once we realize that
bridge University Press, 1957); Janelle Greenberg, The Radical Face of the Ancient Constitu-
tion: St. Edwards Laws in Early Modern Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001); and Alan Cromartie, The Constitutionalist Revolution: An Essay on the History of
England, 14501642 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Also see chapters 17 and
19 of the present volume.
30. A more elaborate discussion of the underlying methodological issues is presented by
Conal Condren, Ideas and the Model of Political Events: A Problem of Historicity in the His-
tory of Ideas, Political Science 36 (1984): 5366.
31. Constantin Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy: The Political Thought of William Durant the
Younger (Cambridge, 1991), 317.
32. Ibid., 31617.
33. Ibid., 318 and note 3.
the conceptual distinction between conciliar and papal theories of government is a

useful heuristic tool to select and arrange the evidence for the history of medieval
political thought, but it is not appropriate to capture that history itself. To put it
bluntly, there can be no history of the conciliar theory, and therefore no founda-
tions of the conciliar theory, because no such thing as the conciliar theory was ever
an historical reality....... The truth of the matter seems to be that both the growth
of papal government and that of constitutional thought are different aspects of a
single history.34
The confusion arises from the attempt to impose upon medieval authors,
for whom the unity of the Church and the maintenance of the faith were
paramount, theoretical categories extrinsic to their own concerns.
Although sixteenth- and seventeenth-century secular authors may have
cited the authority of conciliar theorists, then, their references were necessar-
ily partial and distorted. The issues animating the formerthe distribution
of power among earthly authorities and peoples for the sake of temporal
public welfarewere fundamentally distinct from the conceptual under-
pinnings of the latterthe reform of the Church for the sake of reconcil-
ing believers, individually and as a community, with God. The importance
of the fact that conciliar and papalist thinkers shared profoundly the same
goals, as well as a common intellectual and linguistic matrix, is perhaps un-
derscored by the apparent ease with which some of them, such as Nicholas
of Cusa, Juan de Segovia, and Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, changed sides
in the course of their careers, as Fasolt notes.35 Papal and conciliar theories
occupied far more common ground than the neo-Figgisite account, with its
assumption of an internal history of conciliarism, is prepared or able to
admit. And precisely insofar as this is the case, the very enterprise of con-
structing a coherent constitutional tradition spanning the centuries from
1300 (or 1100) to 1700 is exposed as unsatisfactory.
I do not wish to suggest that the case of ecclesiology should be treated
separately from other types of political institutions, however. On the con-
trary, conciliarists (and indeed papalists as well) shared a good deal not
only with one another, but also with other strains of political discourse
present within medieval Europe. In the past, I have defended at some
length a conception of medieval constitutionalism that revolves around
a set of principles very distant indeed from modern constitutional debate:
34. Ibid., 31819.
35. Ibid., 318; for a similar point, see Black, Political Languages in Later Medieval Eu-
rope, 314.
(1) a personalized conception of rulership; (2) moral-theological rather than

formal limitations on the exercise of political power; (3) political rights cir-
cumscribed by a doctrine of common utility or public welfare; and
(4) accountability of government to a corporate or spiritual power rather
than to citizens as free and equal individuals.36 Interwoven into these vari-
ous themes, in my view, is the deeply organic quality of medieval con-
stitutionalism; head and members are interdependent and reciprocally in-
terrelated segments of a living body, characterized by hierarchy but also by
inclusiveness and mutual respect. The constitutio of the medieval political
organism was, metaphorically, a matter of physiological health and good
order.
In turn, widespread reliance upon organic discourse and imagery itself
reflected a broader Christian cosmology, a conception of the universe as an
ordered and living whole composed of microcosm and macrocosm. John
of Salisbury, a central creative figure in the development of medieval or-
ganic thinking, expressed this cosmological position succinctly in an 1159
letter to his friend Peter of Celle:
Everything consists in mutual aid, and heavy things are reciprocally [vicissim] inter-
mingled with light things, and indeed in this way things always proceed, because
the same spirit of unanimity within things nurtures the concordance of things dis-
sident and the dissidence of things concordant, and disposes the parts of the cos-
mos [mundani] as though the members of a body, so that they may be in accord
reciprocally for the ministering of each to the other. Thus it is in the human body
that the members faithfully serve each other reciprocally and individual duties are
assigned for the public advantage. Some have more or less of these than others on
account of the mass of the body, but all are united by the goal of its health; they
have various functions, but if you consider the advantage of health, they contrib-
ute to the same totality [universa]. Yet they are not all coequal, but the inferiors
submit to the superiors. For the foot which is planted in the mud by no means as-
pires to the dignity of the head; but also the head, which is raised up towards the
heavens, does not scorn the foot which moves around in the mud.37
Johns key themes are repeated often in medieval writing: the universe is an
organic whole, composed of many different parts, each of which is itself
36. Cary J. Nederman, Conciliarism and Constitutionalism: Jean Gerson and European
Political Thought, History of European Ideas 12 (1990): 19395.
37. W. J. Millor, H. E. Butler, and C. N. L. Brooke, eds., The Letters of John of Salisbury,
Volume One, The Early Years (11531161) (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1955), Letter
#111, 18182.
an organic unit that partakes both of the greater whole and has a distinct
purpose within the larger scheme. Within each organic unit, there is high-
er and lower, superior and inferior, yet this hierarchical ordering does not
exclude the lesser members of the body from a proper and worthwhile role
within the whole. Bernard Sylvester, for example, describes the structure
of the universe in essentially this manner in his mid-twelfth-century Cos-
mographia;38 and John of Salisbury himself adapts the metaphor at great
length to political offices and institutions in his Policraticus.39
The principal idea here is reciprocity, that is, mutual support and re-
spect among the various parts of the whole necessary for the common
good.40 This implies, in turn, the need for the active inclusion of all mem-
bers for the sake of the welfare of the whole. Each segment makes its own
unique contribution; the organism cannot survive without the coordina-
tion and cooperation of every function into its smooth operation. These
themes coalesce into a coherent constitutional position: the ruler is re-
stricted in what he can do by the reciprocity built into the body politic.
The participation of the other members of the organism in the business
of the common welfare both sets limits on the actions of the headhe
cannot properly interfere with their unique tasksand establishes a sort
of check on the head in cases where it oversteps its appropriate scope
of activity. The fundamental elements of such an organic conception of
community may be encountered throughout medieval political thought,
secular as well as ecclesiastical.41 It was among the most common of intel-
lectual currencies for centuries.
Note that organic political thought was not a single, fixed idea.42 Rath-
er, it is perhaps more accurate to characterize the image of the body poli-
tic as a site of intellectual and political struggle among many contending
interpretations and interests. On the one hand, some of its features were
38. Bernard Silvester, Cosmographia, ed. Peter Dronke (Leiden: Brill, 1978).
39. John of Salisbury, Policraticus, ed. C. C. J. Webb (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909),
Books 5 and 6.
40. For a more thorough examination of the themes discussed in this paragraph, see Cary
J. Nederman, The Physiological Significance of the Organic Metaphor in John of Salisburys
Policraticus, History of Political Thought 8 (1987): 21123, and Nederman, Freedom, Commu-
nity and Function: Communitarian Lessons of Medieval Political Theory, American Political
Science Review 86 (December 1992): 97883.
41. The best general introduction to the subject is Tilman Struve, Die Entwicklung der Or-
ganologischen Staatsauffassung im Mittelalter (Stuttgart: Hiersmann, 1978).
42. As is documented by Cary J. Nederman, in Body Politics: The Diversification of Or-
ganic Metaphors in the Later Middle Ages, Pensiero Politico Medievale 2 (2004): 5987.
taken as given by all parties to the discourse. For instance, the necessity for
the sake of the bodys health of some ruling part (generally, but not always,
the head) was taken for granted; a headless body was doomed to misery
and destruction. Likewise, it was incontestable that law was the medium
through which the members of the organism cooperated and to which all
parts must submit; law formed the muscles and sinews, or perhaps the
central nervous system, of the animate polity. And no one seriously chal-
lenged the existence of some common good or welfare shared among all
parts of the body and greater than all of them taken individually.
Yet even while creating a framework for discussion, the organic model
raised a large number of questions that stimulated wide-ranging debates
among medieval political theorists. Could the head be corrected or re-
moved if it engaged in conduct detrimental to the health of the body?
By whom? In what way(s)? What duties and powers did members retain
under ordinary circumstances? How did they coordinate their specialized
roles and tasks with one another? The fact that authors otherwise as dis-
parate as John of Salisbury and Marsiglio of Padua could equally embrace
organic doctrines, as we will see in chapter 5, suggests that these questions
were by no means closed or settled in the medieval mind. The body poli-
tic provided a matrix within which central issues about the nature of ruler-
ship, governance, and community could be addressed in a manner conso-
nant with deeply held cosmological and theological beliefs. It thus formed
a tradition of theorizing in the sense described previously in chapter 2.
Medieval ecclesiology, no less than secular theory, commonly embraced
this organic model of communal life and its organization. The Church had
long styled itself corpus Christi mysticum, the mystical body of Christ;
but although that phrase had traditionally denoted the sacramental pow-
ers with which the Church was endowed, a change in usage is noticeable
around the middle of the twelfth century. As Oakley rightly points out,
the sacral functions associated with the Church came to be denoted by
the words corpus Christi verum, while the expression corpus Christi mys-
ticum ..... [began] to acquire political and juristic connotations so that
by the fourteenth century mystical body has become almost a synonym
for moral and political body.43 With the development of a political di-
43. Oakley, Figgis, Constance, and the Divines of Paris, 380; cf. The Political Thought
of Pierre dAilly, 5561, and Natural Law, the Corpus Mysticum, and Consent, Speculum 56
(1981): 800801. Oakley ascribes the discovery of this development to Henri de Lubac, but Fig-
gis had made essentially the same observation in Studies of Political Thought from Gerson to Gro-
tius, 4849.
mension to the Churchs organic structure, not surprisingly, the natural-

istic ideas that were also in use in the temporal sphere became relevant.
One notes significant overlap between the discourses employed by authors
discussing ecclesiological and secular affairs: the language associated with
the body politic raised essentially the same questions in the context of the
governance and organization of the Church as it posed in the case of the
earthly community.
Conciliar authors were no exception. Simply stated, they articulated
their constitutional understanding of the Church within a linguistic and
conceptual universe that was already widespread and richly endowed. This
is apparent regardless of where one turns within the corpus of conciliar lit-
erature, as Oakleys own research has amply demonstrated.44 From dAilly
and Gerson through the major figures of mid-fifteenth century conciliar-
ism, the organic model of the Church was commonly embraced and ex-
tended as a framework within which the ultimate superiority of the juris-
diction of the General Council must be justified.45 The conciliar reliance
upon the body politic is perhaps most striking in the De concordantia cath-
olica of Nicholas of Cusa, a work of particular prominence in the history
of conciliar theory. Cusa, who, as Antony Black remarks, paid careful at-
tention to the underlying principles of Conciliarism,46 constructs the edi-
fice of the Church upon expressly organic foundations. Citing Jerome and
other Fathers to the effect that the Church is a concordant body of dispa-
rate members, headed by Christ,47 Cusa ties this to a general cosmological
observation: ..... it is most evident that everything existing and living has
been created in concord....... But every concordance is made up of differ-
ences. And the less opposition among the differences, the greater the con-
cordance and the longer the life.48 He proceeds to investigate the arrange-
ment of this universal concordance and dissonance in some detail, arguing
that it is hierarchical yet also reciprocal and participatory. He concludes
that the organization of the natural and the supernatural worlds offers a
model for the proper conceptualization of the Church:
44. Oakley, Natural Law, the Corpus Mysticum, and Consent, 8023.
45. See Oakley, The Political Thought of Pierre dAilly, 5960; Morrall, Gerson and the Great
Schism, 64, 8283, and passim; and Black, Monarchy and Community, 1321.
46. Ibid., 24.
47. Nicholas of Cusa, De concordantia catholica, 3 vols, ed. Gerhard Kallen (Hamburg:
Meiner, 19591968), Book 1, chap. 1, para. 5. I have relied upon the fine translation by Paul E.
Sigmund, The Catholic Concordance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), but have
sometimes retranslated passages of Cusas text.
48. Ibid., 1.1.6.
When the concordance of differences in the whole universe is examined, the wise
recognize that there is a wonderful combination in nature, the entire world shares
in a mutual spherical interaction, and everything is ordered to a single end. It suf-
fices for the present to know for our investigation that just as all created beings
..... are preserved in union and concordance with their natural originating source,
so our Church, which is our topic of discussion, is made up of rational spirits and
human beings who are united with Christ, although not in the same way, but in
gradations.49
The Church partakes, as a mystical body, of the same ordering principles

as the rest of the universe, according to Cusa. Therefore, to understand
these principles is to grasp the appropriate arrangement and interrelation
of the parts of the Church.
Specifically, Cusa concludes from his organic model that no single
member of the Church may represent fully the powers inhering in the
body as a totality. Hence, neither the pope nor any other individual or
group within the Church may claim supremacy over the whole. At best,
Christ alone, as the true Head of the Church, may command with finali-
ty; and Christs presence occurs virtually when a body representative of the
whole Churchnamely, a General Councilmeets and is imbued with
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.50 Yet this does not lead Cusa to deny
the primacy of the See of St. Peter or the plenitude of papal power in mat-
ters of ecclesiastical leadership. Indeed, he attacks Marsiglio of Padua by
name for upholding just such a position.51 Cusa acknowledges that there
must be superior and inferior, ruling and ruled, in all organic structures.
Like other conciliarists, he regards the papacy to be of divine origination
and thus to be a necessary and permanent feature of the mystical body. In-
deed, Cusa is prepared on organic grounds to cede to the pope a measure
of coercive power for the sake of maintaining the Church: .....unless an
ecclesiastical ruler has some coercive poweralthough not that lordship
by which [secular] rulers hold swayunity cannot be preserved. For it is
necessary that the rotten member and foot should be cut off and the eye
that scandalizes torn out if the health of the body of the Church is to be
preserved.52 Ordinarily, responsibility for securing such health pertains to
the pope; acting to achieve the unity of the faith is one of the central du-
ties assigned to the Roman bishop by divine ordination.
49. Cusa, De concordantia catholica, 1.2.12.
50. Ibid., 2.18.156, 2.34.248. 51. Ibid., 2.34.256, 2.34.265.
52. Ibid., 2.34.261.
Consequently, no Council of the Church has the authority to eliminate

the papal office or to control the pope when he is engaged in the proper
execution of his functions. Indeed, no Council would wish to do so, given
the papacys divine ordination and established role in the process of salva-
tion. The real problem arises, instead, when a ruler disorders the body by
performing duties other than those attached to his office. This was a com-
mon way of formulating the issue of the control of governmental power in
all forms of medieval constitutionalism, secular as well as ecclesiastical. The
principle at work derives from what I have elsewhere termed the commu-
nal functionalism of medieval organic theory.53 As Cusa states, All the
members of the one Church and the mystical body of Christ have their
specific duties, the exercise of which cannot be impeded without the dis-
turbance of order.54 The General Council, as the agent of universal eccle-
siastical reform, is charged with overseeing these functions and with scru-
tinizing parts that are either abdicating or exceeding their proper tasks: If
it were the case that every power governed in accordance with the regula-
tions established by the universal councils, the best possible reform would
necessarily follow.55
This is especially true for the papacy, which exercises superior pow-
ers within the order of the Church. Like John of Salisbury three hundred
years earlier, Cusa fears that the infection of the leading member of the po-
litical organism will readily spread to the rest of the body:
If we know what is proper for each member according to the rules of the ancients,
then we may see how the body of the church becomes deformed. For it would
not be deformed had not an excess or abuse occurred. And since when the head is
ill, the other members suffer, it follows that the salvation of the subjects depends
upon the health of the rulers....... No greater deformity can, therefore, arise than
when one believes that, because of ones great power, anything may be permitted
and that person violates the rights of subjects.56
The complaint of abuse of power is, of course, a chronic one in medieval

Europe, and a central constitutional concern was to establish how and by
whom such violations could be remedied. By framing the issue with refer-
ence to a functional analysis of the organic community, and by conceptual-
53. Nederman, Freedom, Community and Function, 978.

54. Cusa, De concordantia catholica, 2.27.214.
55. Ibid., 2.27.213.
56. Ibid., 2.27.214.
izing the General Council as the only truly representative body within the
Church, Cusa proceeds to demonstrate that it falls to the Council unique-
ly to reform the limbs and organs, and especially the papal part, whenever
the good order of the whole is threatened. The Council is the sole valid em-
bodiment of the welfare of the Church, and it alone may determine what
and where reform must occur. Cusa and other conciliarists thus extend the
organic framework by positing the existence of the Council as a sort of
meta-government (to borrow James Blythes term)57 infallibly capable of
discovering and mandating the true and objective interests of the Church as
a united entity. Although this is in some ways a novel and innovative devel-
opment within organic political theory, it is still deeply imbedded in a com-
mon ground of intellectual interchange during the Latin Middle Ages.
Indeed, this common ground extended even to the most dedicated en-
emies of conciliar thinking. John of Turrecrematas Summa de ecclesia, for
example, examines the body of the Church in light of a papal claim to a
plenitude of power undiluted by conciliarism. Turrecrematas strategy was
often to reconceptualize the analogy between Church and natural organ-
ism so as to reveal its viability as a tool for the papal cause.58 Like other
medieval theorists, papalists found that they could readily adapt organic
imagery to their political requirements, and thereby could argue for papal
supremacy using premises that their opponents could not directly chal-
lenge. Precisely this sort of commonality between conciliar and papal po-
sitions lends support to Fasolts previously cited contention that the histo-
ries of the two doctrines cannot accurately be recounted in isolation from
one another. The contrast with modern modes of constitutional thought
is striking. The distinctively modern connotation of constitutionalism re-
quires political rule to be organized on the basis of a set of features that
includes: (1) an impersonal conception of governmental grounded in the
office rather than the person of the ruler; (2) limitation of rulers through
public control over the offices of state; (3) the guarantee of specific and im-
prescriptible rights to all persons or citizens; and (4) individualized free
consent to rulers and their official deeds.59 Viewed collectively, these prin-
57. James M. Blythe, Ideal Government and the Mixed Constitution in the Middle Ages
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 202. The term was originally applied to Mar-
siglio of Paduas theory of the legislator.
58. Key parts of the text are reproduced in Black, Monarchy and Community, 16272.
59. A fuller account of this conception of modern constitutionalism, along with evidence
to support each of its elements, may be found in Nederman, Conciliarism and Constitution-
alism, 193 and notes.
ciples supplement the rule of law so as to compose the core of modern

constitutional theory. According to the uniquely modern sense of consti-
tutionalism, government is conducted within the confines of law by offi-
cials whose duties are determined in advance and carefully regulated, who
hold office at the pleasure of the citizen body at large, and who must treat
as sacrosanct certain forms of individual activity.
Clearly, the organic conception of the constitutional order of the polit-
ical community stands at considerable remove from these salient elements
of modern constitutionalism. Of course, use of the body as a metaphor to
conceptualize political systems and relations continued long after the close
of the Latin Middle Ages.60 But to the extent that cosmological and moral
assumptions about the nature and place of the body within a divinely or-
dered universe were eroded and replaced, the significance of the organic
model changed profoundly. By the seventeenth century, an important dis-
tance had been traversed in the intellectual journey of modernity, one that
sets the conciliarist stance at a remove from later constitutionalism. The
roots of conciliarist doctrines, shared with opponents and with the medi-
eval world generally, had been poisoned by a host of changes in the way
early modern human beings (or educated ones, at any rate) understood the
natural and supernatural worlds.
It occurs to me that a quite similar case, methodologically and con-
ceptually speaking, holds against other recent attempts on the part of neo-
Figgisites to identify direct continuities between medieval and modern
teachings about rights and law. Take Brian Tierneys construction of a direct
line from twelfth- to seventeenth-century doctrines of so-called subjective
natural rights.61 Tierney challenges the conceit of many scholars (includ-
ing authors as diverse as Leo Strauss, Norberto Bobbio, Alasdair MacIntyre,
and C. B. Macpherson) that rights talk arose as one of the seventeenth-
century innovations associated with modernity and/or capitalism. Tierney
instead proposes that the idea of natural rights grew upperhaps could
only have grown up in the first placein a religious culture that supple-
mented rational argumentation about human nature with a faith in which
humans were seen as children of a caring God,62 that is, the distinctively
60. A recent excellent survey is Gianluca Briguglia, Il corpro vivente dello Stato: Una meta-
fora politica (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2006).
61. Brian Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law and
Church Law, 11501625 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997) and Rights, Law and Infallibility in Medi-
eval Thought (Aldershot: Ashgate/Variorum Press, 1997).
62. Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights, 343.
Christian, Occidental circumstances of the High and Late Middle Ages.63

Tierney is surely correct that medieval legal and political authors from
Gratian forward expressed the inviolable moral dignity of individual hu-
man beings in the language of ius naturale. In this sense, natural rights
discourse possesses the long and venerable lineage that Tierney maintains.
The difficulty, however, is that this claim in itself does nothing to upset
fundamentally the conventional view of the modernity of natural rights
theory in its political significance. As Quentin Skinner has amply demon-
strated, subjective rights mattered in early modern political thought in-
sofar as they had direct political consequences for the powers enjoyed by
government over individuals.64 The issue was not that persons per se are
bearers of rights or can assert moral claims as a result thereof, but that such
rights constitute the basis of a system of political rule which must not only
recognize them but, perhaps more importantly, must be legitimized entire-
ly in relation to them. The modern appeal to rights conveys the absolute
priority of the individual in relation to all other, particularly political, con-
siderations. If, la Burke, the only rights that properly enjoy political force
are socially derived, then possessing a natural right is not relevant to our
evaluation of political institutions, although it may be important in other
spheres of human life.
Tierneys work fails to demonstrate that medieval natural rights had
such political overtones. For the most part, he evinces no recognition that
such a connection between natural rights and politics must explicitly be
drawn at all. Thus, in his discussion of Marsiglio of Padua65a deeply po-
litical thinker if ever there was oneTierney makes no effort to construct
a relationship between the protracted analysis of rights terminology in De-
fensor pacis II.12 and the secular or ecclesiological theories proffered in the
main body of the text. Either no such relation exists, in which case Tier-
neys examination is not especially illuminating, or it is present, in which
case he has left an important issue uninterrogated. On the few occasions
on which Tierney does engage in an extensive investigation of the political
dimensions of medieval natural rights, the results are decidedly mixed. His
test case seems to be William of Ockham. On the one hand, Tierney sug-
gests that Ockhams deployment of natural rights language outside of the
63. Ibid., 34648.

Cambridge University Press, 1978), 2: 30248.
65. Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights, 10318.
context of the Spiritual Franciscan debate was hazy and perhaps wholly po-
lemical.66 On the other hand, he asserts that one could make a good case
for regarding the Breviloquium [de principatu tyrannico by Ockham] as the
first essentially rights-based treatise on political theory.67 But the evidence
(even as presented by Tierney) seems to contradict this claim. Ockhams
recurrent references in Breviloquium and elsewhere to the rights and liber-
ties granted by God and nature do nothing whatsoever to protect the in-
dividual from the unilateral intrusions of the secular ruler (or even, if more
rarely, the ecclesiastical lord) into the lives of subjects. Ockham evidently
placed no rights-based limits upon the exercise of political power when-
ever the common good might be endangered. It was left up to the ruler
alone to determine what constituted a clear and present danger to the pub-
lic welfare. Even the notorious absolutist Thomas Hobbes believed that in-
dividuals retained certain ineliminable natural rightsto self-preservation
and to a measure of discernmentafter they alienated the rest to the sov-
ereign. This is not to say that Ockham was consequently an absolutist,
but rather to reiterate Fasolts already noted observation that modern terms
such as absolutism and constitutionalism fail to capture adequately the
way in which medieval thinkers conceived their political universe. In sum,
only a very skewed and anachronistic reading of Ockham permits one to
find within his writings anything resembling a rights-based political theo-
ry, at least in some meaningful modern sense.
Does this mean that no medieval figure was able to develop a full de-
fense of the priority of the individual in relation to the exercise of politi-
cal power? Not at all. In several late medieval authors whom Tierney either
dismisses, such as John of Paris,68 or ignores entirely, such as William of
Pagula, we find the rudiments of a political defense of the individual over
against the claims of government intrusion. That Tierney evinces little or
no interest in these theorists reflects perhaps the fact that they frame their
position not through the language of ius naturale but that of dominium,
and they draw no direct connection between such lordship or property
ownership and natural rights. From the thirteenth century onward, the
discourse of dominium (largely unassociated with rights talk) afforded an
alternative account of the primacy of the individual in relation to the com-
munityone that was far more explicitly political than may be located in
the writings of the canonists and their transmitters, such as Ockham. Tier-
66. Ibid., 174. 67. Ibid., 185.

68. Ibid., 148, 167, note 113.
ney apparently rejects or overlooks this approach to grounding the consent

of the individual to authority (and even of the right of subjects to revolt in
cases where the terms of voluntary agreement are overridden), because of
the absence of a linguistic bridge constructed out of the discourse of natu-
ral rights.
Whether we consider constitutionalism or rights or most other impor-
tant political ideas, then, modernity in general wrought profound and per-
manent changes upon the way in which authors thought and wrote about
politics. As key assumptions about the world (metaphysical as well as po-
litical) shifted, so did the political lexicon, with the result that the same
(or similar) words and their attendant conceptual structures took on dif-
ferent meanings and transformations occurred in discursive spheres. In
this sense, I remain convinced that the neo-Figgisite mode of interpreta-
tion neither explains the intellectual course of European political thought
so completely as its proponents imply nor accords sufficient significance to
the complex patterns of change as well as persistence typical of the period
from 1100 to 1700. What is required, it seems to me, is the recognition that
medieval doctrines provide merely one element of a large and multidimen-
sional story that requires sensitive recounting resistant to the simplicity of
a single overarching narrative structure. Some of the theoretical baggage
was carried forward; some luggage was discarded along the way. The sub-
stantive studies contained in the subsequent parts of this volume have been
selected in order to illustrate this theme from a variety of perspectives.
4
A Mi d d l e P at h
Alexander Passerin dEntrves
n t h e p r e c e d in g e x a m inat i o n of some of the major re-

cent trends in the historiography of medieval and modern Eu-
ropean political thought, we have observed a noticeable tendency
to promote a universalistic system of interpretation. The value
of a political text is judged according to a preconceived yardstick,
whether of ascending doctrine or the state or constitutionalism
or natural rights. In the current chapter, I offer an example of a
historian of political thought who eschewed such one-dimensional
interpretative frameworks in preference for a more nuanced and
multifaceted approach to reading and relating political texts: Alex-
ander (or Alessandro) Passerin dEntrves. Alas, dEntrves, whose
career spanned nearly the same era as Walter Ullmanns (he was
born in 1902 and died in 1985) and who compiled a distinguished
record of teaching and scholarship both at Oxford and in Italian
universities, has not received the attention or been granted the re-
spect that he merits.1 I propose to highlight the uniformity of sev-
eral key interrelated historical and historiographical themes in the
1. For a prcis of dEntrvess life and career, see Cary J. Nederman, Introduc-
tion to the Transaction Edition of Alexander Passerin dEntrves, Natural Law:
An Introduction to Legal Philosophy (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books,
1995), viixxv. A recent volume, based on a conference celebrating the centenary
of dEntrvess birth, offers a more thorough appreciation of his contributions: Ser-
gio Noto, ed., Alessandro Passerin dEntrves pensatore europeo (Bologna: il Mulino,
2004).
49
scholarship of dEntrves, running from his prewar scholarship up to his

publications in the 1970s, that touch directly upon the transformation of
medieval into modern patterns of political thought.
Perhaps the most striking feature of dEntrvess attitude toward the re-
lationship between the medieval and the modern worlds of thought was
his refusal to draw any absolute and universally applicable conclusions.
He inhabited a scholarly world that still largely clung to the position that
the Renaissance and the Reformation constituted complete and unbridge-
able ruptures with the intellectual, cultural, and religious past of the Lat-
in Middle Ages. Yet he adamantly refused to embrace this historiographi-
cal commonplace, choosing instead to develop the principles enunciated
by his Oxford mentor, A. J. Carlyle, who had looked to the Middle Ages
for the foundations of political thought in the West. At the same time,
dEntrves resisted the temptation to highlight continuity more or less ex-
clusively by insisting that the primary lessons of modern political writing
resonate with the doctrines of the Middle Ages. The reduction of histori-
cally complex patterns of intellectual continuity and change to a simplis-
tic and rigid scheme of interpretation is utterly foreign to the scholarship
of dEntrves. From his 1939 study of The Medieval Contribution to Politi-
cal Thought until the second edition of Natural Law in 1970, he consis-
tently and conscientiously foregrounded alteration as well as persistence
in the deployment of political ideas. In the introduction to the 1939 vol-
ume, he remarks, The idea of contribution, which is emphasized in the
title of these lectures, should by no means be taken as an excuse to arrange
the past neatly as a process in which the most significant things are those
which are most easily appropriated by the present, but rather as an induce-
ment to realize the necessity of considering medieval political thought, not
only as a sum of political doctrines and rules, but as a system of values.2
He goes on to explain that, inasmuch as this system of values is adopted
by thinkers whose lives extend chronologically beyond the period conven-
tionally designated medieval (he has Hooker in mind), we can and must
conclude that some fundamental principles and leading ideas, which were
given definite form and expression by medieval thinkers, far outstretch in
their effects and influence the conventional boundaries which usually limit
the medieval period.3 Yet to the extent that modern thought rejected or
2. Alexander Passerin dEntrves, The Medieval Contribution to Political Thought (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1939), 5.
3. Ibid., 6.
a l e x an d e r pass e r in d e n t r v e s 51
turned away from the medieval system of values, we can speak of moder-
nity as generating a different and distinct framework of political values.
DEntrves illustrated this clearly in the case of the idea of natural law:
The medieval and the modern conceptions of natural law are two different doc-
trines; the continuity between them is mainly a question of words....... If the mod-
ern doctrine of natural law proved to be so different from the old in its implica-
tions and in its far-reaching consequences, the reason is that a new conception of
man and the universe turned what had been for centuries a harmless and orthodox
doctrine into a potent instrument of progress and revolution, which gave an en-
tirely new turn to history and of which we still feel the effects.4
We should not, in other words, be seduced by superficial similarities of ter-

minology or style into ascribing intellectual continuity. It is necessary to
grasp the premises and logic of the ideas in order to judge their place and
contribution within history.
We can see in the full run of dEntrves scholarship how this guiding
insight directed the ways in which he confronted the political, philosophi-
cal, and historiographical problems posed by the transition from medieval
to modern forms of thought and informed his interpretation of political
theory. In the present chapter, I consider three dimensions of this gen-
eral problematic: first, his account of the concept of the state; second, his
understanding of Marsiglio of Paduas place in Western political thought;
and third, his reading of Machiavellis writings and doctrines. In doing so,
I draw upon dEntrvess English-language scholarly works from across a
broad range of his interests and written throughout his career, in the belief
that his approach in this regard remained fundamentally the same. I think
we shall see how issues posed by the medieval/modern divide led him to
adopt unique and powerful interpretations of several of the most impor-
tant ideas and authors in the history of European political thought.
DEntrves published The Notion of the State in 1967, choosing to con-
centrate on a theme that had virtually disappeared from the landscape of
scholarship. Consequently, he was behind the times when viewed from his
own day, yet forward-lookingeven prescientwhen viewed retrospec-
tively from the vantage point of the early twenty-first century. Under the
influence of positivist and behavioralist social science that dominated the
field of political science during the 1950s and 1960s, the state had been
4. DEntrves, Natural Law, 17.

written out of English language political inquiry as a term too metaphysi-

cal and too untestable to have analytical value. The Anglo world has nev-
er, in any case, been particularly enamored with the state as a political cate-
gory, so this rejection of state talk met with relatively little controversy and
the word soon became coextensive with the institutions of government,
if it was employed at all.5 By the later 1970s and 1980s, however, the state
as both an idea and a practice enjoyed a significant comeback among so-
cial scientists, political theorists, and philosophers. Sociologists and politi-
cal scientists such as Theda Skocpol and her collaborators and students re-
turned the state to the forefront of empirical investigation, buildingbut
at a distanceon the work of European Marxists such as Louis Althusser,
Ralph Miliband, and Nicos Poulantzas.6 Likewise, as discussed in chap-
ter 2, Quentin Skinner self-consciously organized Foundations of Modern
Political Thought around an account of the origins of the state in its mod-
ern sense as the sole source of law and legitimate force within its territo-
ry, and as the sole appropriate object of its citizens allegiances.7 Although
dEntrvess book on the state garnered attention from neither the social
scientific nor the historical approaches that have become prominent,8 his
work clearly prefigures both developments. Indeed, I will argue that on the
issue of the transition from thirteenth- to sixteenth-century modes of po-
litical thought, dEntrvess scheme of interpretation is superior to Skinner
and most of those who have followed in his stead.
Succinctly stated, dEntrves asserts that while the Middle Ages did
notand could not haveproduced an idea of the state in the modern
meaning, the modern stateboth as a theoretical construct and a prac-
tical forcecould not have emerged without the preexistence of distinc-
tively medieval ideas and institutions. Throughout the course of The No-
tion of the State, he points to these preconditioning elements and also to
their limitations. He identifies such key political factors as consent, rep-
resentation, and the division of powers in their medieval instances, and
5. Kenneth Dyson, The State Tradition in Western Europe: A Study of an Idea and Institution
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).
6. A survey of these developments is provided by Martin Carnoy, The State and Political
Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
Cambridge University Press, 1978), 1: x.
8. Interestingly, dEntrvess work on the state in not cited in Skinners bibliography for
The Foundations of Modern Political Thought. Is it too fanciful to wonder whether this is yet
another consequence of the lingering and always smoldering rivalry between Cambridge and
Oxford?
he demonstrates how the Latin church (and to some extent, cities and
kingdoms) functioned as sovereign entities in a modern sense.9 Moreover,
dEntrves stresses the convergence of nation and state that marked the po-
litical transformation of Western European institutions at the end of the
Middle Ages.10 All of these developments, he clearly believes, were neces-
sary for the idea of the modern state to emerge. Yet at the same time, he
does not mean for us to infer, in the manner of Whig history, that these
concepts and practices were somehow inherently progressive or other-
wise aided in the breakdown of the medieval view of the political world
and its replacement by the modern. Rather, the doctrines that might later
be integrated or cited as inspiration for the modern state had a substantial-
ly different significance when viewed in their original medieval context. In
other words, what we encounter when we look at an idea such as consent
or sovereignty in its medieval and in its modern usages respectively is
the intellectual equivalent of faux ami in language: two terms that appear
identical but possess highly divergent meanings because they assume and/
or refer to distinct conceptual frameworks. Thus, in the case of sovereignty,
dEntrves points out that it was not in support of the State, but of the
Church, that the concept of sovereignty was first coherently worked out
and its logical consequences drawn. But the claim of sovereignty in the
form of papal supremacy nonetheless depended upon an essential theolog-
ical principle that is anathema to the modern state, namely, what is usu-
ally called the theocratic doctrine, the doctrine which claimed for the Ro-
man Pontiff the supreme authority on earththe plenitudo potestatis.11
As dEntrves emphasizes, the legal logic of the papal plenitude of power
parallels that of the sovereign power of the modern state. Still, the frame-
work that renders the medieval legal principle efficacious derives from a
conception of the respublica Christiana (albeit recast) that has no place in
modern theories and practices of the state. DEntrvess great accomplish-
ment, in my view, is the insistence that one must not confuse resemblance
with identity in the realm of ideas. It is a lesson that more recent intellec-
tual historians would be well advised to take on board.
At the same time, dEntrvess approach to the state stands at a distance
from attempts to equate the presence of state language with the presence
9. Alexander Passerin dEntrves, The Notion of the State: An Introduction to Political Theo-
ry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), 8995, 9799.
10. Ibid., 17174.
11. Ibid., 97.
of the state as an intellectual or institutional reality. One finds the latter

position proposed, perhaps most famously, by Skinner in The Foundations
of Modern Political Thought. Like dEntrvesalthough without crediting
him for having said soSkinner proposes that the period from the thir-
teenth through the sixteenth centuries yielded the preconditions only for
the emergence of the modern doctrine of the state.12 The elements that
would come together to define the modern state appeared gradually, ac-
cording to Skinner, shaped out of unrelated intellectual events imbedded
in a variety of narrowly conceived controversies. But Skinner asserts that
the conceptual shift, as he calls it, that occasions the birth of the mod-
ern state as a theoretical construct is essentially a linguistic one: The surest
sign that a society has entered into the secure possession of a new concept
is that a new vocabulary will be developed, in terms of which the concept
can then be publicly articulated and discussed. Skinner regards it as a de-
cisive confirmation of his interpretation of the development of the mod-
ern state that by the early sixteenth century the term State began to be
used freely for the first time in a recognisably modern sense.13 Skinner
thus seems to hold to the view that the presence or absence of vocabulary
determines the presence or absence of an idea or conceptual structure.14
DEntrvess observations on this issue published more than a decade
before the appearance of The Foundations of Modern Political Thought seem
to me to offer a corrective to such linguistic overdeterminism. As with
Skinner, dEntrves recognizes perfectly well that the term state as de-
ployed in modern political thought is a neologism derived from the Latin
word status.15 But dEntrves does not infer from the fact that down to
a certain date the word State is missing altogether the impossibility of
speaking cogently or coherently about the existence of the state.16 On a
conceptual level, the central problems posed by the state are endemic to
the Greek polis, the Roman res publica, and the medieval civitas vel reg-
num.17 Of course, none of these were states in the modern senseeach
12. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2: 35152. For the methodologi-
cal reasons underlying Skinners approach, see chapter 2 of the present volume.
13. Ibid., 2: 352.
14. See Quentin Skinner, The State, in Political Innovation and Conceptual Change, ed.
Terence Ball, James Farr, and Russell L. Hanson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989), chap. 5.
15. Compare dEntrves, The Notion of the State, 3031, with Skinner, The Foundations of
Modern Political Thought, 2: 35253.
16. DEntrves, The Notion of the State, 29.
17. Ibid., 2829
depended upon its own distinctive set of assumptions and principlesyet

all can be related, philosophically speaking, to similar sorts of problems
that inform the specifically modern notion of the state, such as political
obligation, authority, legality, and force.18 On a more historical plane, the
importance of which dEntrves also acknowledges, the absence of the lan-
guage of the state during the Late Middle Ages is no token of the presence
or absence of a conceptual apparatus. He remarks, If medieval political
writers did not as yet recognize either in name or in substance the State in
its modern acceptation, it is all the more interesting to see the effort they
made to grasp the essence of the new political reality which was beginning
to take shape during the last centuries of the Middle Ages.19 DEntrves
proceeds to trace many of the departures and transformations that charac-
terized the use of classical and Christian sources to precisely the historical
emergence of the elements that would coalesce in the theory and practice
of the modern state. Thus, it is of great importance to think about the state
as a way of organizing political knowledge and argumentation during the
Middle Ages even if the terminology had not arrived on the scene. More-
over, even after the vocabulary of the state came into usage with some fre-
quency during the sixteenth century, its application remained unsystem-
atic and contradictory for a very long time thereafter, standing alongside
other political discourses of more established pedigree. After all, Bodin
that supreme theorist of the modern statecontinued to prefer rpublique
to estat at the end of the century. Arguably, not until the end of the seven-
teenth century did the terminology of the state settle down into its famil-
iar modern usage.20
DEntrvess general historical insight about the political theory of the
modern state in turn also directed his thought about two of his favorite polit-
ical thinkers, the Italians Marsiglio of Padua and Niccol Machiavelli. Mar-
siglio was a major figure in The Medieval Contribution to Political Thought,
accounting for around one-third of the books 143 total pages of text. While
dEntrves never wrote a single book or even an extensive chapter devoted
solely to Machiavelli, the Florentine thinker received significant attention
from him in The Notion of the State and elsewhere. What dEntrvess analy-
ses of these authors share is an insistence upon the need to refine the histori-
cal claims commonly made about their modernity by paying closer atten-
tion both to intellectual context and to textual argumentation.
18. Ibid., 34 19. Ibid., 29.

20. Ibid., 3233.
DEntrves raises the problem of modernity explicitly at the beginning

of his examination of Marsiglio in The Medieval Contribution to Political
Thought.21 He points out that Marsiglios high estimation among schol-
ars has derived mainly from a reputation as the forerunner and proph-
et of modern times.22 Presumably, this stems from Marsiglios departure
from the standard medieval conception of the supernatural and moral
ends of communal existence as coordinated with yet ultimately superior
to earthly and material ones, such as one finds stated in Aquinas (and per-
haps Dante). But this is to assume that the medieval contribution to po-
litical thoughtthe core of medieval political thinkingis narrow and
monolithic, rather than capacious to a certain degree. And this is what
dEntrves denies: If we take Thomas Aquinass great systemization as the
expression of one fundamental aspect of that contribution, it may seem
fair and adequate to consider Marsiliuss theory as its exact counterpart,
expressing an entirely different answer to those main problems which it is
the merit of medieval political speculation to have raised.......23 To depart
from or challenge the Thomist interpretation of the world is by no means
necessarily to be a modern, according to dEntrves. Marsiglio is an ide-
al illustration of this precept. In the sort of questions that stimulated his
work, and in the frame of reference he invoked for his replies, he revealed
the traditional character of his thought: Marsilius was unable to rise to
a notion which still remained unknown to the medieval mind: the notion
of a deep and far-reaching difference between religious and political obli-
gation. For him, as for the traditional medieval doctrine, the state cannot
exist without the church, nor the church without the state.24 What
makes Marsiglio seem so different is his attempt to reverse the standard
ordering of these two coordinate institutions. But this does not erase the
primary expectation imposed upon the medieval political theorist to ad-
dress the connection between the two as an intrinsic internal relation, a
logical linkage not unlike that of alienation and dealienation in Marxs
thought.25 DEntrves postulates that no discussion of the church could
occur without some recognition of its relation to earthly government, and
21. DEntrves, The Medieval Contribution to Political Thought, 4449; see also dEntrves
review of Alan Gewirths Marsilius of Padua and Medieval Political Philosophy in The Philosophi-
cal Review 62 (1953): 6038, where this forms a major theme.
22. DEntrves, The Medieval Contribution to Political Thought, 44.
23. Ibid., 45
24. Ibid., 75.
25. On this logical conception of internal relations, see Bertell Ollman, Alienation:
Marxs Conception of Man in Capitalist Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971).
vice versathis was a (maybe the) hallmark of the medieval contribution

to political thought.
Nor is Marsiglios immersion in the medieval mind-set the only to-
ken of his distance from the contours of modernity. In order to achieve his
goal of bringing the church into the ambit of the state, Marsiglio self-con-
sciously rearranged many of the conventional features of medieval thought
to draw conclusions that are, while strikingly innovative, still confined by
their origins. The Paduans reliance on the Christian interpretation of Ar-
istotles teachings, his valorization of peace as the leading goal of politics,
his concern for the internal organization of the church as well as temporal
governmentall of these suggest a thinker whose major theories remained
wholly planted in the intellectual soil of the Latin Middle Ages. Regardless
of whether or not one agrees with the details of dEntrvess interpretation
of Marsiglio, he is surely correct to insist that the significance of Maris-
liuss doctrine in the contribution of the Middle Ages to political thought
can be adequately valued only once scholarship achieves a full knowl-
edge of the sources of Marsiliuss thought.26 Likewise, dEntrves assert-
ed with perfect accuracy that nowhere in Marsiglios thought may be locat-
ed quintessentially modern doctrines associated with liberal individualism
such as personal rights or a conscience-based defense of religious pluralism
or diversity.27 In short, a Marsiglio scholar of a later generation can whole-
heartedly endorse dEntrvess picture of the Marsiglian forest, even as one
might propose to rearrange some of the trees found therein. His articula-
tion of a diverse yet internally coherent medieval contribution to political
thought does much to restrain the more fanciful and historically implau-
sible claims made about the modernity of Marsiglio.
Just as dEntrves sought to restrict the ways in which the label mo-
dernity was appropriately applied to Marsiglio, so he sometimes ques-
tioned the championing of Machiavelli as an unambiguous and unalloyed
advocate of modern political ideas and values. While subscribing to the
conventional view that Machiavelli was a truly revolutionary thinker, he
also expressed skepticism about just how completely the Florentine broke
with the past.28 This is not simply to make the obvious point that Machia-
vellis political theory cannot plausibly be severed from its close connex-
ion with the conditions of Italy in the sixteenth century, but to stress that
26. DEntrves, The Medieval Contribution to Political Thought, 8586.
27. Ibid., 7984. See also the review of Gewirth, 607. This does not mean, of course, that
Marsiglio lacked concepts such as liberty or tolerance altogether; see chapter 5 below.
28. Ibid., 90.
his alleged rejection of the political ideas and language of the Middle Ages
was not complete and consistent.29 For instance, dEntrves denies that
Machiavelli can be said to have used [the word state] in a truly modern
sense.30 Rather, as with his interpretation of Marsiglio, dEntrves pursues
a careful and nuanced reading of Machiavellis historical position in order
to challenge the widely held opiniontoday as in the past31that he
single-handedly introduced the modern meaning of the term State.32
Rather, although Machiavelli sometimes employs lo stato in a manner that
suggests the definition of an organization endowed with the capacity of
exerting and controlling the use of force over certain people and within a
given territory, it is also the case that he was equally capable of using the
word indiscriminately, with different meanings that can be traced to pre-
ceding linguistic usage.33 In similar fashion, dEntrves casts doubt on
commonplace assertions that Machiavelli founded modern political sci-
ence and that he first articulated modern nationalism. In the former case,
Machiavelli is said to emphasize the art, rather than the science, of pol-
itics inasmuch as the general rules he formulates are meant to have pre-
scriptive force. Machiavellis concern is to generate a code of conduct for
rulers of a certain typeand perhaps also for their subjectsthat ought to
be put into action if their success is to be ensured. Such a goal stands at
considerable remove from the value-freedom postulated by later scientific
study of politics.34 Neither can dEntrves find evidence to link Machia-
vellis politics to nationhood. The unification of Italy (or a large section
thereof ) that is exhorted in the final chapter of the Prince was not a na-
tionalist project because natio, understood as an ethnic, linguistic, or racial
grouping, did not form the rationale for political integration. Machiavellis
politics of state-centered force, one of the features that defines his place on
the new landscape of the modern political world, at the same time ruled
out any conception of the whole of Italy as a nation, and hence belied
the claim that he was a nationalist in the modern sense of the word.35
While it may have been the case that the wide dissemination of some of
Machiavellis writings lead later theorists to identify their own doctrines as
29. Ibid., 3
30. Ibid., 2.
31. For some examples, see Cary J. Nederman, Amazing Grace: God, Fortune and Free
Will in Machiavellis Thought, Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999): 620, n12.
32. DEntrves, The Notion of the State, 30.
33. Ibid., 32, 30. 34. Ibid., 3742.
35. Ibid., 170.
an inheritance from him, an examination of his own teachings do not bear

out the purely modern character of his ideas.
Methodologically speaking, Machiavelli illustrates another aspect of
the dilemma posed by the medieval/modern divide in European political
thought. Just as Marsiglio remained firmly planted in the Middle Ages de-
spite the fact that some elements of his thought may be judged, retrospec-
tively, to anticipate modern doctrines, so Machiavelli clearly stands on the
side of modernity, even though his thought occasional draws on language
that retains medieval overtones. In framing historical judgments in this
manner, dEntrves draws our attention to the priority of ideas over dis-
course, that is, that concepts imbedded in history are not always perfectly
or even adequately aligned with the language in which they are couched.
Indeed, it may be the case that ideas outstrip the ability of thinkers to ex-
press them: language may occasionally lag behind thought. Converse-
ly, terminology that has one connotation in relation to a certain set of
ideas, but a different meaning within a different intellectual framework,
may lead to confusion on the part of the historically nave or untutored
reader. The effect of dEntrvess observations is to caution scholars not to
treat language as transparent or constitutive of ideas: discourse is the nec-
essary means for concretizing ideas, but it is as capable for many reasons
of deceiving or deflecting understanding as it is of clarifying or enlighten-
ing. It is precisely because ideas proposed and defended by the great politi-
cal theorists are often more complex and multifaceted than their own lan-
guage can capture that historians of political thought have a role to play in
the examination and explanation of texts and their authors.
By way of conclusion, I would like to highlight one further dimen-
sion of dEntrvess scholarly endeavors. There is a pronounced tendency
among many political theorists today (especially of the analytic philosophi-
cal persuasion) to reject completely the value of historical studies or to fil-
ter the past entirely through contemporary concerns. Any attempt to in-
troduce considerations of historical plausibility or validity are dismissed as
antiquarian and irrelevant. On the other hand, a significant implication of
the methods championed by the so-called Cambridge School of historians
of political thought is that political ideas are only sensible or intelligible
when set in their context, rendering the philosophical comparison and eval-
uation of concepts eo ipso invalid. A noteworthy virtue of dEntrvess schol-
arship is his refusal to surrender to either the philosophical or the historical
trends. He clearly believed that both ways of studying political ideas were
useful and defensible, indeed that philosophy and history were compatible
and mutually reinforcing angles from which to study concepts. Books such
as Natural Law and The Notion of the State are paragons of such a balanced
conception of political theory. To take both the historical and philosophical
aspects of political theory seriously, of course, renders the task of studying
that subject that much more difficult and time-consuming. But even cur-
sory examination of the scholarly corpus of Alexander Passerin dEntrves
suggests how greatly rewarding is the adoption of a multifaceted approach
to the study of political theory.
Pa rt I I
Dissenting Voices and the

Limits of Power

5
T o l e r at i o n an d C o m m u ni t y
Functionalist Foundations of Liberty
n h is fa m o u s l i t t l e e ssay entitled What Is Enlighten-

ment? Immanuel Kant presses the case for liberty of con-
science in the following terms:
A prince who ..... holds it to be his duty to prescribe nothing to men in
religious matters but to give them complete freedom while renouncing
the haughty name of tolerance, is himself enlightened and deserves to be
esteemed by the grateful world and posterity as the first, at least from the
side of government, who divested the human race of its tutelage and left
each man free to make use of his reason in matters of conscience.1
Kants distinction is one familiar to liberal political theorists to-

day, not only in addressing matters of religion but also in con-
nection with more general questions of freedom of thought and
expression.2 According to current exponents of a Kantian orienta-
tion, tolerance connotes merely a privilege, granted by some supe-
rior authority and presumably revocable at its will. Toleration pro-
1. Immanuel Kant, What Is Enlightenment? in The Foundations of the Meta-

physics of Morals, trans. Lewis White Beck (New York: Macmillan, 1990), 88.
2. For the historical antecents of the distinction, see Gordon J. Schochet,
John Locke and Religious Toleration, in Lois G. Schoerer, ed., The Revolution of
16881689: Changing Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992),
14764, and R. K. Webb, From Toleration to Religious Liberty, in J. R. Jones, ed.,
Liberty Secured? Britain before and after 1688 (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1992), 15898.
63
64 Diss e n t & t h e Li m i t s o f P o w e r
motes a policyto express the matter in contemporary usageof dont

ask, dont tell: ones beliefs, practices, and rituals are ones own business so
long as they are kept out of sight. By contrast, liberty of conscience is said
to be grounded independently of the ability of a power to interfere with
its legitimate expression. The basis for the liberty is presumably something
like a natural right or an autonomous moral will. Moreover, liberty in mat-
ters of conscience permits the public expression of ones viewsKants no-
tion of a realm of public reasonprovided that their manifestation does
not trouble public order as established by law, in the words of Article Ten
of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.3
The conceptual distinction between tolerance and liberty ordinarily ac-
companies a historical judgment: the doctrine of liberty of conscience, es-
pecially in matters of religion, arose in the context of the Reformation and
its aftermath, and is strictly a product of the modern world.4 The assump-
tion, articulated by John Rawls in his introduction to Political Liberalism,
is that the medieval Christian world was too authoritarian in its religious
and social values to permit a workable notion of liberty.5 Liberty of con-
science and freedom of thought were historically dependent upon an in-
tractable religious pluralism that owed its development to the successes of
Luther, Calvin, and their followers.
Although flattering to liberalism and seductive to the untutored, the
conceit of the modern liberal discovery of liberty of conscience is both
conceptually simplistic and historically misleading. It is conceptually sim-
plistic because it assumes, but does not defend, the view that liberty can
only be grounded outside of the public realm, and hence that liberty and
toleration are inherently antithetical. This dualism already takes for grant-
ed the basic principles of the liberalism that it sets out to defend. It is his-
torically misleading because it fails to consider the very real strides that
were made during the Latin Middle Ages to construct theories of political
life that embraced liberty of thought and expression as a necessity rather
than a privilege or an expediency. The image of medieval life and thought
as monolithic is a pernicious myth. If anything, as Alasdair MacIntyre has
pointed out, the problematic of the Middle Ages was constituted not by
the unity of a single form of life but by the sheer multiplicity and diver-
3. Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, in Georges Lefebvre, The Coming of the
French Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 222.
4. See John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), xxiv.
5. Ibid., xxiii.
f u nc t i o na l is t f o u n d at i o ns o f l ib e r t y 65
sity of such forms.6 Consequently, any systematic conception of political

and even ecclesiastical life had to contend with what Constantin Fasolt de-
scribes as a plethora of actors jostling side by side to assert their particular
ideas of the highest good.7
In order to appreciate the contribution of the Middle Ages to the de-
velopment of a theory of liberty of conscience, I shall consider a charac-
teristically medieval mode of political thought which is sometimes termed
organic,8 but which I have elsewhere more precisely labeled commu-
nal functionalism.9 The communal functionalist approach, which has re-
ceived some attention already in chapter 3, conceives of the community
as an arrangement of functionally distinct parts, each of which is neces-
sary for the well-being of the whole and of all the others. Consequently,
communal functionalism rejects elitist or specialist arguments for political
rule, since the common good is the product of the intercommunication of
parts, not of the task of any particular segment of the community in isola-
tion. Rather, the common good can only be identified and applied by the
joint participation of all the members of society. Any attempt to exclude
functional members from public life damages the realization of the com-
mon good itself: interdependence entails inclusion. Thus, each segment of
society has two roles that are crucial to the common welfare: the special-
ized performance of ones functional activity and a more general concern
with how that task fits into the overall communal scheme. If certain seg-
ments of society are not permitted to play the latter roleto express their
views regarding the common good and their contribution to itthen the
community will be guided by only a partial set of interests and will be
impaired in its functioning. Cooperation among the parts is the key to a
healthy civil body. And cooperation entails that all of the members must
have a say and be listened to; that is, they must be at liberty to state their
interpretation of the common good from their distinct perspective and
this expression must be toleratedindeed, carefully respected and consid-
6. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 1981), 165.
7. Constantin Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991),
103. Fasolt is writing in the context of the competing claims of kings, popes, bishops, and secu-
lar lords in early fourteenth-century provincial France, but his remark applies to most of Eu-
rope during the Latin Middle Ages.
8. See Tilman Struve, Die Entwicklung der organalogischen Staatsauffassung im Mittelalter
(Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1978).
9. Cary J. Nederman, Freedom, Community and Function: Communitarian Lessons of
Medieval Political Thought, American Political Science Review 86 (December 1992): 97786.
eredby the other segments of society. In broad outline, this constitutes

the communal functionalist case for a doctrine of liberty of conscience,
grounded not outside of the public realm but justified by the very contin-
ued health and well-being of the community.
Although communal functionalism as described is a kind of ideal ty-
pology, one can find throughout the Latin Middle Ages political authors
who, in their conceptions of ecclesiastical as well as secular government,
embraced the essentials of the theory. Thus, John of Salisbury in the
twelfth century, employing what we may term a moral concept of free-
dom and his famous organic metaphor, argues that the liberty to speak out
about the ills of society and the wrongs of ones superiors must be tolerat-
ed and encouraged by the well-ordered community. Almost two centuries
later, Marsiglio of Padua, employing an expanded and more sophisticated
political language, asserts that a healthy civic body depends upon the as-
surance to each of its citizens of the personal freedom to judge and speak
openly in matters of public concern.
Now, the language of liberty was one of the most widely used modes of
political and legal discourse in medieval Europe. It is possible to identify at
least three traditions of thought about liberty available to the Middle Ages.
The first goes back to the civic values of antiquity, especially the Roman
Republic, and was transmitted with classical sources such as Roman law
and Cicero. Liberty in this sense pertains to the corporate rights that ac-
crue to a self-governing republic (and its citizens).10 Second, Christianity
contributed a doctrine of liberty construed in terms of free choice, name-
ly, the freedom to do Gods will or to refrain from following divine ordi-
nance. This is a purely personal conception of liberty; it is confined to the
particular orientation of the individuals will.11 Finally, the feudal structure
of social and economic, as well as political, relations generated a distinctive
discourse of liberty defined as a sphere of action and judgment indepen-
dent of the control and supervision of any superior authority. Out of such
territorial immunity arises a principle of inviolability, an exclusive and
unabridgeable right of the lord to exercise power.12
The concept of liberty that I am ascribing to medieval communal func-
tionalism partakes of elements of all of these prevailing conceptions of lib-
10. Ch. Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic and Early
Principate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950).
11. Colin Morris, The Discovery of the Individual 10501200 (London: SPCK, 1972).
12. Alan Harding, Political Liberty in the Middle Ages, Speculum 55 (1980): 42343.
erty, but is not fully assimilable to any of them. The uniqueness of the
communal functionalist position is that it integrates respect for person-
al liberty into a secular, political framework, merging toleration with in-
alienable freedom. The force of the claims that might be made on behalf
of such liberty is evident in John of Salisburys Policraticus. John defends
there a conception of open personal expression that was extensive even by
far later standards. He counsels a doctrine of patience for the opinions
and deeds of others that becomes difficult to distinguish from toleration.
The best and wisest man is moderate with the reins of liberty and patiently takes
note of whatever is said to him. And he does not oppose himself to the works of
liberty, so long as damage to virtue does not occur. For when virtue shines every-
where from its own source, the reputation of patience becomes more evident with
glorious renown.13
The patient man respects the liberty of others to state their own honest
opinions, and he attempts to improve himself by patiently regarding his
fellows. The practice of liberty ..... displeases only those who live in the
manner of slaves.14 In other words, free men are reciprocally tolerant of
the freedom of others, even when they are the objects of criticism. John
praises the Romans for being more patient than others with censure,
since they adhered to the principle that whoever loathes and evades [criti-
cism] when fairly expressed seems to be ignorant of restraint. For even if it
conveys obvious or secret insult, patience with censure is among wise men
far more glorious than its punishment.15 The Policraticus supports this
claim in characteristic form with many exempla of wise people who spoke
their minds straightforwardly and of wise rulers who permitted such free
expression to occur.
There is no doubt that Johns praise of liberty of thought and speech
reflects his conception of decorum and civility: the refined person per-
mits civilized speech in his presence, and such speech may involve personal
criticism and admonitions.16 But there is more at stake in Johns argument
13. John of Salisbury, Policraticus, ed. Cary J. Nederman (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1990), 7.25, pp. 17677. This translation is based on the text of the Policraticus edited
by C. C. J. Webb, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909). A new edition by K. S. B. Keats-
Rohan has long been in the works, but thus far only books 14 have been published.
14. John of Salisbury, Policraticus, 7.25, p. 176.
15. Ibid., 7.25, p. 179.
16. John talks at great length about matters of civility in ibid., 8.910. This passage is not
translated in my edition of the Policraticus, but may be found in Joseph B. Pikes selection, Fri-
than simply good manners. For John posits an intimate relationship be-
tween liberty and morality.
[Virtue] does not arise in its perfection without liberty, and the loss of liberty
demonstrates irrefutably that virtue is not present. And therefore anyone is free
according to the virtue of ones dispositions and to the extent that one is free, the
virtues are effective.17
Freedom makes virtue possible, for no one who is unfree (i.e., unable to
make decisions for himself ) can ever be counted as capable of moral ac-
tion. A virtuous (and also presumably a vicious) act is one that an indi-
vidual has intentionally chosen to do, and thus for which he can be held
responsible. But no such intentional choice is possible in the absence of
liberty; the slave merely does as he is told, so that it is his master who must
bear the blame for his conduct.
There are two primary reasons why this liberty must be respected or
endured by the rest of the community. First, John recognizes that a conse-
quence of the necessity of personal liberty as a prerequisite for virtue is the
possibility of making errors, that is, of misjudging and committing vice.
There is no way around this difficulty: if individuals are to choose freely,
then they must be free to be mistaken. John recognizes that enforced vir-
tuous actions are not really virtuous at all and do more harm than good
to subjects. It is for this reason that he condemns the immoderation (and
immorality) of zealous rulers who compel their subjects to perform good
deeds and who excessively punish evildoers.18 If John is not quite an ad-
vocate of the view that Every man has the right to go to hell in his own
way,19 then he at least believes that there must be a realm of personal dis-
cretion in decision making with which no person can properly interfere.
Hence, we must be tolerant of individuals when they go astray because
volities of Courtiers and Footprints of Philosophers (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,

1938), 34154. Thanks are due to Dr. Sally Jenkinson of the University of London for suggesting
to me the importance of the dimension of civility.
18. John of Salisbury, Policraticus, 4.9, pp. 5354. Coincidentally, he makes the same charge
in his letters against Thomas Becket; see Cary J. Nederman, Aristotelian Ethics and John of
Salisburys Letters, Viator 18 (1987): 17172.
19. A position he rejects explicitly at Policraticus 8.9 when he attacks the Roman tribune
who once proclaimed in a speech that there is no value to liberty if it is not permitted to those
who desire to ruin themselves by luxury. Such liberty would have been regarded by John to
be instead license; see Cary J. Nederman, The Aristotelian Doctrine of the Mean and John
of Salisburys Concept of Liberty, Vivarium 24 (1986): 139.
their liberty to do so is also the assurance of their ability to live a virtuous

life.
But there is a second sense in which patient endurance of the liberty of
action enjoyed by others must be matched by a liberty of critical speech.
John asserts that it is permitted to censure that which is to be equitably
corrected.20 If we may not properly force people to do good, then we
must equally be respected and tolerated when we point out the error of
their ways. In other words, if you are free to do wrong, then I must also be
free to correct or reprove you. The flip-side of individual liberty of action
is liberty of speech. John emphasizes this point: Liberty ..... is not afraid
to censure that which is opposed to sound moral character....... Man is to
be free and it is always permitted to a free man to speak to persons about
restraining their vices.21 The Policraticus indeed practices what it preach-
es. John describes his own encounter with Pope Adrian IV in which he re-
counted to the pontiff all the evils that are commonly (and with justifica-
tion) ascribed to the Roman Church and curia.22 Moreover, he did not
shy from lamenting at great length the many sins and vices committed by
priests, monks, and members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.23 In fact, John
claims that his liberty to censure is not merely a privilege: It is not nec-
essary to obtain confirmed permission for such remarks which serve the
public utility.24 Freedom to speak ones mind about the ills of society,
whether spiritual or temporal, parallels the liberty to do as one pleases
without prior restraint.25
Given common expectations about medieval thought, it is perhaps
striking that John leaves so much to the realm of individual discretion,
both in terms of exercise of choice and of criticizing evils. Of course, such
toleration of liberty is by no means unlimited. John insists that the vices
of individuals which we ought to endure, if we are unable to correct them
through free speech, must be distinguished from flagrant crimes, that is,
acts which one is not permitted to endure or which cannot faithfully be
endured.26 Similarly, he acknowledges that statements made rashly, that
21. Ibid., 7.25, pp. 175, 180.
22. Ibid., 6.24, pp. 13235.
23. For a summary of these criticisms, see Cary J. Nederman and Catherine Campbell,
Priests, Kings and Tyrants: Spiritual and Temporal Power in John of Salisburys Policraticus,
Speculum 66 (July 1991): 57980, 58486.
25. Ibid., 1.5 (translated in Frivolities of Courtiers and Footprints of Philosophers, p. 28).
is, without respect for the persons to whom they are addressed and with
the intent of harming anothers reputation, are deserving of censure and
condemnation.27 The intent must be pure for liberty of action and expres-
sion to be tolerated; manifestly irreligious or dishonorable conduct and
words have no claim on our patience. Still, the individual is afforded a re-
markably large sphere of personal freedom not simply in private but as a
part of ones public role and perhaps even responsibility.
The political ramifications of Johns doctrine of liberty become especial-
ly evident when we turn to his well-known conception of the body politic.
The Policraticus articulated a complex and influential version of the organ-
ic metaphor for the political community whose full statement occupies two
books and over two hundred pages of text.28 John compares the ruler to the
head, the counselors to the heart, the various administrators and officials to
the several organs and limbs, and the peasants and artisans to the feet.29 (The
priesthood is analogized to the soul, but is not counted strictly among the
parts of the body.) At the center of this analogy is an attempt to construct
civil order on the principle of the social division of labor while rejecting the
strictly hierarchical values of the Platonic polis (with whose outlines John
would have been familiar via the opening section of the Timaeus).30 John de-
signed his body politic as a system of harmonious cooperation based on re-
ciprocal interdependence and social and political inclusion.
The recognition and toleration of personal liberty is crucial to the suc-
cessful operation of the political organism. John insists that all the rela-
tions between the members of the community ought to be governed ac-
cording to a principle consistent with reciprocity. Adapting the advice of
Terrence in regard to the treatment of the evils of ones spouse, he propos-
es that the vices of princes and subjects ought to be either endured or re-
moved.31 Now, John points out that removal here does not imply coer-
cion or punishment. Rather, according to his interpretation, Removing
27. Ibid., 7.25, pp. 17677, 179.

28. For a full appraisal of Johns version of the organic metaphor, see Tilman Struve, The
Importance of the Organism in the Political Theory of John of Salisbury, in Michael J. Wilks,
ed., The World of John of Salisbury (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), 30317, and Cary J. Nederman,
The Physiological Significance of the Organic Metaphor in John of Salisburys Policraticus,
History of Political Thought 8 (Summer 1987): 2123.
30. See Paul Edward Dutton, Illustre civitatis et populi exemplum: Platos Timaeus and the
Transmission from Calcidius to the End of the Twelfth Century of a Tripartite Scheme of Soci-
ety, Mediaeval Studies 45 (1983): 79119.
is meant in the sense of correction ....... What cannot be removed is to be

endured.32 John thus argues that we ought to attempt to restore erring
members of the body politic to the path of virtue, but that, so long as their
vices do not disturb the material or spiritual well-being of the whole, they
are to be tolerated when they cannot be convinced of their errors. This
principle entails both of the aspects of liberty discussed previously: it in-
volves not only the freedom to speak to people about their vices, but also
the liberty to act as one pleaseseven contrary to virtueat least within
the limits of public order.
Several implications follow from the general principles of liberty and
toleration espoused in the Policraticus. First, the ruler must carefully re-
spect the liberty of his subjects. Indeed, Johns famous distinction between
the true prince (or king) and the tyrant turns on his doctrine of liberty.
By definition, the prince fights for the laws and the liberty of the people;
the tyrant supposes that nothing is done unless the laws are cancelled and
the people are brought into servitude.33 The good ruler will necessarily
govern so as to promote the liberty of subjects: liberty has spurred on all
outstanding princes; and none has ever trampled on liberty except for the
manifest enemies of virtue.34 It is perhaps for this reason that John places
the prince under the strict dictates of law,35 since laws were introduced
in support of liberty.36 That is, law assures to men that they will not be
subject to the arbitrary will of a ruler and thus that they will be free to act
within the fixed and equitable restraints imposed by legal standards.
One consequence of this legally (as well as morally) assured liberty is
that a measure of public criticism of superiors, even of rulers and priests,
must be permitted. John takes great pains to distinguish between high
treason (crimen majestas) and proper free expression. High treason has
the express purpose of separating the head from its members, and thus of
violating the reciprocity that is vital to the life of the body politic. Such
an attack on the head is a violation of the whole.37 John enumerates all of
the deeds that count as cases of high treason, citing copious legal texts in
support of his definition.38 But it is noteworthy that liberty of conscience,
construed as public criticism of the ruler, is excluded as an example of trai-
torous activity. For this reason, John insists that he is exempt from the
charges that he himself is committing high treason by criticizing the bad
32. Ibid., 6.26, p. 140. 33. Ibid., 8.17, p. 191.
34. Ibid., 7.25, p. 176. 35. Ibid., 4.2, pp. 3031.
36. Ibid., 7.25, p. 176. 37. Ibid., 6.25, p. 137.
38. Ibid., 6.25, pp. 13839.
morals and frivolities of princes and courtiers: I myself will not be ac-
cused unfairly by anyone of having presumed against the authority of the
prince.39 Of course, just as princes (and indeed all people) must endure
those vices that cannot be corrected in their fellow human beings, so sub-
jects must tolerate the vices of their superiors.
Even if the ruler is too loose in the virtues of his office, still he has to be honored;
and ..... subjects, whom we have said to be the feet and members, should exhibit
subservience to him in every way, so long as his vices are not pernicious. For, even
if he is afflicted with vices, he is to be endured as one with whom rests the hopes of
the provincials for their security.40
But note that such subservience is not slavery. The liberty to speak openly
to superiors about their vices in hopes of achieving correction cannot be sup-
pressed by a ruler without the enslavement of his subjects, at which point he
ceases to be merely vicious and commits a flagrant crime against the body
politic. The liberty of the individual members is the life-blood of the po-
litical organism, and is violated only by the tyrant. The proper response of
the good ruler is illustrated by the Policraticuss account of the reply of Pope
Adrian IV to Johns own honest and stinging criticisms of the papal curia:
The pontiff laughed and congratulated such great candor, commanding
that whenever anything unfavorable about him made a sound in my ears,
he was to be informed of this without delay.41 Free speech, even of a highly
critical nature, is always welcomed at the court of the good ruler.
But what of the case of the ruler whose vices are pernicious, that is,
who reveals himself to be a tyrant, and who thereby endangers the spiri-
tual, moral, and material well-being of the body politic? Here personal lib-
erty of judgment and action takes on a different complexion. When the
community is threatened by an incorrigible tyrant, members of the po-
litical organism are regarded by John to be bound to deflect injury to the
public welfare. This duty to resist a flagrantly criminous ruler may even in-
clude a responsibility to kill the tyrant when no other mode of opposition
(such as patient correction and prayer) succeeds.42 To say this is merely to
invoke the earlier distinction between vice and flagrant crime: What
is understood by vice is what honor and religion can securely endure. For
39. Ibid., 6.26, pp. 13940. 40. Ibid., 6.24, p. 132.

41. Ibid., 6.24, p. 135.
42. See Cary J. Nederman, A Duty to Kill: John of Salisburys Theory of Tyrannicide,
The Review of Politics 51 (Summer 1988): 36589.
vices are more insignificant than flagrant crimes; and there are a number
of acts which one is not permitted to endure or which cannot faithfully be
endured.43 The same formula of justice that John ascribes to the ruler
that he should not be excessively inclined toward punishing the faults of
subjects44is also expected of the other parts of the body politic. The
sphere of liberty ascribed to the ruler is in effect identical to that permitted
to his subjects (recall that they both obey the same law). And it pertains to
the individual discretion of the members of the political organism to de-
cide when the ruler, having overstepped the bounds into tyranny, ought to
be opposed. Hence, John praises the biblical Judith for taking matters into
her own hands by performing Gods will in slaying the tyrant Holofern-
es.45 This response to tyranny may seem to us an unreliable procedure
for restoring public order. But John is confident that the fear of eternal
punishment for committing murder (an act of private will) would be such
that the prospective tyrant slayer will be sure in herself that her intentions
are pure. In any case, John is prepared to countenance such displays of lib-
erty of conscience for the public good, at least in exceptional circumstanc-
es. It would be difficult to imagine a more confident expression of support
for the individual capacity to judge and act freely.
Marsiglio of Padua may seem on the face of it to advocate a diametri-
cally different conception of liberty than that to be found in John of Salis-
burys thought. Given his personal background, not to mention some of
his remarks in the Defensor pacis,46 Marsiglio has come to be regarded by
many scholars as an early proponent of the kind of communal republican
liberty so beloved of later Italian Renaissance figures such as Machiavelli.
In the view of Quentin Skinner, it is central to Marsiglios theory
to explain why the liberty of the Italian City Republics is everywhere being threat-
ened and lost ....... What we in fact find ..... in Marsiglio is not merely a convention-
al diagnosis of faction as the main threat to the liberties of the City Republics; we
also find a new and radical answer to how these liberties might best be secured.47
According to this interpretation, Marsiglios central preoccupation with

peace is directly reflective of his overarching value of civic liberty. When

44. Ibid., 4.9, p. 45. 45. Ibid., 8.20, p. 207.
46. The best treatment of Marsiglios personal and intellectual biography remains Carlo
Pincin, Marsilio (Turin: Edizioni Giappichelli, 1967).
Cambridge University Press, 1978), 1: 57, 61.
peace is threatened, the ability of the cities to govern themselves is endan-

gered and they become subject to the sway of tyrants.
Although this understanding in many ways involves too narrow a read-
ing of the Defensor pacis,48 it is clear that one of Marsiglios concerns was
indeed to protect the communal liberty of the cities of Italy against the in-
cursions of external forces, especially the Roman church. But concentra-
tion on the communal sense of libertya value which is alluded to but
never overtly defended or analyzed in the Defensor pacisobscures another
and theoretically more potent notion of freedom proposed and examined
in great detail by Marsiglio. This notion arises from his doctrine of consent.
It is well known that Marsiglio regarded consent to be the touchstone of
good government and public order. In discussing the distinction between
healthy and diseased regimes, he equates the genus of the first with
rule over voluntary subjects, while the genus of the second is rule over
involuntary subjects.49 He quotes Aristotles Politics 1295a15 in support of
this view, but he then goes on in non-Aristotelian fashion to explain that
the token of the voluntariness of subjects is their consent to government:
Absolutely or in greater measure it is the consent of subjects which is the
distinguishing criterion of a healthy or diseased government.50 In the case
of constitutional structure, Marsiglio construes consent as the election of
the ruler by the citizens of the kingdom or city.51 He indeed devotes an en-
tire chapter of the first discourse of the Defensor pacis to the superiority of
elected over nonelected government.52
Why is it preferable (indeed, even necessary) for citizens to be vol-
untary, that is, to consent to the terms of their rule? Marsiglio frames his
answer in the course of his account of the process of enacting law (which
follows the same procedures, he says, as anything else established through
election).53 His main concern in regard to legislationand indeed, all
other matters of governmentis that it truly embody the common inter-
est rather than some partial set of interests. He thus formulates his scheme
48. I try to offer a corrective to this reading of the Defensor Pacis in Community and Con-
sent: The Secular Political Theory of Marsiglio of Paduas Defensor Pacis (Lanham, Md.: Rowman
& Littlefield, 1995).
49. Marsiglio of Padua, Defensor pacis, ed. Richard Scholz (Hannover: Hahnsche Bu-
chhandlung, 1933), 1.9.5. I will also cite the page number of the English translation by Alan
Gewirth, Defender of the Peace (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), although I have
often revised Gewirths renderings.
50. Marsiglio of Padua, Defensor pacis, 1.9.6, p. 32.
51. Ibid., 1.9.67, pp. 3233. 52. Ibid., 1.16.
53. Ibid., 1.12.3, p. 45.
of legislative enactment in order to exclude any statute that reflects par-

tial or sectarian interests. Marsiglio objects to the claim that some segment
of the community is especially competent or well qualified to impose law
upon the remainder of the citizens.54 Rather, whenever one or a few indi-
viduals legislate, there is the threat that partiality may intrude:
One man could make a bad law, looking more to his own private benefit than to
that of the community, so the law would be tyrannical. For the same reason, the
authority to make laws cannot belong to a few, for they could, as above, also sin in
making the law for the benefit of a few and not for the common benefit.55
Fear of creating statutes and institutions that are not really for the com-
mon benefitwhich are not, as Marsiglio remarks elsewhere, politic
(politicis) in the truest sense56stands behind the Defensors conception of
how laws (as well as governments) should be authorized.
It may not be immediately clear why this fear is warranted. That is,
why is it not possible to trust a few mensay, the wisest, more prudent
citizensto act on behalf of the citizenry as a whole? To understand the
ineliminable threat posed by partiality, we must realize that Marsiglio con-
ceives of the origins and structure of the community in characteristically
communal functionalist fashion. The Defensor gages the level of the devel-
opment or perfection of a civil body according to the extent of the dif-
ferentiation of its parts, where such parts constitute the specialized func-
tional divisions within society. The community emerges out of a process
through which human beings gradually discover all of the tasks necessary
for a satisfactory existence. The variegation of functions typifies what Mar-
siglio terms the perfect community, namely, the kingdom or city.57
Consequently, the mature Marsiglian community has a reciprocal or-
ganization, characterized by the intercommunication of functions (in ef-
fect, the exchange of goods and services) necessary for a sufficient life.58
This generates a kind of ambiguous situation. On the one hand, the vari-
ous parts functionally necessary to the community are properly called of-
fices, as though services, since, considering that they are established in the
civic body, they are ordered towards human service.59 In this sense, the
final cause of each member is the well-being of the whole. But it is also
true that these functions originate in a cause outside of the community,
54. Ibid., 1.13.34, pp. 5153. 55. Ibid., 1.12.8, p. 48.

56. Ibid., 1.9.6, p. 32. 57. See ibid., 1.5.5, pp. 1112.
58. Ibid., 1.4.5, p. 14. 59. Ibid., 1.7.1, p. 26.
namely, in dispositions (habitudinem) of the soul endowed by nature.60

Hence, each of the functions additionally has its own special and definite
end apart from serving the common welfare of the civil body.61 The func-
tionally distinct parts within the community also and simultaneously aim
at diverse particular and partial interests.62 Thus, the dilemma posed by
Marsiglios communal functionalism is how to ensure that the specific in-
terests of one or a few of the parts, rather than the general interest of the
whole, do not become the basis for law and government.
Marsiglio cannot embrace either of two obvious solutions to the prob-
lem. He cannot recommend the suppression of the particular interests of
the various parts of the community. This would entail a devolution from
that differentiation of functions that constitutes for him the perfection
of civil life. Nor could he plausibly countenance a kind of protopluralism
according to which the parts all seek to further their own narrow interests
apart from and in competition with the other segments of society. Such a
proposal would certainly lead (at least in Marsiglios mind) to conflict and
dispute and ultimately to the disintegration of the public order. Rather, the
path laid out in the Defensor pacis to cope with the intractable character of
partiality follows from a theory of consent. Consent operates in Marsiglios
thought as a bridge between the particular and the general. This becomes
clear in the procedures sketched by him for the authorization of law.
Whatever the corporation of citizens seeks by mind and feeling is more certainly
judged as to its truth and more diligently noted as to its common utility....... The
common utility of a law is better noted by the entire multitude, because no one
knowingly harms himself. Anyone can look to seek whether a proposed law leans
to the benefit of one or a few persons more than that of others in the community
and can object to it.63
The argument proposed by Marsiglio to defend the priority of consent

rests on the principle that people can judge what is contrary to their own
interests. In a claim that captures some of the spirit of modern rational
choice theory, Marsiglio maintains that no one would act in a manner det-
rimental to himself, in the sense of approving a law that favored the inter-
60. Ibid., 1.7.1, p. 25.
61. Ibid., 1.6.10, p. 24.
62. For a more thorough dissection of Marsiglios argument, see Cary J. Nederman, Char-
acter and Community in the Defensor Pacis: Marsiglio of Paduas Adaptation of Aristotelian
Moral Psychology, History of Political Thought 13 (Autumn 1992): 37790.
ests of some at the expense of ones own welfare.64 Hence, if each segment
(or office) in the community has the opportunity to approve a legislative
proposal and none can see that it will cause injury, then that law will carry
the weight of the common utility behind it. Consent is given based upon
the citizens individual judgments about and calculations of self-interest.
Since no one can represent anothers interests,65 each citizen must be ac-
corded a say in all decisions regarding matters of public concern.
How does this involve the doctrine of liberty of conscience? There are
two ways in which personal liberty and respect for it are integrated into
Marsiglios theory: one public, the other private.66 In its public aspect, lib-
erty is necessary in order to form judgments regarding the common good
that are critical to the effective use of consent. Marsiglio describes legisla-
tion as a process of public debate and discussion about a proposed statute:
If any citizen thinks that something should be added, subtracted, adjusted or com-
pletely rejected, he can say so....... In the general assembly of citizens, those citi-
zens will have been heard who have wished to make some reasonable statements in
the regard to them [the proposed laws].67
Consent does not simply entail a dull vote of yea or nay. Rather, every
citizen must be afforded the opportunity to discuss and examine legisla-
tive proposals and to recommend adjustments or revisions. The authoriza-
tion of law is the result of broadly based public discussion directed toward
the achievement of consensus.68 Underlying the effective use of consent
is a liberty of thought and expression grounded in the very nature of the
healthy civic body. If all citizens are not freeand equally freeto speak
their minds, then partiality will doubtless creep into the political process
and the disintegration of the community will eventuate.
64. As demonstrated by Cary J. Nederman, Community and Self-Interest: Marsiglio of
Padua on Civil Life and Private Advantage, Review of Politics 65 (Fall 2003): 395416.
65. Marsiglio is a vehement critic of political representation; see Cary J. Nederman,
Knowledge, Consent and the Critique of Political Representation in Marsiglio of Paduas De-
fensor Pacis, Political Studies 39 (1991): 1935, summarized in chapter 7 of the present volume.
66. This is consistent with Marsiglios strong attachment to the public/private distinc-
tion, the significance of which I have examined in Private Will, Public Justice: Household,
Community and Consent in Marsiglio of Paduas Defensor Pacis, Western Political Quarterly 43
(1990): 699717.
68. Marsiglio adopts this view explicitly in the Defensor minor in connection with the
General Council of the Church. See Marsiglio of Padua, Writings on the Empire: Defensor Mi-
nor and De translatione Imperii, ed. Cary J. Nederman (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1993), 14.5, p. 42.
Nor is Marsiglio shy about declaring the necessity of such liberty. Ev-
ery citizen must be free, he proclaims, not subject to the despotism of an-
other, that is, servile lordship.69 Such liberty to speak and act in the public
realm, without fear of punishment or retribution, is the absolute precon-
dition of stable self-government. Freely given consent ensures that mem-
bers of the community will regard themselves to be the source of their own
rule, with the consequence that a law would be better observed by citizens
anywhere when each is seen to impose it on himself.70 Marsiglios con-
cern here arises not merely from pragmatic considerations of obedience. It
is the identification of the citizen with his community, and thus the con-
gruence of his good with that of the whole, which is at stake. Indeed, he
insists that even if a law were less useful by virtue of having been made
by the hearing and consent of the whole multitude, still such a statute is
better because it is more consistent with the voluntary character of citi-
zenship, that is, because each would be seen to set the law upon himself
and thus has no protest against it, but tolerates it with equanimity.71 The
peace and order of the communitythe undisturbed tranquility that fa-
cilitates the sufficiency of life that Marsiglio regards to be the purpose of
communal associationcan only be assured when the liberty of each citi-
zen to contribute to the political process is guaranteed. Otherwise, partial-
ity will induce a level of conflict that ultimately undermines the ability of
the parts to cooperate and coordinate their functions.
The other dimension of Marsiglios concept of personal liberty pertains
to the private realm. In his Defensor minor, which purports to be a sum-
mary and restatement of the Defensor pacis, he argues that those forms
of action and belief that do not impinge upon the intercommunication
of functions among the parts of the community, and hence do not dis-
turb the public peace, are to be tolerated.72 Regardless of the practices in
which they engage or the views they hold, individuals ought to be at lib-
erty to continue to perform the tasks necessary for the maintenance of the
common good. Marsiglio defends this position explicitly in connection
with diversity of religious belief. Rejecting the temporal consequences of
excommunication, he asserts that the separation of believer from heretic

70. Ibid., 1.12.6, p. 47; similarly, 13.8, p. 55.
71. Ibid., 1.12.6, p. 47
72. I examine the background to this position in much greater detail in Tolerance and
Community: A Medieval Communal Functionalist Argument for Toleration, Journal of Poli-
tics 56 (November 1994): 90118.
should occur in connection with spiritual matters only. Excommunication

is to be applied solely in regard to belief and the observance of the rituals
of the faith, rather than in regard to other domestic or civil intercourse.73
The anathematization of heterodox belief is, Marsiglio contends, really a
sort of shame and disgrace rather than a form of coercive punishment.74
While the Church retains the authority to fix its truths and to exclude
from worship those who reject fundamental doctrinal principles, there is
neither a scriptural nor a rational basis for extending this prohibition to
the temporal domain of communal life.
Marsiglios defense of this claim derives from his functionalist concep-
tion of society. He points out that the final cause of human law and its
coercive force is the tranquility and finite happiness of this world, with
the result that such precepts shape human beings insofar as they are dis-
posed and affected towards tranquility and power and many other [earth-
ly] things.75 If excommunication were to encompass temporal as well as
spiritual affairs, then the legitimate concerns of public order and welfare
would be disturbed. Indeed, the very purpose of excommunication, the
well-being of the faithful, would be undermined. By denying intercommu-
nication of a purely secular nature between the orthodox and nonbelievers
of all sorts, it is the faithful themselves who will be harmed: they will not
be able to take advantage of those material benefits accorded by communal
life. No one (let alone orthodox Christians) should be deprived of
civil comforts and associations, such as by purchasing bread, wine, meat, fish, pots
or clothes from them [persons guilty of heresy], if they abound in such items and
others of the faithful lack them. This is likewise also true of the rest of the func-
tions and comforts to which they might possibly be judged susceptible in connec-
tion with their positions or civil duties and services. For otherwise this punish-
ment would redound in like fashion or for the most part to innocent believers.76
The extension of excommunication to civil association constitutes for Mar-

siglio an attack on the most basic principle of community rooted in the in-
terchange of functions. Inevitably, the functional breakdown of the com-
munity, and the intranquility that Marsiglio so feared, would ensue. The
assurance of a private liberty of thought and practice is the only way to
avoid this consequence.
73. Marsiglio of Padua, Defensor minor, 10.5, p. 34.

74. Ibid., 10.6, p. 35. 75. Ibid., 15.5, p. 56.
76. Ibid., 15.6, p. 57.
The liberty of conscience endorsed as a result of the communal func-

tionalist framework adopted by John of Salisbury and Marsiglio of Padua,
then, is by no means absolute or unlimited. In general, the limitations of
such liberty are fixed by the concrete requirements of public order. Those
who find this an unacceptable curtailment of the proper realm of person-
al freedom are reminded that the positions held by John and Marsiglio
are closely paralleled by the distinction Kant himself makes between the
public and the private uses of reason. It is to the public realm, Kant says,
that liberty of conscience pertains. In their private functions and activi-
ties, individuals must still conform to the legal, moral, intellectual, and re-
ligious standards of the land. In terms that echo the medieval communal
functionalists, Kant says, Many affairs which are conducted in the inter-
est of the community require a certain mechanism through which some
members of the community must passively conduct themselves with an ar-
tificial unanimity, so that the government may direct them to public ends,
or at least prevent them from destroying those ends.77 Liberty of con-
science does not for Kant apply in many aspects of social life.
Of course, one may deny that Kant represents the pinnacle of liberal
thinking about personal liberty. But any version of liberalism is compelled
to set limits and to offer some justification for those limits. Locke and Mill,
two other important liberal proponents of liberty of thought and expres-
sion in religious matters, were similarly careful to stipulate a bright line be-
tween liberty and license. The crucial question concerns the demarcation of
the proper sphere of liberty. The principle that diverse modes of free thought
and action must be tolerated for the sake of the perpetuation of the public
goodthe solution proposed by medieval communal functionalismhas
several merits. Most obviously, because it is grounded in social reciprocity, it
appeals to a logic of self-interest that can be broadly appreciated. The good
of each depends upon the ability of each to contribute freely to the whole.
Hence, respect for difference is a precondition of an adequate communal
life, that is, a life of peace and mutual advantage. This means that tolera-
tion is not a privilege to be granted or denied at the whim of some superior
(as liberals object) but a necessity strictly entailed by and built into the very
terms of social and political interaction. Liberty retains its importance, but
now within a network of public identity and diversity. Liberty of conscience
ceases to be a justification for escaping community and takes on instead a
central role in the maintenance and enhancement of a vital public life.
77. Kant, What Is Enlightenment? 85.

6
T h e R o y a l Wi l l an d t h e
B a r o nia l B r i d l e
The Bractonian Contribution
f o r m an y c e n t u r i e s , the medieval English jurist Hen-

ry de Bracton has enjoyed a prominent reputation among le-
gal practitioners and political theorists alike, largely as the re-
sult of his ascribed authorship of the seminal lawbook De legibus et
consuetudinibus Angliae.1 For instance, during the 1571 trial of the
Duke of Norfolk, an admissibility ruling by Chief Justice Catline
contained the remark that Bracton is indeed an old writer of our
law.2 Throughout the partisan disputes of the seventeenth centu-
ry, Bractons name and the text of the De legibus were invoked on
all sidesby royalists as well as antiroyalistsand found a home
among thinkers ranging from Hobbes and Filmer to Algernon Sid-
ney and Locke.3 John Milton, to cite but one case, relied heavily
upon our ancient and famous lawyer, Bracton in his Defence of the
People of England.4 The eighteenth-century legal scholar William
1. For a brief survey of this influence, see D. E. C. Yale, Of No Mean Author-

ity: Some Later Uses of Bracton, in M. S. Arnold, T. A. Green, S. A. Scolly, and
S. D. White, eds., On the Laws and Customs of England (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1981), 38396.
2. In Thomas B. Howell, ed., A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceed-
ings ......, 34 vols. (London: Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 18091826), 1: 957.
3. The varying applications of Bractons political thought during the seven-
teenth century are surveyed in chapter 19 below.
4. John Milton, A Defense of the People of England, in D. M. Wolfe, ed.
81
Jones referred to De legibus as certainly the best of our juridical classics,5

while a nineteenth-century jurist still considered Bracton to be a man of no
mean authority.6 The twentieth century confirmed Bractons pivotal role in
the formation of the English legal and political tradition by devoting massive
quantities of scholarship to the study of his career and thought.7 As author
of De legibus, Bracton richly deserves his preeminent status.
Unfortunately, it now appears likely that Bracton was not the origi-
nal (or even the primary) author of De legibus. It is no small irony that
the intensive recent study of the Bractonian text, initiated to enhance the
reputation of Bracton, has yielded the conclusion that De legibus was the
work of several hands. This thesis first arose out of brilliant textual criti-
cism by Samuel E. Thorne, contained in the introduction to the third vol-
ume of his reedition of Woodbines text of De legibus.8 Thorne established
the 1220s as the most plausible dating for the initial composition of the
text, with additions made early in the following decade. Only after about
the middle of the 1230s does De legibus seem to have passed into Bractons
hands, by which time it was already largely complete, judging from the
relatively small number of later cases to which it refers.9 Bracton was sim-
ply the inheritor (albeit a prominent one) of a manuscript to which one or
possibly more clerks had already contributed.10 In the past, while schol-
ars have devoted considerable attention to the vast inconsistencies in the
text of De legibus, they had always begun with the assumption that Brac-
ton was the first and major author of the treatise.11 The genius of Thornes
interpretation of the history of De legibuss composition is that it accounts
at a single stroke for the many textual discrepancies that have disturbed
scholars throughout the twentieth century. Compared to previous invo-
The Complete Prose Works of John Milton, 8 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 19531982),
4.1.49293.
5. William Jones, Essay on the Law of Bailments (London: printed by A. Strahan for Charles
Dilly, 1781), 75.
6. Quoted by Yale, Of No Mean Authority, 383.
7. For a bibliography of the main body of twentieth-century scholarship on Bracton, see
Cary J. Nederman, Bracton on Kingship Revisited, History of Political Thought 5 (Spring
1984): 61, nts. 13.
8. Bracton, De legibus et consuetudinibus angliae, ed. G. E. Woodbine, rev. S. E. Thorne, 4
vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 19681977), 3: xiiilii.
9. Ibid., 3: xxxxxxix.
10. For a dissenting view, however, see John L. Barton, The Mystery of Bracton, Journal
of Legal History 14 (1993): 1142.
11. See the review of this controversy in H. G. Richardson, Bracton: The Problem of His
Text (London: Selden Society, 1965), 3744.
t h e b r ac t o nian c o n t r ib u t i o n 83
cations of an anonymous redactor or changes in Bractons own opinions,

Thornes postulation of multiple authorship is elegant in its simplicity as
well as convincing in its explanatory power. Where incongruities were ear-
lier treated as corruptions, to be disentangled from the genuine kernel of
Bractons thought, we are henceforth encouraged to view them as aspects
of the progressive formation of a document that was fashioned over the
course of perhaps fifty years.
One of the discrepancies that has commonly been cited (from the time
of F. W. Maitland onward)12 as a primary example of the unresolved ten-
sions within the text of De legibus arises out of the doctrine enunciated
by the so-called addicio de cartis. The name attached to this passage stems
from the view of earlier scholars that it was not an original part of the
text, but instead was added as an afterthought at a later date (either by
Bracton himself or by an editor) to the works discussion of charters. The
conflicting character of the addicio de cartis results from its apparent de-
fense of the occasional legitimacy of the restraint of kings by their inferi-
ors, in direct contrast to assertions elsewhere in De legibus that the ruler is
subject to God and law, but not to man. Thorne accepts the conclusion
that the addicio de cartis was certainly not a part of the text in its earliest
form. Yet without explicitly imputing authorship, he argues that this ad-
dicio is as Bractionian as any other and was certainly in his manuscript. It
was in the margin, a gloss. . . .13 According to Thorne, then, the addicio
de cartis is one more instance of the internal contradictions engendered
by a multiplicity of authors contributing to the same treatise. Indeed, he
claims the addicio as a major piece of evidence favoring his interpretation:
If two or more clerks had a hand in the De legibus and if, several times copied, it
had a longer gestation period than generally allotted it, an explanation appears for
what seems to be Bractons self-contradictions and abrupt changes of mind, his af-
terthoughts which do not harmonize with their context, and the sudden doubts
which assail him sometimes within the space of a few folios, causing the abandon-
ment of one explanation and the adoption of another. There are many such oppo-
site and conflicting views, the best known being the several assertions that the king
has no superior and the contrary statement in the addicio de cartis.14
For Thorne, almost uniquely among recent students of the text of De legi-
bus, the presence of the addicio de cartis is not a cause for consternation. It is
12. F.W. Maitland, ed., Bractons Note Book, 3 vols. (London: C.J. Clay, 1887), 1: 2933.
13. Bracton, De legibus, 3: xlvi, n. 9. 14. Ibid., 3: ii.
to be treated simply as another consequence of the participation of several

hands in the composition of De legibus as it was ultimately transmitted.
At the same time, however, Thorne perhaps does not appreciate that
the ostensive inconsistency between the addicio de cartis and the rest of
De legibus is of a different order than many other incongruities within the
treatise. In particular, where the remainder of the discrepancies identified
by Thorne are of a purely technical, juristic sortconflicts in legal judg-
ment15the claim that the addicio de cartis is incompatible with the po-
litical thought in the main body of De legibus is a conclusion that can only
be drawn on theoretical or philosophical grounds. In other words, to assert
the contradictory character of the addicio de cartis is to make not merely a
statement of observable fact, but instead to engage in a process of rational
deduction. Certainly, legal authors in the generation immediately follow-
ing Bracton did not see any incongruity. Fleta, for instance, arranges the
text of the addicio de cartis just after a passage adapted from De legibus that
asserts that the king has no human superior.16 And, as we shall see, many
modern scholars have also failed to be convinced that the doctrine of the
addicio necessarily contradicts other passages of De legibus. Thus, even if
we accept Thornes thesis of multiple authorship (as present evidence indi-
cates we ought), we need not thereby maintain that the addicio de cartis is
conceptually inconsistent with the remainder of De legibus. The question
remains an open one, to be settled by theoretical discussion rather than by
textual criticism or historical investigation. In spite of Thornes account of
the composition of De legibus, we are by no means necessarily closer to a
final understanding of the relationship between the addicio de cartis and
the political ideas contained elsewhere in the text. As a consequence, there
may still be considerable value in reviving an issue addressed by an earlier
generation of scholars.17 What is the place of the addicio de cartis in the
political thought of De legibus as a whole? It is possible to generate a con-
ceptually consistent yet historically plausible reading of the allegedly in-
compatible passages within De legibus?
15. Ibid., 3: lilii.
16. Fleta Bks. I and II, ed. H. G. Richardson and J. O. Sayles, 2 vols. (London: Selden So-
ciety, 1966), 2: 36. Also see John de Longuevilles gloss, reproduced by Bertie Wilkinson, Con-
stitutional History of Medieval England 12161399, 3 vols. (London: Longman, 1948), 3: 104.
17. Traditional discussions of the addicio de cartis may be found in Hermann Kantorow-
icz, Bractonian Problems (Glasgow: Jackson, Son & Company, 1941), 4952; Gailliard Lapsley,
Bracton and the Authorship of the Addicio de cartis, English Historical Review 62 (1947):
119; Charles M. Radding, The Origins of Bractons Addicio de cartis, Speculum 44 (1969):
23946; and Richardson, Bracton, 3036.
To construct a response to such queries, we must begin with a detailed

survey of the source of the controversy itself. It is appropriate to quote the
entirety of the section on charters in order to appreciate not only the sub-
stance, but also the immediate context, of the addicio:
Royal charters and acts of kings should be disputed by neither judges nor private
persons; not even if doubts arise in them can they interpret them. Even with doubt-
ful and obscure passages, or if a phrase is open to two meanings, the interpretation
and will [voluntas] of the lord king should be awaited, since it is for him who es-
tablishes to interpret. And even if all is completely false because of erasure, or be-
cause the affixed seal is forged, it is better and safer that the case should proceed in
the court of the king himself [corum ipso rege]. [No one can judge the kings act or
charter as so overrule the kings act. But one can say that the king might have done
justice and good, and if, by the same reasoning, he did what is bad, one can impose
upon him the amendment of the injury (iniurium) so that the king and his judges
do not fall into the judgment of the living God because of the injury. The king has
a superior, namely, God: and also the law by which he is made king; and also his cu-
ria, that is, the counts and barons, because counts are called so to speak, partners of
the king (socii regis), and he who has a partner has a master. And if the king is with-
out bridle, that is, without law, they should put the bridle upon him, unless they
themselves like the king are without a bridle. Then the subjects will clamour and
say, Lord Jesus, bind fast their jaws in rein and bridle. To them the Lord will re-
spond, I shall call upon them a people fierce and distant and unknown, whose lan-
guage is unknown, who shall destroy them and remove their roots from the earth,
and by such they will be judged, because they will not judge their subjects justly.
And in the end, tied hand and foot, they will be sent into the burning pit and outer
darkness, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.]18
18. De legibus, 2: 10910. It may be useful to reproduce here the entirety of the addicio
in the original Latin: De cartis vero regiis et factis regum, non debent nec possunt iustitiarii
nec privatae personae disputare, nec etiam si in illis dubitatio oriatur possunt eam interpretari.
Etiam in dubiis et obscuris, vel si aliqua dictio duos contineat intellectus, domini regis erit ex-
pectanda interpretatia et voluntas, cum eius sit interpretari cuius est condere. Et etiam si omni-
no sit falsa propter rasuram, vel quia forte sigrum appositum est adulterinum, melius et tutius
est quod coram ipso rege precedat iudicium. [Item factum regis nec cartam potest quis iudi-
care, ita quad factum regis irritetur. Sed dicere poterit quis quod rex iustitiam facerit, et bene,
et si hoc eadem ratione quod male, et ita imponere ei quod iniuriam emendet, ne incidat rex et
iustitiarii in iudicium viventis dei propter iniuriam. Rex habet superiorem, deum scilicet. Item
legem per quam factus est rex. Item curiam suam, videlicet comites et barones, quia comites di-
cuntur quasi socii regis, et qui socium habet, habet magistrum. Et ideo si rex fuenit sine fraeno,
id est sine lege, debent ei fraenum apponere nisi ipisimet fuerint cum rege sine fraeno. Et tunc
clamabunt subditi et dicent, Domine Iheus in chamo et fraeno maxillas eorum constringe. Ad
This passage contains three distinct components. In the first section, which
arguably predates the rest of the passage, we are told that ambiguities in
royal documents ought not be explained or judged except by the king him-
self. This echoes the claim we encounter throughout De legibus that preemi-
nence is to be accorded to the kings will.19 Second, the opening part of the
addicio asserts that the curia of the ruler ought to bridle him when he com-
mits an injustice. The magnates may so bridle him because they are his
partners in governing the realm, and partnership implies mastery.20 Final-
ly, the latter half of the addicio invokes the principleagain employed in
other sections of De legibusthat those who misuse their authority so as to
commit an injury will be consigned to flames of woe by God the Avenger.21
It is, then, the initial section of the addicio that creates an interpretive di-
lemma when compared narrowly with the observations about the judgment
of charters and more broadly with the political theory that emerges from
the rest of De legibus. The text would appear to contradict the doctrine, es-
poused recurrently in De legibus, that the royal will answers only to God
and the law. According to the addicio, the superiority elsewhere reserved for
God and law also pertains to the great men of the realm.
Short of multiple authorship,22 does any other coherent way of account-
ing for this apparent inconsistency suggest itself? Among those scholars who
had assumed De legibus to be the work of a single hand, one of two strategies
quos dominus, Vocabo super eos gentem robustam et longinquam et ignotam, cuius linguam
ignorabunt, quae destruet eos et evellet radices eorum de terra, at a talibus iudicabuntaur, quia
subditos noluerunt iuste iudicare. Et in fine ligatis pedibus eorum et manibus, mittet eos in
caminum ignis at tenebras exteniores, ubi erit fletus et stridor dentium.] All translations from
De legibus are mine.
19. For a summary and analysis of the main body of political theory within De legibus, see
Cary J. Nederman, Bracton, Henry de, in David Miller, ed., The Blackwell Encyclopedia of
Political Thought (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), 4748.
20. The sources of this troublesome argument have been traced by Radding, in The Ori-
gins of Bractons Addicio de Cartis, 24143. Fritz Schultz, in Bracton on Kingship, English
Historical Review 60 (1945): 174, characterized the claim that he who has a partner has a mas-
ter as not intelligible. But Radding explains that according to the Civil Law the partner
and the word for partner was socius ..... could make commitments of common property only
with the consent of his partner. The socius ..... was a master in the sense that his partners free-
dom was limited by his consent....... The actions of a socius were subject to the scrutiny of his
partners. If there was any evidence of fraud, or even of negligence, he was liable to the action
pro socia which could force him to make restitution (242).
21. On Bractons conception of an avenging God, see W. C. Jordan, On Bracton and
Deus Ultor, Law Quarterly Review 87 (1972): 2529, and Gaines Post, Bracton on Kingship,
Tulane Law Review 42 (1968): 52535.
22. As suggested, for instance, by Schultz, Bracton on Kingship, 17475, and C. W. MacIl-
wain, Constitutionalism: Ancient and Modern (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1958), 69.
was commonly adopted in order to explain the significance of the addicio de

cartis in relation to other sections of the text. First, it was argued that the ad-
dicio is in fact consistent with the theory presented in the main body of De
legibus. Evidence for this claim depends upon a somewhat altered reading of
the addicio itself. For instance, H. G. Richardson understood the passage to
refer merely to the fact that the magnates possess a moral superiority over the
king, that they can bridle him by means of moral pressure and persuasion
which does not involve the actual exercise of sanctions against the Crown.23
Similarly, Brian Tierney insisted that the position defended by the addicio
did not necessarily contradict the view that the king had no superior judge
set over him.24 According to Tierney, Bracton can be rendered entirely and
literally consistent if we interpret the addicio to mean that the magnates
could oppose the kings judgments in his curia and they had a duty to do
so when his judgments were unjust, but if the king persisted in upholding a
royal act that was unjust his judgment had legal validity.25 Tierney arrived
at this interpretation by way of an ecclesiological analogy; the author of the
addicio is said to have borrowed the canonistic doctrine that the judgment
of the bishops in council outweighed that of the pope.26 But Tierneys read-
ing founders on two objections. First, there is no evidence (of either an in-
ternal or external variety) that whoever wrote the addicio was aware of the
canonistic sources Tierney cites. The supposition that the addicios creator
possessed the specific familiarity with canon law required of him by Tierney
is purely conjectural. Second, Tierneys explanation does not in fact accord
so readily with the rest of De legibus as he seems to believe. Tierneys view is
that the king retains legal superiority over his realm even when moral superi-
ority devolves to his barons. But this entails an anachronistic distinction be-
tween moral right and legal right that De legibus expressly rejects.27 Instead,
the kings legal stature as a ruler arises from the characteristics of his moral
will; the king is to be obeyed because he is the fount of justice, not merely
because he is a lawful superior.28 Thus, the magnates could never be morally
superior in Bractonian terms without also thereby achieving the legal superi-
ority that Tierney denies is implied by the addicio.
23. Richardson, Bracton, 3334.
24. Brian Tierney, Bracton on Government, Speculum 38 (1963): 315.
25. Ibid., 316.
26. Ibid., 315.
27. On the intimate relationship between law and justice in Bracton, see Nederman,
Bracton on Kingship Revisited, 7374 and nts. 7175.
28. An overview of the moral aspects of the Bractonian conception of kingship may be
found in ibid., 6568.
A second strategy designed to justify the inclusion of the addicio de

cartis as a coherent element of the political teaching of De legibus is offered
by Donald W. Hanson. In Hansons view, Bracton is an advocate of a con-
ception of double majesty, that is, the thesis that the king is the ruler
and vicar of God and therefore responsible for the protection of his sub-
jects through the administration of justice, but that affairs of the kingdom
ought to be conducted in conjunction with the magnates of the realm.29
Accordingly, the apparent contradiction of the addicio is really no more
than an expression of the dualism present in medieval English thought
between the independent powers of the king and of his magnates.30 Seen
from the royal side, the monarchs power is absolute and insusceptible to
correction; the baronial component, however, requires that the king can
rightly do nothing except what is done with the approval of the great men
of the realm. Because the idea of double majesty was so widely accepted
by the thirteenth century, Hanson believes, imitators of De legibus could in
good conscience set the addicio side-by-side with statements of royal pri-
macy and superiority.31 Of course, there is an implied tension between the
two aspects of the double majesty doctrine, but Hanson insists that this
was an historical conflict that manifested itself in the recurrent disputes
between Crown and baronage that afflicted thirteenth- and fourteenth-
century England.
It is true that the introductory comments in De legibus grant to the
magnates a pivotal role in the legislative process. But the text never explic-
itly extends to the barony a similar function in the judgment and execu-
tion of just lawthe subject of the addicio. Moreover, Hanson neglects to
mention that the magnates are conceived by De legibus to be wholly the
creation of royal authority, their powers devolving entirely from the con-
cession and pleasure of the Crown.32 Thus, no Bractonian baron could
possibly claim to be independent of the king in the sense demanded
by the idea of double majesty. It seems likely that the notion of double
majesty is more a product of Hansons historiographical creativity than a
principle actually operative during the Middle Ages. In fact, as historians
have repeatedly emphasized, English government and society was charac-
terized by deeply felt and continuous cooperation and collaboration be-
tween the king and his noble subjects, reflecting a singular community
29. Donald W. Hanson, From Kingdom to Commonwealth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
30. Ibid., 126. 31. Ibid., 122.
32. De legibus, 2: 167.
of interest uniting them and motivating magnates to associate themselves

ever more closely with the royal administration.33 Thus, Hansons dualis-
tic account of the addicios compatibility with the main body of De legibus
cannot be accorded any greater credence than Tierneys effort to construct
a strictly consistent interpretation.
The limitations of these previous efforts to reconcile the addicio de car-
tis with the remaining features of De legibus need not, however, suggest the
futility of such a project. On the contrary, by paying careful attention to
the arguments themselves, it is possible to ascribe to De legibus the coher-
ent (if apparently paradoxical) claim that the king who has no superior on
earth in some respects nevertheless must answer to a temporal superior. To
make sense of this statement requires, first of all, that we review several el-
ements of the political theory contained within the main body of De legi-
bus. In particular, we should note that De legibus ordinarily describes the
kings superiority specifically as a function of his performance of just deeds.
For example, the principle that the ruler can have no equal, let alone su-
perior, among his subjects is justified on the grounds that there ought to
be no one in his kingdom who surpasses him in doing justice [iuris].34 It
is because the kings will must be thoroughly disposed toward justice that
he voluntarily places himself under the law, which is itself presumed to
be just. The connection between justice and royal supremacy is reaffirmed
throughout De legibus. A king is created and elected to the end of doing
justice to everyone, declares the text, and thus he must surpass in power
all those subject to him. He ought to have no peer, much less a superior,
in particular in the performance of justice [iustitia].35 De legibus cites a
number of maxims, derived from legal and theological sources, to prove
that the kings office and duties oblige him to put the bridle of justice on
himself, to judge justly, and to uphold the law.36 Yet De legibus is equally
33. Michael Prestwich, The Three Edwards: War and State in England 12721377 (London:
Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 1980), 146; Thomas K. Keefe, Feudal Assessments and the Political Com-
munity under Henry II and His Sons (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1983), 26; David C. Douglas, The Norman Achievement 10501100 (Berkeley and Los Ange-
les: University of California Press, 1969), 86, 11314; Helen Maud Cam, Liberties and Commu-
nities in Medieval England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1944), 240; George Hol-
mes, The Later Middle Ages, 12721485 (New York: Norton, 1962), 68, 82; Marc Bloch, Feudal
Society, trans. L. A. Manyon, 2 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 371; M. H.
Keen, England in the Later Middle Ages (London: Methuen, 1973), 1213; and Bertie Wilkinson,
The Political Revolution of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries in England, Speculum
24 (1949): 5023.
34. De legibus, 2: 33. 35. Ibid., 2: 305.
36. Ibid., 2: 3056.
unequivocal on the point that no one can force the king to do or give jus-
tice; he alone is responsible (before God) for conforming his own will to
the dictates of ius.37 It is in precisely this sense that the Bractonian king is
without human superiornon sub homines sed sub deo et sub leges (not un-
der man but under God and under law).
Still, it is one matter to say that no man can compel the king to do jus-
tice, quite another to assert that none can restrain the king if he has com-
mitted a positive injustice. In other words, to dispute those determina-
tions of the monarch that have a basis in law and the precepts of justice
and equity is to presume against the Crowns superiority. The competence
of various kings in their role as judge is bound to be unevenly distributed;
some rulers will certainly be more accomplished, wise, merciful, and fair in
their decisions. Yet such variations do not imply that the king has wished
or sought to bring about any harm to those over whom he reigns. It is for
this reason that if the monarch refuses to correct or amend his act when
so petitioned, his will cannot properly be doubted or contravened.38 God
will judge the maleficent intent of an incompetent ruler;39 private per-
sons, whose knowledge of their masters heart is fallible, are not appropri-
ately positioned to form the proper conclusions.40 In the present regard,
the concern of De legibus seems to be with those men who, having received
due process and royal judgment, still feel ill-done by the outcome. There
were many individuals of this description in the Middle Ages (as today)
and the message of De legibus to them is: Do not quarrel with what has
been determined as just by your superior; it is his duty, not yours, to apply
the principles of justice and law to particular cases, and you must abide by
his determination; if the king was in error in a culpable manner, he will re-
ceive a far greater penalty in the hereafter.
In no way, however, is this problem assimilable to the doctrine of the
addicio de cartis, namely, to show that the commission of a clear and fla-
grant injury on the part of the king requires human response and restraint.
We find a similar issue addressed by De legibus in the assessment of the cul-
pability of inferior judges whose determinations are unjust or ill-founded.
37. Ibid., 2: 2627.

38. Ibid., 2: 33.
39. On the role of intent (affectio) in Bractons analysis of justice, see ibid., 2: 23.
40. Thus, even so strong a medieval opponent of tyranny as John of Salisbury ultimately
refused to sanction individual initiative in the correction of an evil ruler; John instead regarded
action against a tyrant as the work of God Himself. See Cary J. Nederman, A Duty to Kill:
John of Salisburys Theory of Tyrannicide, Review of Politics 50 (Summer 1988): 36589.
In the instance of a judge who willingly decides incorrectly, he makes the

case his own, and will be bound to restore damages.41 In short, judgment
given with malicious intent results in the judge himself becoming respon-
sible for rectifying the consequent injury. On the other hand, if incompe-
tence or mere inexperience yields a fault, the judge may not be blamed or
made to pay for the injury, even if reversal and correction is ordered by a
superior court. De legibus observes that the eventual disposition of judicial
misconduct depends upon whether
the judge or justice does this with certain knowledge, in which case he will be
bound by reason of maleficence for deciding badly and knowingly perverting just
judgment . . . . If, however, he acts out of ignorance or inexperience, he will be
bound only partially by reason of maleficence, so that punishment will be mitigat-
ed by reason of his inexperience.42
Thirteenth-century lawyers were very well able to distinguish between a

judgment aimed at the commission of an iniuria and one that produced
an unintentional injustice. De legibus explains that iniuria can be said to
encompass all those things that are not done rightly, with the result that
maleficent and nonmaleficent acts are distinguished by the intention or
will with which they are done.43 An erroneous judgment rendered with-
out ill-willwithout intending iniuriamerits vastly different treatment
than one in which the evil was sought or planned.
By logical extension, this principle may equally be applied to judicial
decisions arising from a royal source. Should a royal deed be maliciously
injurious, and performed with unambiguous intent, it must be correct-
ed. In this regard, the doctrine of the addicio de cartis coincides with legal
precepts found elsewhere in De legibus. According to the addicio, if a king
willfully invalidates or misinterprets a charter in order to harm its possess-
or, the magnates of the kingdom would be duty-bound to rectify the inju-
ry (or to compel the king to do so). And should the peers, whether because
of fear or self-interest, allow the injustice to stand, then the community of
the realm may appeal to God for the remedy of divine judgment. Since the
addicio de cartis itself very strictly limits the functions of the barons to the
amendment of iniuria, an interpretation of the addicio can be made to
harmonize with the rest of De legibus. 44
41. De legibus, 1: 280. 42. Ibid., 3: 338.

43. Ibid., 2: 289. For parallel remarks, see ibid., 2: 283.
44. Another passage of De legibus would seem to confirm this reading of the addicio. In
The ability of the magnates to restrain their ruler when he commits an

iniuria, while still not violating the principle of royal superiority, in turn
depends crucially upon a precise understanding of the royal will (voluntas).
The kings will, properly speaking, is conceived to be a careful imitation
of the will of God. And the essential characteristic of the divine voluntas,
De legibus insists, is its absolute and unwavering orientation to do justice:
God is neither variable nor inconstant in his dispositions and wills [vol-
untatibus] but His voluntas is constant and perpetual.45 Likewise, to speak
of the royal willthe will of Gods vicar and minister on earthmust be
to speak of a will inclined invariantly toward the performance of virtuous
and just deeds, albeit imperfectly so. The justice of the king stems from a
good will insofar as the just man has the will to give each his right, and
thus that voluntas is called just which is constant and unfailing.46 This
sense of the royal voluntas as distinctively just seems to be conveyed in the
declaration of De cartis that the will of the king must be awaited.47
But what if the monarchs good voluntas is not forthcoming, so that
malicious injury rather than justice occurs? This is the kernel of the prob-
lem addressed by the addicio de cartis. In Bractonian terms, what the king
does injuriously is not done by the kings good will at all, but by an arbi-
trary will that cannot be construed as the royal voluntas, because it has no
characteristic orientation toward justice.48 That is to say, the royal will is
of a special character, being the fount of justice in the realm, which is why
the discussion of the assize of royal disseisin, De legibus examines the recourse available to an
individual who has been dispossessed and ejected from a holding unjustly by the act of a king.
One may petition the ruler to rectify his iniuria in the hope that he will conform his voluntas
to the law. Should he fail to make good the wrongful confiscation, however, sufficiat ei pro po-
ena quod deum expectat ultorum, quo dicit, Mihi vindictam et ego retribuam, nisi sit qui di-
cat quod universitas regni et baronagium suum hoc facere possit et debeat in curia ipsius regis
(ibid, 3: 43). This passage shares an important feature with the addicio de cartis, namely, that
in both texts the barons are not viewed as challenging or coopting the kings unique power to
render just judgment. Rather, their role is limited to the restoration of what was unjustly deter-
mined, by constraining the king to amend his flagrant iniuria.
45. De legibus, 2: 23.
46. Ibid., 2: 23.
47. An interpretation that has already been suggested by Gaines Post, Bracton as Jurist
and Theologian on Kingship, in Stephan Kuttner, ed., Proceedings of the Third International
Congress of Medieval Canon Law (The Vatican: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1971), 121, nt. 33,
although Post then immediately proceeds to describe the addicio itself as a glaring contradic-
tion of what Bracton has just said.
48. For a more thorough treatment of the distinction between an arbitrary and a good
will, see Post, Bracton on Kingship, 538, 553, and Post, Bracton as Jurist and Theologian on
Kingship, 118.
the king is not under man, but solely under God and law. Gaines Post ob-
served that the Bractonian royal (good) will enjoys many of the proper-
ties of recta ratio (right reason).49 This suggests that the king truly uses his
voluntas only when he employs it in accordance with right and justice.50
Should a ruler instead will what is injurious, then he has not willed it as
would a king. He thereby renders himself subject to the same correction
to which the unjust determinations of any other person are susceptible. To
use terms intimately familiar to medieval authors, the exercise of the royal
voluntas is coextensive with the kings iurisdictio. Where the rulers iuris-
dictio does not extendsuch as to the prescription of the legitimate rights
of subjects, including their dominium51a genuine royal will must be im-
potent. In short, the king forfeits his superiority by relinquishing his roy-
al (good) will in favor of an arbitrary will when he does what is malicious
and detrimental to his subjects. And it is in this sense that the addicio de
cartis stipulates that the king may be forced by his magnates to correct his
injustices.
This account of voluntas ought to be sufficient to erase completely the
alleged inconsistency between the addicio de cartis and the main doctrine
of De legibus. For the claim that the magnates should bridle the king
who commits a flagrant injury means merely that they are obliged to cor-
rect and restore that which was never done by the truly royal will in the
first place. Since the kings superiority is premised on his doing justice,
and since he can truly will only what is righteous, the forceable imposition
upon the king to rectify an iniuria does not contradict the principle that
no external human authority may compel him to judge justly. The king
whose will conforms to justice, or at least refrains from doing harm,52 will
49. Ibid., 11820.

50. That the king himself recognizes the essentially good nature of his will is demonstrat-
ed in De legibus by the public oath that he is required to take at his coronation; the king-elect
promises ut in omnibus iudiciis aequitatem praecipiat et misericordiam ..... ut per iustitiam
suam firma pace guadeant universi (De legibus, 2: 304). On the background to the Bractonian
use of the coronation oath, see Post, Bracton on Kingship, 53544.
51. On the relationship between iurisdictio and dominium in medieval political thought
generally, see Janet Coleman, Medieval Discussions of Property: Ratio and Dominium Ac-
cording to John of Paris and Marsiglio of Padua, History of Political Thought 4 (Summer 1983):
20928, and Coleman, Dominium in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Political Thought
and Its Seventeenth-Century Heirs: John of Paris and Locke, Political Studies 33 (March 1985):
73100.
52. We ought not to forget that medieval authors could distinguish perfectly well between
the acts of rulers that were of an intentionally malicious character, on the one hand, and be-
nign neglect, on the other. Indeed, in the twelfth century already, John of Salisbury was quite
be a superior whom none may challenge. Should an injury be committed,

however, the justice that demarcates and defines the royal voluntas is no-
where present, and the king must be made to undo the unjust results of
his arbitrary act or decision. In short, no inconsistency is posed by the ad-
dicio de cartis so long as we understand that whenever De legibus says the
king is not sub homines, the reference is to his capacity to do good, whereas
the addicio relates to the consequences of a rulers determination to behave
maliciously.
This conclusion does not quite put an end to the theoretical puzzle
posed by the addicio de cartis. We may still want to know why the passage
specifies that the magnates uniquely become responsible for reforming the
flagrant injuries of the king, that is, that the peers of the realm are afford-
ed a position of superiority under the circumstances. In the addicio itself,
we are merely confronted with a play on words to the effect that the curia
is in partnership with the king, and that whoever has a partner has a mas-
ter. Charles M. Radding has shown that the source of the latter proverb
may be traced to Romanist texts on the law of partnership.53 But more sig-
nificantly, the principle that the king is in partnership with his magnates
certainly accords with remarks elsewhere in De legibus. Diverse powers are
constituted under the king, the text observes,
for example, earls [comites] who take their name from companion [comitatu] or
partnership [sociatate], who can also be called consuls from counselling [consulen-
do]. Kings associate such to themselves for ruling Gods people, ordaining them
with great honor and power and name when equipping them with . . . the sword
signifying defense of the realm and the country.54
In other words, De legibus allows the magnates the role of partners in gov-
erning the kingdom and in protecting the interests of the populace.
The association between ruler and baronage would seem to corre-
spond to the privileges under royal jurisdiction which the king may trans-
fer outside of his ordinary control. The possession of a privilege, while
hardly irrevocable, cannot generally be disturbed. What the king once
able to praise the prince who, while doing no great good, at least did no great evil: For indeed
princes are reputed for justice even when they refrain from injury; and their faculty for harm is
the very substance of their merit. To refuse evil is a great thing in them, even if they do no great
goodness, provided that they do not permit their subjects to indulge in evil (Policraticus, ed.
Cary J. Nederman [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990], 55).
53. See note 20 above.
54. De legibus, 2: 32.
consigns he cannot resume nor give to others, without injuring right, ex-
cept by request of the possessor or due to negligence.55 If, on the one hand,
the magnate to whom privileges are granted acquires a set of private pow-
ers with which no other may ordinarily interfere, then at the same time
he also takes on a set of obligations toward the kingdom. Ordinarily, the
barons have a duty to fight with the king in order to defend the coun-
try and the people of God,56 to take counsel with the king in matters of
legislation,57 and to participate in judgments of the royal curia in difficult
and unclear cases when new and unusual matters arise which have not be-
fore been seen in the realm.58 In sum, the magnate truly does become a
royal partner in numerous instances concerned with the governance of the
realm; he is, as Walter Burley would say in the fourteenth century, a com-
principatur, a coruler, along with the king.59 Thus, it is not solely in the
addicio de cartis, but throughout De legibus, that the baronage is accorded
obligations that encompass the realm as a whole.
More exceptionally, De legibus allows that the magnates as a group may
be duty-bound to supplant the king as judge in his own court. This be-
comes apparent, for example, in the lengthy treatment of the adjudication
of lese-majesty, which is considered to be a crime exceeding all others.60
Lese-majesty creates an unusual problem. Where normally the Crown re-
tains jurisdiction in the case of heinous capital crimes, when lese-majesty
is charged the king himself becomes plaintiff in the action. Because one
ought not to be both plaintiff and judge in the same trial, De legibus insists
that the monarch must be excluded from personal jurisdiction over lese-
majesty proceedings. Nor may the royal justices alone replace their master
under these circumstancesunless perhaps the trespass against the king is
slightsince, as we are reminded, an official of the court represents the
person of the king whose deputy he is.61 De legibus resolves the dilemma
of who may judge in cases of lese-majesty by placing the burden of deter-
mination upon the baronage:
55. Ibid., 2: 169. 56. Ibid., 2: 3233.

57. Ibid., 2: 19, 305. 58. Ibid., 2: 21.
59. On Walter Burleys theory of corulership, see Cary J. Nederman, Kings, Peers and
Parliament: Virtue and Corulership in Walter Burleys Commentarius in VIII Libros Politicorum
Aristotelis, Albion 24 (Fall 1992): 391407.
60. De legibus, 2:.334.
61. Ibid., 2: 337; cf. ibid., 2: 307.
The curia and peers should judge, so that malfeasance does not remain unpun-
ished, in particular where life and members or disinheritance is involved, when the
king himself must be an actor in court. . . . The peers ought to be associated with
the justices so that the king either by himself or through his justices without his
peers is not actor and judge.62
In other words, while the expertise of judicial magistrates should be in-

cluded in any deliberations regarding lese-majesty, the judgment of the
magnates is absolutely necessary to the resolution of the case. Only a court
that contains the peers is fully competent to reach a decision, presumably
because they have acquired a preeminent obligation to serve and protect
the realm. Thus, it is admitted that there are special situations in which
the baronage must be raised to a position of judgment over the king, albeit
when the injury is allegedly committed against the Crown rather than by
it. The description of the lese-majesty proceeding we find in De legibus is
thereby indicative of the extent to which it might be possible to impute to
the magnates authority for playing a judicial function in the realm when
the king is incapable of doing so.
It perhaps needs to be emphasized that the public responsibility for the
correction of royal misdeeds and injuries must be strictly limited to the
class of magnates. This is indicated in the addicios insistence that should
the curia refuse its duty and allow the kings injury to stand unrectified, the
populace at large has recourse to God only. The addicio consequently ex-
cludes any effort of nonnoble subjects to bridle the king on their own. The
explanation for the addicios proviso is once again found in the main text
of De legibus. There is a clear distinction to be drawn between the peers of
the realmwho are charged with aiding the king in governing his peo-
pleand the population at large, which is merely subject to his power
and enjoys no further rights.63 In other words, just as the addicio shows no
sympathy for the expression of truly popular grievances in a political fo-
rum, so it relegates the kings lesser subjects to the role of obedience only.
By no means was this an exceptional view during the Middle Ages, but it
underscores the singular character of the privileges ascribed to the baron-
age by both De legibus and the addicio. Magnates were endowed with a
measure of responsibility for political involvement to which no other men
could possibly aspire. The uniqueness of the peers place is suggested by the
62. Ibid., 2: 337.

63. Ibid., 2: 34.
remark that to bring the rights of earldoms and baronies . . . to naught

would be simultaneously to precipitate the destruction of the realm, since
it is of earldoms and baronies that it is said to be constituted.64 For this
reason, the addicio concedes to magnates a special authority for the amend-
ment of injuries that no other social group could possibly be afforded. The
baronage is conceived to have a vested interest in the good and just gov-
ernment of the kingdom which lesser men could never share.
Although the doctrine of the addicio de cartis may intelligibly and
plausibly be rendered consistent with the political theory of De legibus as
a whole, no conclusions ought to be drawn about the motives behind the
authorship of the addicio. It may be, as recent scholars have maintained,
that the inclusion of the addicio was the result of historical concerns stem-
ming from the Monfort Rebellion against King Henry III and its after-
math.65 All the present chapter has sought to demonstrate is that whoever
wrote the addicio and for whatever reasons, the author framed his contri-
bution in such a way as to be strictly congruent with the political and legal
ideas found elsewhere in De legibus. For this reason, rather than because of
extrinsic historical considerations, the later medieval imitators of De legi-
bus repeated the words of the addicio without alteration or comment. Eng-
lish lawyers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries understood perfect-
ly well that the king who committed harmful and injurious acts was not
comparable to the monarch whose will was good and whose intent was
pure.
What is not so clear is whether the legal minds of Bractons age took
the teaching of the addicio to be some sort of legitimation of revolutionary
baronial action against the king. One venerable line of interpretation from
the seventeenth century until the present day places De legibus at the ori-
gin of a distinctively English tradition of resistance to illegitimate author-
ity.66 But there seems better evidence to suggest that the addicio presumes
the same sort of structure proposed by the English pseudo-lawbook Specu-
lum justiciariorum, probably written early in the fourteenth century. The
Speculum observed that:
64. Ibid., 2: 222.

65. Radding, The Origins of Bractons Addicio de Cartis, 24346; and Hanson, From
Kingdom to Commonwealth, 12633.
66. Locke invokes the name of Bracton, for instance, as an authority for his own justifi-
cation of revolution in Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1988), 475. For a modern reading of the addicio as an incitement to rebellion,
see Lapsley, Bracton and the Authorship of the Addicio de Cartis.
while the king should have no peer in his land, in order nevertheless that if the
king by his wrong sins against any of his people, none of his commissioners should
be judge and party [to the action], it was arranged as law that the king has com-
panions in order to hear and determine in the parliaments all briefs and plaints
of wrongs of the king, the queen and their children, and their kind, for whose
wrongs one could not otherwise have common justice. These companions are now
named earls [contes], after the Latin comites.67
The procedure advocated by the Speculum is foreshadowed by De legibuss

account of lese-majesty hearings. As the similarities suggest, we are hardly
justified in describing the addicio de cartis as the work of an ardent revolu-
tionist, any more than as a coherent statement of constitutionalist or any
other political doctrine.68 Rather, the addicio de cartis represents the same
sort of theoretical stance that we find throughout De legibus: the attempt
to identify judicial and legal remedies to the problems posed by personal
monarchic government.
67. Speculum justiciariorum, ed. W.J. Whittaker (London: Selden Society, 1895), 7. Similar
sentiments were behind the Ordinances of 1311, the Statue of York, and analogous fourteenth-
century attempts to specify the kings obligations to his realm and subjects.
68. The desire to place the political theory of De legibus into a consistent and clearly mod-
ern framework has been intensely pursued by some scholars; see, for instance, R. F. Treharne,
The Constitutional Problem in Thirteenth-Century England, in T. A. Sandquist and M. R.
Powicke, eds., Essays in Medieval History Presented to Bertie Wilkinson (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1969), 4960. The origins of such efforts to coopt Bractonian thought for pur-
poses of authorizing more purely modern political doctrines are discussed in chapter 19.
7
P o l i t ica l R e p r e s e n t at i o n
Modern Theory and Medieval Practices
m o n g t h e various contributions identified by histori-

cally minded scholars as medieval bequests to modern
thought, few have been as widely proposed as political represen-
tation.1 For some authors, this phenomenon can be traced to the
widespread use of representation in the construction of ecclesi-
ological, especially conciliar, doctrines. Brian Tierney claims that
representation has an important genealogy in canonistic writings
that crystallized as a political theory in the fourteenth and fif-
teenth centuries among conciliarsts. Although ultimately failing
to plant firm roots in the soil of ecclesiology, Tierney observes,
the ideas of the great medieval Churchmen on representative
government had more influence in the secular sphere.......2 By
contrast, other scholars have located in the emergence of parlia-
mentary institutions and practices in the territorial kingdoms of
Europe the locus of representative thought. As Antony Black has
remarked, There was considerable continuity between medieval
parliamentary traditions and the emergence of modern represen-
1. Overviews of the topic may be found in Hasso Hofmann, Reprstentation:
Studien zur Wort- und Begriffsgechte von der Antike bis ins 19. Jahrhundert (Ber-
lin: Duncker & Humblot, 1974), esp. 38285. Also useful is Adalbert Podlech,
Reprsentation, in Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck, eds.,
Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, vol. 5 (Berlin: Klett-Cotta, 1984), 50947.
2. Brian Tierney, The Idea of Representation in the Medieval Councils of the
West, Concilium 187 (1983): 29.
99
tative government.3 Regardless of whether they look to spiritual or to sec-

ular institutions and ideas, medievalists seem generally satisfied that politi-
cal representation clearly originates during the Latin Middle Ages.4
Interestingly, however, the leading interpretations of the medieval sourc-
es of modern political representation have not exercised much impact upon
recent political theorists who have analyzed the concept.5 In her classic book
on the topic, Hanna Pitkin only managed a few scattered lines about rep-
resentation during the Middle Ages,6 while a few years later A. H. Birch
wrote eight pages on medieval concepts and practices that contains no
theoretical discussion and barely manages to move beyond the shores of
England.7 More recently, Bernard Manin groups medieval ideas and prac-
tices mainly with the classical, prerepresentative traditions of Greece and
Rome,8 and F. R. Ankersmit, despite his self-proclaimed historical (and
historicist) orientation, is entirely silent about the Middle Ages.9 In gener-
3. Antony Black, Political Thought in Europe, 12501450 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-

sity Press, 1992), 162.
4. See Arthur P. Monahan, Consent, Coercion and Limit: The Medieval Origins of Par-
liamentary Democracy (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1987), esp.
11133; Jeannine Quillet, Community, Counsel and Representation, in J. H. Burns, ed., The
Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1988), 55472; and Kenneth Pennington, Representation in Medieval Canon Law, in Mas-
simo Faggioli and Alberto Melloni, eds., Repreasentatio: Mapping a Keyword for Churches and
Governance (Munster: LIT Verlag, 2006), 2140. A rare dissenting note is sounded by Bernard
Guene, States and Rulers in Later Medieval Europe, trans. Juliet Vale (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982),
17187, who held that a break occurs between late medieval practices of representation and the
subsequent rise of modern representative government.
5. For a representative selection of the scholarship, see J. Roland Pennock and John W.
Chapman, eds., Representation, Nomos 10 (New York: Atherton Press, 1968); of the nineteen
chapters, only two have any significant historical orientation. Most recently, see Andrew Re-
hfeld, The Concept of Constituency: Political Representation, Democratic Legitimacy, and Institu-
tional Design (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), in which Montesquieu is the
earliest figure examined; and Nadia Urbinati, Representative Democracy: Principles and Geneal-
ogy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), which insists upon the modern invention of
representative regimes.
6. Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, The Concept of Representation (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1967), 3, 24142.
7. A. H. Birch, Representation (London: Macmillan, 1972), 2229.
8. Bernard Manin, The Principles of Representative Government (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), 5167, 8790.
9. F. R. Ankersmit, Political Representation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002);
see 1532 for his historicism, and 91132 for his reconstruction of the development of politi-
cal representation. A useful critique of Ankersmits general line of interpretation is provided by
H. S. Jones, Political Uses of the Conception of Representation, Finnish Yearbook of Political
Thought 4 (2000): 1536 (with a reply by Ankersmit on 3741).
p o l i t ica l r e p r e s e n t at i o n 101
al, the historiography of representation, at least among political theorists,

does not seem to have moved significantly beyond Rousseaus declaration
nearly 250 years ago that the idea of Representatives is modern ..... mod-
ern peoples which believe themselves free have representatives....... [But]
the instant a people gives itself Representatives, it ceases to be free; it ceas-
es to be.10 Even those who dispute Rousseaus conclusion about the en-
slaving characteristics of representative government apparently endorse his
chronology. The standard narrative of modern representation starts with
Thomas Hobbes and makes important stops at John Locke, the American
Federalists and Anti-Federalists, Montesquieu, Edmund Burke, and John
Stuart Mill before arriving at the contemporary conditions of liberal de-
mocracies. While Rousseau also averred that the notion of representative
government comes to us from feudal Government, he clearly believed
that this paternity is not especially germane, since modern representation
claims to embody the freedom of the population whereas feudal represen-
tation had been grounded in the degradation and dishonor of the hu-
man race.11
One may thus pose the question of whether, as a matter of historical
record, Rousseau and his latter-day adherents are wrong concerning the
modernity of representation. On the face of it, the evidence seems to sup-
port the judgment that they have made a significant error. The language of
representation was rife in Europe during the Middle Agesan inescapable
presence in legal, political, theological, and ecclesiological writings. Many
scholars have rigorously documented the use of the terminology associ-
ated with representation in a wide array of texts.12 Yet the answer about
Rousseaus accuracy ultimately depends upon which concept of representa-
tion one has in mind. While there are several senses in which Rousseau is
clearly in error, in one important way he was perfectly correct. Specifically,
the theory of political representationprecisely the principle that has prob-
ably received the most attention since the seventeenth centurylacks a
clear medieval ancestry. By a theory of political representation, I refer most
generally to a philosophical or conceptual basis for the relationship be-
10. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. Vic-
tor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 114, 115 (3.15.6, 11)
11. Ibid., 114 (3.15.6).
12. See, in particular, Antonio Marongiu, Medieval Parliaments: A Comparative Study,
trans. S. J. Woolf (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1968), esp. 1941 and 22347; Gaines Post,
Studies in Medieval Legal Thought: Public Law and the State, 11001322 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1964), 61238; and Black, Political Thought in Europe, 162185.
tween a principal and an agent such that the agent is able to act in a bind-
ing fashion on behalf of yet independent from the principal.13 In general,
the nature of the relation between principal and agent may be construed
variously as symbolic, according to which the representative embodies or
personifies a community or group of individuals, or as delegated, on the
basis of which the representative is deemed to act solely upon the mandate
or direct orders of his constituents. Political representation characteristi-
cally involves elements of both symbolic and delegated authority at once.
Political representation thus posits that in at least some measure the rep-
resentative must simultaneously concern herself/himself with the interests
of constituents (regardless of their wishes) and the wishes of constituents
(regardless of their interests). There may be significant room for shading
in one direction or another, but both aspects need to be present. In turn,
theories of representative government rest upon the inescapable assump-
tion that a division exists between what people want and what is in their
broader interests, such that wishes and interests are seldom, if ever, identi-
cal. As a consequence, people need representatives to balance out and me-
diate between the dual factors of interests and wishes. The consent of the
governed constitutes one, but not the sole, salient feature of political rep-
resentation.
I contend that political representation as a theoretical precept was not
present in the writings of medieval authors, regardless of whether they
were addressing the Church or the secular polity, at least through the late
fifteenth century. When the discourse of representation was deployed dur-
ing the Middle Ages, as frequently happened, its occurrence failed to con-
vey the unique characteristics of the theory of political representation enu-
merated above. Rather, medieval approaches to representation clustered
around one of two alternatives: spiritual representation and practical
representation, which I shall explain momentarily. In the present chap-
ter, I also examine one hard case that has been widely held to embody a
full-blooded theory of political representation: Marsiglio of Paduas De-
fensor pacis. Finally, I shall propose a possible solution to the question of
why medieval Europe does not seem to have embraced a theory of politi-
cal representation, illustrating my answer with reference to the writings of
Sir John Fortescue.
I have already alluded to one important line of historical research, ac-
cording to which the major sources of representation derive from concil-
13. For this definition, see Pitkin, The Concept of Representation, 20940.
iarism, that is, the medieval doctrine that primary authority within the
Church rests with the General Council.14 Although it had antecedents
among earlier legal and political authors, conciliarism emerged in the late
fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries as a means of resolving the Great
Schism, when multiple claimants asserted competing claims to be the rec-
ognized pope. The General Council, composed of delegates from through-
out Christendom, was regarded by its proponents as the only valid source
of genuine Christian doctrine. Hence, it pertained to the Council to ap-
point and remove ecclesiastical officials, proclaim and interpret canon law,
and give final authority to every action undertaken by the temporal insti-
tutions of the Church.
Is this Council representative? The ultimate purpose of the Council is
the canonical interpretation of Holy Scripture. Such interpretation is not
a subjective affair, a matter pertaining to the wills of individual persons or
even of the historical Church as a whole, because the truths of Scripture
are fixed for all time. It is up to the Council to discover and articulate these
eternal truths when issues of doubtful understanding arise. The representa-
tive quality of the Council stems from the fact that it ultimately represents
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as manifested through successive genera-
tions of members of the body of the faithful.15 The Council is representa-
tive not because that it acts at the behest of some party, but rather in the
sense that it codifies the truth of Scripture that is known to all believers
past, present, and future. Thus, there is no difference between the real in-
terests of the faithful and their actual wishes. In this sense, the General
Council of the Church does not strictly speaking perform the duties of a
politically representative body because it does not have to balance between
wishes and interests.
We see this general conception of spiritual representation at work, for
instance, in the thought of the fifteenth-century Parisian theologian Jean
Gerson.16 For Gerson, the acts of the General Council are without moral
defect and may therefore always be expected to reach the correct determi-
14. For the most recent statement of this view, see Francis Oakley, The Conciliarist Tra-
dition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church, 13001870 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2003).
15. This is evident, for example, in the conciliar writings of the young Aeneas Silvius Pic-
colomini, who repeatedly insists that the Council represents the universal Church in just this
sense. See the collection of his correspondence, Reject Aeneas, Accept Pius: Selected Letters of
Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II), 14051464, ed. Thomas M. Izbicki, Philip Krey, and
Gerald Christianson (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006).
16. For more detailed examination of Gersons ideas, see chapter 12 below.
nation in all matters pertaining to the faith. On the face of it, the perfec-
tion of the General Council is problematic. But Gerson reasons that the
General Council is thoroughly and invariably representative of the entire
Church.17 The Council may thus be conceived as the sole and incontro-
vertible voice of the corporate mystical body of the Church. When the
Council speaks, its proclamations do not reflect the private concerns of
its membership but the true needs and purposes of the total ecclesiastical
corporation. The General Council does not have a will of its own; rather
it expresses the genuine and singular will of the Church community. As a
mystical body, the Church has only one will and only one set of interests;
its common utility is to be found in the defense and dissemination of the
orthodox faith and correct morals, a universal and self-consistent doctrine.
The Church, in sum, is the bearer of indeviable wisdom18 with regard to
its own goals and ends. In view of its organization, furthermore, the wel-
fare of the corporate Church is characteristically distinct from and supe-
rior to the private benefit of any of its particular members. Within the ec-
clesiastical setting, the communal Church is the final arbiter of all matters
touching upon the beliefs and conduct of the faithful.
By extension, the General Council derives its infallible status from the
special and privileged access that the whole ecclesiastical community en-
joys to the absolute knowledge of its own common good.19 As represen-
tative of the Church, the Council is simultaneously representative of that
welfare of which the mystical body alone on earth is the ultimate judge.
An individual will can never represent this common utility infallibly and
without fail, for it is too easy a matter for a single person (or even a small
group) to be tempted by passion and led astray into sin. But the corporate
structure of the General Council, insofar as it resembles the structure of
the entire Church, is not believed to be capable of entering into a similar
path of immorality.20 The perfect wisdom with which the Church is en-
dowed is explicitly transferred to the decrees of a General Council. And
such perfection renders the Council functionally supreme in the determi-
nation of faith and morals, including the conduct of a pope who abuses
the powers pertaining to his office.
In a sense, then, the pope does rule with the consent of the Church
17. See Jean Gerson, In recessu regis Romanorum, in Palemon Glorieux, ed., Oeuvres Com-
pltes, 10 vols. (Paris: Descle, 19601973), 5: 479.
18. Jean Gerson, De potestate ecclesiastica, in Glorieux, ed., Oeuvres Compltes, 6: 233.
19. See Brian Tierney, The Origins of Papal Infallability (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 4649.
20. Gerson, De potestate ecclesiastica, 240.
manifested through its unique representative, the General Council.21 But

such consent is characteristically corporate, a function of a higher ethical
and religious consensus. Neither Gerson nor (so far as can be ascertained)
any other proponent of conciliar supremacy stipulated that the General
Council ought to canvas and reflect the actual, empirical wills of individ-
ual Church members. The Council is not beholden to particular interests
within the Church in the manner of an elected representative in a modern
republic who is bound to be responsible and responsive to his constitu-
ency. For the Council is under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit, and
the Church itself has only one genuine interest to be served: the perpetua-
tion of a unified orthodoxy, about which there could be no legitimate dif-
ference of opinion. Therefore, the General Council concerns itself solely
with matters arising from the identification and enforcement of catholic
doctrine, that is, with the truer and higher purpose necessarily shared by
all Christians.22 In this, the faithful at large were effectively treated as mere
subjects rather than as full citizens; their actual participation as individu-
al members of the Church was not essential or important. We must never
confuse the mystical body of the Church with an aggregate of its particular
members. In view of the inescapable demand for a single canon of beliefs,
the General Council cannot be representative of nor even seek consulta-
tion with the diversity of real opinions and interests among individuals
within the mundane Church.
The other major attempt to find a medieval foundation for represen-
tation, as I have suggested, looks to one of the features of the practice of
European noble culture (often termed the feudal contract), namely, the
requirement that a political superior (up to and including the king) seek
auxilium et concilium (aid and counsel) from those bound to him by
oath when undertaking any enterprise that requires their cooperation.23
In effect, consent had to be given by inferiors to the plans of superiors.
The question naturally was posed: Is such consent purely personal or does
the approval of those present to render it obligate those who are absent
(whether by choice or necessity)? This simple question sparked the begin-
21. Gerson, In recessu regis Romanorum, 479.

22. Ibid., 47879.
23. For what follows, see Marongiu, Medieval Parliaments; Post, Studies in Medieval Legal
Thought, 91126; and P. S. Barnwell and Marco Mostert, eds., Political Assemblies in the Earlier
Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003). The use of the term feudalism as a description of this
system of legal and political has come under serious attack from Susan Reynolds, Fiefs and Vas-
sals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
ning of debate about representation. If those who did not expressly con-
sent (say, to a military levy or a change in customary law) could be bound
by those who did, then a representative relationship might be said to exist
between the present and the absent. The issue received no definitive solu-
tion, but its very expression opened up a new political problem that had
not been raised in either the city-empires of the ancient world nor in pre-
vious systems of monarchic rule.
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the royal and provin-
cial councils (composed of nobles both secular and clerical) in which the
representation question had first been posed enlarged their membership
to include delegates from main urban centers and also sometimes from
the lesser nobility. Since it was impractical for all urban denizens and ru-
ral knights to participate directly, these assemblies (such as the Parliament
in England, the Estates General in France, and the Cortes in Spain) were
manned by delegates elected or appointed by their localities. Were these
deputies representatives in the modern sense? It depends upon the au-
thority that they were given. In many cases, and often in spite of the de-
mands made in the summons to attend, the delegates lacked plena potes-
tas, that is, the full power to answer and consent for their constituencies
without consultation. Only when the constituents expressly granted ple-
na potestas could a deputy consent in the manner of a representative. The
struggle between prince and locality over the granting of full powers per-
sisted for several centuries, such that it is anachronistic to call all medieval
assemblies representative institutions in the political sense.
More significantly, medieval practices of representation did not trans-
late into a theory; representation language is completely absent in treatis-
es that discussed early parliamentary institutions. Even in England, where
the practice of representative government was perhaps most advanced and
extensive during the later Middle Ages, writings that mention Parliament
are noticeably silent about the status of those who attended the assem-
blies. Rather, these works treat Parliament as an extension of the kings
customary responsibility to obtain the concilium et auxilium of the mem-
bers of the feudal nobility who owe his allegiance. Thus, the anonymous
early fourteenth-century Speculum justiciariorum imagined a past golden
age in which the king determined to assemble his earls and ordained for
perpetual usage that twice each year, or more often if necessary in times of
peace, they assemble themselves in London in order to hold parliament
about the guidance of Gods people, how men should protect themselves
from sin, should live quietly, and should receive justice by regular practic-
es and sacred judgments.......24 Several decades later, the anonymous Mo-

dus tenendi parliamentum, again imagining a practice said to originate with
William the Conqueror, insisted that participation in Parliament, wheth-
er of laymen or clergy, derives from tenure alone, unless their presence is
for other causes useful and necessary to Parliament. The Modus does call
for election of delegates from the Cinque Ports, the knights of the shire,
the cities, and the boroughs, with the understanding that those elected are
authorized to answer, undertake, state, and do on behalf of their con-
stituencies as if everyone ..... were himself personally present.25 In other
words, plena potestas is imputed to delegates, but only by assertion; there
is no attempt to reflect on the nature of the powers of those elected or to
justify them in terms of an elaborated theory of representation. More im-
portantly, Parliament is nothing and can do nothing without the king: its
ordinances are binding only once approved by the king, who can amend
them at his will;26 and the kings presence alone is essential to the conduct
of parliamentary business, since if any of the said grades below the King
be absent, provided they have all been forewarned by due and correct sum-
mons of parliament, nonetheless it shall be considered to be complete.27
For the author of the Modus, Parliament remains the kings creature, as it
does for Walter Burley, who in his 1340 commentary on Aristotles Politics
remarks that the king convokes parliamentcomprising the king and
the nobles and wise of the kingdomfor considering arduous business.
This has the effect of strengthening the concord and friendship be-
tween king and kingdom and of rendering each inhabitant content with
his grade under the king.28 Representation and attendant concepts play
no role in the assembly of Parliament for Burley, since that institution em-
anates essentially and primarily from the office of the king, not as a reflec-
tion of a popular will or as a means of holding accountable the kings use
of executive power. The absence of the language of representation in these
documents, then, mirrors a lack of theoretical appreciation of practices
that we have come to think of in modern times as tokens of representative
government. Parliamentary bodies were conceived instead as extensions of
24. Speculum justiciariorum, ed. W. J. Whittaker (London: Selden Society, 1895), 8.
25. Modus tenendi parliamentum, in Nicholas Pronay and John Taylor, eds., Parliamenta-
ry Texts of the Later Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 61 (Latin text), 81 (English
translation).
26. Ibid., 75, 88.
27. Ibid., 79, 91.
28. Walter Burley, Commentarius in VIII Libros Politicorum Aristotelis, MS Balliol 95, f.
182r, 184r.
traditional feudal practices that continued to acknowledge the king as the

central and final source of power over the territory subject to him.
The medieval figure whose name has perhaps been most widely asso-
ciated with the theory of political representation is the early fourteenth-
century author Marsiglio of Padua.29 But Marsiglio proves to be a diffi-
cult case. Most of his discussion of representation is contained in Dictio II
of his Defensor pacis, which concerns ecclesiology and which addresses the
representative nature of the General Council in a way that is wholly con-
ventional and consonant with spiritual representation.30 In the first dis-
course of the Defensor pacis, where secular government is analyzed, there
are only two instances of the discourse of representation. The first occurs
in Marsiglios treatment of the legislative process within the temporal com-
munity. The Defensor pacis is famed for its contention that the sole author-
ity for the creation (as well as alteration and revision) of law is the legisla-
tor humanus, the human legislator composed of the people or the whole
body of citizens.31 Intriguingly, Marsiglio continually qualifies this appar-
ent statement of popular control over legislation with the inclusion of the
clause or its weightier part [valentior pars] after references to the legisla-
tor humanus. The valentior pars signifies, according to Marsiglio, the qual-
itatively and quantitatively superior segment of the community.32 Schol-
ars have long debated about what Marsiglio intended to convey by the
phrase valentior pars.33 For our purposes, what matters is his claim that
the valentior pars represents the whole community [totam universitatem
representat].34 In this single, and by no means unambiguous, clause has
been found the seeds of a theory of political representation. In spite of the
fact that Marsiglio does not elaborate on his remarkor perhaps because
of itcommentators have engaged in prolonged debate about the sort of
representative relationship he must have envisaged. Thus, Jeannine Quillet
29. Quillet, Community, Counsel and Representation, 558, insists that it was only with
the work of Marsilius of Padua that the idea of representation came to occupy a prominent
place in political thought. See most recently Maurizio Merlo, Marsilio da Padova: Il pensiero
della politica come grammatica del mutamento (Milan: Franco Angelia, 2003), 13039 and pas-
sim.
30. See Cary J. Nederman, Community and Consent: The Secular Political Theory of Mar-
siglio of Paduas Defensor Pacis (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995), 8485.
31. Marsiglio of Padua, Defensor pacis, ed. Richard Scholz (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhan-
dlung, 1932), 1.12.3.
32. Ibid., 1.12.3.
33. For the range of opinion, see Nederman, Community and Consent, 86.
34. Marsiglio of Padua, Defensor pacis, 1.12.5.
perceives the representative nature of the valentior pars to be institutional:

it denotes in effect the body of those men whom the community at large
assigns with the responsibility of legislating on its behalf. The valentior pars
thereby comes to be seen as a legislative assembly in its own right.35 For
J. H. Burns, by contrast, Marsiglio has articulated the salient representative
doctrine that majorities bind minorities and thus effectively represent the
whole.36
Less commonly noted is Marsiglios own explication, in the text imme-
diately following, of the nature of the representative relationship between
the valentior pars and the totius universitatem.
..... since it is not easy or not possible for all persons to agree upon a single judg-
ment, because the malice or singular ignorance of some, being naturally deprived
[naturam orbatam], leads them to dissent from the common judgment; the com-
mon concerns should not be impeded or disregarded on account of protest or
objection from some irrational people. The authority to make or establish laws,
therefore, belongs only to the whole body of citizens or its weighter part.37
By no stretch of the imagination does this amount to a theory of politi-

cal representation. Marsiglio simply makes the empirical observation that
some citizens (and presumably a few well-known ones), by virtue of tem-
perment or lack of mental faculities, are notably contentious and never ac-
cede to the decisions of their fellows. The failure of such individuals to as-
sent should not form a barrier to the process of public decision making; it
would be impractical to grant them a veto power over the rest of the com-
munity. The representation entailed is of a virtual, and wholly trivial,
sort. This passage simply does not support the view that the Defensor pacis
offers a cogent and clearly delineated theory of representation by the valen-
tior pars of the legislator humanus.
The one other use of representation language in the first discourse is
less ambiguous. The Defensor pacis erects a complex procedure in order to
ensure that laws conform to the common benefit of all citizens. This in-
volves the selection of a group of wise and leisured men (whom Marsiglio
calls prudentes) whose task it is to formulate and propose a legislative pro-
gram. (Marsiglio never refers to this assembly of law framers as representa-
35. Quillet, La Philosophie Politique de Marsile de Padoue (Paris: J. Vrin, 1970), 9399.
36. J. H. Burns, Majorities: An Exploration, History of Political Thought 24 (Spring
2003): 6768, 71.
tives, nor does he suggest that in performing their function the particular
interests of constituents receive representation.)38 Once these men have
devised a set of recommendations for enactment, they must seek the ex-
plicit authorization of the community of citizens. Every citizen enjoys the
freedom to amend, revise, or object entirely to any legislative proposal on
the grounds that it inclines to the benefit of a few individuals within the
polity rather than to the welfare of all the people. Only if the draft statutes
(in either original or revised form) prove acceptable to the citizen body
may they be accorded the force of law in its full and true sense of coercive
command.39 In order to facilitate the ratification of these precepts, Mar-
siglio says, the corporate community may choose to select another (or may
confirm the same) group of men who, representing the position and au-
thority of the whole body of citizens, will approve or disapprove in whole
or in part the afore-mentioned standards which had been investigated and
proposed, or else, if it so wishes, the whole body of citizens or the weight-
ier part thereof will do this same thing by itself.40 Here the notion of rep-
resentation is unequivocal: the term denotes a delegated power to act in
strict accordance with the instructions of constituents, to assent or to re-
fuse precisely as ordered by the electorate. The representative does what
those who are represented could have done just as well for themselves.
Yet, as Hannna Pitkin has argued, the conception of the delegated
representative as merely a tool of an electorate that has already decided
about a given issue may not fall within the bounds of political representa-
tion at all, and it certainly does not count as a very interesting case of rep-
resentative rule.41 At best, Marsiglio treats representation in this context as
a simple convenience in which the assembled representatives lack any dis-
cretion whatsoever to authorize anything that has not already been willed
by the constituents who deputized them. Such a perspective, constituting
the only unambiguous use of the idea of nonspiritual representation in the
entire Defensor pacis, is hardly satisfying, especially from a theorist who
is said to have afforded prominence to the principle of representation.
In spite of its occasional reliance upon the vocabulary of representation,
we will be sorely disappointed if we look to the Defensor pacis for a devel-
38. Pace Alan Gewirth, Marsilius of Padua and Medieval Political Philosophy (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1951), 18889, and Quillet, Universitas populi et reprsentation au
XIV sicle, Miscellanea Medievalia 8 (1971): 186201.
40. Ibid., 1.13.8.
41. Pitkin, The Concept of Representation, 15152, 166.
oped theory of representative government or even a consistent use of some

coherent principle of representation. Indeed, as I have argued elsewhere,
the Defensor pacis takes direct issue with fundamental premises of politi-
cal representation. For Marsiglio, the community is not divided between
its overall interests, on the one hand, and the particular desires of its con-
stitutive citizen members, on the other. Rather, in any properly ordered
civic body, the wishes of the citizens and their communal interests can
be reasonably expected to merge. I have shown that Marsiglio articulates
a clear principle to support this view: each citizen knows best what con-
stitutes his own advantage or disadvantage (commodum vel incommodum)
and hence is alone competent to judge when a proposed law is injurious to
him.42 Hence, Marsiglio asserts that only when the community of citizens
achieves a consensus about the laws by which it lives are those standards
binding and obligatory. The common good can be nothing other than that
to which the entire body of citizens extends its consent. Representation
is thereby rendered superfluous at best. At worst, representative govern-
ment threatens to impede and harm the realization and codification of the
genuine interests of the community, since the relative independence of the
deputy grants to him the potential to bind citizens in a manner contrary
to their special knowledge of their own benefits. In sum, Marsiglios theo-
ry of legislation demonstrates that the assumption underpinning political
representationthe presumption that the circumstances of political com-
munity require representatives to weigh communal interests in relation to
individual desiresconstitutes neither a necessary nor a desirable feature
of political experience.
So where is the divide between medieval and modern ideas of political
representation to be located? In one of the rare recent attempts to distin-
guish between medieval and modern understandings of the concept, Har-
vey Mansfield concludes that the two are different ways of life, not merely
different kinds of representative machinery, and that the difference is most
visible in the secularism of modern representation.43 Mansfield grounds
this claim on the divergent characters of political obligation in the medi-
eval and modern worlds. In the Middle Ages, one was duty-bound to obey
government ultimately because it was created and authorized by God; dis-
42. Cary J. Nederman, Community and Self-Interest: Marsiglio of Padua on Civil Life
and Private Advantage, Review of Politics 65 (Fall 2003): 395416.
43. Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., Modern and Medieval Representation, in Pennock and
Chapman, eds., Representation, 82.
obedience was sinful because it undermined the divinely ordained order.

By contrast, in the modern world, where government is conceived to be a
creation purely of human invention and will, obligation must be founded
on some principle apart from a supernatural or cosmological one; hence,
obligation forms a problem for modern political thought that would have
been untroubling to the medieval mind.44
Mansfields appeal to the secularity of modern political life may cap-
ture one element of the chasm between medieval and modern approach-
es to representation. I wish to suggest another dimension that I take to
be salient: namely, the coordination between the idea of political repre-
sentation and the political status of the person or population represented.
My thoughts on this issue are, admittedly, somewhat speculative, but arise
from some identifiable transmutations in political discourse between the
thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries. It is a commonplace to construct a
dichotomy between two widely divergent models of civic life and political
identity in the Western tradition. For Peter Riesenberg, the salient distinc-
tion is between the self-governing citizen of the ancient and medieval city
and the inert subject of the modern territorial nation-state.45 On John
Pococks account, the paradigmatic Aristotelian vision of citizenship as re-
ciprocal ruling may be juxtaposed with the Roman Law precept formulat-
ed by Gaius that the citizen is legalis homo.46 Speaking more philosophi-
cally, Richard Flathman has posited a division between high and low
conceptions of citizenship,47 while Benjamin Barber distinguishes thick
from thin ideas of the citizen.48 In all such dichotomous taxonomies,
one conception of political status involves an active, self-transforming idea
of the vita activa civile; the other describes the passive individual subject to
the authority of the state and its laws. The first conception entails engage-
ment in the vital moral/intellectual transformation of personhood, the sec-
ond simply reminds citizens of their legal rights and obligations.
It is my contention that just such a dichotomous understanding of
public life did in fact inform European political thought during the Lat-
44. Ibid., 81.
45. Peter Riesenberg, Citizenship in the Western Tradition: Plato to Rousseau (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 2036.
46. J. G. A. Pocock, The Idea of Citizenship since Classical Times, in Ronald Beiner,
ed., Theorizing Citizenship (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995), 2952.
47. Richard E. Flathman, Citizenship and Authority: A Chastened View of Citizenship,
in ibid., 10551.
48. Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984).
in Middle Ages. Toward the end of the medieval period, however, it is

possible to observe a theoretical challenge to the strict division between
citizens (mainly discussed in urban-oriented theory) and subjects. The
terms of the challenge derive directly from an attempt (couched in con-
structions that seem sometimes recognizably modern) to combine, re-
fine, and synthesize elements of the two poles of the tension. The typical
medieval approach to the conceptualization of political life (either citizen
or subject) ran its course at the dawn of modernity and was itself trans-
muted in order to fit new political realities and demands. Substantively, I
argue that the dichotomy between forms of public identity described by
current historians and philosophers can effectively be observed by refer-
ence to the widely invoked medieval categories of dominium politicum (po-
litical rule) and dominium regale (royal rule).49 As the nature of and rela-
tionship between these two ideas altered from their origins in the Latinized
Aristotle to their medieval disseminators to their eventual restatement in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the very understanding of what it was
to possess a political identity and function (citizenship in its most neu-
tral sense) was profoundly transfigured: the citizen-subject, an amalgam of
active and passive principles, flowered as a distinct species of political ani-
mal.50 And this distinctively modern idea of political statuspartly classi-
cal citizen, partly imperial/feudal subjectrequired a form of government
that was both responsible to and shielded from the population, able to
weigh wishes against interestsin short, representative government.
One early step in this direction was taken by the late fifteenth-century
English jurist and legal theorist, Sir John Fortescue. In a series of writings
about the political system of England, Fortescue appropriated and recon-
figured many characteristically medieval concepts and terms, perhaps most
notably the vocabulary of dominium regale and dominium politicum. Spe-
cifically, he proposed to synthesize these two categories of rule into a sin-
gle, superior, and all-embracing form of government, namely, dominium
regale et politicum. This type of hybrid regime, in Fortescues view, was no
mere theoretical construct; rather, it is embodied by the rule of the English
monarchy. And corresponding to the particular characteristics of this sys-
49. J. H. Burns, Lordship, Kingship and Empire: The Idea of Monarchy 14001525 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1992), 16.
50. For a more extensive discussion of this process, see Cary J. Nederman, From Moral
Virtue to Material Benefit: Dominium and Citizenship in Late Medieval Europe, in Dwight
D. Allman and Michael D. Beaty, eds., Cultivating Citizens (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books,
2002), 4360.
tem is an idea of political status quite distant from that conceived by his
medieval predecessors.
Fortescues earliest attempt to articulate the notion of a third category
that transcends the distinction between political and royal governments
comes in his treatise De natura legis naturae (c. 1461). Having described
both dominium regale and dominium politicum, he continues, But that
there is a third kind of dominium, not inferior to these in dignity and hon-
or, which is called the political and royal, we are not only taught by experi-
ence and ancient history, but we know has been taught in the doctrine of
St. Thomas.51 While the later reference has induced a raging debate about
whether Fortescue actually had any particular source (whether from Aqui-
nas or elsewhere) in mind,52 this should not deflect our attention from the
significance of his theoretical point. For he proposes that the strict me-
dieval classification of regimes as either political (civic) or royal (feu-
dal/imperial) need not be respected. Instead, pointing to England, where
kings make not laws, nor impose subsidies on their subjects, without the
consent of the Three Estates of the realm, Fortescue asks: May not, then,
this dominium be called political, that is to say, regulated by the admin-
istration of many, and may it not also be named dominium regale, seeing
that the subjects themselves cannot make laws without the authority of the
king, and the kingdom, being subject to the kings dignity, is possessed by
kings and their heirs successively by hereditary right, in such manner as no
lordships are possessed which are only politically regulated?53 Fortescue
then invokes the examples of Rome during the early Principate and scrip-
tually depicted Israel under the Judges as additional illustrations of mixed
regimes.
Although Fortescue initially concentrates on the governmental aspects of
dominium regale et politicum, the system equally involves for him a mixed
character on the part of the governed: they play an active role in authoriz-
ing law; but once legislation has been approved, they are rendered passive in
the face of its enforcement by the king and his officials. As he observes lat-
er in De natura legis naturae, It is good for a people to be ruled by laws to
which it consents.54 This principle, for Fortescue, defines the essence of the
mixed royal and political regime, conferring upon those who are governed
51. Sir John Fortescue, On the Laws and Governance of England, ed. Shelley Lockwood
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 128. I have occasionally adjusted Lockwoods
translations from Latin when it seemed appropriate.
52. For more detail on this debate, see chapter 17 below.
53. Ibid., 12829. 54. Ibid., 135.
under it the quality of citizen-subjects. Under the rule of dominium regale et

politicum, one is both a citizen and a subject, or perhaps more properly, one
alternates between these two identities according to circumstance. Thus, de-
pending upon whether one judges from the perspective of a royal or a politi-
cal system of government, the effect of Fortescues mixed regime is either to
diminish or to enhance the status of citizenship.
But why should dominium regale et politicum be judged superior to ei-
ther dominium regale or dominium politicum? This is a question that Fortes-
cue takes up in two of his later works, De laudibus legum Anglie (1468
1471) and The Governance of England (1471). Already in De natura legis
naturae, Fortescue had proposed that the conjunction of political with roy-
al rule should not be construed as an infringement on the kings authority
or prerogative. The fact that the monarch ruling politically as well as royal-
ly is limited by the laws that his subjects approve means only that he lacks
license to decree and enforce unjust statutes. Such license is in no way ap-
propriate to a kings true liberty; it does not fall within the legitimate pow-
er of the king to commit evil acts.55 This theme is carried forward into
De laudibus legum Anglie, which purports to be a dialogue between the
chancellor of England (a stand-in for Fortescue himself ) and Edward, the
young Prince of Wales, regarding the study of law. The chancellor explains
to Edward why English government, organized politically and royally, gen-
erates a legal structure superior to those systems found in continental Eu-
rope. For while kings elsewhere possess a wide latitude to do evil, if they
are so inclined, the English ruler is prevented, as a result of the constraint
imposed by the political quality of his regime, from acting contrary to
just law. The political component of the king of Englands governance is a
check on tyranny, the will to act improperly, not on his capacity to behave
rightly. With the king ruling his people politically, ..... he himself is not
able to change the laws without the assent of his subjects nor to burden an
unwilling people with strange impositions.......56 Not only does this not
interfere with the kings valid authority, it also yields a positive benefit: it
ensures the stability of the realm and of the Crown. Rejoice, therefore,
good Prince, Fortescue proclaims, that such is the law of the kingdom
to which you are to succeed, because it will provide no small security and
comfort for you and for the people.57 Fortescue points out the error that
previous English kings made by scheming to rule the realm according to
55. Ibid., 13336. 56. Ibid., 17.

57. Ibid., 18.
dominium regale alone: they undermined their own authority, the chancel-
lor tells the prince, in order to satisfy ambition, lust, [and] license, which
your said ancestors preferred to the good of the realm.58 Yet the condem-
nation of such rulers is notably consequentialist and temporal, rather than
moral or religious, in bearing:
Hence, Prince, it is evident to you, from the practical effects, that your ancestors,
who sought to cast aside political government, not only could not have obtained,
as they wished, a greater power than they had, but would have exposed their own
welfare, and the welfare of their realm, to greater risk and danger....... The power
of the king ruling royally is more difficult to exercise, and less secure for himself
and his people, so that it would be undesirable for a prudent king to exchange a
political government for a solely royal one.59
Fortescues criteria for judging between different kinds of regimes, and for
preferring dominium regale et politicum, are highly pragmatic: such a sys-
tem of government evinces greater strength and longevity than royal ruler-
ship, and thus benefits the king directly and materially. Less germane are
considerations of the personal wisdom and virtue of the monarch, not to
mention responsibility for promoting the moral goodness or salvation of
the populace.60
A regime in which the king rules royally and politically in turn requires
a conception of denizens who possess the character of the citizen-subject.
This is evident both in Fortescues account of the origination of regimes and
in his calculation of the benefits that dominium regale et politicum confers
upon those who live under it. Fortescue observes in De laudibus legum An-
glie that the reason why their authority over their subjects differs between
a king ruling royally and one ruling royally and politically stems from the
manner in which each regime is instituted.61 The former is imposed initial-
ly upon inhabitants against their will (as by conquest); and only once they
are assured of their own basic protection do they agree to submit them-
selves to the king.62 Consequently, the subjects of a royal regime are whol-
ly passive: With a kingdom which is incorporated solely by the authority
58. Ibid., 53. 59. Ibid., 54; also 49.

60. Also noteworthy is the fact that Fortescue never anywhere mentions dominium politi-
cum as a viable form of government, bowing perhaps to the historical realities of Northern Eu-
rope, which by the late fifteenth century had taken a decisive turn toward territorial monar-
chies organized along national lines.
61. Fortescue, On the Laws and Governance of England, 1819.
62. Ibid., 19; cf. 8586.
and power of the king, ..... such a people is subjected by him by no sort of
an agreement other than to obey and be ruled by his laws.63 By contrast,
Fortescue describes the formation of a kingdom ruled by a mixed govern-
ment as a wholly voluntary process. Although employing the traditional
medieval metaphor of the body politicaccording to which the head and
members of the political organism cohere in a mutually beneficial recipro-
cal relationship64he imputes to it a clearly nonhierarchical significance
according to which the authority flows from the organs and limbs upward
to the head. The royal head is thus firmly bound by the legal sinews of
the body: For a king of this sort is set up for the protection of the laws, the
subjects, and their bodies and goods, and he has power to this end from the
people.65 Fortescues Prince Edward summarizes the relation between the
royal and the political king and his realm thus: I now very clearly perceive
that no people ever incorporated themselves into a kingdom by their own
agreement and will, unless in order to possess safer than before both them-
selves and their own, which they feared to losea design which would be
thwarted if a king were able to deprive them of their means, which was not
permitted before to anyone among men.66 If not quite a complete theory
of a social compact, then the explanation of the origin of dominium regale
et politicum offered in De laudibus legum Anglieand reiterated in all essen-
tials in The Governance of England 67clearly articulates the theory that the
people are the founding force and continuing source of public authority in
such a regime. And, in turn, the king ruling royally and politically is respon-
sible for guaranteeing the physical safety and well-being of the population
of the realm. Fortescues subjects are, therefore, weakly or minimally civic
actors in the sense that it is their collective will that approves the system of
government and the laws by which they are governed; this is precisely the
political aspect of the regime. But the practical impact of citizenship re-
mains generally indirect and fleeting; for the most part, the inhabitants of a
territory governed royally and politically are every bit as much passive sub-
jects as those living under a simple royal regime.
63. Ibid., 23.

64. The basic survey of the medieval use of the organic metaphor is Tilman Struve, Die
Entwicklung der organologischen Staatsauffasung im Mittelalter (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1978).
For an extension of the range of sources, see Cary J. Nederman, Body Politics: The Diversifi-
cation of Organic Metaphors in the Later Middle Ages, Pensiero Politico Medievale 2 (2004):
5987.
66. Ibid., 23. 67. Ibid., 86.
Like the English political writers of the fourteenth century surveyed

above, Fortescue does not expressly employ the language of representa-
tion. But his conception of Parliament, in contrast with those of his pre-
decessors, rests on the logic of representative government. The people have
material desires the pursuit of which receives expression in the decisions
about statutes and especially the taxation policies made in Parliament: the
English king cannot, by himself or by his ministers, impose tallages, sub-
sidies, or any other burdens whatever on his subjects, nor change their
laws, nor make new ones, without the concession and assent of his whole
realm expressed in its parliament.68 In this sense, the government is con-
strained and accountable in a way that was unthinkable for medieval au-
thors. Because the government is royal as well as political, however, the
king still enjoys the flexibility to seek what he identifies to be the interests
of his realm and its inhabitants, at least within the confines of authorized
lawful conduct. Hence, royal approval, too, is required to legitimate laws
and policies: coordination between the king and his ministers, on the one
hand, and the members of Parliament, on the other, ensures the ends of
balancing wishes and interests that characterize a system of political repre-
sentation. As Fortescue remarks, ..... the statutes of England ..... are made
not only by the princes will, but also by the assent of the whole realm, so
they cannot be injurious to the people nor fail to secure their advantage.69
The populations activity in authorizing the main laws and policies of the
realm, and passivity in permitting itself to be governed by the royal admin-
istration, open the path toward modern conceptions of representative gov-
ernment. There is but a small step to be taken to Sir Thomas Smiths decla-
ration in the sixteenth century that
the parliament of Englande ..... representeth and hath the power of the whole
realme both the head and the bodie. For everie Englishman is intended to bee
there present, either in person or by procuration and attornies, of what prehemi-
nence, state, dignitie, or qualities soever he be, from the Prince (be he King or
Queene) to the lowest person of Englande. And the consent of the Parliament is
taken to be everie mans consent.70
With these words, the theory of political representation reaches its matu-
rity.
68. Ibid., 52. 69. Ibid., 27.

70. Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum, ed. Mary Dewar (Cambridge: Cambridge
It is thus a pity that among those political theorists who are usually
credited with responsibility for the undoing of the classical and medieval
traditions of civic lifeMachiavelli, Hobbes, and Locke, for instance
the name of John Fortescue seldom appears. Part of the reason for this may
be that so much of Fortescues writing was couched in the political and le-
gal vocabulary of his antecedents. Thus, Alan Cromartie has recently been
led to conclude that Fortescue resisted a constitutionalist politics of the
sort that emerged in the sixteenth century, since his true affinity was .....
with earlier Aristotelians like Giles [of Rome], for whom the limitations
on the monarch were as it were internal to their view of monarchy.71 By
contrast, I would maintain that while Fortescue is surely a transitional fig-
ure between the Middle Ages and modernity, his cloaking of many of his
doctrines in medieval garb should not deter us from recognizing the actual
nature and force of his arguments. I will return to this theme in chapter 17
of the present book.
What theoretical lessons, then, might we draw from the discovery that
the theory of political representation appears only at the threshold of mo-
dernity? Throughout most of the last century at least, the tendency of po-
litical philosophers has been to concentrate on the meaning of political
representation rather than its justification. This has produced a variety of
efforts to discern and distinguish the range of senses in which the term
representation may be used, as well as to determine whether there is an
essential or real definition of the word which all of its senses share.
What these discussions have lacked, however, is an attempt to pose ques-
tions about the philosophical foundations of political representation, that
is, to defend or attack the conceptual underpinnings of the idea of rep-
resentative government. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, howev-
er, the situation has changed noticeably. Among contemporary democratic
theorists, a debate has simmered regarding the relationship between the
maintenance of democratic institutions and relations, on the one hand,
and the persistence of representative forms of government, on the other.
For some, representation constitutes a serious challenge to the possibility
of realizing a meaningfully democratic society. For others, the problems
posed by representative politics, such as its apparent tendency to erode lev-
els of political participation and to undermine the idea of citizenship, can
be addressed within a coherent theory of representation itself. But beyond
71. Alan Cromartie, The Constitutionalist Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2006), 31.
its implications for democratic practices, this debate has also revitalized
normative discussion about the nature and viability of political representa-
tion as a form of government and a means for public decision making.72
In particular, the idea of representation as a form of advocacy, and the at-
tendant problem of who may rightfully speak for an identifiable group,
have been thoroughly and rigorously examined.73
Recent efforts to evaluate political representation have remained large-
ly ahistorical in bearing, however. The foregoing chapter reminds political
theorists that the development of representation as a general notion in-
volved considerable complexity and even confusion. Attempts to equate
the principles of spiritual representation with either the practice or the
theory of representative government lead to certain fundamental misun-
derstandings.74 The failure to realize that a theory of political representa-
tion involves a set of other social and cultural assumptions such as those
discussed in this chaptersecularity, the citizen-subject, a legitimate divi-
sion between common interests and personal wisheslends a certain un-
fortunate universalizing quality to contemporary theoretical reflections. It
does not seem too implausible to look to history to identify the conditions
under which political representationboth in practice and, especially, in
theorytook root in order to understand how and whether it may have
purchase in present times. After all, the long-standing American crusade to
bring democracy to the world (however one evaluates it) is really an at-
tempt to spread the institutions and ideas of representative government.
So, it is less the nature and culture of democracy per se that must perhaps
be comprehended than the salient characteristics and context of political
representation. Indeed, if we take seriously Mansfields observation that it
does not follow that modern representation is democratic,75 those who
72. See George Kateb, The Inner Ocean: Individualism and Democratic Culture (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1992), 3656; David Plotke, Representation Is Democracy, Con-
stellations 4 (1997): 1934; and Iris Marion Young, Deferring Group Representation, in Ian
Shapiro and Will Kymlicka, eds., Ethnicity and Group Rights, Nomos 39 (New York: New York
73. For example, Nadia Urbinati, Representation as Advocacy: A Study of Democratic
Deliberation, Political Theory 28 (2000): 75886; Suzanne Dovi, Preferable Descriptive Rep-
resentatives: Will Just Any Woman, Black, or Latino Do? American Political Science Review 96
(2002): 72943; and Andrew Rehfeld, Toward a General Theory of Political Representation,
Journal of Politics 68 (2006): 121.
74. Such a confusion, for example, infects the argument of Brian Tierney, Religion, Law,
and the Growth of Constitutional Thought, 11501650 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1982), 2325.
75. Mansfield, Modern and Medieval Representation, 81.
wish to export what is in effect representative government worldwide may

do themselves a disservice by pursuing the creation of democratic social
institutions at the expense of belief systems more conducive to political
representation. This chapter thus strives to bring the dimension of histori-
cal perspective to bear on broader political debates about why, how, and
where political representation plays a proper and fruitful role in public life
both in Western societies and around the globe.
8
F o r L o v e an d M o n e y
Theorizing Revolt in Fourteenth-Century Europe
o nv e n t i o na l ly, medieval political theorists expressed

the relationship that inhered between a ruler and his sub-
jects through the language of amor and caritas, that is, love and
charity (the two are virtual cognates). St. Augustine had em-
phasized love as the basis for all human associations, although
the only true love was love of God, which did not partake of
or inhere in mundane concerns such as government.1 Medieval
authors deployed the language of love in a more positive sense
to describe the arrangement of temporal politics and polities. In
particular, the virtuous prince loves his people and he is loved by
them in turn. John of Salisbury in the mid-twelfth century of-
fered a quintessential account of how the love that obtains be-
tween the king and his subjects has the effect of creating a sin-
gularity of mind, one perfect and great harmony out of pursuits
that appear discordant....... Above all, the favor and love of sub-
jects, which is produced by divine favor, is the best instrument of
all governance. And yet love without respect is not advantageous
because the people will retreat into illegalities once the stimulus
of justice ceases.2 Likewise, Dantes De monarchia claims that
1. St. Augustine, De civitate Dei, 2 vols., ed. Berhard Dombart and Alphonse
Kalb (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), 19.24.
2. John of Salisbury, Policraticus IIV, ed. K. S. B. Keats-Rohan (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1993), 4.8.
122
t h e o r izin g r e v o lt 123
in him in whom rightly ordered love can be found to the greatest degree
can justice be found at its most powerful; such a one is the monarch.......
Charity ..... seeks God and man and, in consequence, seeks mans good.3
According to the standard trope, then, the love that obtains in politi-
cal order stands in relation to God and betokens, in particular, just rule; it
correlates to religious and moral rectitude.
Yet some later medieval theorists transformed their understanding of
the bond of love in accordance with the more earthly purposes they as-
cribed to government. Love became shorthand for a balanced equilibrium
between Crown and community, according to which the king assured and
protected the wealth held by the people and provided conditions for its en-
hancement whenever possible, while his subjects in turn obeyed the ruler
and supported his policies. Of course, the regulative ideal of mutual love
was not alwaysindeed, was not oftenattained, with the result that dis-
cord and discontent occurred. In particular, given the elevation of the pro-
motion of material well-being to a central goal of government, kings who
overstepped their fiscal boundaries by imposing taxes or other forms of
revenue generation that exceeded custom or law risked incurring the loss
of their subjects love. The reasons and remedies for such loss of love be-
came a major theme of later medieval writings about the nature and func-
tion of royal government, in line with the more general growing interest in
economic affairs, which will be discussed in Part IV below. In broad out-
line, rulers were counseled that prosperity occasioned love and cushioned
them from the displeasure and disobedience of their people. Consequent-
ly, economic stewardship and prudent management formed the corner-
stones of loving concord between kings and subjects: the king who man-
ages his own affairs so as to restrain his hand from the goods of his subjects
deserves love. The king who fails to defend (indeed, undermines) the eco-
nomic rights of those under his dominion renounces his claim on their af-
fection. Indeed, the latter sort of ruler can reasonably expect opposition
to his regime.
Before I develop and defend these claims in greater detail, let me em-
phasize why I take them to be historically plausible. The fourteenth cen-
tury, on which I shall concentrate, witnessed tremendous political upheav-
al. In particular, European kings and their minions (to whom so much
3. Dante, De Monarchia, ed. Prue Shaw (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995),
1.11.1314. The translation is that of Anthony K. Cassell, ed., The Monarchia Controversy (Wash-
ington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 121.
political advice writing was directed) were the direct targets of civil resis-
tance and political rebellionand not just by ambitious members of rival
noble dynasties.4 Untitled and untutored urban dwellers and rural rustics
organized to express their dissent toward royal policies (and often toward
the clerical hierarchy that supported the Crown as well). The Jacquerie
in France (1356) and John Balls Rebellion (1381) in England afford but
the best known instances of widespread popular unrest that threatened the
peace and stability of the Western European monarchies.5 Accountability
was determined at the public point of a pitchfork rather than in the priva-
cy of the ballot box. And kings indeed felt the pressure that such uprisings
were capable of exerting. In turn, the unsettled times made for especially
trenchant political commentary. Why were peasants and burghers revolt-
ing? What might be done to deter discontent? The iconic view of medi-
eval society as rigidly organized according to the three orders (those who
fight, those who pray, those who work) or hierarchically arranged along
the lines of human anatomy (the lower limbs and organs submitting to
the rule of head or heart) had long since been undermined or replaced
if indeed it ever described a reality rather than depicting an unattainable
aspiration.6 The so-called commercial revolution that swept through Eu-
rope after 1100 radically altered social values as well as economic practic-
es among all strata of society.7 As early as the twelfth century, political
thinkers began to examine seriously the role of governmentespecially
the king and his officialsas the primary economic steward of the coun-
try, alongside military, judicial, and sacral functions. By around 1300, Giles
of Rome, the author of the best-selling medieval advice book (or mir-
ror) for rulers, De regimine principum, could insist uncontroversially upon
the maintenance and enhancement of prosperity as one of the central re-
sponsibilities of the king. Indeed, for Giles, the other duties of the mon-
4. Here I part company with Claire Valente, The Theory and Practice of Revolt in Medi-
eval England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), who concentrates almost entirely on aristocratically
fomented rebellions and the justifications given thereof. For an alternative view, see Lillian M.
Bisson, The Cry of the Poor: Unrest and Rebellion among the Peasants, which constitutes
chapter 7 of her Chaucer and the Late Medieval World (New York: St. Martins Press, 1998),
14363.
5. An excellent recent treatment of the topic may be found in Samuel K. Cohn Jr., Lust for
Liberty: The Politics of Social Revolt in Medieval Europe, 12001425 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 2006).
6. See Cary J. Nederman, Body Politics: The Diversification of Organic Metaphors in the
Later Middle Ages, Pensiero Politico Medievale 2 (2004): 5987.
7. This topic will be addressed at greater length in chapter 13 of the present book.
archto uphold law and virtueare only possible once preservation of

wealth is assured.8 To describe the European Middle Ages as an era of eco-
nomic nationalismin theory as well as in practicedoes not seem at all
implausible.9
Later medieval authors took cognizance of these changing circum-
stances.10 In the present chapter, I illustrate this claim by examining two
treatises that, on the one hand, employ the standard view that commu-
nal love emanates from princely virtue but that also import economically
oriented conceptions of governance that license public resistance. First, I
investigate a theory formulated in England of how the absence of certain
royal virtues sets the limits of the love of a people toward its ruler and per-
mits public opposition to his reign. This is found in the two versions of the
Speculum regis Edwardi III, dated to 1331 and 1332 respectively, and written
in Latin by William of Pagula.11 Second, I consider an anonymous French
vernacular treatise composed in 1347, Lestat et le gouvernement comme les
princes et seigneurs se doivent gouverner (hereafter Lestat et le gouvernement),
which was translated into English during the following century with the
title The III Consideracions Right Necesserye to the Good Governaunce of a
Prince.12 This tract presents a quite straightforward economic theory of
popular political behavior: the people love the king and embrace his laws
when his virtues shine forth by managing his own holdings and the realm
8. John F. McGovern, The Rise of New Economic AttitudesEconomic Humanism,

Economic Nationalismduring the Later Middle Ages and Renaissance, A.D. 12001500,
Traditio 26 (1970): 231.
9. See Diana Wood, Medieval Economic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002), 11725; also chapter 17 below.
10. Sverre Bagge, Kirken, bndene og motstandsretten i Norge I middelalderen, Histo-
risk tidsskrift 84 (2005): 385410, has detected a similar interest in the material conditions of the
poor in Scandanavia at about the same time.
11. I have translated both versions in Political Thought in Early Fourteenth-Century Eng-
land: Treatises by Walter of Milemete, William of Pagula, and William of Ockham (Tempe: Ari-
zona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002), based on the Latin text, mistaken-
ly attributed to Simon Islip, published by Joseph Moisant, De speculo regis Edwardi III (Paris:
Picard, 1891); for full information about the authorship of the treatise, see Political Thought in
Early Fourteenth Century England, 6568.
12. The French original remains in manuscript. The Middle English translation has been
edited by Jean-Philippe Genet in Four English Political Tracts of the Later Middle Ages (London:
Royal Historical Society, 1977), 174219; Genet consulted not only the English manuscripts
but also the two extant French manuscripts (one partial). When the English version departs
from its French exemplar, Genet gives the French in his notes. My modern English translation
in the present chapter is based on the Genet edition of the English along with the French de-
partures.
in general with fiscal good sense. For the ruler to behave otherwise is to
risk rebellion.
Perhaps the most extensive later medieval analysis of the dangers con-
fronted by the ruler who ignores the economic condition of his realm may
be found in two seldom examined treatises, whose authorship was once
uncertain but is now safely ascribed to the Oxford-schooled theologian,
canonist, and parish priest William of Pagula. Although, for purposes of
simplicity, I will treat the two texts as a single unit, it should be noted that
the second recension is not simply a revision of the first. Rather, the for-
mer constitutes an entirely new treatise that restates essentially the same
grievances as its predecessor, but develops its case in the larger context of
royal administrative and fiscal practices. Yet in both versions the argument
is entirely directed to the hardships endured by the peasant population
of the realm, that vast majority who lacked a literate political voice loud
enough to be heard among magnates and royal officials. Because he cen-
tered his career on parish service, William was especially well qualified to
recount the complaints of the humblest segments of English society and
to record the level of displeasure with and resistance to the Crown.13 And
there is no question that Williams sympathy lay with the grievances that
he observes and reports.
In his treatises, William affects the style of a mirror of princes tract.
Thus, he couches his warning about the economic depredations of the
English peasantry caused by royal policy in language that seems wholly
conventional on first glance. The first recension (A) commences with a
plea for Edward III to act justly in order to serve the honor of God and
the utility of the kingdom, and also in order to acquire the love of the
people.14 In Williams view, love and justice are of a single piece: the just
king imitates divine justice and hence is loved by God, as a consequence
of which all men who follow you will call you a just man; they will ven-
erate and love you.15 The second recension (B) opens with a more urgent
overtone: as a mortal being, the king (like any human) must be mind-
ful that the moment of his death impends and that the failure to redress
13. For Williams biography, see Leonard E. Boyle, The Oculus Sacerdotis and Some Oth-
er Works of William of Pagula, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 5 (1955):
81110.
14. De speculo regis Edwardi III, A 1. The translation may be found in Nederman, ed., Polit-
ical Thought in Early Fourteenth-Century England, 73. References to the Latin text below will re-
fer to the Recension (A or B) and section number, followed by the page in the English version.
15. De speculo regis Edwardi III, A 1, 7374.
evils in his kingdom immediately may impact the state of his soul. At the
same time, Edward III is reminded that the English populace welcomed
his presence humbly ..... graciously ..... devoutly ..... joyously and stood
by you and aided you in everything you did against your rebels.16 By im-
plication, he owes his present position to the love of his people and his
future status to the judgment of God. These are themes familiar to any
knowledgeable reader of princely advice books: the king is simultaneously
beholden both to God and to his people, and his virtue ensures his fidelity
to both of his constituencies.
Unlike most medieval mirrors, however, Williams treatise specifies a
concrete and clear action on the part of the king that casts in doubt his
place in the nexus of love. The target of Williams wrath in the Speculum
regis Edwardi III is the practice of royal purveyance, the alleged preroga-
tive of the king to provide for his household and troops when touring the
realm by confiscating local goods or purchasing them at a fixed, nonnego-
tiable price. Beginning around 1300, purveyance gradually came to be em-
ployed by the English Crown as a form of arbitrary indirect taxation.17 In
order to meet the growing costs of royal military activity costs, the kings
array was sent into the countryside, where it could lay claim to provisions
at a cheap rate or even for free. The consequences of purveyance were un-
equally distributed. It was often the moveable goods, and occasionally the
labor power, of the peasantry that were appropriated by royal agents in
their forays into rural villages. Purveyance struck mainly at the poorest of
the Crowns subjects.
Both recensions of the Speculum regis Edwardi III argue that the king
should dispense with purveyance and other exactions by which he main-
tains himself and his household at the expense of the poor. William states
his case through moral and religious language that would have been un-
exceptional; the king is warned that the commission of evil endangers his
salvation; and theft, which is coextensive with purveyance, is precisely the
sort of evil about which the king ought to worry.18 Indeed, what makes
purveyance especially dangerous to the health of the kings soul is that it
involves stealing from the poorwhom the ruler should be especially con-
cerned to protect19in order to extend his own holdings, which God has
16. Ibid., B 1, 106.
17. For the historical background, see Nederman, ed., Political Thought in Early Four-
teenth-Century England, 6465.
18. De speculo regis Edwardi III, A 67, 7981.
19. Ibid., B 31, 12627.
already multiplied many-fold. The king therefore proves himself ungrate-

ful to God and unworthy of salvation.20 William recurrently invokes the
frailty of all human life, including the kings; since no one can predict
with certainty when death will occur, every person should remain in a con-
stant state of repentance.21 Otherwise, should death transpire unexpected-
ly, damnation and eternal punishment are the prospects for the ruler who
has not corrected his evils toward his poverty-stricken subjects. The mes-
sage is clear enough: You should wish to be loved by God and by the peo-
ple, and also to be honored, conditions requiring that those serving you
take nothing against the will of the sellers.22 A ruler whose actions stand
opposed to a loving bond endangers the state of his soul for mere passing
material comfort.
In turn, moral and theological strictures in the Speculum regis Edwardi
III are supplemented by recognition of the impact of the kings econom-
ic management upon the economic well-being of subjects. William thus
highlights the interdependence of moral categories (justice and piety) and
government fiscal policy. It is materially self-destructive, as well as spiritu-
ally dangerous, for Edward III to continue to follow policies that serious-
ly impoverish his subjects. The welfare of the head of the realm stands in
an inextricable reciprocal relation to the temporal good of the rest of the
communal body. One major consequence of the prises is interference with
the laborers cultivation of their own lands. This occurs in two ways. First,
the confiscation of victuals cuts into supplies required for planting future
harvests. As William explains, the kings agents seize bread, beer, fowls,
cocks, beans, oats, and many other things, for which practically nothing
is paid; and because of extortions of this kind, many poor people will not
have what they need to sow their fields.23 As a result, arable land goes fal-
low. Second, enforced labor contractsfor little or no paymentprevent
peasants from working their own lands. Recounting his own experiences
in the Windsor Forest region, William tells of officials who ordered into
service the goods and labor of the neighborhood farmers, promising (but
failing) to compensate them for their work: On account of this diabolical
deed, the lands of the poor were not cultivated, not planted, and the poor
did not have any [surplus] goods by which they were able to sustain bur-
dens of this sort.24 In Williams view, therefore, purveyance strains rural
20. Ibid., B 30, 126. 21. Ibid., B 13, 1038.

22. Ibid., A 2, 75. 23. Ibid., A 9, 82.
24. Ibid., A 15, 87.
resources to the point at which agricultural production begins to decline.

The Speculum regis Edwardi III also narrates how these royal exactions
have sometimes forced subjects to the brink of penury:
A poor man comes to the market with one ox at a price of one mark, since he has
to pay one mark on a certain day or lose his land. His ox is seized by your min-
isters and nothing is paid to him, on account of which he loses his land, because
he did not pay his debt on the day appointed. Some men, then, whose sheep and
oxen are taken do not pay their debts to their creditors on the appointed day, as
a result of which they incur perjury and excommunication and are reputed to be
dishonest, and many evils happen on account of these seizures.25
Time and again, William observes, purveyance is directly to blame for the
impoverishment and eventual starvation of subjects.26 By indifference to
the consequences of his servants actions, Edward III is implicated in the
murder of his people: You, through your ministers, through all sorts
of deeds done by them, take away from your subjects bread, beer, wheat,
oats, and other innumerable things, on account of which many die.27 Lit-
tle wonder that William elsewhere describes the kings conduct as, in ef-
fect, making war on the inhabitants of his own realm.28 It remains en-
tirely conjectural whether or not this is simply hyperbole. By acting in
such an uncharitable manner toward his subjects, the ruler demonstrates
the absence of his virtue and the breakdown of the bonds that tie him to
God and his kingdom.
By contrast, William offers the suggestion that a loving king will be
rewarded materially by adoring subjects. There is, William says, historical
precedent for such spontaneous popular generosity: In the time of the last
King Henry [III], all sorts of food, wheat, oats, and all necessities were car-
ried to his gate, since he himself seized nothing against the will of the sell-
ers, since he bought and paid as one of the people.29 While the authors
recounting of Henry IIIs reign as peaceful and amicable is surely a distor-
tion, historical accuracy is entirely irrelevant to the moral point of the ex-
ample. The Speculum regis Edwardi III strives to convey the lesson that the
king who does right by his people also does well for himself. The principle
of political reciprocity, expressed in terms of mutual love between king and
people, is not only a bridle on royal abuse of power but also a spur to fis-
25. Ibid., A 14, 86. 26. Ibid., A 3, 7577; A 37, 97; B 43, 131.
27. Ibid., A 16, 8788. 28. Ibid., B 37, 128.
29. Ibid., A 39, 98. See also B 6, 110.
cal self-restraint. Ultimately, the ruler who demands less of the fruits of his
subjects labor will be wealthier and safer than one who is constantly grasp-
ing at their goods.
To demand goods and services with little or no payment from already
impoverished subjects is, to Williams mind, wholly self-defeating for the
ruler. The Speculum regis Edwardi III advises its addressee that, should he
persist in his oppressive policies, you will not be king in your land, nor
will you find food and drink and other things necessary for you.30 Wil-
liam warns of a twofold threat to the king: he will encounter political re-
sistance as well as circumvention of his economic demands. Rural denizens
achieve the latter mainly by stealth. When villagers hear of the approach
of the royal entourage, at once on account of fear they hide fowls, roost-
ers and other goods, or they get rid of them, or they consume them by eat-
ing and drinking, lest they lose them upon your arrival.31 Thus, the royal
household does not succeed in supplying its needs in any case and its mis-
sion fails.
The threat of rural social unrest and insurrection is, according to Wil-
liam, even more dangerous to the continued authority of the ruler. As the
Speculum regis Edwardi III says to the king,
Carefully consider the honor paid to you by the men of this land ....... Do not for-
get how the English people made you king. Therefore, be like one of them ....... I
advise that you should procure food and drink and other things necessary to you
just like one of the people [sicut unus de populo].32
By the last phrase, presumably, William means paying full value for vict-
uals and buying them consensually. To behave in this way is to build a re-
ciprocal bond of love between ruler and people, one that ensures the polit-
ical stability and tranquility of the realm and the throne.
If, therefore, you wish to save your kingdom for yourself and your son, it ought to
be that you make yourself loved by the people, but you will never be loved by the
people as long as you wish to seize the things of others at a price lower than the
seller wishes to receive for them.33
William warns Edward that, if he continues to employ purveyance, many

evils may happen to you and your kingdom, as a result of which the king
and his officials will perish.34 The Speculum regis Edwardi III likens the
30. Ibid., B 9, 111. 31. Ibid., B 6, 109.
32. Ibid., B 16, 118; cf. B 1, 106. 33. Ibid., A 34, 95.
34. Ibid., A 10, 83.
position of the unloved king within the kingdom to that of a head that
cannot lead its own body: Your people ..... are not of one mind with you,
although they seem to be of one body with you; and indeed, if they had
a leader, they would rise up against you, just as they did against your fa-
ther. Then in truth you would not have a multitude of people with you.35
Kings who have extended their hand towards the goods and income of
others find that the people rise up against them and they are almost
wiped from the earth. And therefore be warned, and heed, lest you forget
what happened to your father.36 The persistent references to the unfortu-
nate Edward II are painful reminders that recent precedent exists for the
popular discontent foreseen by William. This need not be interpreted as a
threat. Rather, William seems to intend such remarks as a kind of empiri-
cal generalization: rulers who willfully break the bond of love with their
people by pursuing policies that are economically detrimental and man-
ifestly unjust find themselves confronted with rebellious subjects. Kings
who govern their realm in a manner consonant with the earthly well-being
of their subjects are obeyed and loved in turn.
William of Pagula, then, employed the language of love in order to
achieve an overt and pressing goal: the prevention of the impoverishment
of rural denizens and the depopulation of the English countryside. The
unapologetically polemical intent of his treatise may leave readers with the
impression of a certain lack of systematic and reflective use of the language
of princely virtue that had been refined in the past. The author of the
French tract Lestat et le gouvernement, by contrast, seems to be more con-
ventional in the use of moral discourse. This is unsurprising, given that the
books introductory poem explains that its composition was command-
ed in 1347 by un prince de royal noblesse in order to gather together
knowledge and wisdom concerning lestat et le gouvernement de seigneu-
rie temporelle.37 The work thus has a courtly origin that surely demand-
ed greater discretion in the use of invective and moral condemnation than
William employed. Yet the circumspection found in Lestat et le gouverne-
ment does not mean the absence of a critical edge similar to the Speculum
regis Edwardi III. The French author refers mainly to points of princely fis-
cal management and administration rather than to moral or religious gen-
eralizations. Yet the tract also grounds the political virtues explicitly on the
35. Ibid., A 11, 8384.

36. Ibid., B 38, 129.
37. Lestat et le gouvernement, in Four English Political Tracts of the Later Middle Ages, 210.
For some speculation about the authorship of this treatise, see ibid., 17778.
bonds of charity and love that unite a ruler with both God and his peo-
ple. In sum, there are noticeable and significant thematic similarities be-
tween two writings conceived and disseminated in otherwise different con-
textsa fact that suggests to me how commonplace it had become by the
middle of the fourteenth century to filter grievances about the economic
well-being of a kingdom though customary categories of moral and reli-
gious discourse.
The structure of Lestat et le gouvernement bears a general resemblance
to the famous mirror by Giles of Rome; it is organized into three parts
(hence, the title The III Consideracions Right Necesserye to the Good Gov-
ernaunce of a Prince given to the fifteenth-century English translation),
around the themes of self-governance, household stewardship, and political
dominion. But where Giles organized his De regimine principum around a
Christianized Aristotelian conception of felicity, the French author cau-
tions his noble reader to recollect that in his life as in his death, there is
no fundamental difference between the powerful and the weak: ..... the
princes and other great lords have no greater assurance of health and long
life than have poor subjects, which ought to act as a call to that humility
without which no man may attain to salvation nor be loved by God.38
Just as William of Pagula warns King Edward to take care lest in his pride
he pretends to an immortality that he does not possess, so the French trea-
tise counsels that a humble outlook leads the powerful to charity, which is
the sovereign of all virtues. For charity is the true love of God and likewise
of His creatures ....... Love of God and love of subjects are so conjoined in
good governance that the pious and virtuous prince cannot help but rule
well.39 The treatise later emphasizes this point even more unmistakably, re-
ferring to two wells or two fountains from which spring all the benefits
of virtuous rule:
The first fountain is the love of God, the other is love of the people subject to him
[the prince]. And if he keeps to the two fountains, which would be right, fair and
good, he shall have peace and good governance in his land. And these two foun-
tains are permanently associated, for he who loves God loves his people. And he
who loves the people of God loves God and God loves him. So the prince ought
especially and singularly to take heed that he does nothing against the command-
ment of God, nor anything against reason, to the grief and prejudice of his people
so as to give them cause to hate him and curse him.40
38. Ibid., 181. 39. Ibid., 18182.

40. Ibid., 199.
Love constitutes both a check on and a spur to the ruler. On the one hand,
the prince (a term that the treatise employs generically to include not just
kings but all manner of powerful lords) who acts within the bounds of love
is rewarded with popular submission and support. On the other hand,
breaking the bond of love leads directly to public disapprobation. The
meaning of love in this passage might seem sufficiently vague that one
could understand it to designate a purely spiritual phenomenon, leaving
the consequences of misrule to be dealt with entirely in the afterlife by the
judgment of God upon a princes soul. While this reading comports with
the more traditional conception of princely virtue as primarily moral and
theological in bearing, the author of Lestat et le gouvernement in fact focus-
es almost entirely on the earthly consequences of a loving relationship be-
tween God, ruler, and people.
The temporal orientation of the treatise may be deduced, first of all,
from the relative weight placed on the three factors necessary for good
government. The discussion of the princes own condition, built upon a
reminder of his humility and mortality, is by far the briefest in the work.
The ruler who knows himself realizes the precious and precarious pre-
dicament of human life, and submits to his fate accordingly by conducting
himself mildly; personal virtues are otherwise not addressed.41 The second
and third sections of the book, by contrast, are longer and more detailed,
offering advice primarily concerning the management of the princes realm
so as to assure his subjects of their physical well-being. Indeed, awareness
of the likely complaints that a populace might make against their leader
and planning in advance how to appease them seem to constitute the main
touchstones of a properly administered territory.
The second part of Lestat et le gouvernement addresses the rulers stew-
ardship over his own properties and revenues. The author asserts that there
are, in turn, three aspects (ordinances) of manorial management as the
subject pertains to public administration: the first is the maintenance of
the ruler and his family, the second is charitable donation, and the third
is saving for unforeseen future needs. In each case, the proper use to be
made of the princes own goods is clearly circumscribed, according to the
treatise, by the material welfare of the subjects consistent with his love of
them. Thus, when providing for the needs of his immediate household,
the greatest danger is the application of superior authority to treat subjects
inequitably and to take income in excess of what is owed. For this reason,
41. Ibid., 18283.
among lords, above all other things, it should be seen and well considered
that officers take nothing of the goods of subjects other than at a just and
mutually agreed price and without long withholding or delay of payment,
for it is an entirely good and great honor to every lord when he pays truly
and well what he spends and when he does not nourish himself at the ex-
pense of others.42 Likewise, great blame, hatred of God, great sin, and
the malediction of the people attaches itself to lords who commit injury
against others.43 Concentration on the impact of domain management
upon the well-being of subjects takes up almost the entire discussion of the
management of the princes household; divine commands, along with nat-
ural and civil law, are invoked to protect subjects against their lords. The
prince who cannot administer his estates so as to conserve the rightful in-
come of their residents is ill-equipped to govern the political community.
In a similar fashion, the ruler is advised to use a portion of his in-
comes on deeds of charity. Typically, of course, this counsel encompassed
almsgiving, an act which purchases the grace of God and the love of the
people.44 Moreover, the prince should be liberal in the conferral of gifts
upon the deserving among his servants and subjects, though taking care
not to be profligate in his liberality lest he spend beyond his means. The
magnification of public repute is the goal toward which the prince should
strive:
..... it is entirely necessary that the prince clearly consider himself and his deeds,
by which he is held wise and sagacious, respected and honored, praised and loved
by his subjects, and feared by his enemies and those envious of him, who are both
ready and happy to lay in wait and plot against the prince if they can take any oc-
casion or can find the time at which the prince neither holds nor is beheld repu-
table for wisdom and sagacity....... 45
This remarkable statement suggests the tenuous grasp that a ruler has on his
office and hints darkly at the need for constant preparation against courtly
intriguesa concern that we might associate with Machiavelli, but which
was in fact already widely disseminated by advice-books following in the
wake of the popular Secreta secretorum, which circulated as a genuine work
by Aristotle during the later Middle Ages.46 The princes good works do
42. Ibid., 184. 43. Ibid., 18485.
44. Ibid., 185. 45. Ibid., 186.
46. On the Secreta secretorum and its medieval dissemination, see Steven J. Williams, The
Secret of Secrets: The Scholarly Career of a Pseudo-Aristotelian Text in the Latin Middle Ages (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003).
not purely and simply serve the goal of his salvation. Instead, they ensure a
sufficient measure of public support (love) that the ruler can maintain his
grip upon his position. The unmistakable lesson is that he who does good
for his people does well for himselfprecisely the reciprocal and interde-
pendent nature of the loving bond between ruler and ruled.
The third and final element of competent household management re-
quires the prince to make provision for future contingencies by safeguard-
ing and building a treasury. The author of Lestat et le gouvernement insists
that this should not be confused with avarice. Rather, the king who ju-
diciously saves some of his revenues for the safeguarding of himself, his
lands and his subjects and for other things useful and appropriate in fact
performs a great good for his subjects, since he is able to provision an army
against military threats without taking or encroaching upon the goods of
the poor and of his subjects forcibly and against their will. Indeed, it is
predicted that the rulers people will voluntarily aid him in his armed ex-
ploits for defense of his territory and position if he uses his own resources
and refrains from burdening his subjects.47 Again, the intent of the ad-
vice is entirely practical: a prince who accumulates a substantial treasury
shall be held to be a good prince and he shall be loved and respected by
all his subjects, and feared and dreaded by others. And thus none of his en-
emies shall suffice in power to move greatly against him.48 Even if some-
one were so foolhardy as to oppose the ruler, the love of subjects, accord-
ed to him precisely on account of his concern for their economic welfare,
forms an adequate assurance of his victory against his adversaries or ene-
mies. (It is exactly this advice, of course, that Machiavelli would ridicule
in Il principe.)
The most extensive of the three parts of Lestat et le gouvernement is
what might be termed the political section, that is, the principles ac-
cording to which the ruler directly governs his realm, his land, and his
subjects, to which the initial considerations are in some ways preparato-
ry.49 This is the highest calling of all lords, and its guiding precept is, once
more, lovethe love of God and the love of the people. And what is the
primary token of a prince who demonstrably stands in such a bond of
love? The author states, The lord should in no way burden the people nor
forage among his people to make them barren of such things as they must
have to live upon, for he is not a good keeper who destroys the thing that
47. Lestat et le gouvernement, 187. 48. Ibid., 188.

49. Ibid., 188.
he is supposed to guard.......50 This basic tenetthat the shepherd should

not fleece the flockruns throughout the discussion of lordly duties: the
ruled do not exist for the sake of their ruler, but the ruler for the sake
of the ruled; and the prince ought, in imitation of the Supreme Lord, to
prepare to sacrifice himself to save his people.51 These are well-established
teachings, of course, but they are infused with the quite concrete defini-
tion that the bond is violated when the lord engages in taking from them
[viz., the people] what they should have to live upon, the goods upon
which their sustenance depends.52
With these general prefatory remarks in mind, the text then turns
to the four specific virtues required for good governance by the prince,
which are specified as wisdom, providence, justice. and mercy. Each of
these receives a brief definition and a quite thorough illustration and ap-
plicationanother indication of the practical mind-set of the author. Wis-
dom is determined to be a gift from God, deriving from fear of His power
that gives rise to love of the divine.53 Wisdom is displayed when the rul-
er draws to his court wise counselors and when he refrains from frivolous
recreations.54 By providence is meant the ability to execute those actions
that are determined to be in accordance with wisdom.55 The primary sign
of the provident ruler is the careful selection of loyal and virtuous advisors
who will speak the truth and disdain flattery.56 Justice is defined in accor-
dance with the Roman legal dictum of a fixed will to give to each what is
due as his right.57 Justice receives more complete attention than any other
royal virtue in Lestat et le gouvernement, suggesting that for the author it
is the quintessential quality of political command. The just prince in par-
ticular eschews his own profit in preference for his love especially and
principally [of ] the common profit of the people and of subjects.58 This
or similar phrasing is employed repeatedly throughout the discussion of
justice: love of common profit outweighs all self-regard for the just ruler,
whereas the unjust ruler or tyrant places his own will or pleasure before all
else. The point is not per se a novel one; it follows the language one usu-
ally finds in standard medieval mirrors and political treatises.59 But the
50. Ibid., 190. 51. Ibid., 189, 190.
52. Ibid., 189. 53. Ibid., 191.
54. Ibid., 192193. 55. Ibid., 193194.
56. Ibid., 194195. 57. Ibid., 196.
58. Ibid., 197.
59. See Cary J. Nederman, Imperfect Regimes in the Christian Political Thought of Me-
dieval Europe: From the Fathers to the Fourteenth Century, Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-
Joseph 57 (2004): 52551.
primary specific example given of the conduct of the tyrant at present is

economic oppression: he intends nothing for the honorable wealth and
profit of his land, but instead his singular and delightful pleasure is to be
acquainted with strangers and not to love his subjects, to take riches and
money, causing extortions and evils to his subjects.60 The unjust ruler re-
moves the goods of his people, whether into his own coffers or those of
his (foreign) friends; the subjects lose those possessions required for their
survival. Finally, mercy seems to be regarded as an offshoot of or supple-
ment to justice. Mercy is that virtue which tempers the princes desire to
restore to each his due, especially in cases where he himself is the person
against whom trespass has been made. The merciful ruler is more prepared
to bestow forgiveness upon those who do injury to him than those who do
harm to his people, and he thus earns the favor of those in his care, who
may rest assured that he will seek their benefit before his own.61
One feature consistent across the accounts given of each of the prince-
ly virtues is the drawing of a direct connection between the absence of
good qualities and the resulting political instability and revolt. The author
of Lestat et le gouvernement appears to be conveying a not entirely veiled
threat: vicious rulers risk the ruin of their own dominion. Hence, a prince
who lacks wisdom (the biblical Roboam is cited) may expect the people
to refuse obedience to him and to place themselves in the hands of anoth-
er governor.62 An improvident ruler trusts foreign counselors likely to be
rebels.63 The Bible likewise teaches that for the lack and default of jus-
tice, the realm, once it fails, will be transposed and fall into the hands of
strange people and to the enemies of any king who will not do justice .....
for this cause a king or a prince who will not do justice shall soon be with-
out lordship.64 Finally, a ruler whose mercy is misguided is likely to fall
into the peril of rebellion by his subjects or else to suffer a great war among
the inhabitants belonging to the parties in his realm.65 In short, a prince
who does not properly and thoroughly love his subjects will find himself
abandoned by them and can only reasonably expect to be forced from his
office. It may be that this is ultimately Gods judgment, but its immedi-
ate and clear cause is popular dissatisfaction. And the major source of such
discontent for Lestat et le gouvernement can evidently be traced to econom-
ic deprivation as much or more than moral outrage or religious fervor. The
author seems to understand very well that men are more inclined to lose
60. Lestat et le gouvernement, 19899. 61. Ibid., 200201.
62. Ibid., 192. 63. Ibid., 194.
64. Ibid., 197. 65. Ibid., 201.
their love and surrender their obedience when their survival is compro-
mised by misadministration and evil government.
The connection between the medieval struggle against tyranny and
good government and the emergence of full-blown modern economic life
has been noted by scholars. 66 The foregoing chapter illustrates that some
moral and political thinkers did indeed equate the struggle for the eco-
nomic rights of the people with forms of opposition to political interfer-
ence with the possession and accumulation of private wealth. More to the
point, the conception of princely virtue, expressed in traditional language,
came to be realigned with an ideal of government viewed as the promot-
er of the economic welfare of the subjects over whom it ruled. Nor were
the authors of the Speculum regis Edwardi III and Lestat et le gouvernement
simply outlying voices. Rather, their identification of the conventional
Christian political value of love with royal concern for earthly material
benefit of the people echoed a theme that became increasingly common-
place during the later Middle Ages. Better known theorists of the peri-
odfrom Bruntto Latini and Marsiglio of Padua to Christine of Pizan to
John Fortescueshared similar conceptions of the economic dimensions
of political community and the attendant requirements placed on rulers to
serve the temporal good of its members, as we shall discover in subsequent
chapters of this book. I do not mean to imply, of course, that loftier goals
of spiritual and moral reform and improvement were gradually eliminat-
ed from late medieval theories of government. Rather, virtues such as jus-
tice were expanded to embrace more overtly earthly considerations with-
out any contraction in the duty of a prince to enforce customary Christian
valueshence, the inclusion of Gods role in the bond of love that united
ruler and people. The tendency to treat the pursuit of spiritual fulfillment
and of bodily security as mutually exclusive and perhaps antithetical activ-
itieswhich one finds both in the Augustinian doctrine of the two cities
and in modern dichotomies between secular and religious endsdoes
not seem to have occurred to (or at any rate, disturbed) many medieval au-
thors. Instead, one could be a good Christian ruler while governing ones
subjects simultaneously for the welfare of their bodies and their souls.
66. Lately, see Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capi-
talism, and Western Success (New York: Random House, 2005), 7199.
Pa rt I I I
Republican Self-Governance and

Universal Empire

9
B r u n e t t o Lat ini s C o m m e r cia l
R e p u b l icanis m
h e e n t h u sias m for republicanism that has gripped po-

litical theorists and historians during the last fifty years or so
has reaped unintended rewards for a host of authors who had
been long forgotten or little appreciated. Perhaps no thinker ben-
efited more from this revival in the restoration of his reputation
than Brunetto Latini, the thirteenth-century Florentine rhetori-
cian and civil servant. In his own era, Latini was eulogized by
a younger contemporary, Giovanni Villani, as a great philoso-
pher who tutored the Florentines in the arts of speaking well
and guiding and ruling our republic. Latini may have been a
teacher of Dante, who, while repaying his master by memoral-
izing him in the Inferno as an occupant of the nether reaches of
Hell, also demonstrates the utmost deference and respect for his
political judgment. Indeed, Dantes son, Peter, in his commentary
on the Inferno, claims that his father held Latini in high esteem as
a teacher of virtue and knowledge.1 Regard for Latinis skills as a
philosopher and politician largely lapsed with the centuries, how-
ever. Only during the last several decades has Latinis stock once
1. References to Villanis Chronica and Peter Alighieris commentary on Infer-
no 15 are given by Charles T. Davis, Brunetto Latini and Dante, in Dantes Italy
and Other Essays (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), 168, 18687.
Further discussion of Latinis contemporary reputation may be found in Julia Bol-
ton Holloway, Twice-Told Tales: Brunetto Latini and Dante Alighieri (New York: Pe-
ter Lang, 1993) and Iolanda Ventura, Liconografia letteraria di Brunetto Latini,
Studi Medievali, 3rd series, 38 (1997): 499528.
141
142 s e l f - g o v e r n A N C E & e m pi r e
again risen as a creative political thinker, who, in his encyclopedic treatise

called Li Livres dou Tresor, proposed a vigorous republican account of the
art of government and the nature of community. Quentin Skinner con-
tends that Latini, foremost among his medieval contemporaries, embraces
the fundamentals of republican ideals: The most unequivocal expression
of a preference for Republican liberty over any other form of government
is pronounced by Latini in his Books of Treasure.2 In a similar vein, Maur-
izio Viroli, recounting the transformation of republican political language
between 1250 and 1600, remarks, Bruntto Latini ..... emerges as a central
character in the story, as a writer who condensed in a general definition the
notion of politics that had emerged from the tradition of political virtues
and the Roman civil wisdom.3 Latini now enjoys quite widespread re-
nown as a leading humanistic proponent of republican values and ideals.4
In particular, the valorization of Latinis republicanism has been heavi-
ly based on its literary sensibilities, its attachment to rhetoric, and its praise
for classical civic virtues. But there is another important, yet hitherto un-
explored, way in which Latini deserves to be classified as a republican in
the mold of his fifteenth- and sixteenth-century successors: his founda-
tion of social and political order upon commercial principlesthe pro-
duction and exchange of material goods for profitand consequent eco-
nomic defense of republican government. Hans Baron famously argued
that an important divide between medieval republicanism and the repub-
lican thought of the Renaissance civic humanists might be found in their

Cambridge University Press, 1978), 1: 41. Skinner develops this point in greater detail in Am-
brogio Lorenzetti: The Artist as Political Philosopher, Proceedings of the British Academy 72
(1986): 156 and Machiavellis Discorsi and the Pre-humanist Origins of Republican Ideas, in
Gisela Bok, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli, eds., Machiavelli and Republicanism (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 12141.
3. Maurizio Viroli, From Politics to Reason of State: The Acquisition and Transformation of the
Language of Politics 12501600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 8 (cf. 24, 2630).
4. For other examples of this propensity to enshrine Latini at the origins of European re-
publicanism, see Ncholai Rubinstein, Marsilius of Padua and Italian Political Thought of His
Time, in J. R. Hale, J. R. L. Highfield, and Beryl Smalley, eds., Europe in the Late Middle Ages
(London: Faber & Faber, 1965), 51, 62; Joseph Canning, Introduction: Politics, Institutions
and Ideas, in J. H. Burns, ed., The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c. 350
c.1450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 366; Antony Black, Political Thought in
Europe 12501450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 132; Cary J. Nederman, The
Union of Wisdom and Eloquence before the Renaissance: The Ciceronian Orator in Medi-
eval Thought, Journal of Medieval History 18 (1992): 8688; and James M. Blythe, Civic Hu-
manism and Medieval Political Thought, in James Hankins, ed., Renaissance Civic Humanism
b r u n e t t o l at ini s r e p u b l icanis m 143
respective attitudes toward the creation of earthly wealth. In Barons view,

the trecento glorification of poverty undermined any positive valuation of
the pursuit of material enrichment, either for the individual or the com-
munity.5 Only when the fourteenth-century tradition had been signifi-
cantly weakened, Baron asserted, did it become possible for humanists
to look at life ..... with the eyes of citizens proudly acknowledging work
and self-acquired possessions as the foundation of morality and the great-
ness of their city.6 Hence, Baron rejects the idea that economic develop-
ment played a central role in the thought of a medieval republican such as
Latini. Interestingly, Quentin Skinner, who in other respects did so much
to reveal the weaknesses of Barons crisis of the Florentine republic expla-
nation of the origins of civic humanism, somewhat contradictorily seems
to share this perspective. Skinner detects in Latini precisely the doctrine
that Baron had ascribed to pre-Renaissance republicans: that an important
cause of the loss of civic liberty is the increase of private wealth, since
the pursuit of private gain is inimical to public virtue.7 It is certainly
true that Latini was no advocate of greed and excessive wealth. But a more
comprehensive reading of the Tresor reveals Latini, no less than the repub-
licans of the quattrocento, supported precisely the idea that increasing
wealth may serve as a positive blessing to the citya position that Skin-
ner denies to Latini.8 My interpretation, if upheld, draws Latini more di-
rectly into the ambit of the commercial republicanism that characterized
the Renaissance, in Barons view. Hence, the example of Latini challenges
one of the principal remaining barriers that supposedly separates medieval
defenses of republicanism from Renaissance versions.
In support of this reading, I contend that Latinis republican thought
embraces the position that self-governing institutions both depend upon
and are especially well suited to sustain a society whose conception of the
common good includes centrally the creation and exchange of those mate-
rial necessities required for physical welfare and comfort. In a reversal of the
Aristotelian argument, living becomes a salient communal concern, rath-
5. Hans Baron, In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1988), 1:158257. On the attitude of Italian civic humanists toward wealth, see Ma-
ria Luisa Pesante, Il commercio nella reppublica, Quaderni Storici 105 (35: 3) (2000): 65595.
6. Ibid., 226. For an evaluation of the importance of this view for Barons general interpre-
tation of civic humanism, see William Connell, The Republican Idea, in Hankins, ed., Re-
naissance Civic Humanism, 2021 and passim.
7. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 1: 42; cf. 4245.
8. Ibid., 43.
er than merely a matter for individual households; yet for just this reason,
material existence and the objects needed to pursue it may not be assimi-
lated to the private self-interest or desire of citizens. Civil life is thus driven
by the production and circulation of tangible goods among members of the
community. And republican government is more likely to facilitate such
economic activities than other regime types. In considering Latinis Tresor,
we may locate three propositions necessary to sustain this general idea of
republican institutions as uniquely consonant with a needs-based commer-
cial society: (1) the foundations of civil association necessarily involve the
goal of producing and exchanging consumable goods; (2) one of the crucial
functions of government is to enhance the physical (economic) security of
citizens; and (3) the material goals of society are best realized under a repub-
lican form of government. These three views not only form important ele-
ments of Latinis political argument in the Tresor, they also distinguish him
from his classical sources, such as Aristotle and Cicero. The appreciation of
the commercial themes that suffuse his political theory has perhaps been
overshadowed by scholarly emphasis upon other aspects of his republican
sensibilities, a situation that I endeavor to rectify in the present chapter.
It is understandable that scholars have previously neglected the eco-
nomic dimensions of Li Livres dou Tresor. The Tresor is, after all, a long
and eclectic work, knitted together out of a diverse array of source ma-
terials. Its three major sections cover, first, speculative wisdom as well as
religion, human history, and the natural world; second, ethics as under-
stood by Aristotle and by the Latin philosophers; and third, rhetoric and
the art of government. Since Latini apparently wrote the Tresor in the early
1260swhile in exile from his beloved Florencehe had no direct knowl-
edge of the doctrines of Aristotles Politics beyond those teachings present
in the Nicomachean Ethics, an abbreviated translation of which comprises
the first half of the Tresors second book. Latini similarly draws on works as
varied as the twelfth-century Moralium Dogma Philosophorum (the second
half of book two), Ciceros De inventione (the first section of book three),
and John of Viterbos De regimine civitate (the second part of book three).
Yet in adapting all of these works, Latini prunes and revises them to serve
his own clear intellectual purposes.
Recent scholarship has stressed principally the rhetorical features of
Latinis conception of political life.9 This is hardly surprising in light of the
9. In addition to the work of Skinner mentioned in note 2 above, see Ronald G. Witt,
Brunetto Latini and the Italian Traditions of Ars Dictaminis, Stanford Italian Studies 3 (1983):
524; and John M. Najemy, Brunetto Latinis Politica, Dante Studies 112 (1994): 3351.
contours of his own career as a teacher and civil servant, not to mention
his claim at the beginning of the third book of the Tresor (on good gov-
ernment) that the most important science relative to governing the city is
rhetoric, that is to say, the science of speaking, for if there were no speech,
there would be no city, nor would there be any establishment of justice or
of human company.10 Latini supports the centrality of rhetoric by appeal-
ing to a fairly conventional rendition of Ciceros account of the linguistic
foundations of human association derived from De inventione, which was
widely known and repeated during the Middle Ages.11 By means of elo-
quent speech humanity was originally drawn together into organized soci-
ety and political life; the latter-day orator retains particular responsibility
for upholding the good order of the community.
The emphasis upon the rhetorical aspect of politics in Latinis thought
conveniently illustrates his continuity with later Italian humanists. Yet this
approach conveys a somewhat one-sided picture.12 In the opening section
of the Tresor, Latini offers a definition of politics that incorporates rheto-
ric within a broader conception. In the course of classifying the disparate
branches of knowledge, he asserts that politics ..... without doubt is the
highest wisdom and most noble profession that there is among men, for
it teaches us to govern others ..... according to reason and justice.13 He
then immediately explains what is encompassed by the noble profession
of politics: It teaches us all of the arts and trades [ars et mestiers] necessary
to the life of man, and this occurs in two ways, for one is in deed and the
other in word. By word, Latini means that politics embraces grammar,
dialectic, and rhetoric, the latter of which he commends as the pinnacle of
the political arts.14 By deed, he maintains that politics consists of the
daily trades involving hand and foot, that is, metalsmiths, weavers, and
10. Brunetto Latini, Li Livres dou Tresor, ed. Francis J. Carmody (Berkeley and Los Ange-
les: University of California Press, 1948), 3.1.2. I have consulted the English translation by Paul
Barrette and Spurgeon Baldwin (New York: Garland, 1993), but have often modified their ren-
derings: I have also made occasional use of the new edition of the French text, also by Barrette
and Baldwin (Tempe, Arizona: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 2003).
11. Latini, Li Livres dou Tresor, 3.1.7. See Cary J. Nederman, Nature, Sin and the Ori-
gins of Society: The Ciceronian Tradition in Medieval Political Thought, Journal of the His-
tory of Ideas 49 (1988): 326, and Nederman, The Union of Wisdom and Eloquence before
the Renaissance. Latini repeats the Ciceronian account in his Italian-language commentary
on De inventione, published as La rettorica, ed. Francesco Maggini (Florence: Felice le Mon-
nier, 1968).
12. As has been emphasized by Najemy, Brunetto Latinis Politica, 38.
13. Latini, Li Livres dou Tresor, 1.4.5.
14. Ibid., 1.4.710.
shoemakers, and the other trades necessary for the life of man, and which
are called mechanical.15 Thus, Latinis idea of politics comprehends not
only the activities of writing and speaking well, but also occupations that
were often regarded by ancient and medieval authors to be demeaning and
inconsistent with civic life.
What might Latini have in mind here? Certainly not that knowledge
of politics involves a direct familiarity with all of the intricacies of the me-
chanical trades.16 Rather, he apparently believed that the goal of politics
must be to facilitate the flourishing of the disparate arts and trades that
exist within a community. As he says in the introductory section of Book
Two of the Tresor, which allegedly reproduces the view of Aristotles Nico-
machean Ethics,
The art which teaches how to govern a city is the most important and the sover-
eign and the mistress of all arts, because it contains many honorable arts, such as
rhetoric and military science and governing ones household; furthermore, it is
noble because it gives order and direction to all those arts which are under it and
which bring about its fulfillment, and its end is also the end and fulfillment of the
others.17
In spite of his claim to be summarizing the Ethics, Latini seems to make

a quite different point from Aristotle. For Aristotle, all of the subordinate
arts present within the polis had purposes that were less honorable than the
aim of political science: they sought only partial goods, whereas political
science sought the good of the whole.18 Hence, they were to be relegated
to the strict control of the master science of the good, politics, in order
to ensure that they did not detract from the realization of the common
good, which was the promotion of moral virtue among those inhabitants
capable of attaining it. Aristotles political science thus is wholly uncon-
cerned with the ends of the divers arts and trades for their own sake, but
instead concentrates on maintaining them (at armss length) because their
products formed the material preconditions for a morally valuable life on
the part of a small elite.19
By contrast, Latini teases out of the text of the Nicomachean Ethics a
15. Ibid., 1.4.6.

16. An implication specifically denied at ibid., 3.73.2.
17. Ibid., 2.3.1.
18. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1094a11094b12.
19. See Ellen Meiksins Wood and Neal Wood, Class Ideology and Ancient Political Theory
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1978), 20953.
suggestion that the nature of politics is both more inclusive and less exalt-
ed than Aristotle proposes. Brunetto hints that the reason politics incorpo-
rates the mechanical as well as the verbal arts is that the community must
be arranged so as to promote the good of all its members. Thus, a cru-
cial duty of government is the protection and enhancement of tasks and
functions that contribute to marketplace activities. It is evident through-
out the Tresor that Latini has the utmost respect for the capacities of per-
sons engaged in mechanical occupations. Each artisan judges well and
tells the truth about what belongs to his trade, and in this lies the subtly of
his sense, Latini states.20 Elsewhere, he remarks, Wisdom is the dignity
and advantage of a man in his trade [mestier]; for when one says of a man
that he is wise in his art, then his value and worth in that art are shown.21
Commercial and manual enterprises, so far from demeaning those who
engage in them, are deemed honorable and worthy by Latini.
Such valorization of mechanical occupations surely reflects the gener-
al medieval trend, evident in philosophical and theological literature from
the twelfth century onward, to accord dignity to labor.22 Latinis think-
ing was doubtless also shaped by the guild-based structure of public life in
Florence and the other Italian communes of his time.23 But neither factor
is adequate to explain one of the most striking features of the concept of
politics propounded by the Tresor: its insistence that the diversity of hu-
man arts constitutes a crucial foundation for communal life. All arts and
all works are directed to some good, but because of the diversity of things,
it follows that good things are diverse; each thing requires its own good
which is appropriate to its goal, Latini remarks.24 Specifically, he enumer-
ates the different ranks and functions of clerics, and then stipulates that
others are laborers, with some making houses and others cultivating the
arable land, and others still are smiths or cobblers or practice some other

21. Ibid., 2.31.3.
22. See Elspeth Whitney, Paradise Restored: The Mechanical Arts from Antiquity through
the Thirteenth Century (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1990); and George
Ovitt Jr., The Restoration of Perfection: Labor and Technology in Medieval Culture (New Bruns-
wick: Rutgers University Press, 1987).
23. For the social and political organization of Italian civic life in Latinis time, see John
M. Najemy, Corporation and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics, 12801400 (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1982); and Antony Black, Guild and State: European Politi-
cal Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present (New Brusnwick, N.J.: Transaction Press,
2003), 4475.
trade [mestier]. I say that they all work toward the common and peaceful
good of cities.25 In sum, a range of talents and functions is both constitu-
tive of and desirable for civic life.
In turn, Latinis model for the interrelation of the naturally diverse
forms of human activity is located in the commercial interchange of goods
and services. He observes that
human beings help one another, and for this we must follow nature and place the
common profit above all else, and preserve the company of men by serving, that is,
by giving and taking its profits and its arts and its wealth, and by giving and leav-
ing to the others ones property in honorable fashion; for giving of ones belong-
ings is not only courtesy but it can be of great profit.26
Latini here subtly revises the standard Ciceronian conception of our natu-
ral duty to care for other human beings,27 introducing a market-oriented
principle according to which the common good is realized in a manner
compatible with private advantage. The conditions of ones fellows materi-
ally improve when one shares with them the fruits of the special arts that
one possesses. By no means is it illicit, however, for a person to profit from
the advantage that at the same time accrues to others.
As a result, citizenship comes to be defined by Latini in at least partial-
ly commercial terms: It is a natural thing for a man to be a citizen and to
live among other men and other artisans, and it would be against nature to
live alone in a desert where no people live, because man naturally delights
in company.28 A large measure of such delight seems to be comprised of
the exchange of goods: Citizens who live together in a city serve one an-
other, for if a man needs something that another person has, he receives it
and gives him his reward and his payment according to the quality of the
thing.29 Indeed, Latini concludes (contra Aristotle) that commerce forms
a perfectly appropriate archetype of friendly relations among citizens: The
proper direction of friendship puts in order those areas in friendship which
are divergent, as it happens in cities, for the cobbler sells his shoes accord-
ing to what they are worth, and the others do the same.30 What permits
friendly and unobstructed trading is the shared desire for personal profit:
Among them, there is a common thing that is loved, through which they
arrange and conform their business, and that is gold and silver.31 Seeking
25. Ibid., 2.50.3. 26. Ibid., 2.108.12.
27. See Cicero, De officiis 1.7.2024. 28. Latini, Li Livres dou Tresor, 2.5.2.
29. Ibid., 2.29.2. 30. Ibid., 2.44.18.
31. Ibid., 2.44.18.
ones self-interest is neither inherently antithetical to citizenship for Lati-

ni nor is it necessarily destructive of the public welfare of the community.
Indeed, he appears to define the communal advantage at least partially in
terms of the expanding personal gain of citizens.
Latini is by no means unmindful that the pursuit of private advantage
can readily degenerate into conflict between individuals and groups. Like
other republicans before and after him, he frets about the potentially cor-
rosive effects of seeking self-interest:
If to obtain gain we are willing to despoil and use force against another, it follows
that the company of men, which is according to nature, is dissolved. Illustration:
if one limb thought it would be worth more by drawing off for itself the health of
the next limb, the whole body would necessarily weaken and die. The same is true
in human company, for just as nature grants that each person acquire what is nec-
essary for himself more than for someone else, similarly it does not grant that we
should increase our wealth by despoiling others.32
The greatest threat to communal order, somewhat ironically, stems from

the very diversity within the capacities of the human race that makes civ-
ic life necessary and profitable. Since human beings possess divergent
interests, and they desire to pursue these interests in ways that may come
into conflict, the great benefit that accrues to them when they share and
cooperate always remains under threat. For precisely this reason, Latini
stresses the need for a principle of justice to mediate between individu-
als who, left to their own devices, would injure one another. If one is a
knight, another a merchant, and still others laborers, and the desires of
one are detrimental to the gain of another, he declares, wars and hatreds
would arise and bring about the destruction of men if justice did not exist,
which protects and defends the communal life.33 Latini asserts that this
is particularly true in the sphere of the marketplace: For those who sell
and buy and borrow and lend for remuneration, and are concerned with
commercial enterprises [marchandises], justice is necessary.34 Without the
mediating force of justice in economic exchange, individuals who have so
much to profit by mutual service may easily be tempted to cheat, steal, or
otherwise take advantage of other people, and thus destroy the bonds of
social order.
The Tresor identifies two primary sources for the justice that reduces
32. Ibid., 2.122.4. 33. Ibid., 2.91.2.

34. Ibid., 2.91.3.
the potential for conflict within the community. The first stems from the
mechanisms of the market itself. Latini observes that
if a man sings in the hope of gaining and you give him a song in exchange, he
will not consider that he has been paid, because he was expecting another reward;
therefore, there will be no agreement in commerce [marchandise] unless an agree-
ment is deliberately decided on, and this happens when each one receives what he
desires in exchange for what he gives.35
While, in some instances, reward is accorded in the medium of honor or

another form of statusBrunetto cites philosophy as one examplein
the other mechanical arts, one asks for money.36 Money constitutes the
source of a just middle ground between two persons in the act of ex-
change: If the smith has something that is worth one, and the cobbler
has something that is worth two, and a carpenter something that is worth
three, and each needs things from the others, there must be some way
to bring about equality.37 The equalization of inequality forms the ba-
sis for the invention of money: It brought equality to unequal things,
..... because it is a middle ground through which unequal things become
equal.38 Latini adopts the general view of Aristotles Ethics, in the sense
that justice concerns, at least in part, the identification of a mean in which
each person possesses what is proportionately equal; and money is treat-
ed as the medium through which this mean may be realized.39
Latini chooses, however, to detour around the technical dimensions of
the Aristotelian conception of money, which were widely debated among
thirteenth-century commentators on the Ethics.40 Instead, he concentrates
upon the utility of money for the harmonious and undisturbed operation
of market relations.
Justice is half-way between gaining and losing, and it cannot exist without giv-
ing and taking and exchanging; for the cloth merchant gives cloth in exchange for
something else he needs, and the ironworker gives iron for something else, and be-
cause in these things there was a great difficulty, a system was devised to make the
adjustment, that is, money, so that the work of the housebuilder can be adjusted
to the work of the cobbler through money.41
35. Ibid., 2.44.21. 36. Ibid., 2.24.22.
37. Ibid., 2.29.1. 38. Ibid., 2.29.2.
39. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1134a5; cf. 1133a6b28.
40. A thorough survey of Scholastic views on money and related issues is provided by Odd
Langholm, Economics in the Medieval Schools (Leiden: Brill, 1992).
Latinis market justice, unlike that described by Aristotle, is an approxi-

mate justice. Where Aristotle and most of his medieval followers were con-
cerned with establishing how money could express with mathematical pre-
cision the relative values of various commodities, Latini seems to focus on
how money fulfills the desires of the exchanging parties. Thus, the equality
of market justice as understood in the Tresor is somewhat subjective and
contingent upon the satisfaction of the participants and the elimination of
any potential for conflict. Money is a source of justice for Latini because
agreement about its use mediates in advance the grievances that might
otherwise arise among individuals in commercial interactions. Money pro-
motes the peace that is a prerequisite of market society.
Yet money is only one factor in Latinis formula for establishing a just
communal order. The other factor necessary for attaining justice is a sys-
tem of law enforced by an efficient executor. Since the existence of mon-
ey cannot rid the community of all disputes, even those of a strictly com-
mercial nature, justice must be embodied in a person who is charged with
judging dissentions among citizens and imposing law upon the citizen
body. Invoking an organic metaphor, Latini comments that because the
lord is like the head of the citizens, and all men desire to have a healthy
head, because when the head is sick, all the limbs are sick, men must above
all things try to have a governor who will lead them to a good end accord-
ing to law and justice.42 The origins of government, as of money, stem
primarily from the potential for abuse on the part of unencumbered pro-
prietors:
Because the pursuit of evil desires and the opportunity for evil deeds which went
unpunished was becoming dangerous for the people and destructive to human asso-
ciation, justice took heed of these people and a governor was chosen for the people
with several duties....... Thus, it was appropriate, indeed, it was almost a necessity,
that nature be subject to justice ..... Nothing can be more profitable to each group
of people and to all communes than to have a just lord and a wise governor.43
Government is required in order to ensure the safety and material well-be-

ing of individuals who, left to their own devices, might easily be tempted
to engage in selfish behavior. Thus, principal among the expectations for
a magistrate is that he would watch over the common good, and would
maintain both outsiders and insiders, and would respect the property and
persons of all people in such a way that justice would not decrease in our
42. Ibid., 3.75.1. 43. Ibid., 3.77.1.

city.44 Latini appears less concerned with the impact a governor might
have upon the moral and spiritual condition of citizens than with his abil-
ity to stamp out conflict and to promote the physical comfort of the com-
munitys denizens.
Latini recognizes, therefore, that the justice of a magistrates admin-
istration coordinates directly with the prosperity of the civic body. The
judge of equality remains steadfast in maintaining the law, he observes,
and the citizens increase, and the landholders in the countryside multi-
ply, as do the workers of the land and of the vineyards; and through the
evil deeds which take place in the cities the opposite occurs, and finally
they become deserts and woods.45 The second half of Book Three of the
Tresor enumerates the various duties of the public official with an eye to-
ward the issues of economic management that are implied by the govern-
ments direct effects upon the productive and commercial condition of the
populace. In preceding medieval literature on the rule of the just man,
a heavy emphasis was placed on the moral and spiritual consequences of
good government for the people. By contrast, Latiniwithout neglecting
earlier conventionspeppers his advice for the governor with comments
of a more practical character. Thus, the ruler must supervise the accounts
of the city with care that expenditures from the public treasury are not
squandered.46 Generally speaking, as chief financial officer, he is charged
to keep and maintain the rights of the commune, the taxes, jurisdictions, lord-
ships, castles, cities, houses, courts, officials, public squares, highways, roads, and
all the things which belong to the commune, in such a way that the honor and
profit of the city are not diminished, but rather they should increase and grow bet-
ter in time.47
The equation of just government with sound fiscal management runs

throughout the Tresors advice about the responsibilities of management:
intermingled among its survey of the more traditional virtues of the lord
are suggestions about the maintenance of communal facilities and infra-
structure and policies regarding the taxation of the citizen body.48 The
tools of public administration were beginning to emerge within the pages
of medieval books advising rulers.49
44. Ibid., 3.77.1. 45. Ibid., 2.29.3.
46. Ibid., 3.93.12. 47. Ibid., 3.93.3.
48. See ibid., 3.973.99.
49. For example, Rolandino of Bolognas career in the 1250s commenced with the publi-
cation of a substantial collection of documents, known as the Summa totius artes noarie, which
Although the principles of just government that Latini proposes are,

he believes, applicable across a range of political institutions, he is not un-
mindful of the divergence that exists between regimes in his own day. Just
as the people and dwellings are different and the customs and the rights
are different throughout the world, so too do they have different types of
rule, he comments.50 In particular, Latini acknowledges that the systems
of dominion are distinguished according to the method by which their
governors come to hold and retain office.
All lords and officials are either perpetual forever through themselves and their heirs,
as are kings and counts and castellans and other similar men, or they are in office
for all the days of their lives, as are the pope and the emperor in Rome and the oth-
ers who are elected for life, or for years, as are mayors and magistrates and aldermen
or town and cities, or they function for special tasks, as do legates and delegates and
lieutenants and officials whom the great lords charge with doing things, or to whom
their legal affairs are entrusted.51
Latinis primary concern, however, is with the lordship of those who gov-
ern the cities for terms of a year,52 although even in this specific instance
there is an important distinction to be drawn. In France and elsewhere, he
observes, such magistrates are appointed by superior lords who sell offices
and are little concerned with their [the incumbents] goodness or the ad-
vantage to the citydwellers.53 By contrast, in the republics of Italy, the
citizens and the citydwellers and the communities of cities elect as mag-
istrates and lords those they consider to be better and more profitable to
the common good of the city and all its subjects.54 Latinis remarks about
good government are directed most concretely to this form of rule.
At times, the text of the Tresor implies that the concentration on re-
publican government in Book Three is strictly for reasons of relevance: it is
the system under which he has served and thus with which he is especially
familiar. Yet Latini also seems to hold that a republican regime where citi-
zens choose their chief magistrate is preferable to other constitutions in the
sense that it is more conducive to the goals of government, namely, the im-
provement of the advantage (material as well as moral) of each citizen and
included models for administration. See Gianfranco Orlandelli, La Sculoa di notariato, in

Girolamo Arnaldi, ed., Le sedi della cultura nellEmelia Romanga: Let communale (Milan: Sil-
vana, 1984), 14647.
50. Latini, Li Livres dou Tresor, 3.73.3. 51. Ibid., 3.73.4.
52. Ibid., 3.73.4. 53. Ibid., 3.73.5.
54. Ibid., 3.73.6.
of the civic body collectively. In Book Two, he offers a criterion for distin-
guishing between good and evil forms of rule:
Although many cities do well, there are some in which the government of men
is destroyed and where people live in dissolute fashion, for each person works for
his own interests. The most noble government we have, and with less pain and
grief, is the one we choose in order to maintain ourselves, our household and our
friends.55
Bad governments are those that are unable to regulate the self-interest of
citizens in such a fashion that the good of each contributes to the good of
all. How can one ensure that such dissolute communities do not arise?
Latini holds that choice by the members of the city forms the best guard
against dissolution.
Latinis argument favoring this position is intriguing. In line with his
previously discussed conception of politics as a field of study that shares
the same goals and principles as other human arts and occupations, he ex-
plains that legislating in general is different from legislating in particulars,
as is the case in all trades [mestiers]; in all things it is necessary to know
universal and particular matters.56 The problem is that far too many peo-
ple imagine that all a competent ruler requires is knowledge of universal
principles and, presumably, that what is true of one community is true of
all. But the truth is not this way at all, Latini declares, because the mas-
ter of the law must be similar to his citizens.57 In other words, the gover-
nor must have an appreciation of the specific circumstances in which citi-
zens live and work and must tailor his rule to their needs and conditions.
In this sense, the art of ruling is no different from the other trades that
compose the community, hence the similarity between ruler and ruled.
The person who knows particular things through experience as well as the uni-
versal ones will be a perfect master of the law....... He must know this art, and the
one who knows it will be effective, but otherwise not, and if someone without that
knowledge began to make the law, he would not be able to know accurately or to
judge the goodness of its nature, nor would he be able to make up for his lack of
knowledge.58
In turn, the best way to ensure that only well-qualified persons attain high
office is to leave the decision to those whom they will rule, the citizens. Be-
55. Ibid., 2.49.12. 56. Ibid., 2.49.2.

57. Ibid., 2.49.2. 58. Ibid., 2.49.34.
cause the members of the civic body have the capacity to judge wisely in
matters of art, they will be able to recognize whether a proposed ruler re-
sembles them in his mastery of his field. The city will not dissolve both be-
cause it will be governed by someone of whom the populace approves and
because his knowledge will effectively serve the requirements of their par-
ticular as well as common interests.
Latinis preference for public approval of the civic head, and thus his
recommendation of a republican regime over the other sorts of domin-
ion he enumerates, apparently undergirds his remarks about the corner-
stones of signorie (lordship). The government of cities, he says, ought to
be founded on the three pillars of justice, reverence, and love. All three
were commonly cited by medieval political authors as necessary for a well-
ordered regime; and Latini offers fairly conventional explanations of the
first two.59 But his account of the bond of love between rulers and citizens
contains a somewhat more idiosyncratic idea of government that pretty ev-
idently reflects his republican sympathies.
Love must exist in both lord [seigneur] and subject, for the lord must love his sub-
jects with all his heart and with a clear faith, and he should be concerned day and
night with the common profit of the city and of all men. In the same way, the peo-
ple must love their lords with a just heart and with a true intention of giving coun-
sel and aid for the maintenance of his office, for because he is one single person
among them, he could not do anything without them.60
The inference here is that the governor, in the exercise of his art, remains
ultimately at the mercy of his citizenry. If they have the opportunity to
consult with him and if he demonstrates his concern for their welfare, then
he may reasonably expect their support (the effectual equivalent of love)
in those endeavors that he determines to be for the common good. Other-
wise, the seigneur ought not to assume that the citizens over whom he exer-
cises power will stand behind him.
The general principle of love is directly realized in the consensual
process by which the governor enters office and makes his decisions. La-
tini cautions that citizens need to take care about the selection of an an-
nual chief magistrate: They must not elect him by drawing lots or leav-
ing it up to chance, but rather they should do it with great deliberation
and wise counsel.61 Brunetto stipulates a dozen salient criteria that citi-
59. Ibid., 3.74.13. 60. Ibid., 3.74.4.

61. Ibid., 3.75.1.
zens ought to consider when choosing their leader, many of which fall
within the standard conception of the good ruler articulated throughout
the Middle Ages. Rather than seeking to alter medieval conventions about
the qualifications necessary for governing, his point seems to be that elec-
tion by the common consent of the city forms a more certain basis for
assuring that the individual selected is considered to be the best.62 By ex-
amining scrupulously the character of the prospective magistrate prior to
election, one has greater reason for confidence that the candidate will not
stimulate hatred rather than love on the part of the city. An official who is
hated, Latini says, falls into the scorn and the bad graces of the very ones
who elected him, so that to the extent that each person expected to see
good things in him, he now sees harm.63 It is far less likely that such dis-
content will occur, however, when the signeur is elected than when another
method is employed.
Consent remains an essential element of the republican regime even
after the ruler takes office. The Tresor insists that a competent ruler
although he is head and guardian of the communeshould in great
and dangerous undertakings ..... assemble the counsellors of the city, and
present and explain the undertaking to them, and ask them to advise on
what course seems best for the city, and listen to what they have to say.64
Having proposed his plan, the magistrate is to encourage a range of com-
ments on and responses to it and is to ensure that these views are duly re-
corded in writing. While the final decision about how to proceed remains
in the hands of the seigneur, he must greatly honor the members of the
council, for they are like his limbs, and what they decree should not be
changed, unless it is for the obvious betterment of the commune.65 Of
course, Latini recognizes that it would undesirable for the ruler to seek
consent to every minor decision made by him. Yet the Tresor enumerates a
fairly large range of cases in which the communal council must be assem-
bled and consulted, including the reception of important foreign emissar-
ies, the appointment of significant delegations, the ratification of alliances,
the imposition of new taxes or other financial burdens, and rectification
of wrongs unintentionally done by the lord and his aides to citizens.66 In
each of these instances, the head of government enhances his ability to
command the respect and support of the citizenswithout whom he can
62. Ibid., 3.77.2. 63. Ibid., 3.75.15.

64. Ibid., 3.87.1. 65. Ibid., 3.87.7.
66. See ibid., 3.88, 3.89, 3.99, 3.101.1.
achieve nothingby seeking their insight and approval. The republican

art of ruling truly is, for Latini, the art of serving the needs and interests of
citizens directly and concretely.
Brunetto Latinis vision of a commercial republic, in turn, has impor-
tant ramifications for the historiography of European republicanism gen-
erally. In an incisive survey of the fate of the civic humanist thesis among
historians and political theorists, William Connell points to the conse-
quences of scholars (particularly Pococks) failure to note Barons insis-
tence upon commercial values as a key ingredient of civic humanist de-
fenses of republicanism. Where Baron thought that republicanism was
properly protective and nurturing of property, Connell observes, Pocock
asserted that the republic should be ever on guard to combat the corrupt-
ing effects of private wealth.67 As a result, Pococks account of the Atlan-
tic tradition of republicanism takes on a distinctly communitarian cast
that Baron himself had never envisioned: Pococks eighteenth-century re-
publicans are but proponents of classical self-sacrificing civic virtue dressed
up in modern garb. This deficiency on Pococks part has been emphasized
by several recent scholars. Paul Rahes concentration in Republics Ancient
and Modern on a Montesquieu-inspired insistence upon the distinction
between the classical republican distaste for commerce and the modern re-
publican embrace of commercial values corrects Pocock with an account
that adheres more faithfully to Barons scholarly vision.68 Likewise, Mark
Jurdjevic argues forcefully that Pocock misunderstood civic humanism
and the role of commerce in Renaissance Republicanism by associating
commercial values with forms of corruption about which the Florentines
were utterly unconcerned.69
Yet Rahe, Jurdjevic, and others also perhaps take for granted a divide
between ancient and modern republicanism in a way that caricatures me-
dieval attitudes toward the values of commercial society. Rahe remarks,
Neither in antiquity nor in the Middle Ages did the learned seek to come
to the relief of mans estate. ..... Government was ordained by God not
just to provide for the material wants of men; it did not exist solely or
even primarily to protect their rights and to promote their well-being on
67. Connell, The Republican Idea, 2324.

68. Paul A. Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern: Classical Republicanism and the American
Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 5761, 7279, and passim.
69. Mark Jurdjevic, Virtue, Commerce, and the Enduring Florentine Republican Mo-
ment: Reintegrating Italy into the Atlantic Republican Debate, Journal of the History of Ideas
62 (2001): 723.
earth.70 Rather, medieval Christians were almost uniformly concerned

first and foremost with achieving salvation in the next world, not progress
and material prosperity in this one.71 Rahes imputation of an antimate-
rialist bias among medieval authors thus heightens the drama of the break
he ascribes to modern, post-Machiavellian republicanism, a species of re-
publican government hitherto unknown to man.72 The case of Latinis
Tresor suggests, however, that such a historical generalization is overdrawn:
the classical emphasis on virtue, integrated into the Christian focus on sal-
vation, by no means entailed the utter incapacity of republicans to de-
fend self-government on grounds of its earthly benefits for all citizens. The
main elements identified by Jurdjevic as characteristic of the economic di-
mension of Renaissance republicanism already appear in Latinis writings:
commerce as the economic well-spring of the republic and organization
of economic policy so as to promote material wealth.73 In quite properly
correcting Pocock, it remains a mistake to retain too great a fidelity to Bar-
ons view that medieval Christianitys invariable reaction to wealth was the
glorification of poverty. In the republican acceptance of commercial val-
ues, as in much else, the breech between the Middle Ages and the Renais-
sance was far less dramatic than scholars often presume.
Moreover, the problem with which Latini wrestled in the Tresorthe
relationship between the quest for personal material well-being and the de-
sire for harmonious communal associationremains an abiding one for
current republicans, many of whom stand quite justly accused of failing
to pay serious heed to economic questions. Current republicanism seems
too often in thrall to the communitarian failure to accommodate itself to
the undeniable realities of a society immersed in commercial values. Yet
some appreciation of the economic side of human existence is necessary if
contemporary republicans are to offer a compelling political theory. The
tension between commerce and virtue has been highlighted in the second
half of Michael Sandels Democracys Discontent, which directs our atten-
tion precisely to how questions arising from the political economy of citi-
zenship have driven the transformation of the American republic over the
course of its history.74 Sandel believes that republicanism can overcome
70. Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern, 98, 354.
71. Ibid., 98.
72. Ibid., 229.
73. Jurdjeic, Virtue, Commerce, and the Enduring Florentine Republican Moment, 741.
74. Michael J. Sandel, Democracys Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), 123315.
the charges of nostalgia, exclusion, and coercion that liberals level at it and
can capture a political economy of citizenship that seeks to cultivate not
only commonality but also the independence and judgment to deliberate
well about the common good.75 He apparently recognizes that both of
the theoretical models he offers to achieve this goalderived from Rous-
seau and Tocquevilleare fraught with danger, however: the former be-
cause of its unitary character, the latter because it encourages a fragmented
public space.
The general terms of Latinis vision of civic life, by contrast, might sug-
gest to the modern theorist an approach that negotiates between these twin
evils posed by thick and thin republicanism, formulating a basis for
civil virtue in the meeting of common needs while recognizing that civil
society is constituted most essentially of a plurality of private and semi-
private interests. Citizens are treated as bearers of legitimate interests at
three simultaneous levels: as individuals pursuing personal aims, as mem-
bers of groups (primarily constructed around vocation), and as possessors
of civic rights. Latini sketches a republican system that accords recogni-
tion to each of these dimensions of communal life without demanding the
suppression or ultimate priority of any one of them. Such vertical plural-
ismacknowledging the nonreducible yet ultimately consistent range of
loyalties and commitments tugging at human beingsmay capture more
faithfully the experiences of citizens of large modern democratic republics
than either Rousseaus unitary or Tocquevilles localized frameworks. Thus,
Latinis version of commercial republicanism properly demands to be re-
inscribed in the history of republican thoughtnot as a quaint historical
curiosity or mere antecedent to modern ideas, but as a lively and fruitful
alternative to the main trends in contemporary republican theory.
75. Ibid., 320.
10
Ma r si g l i o o f P a d u a
Between Empire and Republic
T h e na m e o f Ma r si g l i o o f Pa d u a is so closely associ-
ated with his major work, the Defensor pacis, that scholars
sometimes fail to take note of his authorship of several other
political treatises as well.1 The most extensive and important of
these was the Defensor minor, written about fifteen years after the
Defensor pacis. In 1325, Marsiglio had abandoned France, where he
had completed the Defensor pacis the year before, for the precari-
ous protection of the German king and imperial claimant Ludwig
of Bavaria.2 While at Ludwigs court, Marsiglios pen seems to have
been inactive until the composition of the Defensor minor around
1340. Modern scholarship has been aware of the existence of the
Defensor minor for comparatively few years. A single manuscript of
it was first identified about a century ago, in a classic case of mul-
1. For example, in spite of their extensive reliance on Marsiglio, there is no di-
rect reference to his other writings in Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Mod-
ern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); James
M. Blythe, Ideal Government and the Mixed Constitution in the Middle Ages (Princ-
eton: Princeton University Press, 1992); Antony Black, Political Thought in Europe,
12501450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); and even J. H. Burns,
ed., The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c. 350c. 1450 (Cambridge:
2. The best account of the events of this period, and of Marsiglios career gen-
erally, is Carlo Pincin, Marsilio (Turin: Giappichelli, 1967). But some redating is in
order, as demonstrated recently by Frank Godthardt, The Philosopher as Political
ActorMarsilius of Padua at the Court of Ludwig of Bavaria, in Gerson Moreno-
Riao, ed., The World of Marsilius of Padua (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 2946.
160
m a r si g l i o o f pa d u a 161
tiple independent discovery, by both James Sullivan and Nol Valois.3 It has
generally been assumed that the Defensor minor was composed as a sort of
recapitulation of the Defensor pacis.4 But Marsiglio does not state this him-
self. Lacking a formal preface, the Defensor minor offers no initial clue to its
purpose or nature. The incipit reads simply: The beginning of the book en-
titled Defensor minor, edited by Master Marsiglio of Padua after the Defensor
pacis major.5 And indeed, the body of the Defensor minor contains copious
cross-references to the Defensor pacis. But such references do not in them-
selves demonstrate the character of the connection between the two works.
Marsiglio scholars have consequently disagreed fundamentally about
the relationship between the Defensor pacis and the Defensor minor. Ac-
cording to one school of thought, the Defensor minor represents a pro-
found change of doctrine from the Defensor pacis (or at least pivotal sec-
tions thereof ). Hence, Nicholai Rubinstein refers to a shift in Marsilius
views on government ..... shown by the Defensor minor.6 By contrast, oth-
er commentators treat the later work as mere repetition and confirmation
of the teachings of the Defensor pacis. In this vein, Georges de Lagarde re-
marked, Le Defensor minor ne fait donc que clamer ce que tout le Defen-
sor pacis suggrait dj.7 Ultimately, the central issue separating these two
interpretations is the extent of Marsiglios commitment to the so-called ab-
solutist principles of imperial rule.8 For the first reading, Marsiglio was a
dedicated republican in the Defensor pacis who, whether for reasons of ex-
pediency or philosophical reevaluation, became an antirepublican devo-
tee of empire in his later career.9 The second approach, on the other hand,
holds Marsiglio to have been an absolutist all along, even in the earliest
3. For a description of the discovery, see C. K. Brampton, The Defensor Minor of Marsilius
of Padua (Birmingham: Birmingham University Press, 1922), v and note 3.
4. For example, Alan Gewirth calls it a brief resum of his one great work (Marsilius of
Padua and Medieval Political Philosophy [New York: Columbia University Press, 1951], 22).
5. Marsiglio of Padua, Defensor Minor, in Marsile de Padoue, Oeuvres Mineures, ed. Jean-
nine Quillet and Collette Jeudy (Paris: CNRS, 1979), 172; Writings on the Empire, ed. and
trans. Cary J. Nederman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 1.
6. Nicolai Rubinstein, Marsilius of Padua and Italian Political Thought of His Time, in
J. R. Hale, J. R. L. Highfield, and Beryl Smalley, eds., Europe in the Late Middle Ages (London:
Faber & Faber, 1965), 7475.
7. Georges de Lagarde, Le Defensor Pacis (Louvain: Batrice-Nauwelaerts, 1970), 268.
8. For an overview of this debate, see Marino Damiata, Plenitudo Potestatis e Universitas
Civium in Marsilio da Padova (Florence: Edizioni Studi Franciscani, 1983), 17075.
9. Rubinstein, Marsilius of Padua and Italian Political Thought of His Time, 6775;
Gewirth, Marsilius of Padua and Medieval Political Philosophy, 131 and 24851; Gewirth, Republi-
canism and Absolutism in the Thought of Marsilius of Padua, Medioevo 5 (1979): 26 and passim;
David R. Carr, Marsilius of Padua and the Role of Law, Italian Quarterly 28 (Spring 1987): 9.
chapters of the Defensor pacis, so that the Defensor minor merely renders
more explicit the long-standing beliefs of its author.10
It is worth noting that both parties to this dispute, however deep their
conflicts, do subscribe to the same fundamental premise about the nature
of the Defensor minor itself: they agree that the Defensor minor is a work
of imperial political theory, that is, it demonstrates a deep commitment
to the Roman Empire and to the continued legitimacy of the rule of the
emperor. Alan Gewirth admits that the teachings in the Defensor minor
..... represent Marsilius concession to the imperialist theory as a conse-
quence of his association with Ludwig of Bavaria.11 For Michael Wilks,
likewise, In the Defensor minor, ..... it is the Roman emperor who figures
as the choice of the human legislator, the one to whom this legislator has
transferred its powers.12 And Jeannine Quillet finds in the arguments of
the Defensor minor la fondation marsilienne de la doctrine imperiale.13
It is precisely this interpretive unanimity about the character of the Defen-
sor minor that I propose to challenge. My contention, by contrast, is that
Marsiglio in the Defensor minor adopts the same technique of studied am-
biguity that served him so well in the Defensor pacis. Marsiglios position
in the Defensor minor, as in the Defensor pacis, continues to be that uni-
versal empire may be a legitimate form of government. But he hastens to
stipulate that imperial rule can never be shown to be necessary and that
the authority of both empire and emperor rests strictly upon the more fun-
damental principle of the consent of the ruled. In this way, Marsiglio can
defend the empire (and by extension the powers of the German emperor)
without committing himself to an imperial theory of politics.
This helps us to understand, I believe, the one passage in the Defensor
minor where Marsiglio alludes directly to that works relation to the De-
fensor pacis. He characterizes the relationship in logical terms: With re-
gard to all of these topics and proofs, many more things in this tract may
be called to mind and explicated on the basis of the Defensor pacis major,
by means of necessary consequences as well as deductions.14 The Defensor
10. Jeannine Quillet, La Philosophie Politique de Marsile de Padous (Paris: J. Vrin, 1970), 19,
8485, 8788, and passim; de Lagarde, Le Defensor Pacis, 26769, 15355; Michael Wilks, The
Problem of Sovereignty in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963),
11013, 186, and passim.
11. Gewirth, Marsilius of Padua and Medieval Political Philosophy, 131.
12. Wilks, The Problem of Sovereignty in the Later Middle Ages, 111.
13. Quillet, La Philosophie Politique de Marsile de Padoue, 265.
14. Marsilgio of Padua, Defensor minor, 16.4, in Quillet and Jeudy, eds., Oeuvres Mineures;
Writings on the Empire, 63
minor is an application of the basic precepts of the Defensor pacis, and it is

intended to be logically consistent with and derived from its predecessor.
This does not mean that the Defensor minor lacks novelty or that it fails to
stand on its own.15 Rather, by referring his teachings in the Defensor mi-
nor back to the Defensor pacis, Marsiglio demonstrates how it is possible to
apply the principles of the earlier work in a specific context. We might say
that the Defensor pacis contains a higher order theory that receives concrete
expression in the Defensor minor. The Defensor minor reveals how the theo-
retical framework of the Defensor pacis cashes out in the particular case
of the empire.
In order to appreciate the subtlety of Marsiglios attitude toward the
empire in the Defensor minor, then, we need first to acquaint ourselves with
the general theoretical framework of the Defensor pacis. The Defensor pacis
is composed of three parts or discourses. Dictio I discusses the origins and
nature of political authority; the second discourse, nearly four times the
length of the first, critically surveys and refutes a variety of claims made on
behalf of the Church and, particularly, the pope; the brief third discourse
summarizes conclusions derived from the preceding discussions that Mar-
siglio regards to be especially useful or worthy of emphasis.
The division between the two main discourses should not, however, be
taken to mean that the Defensor pacis is formed of two separate, indepen-
dent, and internally coherent treatises. A single central theme binds to-
gether the tract as a whole: the danger posed to human happiness (as ex-
perienced in the peaceful and self-sufficient political community) by the
interference of papal government in secular life. The force of the argument
in the Defensor pacis is directed toward demonstrating the disruptive ef-
fects of the papacys attempts to insinuate itself into temporal affairs. Ap-
proached from this perspective, Dictio I stipulates the arrangements nec-
essary to bolster the stability and unity of secular communities so as to
repulse papal interference, while Dictio II proposes the replacement of pa-
pal monarchy with an ecclesiology in which the General Council reigns
supreme over the pope and the priesthood generally.
One of the most distinctive features of the Defensor pacis is the way in
which it addresses the circumstances of medieval Italy in relation to the
15. For example, see Cary J. Nederman, Introduction to Writings on the Empire, xxxxiii,
and Tolerance and Community: A Medieval Communal Functionalist Argument for Reli-
gious Toleration, Journal of Politics 56 (November 1994): 90118; and Carlo Dolcini, Osser-
vazioni sul Defensor Minor di Marsilio da Padova, Atti della accademia delle scienze dellIstituto
di Bologna 64 (1975/1976): 87102.
rest of European society.16 Marsiglio contends that the machinations of

the papacy are presently most overt and destructive within Italy, yet he be-
lieves that a similar program of encroachment stands behind papal policies
toward all temporal governments.17 Hence, the Marsiglian plan of opposi-
tion is meant to have general appeal. Marsiglio hopes that secular authori-
ties will halt and reverse the spread of the papacys earthly powers before a
papal plan of global domination is realized. The Defensor pacis represents
a direct call for princes and citizens throughout Latin Christendom to re-
store the pope to his rightful (and extremely limited) role within the gov-
ernance of the Church. In order to make this appeal as extensive as pos-
sible, Marsiglio constructs a secular political theory that may be described
as generic in character. Unlike his contemporaries, he refrains from ex-
pressing a preference for any particular constitutional arrangement. Rath-
er, he professes the irrelevance of the question: As to which of the temper-
ate governments is best or which of the diseased is worst, and the relative
merits of the other species, the discussion of this does not concern us at
present.18 In a similar vein, the Defensor pacis depicts the political com-
munity in sweeping, almost vague, terms; it employs terms such as civitas
(city or civic body) and regnum (kingdom) interchangeably and nonspe-
cifically.19
Some scholars have gone so far as to regard Marsiglios careful ambigu-
ity as an indication that the Defensor pacis rests on no true theoretical prin-
ciples at all.20 But this is an overstatement. Dictio I of the Defensor pacis in
fact advocates a normative conception of the foundations of a healthy or
well-ordered temporal community, irrespective of its institutional arrange-
ments. Marsiglio insists that the chief benefit of temporal life, the peaceful
enjoyment of the material and moral fruits of earthly existence, is best real-
ized when human beings are joined together into a fully perfected political
society.21 To achieve this, however, it is necessary for humans to exercise
16. The following paragraphs summarize a case I defend in greater detail in Community
and Consent: The Secular Political Theory of Marsiglio of Paduas Defensor Pacis (Lanham, Md.:
Rowman & Littlefield, 1995), 927.
17. Marsiglio of Padua, Defensor pacis, ed. Richard Scholz (Hannover: Hahnsche Buch-
handlung, 1933), 1.1.2, 1.19.412.
18. Ibid., 1.8.4.
19. Ibid., 1.2.2.
20. See the remark of Conal Condren: The Defensor Pacis is..... not a work of political
philosophy (The Status and Appraisal of Classic Texts [Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1985], 189). In a private conversation, Condren has indicated to me that he now has receded
from this extreme claim.
21. Marsiglio, Defensor pacis, 1.3.5, 1.4.35.
their reason and free will in order to consent to the communal arrange-
ments under which they live. What distinguishes citizens from noncitizens
for Marsiglio is primarily the ability of the former to give assent to the laws
and governors to which they are subject, or to refuse such approval.
The Defensor pacis thus declares that the human legislator, or source of
supreme authority, within the political community is the whole body of cit-
izens, or its greater part (valentior pars).22 The meaning of the latter phrase
has been widely debated, but it ought to be construed neither as an early
statement of the principle of majoritarian democracy nor as a version of the
aristocratic doctrine that the views of the better citizens should be given
more weight in public decision making.23 Marsiglio instead lays stress upon
consensus; he permits each and every citizen the opportunity to consent to,
amend, or even disapprove of legislation and other common affairs. Yet he
expects that most citizens, who share the same powers of reason, will be in
agreement about matters pertaining to the public welfare.24 Only a con-
tentious few, whom he describes as possessing deprived natures (naturam
orbatam), will refuse to join in accepting the determinations of the civic
body.25 The term valentior pars seems to denote all but the minuscule num-
ber of such demented souls, as we saw in chapter 7 above.
Marsiglios normative theory has immediate implications for his cri-
tique of papal pretensions. The establishment and perpetuation of the po-
litical community derives from the exercise of the natural human faculties
of reason and volition, rather than from any form of direct divine conces-
sion. Hence, the pope, or indeed any priest, enjoys at best the same status
as the other parts of the civic body. Should some member of the clergy in-
terfere with the orderly operation of temporal government or legislation on
noncivil groundsfor example, because he claims to have special power as
Gods ordained servanthe denies to the rest of the citizens their place
within the communal association and, in effect, enslaves them by reduc-
ing their wills to his own. Consequently, all citizens are under a duty to the
just organization and peace of their own communities that requires them
to repel the incursions of popes and clerics into the temporal sphere.26
22. Ibid., 1.12.3.
23. See de Lagarde, Le Defensor Pacis, 14145 and notes for a thorough analysis of how the
term has been understood and translated by earlier scholars. An analysis of valentior pars that
views the idea as inherently shifting and unstable has been proposed by Conal Condren, De-
mocracy and the Defensor Pacis: On the English Language Tradition of Marsilian Intepreta-
tion, Il Pensiero Politico 13 (1980): 3059.
24. Marsiglio, Defensor pacis, 1.13.58. 25. Ibid., 1.13.5.
26. Ibid., 1.19.13.
The generic quality of Marsiglios theoretical framework in the De-

fensor pacis extends to his discussion of the imperial system of rule. It is
true that he dedicated the Defensor pacis to Ludwig of Bavaria,27 and that
he was a partisan of Ludwigs cause (through his connections with the della
Scala and Visconti families) even before he fled to the protection of Lud-
wigs court. But Marsiglio cannot bring himself to support world domin-
ion in the Defensor pacis any more than he can endorse other specific forms
of government.
The question of whether it is advantageous to have one supreme government in
number for all those throughout the world who exist in a civil life, or on the con-
trary whether at certain times it is advantageous to have different such govern-
ments in different regions of the world which are almost inevitably separate in
location from one another, particularly in the case of human beings who speak dif-
ferent tongues and differ widely in character and customs, is a question that mer-
its reasoned study, but it is distinct from our present concern.28
Given its context, Marsiglios refusal to take a stand on the issue of uni-
versal imperial rule is intriguing. His indifference to the claims of empire
in Dictio I suggests that he views Ludwigs cause as a means to the more
laudable end of opposing papal pretensions to earthly jurisdiction. Mar-
siglio views Ludwig and the empire not as the embodiment of some grand
imperial ideal but as a useful ally in the struggle to rein in the papacy, in-
deed as the only major European leader of the 1320s prepared to stand up
to Avignon.29
What does Marsiglio think of universal imperial government as a mat-
ter of principle? Inasmuch as he subscribed to a Ciceronian doctrine of
natural law which entailed broad duties on the basis of reason,30 Marsiglio
might have defended empire as the form of government most consistent
with human nature.31 But his remarks on the matter are ambivalent and
inconclusive. On the one hand, he suspects that the multiplicity of gov-
ernments reflects a kind of divinely inspired Malthusian mechanism:
27. Ibid., 1.1.6.

28. Ibid., 1.17.10.
29. Marsiglio indeed says as much in his dedication to Ludwig: I have written down the
sentences which follow, after a period of diligent and intense study, thinking them to be of
some aid to your majesty (ibid., 1.1.6).
30. See Cary J. Nederman, Nature, Justice and Duty in the Defensor Pacis: Marsiglio of
Paduas Ciceronian Impulse, Political Theory 18 (November 1990): 61537.
31. This is precisely the claim proposed by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini in his De ortu et
The heavenly cause perhaps inclines toward [diverse regimes], so that the procre-
ation of mankind may not become excessive. For one might perhaps think that na-
ture, by means of warfare and epidemic, has moderated the procreation of human
beings and other animals, so that the earth might suffice for their nurture; in such
a case, those who argue for eternal generation would be upheld very strongly.32
The latter evidently refers to the beliefs of certain Parisian Averroists, whose
views Marsiglio knew and sometimes adapted.33 Less often noted is that
Marsiglio detects a supernatural hand in this process: in order to provide for
His children, God in His wisdom ordains the political and social diversity
from which arises conflict and the control of population. Yet it should be
emphasized that Marsiglio by no means embraces this position himself. He
simply offers it as a point of speculation. To endorse the Averroist stance di-
rectly would be to commit himself to a definite geographical norm.
A similar reluctance to pass final judgement on the appropriate geo-
graphical unit for political rule is also apparent when Marsiglio returns to
the question of universalism in Dictio II. Here the issue at stake is the uni-
versality of Christian religion. Marsiglio points out that some proponents
of the papacy defend papal primacy with reference to the unity of Chris-
tian faith, by appealing to an analogy between a diocese and the Church
as a whole: Just as in a single temple or diocese there ought to be a sin-
gle bishop, ..... so too it is even more necessary that there be a single head
of the universal Christian Church in order to preserve the unity of the
believers.34 But Marsiglio replies that this analogy is not valid, on the
grounds that the argument for spiritual universalism would entail the ne-
cessity of temporal universalism, that is, of a coercive power of the same
proportions competent to enforce the dictates of the universal faith.
Our opponents reasoning would conclude that it is equally necessary that there
be a numerically single head over the entire world, which is neither expedient nor
true. For in order that human beings may live together peacefully, it is sufficient
that there be a numerically single government in each province....... But that it is
necessary for eternal salvation that there be one coercive judge over all humanity
does not yet appear to have been demonstrated, although this seems more neces-
auctoritate imperii Romani. See Cary J. Nederman, Humanism and Empire: Aeneas Sylvius
Piccolomini, Cicero and the Imperial Ideal, Historical Journal 36 (1993): 499515.
32. Marsiglio, Defensor pacis, 1.17.10.
33. See Jeannine Quillet, Laristotlisme de Marsile de Padoue et ses rapports avec
laverrosme, Medioevo 5 (1979): 81142.
sary for believers than the existence of a universal bishop, because a universal ruler
can better preserve the unity of believers than a universal bishop.35
This passage hardly contains the unbridled endorsement of universal em-

pire that Michael Wilks once found in it.36 Marsiglio simply admits that
a more compelling practical case can be made for a single worldly govern-
ment than for one head of the universal Church. But as in Dictio I, his ar-
gument turns on necessity. No necessary groundswhether spiritual or
temporalcan be adduced for universal empire any more than for region-
al or territorial government.
The reason for Marsiglios consistent failure to support any given geo-
graphical arrangement for government, I take it, pertains both to his po-
lemical purposes and his political principles. To indicate a preference for an
urban regime, a territorial monarchy, or a universal empire would be to ex-
clude and thus to alienate some potential supporters of Marsiglios primary
enterprise: the reformation of ecclesiastical government. Marsiglios very
intention in writing the Defensor pacis demanded that he address an audi-
ence whom Conal Condren has termed the Duke of Omnium, namely,
the leader of any regnum, provincia or patria of Christendom, from Pad-
ua to Paris, from Flanders to Florence.37 So his reluctance to state a defi-
nite preference is hardly surprising. But pragmatic considerations also co-
incided with an important Marsiglian principle: that the consent of the
communityan express act of reason and willwas the only legitimate
and binding source of political authority. Hence, all prospective legislation
had to be set before the citizens at large and approved by them after open
public discussion; likewise, all prospective rulers had to be examined and
elected by the same civic body. To insist upon the necessity of any con-
stitutional or geographical arrangement in advance would have detracted
from the unique competence of the community to determine its political
identity for itself. This recognition of the contingency of public decision
making and of the political process generally lies at the heart of Marsiglios
generic approach to political theory.
35. Ibid., 2.18.15.

36. Wilks, The Problem of Sovereignty in the Later Middle Ages, 112, declares on the basis
of this passage that Marsilius had concluded that his earlier remarks on the possibility of nu-
merous communities as sufficient to ensure earthly peace were not to apply when a specifically
Christian society was under consideration. Here only a universal ruler, provided that he was an
emperor and not a bishop, could suffice, and was indeed necessary when considerations of sal-
vation were to be taken into account.
37. Condren, The Status and Appraisal of Classic Texts, 196.
In turn, the Defensor minor applies these precepts to a concrete political

situation: Ludwig of Bavarias struggle with the papacy and his local con-
flict within the German kingdom to maintain control of his crown against
various claimants. In order to advance his control over Germany, Ludwig
sought during the late 1330s to marry his son, Ludwig of Brandenberg, to
Margaret Maultasch, countess of Tyrol and Carinthia.38 Several problems
were posed by this scheme, all caused by the German kings rocky rela-
tions with the Church. First, a divorce was required between Margaret and
Prince John Henry of Bohemia, who had been wedded in childhood and
who had allegedly never consummated their union. Second, the holy sac-
rament of marriage had to be performed in order to sanction the new dy-
nastic connection. Third, issues of consanguinity existed in the potential
marriage of Margaret and Ludwig the Younger. Since the Church claimed
a monopoly over the legitimation of all aspects of the wedded state, and
since Ludwig and his family and associates had long since been declared
excommunicate by the papacy, there was concern that the alliance pro-
duced by the marriage could be undermined at some later stage. These
problems shape the central questions that the Defensor minor addresses:
Marsiglio sets out to refute the Churchs alleged authority to excommuni-
cate, to give dispensations from marital union and consanguinity, and to
solemnize marriage.
Consequently, the Defensor minor is not primarily a work of imperi-
al political theory at all, at least not if we compare it with such classic
defenses of the medieval empire as Dantes De monarchia, Lupold of Be-
benbergs De iuribus regni et imperii, or Engelbert of Admonts De ortu et
fine imperii.39 As in the Defensor pacis, opposition to the pretensions of
the Church to control secular affairs drives the arguments of the Defen-
sor minor. Marsiglio devotes the first eleven chapters of the Defensor minor
to a highly critical examination of various ways in which the papacy and
its minions have claimed to be able to punish and otherwise coerce hu-
man beings in the present life for the sake of eternal salvation. Through-
38. On the circumstances surrounding the composition of the Defensor Minor, see Jean-
nine Quillet, Defensor Minor. Introduction Generale, in Quillet and Jeudy, eds., Marsile de
Padoue, Oeuvres Mineures, 14268, and Nederman, Introduction, Writings on the Empire, xvi
xviii.
39. For an examination of more conventional conceptions of empire in Marsiglios time,
see Black, Political Thought in Europe 12501450, 92108; and J. H. Burns, Lordship, Kingship
and Empire: The Idea of Monarchy 14001525 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), chap. 5
and passim. It is interesting that neither of these treatments count Marsiglio among the adher-
ents to imperial ideals.
out those initial chapters, hardly a word is mentioned about the Roman
Empire, the Roman emperor, the Roman people, or any other factor di-
rectly tied to Ludwigs title. Instead, Marsiglio appeals to essentially the
same mechanisms and principles that guided him in the Defensor pacis: it
pertains to the community of citizens, or its greater part, rather than the
priesthood, to establish any laws that enjoy coercive force in the present
world; this community is called the legislator by Marsiglio; the role of
the legislator extends to the primary and proper authority without quali-
fication to coerce transgressors; and should any ruler or judge claim the
power of coercion, he can only validly do so on the basis of a grant from
the legislator, since the power to coerce transgressors is not his own with-
out qualification but is given to him by others and is potentially revoca-
ble by the same people.40 From these precepts, Marsiglio concludes not
merely that priests cannot legitimately usurp powers of coercive legislation
and enforcement (including excommunication), but also that they are sub-
ject to the legislator in all matters connected with their own temporal per-
sons and property as well as the goods of the Church.
In Chapter 12 of the Defensor minor, Marsiglio begins to address the
specific situation of the Roman Empire. The context for this discussion is
important. Marsiglio has just completed presenting his case for the General
Council as the supreme legislative authority within the Church. Only the
Council is competent to decide the basic tenets of the faith as well as to es-
tablish the appropriate rituals and offices of the Church: the Council stands
in place of all faithful Christians in supervising the governance of the uni-
versal Church.41 Marsiglio reasons that the priority of the Roman bishop
of the Roman Church is conceded by the supreme faithful human legis-
lator, presumably acting through the mechanism of the General Council
which represents it, rather than as a grant (say, through the legacy of St. Pe-
ter) independent of the common will of the believers.42 The Council, not
the pope or the college of cardinals, is the seat of ecclesiastical government.
But the universal character of the Church, and thus of its General Coun-
cil, poses some obvious practical and institutional problems. How can such
a council be assembled? Who has the authority to undertake this task? Mar-
siglio can hardly turn to the pope or to any body of priests, since he has just
identified ecclesiastical government as the executive agent of the General
40. Marsiglio, Defensor minor, 1.45; Writings on the Empire, 2.
41. Marsiglio, Defensor minor, 7.2; Writings on the Empire, 21. On Marsiglios conception of
the representativeness of the General Council, see chapter 7 above.
Council and therefore unable to act of its own accord. No provincial or na-
tional ruler enjoyed the prestige, let alone the power, to convoke a universal
gathering of the representatives of the faithful. The competence to compel
attendance at such an assemblage of all Christians required a ruler whose
coercive authority extends (at least in principle) to all the lands of Christen-
dom. And only one governor fit this criterion: the Roman emperor.
This is a conclusion that Marsiglio, significantly, does not seem to
reach in the Defensor pacis, where he stated simply that it pertains only
to the authority of the supreme faithful human legislator, or to the person
or persons to whom it has granted such power, to call a General Council,
to name suitable persons to it, to have it duly assembled, solemnized and
consummated.43 Marsiglio repeats this claim in the Defensor minor, but
now identifies that person or persons whom he regards as possessed of
the power to draw together faithful Christians from throughout the world
into a single conciliar body.
The supreme human legislator, especially from the time of Christ up to the pres-
ent time ..... is and was and ought to be the community of human beings who
ought to be subject to the precepts of coercive laws, or their greater part, in each
region and province. And since this power or authority was transferred by the
communities of the provinces, or their greater part, to the Roman people, in ac-
cordance with their exceeding virtue, the Roman people have and had the author-
ity to legislate over all of the worlds provinces. If this people has transferred its au-
thority to legislate to its rulers, then its rulers may likewise be said to possess such
power.......44
Here we encounter an explicit statement of the doctrine of lex regia, name-

ly, that the power of the emperor derives from the people. This is a posi-
tion that some scholars have read retrospectively into the Defensor pacis.45
But Marsiglio never actually employs lex regia in the Defensor pacis, and
even in the Defensor minor he uses it only in a profoundly revised form.
The point of the Marsiglian version of lex regia is to demonstrate how,
without violating the basic principle of consensual government, a single
contemporary ruler might achieve the competence to convoke a truly uni-
versal General Council of faithful Christians. It appears to be for this rea-
45. For example, Wilks, The Problem of Sovereignty in the Later Middle Ages, 113, and J. A.
Watt, Spiritual and Temporal Powers, in Burns, ed., The Cambridge History of Medieval Po-
litical Thought, 419.
son that Marsiglio is careful to demonstrate that the powers of the Roman
emperor were acknowledged to be legitimate by Christ Himself as well as
by his disciples. Their words testify that everyone is admonished to obey
and subject themselves to the already mentioned power, and also to obey
the above-mentioned people as well as their ruler under threat of eternal
damnation.46 In other words, the empire is said to have a special place in
the Christian scheme, its wide dominion perhaps prefiguring the univer-
sal reach of the Christian religion. (Marsiglio even speaks of an end to the
schism between the Greek and Roman Churches in this connection, pos-
sibly in the belief that Byzantium no less than the West continued to be
subject in principle to the Roman emperor.)47 Drawing his authority from
his people, the Roman emperor enjoys unique prerogative as well as legis-
lative powers in connection with the maintenance of the universal faith. It
is at his command that the General Council comes together to transact its
business. Marsilglio consequently advises Ludwig of his rightindeed, his
responsibilityto call together a council of the faithful from throughout
Christendom in order to confirm dogma (and coincidentally to approve
the German kings plans for his son and dynasty).
None of the evidence thus far cited constitutes a ringing endorsement
of the principles of imperial sovereignty or absolutism. Indeed, Marsiglio is
careful to emphasize the contingency of the Roman claim to superior ruler-
ship: it is grounded on neither the will of God nor the necessity of nature.
The Defensor minor instead regards the rights accorded to the Roman peo-
ple (which have been ceded to its emperor) to be completely delegated:
The authority or power of legislation (namely, of the Roman people and its rulers)
has endured for so long a time and ought reasonably to endure, until such time as
it might be revoked by the communities of the provinces from the Roman people
or by the Roman people from its ruler. And we maintain that such powers are duly
revoked or revocable when the communities of the provinces, by themselves or by
their syndics, have been duly congregated and they, or their greater part, have per-
formed deliberations about such revocation.48
Marsiglio refers for his authority on this position to the twelfth chapter of
the first discourse of the Defensor pacis, which is concerned with the pro-
cedures for legislation and in which he insists that any communal public

decisions must arise from the consent of the governed stated expressly in a
public forum. Thus, even in the Defensor minor, consent takes priority over
all other justifications of authority: the Roman empire enjoys prerogatives
because they have been ceded by an agreement freely entered into by the
communities that have subjected themselves to Rome.
Marsiglio goes so far as to make the historically improbable case that
the rule of the empire in its earliest days was extended by means of consent
rather than conquest. In opposition to those who regard the origins of Ro-
man dominion as tyrannical and unjust, he responds that
many provinces, observing the benevolence of Roman rule and wishing to live
tranquilly and peacefully, elected by their own volition to subject themselves to
and be protected by the above-mentioned Roman people and their rulers. For this
reason, it is written in I Maccabees 8 about Judas Maccabee and his brothers and
the whole Jewish people that they subjected themselves voluntarily to the friend-
ship and rulership of the Romans. A similar pattern may be ascribed to the rest of
the worlds provinces.49
Marsiglio supports this assertion with vague reference to unspecified chron-

icles or histories as well as to Scripture. But the accuracy of his claim is
hardly the issue. He is merely demonstrating what must be true for the Ro-
man empire to meet the standards of legitimacy required by his theory.50
Marsiglios primary dedication is to the theoretical principle of communal
assent: he regards the extension of the empire to be an example of consent
and thus an application of his theory. The argument is intended to have a
logical force, not an empirical one: All legitimate rule rests on consent; the
Roman empire is legitimate; therefore, the Roman empire rests on consent.
Taking the major and minor premises to be true, Marsiglio then seeks in-
dependent historical confirmation to support his conclusion. But his claim
would presumably remain valid in his own mind even if such evidence could
not be located.
Once Marsiglio moves beyond Chapter 12 of the Defensor minor, the
basic equation of Roman ruler with Roman people with human legisla-
tor is simply taken for granted. The discussion thereafter turns to the more

50. We ought not to reproach Marsiglio in retrospect for his failings as a historian; he was
subscribing to precisely the standards of historical writing typical of his day. However, I remain
utterly unconvinced by the recent effort by George Garnett to find a conventional providen-
tialism in Marsiglios historical understanding (see Marsilius of Padua and The Truth of Histo-
ry [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006]).
technical aspects of the dissolution of marriage and the exemption of wed-

ding partners from the prohibition on consanguine couplings. In order to
accomplish this, he reaffirms the division between human and divine law
that he had established at the beginning of the Defensor minor.51 Human
law is concerned with reward and punishment in the present life, divine
law with what is necessary to achieve salvation. All of the exemptions and
authorizations necessary for the marriage of Ludwig the Younger to Mar-
garet are shown to fall under the classification of human law: Marsiglio re-
gards divorce and marriage to be civil affairs, and argues that exemption
from consanguinity is a matter of human discretion.
The only way in which the theoretical foundation of Marsiglios case
changes in the latter part of the Defensor minor is in his apparent assump-
tion that the Emperor can decree human law directly, without public con-
sent or consultation. He remarks, for instance, that there is also, in accor-
dance with human law, a legislator, such as the community of citizens or
their greater part, or the supreme Roman ruler who is called Emperor.52
Similarly, in the concluding paragraph of the Defensor minor, Marsiglio
states that the authority and coercive power of making and enforcing
human law belongs to the community of citizens or the supreme ruler
who is called the Roman Emperor.53 It is largely on the basis of these scat-
tered commentsand there are only one or two more of themthat the
Defensor minor has acquired a reputation for promoting imperial absolut-
ism. But this ascription seems overstated. For Marsiglio is careful not to
replace completely the universitas with the Emperor. The implied equiva-
lence of the powers of the community with those of the Emperor must be
referred back to the transfer of authority that Marsiglio discusses in Chap-
ter 12: the Emperor (via the medium of the Roman people) holds his leg-
islative powers in trust from the communities. Thus, the Roman ruler can
never act independently from the original legislator; his legislation must
remain true to the standards upheld by the consent of the civil body; if he
oversteps his authority, his powers may be revoked and returned to their
source.54 By employing the formula universitas civium vel princeps Ro-
manus, Marsiglio preempts any attempt to mistake the Emperor for an
absolute or autonomous power.
51. Cf. Marsiglio, Defensor minor, 1.24; Writings on the Empire, 12.
54. Consistent with what Marsiglio says in chapter 19 of the first discourse of the Defen-
sor pacis.
It is, in any case, a distortion to categorize such a scattered set of re-

marks about the legislative prerogatives of the Emperor as a theory of im-
perial power. Rather, as Marsiglio himself suggests in the Defensor minor,
the rights of the Emperor provide simply a case study in the concrete ap-
plication of the basic precepts of the Defensor pacis. When referring in the
Defensor minor to the creation or enforcement of human legislation, Mar-
siglio generally directs the reader back to the relevant sections of the first
discourse of the Defensor pacis for a full discussion. Hence, he seems to re-
gard his conception of the Emperor as fully compatible with, and indeed
derived from, his theory of the legislative powers of the community. The
conditional transfer of such powers to the Roman ruler exemplifies one way
in which human communities may choose to use the civil consent that re-
sides with them. Only if the grant were unconditional, and therefore non-
revocable, would it be invalid. Nor need Marsiglio hold that all rights of
legislation and jurisdiction must have been transferred to Roman hands. In
line with his arguments in Defensor pacis I.17 (a chapter that he cites, for in-
stance, in Defensor minor 16.4), the authorization of a single supreme gov-
ernment does not entail the suppression of lesser jurisdictions or legislative
bodies.55 Even if the communities under the rule of the Empire did ap-
prove the Emperors ultimate authority to legislate for and judge them, they
did not thereby give up legislative or judicial rights wholesale. The Emperor
may have superior jurisdiction as a result of a transfer of power; but he can-
not claim as a consequence to have a monopoly on governmental powers.
When read as Marsiglio asks us to read it, the Defensor minor looks a
great deal less like a change of heart on its authors part than an extension
and application of the principles that he had formulated fifteen or more
years earlier in the Defensor pacis. The inconsistency some scholars have de-
tected turns out to be based on a sort of false expectation about Marsiglios
political theory, namely, that it must ultimately advocate a single system of
government or form of rule in preference to others. For most other politi-
cal theorists of the Latin Middle Ages, this expectation would be warrant-
ed. But just as in so many other instances, Marsiglio frustrates our expec-
tations: his approach is distinctive among his contemporaries for exactly
the generic quality of its argument. This generic feature of his thought
did not change with time. The Defensor minor illustrates how the generic
framework can be applied as required in order to lend polemical support
to a given temporal ruler.
55. On this point, see Nederman, Community and Consent, 12342.

This means, quite simply, that the Defensor minor does not reflect any
great change of heart about or pragmatic renunciation of Marsiglios true
republican principles. Certainly, Marsiglios generic account of politics
could be adapted in support of a republican regime, such as existed in
many of the medieval Italian cities. But we must never forget Conal Con-
drens observation about the nature of Marsiglian argument:
If he was concerned to combat a universal enemy, then parochial concerns, be they
Paduan or Parisian, could only serve to limit his audience ....... The logic of his po-
sition is more clearly revealed by asking how it proved possible for a man to appeal
across the manifest institutional diversity of christendom and define a common
enemy in terms that all could see as immediate.56
We neglect the polemical and rhetorical force of Marsiglios thought at our

own interpretive peril. The success of his goals depended crucially on his
articulation of principles that abstract away from any concrete historical or
constitutional arrangements. It is these principlesindifferent to repub-
licanism or any other specific system of rulethat remain the constant
throughout Marsiglios writings.
This also supplies an answer to the question: Was Marsiglio a Roman-
ist? If by that question we mean Does Marsiglios political theory urge us
to prefer the rule of the Roman Empire to other political entities?, then
the answer must be in the negative. Not only does he refrain from em-
ploying the doctrines typical of medieval proponents of Roman imperi-
al authority, but he strives to uphold the non-imperial principle of civic
consent as a prior restraint on the powers exercised by the Emperor. But
if we pose the question differentlyin the manner of Can the rule of a
universal Roman Empire be justified on a Marsiglian foundation?then
our response must be affirmative. The Defensor minor attests that just as no
principle will lead us always to prefer empire, so no principle excludes its
legitimacy, at least as long as its establishment and operation remain con-
sistent with the precepts Marsiglio lays down. To express the issue of Mar-
siglios attitude towards the Roman Empire in the manner generally adopt-
ed by scholars as an either/or proposition is to overlook the texture of his
thought.57 Marsiglios political theory has far too much the complexion of
a chameleon to be classified in such simplistic terms.
56. Condren, Democracy and the Defensor Pacis, 31213.

57. An especially egregious example of this false dichotomy may be found in Gewirth,
Republicanism and Absolutism in the Thought of Marsilius of Padua.
11
T r ans l at i o I m p e r ii
Medieval and Modern
n t h e f o r e g o in g c h ap t e r s , we have encountered a
number of recent scholars for whom the medieval and ear-
ly modern periods are of one piece. Indeed, this position has
achieved a nearly orthodox status in the current historiography
of European political thought. Still, as noted in the introduction,
a few scholars have resisted the historiographical tendency to em-
phasize complete and unremitting continuity between medieval
and modern visions of political thought. Perhaps the most prom-
inent figure in this camp is John Pocock, who, following in the
line of scholarship pioneered by Hans Baron, endorses entirely
a rupture between these two political worldviews. Pococks posi-
tion was forcefully stated in his classic 1975 study, The Machiavel-
lian Moment, but he has returned to it time and again.1 The thesis
of discontinuity is stated with particular stridency, for example,
in The First Decline and Fall, the third volume of Barbarism and
Civilization.2 Pococks major aim in The First Decline and Fall is
to demonstrate that the decline and fall theme associated with
Edward Gibbon derives from the Florentine transformation in
political thought in the fifteenth century and thus constitutes a
decisive rejection of the doctrines of the Latin Middle Ages.
1. J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and

the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1975), 50.
2. J. G. A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion. Vol. 3: The First Decline and Fall
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
177
Pococks main evidence favoring this distinction is the widespread ap-

propriation and application of the theme of translatio imperii in the late
classical and medieval periods, that is, the notion of an unbroken continu-
ity between past and present forms of universal human governance con-
nected with Roman rule and its association with the Respublica Christi-
ana.3 In turn, the postulation of a persisting link between past and present
mediated through a universal political institution was replaced during the
Renaissance by decline and fall, which viewed the empire as one more
system of governance existing in time that follows a natural pattern of
change and eventual death. Thus, more explicitly than in his previous writ-
ings, Pocock seeks in The First Decline and Fall to explicate the intellectual
differences between medieval and modern times that exemplify the great
divide inherited from Baron. Adapting this approach to the wider historio-
graphical field posed by the medieval/modern distinction is a useful one.
Indeed, I share Pococks evident suspicion that the continuities between
medieval and early modern political thought have been overplayed in the
hands of scholars of the neo-Figgisite orientation, who render the catego-
ries of medieval and modern for all intents and purposes meaningless
when it comes to the analysis of the history of European political thought.
In The First Decline and Fall, Pocock offers compelling evidence that the
all-continuity, all-the-time position is overdrawn: medieval thinkers did
see themselves as direct heirs to the Roman Empirehence, the wide-
spread use of the translatio imperii themein a way that at least some Re-
naissance thinkers (the important ones for Pocock) did not.
Pococks argument seems to me to swing the pendulum somewhat too
far in the other direction, however, by apparently recalling the specter of an
Iron Curtain between the backward looking (literallyhence the obses-
sion with the Empire) medieval point of view and the accomplishments of
the Renaissance civic republicans in introducing the new decline and fall
perspective. He admits that, as a matter of historical record, the transla-
tio died hard if it died at all, and persisted alongside many of the writings
we shall consider as making a transition to Decline and Fall.4 Likewise,
Pocock directly challenges scholars who have found evidence in the thir-
teenth and fourteenth centuries of important republican themes that he
3. Ibid., 99100.
4. Ibid., 144. Pocock cites Thomas Izbicki and Cary J. Nederman, eds., Three Tracts on Em-
pire (Bristol: Theommes, 2000). Pocock does not evince awareness of the important relevant
study by Werner Goez, Translatio Imperii: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Geschichtsdenkens und
der politischen Theorien im Mittelalter und in der frhen Neuzeit (Tbingen: Mohr, 1958).
t r ans l at i o i m p e r ii 179
and Baron identify specifically and initially in European history with the
Florentine humanism of the quattrocento and cinquecento.5 Considering
Brunetto Latini, Ptolemy of Lucca, and Marsiglio of Padua, Pocock dis-
covers in all of them an abiding devotion to translatio imperii that, in his
view, comports ill with the robust republicanism (and connected introduc-
tion of decline and fall) of Leonardo Bruni and other fifteenth-century
Florentines.
In the present chapter, I propose to challenge the conceptual clarity
and historical accuracy of Pococks scheme. I examine textual evidence
in order to offer reasons why Pococks narrative concerning imperialism
and republicanism requires further elaboration in recognition of the com-
plexity of the issues he investigates. First, his employment of Marsiglio of
Paduas De translatione imperii without reference to the Defensor pacis, of
which it is explicitly derivative, skews the meaning of Marsiglios specific
use of that theme, in particular by imputing to it an unwarranted univer-
salism. Second, fifteenth-century thinkers who continued to employ the
translatio imperii construct often drew from it conclusions that were wide-
ly at variance with those that Pocock believes to be central to the discourse.
I illustrate the latter claim with reference to Nicholas of Cusas De con-
cordantia catholica. I conclude that Pococks strict conceptual division be-
tween translatio imperii and decline and fall models has an a priori char-
acter that often does not fit texts to which it should in principle apply. In
closing, I offer some attenuated reflections on why the limitations of Po-
cocks argument matter to the more general historiography of European
political thought.
Pocock places the theme of universality at the core of the translatio
imperii perspective, whether in its imperialist or its papalist instantiations:
The myth of the Roman empire, translated, universal and persisting to the
end of time, was still a necessary component of Latin Christian discourse.6
Thus, in Pococks view, Marsiglio of Padua, writing in support of the cause
of Ludwig of Bavaria, found it necessary to compose a treatise De trans-
latione imperii in order to bolster the Germans cause against the papacy.
The circumstances of Marsiglios involvement with Ludwig should be men-
tioned here. Marsiglio probably wrote the De translatione imperii almost
immediately after completing the Defensor pacis, in the second half of 1324
or 1325, when he was still resident in Paris. A thorough reexamination of
5. Pocock, The First Decline and Fall, 144.

6. Ibid., 145.
the sources by the German historian Frank Godthardt has profoundly al-
tered what we know about the circumstances of Marsiglios departure from
Paris. There is no evidence that Marsiglio was hounded or subjected to any
charges on the basis of his authorship, which, despite common myth, was
hardly anonymous, since he peppers the book with unmistakable referenc-
es to himself (son of Antenor) and to his known associates (Matteo Vis-
conti). Rather, when Marsiglio and his colleague John of Jandun departed
Paris and took up residence with Ludwig there was no panicked flight, no
hint of danger. The best evidence points to a planned and calculated deci-
sion to enter the service of Ludwig, an event that probably occurred around
the time Marsiglio wrote De translatione imperiiand not 1326, the date
universally ascribed in present scholarship. Even with this departure, there
seems to have been no hue and cry about the heretical character of Mar-
siglios book, no immediate change in the eyes of the Church.7
Given the highly charged political context, Marsiglios intention in De
translatione imperii was surely not to engage in historical writing in a lat-
er sense, as Pocock correctly notes.8 The treatise is pure polemic, a work
meant to counter the standard claim (found in an analogous treatise com-
posed in 1324 by Landolfo Colonna, among many other sources) that the
pope possessed sole authority for bestowing imperial rights and that he
could translate the empire to whomsoever he wished.9 But this does not
answer the question that is salient for Pocock: Is Marsiglio working with-
in the bounds of the myth of the Roman empire [as] translated, univer-
sal and persisting to the end of time? I suggest that Marsiglio has already
stepped outside of this paradigm. While Marsiglios intent is not histori-
cal objectivity, he does evince a rudimentary historical consciousness about
the contingency of empire. This is revealed in the complete absence of
Latin Christian discourse in chapter 1 of De translatione Imperii; there is
no hint of divine ordination in his account of either the early history of or
the worldwide dominion exercised by Rome. Indeed, Marsiglio is perfectly
7. The research supporting this narrative is reported by Frank Godthardt, The Philoso-
pher as Political ActorMarsilius of Padua at the Court of Ludwig the Bavarian: The Sources
Revisited, in Gerson Moreno-Riao, ed., The World of Marsilius of Padua (Turnhout: Brepols,
2007), 2946.
8. Pocock, The First Decline and Fall, 150.
9. For a more extensive discussion, see the Introduction to Marsiglio of Padua, Writings
on the Empire, ed. Cary J. Nederman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), xixiii.
The original Latin text may be found in Jeannine Quillet and Colette Jeudy, eds., Marsile de
Padoue: Oeuvres Mineures (Paris: CNRS, 1979). Citations in the present chapter will be to my
English translation.
aware that the Roman Empire exists in a double sense: it connotes both the
localized authority of the emperors over the city of Rome and the monar-
chy over the whole world, or at any rate over the majority of the provinces,
such as was the government and city of Rome as these emerged.10 In fact,
in a lengthy passage, Marsiglio proposes that the magnificent achieve-
ments of the Romans in conquering their vast empire during the Repub-
lican era resulted from a combination of human fortitude and luck.11
No explanation is given of why the Republic gave way to the imperial
monarchy at the time of Augustus, but it is clear from Marsiglios com-
ments about Julius Caesar that he assumes a transformation from Roman
empire in the first sense to the second sense occurred only in the time of
Octavian (Julius Caesar being identified as a usurper of legitimate republi-
can government). The point at which many medieval Christians both be-
fore and after Marsiglio would cite the coincidence of Augustus and Jesus
is elided in De translatione imperii; the shift to empire in the second sense
is simply taken without comment as a historical occurrence.
Such nonsupernaturalistic historicism reinforces the impression one
receives from Marsiglios other writings that he regards the Empire as a
wholly contingent (and perhaps not entirely desirable) political entity.
In the Defensor pacis, to which De translatione imperii is simply an aux-
iliary appendage, there is no comparable translatio imperii account. Like-
wise, in Marsiglios Defensor minor, he makes no bow to the translatio im-
perii theme, treating imperial power instead as entirely consonant with the
Defensor paciss theory of popular consent as the single legitimate foun-
dation of government, as discussed in the previous chapter. The German
Empire in the Defensor minor becomes a kind of test case for the applica-
tion of Marsiglios generic theory of the legitimate basis of rulership. His
only general comment on the question of the universality and necessity
of world empire comes in chapter 18 of the first discourse of the Defensor
pacis, a remark quoted above in chapter 10. In this discussion, Marsiglio
evinced a studied skepticism about the universalistic and supernatural
bases of the Roman Empire; indeed, we may recall, he found heavenly
causes to point away from universal monarchy of any sort.
To maintain, then, that Marsiglios recounting of the transfer of the
empire in De translatione imperii betokens his acceptance of the mythol-
ogy of Latin Christian discourse seems to me to be unsustainable. Rath-
10. Marsiglio, Writings on the Empire, 66.

11. Ibid., 67.
er, the appeal to translatio imperii strikes me as yet another instance of

Marsiglios remarkable ability to speak many different political, theologi-
cal, and philosophical languages as the rhetorical situation and politi-
cal agenda dictated.12 Pocock may well be right that many other apparent
republicans of the later Middle Ages did not break with the assumptions
built into translatio imperii; I do not think that he has grounds to say this
about Marsiglio.
By contrast, although Pocock makes no reference to the De concordan-
tia catholica of Nicholas of Cusa (composed in 14331434) in The First De-
cline and Fall, Cusa would seem to be precisely the sort of author who fits
the mold of an imperialist after his time.13 Scholars have generally associ-
ated Nicholas with a commitment to a version of universalism quite in line
with the Renaissance translatio imperii school. Paul Sigmund has remarked
that the yearning for a universal empire and universal Church, and the
hopes for the universal agreement among men which characterized De
Concordantia Catholica, remained with Nicholas until his death.14 Like-
wise, Morimichi Watanabe discerns Nicholass failure to recognize the
emergence of the nation-state, which had been gradually gaining ground
in Europe.15 Jeannine Quillet finds in Nicholas a basis and sanction for
the progressive development of a universal commonwealth as the utopian
conclusion of an ecumenism whose theoretical foundations he propound-
ed with a boldness that goes well beyond Dantes anticipatory ideas.......16
And Bernard Guene implicates Nicholas in a renewal of the old idea
of universal Empire from which confusion was created which was ulti-
mately responsible for the persistence of the German dream of universal
hegemony.17
On the face of it, there seems to be little that distinguishes Cusas polit-
ical doctrines from preceding advocates of universal empire such as Dante.
12. On this discourse model of medieval political theory, see Antony Black, Political
Thought in Europe 12501550 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 713.
13. Along with Flavio Biondo and Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who are examined in The
First Decline and Fall, 179202.
14. Paul Sigmund, Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political Thought (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1963), 292.
15. Morimichi Watanabe, The Political Ideas of Nicholas of Cusa with Special Reference to De
Concordantia Catholica (Geneva: Droz, 1963), 144.
16. Jeannine Quillet, Community I: Community, Counsel, and Representation, in
J. H. Burns, ed., The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c. 350c. 1450 (Cam-
17. Bernard Guene, States and Rulers in Later Medieval Europe, trans. Juliet Vale (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1989), 17.
In De Concordantia Catholica, he emphasizes the naturalistic foundations

of the earthly social and political community. Insisting that rational fac-
ulties distinguish human beings from animals, he asserts that the exer-
cise of their reason led men to form associations, adopt laws, and appoint
rulers.18 Human reason, Nicholas maintains, provides access to the pre-
cepts of natural law that guide all valid political institutions and powers.
But reason is not equally distributed among human beings. Cusa remarks
that some people are better endowed with reason, so that these wiser
and more outstanding men are chosen as rulers by the others to draw up
just laws by the clear reason, wisdom and prudence given to them by na-
ture and to rule the others by these laws.19 Consequently, Nicholas pos-
its a strict distinction between the wise few and the foolish multitude,
which dictates that the latter can play no direct role in their own rule. He
says, Almighty God has assigned a certain natural servitude to the igno-
rant and stupid so that they readily trust the wise to help them preserve
themselves.20 Reason dictates the dominance of the few over the many
and thus the rule of a small governing elite over the subjected masses.
If reason justifies government in general, then specifically imperial gov-
ernment derives from its superior, spiritual calling. Cusa constructs a hier-
archy of regimes stretching from the king of the Tartarswho is the least
worthy because he governs through laws least in agreement with those di-
vinely institutedthrough Islamic governance to Christian monarchs. On
top of the pyramid, according to the standard of holiness of rule, I main-
tain that the authority of the Empire is the greatest.21 He reasons that the
chief purposes of all rulers, and especially of Christian kings, are the main-
tenance of religion and the promotion of eternal ends; all other goals of
government are subservient. Thus, our Christian Empire outranks the
others, just as our most holy and pure Christian religion is highest in holi-
ness and truth. And as every kingdom and prince should care for his king-
dom, so the Emperor should care for the whole Christian people.22 Oth-
er Christian princes are therefore beneath the Roman emperor and must
18. I follow the excellent translation of De Concordantia Catholica by Paul Sigmund, Nich-
olas of Cusa: The Catholic Concordance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 2056.
The Latin text is Nicholas of Cusa, Opera Omnia: Vol. 14. De concordantia catholica, ed. Ger-
hard Kallen (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 19591965), which I have used occasionally to amend
Sigmunds rendering.
19. Nicholas of Cusa, The Catholic Concordance, 98.
20. Ibid., 206. 21. Ibid., 237.
22. Ibid., 23738.
submit to him in matters concerning the protection of Christs Church.23

Given Nicholass polemical intention to lend support to the efforts of Em-
peror Sigismund to intervene in the Council of Basle, he could hardly have
adopted any other position.24 It is the emperor, in his view, to whom the
duty pertains to enforce conciliar decrees. Hence, imperial authority must
extend to all Christian believers: Because he is guardian of the universal
faith and the protector of universal statutes [canons] which could not be ef-
fectively executed without a ruler over all, and since the universal statutes
respecting the Christian faithful bind all faithful Christians to maintain
and apply them, all are subject to the Emperors rule insofar as he is estab-
lished to maintain those directives.25 Such a universal jurisdiction stems
from the fact that the whole Christian people transferred power to him
to act as enforcer of canon law and guardian of the faith.26 In these mat-
ters, little room would appear to be afforded for national governments to
exist as anything other than local agents of the emperor.
Yet Cusa is careful to stipulate that the honor due to the empire, and
hence its universalistic character, pertains only to its status and functions
in the spiritual realm. Previously in De Concordantia Catholica, he had ac-
knowledged that political rule also naturally and necessarily involves nonre-
ligious functions that are properly exercised by Christian and non-Christian
regimes alike.27 Natural reason and the survival of the incompetent multi-
tude demand the existence of political order and communal law. In perform-
ing these duties, it seems, the emperors authority does not derive from God
and the Christian people. How, then, does any particular regime emerge to
provide these services? He claims that all peopleeven the most ignorant
are held to assent to the terms of their governance, both originally and on a
continuing basis. According to Nicholas, the enslavement of the ignorant
to the wise does not undercut the voluntary character of political arrange-
ments. It may be true that those better endowed with reason are the natural
lords and masters of the others but not by any coercive law or judgment im-
posed on someone against his will. This is because human beings possess a
natural equality in their power and freedom.
Since all are by nature free, every governance ..... by which subjects are compelled
to abstain from evil deeds and their freedom directed towards the good through
fear of punishment can only come from the agreement and consent of the sub-
23. Ibid., 23939. 24. See ibid., 25067.

25. Ibid., 23940. 26. Ibid., 239, 238.
27. Ibid., 2056.
jects. For if men are equal in power and equally free, the true properly ordered
authority of one common ruler who is their equal in power cannot be naturally
established except by the election and consent of the others, and law is also estab-
lished by consent.28
Of course, the volitional basis of political community is not deemed by

Nicholas to be participatory in character.29 The consent of the masses has
the wholly formal character of silent submission and deference. Insofar as
the wise enjoy privileged access to the reason by which all are governed, there
is no cause for public deliberation on the part of the multitude. The wise
remain instead the natural trustees of the common good: The rule of the
wise and the subjection of the ignorant are harmonized through common
laws that have the wise as their special authors, protectors, and executors,
and the concurrent agreement of all the others in voluntary subjection.30
Law and rulership rest upon the rational foundation of natural law that the
wise few are particularly qualified to discover and uphold.
What the principle of consent does contribute, however, is a power-
ful justification for localized variations in political rule. Because political
order and law depends upon human volition, at least in its temporal ap-
plications, valid systems of government must always be traced to public
consent apart from spiritual authorization. This also implies that political
arrangements are historically mutable and capable of reorganization over
time. Consent, then, becomes the touchstone of local diversity in politi-
cal rule. The emperors power to command, Cusa asserts, does not ex-
tend beyond the territorial limits of the empire under him, citing a decree
of the Carolingian Emperor Louis, who, although he describes himself as
Emperor, ..... issues commands only to the inhabitants of the kingdom of
France and the Lombards who were his de facto subjects.31 Even the claim
made on behalf of the Roman emperor to be lord of the world as ruler of
the empire that the Romans once conquered by their valor must be tem-
pered by the fact that Rome never extended its conquests to the larger part
of Asia and Africa that, if not heavily populated (to Nicholass knowledge),
are of great geographic expanse.32 The only reasonable conclusion is that
28. Ibid., 98.

29. See Cary J. Nederman, Rhetoric, Reason, and Republic: RepublicanismsAncient,
Medieval, and Modern, in James Hankins, ed., Renaissance Civic Humanism (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000), 26162.
30. Nicholas of Cusa, The Catholic Concordance, 208.
31. Ibid., 235. 32. Ibid., 23536.
the phrase lord of all the world must be interpreted narrowly and figu-
ratively in its application to the emperor: If rulership is only rightly pos-
sessed through the elective agreement of the subjects as argued above, then
he is only lord over those who are actually subject to him and we should
conclude that the Emperor is lord of that part of the world over which he
exercises effective authority.33 Cusa never questions the legitimacy of the
political rights enjoyed by the many kingdoms of the world beyond the
boundaries of the Western Empire nor does he insist upon a global reach
(even potentially) for the temporal authority of the emperor. This is im-
plied, for example, in his explanation of the emperors right to arrange
the seating of other temporal princes in attendance at a General Council:
The ranking of the secular participants depends on the emperor, since ev-
eryone, including those not otherwise subject to him, is under him in the
council because of his role as protector of the council. Therefore he has ju-
risdiction over all of them.34 But that jurisdiction stems purely from the
sacral dimension of the imperial majesty. The emperors duty as protector
of the Catholic faith has no corollary in a secular responsibility for all the
peoples of the earth, because the latter requires public consent that has not
been given, whereas the permission of the body of Christian believers au-
thorizes the former.
Consequently, Cusa clearly believes that the scope of the imperial ju-
risdiction in Europe possesses a purely political (that is, historical and con-
ventional) character. In a series of chapters tracing the decay of the empire
since the time of Emperor Otto I, De Concordantia Catholica demonstrates
how the extent of the emperors authority has both grown and shrunk ac-
cording to the provinces that have placed themselves under its guardian-
shipa sort of pro-imperialist restatement of decline and fall. Initially,
the domains under Otto Is command included the kingdom of Italy and
the Lombards, the kingdom of Burgundy as well as the kingdom of the
Germans of which his father, Henry, is supposed to have been the first
king.35 Gradually, other peoplesCusa names the Hungarians, Bohemi-
ans, Danes, Norwegians, Poles, and Prussiansplaced themselves under
the empire on account of its unparalleled ability to make effective its laws
and uphold communal peace and order.36 Their rulers, on Cusas account,
became imperial functionaries: It was also decreed at that time that princ-
es, dukes, and counts should be appointed to public office at the com-
33. Ibid., 236. 34. Ibid., 260.

35. Ibid., 287. 36. Ibid., 28788.
mand of the Emperor and should be removable at his will with an obli-
gation to give an account of their ministry to the public treasury.37 He
describes virtually a golden age of imperial majesty and honor in which
everything tended to the public good.38 In more recent times, by con-
trast, the empire is in a state of decline and decay. Not only have those na-
tions that once submitted to the emperor and his laws withdrawn their
consent because peace is not maintained, but even the imperial princes
within Germany have asserted their autonomy and claimed rights former-
ly reserved for the emperor.39 Nicholas laments, A mortal disease has in-
vaded the German empire and unless an antidote is found at once, death
will surely follow. You seek the Empire in Germany and you will not find
it. As a result others will take our place and we will be divided and subject-
ed to another nation.40 Nicholas the imperialist sounds oddly like Bruni
the republican in endorsing a decline and fall narrative.
Nicholas, of course, does not regard decline and fall as an inevitable
outcome, calling instead for immediate reform of the empire to promote
its recovery. Such a restored empire would still be by no means a universal
(or even trans-European) one: it encompasses only Italy, Lombardy, Bur-
gundy, and the whole of Germanythat is, the original extent of Otto Is
jurisdiction41of which Nicholas had earlier said our Empire is com-
posed and which have maintained fidelity and loyalty to it.42 Such re-
form is a far cry from the universalism that is sometimes ascribed to Cusa.
And indeed, the closing chapters of De Concordantia Catholica read like
nothing so much as a blueprint for the building of a federated nation, with
proposals for national and regional assemblies (complete with a sophisti-
cated balloting system), a customs union, fiscal administration and tax-
gathering, and a paid national army. Nicholas recognizes that the founda-
tion of popular consent to earthly government means that even if such a
far-flung empire did once legitimately exist, its validity has been eroded by
later patterns of communal choice. While he may value universality as a
quality necessary for the sake of the Church, he recognizes that the shifting
and wholly conventional nature of political volition means that such a glob-
al system of temporal government cannot be justified as the permanently
best or ideal. Cusas emphasis on the historicity of secular political
life, and hence the inescapable diversity of systems of rule, may indeed be
37. Ibid., 289. 38. Ibid., 290.

39. Ibid., 29195. 40. Ibid., 295.
41. Ibid., 29596. 42. Ibid., 287.
viewed as a recurring theme in his social thought. Cusas appeal to the his-
torical character of nationality in De pace fidei, written twenty years after
De Concordantia Catholica, constitutes one of the central pillars upholding
his conception of religious toleration.43 In the later work, Nicholas in fact
praises the peaceful expression of national pride through different forms
of religious rites (non-Christian as well as Christian) typical of each natio
without denying the truth of a single set of universal religious principles.
In advancing an explicit story of imperial decline and fall from an overt-
ly nonrepublican perspective, Nicholas demonstrates that the waters divid-
ing the medieval from the modern banks are indeed quite a lot muddier
than Pococks account permits.
Consequently, Nicholas of Cusa has the earmarks of a universalistic im-
perialist, who, lacking exposure to the republicanism flourishing in Flor-
ence, continued in the medieval mode to promote the themes associated
with translatio imperii. Yet Nicholas proves as difficult a case as Marsiglio
of Padua. Both thinkers drink at the well of medieval imperialism, yet nei-
ther wind up adopting the position that Pococks historiography would
lead us to expect. Is this a fatal criticism of Pococks narrative? Perhaps not.
It occurs to me that a somewhat less strident version of his argument, per-
mitting for greater variation on both the medieval and the early modern
shores of the divide, could still do much (although not all) of the work of
his thesis in its current form. Acknowledging that the waters separating the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance could be forded on occasion, at least by
creative political thinkers such as Marsiglio and Nicholas, would go a long
way toward the formulation of a historiographical perspective that actually
fits the range of examples at hand.
Perhaps the broader problem with Pococks interpretation of the di-
vide between the medieval and the modern ways of conceptualizing poli-
tics stems from his fascination, derived from Hans Baron, with the reviv-
al of classical republicanism as the hallmark of modernity. This is hardly
a novel observation. Numerous scholars during the past thirty years have
dined on the carcass of Pococks historical and conceptual understanding
of republican thought.44 But this critical literature itself largely retains an
obsession with finding the true kernel of modern republicanism (or of
43. See Cary J. Nederman, Worlds of Difference: European Discourses of Toleraion, c.1100
c.1550 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 8995.
44. An up-to-date review of the relevant literature is supplied by Vickie Sullivan, Machia-
velli, Hobbes, and the Formation of a Liberal Republicanism in England (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), 19, 2227.
the classical variant, for that matter). More fruitful may be the recognition
that republicanism (modern or classical) denotes a range of interlinked,
but also potentially contradictory, discourses that often start from radically
different premises and principles.45 As Janet Coleman has argued, during
the Middle Ages the term respublica could be a virtual synonym for good
government, regardless of the institutional arrangements, and thus often
applied to monarchies of many types.46 Such a usage seems antithetical to
the scholarly literature on republican theory and practice, which insists on
an equivalence of republicanism with antimonarchism and anti-imperial-
ism. How and when the common medieval, generic meaning of republic
disappeared remains uncertain and in dire need of further examination.
Yet we must admit that republics were by no means as discretely and self-
evidently distinct from other modes of political life as Baron and Pocock
would have it, a point that Mikael Hrnqvist has forcefully underscored in
the case of Machiavelli.47 Thus, kingship or empire need not be juxta-
posed to republic in the way that Baron and Pocock implicitly assume.
Imperialism, monarchy, and republicanism may have common and mutu-
ally reinforcing intellectual threads that are missed when the doctrines are
rigidly constituted.
Thus, categories such as medieval and modern can and should be
gainfully deployed, yet always with the understanding that they are not
fixed and firm. While Marsiglio of Padua deserves to be labeled a medi-
eval thinker on more than simple chronological grounds, he broke free
from some of the constraints imposed by the political attitudes conven-
tionally associated with the Middle Ages. This does not make him mod-
ern, but it does mean that his understanding of empire resonated with
later visions. Nicholas of Cusa, too, borrowed the tools of medieval impe-
rialism, but employed them to craft doctrines that were infused with de-
cidedly nonmedieval overtones. Failure to invoke the distinction between
the medieval and the modern periods erodes our capacity to under-
stand Marsiglios and Nicholass places in the history of Western political
ideas.
45. Nederman, Rhetoric, Reason, and Republic, 24849, 26869.

46. Janet Coleman, Structural Realities of Power: The Theory and Practice of Monar-
chies and Republics in Relation to Personal and Collective Liberty, in Martin Gosman, Arjo
Vanderjagt, and Jan Veenstra, eds., The Propagation of Power in the Medieval West (Gronigen:
Egbert Forsten, 1998), 20730.
47. Mikael Hrnqvist, Machiavelli and Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004).
12
C h r is t iani t y an d R e p u b l icanis m
Another Look
n t o n y B l ac k h as d r aw n attention to a major lacu-

na in the present literature on the history of republican
thought: its failure to take account of the Christian contribu-
tion to the development of Western republicanism.1 Black la-
ments that scholars assume without warrant the equation of the
Christian tradition of politics with monarchical absolutism, sys-
tematically ignoring the fact that republican practices as well as
theories were central to the development of Christianity from its
earliest days.2 He implores us to set aside an essentialist tenden-
cy to view republicanism as a purely secular phenomenon, anti-
thetical to the hierarchical concord so commonly propounded by
Christian (especially medieval) political authors.3 Monarchical
thought, he insists, was not implicit in Christianity. Rather, it
1. Antony Black, Christianity and Republicanism: From St. Cyprian to Rous-

seau, American Political Science Review 91 (September 1997): 64756. The essay was
republished by Black in his collection Church, State and Community: Historical and
Comparative Perspectives (London: Ashgate/Variorum, 2003), chap. 16.
2. He mentions Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought,
2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), and John Pocock, The Ma-
chiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradi-
tion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), among others.
3. This is emphasized in Blacks response to my own objections to his approach
(which I reiterate in the present chapter) found in Christianity and Republican-
ism: A Response to Nederman, American Political Science Review 92 (December
1998): 920.
190
c h r is t iani t y an d r e p u b l icanis m 191
formed merely a potential doctrine consistent with Christian teaching,

alongside an equal potential to valorize republican governance.4
Black adds a crucial dimension to the study of the development of re-
publicanism. He has not, however, achieved this considerable accomplish-
ment without introducing some new and significant confusions into the
discussion. Specifically, in the present chapter, I wish to suggest two diffi-
culties in Blacks presentation of the Christian tradition of republicanism.
First, he continues to rely upon a primarily secular reading of medieval po-
litical thought, one that filters out precisely those elements of Christian
cosmology and theology that distinguish the republicanism of the Latin
Middle Ages from either its classical or modern instantiations. There is
more at stake than meets the eye in Blacks apparently wry remark that
he will not attempt to define Christianity,5 since reference to the dis-
tinctly Christian character of Christian republicanism is precisely what
his account lacks. Second, by positing an ideal typology of republicanism,
he imposes a singular vision upon a republican tradition that was (and
is) diverse and multiplicitous. This leads, in particular, to an anachronis-
tic opposition between republic and monarchy to which many republi-
cans of medieval Europe would not subscribe. As Janet Coleman has ob-
served, Latin Christian thought was characterized by a discernable lack
of a neat and oppositional distinction between regnum and respublica.6 In
short, medieval Christians did not share the inclination of both ancients
and moderns to contrapose royal and republican regimes in a way that ren-
dered them incommensurable.
In support of these claims, I sketch the outlines of a form of Christian
republicanism typical of the Latin Middle Ages, one that is imbued with
the belief system of Christianity and is by no means hostile to the principle
of monarchy. To defend this view of Christian republicanism fully would,
of course, require a magisterial examination of the full range of medieval
political writings. In the present context, I illustrate my understanding of
Christian republicanism by examination of the ideas of a major contrib-
utor to late medieval political theory: Jean Gerson. Gerson figured cen-
trally in the conciliar movement within ecclesiology that Black considers
4. Black, Christianity and Republicanism, 654.

5. Ibid., 647.
6. Janet Coleman, Structural Realities of Power: The Theory and Practice of Monar-
chies and Republics in Relation to Personal and Collective Liberty, in Martin Gosman, Arjo
J. Vanderjagt, and Jan Veenstra, eds., The Propagation of Power in the Medieval West (Gronin-
gen: Egbert Forsten, 1998), 217; see 21517.
to be the strongest evidence for convergence between republicanism and

Christianity.7 My analysis of Gerson sustains the validity of Blacks gener-
al thesis that the history of republicanism cannot be told without reference
to Christianity, while also demonstrating that this claim requires the narra-
tion of a more complicated and less Whiggish history than he recounts.
The key to medieval Christian republicanism, I maintain, is a theo-
logically informed conception of social and political institutions as or-
ganic unities, a topic already examined at length in chapters 3 and 5. Of
course, organic conceptions of political community enjoyed a history pri-
or to Christian times and were also attractive to political thinkers working
within non-Christian religions such as Islam. The medieval European re-
liance upon organic discourse and imagery arises from its embeddedness
in a Christian cosmology that posited not so much a chain of being as
an animated but differentiated totality. According to a line of Christian
thought that runs back to the Church Fathers, God created the universe as
a unity, composed of many different parts, each of which is itself an organ-
ic unit that both partakes of the greater whole and has a distinct purpose
within the larger scheme. In a letter, Pope Gregory the Great stated:
The provision of divine dispensation established that the ranks and diverse orders
are distinct, so that when the lesser ones show reverence to the greater ones and
the greater ones use love towards lesser ones, one combination of love is made out
of diversity and the administration of each office is properly carried out. For the
whole could not exist in any way if the great order of this difference did not serve
it. But since creatures cannot be governed or live in one and the same equality,......
it is clear that they are not equal but differ one from the other, as you know, in
power and in order. If this distinction is known to exist among those who are with-
out sin, what man will resist submitting willingly to this same dispensation......?8
Within each organic unit, as within the universe as a whole, there is high-
er and lower, superior and inferior. Yet this hierarchical ordering does not
exclude the lesser members of the body from a proper and worthwhile
role within the whole. When transferred by analogy to the political realm,
these themes coalesce into a coherent republican position: the ruler is re-
stricted in what he can do by the reciprocity built into the body politic;
the participation of the other members of the organism in the business of

8. Cited in Giles Constable, Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought (Cam-
the common welfare both sets limits on the actions of the headhe can-
not properly interfere with their unique tasksand establishes a check
on the head in cases where it oversteps its appropriate scope of activity.9
The Parisian theologian Jean Gerson, whose importance Black himself
has noted,10 affords a clear case of the distinctive form of republicanism I
have identified. Gerson is best known as an advocate of the supremacy of
the General Council in the governance of the Church. Gersons conciliar
credentials are well established. He was personally active in promoting a
conciliar solution to the Great Schism in the early fifteenth century, and
his writings were widely disseminated throughout the period of the Coun-
cils of Pisa and Constance.11 Yet Gersons conciliarism conforms less to the
typology of antimonarchic institutional and civic republicanism offered by
Black than to the organic Christian republicanism I have described. As a
consequence, Gerson simultaneously subscribes to a conciliar ecclesiology
and to a strong defense of papal monarchy.
To understand how Gerson was able to endorse what may seem to us
antithetical principles, it is first of all necessary to grasp his very concep-
tion of the nature of government. All legitimate exercise of power, he con-
tends, must be limited according to law. He states flatly that spiritual
[jurisdiction] should be exercised according to canonical laws toward the
ultimate end of realizing beatitude, just as temporal [jurisdiction] should
be exercised according to the civil laws.12 This pertains directly to the gov-
ernance of the Church. Spiritual jurisdiction in Gersons view is placed
principally in the hands of the pope, who serves as a judge whose deter-
minations must occur on the basis of law. Specifically, papal jurisdiction
is constituted by the juridical power of excommunication or interdict by
denial of ecclesiastical sacraments and the communion of faith to those
who rebel against and disobey the Church.13 The pope, in other words,
9. See Cary J. Nederman, Freedom, Community and Function: Communitarian Les-
sons of Medieval Political Theory, American Political Science Review 86 (December 1992): 981,
98283.
10. Antony Black, The Conciliar Movement, in J. H. Burns, ed., The Cambridge History
of Medieval Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 575, 580, and Po-
litical Thought in Europe 12501450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 17172.
11. John B. Morrall, Gerson and the Great Schism (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1960); Louis B. Pascoe, Jean Gerson: Principles of Church Reform (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1973); and Brian Patrick Maguire, Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005).
12. Jean Gerson, De potestate ecciesiastica, in Palemon Glorieux, ed., Oeuvres Completes (Pa-
ris: Desce: 1965), 6: 216.
13. Ibid., 218.
is charged with primary authority for the maintenance of faith and morals
among the body of Christian believers to be accomplished by the enforce-
ment of Church law.
Gersons requirement that the papacy must govern in accordance with
law does not, however, entail a denial of papal plenitude of power, that is,
the independence of the authority of the popes office from any superior
except God. Gerson remarks simply that the papal plenitude of power
was granted by Christ in those things which are supernatural [and] stands
supreme.14 This principle is accepted throughout Gersons writings. In
turn, the theoretical basis for the popes indispensable plenitudo potesta-
tis may be located in Gersons analysis of the nature of ecclesiastical power
in general. Gerson argues that all offices within the Church have, formally
speaking, been ordained by God.15 In this sense, the powers pertaining to
the pope cannot be curtailed or controlled by any human authority with-
out violating the divine will. Rather,
ecclesiastical power in its plenitude is formally and subjectively in the Roman pon-
tiff alone....... The plenitude of ecclesiastical power is the power of order and juris-
diction which was supernaturally given by Christ to Peter, as His direct and first
King, for himself and for his successors to the end of time, for the edification of
the Church militant toward the achievement of eternal felicity.16
It is thereby erroneous to attribute to Gerson the position that the popes

apparent plenitude of power is in effect conceded to him as a matter of ad-
ministrative convenience.17 On the contrary, Gerson believes that the pa-
pal plenitudo potestatis is of divine origin and is absolutely essential for the
conduct of the Churchs main business, namely, the salvation of souls. In
no way ought the pope to be construed as ancillary to or derivative of the
full spiritual life of the Church.
Thus far, Gerson may sound to us like an extreme papalist. However,
he also recognized that the doctrine of plenitudo potestatis has perpetuated
an exaggerated vision of the popes office. Consequently, he allows that ec-
clesiastical power may also be understood to convey two other meanings: a
material or respective sense, related to its assignment to particular per-
sons by legitimate right; and a sense connected to the exercise or execu-
14. Jean Gerson, In recessu regis romanorum, in Palemon Glorieux, ed. Oeuvres Completes
(Paris: Descle, 1963), 5: 479.
16. Ibid., 27778.
17. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2:116.
tion of power.18 Materially speaking, the pope (or any ecclesiastical offi-
cer) must be chosen and consecrated, activities that appropriately inhere in
the whole Church. The Church as the mystical body of Christian believers
retains ultimate authority over the specific occupants of the papal office.19
Analogously, the power of regulating the use to which particular persons
put the rights attached to ecclesiastical government is to be found in the
corporate Church.20 Papal jurisdiction exists not for its own sake, but in-
stead in order to edify the Church, to serve the common good of salva-
tion.21 And should a given pope not aim at this end, the authority pertain-
ing to the papal office is abused rather than rightly used. In sum, Gerson
believes that the regulation of the use of papal power is confined to those
circumstances in which it is liable to be turned into abuse.22 The Church
does not control the office; it instead supervises the conduct of the individ-
ual incumbent of the papacy. The regulatory role with which the Church
is endowed arises because of the uncertainties surrounding human moral
will: Since the supreme pontiff ..... is open to sin and may wish to turn
his power to the destruction of the Church, it is necessary for abuse of
this sort to be repressed, limited and moderated by the whole Church.23
Yet, on the other hand, the pope whose behavior is appropriate to the
office that he occupies is beyond any scrutiny; he is protected by his pleni-
tudo potestatis. The pope can do whatever is demanded for the edification
and welfare of the Church without any limit or supervision. When its in-
cumbent acts according to the precepts of faith and charity, the papacy
must be totally free to exercise and impose its jurisdiction: We are able to
do what we are able to do rightfully.24 Abuses of power are defined only
in terms of actions arising from an evil will which places its private inter-
ests above the needs of the public. The limitation of papal authority can
only be applied to the use of the powers by individual occupants, and nev-
er to the direct control of the office itself, which is a matter for divine de-
termination. Gersons attitude is summarized by his declaration, Papa flu-
it, papatus stabilis est (The pope changes, but the papacy is stable).25
19. Ibid., 223.
20. Ibid., 232.
21. Jean Gerson, De auferibilitate sponsi, in Palemon Glorieux, ed., Oeuvres Completes (Pa-
ris: Descle, 1962), 6: 300.
23. Ibid., 233.
24. Ibid., 221.
25. Jean Gerson, Propositio facit coram angelicis, in Glorieux, ed., Oeuvres Completes, 6:132.
Such considerations also inform the relationship between the pope and
the General Council. Gerson argues that just as a pope is only elevated to
office when he has been formally elected and consecrated, so he can only
be ousted from the papal throne by a public proceeding and final judg-
ment within the context of a General Council.26 But Gerson also makes
it clear that the reason popes are deposed by councils stems from human
frailty and imperfection. Insofar as an individual pope may fall into sin, he
is susceptible to the judgment of Church and council, to which he is sub-
ject in the same manner as one who is capable of erring to what can never
err.27 In other words, because it is exercised by fallible humans, the papal
will is accidentalis atque mutabilis (contingent and also mutable),28
whereas the will of the General Council is without moral defect and may
therefore always be expected to reach the correct decision in matters of pa-
pal turpitude. The determinations of the council are effectively the actions
of a morally superior and incorruptible body.
In one sense, then, the pope does require the approval of the Church
manifested through the General Council.29 Yet the council hardly func-
tions politically at all in the sense a secular republican might understand,
since it is under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit, addressed in chap-
ter 7 above. The Church itself aims solely to perpetuate a unified ortho-
doxy, about which there could be no disputed opinion. Therefore, the Gen-
eral Council idenifies and enforces catholic doctrine, that is, the truer and
higher common good shared by all Christians.30 In this, the faithful have
no civic status, since their actual participation as individual members of
the Church is not necessary. The mystical body of the Church is far greater
than an aggregate of its particular members.
This vision of Christian republicanism was not unique to Gerson, but
rather seems to have been shared generally among conciliarists of the fif-
teenth century. As we observed in chapter 3, the De Concordantia Cath-
olica of Nicholas of Cusa propounds doctrines that echo republicanism
admixed with Christian theology and the acceptance of monarchic rule.
Like Gerson, Nicholas posited the council as infallibly capable of discov-
ering and mandating the true and objective interests of the Church as an
united entity. Nicholass republicanism thus depended upon prior accep-
26. Gerson, In recessu regis romanorum, 309.
27. Jean Gerson, Tractatus de unitate ecclesiae, in Glorieux, ed., Oeuvres Completes, 6: 140.
28. Ibid., 137.
29. Gerson, In recessu regis romanorum, 479.
30. Ibid., 47879.
tance of distinctively Christian principles of theology, and it does not con-

flict with adherence to the preferability (indeed, necessity) of monarchy.
Indeed, this helps to explain why Nicholas could uphold conciliarism, on
the one hand, and yet within a few years defect to the position of extreme
papalism.31
Black is surely warranted, then, in his conclusion that elements of me-
dieval Christian republicanism did not simply disappear with the Refor-
mation, the scientific revolution, and the other harbingers of modernity.
In particular, he seems correct to locate resemblances between the eccle-
siological concepts of inerrancy and unanimity, on the one hand, and the
concept of the general will, on the other.32 But insofar as the premises of
Rousseaus community were manifestly non-Christian, as Black admits,
such connections are perhaps at best superficial. The organic communal-
ism of Christian republicanism required acceptance of theological assump-
tions that Rousseau certainly rejected, not least conceptions of natural hi-
erarchy and the necessity of monarchic rule. Nor should it be forgotten,
as discussed in chapter 7 above, that Rousseau reviled the system of par-
liamentary representation that he associated with the degraded and dis-
honorable practices of medieval lifean explicit rejection of the line of
republicanism that Black sketches.33 Rousseaus passion for equality, not
to mention his secularist orientation, place him at a distance from repub-
licanism as it was conceived and practiced by the conciliarists and other
thinkers grounded in medieval Christian doctrine.
Black thus merits praise for his reminder that Christianity was one
of the discourses at work in framing the history of Western republican
thought. Christianity is not inherently more sympathetic to a strictly mon-
archist than to a republican position. But Blacks account seems marred by
a desire to construct direct lineages between medieval Christian approach-
es to republican institutions and modern doctrines of republicanism. This
leads to the neglect of some features that are most distinctive and constitu-
tive of Christian republicanism: that it derived from more general beliefs
31. On the wider implications of Nicholass apparent change of heart, see Constantin Fa-
solt, Council and Hierarchy: The Political Thought of William Durant the Younger (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press 1991), 31819. Fasolt stresses that the very distinction between pa-
palism and conciliarism, like the supposed opposition between clusters of other isms (e.g.,
constitutionalism and absolutism, republicanism and monarchism), results from an
anachronistic application of these categories to the Middle Ages.
33. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Basic Political Writings, ed. D. A. Cress (Indianapolis:
Hackett, 1987), 19899.
about the divinely ordained organic structure of the universe; and that this
cosmological premise of organic hierarchy was by no means antithetical
to the office of the king (whether papal or secular). Once these elements
are supplied, the medieval contribution to the history of republican ideas
takes on a complexion very different than that described by Black.
Specifically, it becomes possible to propose an alternative ideal type
of republicanism more consonant with the main (although by no means
exclusive) intellectual currents of the Christian Middle Ages, founded on
a set of principles relatively detached from modern debate ( la Rousseau).
Such republicanism, exemplified by the writings of Jean Gerson and oth-
er conciliarists, incorporates: (1) moral-theological rather than formal-
institutional limitations on the person of the ruler who exercises political
power; and (2) accountability of both government and citizens to a corpo-
rate or spiritual authority rather than to an actual community composed
of free and equal individuals. Both of these medieval doctrines were gradu-
ally eroded and replaced in modern Europe by principles owing more to
secularized patterns of thought. And, as a consequence, quintessentially
medieval, Christian republicanism gave way to its modern counterpart: a
republican vision that indeed accords more directly with the typology con-
structed by Black.
Pa rt I V
The Virtues of Necessity

Economic Principles of Politics

13
T h e O r i g ins o f P o l ic y in
T w e l f t h - C e n t u r y En g l an d
t h a r d ly c o ns t i t u t e s an e x a g g e r at i o n to say
that European economic life during the twelfth century un-
derwent a dramatic transformation. In particular, the historical
watershed crossed after 1100 may be characterized by three key fac-
tors. First, market relations became a central feature of the social
structures of the Latin Middle Ages, generating what Robert Lo-
pez many years ago proclaimed to be a commercial revolution.1
Among the tokens of this revolution were the increased circula-
tion of coinage, the expansion of long-distance trade, the forma-
tion of national markets, the emergence of systems of credit and
banking, and the rising prominence of cities. Second, the twelfth
century witnessed a period of technological development and im-
proved productivity without precedent in Europe, running paral-
lel to patterns of demographic growth and extension of arable. The
management of agriculture yielded levels of fertility (and wealth)
that were earlier unimaginable.2 Finally, political and legal institu-
tions capable of regulating and directing economic resources on a
1. See Robert S. Lopez, The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages 9501350
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976). Additional analysis is provided by
John Day, The Medieval Market Economy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987).
2. Among the scholars who have have documented elements of this develop-
ment are Lynn White Jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 1962); Georges Duby, The Early Growth of the European Economy, trans.
Howard B. Clarke (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974), 155270; H. E. Hallam,
201
202 e c o n o m ic p r incip l e s o f p o l i t ics
larger scale appeared rapidly after 1100. Governmentwhether in the form

of kings and other territorial lords or of urban communesreceived rec-
ognition as an important agent of economic administration and also as a
beneficiary (through taxes, customs, and duties) of a vigorous economy.3
Although the emergence of these phenomena in various locales was by no
means uniform or unilateral, Europe in 1200 was a very different place ec-
onomicallyand also politically, legally, and sociallythan it had been a
century before.
The intellectual, religious, and moral authorities of Western society were
not slow to react to the changes wrought upon twelfth-century Europe.4
Some authors seemingly embraced the values associated with the new eco-
nomic realities. Hugh of St. Victor, who may be included among the most
influential figures of twelfth-century philosophy and theology, lauded man-
ual labor and valorized commerce. Throughout his corpus, but most direct-
ly in the Didascalicon (c. 1120)a treatise on the organization of human
knowledgeHugh counted farming, craftsmanship, and commerce among
the mechanical arts that fell into the realm of human wisdom.5 In Hughs
view, all such activities were worthy to be pursued by human beings. Specifi-
cally, the purpose of the mechanical arts is to overcome or combat the natu-
ral deficiencies of human life imposed by mankinds fallen state.
Since Hughs main focus in the Didascalicon was the classification of
knowledge, however, his remarks about the mechanical arts remained frag-
mentary and did not amount to a thorough examination of the wider so-
cial implications of economic innovation. In general, when the latter issue
was raised in the twelfth century, the discussion given tended to highlight
Rural England (10661348) (Sussex: Harvester Press, 1981) ; and George Ovitt Jr., The Restora-
tion of Perfection: Labor and Technology in Medieval Culture (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers
University Press, 1987).
3. See Richard Bonney, ed., State and Fiscal Administration in Europe (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1995), 1160, and Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in West-
ern Europe, 9001300 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 3966, 155339.
4. Some elements of this reaction are charted by Franco Alessio, La filosofia e le artes me-
chanicae nel secolo XII, Studi Medievali, 3rd series, 6 (1965): 71155; Elspeth Whitney, Para-
dise Restored: The Mechanical Arts from Antiquity through the Thirteenth Century (Philadelphia:
American Philosophical Society, 1990); David F. Noble, The Religion of Technology: The Divinity
of Man and the Spirit of Invention (New York: Knopf, 1997), 1520; and Lester K. Little, Religious
Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978).
5. Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalion, trans. Jerome Taylor (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1961) 1.5, 2.2026 (pp. 5152, 7479). Another important text that seems to share some of
Hughs views is De Diversis Artibus by Theophilus; see John Van Engen, Theophilus Presbyter
and Rupert of Deutz: The Manual Arts and Benedictine Theology in the Early Twelfth Cen-
tury, Viator 11 (1980): 14763.
t h e o r i g ins o f p o l ic y 203
the moral and religious dimensions of economic practices. Thus, the writ-
ings of early canon lawyers evinced concern about the regulation of com-
merce so as to minimize the detrimental effects to the souls of both mer-
chants and those who associate with them. Was it proper for the Christian
to sustain himself by buying cheap and selling dear? Do loans at interest
or the acquisition of money necessarily entail avarice and thus jeopardize
ones salvation? Must the possession and enjoyment of earthly comforts or
luxuries lead to damnation? The main concerns of canon law, then, were
with the spiritual and otherworldly consequences of economic enterprise.
Wherever the pursuit of private profit endangered the state of the human
soul, the canonists sought to legislate economic intercourse.6 A similar ori-
entation may be found in the twelfth-century preachers and theologians
reacting to the currents of economic change. Peter the Chanter and his fol-
lowers, who flourished in Paris around the turn of the century, for exam-
ple, devoted considerable attention to the control of usury and attendant
impermissible practices on the grounds that these were sinful and wicked,
constituting threats to the supernatural beatitude of those who engaged in
them. Such teachingssupported by scriptural authority, canon law, and
conciliar decreeenjoyed considerable currency among preachers, as re-
vealed by a number of extant sermons that echo the prohibitions on pre-
cisely the same basis.7 Moreover, members of Peters circle offered advice
to princes concerning fiscal management of their realmsincluding taxa-
tion and coinagebut again always with an eye to the impact of public
conduct upon personal salvation.8 In sum, theological authors remained as
deeply concerned as canonists about the detrimental spiritual effects stem-
ming from the operation of the new economic mechanisms.
The work neither of canon lawyers nor of theologians, then, amounted
to a systematic philosophical analysis of the consequences of the new eco-
nomic practices spreading throughout Europe for social life in the present
life. Indeed, scholarship has more or less universally maintained that the
theorization of the temporal implications of the emerging European econ-
omy awaited the thirteenth century rise of Scholasticism and the univer-
sity curricula in arts and theology. John Baldwin argued expressly for this
6. John W. Baldwin, The Medieval Theories of the Just Price: Romanists, Canonists, and
Theologians in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Philadelphia: American Philosophical So-
ciety 1959), 3137.
7. John W. Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants: The Social Views of Peter the Chanter
and His Circle, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 1: 261311.
8. Ibid., 1: 22851.
view for two reasons: first, only with Scholastic theology does the concept
of earthly justice receive a sufficiently rigorous interpretation to be applied
to practical questions about economic interaction; and second, the circu-
lation in the mid-thirteenth century of the key works of Aristotles social
thought (especially the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics) reinforced and
further stimulated examination of economic issues with reference to prin-
ciples of justice.9 Odd Langholm, in the first chapter of his magisterial
Economics in the Medieval Schools, adopts a position similar to Baldwins.
Langholm posits a transformation achieved by Scholastic thinkers after the
dawn of the thirteenth century:
At the outset they had only the vaguest notion of economics in the sense of a set
of separate social phenomena and relationships and hardly thought them worthy
of investigation. But, on his journey to God, man needs bodily sustenance as well
as spiritual guidance. Moreover, because that journey is not, by most men, under-
taken alone but as members of societies, part of their spiritual guidance must relate
to the means of their bodily sustenance.10
What escaped the attention of twelfth-century authors, in Langholms

view, soon occurred to their Scholastic successors: that the earth-bound
aspects of economic life demand some appraisal (and even positive evalu-
ation) in their own right. In this regard, Baldwin, Langholm, and others
seem to assume (in the words of John McGovern) that economic thought
lagged behind the practice, in the sense that new economic ideals first
appeared, rather suddenly, during the thirteenth century.11 This presump-
tion may explain why so many general surveys of the history of economic
thought skip entirely over the twelfth century.12
The claim of a radical and rapid conceptual shift in economic ideas
9. Baldwin, The Medieval Theories of the Just Price, 5863.
10. Odd Langholm, Economics in the Schools: Wealth, Exchange, Value, Money and Usury ac-
cording to the Paris Theological Tradition 12001350 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 1.
Economic NationalismDuring the Later Middle Ages and the Renaissance, A.D. 1200
1550, Traditio 26 (1970): 224, 223; see also John F. McGovern, The Rise of New Economic At-
titudes in Canon and Civil Law, A.D. 12001550, The Jurist 32 (1972): 39.
12. For example, Edgar Salin, Politische konomie: Geschichte de Wirtschaftspolitischen Ideen
von Platon bis zur Gegenwart (Tbingen: Mohr, 1967), 2441; Barry Gordon, Economic Analy-
sis before Adam Smith: Hesiod to Lessius (London: Macmillan, 1975), 111243; S. Todd Lowry,
ed., Pre-Classical Economic Thought: From the Greeks to the Scottish Enlightenment (Dordrecht:
Kluwer/Nijhoff, 1987), 11545; Eric Roll, A History of Economic Thought, 5th ed. (London: Fa-
ber and Faber, 1992), 2941; and Diana Wood, Medieval Economic Thought (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2002).
around the year 1200 leading to the exclusion of the 1100s from the story of
medieval economic ideas is a view in need of some revision, however. While
certain elements of technical economics awaited the emergence of universi-
ty-based Scholasticism, there were already twelfth-century thinkers who en-
gaged systematically and cogently the temporal impact of the technological,
commercial, and fiscal changes experienced by European society. In particu-
lar, English political thought during the 1100s contained the early glimmer-
ings of a concern with policy, by which I mean (following John Pocock)
the recognition that economic problems and their management form a core
part of public affairs. Pocock has argued that the origination of the English
term policy in the fifteenth century signals a transformation in the very
meaning of politics from the classical paradigm (which divided political
identity from household [oikos] stewardship) toward modern conceptions of
political economy and national jurisdiction over markets.13 Policy thus
stands as an intermediary way of thinking about the relationship between
political and economic realms, and it is an invention that speaks with a no-
ticeably English accent all the way up to the time of Adam Smith.
I suggest that some of the underpinnings of policy understood in
this manner may be discovered in key twelfth-century English texts on
the art of government. In the present chapter, I consider two important
contributions to this body of literature: John of Salisburys Policraticus, the
work of a highly placed English Churchman whose extensive education
was matched by his broad political experience; and Richard FitzNigels Di-
alogue of the Exchequer (11771179), a manual designed to codify and ex-
plain the operations of the English royal fiscal mechanism that collected
and processed revenues. In many ways, these tracts might seem to have
little in commonthe latter being mainly a technical discussion, the for-
mer imbued with a large measure of the classical and Christian learning
in which its author was steeped. Indeed, there may be a certain sense in
which FitzNigels book may be read as critical of what he perceived to be
Johns idealism. In their fundamental conclusions, however, I believe that
John and Richard concur about the fundamental nature and goal of gov-
ernment as a manager of the fiscal interests of the realm, concerned to bal-
ance the material wealth of the king and his subjects with the potentially
corrupting effects (moral and political) of commerce and the circulation of
money that had overtaken England in a short period of time. They both
13. J. G. A. Pocock, The Political Limits to Premodern Economics, in John Dunn, ed., The
Economic Limits to Modern Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 13840.
eye this growth of wealth with suspicion, while recognizing the benefits it
offers to the king and his subjects as well.
The leading principle that supports John of Salisburys organic vision
of social order that was sketched in chapter 5 above, including his concep-
tion of economic practice, is a rigorous naturalism. Nature licensed the
production and circulation of goodsthe fruits of the mechanical arts
but only for the advantage of each and all of the members of the com-
munal body. Hence, commerce, construed as private profit from the sale
of commodities, stands opposed to the common benefit embodied in the
well-ordered organism. And money represents for John the purest expres-
sion of the preference for personal interest over public good. He sets out
this argument explicitly in Book 4 of the Policraticus, in the course of a
commentary on the command of Deuteronomy 17:17 that the king should
not have a large quantity of gold and silver. It is not appropriate for a rul-
er to possess a substantial amount of wealth, John reasons, because it pro-
motes in him the vices of avarice and covetousness.14
But the tendency of the rich to become greedy is not the only grounds
he gives for resisting the excessive acquisition of money. He relates the tale,
drawn from Petronius, of the Roman craftsman who discovered a glass
so hard that it rivaled precious metals and could not be broken even if
thrown down on hard pavement. The talented craftsman presented a ves-
sel made of this substance to Caesar, demonstrating dramatically its prop-
erties. Yet the ruler, so far from praising and rewarding the artisans efforts,
determined that no one else knew about the unbreakable glass and ordered
its maker to be immediately killed. The rationale for such an apparently
ungrateful action was the potential of the miraculous glass for the devalua-
tion of money: If this process should come into common knowledge gold
and silver would become as cheap as mud.15 The rulers desire to maintain
his own personal wealth overwhelmed the benefit of unbreakable glass to
the community as a whole. John declines to judge the factual truth of the
story; his concern, rather, is the moral lesson that the exemplum teaches.16
He delivers a stinging rebuke of the ruler:
14. John of Salisbury, Policraticus, 2 vols., ed. C. J. J. Webb (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1909), 4.5 (1: 248). I must use this edition until such time as the second volume of K. S. B.
Keats-Rohans new version of the Policraticus is published. Translations are mine.
15. Ibid., 4.5 (1: 24849)
16. On the importance of exempla in Johns thought, see Peter von Moos, The Use of Ex-
empla in the Policraticus of John of Salisbury, in Michael J. Wilks, ed., The World of John of
Salisbury (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), 20761.
I consider that the devotion of a most able craftsman was ill requited, and that it
is a barren prospect for the human race when an excellent art is wiped out in order
that money and the material of moneythe fuel of avarice, the food of death, and
the cause of battles and quarrelsmay be held in high value.17
The innovation introduced by the unfortunate artisan constitutes for John a

contribution to the improvement of the human condition. To sacrifice such
material benefit for mere money perverts the true utility of physical objects.
The story from Petronius thus affords John the opportunity to provide
a quite extensive and critical appraisal of the consequences of the circula-
tion of moneya passage that has received (to my knowledge) no previ-
ous attention from historians of economic thought. In particular, money
leads to the misvaluation of people: in a society where cash value deter-
mines human worth, the poor man is trampled on and the rich man is
honored solely on account of his money. Moreover, unlike objects that
directly meet human needs, money has no intrinsic value; its desirability is
determined by opinion alone. In this connection, John invokes nature as
the standard by which to judge the value of things: The only really valid
kind of value is that the usefulness of which is recommended by nature,
the best guide of living. The naturalism characteristic of the Policraticus
thus becomes an absolute and universal yardstick for differentiating be-
tween the worthless and the worthy:
Bread and victuals, which consist of necessary foodstuffs or clothing, are regarded
as valuable everywhere throughout the earth by the dictates of nature. Things that
please the senses are naturally valued by all....... Things that derive their value from
nature are not only everywhere the same, but are held in esteem among all peoples;
those that depend on opinion are uncertain, and as they come with fancy, so they
disappear when the fancy passes.18
The value of the goods produced by the mechanical arts is sanctioned by

nature and hence entirely beyond question. These objects directly meet
material and evident human needs.
By contrast, money is at best a mechanism for facilitating the exchange
of useful goods. Indeed, John commends to his readers the policy advo-
cated by the Greek figures Lycurgus and Pythagoras (according to him) of
completely eliminating money and commerce from society.
17. John of Salisbury, Policraticus, 4.5 (1: 249).

18. Ibid., 4.5 (1: 250).
To far better advantage have certain peoples sought to banish utterly from pub-
lic business this subject-matter of disputes and litigation, this cause of hatred, to
the end that, the cause being removed, the resulting ill-will and its consequences
might disappear.19
The absence of money as a mediating force in social relations could only

improve, in Johns view, the strength of the communal bond, for then
nothing would interfere with the proper values being placed on people and
things. Nor ought we to expect that the elimination of monetary currency
would occasion the collapse of exchange relations necessary for naturally
valuable goods. Apparently referring back to the tale from Petronius, John
comments, The emperor therefore had no need to fear that the material
of commercial dealings would become lacking, since buying and selling
are common even among those peoples who are not acquainted with the
use of money.20 The preferred economic system of the Policraticusthe
one most consonant with natureevidently depends upon barter and di-
rect trading of goods produced for use. Money corrupts this natural econ-
omy by introducing into the process a foreign medium of no intrinsic val-
ue and thus displacing the only genuine measure of value.
Thus, it is hardly a wonder that John fails to include merchants (whose
enterprise is expressly associated with money) among the parts of the body
politic. Indeed, his Metalogicon (a companion work to the Policraticus
composed at about the same time) condemns the sordid, worldly occupa-
tions associated with money making for their single-minded, immoral de-
votion to heaping up liquid wealth: They lend out cash at interest, alter-
nately accumulating uneven round-numbered sums and increasing these
to even multiple round numbers by their additions. They deem nothing
sordid and inane, save the straits of poverty. Wisdoms only fruit for them
is wealth.21 Sharp business practices and devious dealings are only to be
expected of people whose entire life is devoted to accumulating corrupt
and unnatural riches in the form of metallic currency. Those who enter
commercial professions have been sucked into the abyss of avaricious
money-making, pleading need and duty, but really thirsting for lucre.22
Money appears in Johns writings as a quasi-Manichaean force of moral
19. Ibid., 4.5 (1: 249).

20. Ibid., 4.5 (1: 250).
21. John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, ed. J. B. Hall and K. S. B. Keats-Rohan (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1991), 1.4 (1920).
22. Ibid., 1.4 (20).
corruption, which, once introduced, renders virtuous devotion to the pub-

lic good extremely difficult, if not virtually impossible.
The distorting effects of money become especially dangerous, John
seems to feel, when they infect the life-blood of politics. John complains
that it is impossible to seek justice and money at one and the same time;
for either a man will cleave to one and despise the other, or else he will
be perverted by the worse and lose the better.23 The concern is twofold.
First, royal officials only properly dedicate themselves to the duties of their
position when they shun opportunities for private gain. Second, the king
himself must take special care to ensure the honesty and probity of his ad-
ministration, so that the corruption that stems from money does not be-
come a hallmark of his rule. Much of the argument in Books 5 and 6 of the
Policraticus focuses on the regulation of royal servants in order to prevent
the values of commercial life from pervading government.
Two principal elements comprise Johns advice for the kings officers
in economic matters. In the first place, he insists repeatedly that bribery
must be resisted in all forms.24 Courtiers are not to sell access to the halls
of power, nor conversely to sell inaction and silence.25 This is a widespread
problem, according to John: The dishonesty of court officials is so well
known that it is in vain for a suitor to place his trust in the testimony of
his conscience, the integrity of his character, his unblemished reputation,
the genuineness of his cause or the eloquence with which it is present-
ed, without the intervention of a bribe.26 The courtly thirst for gold has
undermined the ability of the republic to function according to its natu-
ral design. Likewise, John counsels provincial administrators, royal judges,
sheriffs, and all other secular officials as well as incumbents of ecclesiasti-
cal offices that the acceptance of money is incompatible with the tasks to
which they have been assigned.27 The example of the biblical Samuel is
held up as a mirror of magistrates: Surely this man did not extort villas or
lands, or immense sums of gold or silver, or masses of costly furniture or
apparel.28 Instead, Samuel dispensed justice equitably without expecta-

24. For Johns contribution to discussions of bribery, see John Noonan, Bribes: The Intel-
lectual History of a Moral Idea (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984),
15572.
26. Ibid., 5.10 (1: 326).
27. For example, ibid., 5.11 (1: 33234); 5.15 (1: 34649); 5.16 (1: 35258); 5.17 (1: 36468).
28. Ibid., 5.16 (1: 351).
tion of earthly gifts and rewards, and he was in consequence found worthy
of the people over whom he exercised authority.
Bribery may constitute the most pervasive example of the corrupt-
ing results of commercial values, but outright usurpation of property and
rights forms a still more serious threat. Hence, John cautions that the ser-
vants of the king are to take care lest by laying their hands upon the goods
of subjects they overreach. The most obvious opportunity for abuse stems
from the collection of taxes. John acknowledges the necessity of the people
supporting the activities of the king with their pocketbooks, and he even
identifies a specific part of the body politicthe unarmed handas the
proper conduit for the funneling of such revenues. But he warns that this
unarmed hand is uniquely placed to exploit its power for the enhance-
ment of personal wealth. In a long and somewhat tortured analogy, John
describes tax collectors as swarms of highly destructive insects (locusts and
their ilk) that strip the land and people of all their goods, consuming the
fruits of the earth utterly and ingesting the labors of men. Like the in-
sect, the collector of royal revenues
harms those near-by and those far off, and when he has settled himself down upon
any person, devours his fortune and does not depart until he carries away all his
victims substance. Who can count how many wards such an official has dutifully
defrauded, how many farms his wrong-doing has put up for sale, and how many
of our people the license of such men has stripped of their possessions and in the
name of religion or some other pretext has sent them overseas......?29
John admits, then, that the actions of the kings agents have a very material
bearing upon the welfare of citizens. When royal servants are motivated by
their own financial gain rather than by the common good of the body pol-
itic, the results will be devastating. Because the unarmed hand is directly
implicated in the collection of cash, it stands especially vulnerable to the
debasing effects of money. It is little wonder, in Johns view, that the an-
cient publicans acquired the reputation for rapaciousness that they enjoy
in both Scripture and secular literature.
How, then, can official corruption be effectively curtailed? This is the
job of the king, John insists. The disintegration of the republic caused by
money constitutes one of the gravest threats to the just governance and re-
ciprocal order of the body politic. Thus, the elimination of such corrosive
29. Ibid., 6.1 (2: 5; cf. 2: 37).

influences forms a central mission of a good ruler. There are two strategies
for successfully accomplishing this goal: It is important, therefore, for the
prince to curb the malice of his officials and to provide for them out of the
public funds in order that all occasion for extortion may be removed.30
In other words, John advocates a carrot-and-stick approach. On the one
hand, the temptation to exact payment in return for the performance of
ones assigned duties arises especially when magistrates are insufficiently
compensated for their labors. Hence, royal rulers ought to ensure the good
behavior of their officers by paying them an adequate salary. Acknowledg-
ing the lesson of mother nature, the most loving of parents, which pro-
tects the internal organs with ribs and flesh, in the republic it behooves us
to follow this pattern of natures craftsmanship and from the public store
supply these officials with a sufficiency for their needs.31 Johns logic is
compelling: royal officials involved in financial activities will covet im-
moderately the things of others if they do not receive payment commen-
surate to their station and contribution:
All those whose offices touch the inner parts of the republic, and whom we called
above the financial officials and bailiffs and overseers of private property ..... must
have subsistence in sufficient quantity, and this should be interpreted on the basis
of need and use, having due regard for distinction between persons. For if it is ab-
sorbed too greedily and not sufficiently distributed, distempers will be produced
that are incurable or difficult to cure.32
John offers a canny observation at this juncture. Royal agents are not only
to be adequately compensated, but they are to receive payment in direct
proportion to their contributions to the common good. Orderly public
administration presupposes officers who may reasonably expect some uni-
form relationship between their revenues and their honest labors.
In turn, when the kings servants misbehave, the royal stick must be
applied sharply. Because the license of officials has a freer rein in that they
can use the pretext of their office to despoil or harass private persons, John
reasons, all usurpations contrary to their duties must be punished with
a proportionately heavier penalty.33 Magistrates are uniquely situated to
abuse their powers by converting to their own personal use the goods of
the people. John stipulates that no subject may licitly resist the demands of
royal agents: Against these men, although they are extortioners, despoil-
30. Ibid., 5.10 (1: 328). 31. Ibid., 5.9 (1: 322).
32. Ibid., 5.9 (1: 322). 33. Ibid., 6.1 (2: 3).
ers, and torturers, it is not permissible even to breathe a word; for they are
the visible ministers of the law.34 The Policraticus expressly forbids self-de-
fense as grounds for refusing to hand over ones money and chattels. While
these officers may be nothing more than publicly sanctioned thieves, the
fact that they represent the majesty of the king suffices to render them im-
mune from any resistance. Thus, the king himselfwho alone may judge
and correct his servantsmust remain vigilant concerning the conduct of
those who act in his name. If the ruler governs wisely, John says, he will
curb their jaws with bit and bridle, so that they cannot, in the manner
of wolves driven on by unclean gluttony, lay waste and mangle the prov-
ince.35 The prince is responsible to his subjects immediately, and to God
ultimately, not only for his own conduct in office, but also for that of his
magistrates. He will be judged by history and eternity on the basis of the
rigor of his control over his administration.
There is also a utilitarian element to Johns advice about the conduct of
royal officials. He recognizes that the kings interests are best served when
the property of subjects is protected and their wealth augmented. This
conclusion derives from the communal and reciprocal structure of prop-
erty holding posited in the Policraticus: neither king nor subjects are true
owners of their goods in the modern sense, that is, as individual, private,
and independent proprietors. On the one hand, the king is merely a stew-
ard of the wealth that he possesses or collects from the community. The
ruler properly
looks upon his riches as belonging to the people. He will not therefore regard as
his own the wealth of which he has custody for the account of others, nor will he
treat as private the property of the fisc, which is acknowledged to be public. Nor is
there any reason for wonder, since he is not even his own man, but belongs wholly
to his subjects.36
When it comes to matters of finance, the properties and revenues of the

monarch may be dissolved into those of the realm: in person and estate,
the king embodies truly a common good. Hence, the royal charge is to re-
spect and defend the rights and liberties of his subjects according to their
just distribution: Each receives on the basis of his worth the resources
of nature and the product of his own labor and industry.37 One detects
in Johns conception of the kings role in regulating the distributive share
34. Ibid., 6.1 (2: 7). 35. Ibid., 6.1 (2: 8).
36. Ibid., 4.5 (1: 250). 37. Ibid., 1.3 (1: 20).
of material goods echoes of the normative naturalism stemming from the

proper arrangement of the body politic. When every person possesses what
nature has determined that he deserves, according to his contribution to
the whole, justice is done and the health and welfare of the body are pre-
served. But when the ruler disturbs this natural ordersay, by treating
certain property as his private patrimony rather than a public goodhe
dismembers the realm.38 The latter reflects the willful commands of the ty-
rant, rather than the virtue of the true king.
Yet, on the other hand, John realizes that the kings position requires him
to possess wealth adequate to his many vitally important tasks.39 His income
is to be cheerfully provided by his subjects to meet his needs, since the mem-
bers of the body require the protection that he uniquely provides. In this
regard, the principle of reciprocity ensures that the ruler who defends his
realm will have the resources to hand to perform his proper functions.
What is to the advantage of the provincials is to the advantage of the prince. All
things belonging to the provincials are by law subjected and made available to
the necessity and advantage of the prince. The whole province is accordingly like
the princes strongbox, and whosoever drains it offends most grievously against the
prince by diminishing his resources. For the provincials are like tenants by superfic-
es, and when the advantage of the ruling power requires, they are not so much
owners of their possessions as mere custodians. But if there is no such pressure of
necessity, then the goods of the provincials are their own and not even the prince
himself may lawfully abuse them.40
For the very reason, then, that the king must depend for his own income
upon the economic health of his people, he must carefully guard against
their maltreatment by magistrates. When the king fails to control his
agents, he injures his own well-being by exhausting the whole strength of
the republic, as well as eventually succumbing to poverty and rendering
himself hateful to his subjects. Because the property of the people is the
storehouse for the wealth of the ruler, it falls to his interest to safeguard it
against the deprivations of avaricious and unscrupulous officials. Ultimate-
ly, the king does well for himself by doing justice to his subjects, accord-
ing to John.
38. John cites royal claims on hunting rights that result in the dispossession of farmers of
their arable as exemplifying how the king may disorder the just economic organization of the
realm; see ibid., 1.4 (1: 3132).
39. Ibid., 4.5 (1: 248).
40. Ibid., 6.1 (2: 8).
On the face of it, the Policraticus would seem to have little in com-
mon with Richard FitzNigels Dialogue of the Exchequer, a work purport-
ing to recount a discussion between a Master and a Student designed to
provide an entirely practical curriculum replete with detailed descriptive
accounts of the operations of King Henry IIs fiscal system. Richards pur-
pose in recording how and why this office performs its various functions
is to pass his knowledge on to future generations of royal servants. Thus,
Richard declines to make grandiose claims for the content and the expres-
sion found in the Dialogue. When the Master, who is called upon to offer
instruction about the Exchequer, initially refuses to write about a topic
so mundane and simple, his interlocutor, the Student, proclaims: Those
who delight in novelties, or in hunting for fine distinctions, have Aristo-
tles and Platos books....... Your writing is not to be subtle but useful.41
Likewise, the Masters concern that his language will be too familiar to suit
the subject is waved away by the Student: Writers on the liberal arts have
compiled large treatises and wrapped them in obscure language, to conceal
their ignorance and to make the arts more difficult. You are not under-
taking a book on the arts, but on the customs and laws of the Exchequer,
which, because these ought to be a common matter, must necessarily use
words that are known to the speakers.......42 Richard signals that the book
that follows is to be regarded as a work of practical advice, of the sort that
was becoming more common by the end of the twelfth century,43 rather
than as a sophisticated philosophical investigation. He proposes to draw
on his own experience, instead of upon the wisdom of the ancients and ar-
guments of subtle logic, to fill the pages of his volume.
Thus, Richard appears far less skeptical than John about the kings need
to gather wealth in order to rule effectively. In the dedication of the Dia-
logue, he sets a somewhat authoritarian tone by insisting that the duties of
royal subjects extend to providing without question for the material suste-
nance of their ruler:
41. Richard FitzNigel, Dialogus de Scaccario, ed. and trans. Charles Johnson (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1950), 5. I generally follow Johnsons translation with occasional mod-
ifications.
42. Ibid., 6.
43. For example, see Dorothy Oschinsky, ed., Walter of Henley and Other Treatises on Es-
tate Management and Accounting (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970); G. D. G. Hall, ed.,
De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae qui vocatur Glanvill (London: Thomas Nelson, 1965); and
Theophilus, De diversibus artibus, ed. C. R. Dodwell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).
We ought to serve them by upholding not only those dignities in which the glory
of kingship displays itself but also the worldly wealth that accrues to kings in vir-
tue of their position. The former confers distinction, the latter power. Their pow-
er indeed rises and falls as their moveable wealth flows or ebbs. Those who lack it
are prey to their enemies, those who have it prey upon them. And although this
wealth is not always theirs as a result of strictly legal means, by procedures some-
times lawful, sometimes from secret devices known only to their hearts, and some-
times even from their arbitrary wills, still their subjects have no right to question
or condemn their determinations.44
To those familiar with John of Salisburys teachings about the expectation

that the true king (as opposed to the tyrant) will place himself entirely un-
der the laws of God and of his nation, as well as the famous doctrine of ty-
rannicide enunciated in the Policraticus, Richards assertions sound harsh
indeed. Richard evidently expects total submission and obedience to the
kings fiscal exactions; anything less is an affront to God, who has con-
ferred power on the ruler.
The Dialogue quickly downplays this authoritarian rhetoric, however,
by stressing that kings will commonly use their coffers only for righteous
purposes that ultimately benefit all of the inhabitants of their realms. The
glory of princes consists in noble actions in peace and war, Richard ob-
serves, but it excels in those in which is made a happy bargain, the price
being temporal and the reward everlasting.45 The success of kings may in-
deed depend upon the requirement to act in accordance with virtue and
faith, but this goal is only facilitated when they possess a properly funded
treasury. No matter how much a monarch may desire to serve God and
goodness, his intentions are easily frustrated if he lacks the resources to re-
alize his aims.
There are occasions on which sound and wise schemes take effect sooner through
the agency of money, and apparent difficulties are smoothed away by it, as though
by commercial exchange. Money is no less indispensable in peace than in war. In
war it is lavished on fortifying castles, paying soldiers wages, and innumerable
other expenses, determined by the character of the persons paid, for the defense of
the realm; in peace, though arms are laid down, noble Churches are built by de-
vout rulers, Christ is fed and clothed in the persons of the poor, and by practicing
the other works of mercy mammon is distributed.46
44. FitzNigel, Dialogus, 1. 45. Ibid., 2.

46. Ibid., 2.
Richard clearly believes that the efficient collection of revenues by the king
is a lynchpin in the realization of the public good. Subjects who refuse to
contribute to the meeting of royal needs in the end do not recognize their
own advantage, for the ruler spends what he receives for the sake of im-
proving the condition of the kingdom. The Dialogue therefore reviles those
residing in the realm who object to contributing their fair share or who
otherwise protest the propriety of exacting royal revenue.
Consequently, the work of the Exchequer in receiving, calculating, and
dispensing the royal treasury lies at the heart of government. Those clerks
who serve as officials of the Exchequer all have the same duty and aim,
to protect the kings advantage without injustice.47 For the good of the
king is inseparable from the good of the kingdom, and an assiduous fi-
nancial magistrate demonstrates his devotion both to king and country.
Nor should the royal servant become too fussy or critical about the pre-
cise sources of his masters revenue: Therefore, however questionable may
be or appear the origin or the method of the acquisition of wealth, those
whose duty it is to guard it have no excuse for slackness, but must give
anxious care to its collection, preservation and distribution, since they
must give account of the state of the realm, the security of which depends
upon its wealth.48 The loyalty and honesty of royal fiscal administrators
are made by FitzNigel into the sine qua non of a well-ordered society and
a properly functioning government. Indeed, this forms precisely the nor-
mative thrust behind Richards supposedly empirical project: he wishes to
teach future generations of magistrates how to conduct themselves because
he believes that upon them rests the burden of ensuring the continuation
and glory of the king and the realm. Richard may not be writing philoso-
phy in the technical sense that he dismisses, but his book has a moral and
political force that ought not to be ignored.
Lest we imagine that Richard embraces the rise of the monetarized
economy and its values more wholeheartedly than John of Salisbury, we
need to attend to some countervailing features of his analysis in the Dia-
logue of the Exchequer. Richard gives a fascinating (and fanciful) historical
reconstruction of the emergence of money as the measure of wealth for
the English government.49 In the time of the Conqueror, he reports, the
Crown lived directly off the produce of its own lands; its tenants provid-
ed the victuals necessary to feed the royal household, while any coinage in
47. Ibid., 13. 48. Ibid., 12.

49. For what follows, see ibid., 4042.
the kings treasury accrued from payments by urban locales lacking agri-
cultural goods. When rent-in-kind was collected by the sheriffs, court offi-
cials translated its value into monetary terms (a shilling for a certain quan-
tity of wheat, four pence for a sheep, and so on) as a matter of convenience
only. During the reign of King Henry I, however, necessity and invention
altered the method by which rents for Crown lands were assessed. On the
one hand, Henrys extended foreign sojourns required liquid wealth rather
than consumables in order to supply his retinue. On the other hand, the
farmers on royal lands, suffering economic hardship as well as countless
inconveniences, protested against the requirement that rent must be paid
in kind. Thus, a bargain was struck between Henry and his tenants accord-
ing to which a census of the value of the Crown lands was established and
each sheriff was made responsible for collecting a certain total sum from
his region. The shift from rent-in-kind to money rent alleviated the kings
need for coinage; the change from individual to collective responsibility
for rents meant that particular farmers who fortunes waned would not be
oppressed. The advantage of the king and of the English people happily
coincided.
An immediate consequence of this development in the early twelfth
century, Richard acknowledges, was the more widespread availability of
money throughout England. Whereas coins had previously been com-
mon (and useful) only in the towns and villages in which trade occurred,
now the agricultural economy became widely monetarizedan important
aspect of the commercial revolution of high medieval England about
which modern historians speak.50 The effects of this development were by
no means uniformly positive, according to Richard. Rather, the fact that
many regions of the country did not have local coinage forced the Ex-
chequer to accept for a long period money of uncertain provenance, and
hence of unknown quantity and quality. Consequently, the Crown could
not adequately gauge whether it was receiving the full value of its rents.
The problem of irregular currency persisted well into the reign of Hen-
ry II, who finally appointed one weight and one money throughout all
the realm under his sway, so that during Richards tenure as a royal offi-
cial every county has become bound by the same law, and must make its
payment in legal tender.51 Yet even the regulation of specie does not en-
50. See R. H. Britnell, The Commercialisation of English Society, 10001500 (Cambridge:

51. FitzNigel, Dialogus, 10.
sure its conformity. As the Student asks, Since all the coin in the realm
must be stamped with the kings likeness, and all moneyers are bound to
work to the same standard weight, how does it come about that their work
does not all weigh alike? The Master responds: It comes about through
forgers, and mutilators and clippers of the coin. You see, English money
may be bad in three ways: the weight, the alloy, or the stamp may each be
bad.52 Consequently, the officials of the Exchequer must vigilantly im-
pose consistent standards in judging the quality of the coinage received as
payment from sheriffs.53 Otherwise, the Crown runs the risk of losing a
considerable amount of its income from its lands and rights as the result of
bad money. (It would take some time yet for the kings treasurers to realize
how the manipulation of its monopoly on the minting of money by alter-
ing its content could be turned to its own advantage, a topic to be taken
up in chapter 15 below.)
The administrative problems engendered by widespread use of money
in twelfth-century England have an obvious moral dimension. Currency
manipulation posed not merely a technical problem, but also a legal issue,
since it was akin to theft from the king. Likewise, as Richard admits, pay-
ment of rents, texts, and other revenues owed to the king in liquid form
enabled subjects to hide their true assets and thus to avoid their liability.
This deception is especially rampant among merchants whose dealings oc-
cur on a cash basis:
The bulk of the possessions of those who have land and live by agricultural pur-
suits consists in sheep, cattle, and grain, and in such things as can hardly escape
the notice of neighbors. But those who tend to matters of trade, and who save
and scrape with all their might to augment their wealth, are more concerned with
coined money. For money is the tool of the trader, and can easily be hidden safe-
ly away, which is the reason why rich men whose wealth is concealed are often
thought to be poor.54
The threat of tax evasion was exacerbated by the shift to a monetarized

economy: it became easier to dissemble about ones wealth and to deny to
the king his due income. Richard argues that punishment should be great-
er for such evasion because a superabundance of riches should never ap-
pear to be exhausted,55 a claim which I take to mean that a mendacious
assertion of poverty in order to enhance ones own private riches consti-
52. Ibid., 12. 53. Ibid., 3839.

54. Ibid., 108. 55. Ibid., 108.
tutes an affront to the royal majesty and to the kingdom alike. Surplus
money should be made available for the public good upheld by the ruler,
just as surplus fruits of the land should be rendered to the Crown when
the needs of the realm require it.
Another serious issue raised by the wide circulation of money was the
growing practice of lending money for interest. The Dialogue of the Exche-
quer contains an extended diatribe against the forms of usury apparently
practiced in the twelfth century. Richards tone in this passage is moralis-
tic and uncompromising. He recognizes that the Church prohibits out-
right legal condemnation of Christians who engage in usury: As we are
told by those learned in the law, the crown has no ground of action against
a Christian usurer, clerk or layman, so long as he is alive; for he may have
time to repent.56 Rather, ecclesiastical authorities enjoy jurisdiction over
the punishment of the usurer in his own lifetime; if he is found to be
guilty of the crime of lending money at interest, the Church may require
penitence and demand restitution and may even impose excommunica-
tion, all forms of spiritual punishment. But if a usurer dies unrepentant,
jurisdiction shifts to the secular power.
When any holder of a lay fee, or even a city-dweller (civis), is an open usurer and
dies intestate or disposes by his testament of his ill-gotten gains without making
restitution to those whom he has wronged, not therefore distributing the mam-
mon, but keeping it in his own handsbecause by clinging to the possessions he
is considered not to have given up the will to keep themhis money and all his
chattels are at once confiscated, and brought into the Exchequer by the proper of-
ficers without summons. The heir of the deceased must content himself with his
fathers land and other real property, and be thankful not to have lost them.57
Hence, temporal government has a duty to stamp out the moral and spiri-
tual evil of usury by demonstrating that no onenot even the child of the
deceased usurercan profit from perfidy. The king must directly concern
himself with regulating economic activities so that they remain consonant
with moral rectitude.
Moreover, royal authority over usury extends not only to the so-called
open usurer, who directly charges interest in return for the loan of mon-
ey, but also to so-called hidden (non publicas) usury. This term refers to
the practice, apparently growing during Richards time, of circumventing
56. Ibid., 99.

57. Ibid., 98.
ecclesiastical usury prohibitions by engaging in a sort of pawn arrange-

ment: A man takes a manor or Church in exchange for what he has lent,
and without abating the principal takes the issues of it until the principal
is repaid. This kind, on account of the labor and expense involved in cul-
tivation, has been regarded as more permissible; but it is undoubtedly an
unclear thing, and deserves to be reckoned as usury.58 Richard insists that
identical punishments pertain to the hidden usurer both before and after
his death as to the open usurer. More intriguing is the greed that the com-
mon availability of money seems to induce. Even men who have some
moral scruples seem intent upon profiting from their possession of mon-
ey. Thus, they look for loopholes in the legal and ethical rules about usury
that permit them to take interest for their loan without danger of spiri-
tual and temporal sanction. Even Richard, who stresses the importance
of wealth (especially in liquid form) for the welfare of king and kingdom,
realizes that moral considerations must be paramount in its accumulation
and that the monetarized economy yields serious threats to those moral
constraints. The practicalities of the market economy must submit before
the pieties of Christian moral theology.
The economic doctrines of both Richard FitzNigel and John of Salis-
bury resonate with later English proponents of policy. Around 1530,
Thomas Starkey, in his Dialogue between Pole and Lupset, wrote that
the true common weal ..... is the good order and policy by good laws established
and set, and by heads and rulers put into effect by which the whole body as by
reason is governed and ruled, to the intent that this multitude of the people and
whole communalty so healthy and so wealthy having convenient abundance of all
things necessary for the maintenance thereof, may with due honor, reverence and
love religiously worship God, as fountain of all goodness, maker and governor of
all this world, everyone also doing his duty to others with brotherly love, one lov-
ing one another as members and parts of one body.59
Starkeys equation of policy here with both the material and the spiritu-
al goodness of the kingdom and its constitutive elements as regulated by
the royal ruler was unexceptional for its day.60 More to the point, he cap-
58. Ibid., 100.

59. Thomas Starkey, Dialogue between Pole and Lupset, ed. T. F. Mayer (London: Royal
Historical Society, 1989), 34. I have modernized and slightly modified the English.
60. On early modern uses of polycie, see Thomas F. Mayer, Thomas Starkey and the
Commonweal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), and Neal Wood, Foundations of
tures essentially the same set of social and political ideals that one can find
in writings dating to the twelfth century. For both John and Richard, roy-
al government, when properly disposed, ensured that the physical welfare
of subjects was served by careful management of the economic resources
of the realm. Yet such economic considerations were circumscribed by the
larger set of moral and religious principles which it was incumbent upon
the king to submit in guiding his subjects. Thomas Starkey and his con-
temporaries would very likely have recognized a deep affinity with, if not
a direct lineage from, the views of John and Richard. The doctrines pro-
posed by John and Richard thereby help us to delineate the place of Eng-
land in the intellectual history of their own time as well as in the course
of future developments. In time, this approach to policy would spread
throughout Europe and define important elements of the late medieval as
well as early modern terrain of intellectual history, as we shall discover in
subsequent chapters.
Political Economy: Some Early Tudor Views on State and Society (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1994).
14
Ec o n o m ic Lib e r t y an d t h e
P o l i t ics o f W e a lt h
u r in g t h e Lat in Mi d d l e A g e s , as in the modern

world, the language of liberty was applied in a bewildering
array of contexts. In part, this is due to the large variety of
traditions concerning liberty available to the Middle Ages, as dis-
cussed in chapter 5 above. The multiple manifestations of free-
dom in the medieval world, and their application in theory as
well as practice, have received wide attention from recent schol-
ars. In particular, we now enjoy an enhanced appreciation of how
the discourses of liberty arising from the Latin Middle Ages were
received, restated, and transformed in modern Europe.1 But one
significant facet of the medieval languages of libertythe eco-
nomic dimensionhas been systematically overlooked in the lit-
1. See Edward Peters, Libertas Inquirendi and the Vitum Curiositatis in Me-
dieval Thought; Giles Constable, Liberty and Free Choice in Monastic Thought
and Life, Especially in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries; Robert L. Benson,
Libertas in Italy (11521226), in George Makdisi, Dominique Sourdel, and Janine
Sourdel-Thomine, eds., La notion de libert au Moyen Age Islam, Byzance, Occident
(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1985), 89118, 191213; Brian Tierney, Freedom and the
Medieval Church; John H. Munday, Medieval Urban Liberty; H. G. Konigs-
berger, Parliaments and Estates; and J. H. Baker, Personal Liberty under the
Common Law of England, 12001600, in R. W. Davis, ed., The Origins of Modern
Freedom in the West (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 64202; and Cary J.
Nederman, Toleration, Skepticism, and the Clash of Ideas: Principles of Liberty
in the Writings of John of Salisbury, in John Christian Laursen and Cary J. Ned-
erman, eds., Beyond the Persecuting Society: Religious Toleration before the Enlighten-
ment (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 5370.
222
e c o n o m ic l ib e r t y & p o l i t ics o f w e a lt h 223
erature. Doubtless, this reflects the more general assumption that medieval
Europe was a closed economy, controlled by a small group of landed no-
bles and urban oligarchs, and thus antagonistic to expressions of econom-
ic freedom. Moreover, it seems widely presumed, and certainly with some
good reason, that the Church functioned as a constraining force in the
extension of liberalizing commercial values and practices. One need look
no further than St. Thomas Aquinass pronouncements about the evils of
monetary exchange and economic profit seeking to realize that key forms
of economic freedom were commonly equated in the medieval mind with
the road to vice and damnation.2
As is so often the case with broad statements about the Latin Mid-
dle Ages, however, these generalizations about medieval economic life and
thought require some modification and qualification. In the preceding
chapter, we noted the conclusion of recent historical research that Europe
between roughly 1100 and 1300 underwent little short of a commercial rev-
olution, reflected in rapid monetarization, market expansion, urbaniza-
tion, and so forth.3 By the end of the Middle Ages, central elements of
economic organization were in place that would condition the emergence
of capitalism during the early modern period. Indeed, the Roman Church,
so often regarded as a source of reaction in matters of material acquisition,
has lately been touted by a group of economists as a paradigmatic instance
of an economic firm.4 In sum, the economic life of medieval Europe was
by no means so monolithic and closed as scholars have sometimes im-
plied.
Still, one might reasonably ask, in the words of Lester K. Little, wheth-
er the economic morality promoted by medieval Christian theologians,
philosophers, and lawyers was so uncompromising ..... that virtually any
2. St. Thomas Aquinas, De regno, 2.3, in R. M. Spiazzi, ed., Opulscula philosophica (Turin:
Marietti, 1954): If the citizens devote their life to matters of trade, the way will be opened to
many vices. Since the primary aim of traders is to make money, greed is awakened among citi-
zens through the pursuit of trade. As a result, everything in the city will become vendable.......
Each person will work only for his own profit, despising the public good....... In a city, civic life
will of necessity be corrupted (my translation).
3. See Lester K. Little, Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1978); Richard H. Britnell, The Commercialisation of English Society,
10001500, 2nd ed. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996); and Richard Britnell and
Bruce M. S. Campbell, eds., A Commercialising Economy: England 1068 to c. 1300 (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1995).
4. Robert B. Ekelund et al., Sacred Trust: The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Also see John Gilchrist, The Church and Economic Activity
in the Middle Ages (London: Macmillan, 1969).
participation in the upper levels of the commercial economy involved

the dangers of sin and conjured up visions of appalling punishments?5
In other words, it might be objected that the theory failed to keep pace
with the practice up to the end of the Middle Ages, yielding a rejection
in the abstract of those manifestations of economic liberty that occurred
daily (and that perhaps even directly benefitted the theoreticians who re-
viled them). This conclusion certainly appears warranted on the basis of
the examination of the best recent scholarship concerned with economic
freedom in medieval thought, found in the writings of Odd Langholm.6
Langholm points out how medieval Latin Schoolmen departed from their
ancient and early Christian antecedents in their understanding of eco-
nomic choice. Whatever their other differences, Aristotle, classical Roman
law, and St. Augustine adopted an expansive notion of volition in connec-
tion with economic matters.7 They shared the view, specifically, that ac-
tions taken under the pressure of necessity or need counted neverthe-
less as free rather than coerced. The only examples of unfree acts were
those that arose from direct force or fraud. Hence, the logic of premedieval
teachings (though not necessarily their overt substance) seemed to justify
mutual consent as an adequate standard of free action in the marketplace.
By contrast, Langholm argues that medieval Scholastics consistently
treated need as a limiting case of free exchange.8 If the seller in a market
relation possessed an item that the buyer required for his physical suste-
nance (say, water or bread), a form of compulsion was built into the eco-
nomic interaction. Should the seller insist upon a price greater than that
which would otherwise obtain (the ordinary market value), even in times
of scarcity, he placed himself in mortal danger; independent mechanisms
of supply and demand, let alone the explicit consent of the exchanging
parties, were subordinate to the legitimate need of the buyer. Consequent-
ly, medieval Schoolmen rejected the self-regulation of the marketplace as
inadequate to protect the seller from the potential coercion that existed
in every act of exchange. Some authors advocated strict price controls on
victuals, while most simply concluded that the common estimate of val-
5. Little, Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy, 41.
6. Odd Langolm, Economic Freedom in Scholastic Thought, History of Political Econ-
omy 4 (1982): 26083; Langholm, Economics in the Medieval Schools: Wealth, Exchange, Value,
Money and Usury According to the Paris Theological Tradition, 12001350 (Leiden: Brill, 1992);
and Langholm, The Legacy of Scholasticism in Economic Thought: Antecedents of Choice and Pow-
er (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
7. For the following, see ibid., 1556.
8. Ibid., 59136.
ue should form the thumbnail guide for valid exchanges. In Langholms

view, however, the medieval Schoolmen were united in their antipathy to-
ward the position that only force and fraud constituted sufficient reasons
to interfere in the consenting relationship between economic actors. More-
over, Langholm claims, the difference between medieval and premedieval
economic perspectives on the nature of market liberty continues to shape
discourses in the modern era, even into twentieth-century debates over the
principles of neoclassical economics.9
Without question, Langholms insights are valid for most of the lit-
erature that he surveys. It seems true that the mainstream of medieval
thought set limits on economic liberty that derived from moral and theo-
logical, rather than strictly individual and voluntary, considerations. I wish
to argue, however, that Langholms account is incomplete, to the extent
that he leaves out of his narrative thinkers who inherited and absorbed
more directly the lessons of classical (by which I mean, ancient pagan and
early Christian) economic doctrines, and who were thus more amenable to
a market-driven conception of freedom. In the present chapter, my atten-
tion will first be focused on an author who falls clearly within the Scho-
lastic tradition: John of Paris, a Thomist who attained the status of master
of arts at the University of Paris, flourishing around 1300. I maintain that
John based his economic teachings on elements of the Roman legal tra-
dition, which dispensed with any measure of value exogenous to the free
operation of the market. Volition for the contributors to the Corpus iuris
civilis formed a sufficient condition of a just exchange, a doctrine that Ro-
manists expressed in the form of the maxim Res tantum valet quantum ven-
di potest (A thing is worth the amount for which it can be sold).10 The
only circumstances in which the legal literature sanctions intrusion into
the market and correction of an exchange are force and fraud. In turn, this
doctrine was encapsulated in a maxim about property rights first found in
the code: Quisque suae rei est moderator et arbiter (Everyone is the mod-
erator and arbiter of his own goods).11 Individuals are endowed with a
full range of control over their property, designated by the term dominium
(lordship, ownership), such that consent alone can be the mark of the le-
gitimate alienation or transfer of ones possessions. When these two prin-
9. Ibid., 178200.
10. Digest 13.1.14.pro, 36.1.1.16, and 47.2.52.29; see Langholm, The Legacy of Scholasticism
in Economic Thought, 3238, 78.
11. Code 4.35.21, 4.38.14; also Digest 41.1 passim. See Langholm, Economic Freedom in
Scholastic Thought, 26162.
ciples are fully embraced, the notion that moral precepts are relevant to
the judgment of free market interactions is profoundly diminished, if not
erased.
The reputation of John of Paris, and his major work of political the-
ory, De potestate regia et papali (c. 1302), has formed a topic of consider-
able debate in recent years. On the one hand, Janet Coleman locates Johns
thought at the root of an intellectual tradition regarding private property
and political power that culminated in the central chapters of that wa-
tershed of liberalism, John Lockes Second Treatise of Government. While
Coleman acknowledges that the building blocks of De potestates doctrine
are largely conventionalin some cases directly adapted from the slight-
ly earlier writings of Godefroid of Fontainesshe insists that the scenario
he constructs is innovative in a manner that presages early modern natural
rights theory.12 By contrast, Langholms comparison of passages of De po-
testate with economic texts of the Scholastic era, as well as with Johns oth-
er works that comment on economic concerns, leads him to underscore
the wholly conventional character of the former. Johns views are in fact
a compound of Aristotle and Roman law, so that any association of them
with the tradition in early modern political theory whose most promi-
nent exponent is Locke, is to demonstrate the full danger involved in an-
ticipatory interpretation of ideas.13
As antithetical as these interpretations appear, there is an element of
truth in each. Langholm is correct to emphasize Johns debt to a range
of commonplace sources, while Coleman is right to highlight the novelty
of his combination of those materials. Yet both scholars miss some of the
significance of John of Pariss creative synthesis. The central concern of De
potestate is not to establish the indestructibility of the private property of
individuals or their natural rights to property (Coleman); but neither is
it entirely valid to say that John never intended to raise as a separate issue
the emancipation of individual property holders from either moral or legal
authority (Langholm).14 The core of Johns teaching about property and
12. Janet Coleman, Dominium in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Political Thought
and Its Seventeenth-Century Heirs: John of Paris and Locke, Political Studies 31 (1985): 73
100; Coleman, Poverty, Property and Political Thought in Fourteenth Century Scholastic Phi-
losophy, in Christian Wenin, ed., Lhomme et son univers au moyen age (Louvain-la-Nueve:
ditions de lInstitut Suprieur de Philosophie, 1986), 84555.
13. Langolm, Economics in the Medieval Schools, 393.
14. Compare Janet Coleman, The Individual and the Medieval State, in Coleman, ed.,
The Individual in Political Theory and Practice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 25, with Lang-
holm, Economics in the Medieval Schools, 394.
community, I maintain, is to be found in his extension of the Roman law

principle of economic liberty to the point of formulating a version of the
doctrine of the primacy of the free market in relation to public affairs. To
understand this, we must turn to the text of De potestate.
Whether or not De potestate was composed as a single treatise, and
whether or not it bears some relation to the polemical conflict between
the French King Philip IV and Pope Boniface VIII,15 it takes as one of its
main themes the differentiation of the types of rights over property that
persons of various ranks and statuses (lay versus clerical conditions, secular
versus ecclesiastical rulers) may claim. John sharply distinguishes through-
out the work between dominium (lordship) and iurisdictio (jurisdiction),
arguing that powers conferred by the former are primary and antecedent
in relation to the latter. Thus, a public official (spiritual or temporal) may
be able to judge in certain circumstances whether a member of the secular
community is putting his property to an unjust usethat pertains to the
realm of jurisdiction. But such judgment does not amount to a denial of
the preexisting ownership of the property nor of the rightful control over
property exercised by its dominus. Rather, John declares, the temporali-
ties of laymen are not communal.16 The earthly goods of nonclerics are
rightfully apportioned by some means other than assignment by clergy or
princes.
If the authority to use property does not in the first instance derive
from a political/legal act or a moral/theological assessment, whence does it
arise? John gives a summary of his answer in chapter 3 of De potestate:
Each is lord [dominus] of his own property as acquired through his own industry,
therefore there is no need for a single person to dispense lay temporalities in com-
mon, since each is his own dispenser to do with his own at will [ad libitum].17
This point is developed at greater length in chapter 7.

The external goods of the laity are not granted to the community, as is ecclesiasti-
cal property, but are acquired by individual people through their own art, labor,
or industry, and individual persons, insofar as they are individuals, have right [ius]
15. Janet Coleman, The Intellectual Milieu of John of Paris OP, in Jrgen Miethke, ed.,
Das Publikum politischer Theorie im 14.Jahrhundert (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1992), 173206;
Coleman, The Dominican Political Theory of John of Paris in Its Context, in Diana Wood,
ed., The Church and Sovereignty, c. 5901918 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 187223.
16. John of Paris, De potestate regia et papali, ed. Fritz Bleienstein (Stuttgart: Klett Verlag,
1969), 82. The translations from this text are mine.
17. Ibid., 82.
and power and true lordship over them. And each person is able to order, dispose,
dispense, retain, and alienate his own according to his will [pro libito] without in-
jury to others, since he is lord. And therefore such goods do not have order and
connection amongst themselves nor towards one common head who has them to
dispose and dispense, since each one may order his things according to his will
[pro libito]. And therefore neither the prince nor the pope has lordship or the pow-
er of dispensing such things.18
A disproportionate share of attention has been drawn by scholars to Johns

apparent statement of a labor theory of acquisition. Langholm is correct to
note, however, that the appeal to industria is a fairly conventional move in
medieval legal and Scholastic literature, as is the claim that the individual
is dispenser of his own goods.19
So in what way is Johns conception of property innovative or unique?
The key, I believe, lies in the meaning of the penultimate sentence of the
passage just quoted. In an assertion for which I know no precedent in me-
dieval writings, John denies any basis for the idea that earthly goods were
a gift granted in the first instance by God to the human race as a com-
mon possession. The former reflected the view of St. Thomas and nearly
every other Schoolman (and indeed, John Locke, too). By contrast, John
of Paris holds that ones lordship over temporalities owes nothing whatso-
ever to an interlocking system of property relations created artificially by a
just division of the common. If this position is to be sustained, then pri-
vate goods enter into some social setting only by an act of volition on the
part of their proprietors. No person enjoys a preeminent moral claim on
the goods of anothereven, presumably, in a case of pressing need. Prop-
erty is antecedently private and individual, and takes on a communal bear-
ing only by virtue of the will of its owner. Here is the sine qua non of a free
market: individuals enter voluntarily with one another into an exchange
relationship, the existence of which derives its entire legitimacy from the
liberty of the participants. As John underscores at the close of chapter 7 of
De potestate, Each one disposes of his own as he wills.20 The exercise of
this freedom is in accordance with right and in itself harms no one.
But what about the jurisdiction enjoyed by rulers over the just and un-
just uses of temporal goods? Does this not constitute a severe constraint on
the liberty associated with private lordship over property? John is very pre-
18. Ibid., 9697.
19. Langholm, Economics in the Medieval School, 393.
20. De potestate regia et papali, 98.
cise in constructing his explanation of the connection between individual

property and the political/legal authority of secular rulers. Jurisdiction is
rendered necessary by the entry of private proprietors into voluntary mu-
tual relations with one another.
For the reason that it sometimes happens that the common peace is disturbed on
account of such external goods, as when someone takes that which is anothers,
and also at times because some people, who are excessively fond of their own, do
not convey it according to what the needs and utility of the country require, there-
fore a ruler is instituted by the people to restrain such acts, in the manner of a
judge discerning the just and the unjust, a vindicator of injuries, and a measurer of
the just proportion owed by each for the common needs and utility.21
According to John, the temptation on the part of some to override the

liberty of others, in conjunction with a failure of self-absorbed individu-
als to calculate and acknowledge the social costs of the profit they obtain
by entering into reciprocal economic intercourse, comprise the only justi-
fications for the jurisdiction of rulers. The moral limits that are imposed
by government are those that arise directly from the failure of individuals
to accept and act according to the principles of a market society. More-
over, only those who antecedently enjoy private property rights can au-
thorize the appointment of a judge and executor over themselves and their
goods. If something falls within ones exclusive dominion, then only that
persons consent can confer jurisdiction over his property upon someone
else. Granted that Johns position is not quite an economic theory of polit-
ical authority, he nonetheless recognizes that the exercise of individual free
ownership forms the salient source of the friction and conflict that govern-
ment is created to resolve.
The priority of liberty thus crucially informs the economic as well as
the political doctrines of De potestate. Holding to a conception of private
property loosely derived from Roman law teaching, John of Paris propos-
es an extensive notion of the free sphere of individual action. The ability
of government to fix limits on that realm of freedom requires direct and
demonstrable harm to anotherprecisely the criteria invoked by classical
Roman law. Ones liberty to do with ones goods as one wishes is otherwise
to be protected. No moral claim of dire need may properly constrain the
terms under which one chooses to alienate (or to retain) property, since
ones legitimate possessions derive from a wholly individual source and
21. Ibid., 97.
stand in no intrinsic or natural relation to the goods or rights of any other.

Economic liberty is woven for John of Paris into the very fabric of human
existence.
John of Paris was not, however, a lone voice. For instance, the two trea-
tises by William of Pagula discussed above in chapter 8 also contain exten-
sive discussion of the political consequences of an economic conception
of liberty. Specifically, the Speculum regis Edwardi III refers to economic
liberty in order to criticize contemporary English royal policies. Although
there is some question whether Williams attack on purveyance accurately
reflects practices current in the early 1330s,22 the issue at hand is not his-
torical facticity but theoretical foundations. Given the focus of its com-
plaints, Williams work concentrates heavily on the exchange relation, un-
derstood in terms of the nature and role of the market in the process by
which money is given for goods. He seeks to defend the position that the
royal use of purveyance constitutes an injustice, namely, theftthat is, a
form of economic coercionsince the person subject to the exaction has
no choice in the matter. Consequently, he needs to demonstrate a regula-
tive principle for a properly ordered (i.e., noncoercive) system of price and
value. To achieve this goal, he relies upon the model of the unconstrained
marketplace.
Williams account derives in fairly obvious ways from the Roman law
view of market freedom. In the Speculum regis Edwardi III, complete and
unlimited liberty of exchange is rendered an explicit and seemingly abso-
lute principle. In order to defend the proposition that the king and his
servants are in effect guilty of robbery, William repeatedly and adamantly
privileges volition. He begins with an idea, formulated in a largely con-
ventional manner, that each person is lord [dominus] of his things, so
that nothing is seized from his goods against his will.23 For William as for
John of Paris, dominium connotes an exclusive realm of power over ones
property with which no other individual may rightfully interfere. In this
world, William declares, men ought to be free to do for themselves and
theirs, according to their will.24 In lordship and volition, one encounters
22. See Cary J. Nederman and Cynthia Neville, The Origins of the Speculum Regis Ed-
wardi III, Studi Medievalia, 3rd Ser., 38 (1997): 32326.
23. Speculum Regis Edwardi III, B 16. The English translation is found in Cary J. Neder-
man, ed., Political Thought in Early Fourteenth-Century England: Treatises by Walter de Milemete,
William of Pagula, and William of Ockham (Tempe: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Stud-
ies/Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002), 73139.
24. Ibid., A 5.
the twin principles that undergird the Roman law tradition of economic
liberty. Concomitantly, William draws the conclusion that robbery is an
infringement of ones basic liberty, since lordship entails the freedom to do
as one wishes with what one legitimately possesses. He asserts it as a uni-
versal and binding standard of conduct that no goods should be seized
against the will of their lords to whom they belong.25 For anyone (even
the king) to violate this constitutes an unjust act.26 Theft, construed as the
denial of the legitimate consent of the property owner, seems never to be
justified, even in cases of extreme need. The will of the person who pos-
sesses goods is in all cases sovereign.
To condemn the impropriety of theft hardly seems an exceptional po-
sition to adopt. But William applies the doctrine to include compulsory
exchanges of money for goods. Historically, the customary privilege of
purveyance permitted the kings officials to buy whatever goods they re-
quired (as stipulated by the terms of their written commissions or patents)
at a fixed rate. Only exceptionally did royal servants deny all payment, al-
though such cases were known to occur. But Williams point is that man-
datory or enforced sale still constitutes a form of extortion or theft, inas-
much as it violates the lords right to set his or her own price or to refrain
from selling altogether.
If [royal servants] find the oats of any man, they say that wish to pay up to 3 pen-
nies for a bushel of oats, even if it is worth 5 pennies; and if they find not oats but
barley, they seize from the unwilling owner 1 bushel of barley for 3 pennies, even
if it is worth 9 pennies. If, however, they do not find barley, but beans, they seize 1
bushel of beans for 3 pennies, even if 1 bushel is worth 12 pennies.27
Such actions are as much an affront to dominium as robbery, since the

consent implied by ones lordship over an object is absolute and exclusive.
Thus, as often as Edward III is admonished about the evil and injustice of
taking his subjects goods against their will, he is also warned not to seize
things for a lower price than the seller wants to receive.28 The two points
are indeed inseparable.
How can there be justice or equity these days, when something is bought for a
lower price than the seller wishes to receive for it and when consent is constrained,
inasmuch as buying and selling arise from the law of nations [ius gentium]? For
25. Ibid., B 8. 26. Ibid., A 1, B 44.

27. Ibid., A 12. 28. Ibid., B 20.
where there is no consent, there is not sale but extortion, not justice but seizure,
not equity but falsehood and iniquity.29
Likewise, should an individual not wish to sell her goods at all, William as-
serts that no political privilege can override or cancel that will, even if an
adequate price is paid. William narrates a (possibly apocryphal) story of a
poor woman from whom a royal servant forcibly purchases a hen, from
which she could have four or five eggs to keep her and her children. She
is given one denarius or at the most one and half denarii, yet this poor
woman did not want the hen to be sold for even three denarii.30 It is as
much a violation of freedom of ownership and exchange for the kings min-
ions to demand the purchase of an item at a fair price as at one below the
market level. The market relationship only exists when free contract is fully
ensured. When the liberty to sell or not as one sees fit is curtailed, the con-
sequence is the violation of ones property rights: objects are in effect taken
by force, without the will or approval of their rightful owners. Insofar as
purveyance violates the free and consensual operation of market exchange,
the Speculum concludes, it is indistinguishable from theft.
It is important to highlight that Williams defense of a market-based
conception of liberty is proposed by him as an attack on the power and
privileges of the political and economic elite. Given his insistence upon
the primacy of liberty, the question naturally arises: What if the king re-
fuses to lay aside the prerogative of purveyance, as the Speculum regis Ed-
wardi III insists they must do? What recourse exists for those whose rights
to their property have been violated? As we saw in chapter 8, the Specu-
lum maintains that the kings violation of the liberty of his subjects will
result in danger to his own position. By disregarding the express volition
of subjects, Edward III undermines the love that his subjects would other-
wise afford him; he is to blame for the consequences. In the Speculum re-
gis Edwardi III, then, the conception of market liberty given expression by
Roman law sources is transformed into a compelling criticism of current
political and administrative practices. The will of the property owner is so
complete that any king who takes his subjects goods without his or her
consenteven by means of an enforced payment schemerisks loss of
his legitimacy and the withdrawal of popular support. William of Pagula
thereby takes the logic of economic liberty one step further down the trail
29. Ibid., A 1.
30. Ibid., B 43.
that leads to the modern appraisal of political systems solely or primarily

according to their economic consequences. To be sure, as with John of Par-
is, Williams thought remains solidly grounded in the intellectual universe
of the Latin Middle Ages: he wraps his ideas in the language and doctrines
of Christian teaching and of classical learning. Yet William is still able to
mine from these sources lessons about the centrality of personal dominion
over ones property that stand at a distance from the mainstream of medi-
eval economic thought.
In the final chapter of The Legacy of Scholasticism in Economic Thought,
Odd Langholm highlights the persistence in recent philosophical and eco-
nomic debates of the tension between unlimited and constrained concep-
tions of liberty. In Langholms view, of course, the constrained idea of free-
dom constitutes a central contribution of medieval Scholasticism to the
modern world of economics. In the current chapter, by contrast, I have
attempted to demonstrate how the present tension in economic theory
in fact echoes a divergence of perspectives on the role of individual free-
dom and the nature of market relations almost seven centuries old. I do
not deny Langholms central historical thesis, namely, that Scholasticism
was overwhelmingly concerned with setting limits (moral, theological, and
sometimes political) upon free market relations among individuals. The
literature addressing usury, the just price, and analogous matters was far
too extensive to suppose otherwise. My point, instead, is that medieval
Scholastics were not always so completely wedded to a constrained vision
of economic liberty as has been supposed. In the cases of John of Paris and
William of Pagula, we encounter two authors who, although possessing
excellent Scholastic credentials, provide intellectually compelling reasons
to extend the sphere of economic freedom in a manner consonant with the
more libertarian inclinations of their Roman law sources.
I do not mean to impute modernity to the texts of John and Wil-
liam, however. As is clear from even a cursory glance at their writings, their
conceptions of economic liberty remained imbedded in the religious and
ethical concerns typical of the Schoolmen. John and William certainly la-
bor under assumptions fundamentally at odds with those operative in, say,
Hobbesor even Grotius or Locke.31 Yet Scholasticism ought not to be
taken as so rigid that none of its adherents could endorse uncoerced and
consensual market exchange as an adequate measure of economic freedom.
31. See Langholm, Economic Freedom in Scholastic Thought, 26061; Langholm, The
Legacy of Scholasticism in Economic Thought, 13977.
John and William differ most notably from the main stream of Scholastic
thought in their apparent belief that political institutions and governments
may appropriately be judged by the standard of economic well-being as
well as in accordance with ethical and spiritual ends. Thus, the intellectual
current followed by John and William culminates in the early stirrings of
policy and political economy during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries.32 John and William are not anticipations of modernity;
rather, modern thinkers are simply continuations of patterns of thought
and discourse that had their initial expressions in medieval Europe.
32. See Neal Wood, Foundations of Political Economy: Some Early Tudor Views on State and
Society (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994). Some similar themes
in Scholastic literature have been treated by M. S. Kempshall, The Common Good in Late Me-
dieval Political Thought: Moral Goodness and Material Benefit (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999).
15
M o n e y an d C o m m u ni t y
Nicole Oresme
n e o f t h e m ain c e n t e r s for the emergence of po-

litical economic thinking in the Late Middle Ages seems to
have been the French royal court. The Valois King Charles V was
noteworthy for his promotion of cultural and intellectual life gen-
erally and for associating himself with some of the finest minds of
the late fourteenth century.1 Among those upon whom members
of the court showered patronage was Nicole Oresme, a Universi-
ty of Paristrained philosopher, theologian, and churchman who,
among numerous other contributions, produced beautifully illumi-
nated French-language translations of Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics
and Politics for Charles V.2 The proximity of Oresme to the pinna-
cle of authority in France afforded an opportunity to offer practi-
cal advice in the reasonable expectation that it might be heeded.
(The late Capetian monarchy had initiated the tradition of recruit-
ing highly educated individuals into the ranks of the most trusted
1. On this milieu, see Jeannine Quillet, Charles V le roi lettre: Essai sur la pense
politique dun rgne (Paris: Librarie Acadmique Perrin, 1984).
2. A discussion of Oresmes place in the court of Charles V may be found in
Claire Richter Sherman, Imaging Aristotle: Verbal and Visual Representation in Four-
teenth-Century France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 1322. For
general appraisals of Oresmes contributions as a political thinker and philosopher,
see Susan Babbit, Oresmes Livre du Politiques and the France of Charles V (Philadel-
phia: American Philosophical Society, 1985) and James M. Blythe, Ideal Govern-
ment and the Mixed Constitution in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1992), 20340.
235
royal advisors, evident at least as early as the reign of Philip the Fair.)3 One
of the topics that Nicholas considered to be crucial to a well-governed king-
dom was the promotion of the physical well-being of subjects by following
economic policies likely to enhance the wealth of the nation. Such a concern
directly informs Nicholes mid-fourteenth-century work, Tractatus de origine
et natura, jure et mutationibus monetarum, better known as De moneta.4
Oresmes De moneta is virtually sui generis in the medieval Latin phil-
osophical corpus. A relatively brief tract of fewer than 10,000 words, De
moneta falls outside of the conventional genres of late medieval Scholas-
tic philosophy writing: it is neither a commentary, a summa, nor a publi-
cistic tract. Historians of political thought have largely shunned the work.
Instead, since its rediscovery in the nineteenth century, De moneta has pri-
marily been the object of attention among historians of economic thought.
Early scholarship hailed it as an original and singular contribution to the
theory of money, while later analysis found it to be derivative either of the
work of another important fourteenth-century Schoolman, Jean Buridan,
or of medieval Aristotelian thinking more generally.5 In any case, De mon-
eta has seldom been accorded a place in the history of European political
theory, let alone political economy.
Despite the fact that De moneta certainly contains technical economic
analysis of the nature of money in an Aristotelian mode, both the circum-
stances of its composition and the main lines of its argument suggest that it
deserves treatment as a profoundly political work. In 1356, the French king
John II (the Good) was captured by the English at the Battle of Poitiers
and held for ransom for a sum of four million crowns. Among the propos-
als floated by royal counselors to raise the requisite sum was the debasement
of the French coinage, a procedure from which the Crown had already been
profiting for many years.6 Ultimately, the Dauphin Charles (the future King
3. This is examined by Franklin J. Pegues, The Lawyers of the Last Capetians (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1962), and Joseph R. Strayer, The Reign of Philip the Fair (Princ-
eton: Princeton University Press, 1980).
4. A critical edition and translation was prepared by Charles Johnson, ed., The De Moneta
of Nicholas Oresme and English Mint Documents (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1956). In
the following, I employ Johnsons Latin text but often retranslate the English.
5. For a summary of the recovery and interpretation of De moneta, see Odd Langholm,
Wealth and Money in the Aristotelian Tradition (Bergen: Univerisitetforlaget, 1983), 1320. The
most recent work to make significant use of De moneta is Joel Kaye, Economy and Nature in
the Fourteenth Century: Money, Market Exchange, and the Emergence of Scientific Thought (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
6. On the earlier history of debasement, see John Bell Henneman, Royal Taxation in Four-
nic o l e o r e s m e 237
Charles V) decided against further devaluation as a means for securing the

ransom, and negotiations produced the eventual release of John for a frac-
tion of the amount originally demanded. After his return, furthermore, the
king ordered the reform of the French currency in order to restore the value
that had been systematically stripped from it by successive debasements.7 It
was in this context that Oresme produced De moneta; the work seems likely
to have been written during 1357 or 1358 (and certainly before 1360),8 just af-
ter its author had become closely associated with the royal household, per-
haps consequently enjoying the ear of the Dauphin. A French translation of
De moneta was produced by Oresme himself sometime thereafter. While it
may overstate matters to say that Oresmes tract was immediately responsible
for directing the course of royal monetary policy, scholars of economic his-
tory quite reasonably regard De moneta as an influential and powerful case
favoring the stabilization of the value of money over against the royal temp-
tation to raise revenue through reminting or coin clipping.9
As Odd Langholm has observed, De moneta itself is organized into
three fairly distinct sections: the first, comprising the initial eight chap-
ters, concentrates on the nature of money; the second, composed of the
subsequent six chapters, addresses the debasement of currency; and the
third, constituting the final dozen chapters, assesses the social and political
ramifications of debasement.10 In previous scholarship on De moneta, the
first and second sections, and hence Oresmes technical economics, have
been the central focus of attention. Economic historians have presumably
been impressed by the thorough and relatively dispassionate way in which
Oresme analyzes money and debasement. By contrast, the closing (and
most extensive) segment of De moneta has been dismissed as a moral ad-
monition or an ethical judgment on economic matters and thus sim-
ply a replication of conventional Aristotelianism.11 Such a conclusion fails,
teenth Century France: The Development of War Financing, 13221356 (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
7. John Bell Henneman, Royal Taxation in Fourteenth-Century France: The Captivity and
Ransom of John II, 13561370 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1976).
8. On the dating of De moneta, see Langholm, Wealth and Money in the Aristotelian Tradi-
tion, 100101, and Denis Menjot, La politique montaire de Nicolas Oresme, in Pierre Souf-
frin and A. Ph. Segonds, eds., Nicolas Oresme: Tradition et innovation chez un intellectuel du
XIVe sicle (Paris: J. Vrin, 1988), 17993.
9. Richard Bonney, Revenues, in Richard Bonney, ed., Economic Systems and State Fi-
nance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 46667.
10. Langholm, Wealth and Money in the Aristotelian Tradition, 9091.
11. Ibid., 12, 91.
however, to take seriously Oresmes own expressed purposes in the com-

position of De moneta. In his prologue, he states both the political nature
of the problem that he undertakes to discuss and the practical goal that he
seeks to achieve:
Some perceive that any king or ruler on his own authority can, by right [de iure]
or privilege, freely alter the money circulating in his realm and order it to his will,
and also take any amount of profit or gain from this; but others perceive the op-
posite....... I submit everything to the correction of my betters, who perhaps from
what I am saying can be stimulated to determine the truth of the matter, so that
all wise people [prudentes] can join in the unity of the same judgment about a dif-
ficult matter and can contrive something about this that will in the future profit
rulers and subjects, and indeed the whole republic.12
Oresmes intention is clearly to advise his countrymen in a pragmatic fash-

ion about a matter of public policy. His specialized economic analysis is
merely preparatory to his main point. In this sense, the political theory
contained in the final part of De moneta merits serious attention as an at-
tempt to bring economic concerns to bear on the duties of rulers and the
needs of their subjects.
This is not to suggest that the opening chapters of De moneta may
be ignored. Oresme elaborates there principles that prove to be central to
his later argument regarding the public regulation of economic affairs. In
particular, he insists upon the irrevocably communal character of money,
and with it the trade that currency is created to facilitate.13 Aristotle (and
most medieval Aristotelians) largely dismissed the acquisition of monetary
wealth as an end in itself, since those engaged in making money generally
come to see it as inherently desirable, rather than as a means to achieving
some other good. Aristotle had regarded wealth as at best instrumental to
leading a life of leisured civic virtue, in which the citizen engages in politi-
cal rule and moral action over and above the prepolitical life of acquiring
necessities (oikonomia in its original and literal sense).14 Oresme, however,
argues that money is well-suited for intercourse among a large number of
12. Oresme, De moneta, 1. Oresmes comments about the purpose of his treatise are stat-
ed far more extensively in the prefatory remarks to his French version, which are translated by
Johnson in ibid., 9799.
13. Ibid., 7. See Lianna Faber, An Anatomy of Trade in the Medieval World: Value, Consent
and Community (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), 3237.
14. Aristotles analysis of money may be found in Nicomachean Ethics 1133a19b28 and Pol-
itics 1257a301259a36. Some medieval elaborations of Aristotles views are discussed by Lang-
holm, Wealth and Money in the Aristotelian Tradition, 2233.
human beings, and the use of it is good in itself.15 The ambivalent (and
sometimes downright hostile) sentiments toward trade and commerce that
one finds in much Christian Scholastic literature,16 as in Aristotles writ-
ings, are not evident in De moneta. When Oresme expresses reservations
about economic enterprise, they are directed against practices demonstra-
bly detrimental to the public welfare, which is the intended result of ex-
change relations. Interestingly, Oresmes authority for this teaching is one
of his favorite sources in De moneta: Cassiodorus, the late Roman imperial
official whose papers on public administration, the Variae, circulated dur-
ing the Middle Ages. Commentators on De moneta attach no significance
to the fact that Oresmes citations of Cassiodorus rival in number his ref-
erences to Aristotle.17 Yet the recurrent reliance upon Cassiodorus surely
hints at the practical tone Oresme sought to convey in De moneta.
Since trade and commerce impact so markedly on the common good
for Oresme, it should hardly be surprising that he identifies the enabling
medium of money as the property of the community rather than of the
ruler. Oresme stresses this point throughout De moneta. Although the ruler
is assigned responsibility for the actual minting and regulating of the mon-
ey supply, he is to be considered merely an executive agent of the commu-
nity, deputized to realize the public good of sound currency and equita-
ble exchange. The dominant theme of Oresmes treatise is the communal
ownership, and thus ultimate control, of money.18 From this principle fol-
lows the advice of De moneta about the debasement of coinage as well as
the broader contours of its political theory. Since the community requires
money in order to engage in a full range of economic activities, and hence
to promote the good of its individual members, the very idea that coinage
pertains to the private patrimony of a ruler is excluded from the start. As a
result, the Crown is strictly prohibited from manipulating the coinage in
order to profit itself or its intimates.
Implicit in the ascription of moneys ownership to the community is
an economic conception of the common good itself.19 In more conven-
15. Oresme, De moneta, 5.
16. The tensions posed by the emergence of commercial values in the Latin Christian soci-
ety are examined by Little, Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1978), 3541, 17383.
17. For instance, Langholm, Wealth and Money in the Aristotelian Tradition fails to men-
tion Oresmes reference to Cassiodorus at all.
18. Oresme, De moneta, 1011, 1617, 3942.
19. Kaye, Nature and Economy in the Fourteenth Century, 15356, does not perhaps suffi-
ciently underscore Oresmes novelty among political thinkers in this connection.
tional strains of medieval Aristotelianism, the terms associated with the

common good (utilitas, bonum, commodum, iustitia) tended to be defined
in terms of the promotion of virtue and religious conviction among mem-
bers of the community. Hence, good government was understood to be
rulership consonant with ultimate moral principles, whereas bad govern-
ment, or tyranny, was synonymous with the governance of citizens in a
manner inconsistent with their ethical and spiritual improvement.20 At
times, Oresme draws upon this traditional moralistic distinction between
true kingship and tyranny in explicating the difference between well-
ordered and evil government.21 But his examples of just and unjust rule
are invariably couched in terms of the economic impact of a governments
actions. Thus, in explaining why manipulation of the value of currency by
a ruler is unjust, he draws an analogy to political interference in agricul-
tural markets: It would be like fixing a price for all the grain in his king-
dom, buying it, and selling it again at a higher price. Everyone can clearly
see that this would be an unjust exaction and indeed tyranny.22 The value
of the economic goods within a community can only be established in the
first instance by voluntary exchanges among individuals.
Tyranny thus occurs when legitimate economic choices are counter-
manded for the self-interest of those who hold political power. In this way,
Oresmes account of tyranny or unjust government accords with the cus-
tomary Aristotelian definition of the tyrant as the ruler who paying no
heed to the common good, seeks his own private good.23 But the con-
ception of good government or kingship in De moneta subtly replaces the
customary ethical overtones of the common good with an economic
connotation: the king reigns, one might say, not in order to make people
better, but to make them better off. Consequently, judgments about
government policy rest on determinations about the economic welfare of
the community. That which detracts from the public weal, especially if it
benefits the ruler, counts as tyrannical action, while a good government
enhances the material advantage of subjects.
Oresmes account of the communal ownership of currency, with its
concern for the public advantages of trade, does not, however, license the
20. See Istvn Bejczy and Cary J. Nederman, eds., Princely Virtues in the Middle Ages,
12001500 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007).
21. Oresme, De moneta, 42.
22. Ibid., 16.
23. Thomas Aquinas, De regno, 1.3, in R.M. Spiazzi, ed., Opulscula philosophica (Turin:
Marietti, 1954).
unlimited accumulation of money or unrestrained pursuit of profit. While,

in a sense, individuals qua individuals own wealth (and its monetary rep-
resentation), their economic activities are subject to regulation according
to standards of the public good. In this connection, Oresme invokes what
appears to be a conventional Aristotelian prohibition on activities such as
usury and money-changing (campsoria).24 Yet even his analysis of these
supposedly unnatural economic transactions is tinged with a practical,
rather than a merely moralistic, orientation. Having soundly condemned
both usury and money-changing on the predictable grounds that they are
incompatible with the true purpose of moneynamely, to facilitate the
exchange of produced goodsOresme nonetheless refuses to prohibit
them unconditionally: Yet sometimes from necessity or advantage some
vile business, such as the art of money-changing, or some evil one, such
as usury, is permitted. These enterprises (like the maintenance of public
houses of prostitution) may be sanctioned in order to avoid a greater evil
or scandal within the community.25
Oresme invokes this utilitarian claim in order to draw a direct contrast
with the debasement of money by rulers, an activity for which he can find
no valid warrant.26 Indeed, he characterizes making profit by the muta-
tion of money as even worse than usury, since at least the usurers client
consents to the transaction, whereas currency manipulation is less volun-
tary and more against the will of subjects, incapable of profiting them, and
entirely beyond necessity.27 The criteria of volition is central to Oresmes
case:
And inasmuch as the usurers interest is not so excessive, nor so generally preju-
dicial to the multitude, as this [debasement], which is imposed deceitfully as well
as tyrannically against and upon the whole community, so I wonder whether it
should better be termed violent robbery or fraudulent exaction.28
The usurer-borrower relationship remains (barely) tolerable insofar as it in-

volves a voluntary agreement between parties. By contrast, debasement is
nonconsensual and therefore constitutes an act of force committed by the
ruler upon the community. The volitional standard, one of the hallmarks
of just economic exchange, disappears in the manipulation of currency,
rendering the king-community relation an unequal and coercive one. The
24. Oresme, De moneta, 2527. 25. Ibid., 29.

26. Ibid., 27, 29. 27. Ibid., 28.
28. Ibid., 28.
community becomes instead enslaved economically to the private interest

of its government,29 as well as impoverished to the extent that the amount
of the rulers profit is necessarily the same as the communitys loss.30
De monetas main objection to debasement (and presumably other
claims of governmental economic privilege, such as public monopolies,
which Oresme also opposes)31 therefore stems from the economic impact
upon the community. An unjust policy employs coercive means to detract
from the communal wealth in order to enhance the income of those who
wield political power. Debasement precipitates the economic decline of
the republic in a number of ways, which Oresme describes in careful de-
tail, based on his observations of events that have lately been seen to oc-
cur in the kingdom of France.32 First, an unstable currency is ruinous for
all manner of trade. Imports cease, since merchants ceteris paribus prefer
to travel to those locales in which they may obtain good and certain mon-
ey. In similar fashion, the business of internal commerce in such a king-
dom is disturbed and impeded by such changes of currency, while fixed
incomes are thrown into flux and cannot be properly and justly valuated
and taxed. Moreover, debased currency destroys the system of credit upon
which commercial activity relies. In sum, inasmuch as merchants and ev-
erything else mentioned are either necessary or extremely useful to human
nature, alterations of coinage are prejudicial and harmful to the whole
civil community.33
In addition, debasement has a debilitating effect upon the good order
of the community. On the one hand, some individuals (other than the rul-
er himself ) profit exorbitantly from changes in the money supply. Oresme
mentions not only money-changers and their ilk, but also royal intimates
and their friends, who engage in a medieval version of insider trading by
taking advantage of the advance knowledge they possess about the future
occurrence of debasements.34 On the other hand, debasement disadvan-
tages those parts of the community [that] are occupied in business honor-
able or useful to the whole republic, such as men of the church, judges,
soldiers, farmers, merchants, craftsmen and the like.35 These people are
denied the ability to make an adequate livelihood, since so many of the
agreements into which they enter depend upon the presumption of sound
currency. Oresme contends that the members of such occupations, who
29. Ibid., 40, 43, 47. 30. Ibid., 24.
31. Ibid., 16. 32. Ibid., 30.
33. Ibid., 33. 34. Ibid., 34.
35. Ibid., 33.
are the best parts of the community, are impoverished [depauperantur] by

this mutation of coinage; the ruler in this way punishes and excessive-
ly burdens the larger and better [section] of his subjects.36 Ultimately,
the economic condition of the kingdom is rendered chaotic and turbu-
lent: computation of expenditures and receipts becomes impossible, law-
suits and disputes over payments multiply, and outright fraud and abuse
run rife.37 Unreliable currency produces a multitude of negative material
consequences and inequities far beyond the simple injustice of a ruler prof-
iteering from his role as minter of the coinage and regulator of its value. A
monarch prone to monetary manipulation not only harms his own reputa-
tion and honor, but also destroys the economic foundations of his realm,
upon which he relies for his ordinary revenues, and demoralizes the sub-
jects who are a direct source of his own wealth and well-being.38 Indeed,
Oresme even darkly hints, in a manner reminiscent of prior medieval au-
thors such as John of Salisbury and William of Pagula, that the ruler who
introduces the many evils associated with monetary manipulation endan-
gers the hold on the kingdom enjoyed by his dynasty. Referring explicitly
to the situation in his own nation, Oresme observes that the free hearts
of Frenchmen will not stand to have slavery thrust upon them; and the
French royal house, bereft of its ancient virtue, will without doubt forfeit
the kingdom.39
Underlying Oresmes relentless attack on debasement is a normative
model of a well-ordered society that only comes to the fore near the end
of De moneta. Specifically, Oresme elaborates a vision of the body politic
fashioned along the lines of the communal functionalist framework sur-
veyed in chapter 5 above. Oresmes reliance on the communal functionalist
paradigm was already signaled by his concern over the consequences of de-
basement for the productive segments of the community, which he de-
scribed as honorable as well as useful. But he returns to this theme in
the penultimate chapter of De moneta, employing two analogies in order
to support his case that currency manipulation destabilizes the communal
order. Initially, he invokes the organic metaphor between the community
and the living body, citing the doctrine found in John of Salisburys Poli-
craticus in support of the view that the republic or kingdom is thus like a
sort of human body.40 (Johns Policraticus, translated into the vernacular
36. Ibid., 34. 37. Ibid., 35.

38. Ibid., 3031. 39. Ibid., 4647.
40. Ibid., 43.
by Denis Foulechat in 1372, was a popular work at the fourteenth-century

French court.)41 On Oresmes presentation, the body is construed as the
standard for the distribution of wealth in the community. Each segment of
society must have revenues sufficient for it to perform its function, and no
member may grow rich at the expense of others.
Just as the body, therefore, is badly disposed when the humors flow too freely into
one member of it, so that that member is often inflamed and overgrown while
others are withered and shrunken and due proportion is destroyed, and such a
body cannot live long, so likewise is a community or kingdom when riches are at-
tracted beyond measure [ultra modum] by one part of it.42
In particular, Oresme is concerned that debasement will lead to a sort of

hydrocephalic condition within society.
For a community or kingdom whose rulers increase their riches, power and station
enormously in comparison with subjects is like a monster, like a man whose head
is so large, so heavy, that it cannot be sustained by the rest of the body. And just
as such a man cannot support himself or live long, so neither can a kingdom sur-
vive when its ruler draws to himself excessive riches, as is done by the mutation of
money.......43
Oresmes adaptation of the organic metaphor is striking not least for its
explicitly economic interpretation of the social body. The common good
marked by the balanced and reciprocal relation between the parts is viewed
in terms of the income received by each. Oresme apparently takes for
granted that every functional part of the body is deserving of a natural
(or perhaps normal) measure of revenue. When one segment profits at the
expense of others, the organic process breaks down. Likewise, presum-
ably, the good health and longevity of the body is promoted and enhanced
when every member receives its due. The organic metaphor, on Oresmes
account, represents not so much the proper arrangement of political power
as the satisfactory distribution of economic resources. Indeed, his lesson is
that the superior authority of rulers is abused when they interfere with the
natural operations of the economic constitution of the social body.
Oresme does not merely see government as a negative factor in eco-
nomic life, as becomes evident when we turn to the second analogy he de-
ploys to elucidate his conception of the well-ordered society. He proposes
41. Sherman, Imaging Aristotle, 8. 42. Oresme, De moneta, 43.

43. Ibid., 4344.
that the activities of the community share certain properties with a choral
performance. In a chorus, a proportional and measured difference of tone
is required of the individual members in order to achieve the proper har-
mony; neither unison nor dissonance contributes to the sweet melody of
a joyous choir. Similarly, equality of possessions or powers in all parts of
the community is neither convenient or concordant, but also too great a
disparity dissipates and corrupts the harmony of the republic. In facilitat-
ing the appropriate proportion of economic goods among members of the
community, the ruler should take the lead to ensure a harmonious distri-
bution: He is in the kingdom like the tenor and leading voice in singing.
But when the royal performer is too loud or out of tune, the sweet melo-
dy of the regal polity [regalis policie] will be disturbed.44 Oresmes musical
analogy thus largely confirms the point of the organic metaphor: it is nec-
essary for each section of the whole to receive a material reward adequate
and suitable to its contribution. But he is more definite about the rulers
pivotal role in the maintenance of harmony among the various segments
of society. It is for this reason, we may infer, that debasement of coinage is
especially heinous, since by enriching the king at the expense of the rest of
the community, it stands in direct conflict with his assigned duty of ensur-
ing economic concord within his realm. The problem with debasement is
not merely that the ruler abuses his legitimate powers for his own benefit,
but that he does so in a manner entirely inconsistent with a central pur-
pose of his office, namely, the promotion of the orderly distribution of ma-
terial goods.
It seriously misrepresents the scope of De moneta, therefore, to classify
it strictly as a work of conventional medieval Aristotelian thought. Rath-
er, Oresmes treatise seems to presage an entirely new genre of writing, de-
voted to merging political theory with practical economic advicein sum,
a work recognizably in the vein of political economy. Of course, Oresmes
synthesis was achieved by combining standard medieval materials, such as
Aristotelian economics and an organic conception of society. But the pri-
ority he accords to the economic realm in his idea of the common good,
as well as his concern for the impact of political processes on the produc-
tion and circulation of wealth, marks De moneta with a distinctive stamp.
While certainly not the product of a prototypically modern economic
mind-set (as some nineteenth-century commentators had proclaimed), De
moneta still constitutes an innovative and perhaps singular contribution to
44. Ibid., 44.
the formulation of the issues of political economy as they emerged at the

end of the Middle Ages.
De moneta was also the relatively youthful work of a prolific author
whose contributions to French intellectual life in the late fourteenth cen-
tury were luminous. Joel Kaye has demonstrated clear parallels between
Oresmes economic theories and his scientific thought, in particular with
regard to the use of mathematical analyses.45 The political economy frame-
work adopted in De moneta also seems to have resonance in Oresmes
famed French-language edition, translation, and gloss of Aristotles Eth-
ics and Politics (as well as of the pseudo-Aristotelian Economics). In the lat-
ter works, Oresme is noticeably less hostile to physical labor and commer-
cial enterprise than his source, Aristotle. While he cannot bring himself to
depart from Aristotle so greatly as to reject the Philosophers exclusion of
laborers and merchants from the ranks of citizens, Oresmes commentar-
ies and manuscript illumination program play up the worthiness of eco-
nomic activity and its importance for the good order of the community.
For example, his commentary on the Politics noticeably valorizes agricul-
tural labor by presenting it, in word and image, as conducive to harmony
and public order.46 Likewise, the illustration of the activities of craftsmen
and merchants in the manuscripts of Oresmes version of both the Eth-
ics and the Politics offers a positive portrayal in contradistinction to Aris-
totles outright condemnation of the values of the marketplace.47 Finally,
he continued to employ throughout his remarks on Aristotles Politics the
organic conception of the community that he introduced in De moneta.48
Oresmes sympathetic outlook toward commerce is on far more overt dis-
play in his sermons where, as Kaye documents, the virtues of the market-
place and the merchant are extolled.49
Odd Langholm has observed that Oresmes treatise was not academi-
cally a very influential book.50 Regardless of the influence De moneta ex-
ercised, either practically or philosophically, in its own day, however, it
constitutes a benchmark in the emergence of a European synthesis of po-
litical and economic concerns. On the one hand, it draws together in com-
45. Kaye, Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century, 20125.

46. Sherman, Imaging Aristotle, 24649, 29091.
47. Ibid., 144, 149.
48. Nicole Oresme, Le livre de politiques dAristote, ed. Albert D. Menut (Philadelphia:
American Philosophical Society, 1970), 49, 87, 209, and 290.
49. Kaye, Economy and Society in the Fourteenth Century, 14951.
50. Langholm, Wealth and Money in the Aristotelian Tradition, 13.
pact fashion many currents of late medieval thought concerning economic

life. Oresme incorporates the lessons about money taught by moral the-
ology and philosophical ethics; but he also integrates the insights of ear-
lier political theorists, such as Marsiglio of Padua (whose Defensor pacis he
cites in his Politics commentary),51 who were beginning to realize that the
contemporary manifestations of commercial society had significant impli-
cations for the conduct of public affairs.52 On the other hand, De mone-
ta precociously addresses themes that were to become far more predomi-
nant during the following two centuries among authors who are already
regarded as the founders of political economy. By acknowledging and
exploring the necessity of a symbiotic relationship between good govern-
ment and the common wealth, Oresme maps out the rudiments of a route
that would be traveled time and again in European political and social
thought.
51. See Cary J. Nederman, A Heretic Hiding in Plain Sight: The Secret History of Mar-
siglio of Paduas Defensor Pacis in the Thought of Nicole Oresme, in Ian Hunter, Cary J. Ned-
erman, and John Christian Laursen, eds., Heresy in Transition: Transforming Ideas of Heresy in
Medieval and Early Modern Europe (London: Ashgate, 2005), 7188.
52. See Cary J. Nederman, Community and Self-Interest: Marsiglio of Padua on Civil
Life and Private Advantage, Review of Politics 65 (Fall 2003): 395416.
16
C h r is t in e d e P izans E x pan d in g
B o d y P o l i t ic
ic h o l as O r e s m e , as we have seen in the preceding chap-

ter, represents one important contributor to the medieval
tradition of political economy associated with the late medieval
French court. Another figure within the ambit of royal culture in
France during the Latin Middle Ages who proves worthy of at-
tention as a thinker cognizant of the political dimension of eco-
nomic conditions is Christine de Pizan. It is hardly an exaggera-
tion to say that Christine counts among the most prolific political
writers in medieval Europe, although she remains among the most
overlooked. She is credited with no fewer than nine treatises con-
cerned with politics broadly construeda function, no doubt,
of her close association with the Valois court, at which she was
raised and upon which she depended for patronage. Yet, at least
until quite recently, the body of Christines political writings has
been systematically ignored or dismissed by scholars (a function
as much of her gender as of a careful reading of her texts, one
suspects).1 Christines work adopts a highly personal tone, root-
1. Christines name does not merit a mention in the surveys by Antony Black,
Political Thought in Europe 12501450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1992) and Joseph Canning, A History of Medieval Political Thought 3001450 (Lon-
don: Routledge, 1996). She receives only a few passing references, and no sustained
analysis, in J. H. Burns, ed., The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c.
3501450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Much has been done to
restore Christine to her rightful place by the contributors to Margaret Brabant, ed.,
Politics, Gender, and Genre: The Political Thought of Christine de Pizan (Boulder:
248
c h r is t in e d e pizans b o d y p o l i t ic 249
ed in her own experiences and observations. In her three best known po-
litical writingsLe Livre de la Cit des Dames (1405), Le Livre des Trois Ver-
tus (1406), and Le Livre de Corps de Policie (1406)she identifies herself as
writing from the perspective of a woman, an immigrant to France, and an
individual of nonnoble birth.2 She does not hesitate to deplore various mo-
res and practices current in her time, basing her remarks upon her knowl-
edge of historical and geographic variations, as well as her familiarity with
Scholastic, scriptural, and patristic sources. Throughout Christines books,
the advice she offers has a practical turn, suggestive of someone who has
been on intimate terms with many stations of life and the travails they can
cause. There are moments in her narrativesuch as when she offers advice
to widows about coping with their late husbands creditors3which seem
to stem directly from predicaments that she confronted personally.
Because of her financial dependence upon the French court, as well as her
deep admiration for members of the ruling dynasty,4 Christines approach to
political affairs is generally conditioned by practical considerations. As with
Oresme, she was sensitive to the financial pressures endured by the central-
ized monarchic governments of late medieval Europe. Yet she also demon-
strated deep concern about the needs and interests of a large portion of the
populaceamong them women, city dwellers, and the poorby insisting
upon the inescapable reciprocity of the relationship between the French peo-
ple and the royal regime. Christines thought is thus characterized by the
striking inclusiveness of the audience she addresses and the social complex-
ity she acknowledges. In one of her two works directed explicitly to a female
readership, the Cit des Dames, she defends women as a group from various
slanders against their intelligence and capacity to achieve moral and political
virtue.5 The other of these writings, the Trois Vertus, examines with precision
the conduct appropriate to women of each and every social distinction, ex-
Westview Press, 1992). Further efforts to revive Christines political thought may be found in
Marilynn Desmond, ed., Christine de Pizan and the Categories of Difference (Minneapolis: Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press, 1998) and Kate Landgon Forhan, The Political Thought of Christine
de Pizan (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002).
2. Christines background and career has been thoroughly documented by Charity Can-
non Willard, Christine de Pizan: Her Life and Her Works (New York: Persea, 1984).
3. Christine de Pizan, A Medieval Womans Mirror of Honor: The Treasury of the City of La-
dies, trans. C. C. Willard (New York: Bard Hall/Persea, 1989), 197202. This is a translation of
Le Livre des Trois Vertus.
4. On Christines political circumstances generally, see Charity Cannon Willard, Chris-
tine de Pizan: From Poet to Political Commentator, in Gender, Politics and Genre, 1732.
5. Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, trans. E. J. Richards (New York: Per-
sea, 1982).
tending from princesses and the nobility to artisans, prostitutes, and the des-
titute. Likewise, Christines Corps de Policie discusses in detail the humbler
orders within the realm, such as the commercial and working classes, as well
as the education and behavior of the king and his well-born companions.6
She thereby awakens her courtly colleagues to some of the new social and
economic realities that were altering the landscape of late medieval institu-
tions and practices. In all of these works, moreover, she reflects sensitivity to
the preceding traditions of political economy.
Christine captures this social complexity in a way that, on the face of
it, seems very traditional. She constructs harmonious social organization
and cooperation on the model of the organic metaphor of the body poli-
tic that pervaded medieval political thought.7 She declares that everyone
should come together as one body of the same polity, to live justly and
in peace as they ought.8 Superficially, perhaps, the organic analogy may
appear designed to justify hierarchy, inequality, exclusion, and subordina-
tion. But for Christine as for a few of her predecessors,9 the image of the
body politic also suggested an inclusive, reciprocal, and interdependent
conception of community.
Just as the human body is not whole, but defective and deformed, when it lacks
any of its members, so the body politic cannot be perfect, whole, or healthy if all
the estates of which we speak are not well joined and united together. Thus, they
can aid and help each other, each exercising its own office, which diverse offic-
es ought to serve only for the conservation of the whole community, just as the
members of the body aid to guide and nourish the whole body.10
Christines very image of communal order is when the health of the entire
public unit is preserved through the mutual coordination of the tasks nec-
essary for its existence.11 To despise any of the members, or reduce them to
a state of servitude, is an attack on the well-being of the whole organism.
6. Christine de Pizan, Book of the Body Politic, trans. Kate Langdon Forhan (Cambridge:
7. Interestingly, however, the standard survey of medieval organic thought makes no men-
tion of her contribution; see Tilman Struve, Die Entwicklung der organologischen Staatsauffas-
sung im Mittelalter (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1978).
8. Christine, Book of the Body Politic, 59.
9. See Cary J. Nederman, Freedom, Community and Function: Communitarian Lessons
of Medieval Political Theory, American Political Science Review 86 (December 1992): 97879,
98182.
11. Ibid., 91.
Christines use of the organic metaphor extends medieval precedent

by imputing to it a noticeably secular orientation. Unlike her immediate
source for the analogy, John of Salisburys Policraticus,12 she makes no ref-
erence to the soul of the body (i.e., the priesthood), nor does she draw
upon standard medieval depictions of the supremacy of the Church to the
temporal sphere. Of course, she assumes that the king will honor God and
care for the churches within his jurisdiction.13 But the Corps de Policie
reverses conventional expectations by, for instance, asserting a corrective
role for the good ruler, since no prelate, priest, or cleric is so great that
he will dare withstand or complain about the prince who reproves him
for his manifest vice or sin.14 This is consistent with Christines concep-
tion of the king as the ordainer and regulator of all the estates within the
realm, including the priesthood, and her identification of the clergy within
the body politic as one of the three branches of the common people.15 No
other late medieval thinker, with the exception of Marsiglio of Padua, was
so disposed to count the priestly function as essentially a civil office, con-
tributing to an expansive and secularist idea of public welfare in which sal-
vation and moral rectitude were not the sole aims of government.
The overtly secular bearing of the body politic comes to the fore in
Christines discussion of economic issues. Throughout her writings, she
displays an awareness that one of the main sinews of political community
is the physical well-being and, indeed, material improvement of its mem-
bers. The ruler must therefore gage his policies and their implementation
so as to increase and multiply the virtue, strength, power, and wealth of
his country.16 This list of the central aims of governmentespecially the
inclusion of an economic goalis more extensive than one is likely to
find in many of Christines predecessors, for whom the king was generally
charged preeminently with promoting moral and religious rectitude above
all else. Of course, Christine avers that wealth ought not to translate into
conspicuous consumption and luxury; one of her standard pieces of ad-
vice to men and women of those social classes that possess discretionary
income is to abstain from exorbitant expenditures on clothing and other
finery.17 In fact, she even advocates that the state should design its taxation
12. On her deployment of this source, see Kate Langdon Forhan, Polycracy, Obligation,
and Revolt: The Body Politic in John of Salisbury and Christine de Pizan, in Brabant, ed., Pol-
itics, Gender, and Genre, 3352.
13. Christine, Book of the Body Politic, 12. 14. Ibid., 14.
15. Ibid., 19, 9599. 16. Ibid., 36; italics mine.
17. Christine, A Medieval Womans Book of Honor, 17476, 18990, 19395.
policies so as to discourage excessive patterns of consumption and display

of wealth.18 Yet she acknowledges that the accumulation of wealth by the
various orders of society is a worthy pursuit, and she realizes that govern-
ment plays a crucial role in the ability of individuals to achieve this aim.
Christines strikingly economic conception of community and gover-
nance is especially evident in the detailed attention she pays to the lives of
merchants, artisans, and laborers, as well as to their relations with the king.
Although she again employs language reminiscent of the Policraticus,19 she
demonstrates considerable sympathy both for the contributions made by
the humbler classes and for the plight arising from their varied tasks,
especially commercial affairs. She insists that burghers and men of com-
merce are not to be disdained, at least if they are honest and knowledge-
able in the conduct of their business.20
The merchant class is very necessary, and without it neither the estate of kings and
princes nor even the polities of cities and countries could exist. For by the indus-
try of their labor, all kinds of people are provided for without having to make ev-
erything themselves, because, if they have money, merchants bring from afar all
things necessary and proper for their lives.21
Christines commendation of merchants is noteworthy, in particular, for

its assumption of the importance of the economic well-being of citizens.
Traders provide an extremely useful social service, permitting a more effi-
cient use of labor than would be otherwise possible. It is very good for
a country and of great value for a prince and to the common polity, she
maintains, when a city has trade and an abundance of merchants.22 Such
persons in many countries are held in high esteem on account of the
good they do for everyone.23 In a classic example of organic reciprocity,
Christine holds that all classes benefit when commercial society is permit-
ted and encouraged to flourish.
In similar terms, Christine praises craftsmen and peasants, since if the
republic excluded laborers and artisans, it could not sustain itself.24 In-
deed, she defends both groups against the ignominy that is heaped upon
18. Ibid., 195.

19. Forhan, Polycracy, Obligation, and Revolt, 4344.
21. Ibid., 103; this judgment is seconded by Christine, A Medieval Womans Book of Honor,
196.
23. Ibid., 1034. 24. Ibid., 105.
them. She remarks, Although some think little of the office of the crafts-
men that the clerics call artisans, yet it is good, noble, and necessary;
likewise, the estate of the simple laborer or others of low rank should not
be denigrated, as others would do....... The estate of the poor which every-
one despises has many good and worthy persons in purity of life.25 Again,
Christine reasons from the necessity of the activities performed by artisans
and day laborers for meeting the physical needs occasioned by human ex-
istence to the conclusion that their work must be valued by society: The
varied jobs that the artisans do are necessary for the human body and it
cannot do without them....... [Laborers] support the body of every person
with their labor. They do nothing that is unpraiseworthy.26 Ones mate-
rial contribution to the physical sustenance of the community is thus to be
factored heavily into the determination of social inclusion. Judgments may
be made about how well individuals perform in their diverse offices, but
no office in and of itself is to be demeaned or disdained if it contributes a
vital function to the material welfare of the community.
A large burden of responsibility falls upon the prince, in turn, to ensure
that the economic condition of the realm is maintained and enhanced, as
well as to oversee the efficient coordination of the tasks necessary for the
survival of the body politic. Christine declares that the ruler
ought to desire that his subjects perform their best in whatever office God has
placed them....... Each one, whatever his rank, ought to live by good policy, without
extortion or overcharging, so that each may live properly under him [the prince],
and that they love him as a good prince ought to be loved by his people.......27
A central duty of royal government, then, is to uphold the legal and social
structures that permit private economic relations between individuals, that
is, to protect against force and fraud. The king is not to interfere with (or
micromanage) the daily performance of economically necessary activities,
but he is to guarantee that nothing interrupts or deflects subjects from do-
ing such tasks. This implies, moreover, that the ruler must be familiar with
the various duties necessary to the health of the body, and must be cogni-
zant of the conditions of the lesser estates: He ought to hear sometimes
about the common people, laborers, and merchants, how they make their
profit from the poor and the rich, and similarly all kinds of things, so that
his understanding is not found ignorant of anything that can be virtuous-
25. Ibid., 105, 108, 109. 26. Ibid., 105, 107.

27. Ibid., 40.
ly known.28 In this way, the prince will appreciate fully the contributions
that the lower orders make to the health of the realm and will be prepared
to guide and govern them knowledgeably and competently.
Most importantly, perhaps, the king must understand how the conse-
quences of his own policies and their implementation by his officials im-
pact the economic conditions of his realm. For example, Christine points
out how soldiers pillage and despoil the country, leading directly to eco-
nomic hardship on the part of the rural poor, because they are inadequate-
ly compensated by government. If soldiers were well paid, she observes,
one could restrict them on pain of punishment to take nothing with-
out paying for it, and by this they could find provisions and everything
that they needed economically and plentifully.29 Likewise, the king must
weigh the consequences of his taxation schemes. Christine does not deny
the legitimacy of taxing subjects to meet public needs.30 But the ruler
must be guided by the principle of gathering only the legal revenue that
it is reasonable to collect and take from his country, without gnawing to
the bone his poor commoners.31 Christine objects, in particular, to the
inequities of royal taxation policies, which exempt the rich while burden-
ing the poor disproportionately. It is not merely that such schemes are
unjust, but that they have materially deleterious effects upon those who
are already impoverished: There are some who come to pay this money
imposed on them and then they and their poor household starve after-
wards, and sell their beds and other poor possessions cheaply and for noth-
ing. And it would please God if someone informed the king and noble
princes.32 As a consequence of the organic unity of the realm, the rul-
er must realize that his own actions may directly harm the material well-
being of his subjects, which in the end will only redound to his own inju-
ry, since the peoples despoilment means that the realm itself will become
impoverished and will generate less income in the future. Christine takes
it as axiomatic that wise princes would rather be poor in a rich country,
than to be rich and have plenty in a poor country.33 This is not merely
a moral principle; it reflects an economic doctrine that naturally follows
from an organic conception of communal interdependence.
The lessons about inclusion that Christine derives from the body meta-
phor she also transfers to her discussion of womens estates. Christine ad-
28. Ibid., 10. 29. Ibid., 17.

30. Ibid., 1920. 31. Ibid., 19.
32. Ibid., 20. 33. Ibid., 22.
vocates the competence of women to contribute (perhaps even uniquely)

to the tasks associated with the maintenance of secular well-being. In Cit
des Dames, she proclaims that
in case anyone says that women do not have a natural sense for politics and gov-
ernment, I will give you examples of several great women rulers who have lived in
past times ..... [and] of some women of your own time who remained widows and
whose skill in governingboth past and presentin all their affairs following the
deaths of their husbands provides obvious demonstration that a woman with a
mind is fit for all tasks.34
Christine surely knew Aristotles argument for the exclusion of women

from a role in public life, which was a mainstay of medieval political lit-
erature. Yet she challenges this claim directly, even to the point of asserting
that a princess may help to quell disturbances in her land that arise from
her husbands acquiescence to evil councillors: If the prince, because of
poor advice or for any other reason, should be tempted to harm his sub-
jects, they will know their lady to be full of kindness, pity and charity.
They will come to her, humbly petitioning her to intercede for them be-
fore the prince.35 The princess is envisioned by Christine as a sort of om-
budsperson, a conduit between hostile forces (whether within or without
the realm) whose clashes might otherwise disturb public order.36
Construed in organic terms, then, the princess is to further the process
of intercommunication between the parts of the body by serving as a me-
diating force between the king and the people.37 Nor does Christine deem
it unsuitable for a princess to lavish attention on her lowlier subjects.38
Rather, she is to meet on occasion with burghers, merchants, and artisans
in order to facilitate love and good will among subjects, and thereby
strengthen public order and unity. Indeed, she regards this function as cru-
cial to the kings harmonious rule:
The subjects create the lord, not vice versa. If people want to be troublesome, they
will much more easily find someone to take them on as subject than a lord will
find subjects to accept him as ruler....... Even if at a given time he had the military
power to destroy them, he would also destroy himself....... Their respect for him
will arise from his concern for them, rather than from force. Otherwise his power
34. Christine, The Book of the City of Ladies, 32.

35. Christine, A Medieval Womans Mirror of Honor, 85.
36. Ibid., 8487. 37. Ibid., 85.
38. Ibid., 110.
will be in question. A common proverb reinforces this point: No one is lord in

his country who is hated by his people.39
The princess thus plays a delicate role in maintaining the structure of reci-
procity entailed by the organic order of the community. If she declines to
perform this function, the health of the body itself is imperiled.
Christine also demonstrates sensitivity to the unique circumstances of
humbler womens stations. She recognizes that to be a woman of the com-
mercial or laboring classes imposes special burdens that may render it dif-
ficult to achieve the virtues espoused for royal or noble women. Not sur-
prisingly, she evinces real compassion for the special predicament of poor
women, and she is gentle in her admonitions toward them.40 By no means
is Christines advice for the conduct of the female commoner any less prac-
tical than for the princess. For example, she warns the wives of merchants
to avoid ostentation in dress not simply out of concern for moral rec-
titude, but also because a conspicuous display of wealth can cause new
taxes for their husbands.41 Christine is thus closely attuned to the com-
plexities associated with the intersection of gender and social class, and she
proffers appropriate and useful counsel to women of various stations with
the goal of sustaining a harmonious and cooperative body politic.
Christines attention to the interplay between gender and economic
life seems to reflect her belief that most of the arts and civilized forms of
laborindeed, organized society itselfwere feminine in origin. In the
Cit des Dames, she provides a lengthy accounting of the earthly bene-
fits accruing thanks to women ..... who gave the sciences and arts to the
world.42 Among the arts, manifested in manual works of labor,43 in-
vented by women, Christine includes weaving, extraction of olive oil, cart
construction, metal working, cultivation, tool making, and gardening.44
Moreover, she ascribes to Ceres the formation of communal association
among human beings who had previously lived as beasts. Adapting a wide-
ly employed account of social origination, derived from Ciceros De inven-
tione,45 Christine recounts how Ceres
39. Ibid., 11011. 40. Ibid., 21923.

41. Ibid., 6.
43. Ibid., 71. 44. Ibid., 7377.
45. See Cicero, De inventione, 1.13. The medieval reception and dissemination of this text
is examined by Cary J. Nederman, Nature, Sin, and the Origins of Society: The Ciceronian
Tradition in Medieval Political Thought, Journal of the History of Ideas 49 (1988): 326.
had the people of that time gather together in communities. They had tradition-
ally lived scattered here and there in the forest and wilderness, wandering like ani-
mals. She taught them to build cities and towns of permanent construction where
they could reside together. Thus, thanks to this woman, the world was led away
from bestial living conditions to a rational, human life.46
Moreover, Christine contends, Isis did likewise in Egypt.47 Hence, wom-

an are to be credited with the major achievements in the development of
human culture and the improvement of the species material circumstanc-
es and comfort. Without womens innovations and contributions, she im-
plies, humanity would have remained in a state of physical depredation
and misery.
Christine admits that some thinkers may not view the material de-
velopment of the human race as a laudable accomplishment. Several au-
thors, she observes, have argued that this world was better off when peo-
ple lived only from haws and acorns and wore nothing more than animal
skins. She takes strong exception with such authorities, however, on the
grounds that the physical improvement of humanity ultimately enhances
the worship of God.
With all due respect ..... for those who argue that it is unfortunate for the world
that such things were discovered for the ease and nourishment of the human body,
I would maintain that the more goods, favors, and boons the human creature re-
ceives from God, the better he is required to serve God.48
Living a materially adequate existence is not inconsistent with the divine

plan, but is instead the realization of those capacities and faculties that
God has granted to humanity.
Hence, the condition of the physical body and those works that provide creature
comforts for it are not to be disdained but appreciated and promoted. The im-
provement of agricultural techniques and of diet, for instance, confer upon human
beings more beautiful and radiant bodies and stronger and more flexible limbs, for
this food is more beneficial and useful for humans....... By organizing men to per-
form field labor, this woman [Ceres] made it possible for so many cities and towns
to be populated and for their residents, who perform the other works necessary for
life, to be supplied.49

47. Ibid., 77. 48. Ibid., 82.
49. Ibid., 79.
As in Christines other writings, the Cit des Dames finds nothing con-
temptible in those economic activities that aid in meeting the needs of
the body. To the contrary, God has wished to provide the world with
many necessary and profitable things ..... through these women.50 Cop-
ing with physical necessity is part of the divinely ordained human condi-
tion for Christine, and those who have contributed to the development of
arts which improve material life are deserving only of ovation.
In the writings of Christine de Pizan, then, we encounter a theoreti-
cal framework designed to cope with the meeting of the physical needs of
humanity by means of a complex and diverse social and economic order.
Her attention to the conditions and interests of women as well as the dis-
enfranchised and the poor within her vision of a properly regulated com-
munity stands as a significant contribution to the process by which the
discourse of political economy emerged in Europe. In many ways, her ap-
proach to politics continues to be couched in quite customary terms. But
she alters the context for this conventional advice by setting it within more
intricate social patterns requiring of the ruler a greater range of practical
public management skills than had been envisaged by the typical medi-
eval author. Christine does not wish the prince to surrender the moral and
religious precepts that her predecessors had promoted. She does seem to
think, however, that these qualities are not sufficient to govern effectively
in a society in which material well-being and economic profit legitimately
compete with eternal salvation as goals worthy of recognition and pursuit.
Hence, the effect of Christines work is to challenge the simplicity (and
perhaps naivet) of the worldview so often assumed by medieval thinkers.
Kings will only be able to maintain themselves on the throne, and their
realm in peace, to the extent that they understand fully the needs and in-
terests of the range of subjects over whom they rule. It is thereby a primary
aspect of their governance to be cognizant of the sources of wealth within
their nations and to manage the economic resources of the realm for the
public good.
50. Ibid., 79.
Pa rt V
Modern Receptions of
Medieval Ideas

17
T h e P e r sis t e nc e o f Ec o n o m ic
N at i o na l is m
John Fortescue
n a p r o vo cat iv e and wide-ranging study of The Spirit of

Capitalism, Liah Greenfeld grapples with what she takes to be
the central unanswered question of modern economic history:
Why did the capitalist economy succeed in taking off (in the
economists sense) when and where this occurred, while failing to
do so elsewhere until later (if at all)? She rejects the materialist ar-
guments favored by both liberal and Marxist economic thought,
to the effect that the response to this question must be found in-
ternal to economic processes per se. Following a broadly Weberi-
an line, Greenfeld argues that a fundamental shift in valuesthe
postulation and acceptance of a new set of ethical considerations
and social concerns that invested economic growth with a posi-
tive value and focused naturally diffuse social energies on it1
constituted the indispensable prerequisite for capitalist take off.
The spirit of capitalism, the driving force behind the endorse-
ment and expansion of economic civilization, preceded and
prepared the way for the spread of capitalist practices and rela-
tions. Yet Greenfeld eschews the orthodox Weberian explanation.
She takes it as given that religionespecially of a Calvinist or Pu-
ritan varietydoes not provide the salient historical explanation
1. Liah Greenfeld, The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth
(Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2002), 24.
261
262 m o d e r n r e c e p t i o ns
for the reorientation of values that made capital accumulation a worthy

goal. To that extent, the critics of Weber, such as R. W. Tawney, were cor-
rect.
Greenfeld proposes instead that the dissemination of nationalism (of a
particular sort) yields the reason why Britain achieved its economic mir-
acle in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries while other locales that
seemed to have the same (or even more propitious) material and religious
conditions (the Low Countries in particular) did not embrace economic
growth of their own accord. This is hardly a surprising claim from an au-
thor whose previous book was entitled Nationalism: Five Roads to Moder-
nity.2 Greenfeld builds her case around two main points. First, nationalism
of the British variety, which she terms civic-individualistic, in contrast
with civic-collectivist or ethnic-collectivist,3 represents the foundation
of the moral order of modern society, the source of its values, the frame-
work of its characteristicnationalidentity, and the basis of social inte-
gration in it in terms of a common good that pertains to all the members
of society in equal manner.4 Hence, according to Greenfeld, Anglo nation-
alistic patriotism posits that the individual as the highest social value and
the fundamental moral unit of societythat is, as an independent moral
actoradds dignity to the national identity and, taking much farther the
commitment to egalitarianism that every nationalism preaches, makes its
practice in individualistic nationalism much more consistent than in na-
tionalisms of other types.......5 Stated more succinctly, by promoting indi-
vidualism, the English version of nationalism generated both unprecedent-
ed loyalty and unreserved desire to increase wealth.
Second, Greenfeld maintains that the stunning success of the Brit-
ish economic miraclethe fact that a relatively underdeveloped nation
by the commercial standards of c. 1500 became within a century the epit-
ome of economic growthserved as the stimulus for other countries to
develop nationalistic fervor that generated the formation of the modern
economic civilization on a global scale.6 The reason, simply, is that Brit-
ains accomplishments provoked international competition that sooner or
later coalesced nationalism of a similar sort in other countries. The initial
spark ignited by British nationalism rendered economic competitiveness
2. Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
3. Greenfeld, The Spirit of Capitalism, 2. 4. Ibid., 24.
5. Ibid., 25. 6. Ibid., 24.
j o h n f o r t e sc u e 263
a hallmark of capitalist expansion, on account of the members invest-

ment in the dignity of the nationthat is, its prestigewhich is neces-
sarily assessed in relation to the status of other nations.......7 The aim to
prove themselves as good as or better than the British led governments
and their citizens in modern Europe to develop their own capitalist econo-
mies oriented toward the primary goal of unrestrained growth. Ultimately,
Greenfeld concludes, nationalism was not merely the source of the spirit
of capitalism, it was coextensive with that spirit, the ethical motive force
behind the modern economy of growth.8
Greenfelds thesis, defended over the course of a volume that runs to
more than five hundred pages, has by now been dissected and criticized
from a number of perspectives.9 My aim in the present chapter is not so
much to add to the body of critical literature as to point out a historical
limitation in her argument as presented that maydepending upon how
it is understoodconstitute either a confirmation or a criticism of her
main points. Greenfeld takes the emergence of nationalism in Britain after
1500 to be a radical transformation of social consciousness, nothing less
than a conceptual revolution that is in effect coextensive with modernity
itself.10 Nationalism presupposes an inclusive, sovereign, and in essence
egalitarian community and thus stands in sharp contrast to the hierar-
chical and compartmentalized image of the feudal society of orders in which
nationalism first arose.11 The sort of nation Greenfeld has in minda na-
tion founded on equality and individual interest as the defining character-
istics of the polityseems utterly removed from essentially medieval as-
sumptions about society composed of diverse orders and ranks in which
group or communal identity trumps private advantage. While the latter
7. Ibid., 23.
8. Ibid., 58.
9. The Spirit of Capitalism has been appraised in popular as well as academic venues, in-
cluding these reviewers: Christoper Dyer in History Today 53 (2003): 5758; John A. Hall in
Journal of Economic History 63 (2003): 300302; Dudley Baines in Business History 45 (2003):
135; Carl Strikwerda in American Historical Review 108 (2003): 15960; Robert Skidelsky in New
York Review of Books, 13 March 2003, 2831; Duncan Kelly Political Quarterly 74 (2003): 12327;
Eric Jones in Journal of Economic Literature 40 (2002): 127375; Mark N. Hagopian in Ameri-
can Political Science Review 96 (2002): 8034; and John Gray in Times Literary Supplement,
7 June 2002, 910. The book also received the 2002 Donald Kagan Best Book in European
History Prize.
10. Greenfeld, The Spirit of Capitalism, 31. Interestingly, many elements of this thesis are
also defended, albeit from a quite different perspective, by another recent study: Ellen Meiksins
Wood, The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View, 2nd ed. (London: Verso, 2002), 93121.
11. Greenfeld, The Spirit of Capitalism, 32.
may persevere in collectivist forms of nationalism that lack any inherent

economic content12types of nationalism that she clearly believes to be
incomplete or partialonly modern civic-individualist nationalism takes
economic achievement, competitiveness, and prosperity ..... as positive
or important national values.13 While briefly acknowledging that in the
transition from premodern values (those views, such as traditional Chris-
tian teaching, that inhibit economic growth)14 to modern ones, public
interest may have taken the initial priority over private interest, the two
were ultimately and irresistibly seen to be wedded.15 Nationalism is not
only the spirit of capitalism for Greenfeld, it is the harbinger of modernity
in all its characteristic forms.
Yet nothing Greenfeld (not to mention other scholars who might
broadly assent to her thesis)16 says about the integral connection between
nationalism and economic growthneither about the primacy of eco-
nomic values for political and social order nor about the promotion of
competition through self-conscious assertions of nationalitycomes as
much of a surprise to the student of high and late medieval political and
economic thought. The phrases economic nationalism and economic
humanism were, as discussed in chapter 13, deployed a generation ago by
John McGovern to describe lines of thought that pervaded philosophical,
theological, commercial, and legal writings from 1200 onward.17 More re-
cently, McGoverns terminology has been supported and extended by Di-
ana Wood, who detects a broad shift in attitude, commencing during the
twelfth century already, shaped by both economic nationalism and eco-
nomic humanism, the one advocating the wealth of the State, starting with
that of the ruler, the other the wealth of the individual.18 England pro-
vided a particular fertilealthough by no means distinctiveterritory for
works in this vein. From John of Salisbury and Richard FitzNigel in the
second half of the twelfth century to William of Pagula toward the middle
12. Ibid., 23, 24. 13. Ibid., 23.
14. Ibid., 24. 15. Ibid., 26.
16. Two studies of the early modern period come immediately to mind: Neal Wood, Foun-
dations of Political Economy: Some Early Tudor Views on State and Society (Berkeley and Los An-
geles: University of California Press, 1994); and Andrea Finkelstein, Harmony and the Balance:
An Intellectual History of Seventeenth-Century English Economic Thought (Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, 2000).
Economic Nationalismduring the Later Middle Ages and Renaissance, A.D. 12001550,
Traditio 26 (1970): 22526.
18. Diana Wood, Medieval Economic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002), 117; see 11720.
of the fourteenth century, advice to the king about the management of his
realm for the sake of the economic well-being of all formed a recurrent fea-
ture of political thought.19 Likewise, many early works of vernacular Eng-
lish literature explicitly concentrated on the promotion and diffusion of
economic ideas and commercial motivations: Wynnere and Wastoure (1350s
or 1360s) and the Libelle of Englyshe Polycye (1436/37) are but two of the
better known examples of this genre.20 The civic-individual nationalism
that Greenfeld posits as the hallmark of modernity and the birth of the
capitalist spirit had long been a feature of English discourse.
My purpose here is not to play Werner Sombart to Greenfelds Max
Weber by attempting to push the nationalistic origins of capitalism well
back into the Middle Ages.21 Rather, I want to reexamine a rather more
cherished feature of Greenfelds analytical apparatus, namely, the strict dis-
tinction between collectivist and individualistic approaches to nation-
alism that she believes holds so much of the key to persistent differences in
levels of political and economic development among nations even today.
According to Greenfeld, as we have observed, only the individualistic ver-
sion of nationalism is capable of promoting the convergence of personal
and public economic interest and the competitive spirit of economic in-
ternationalism. In the remainder of this chapter, I will investigate a na-
tionalistic theory, spun out of a series of tracts written in the second half
of the fifteenth century by John Fortescue, that is clearly rooted in a medi-
eval, collectivistic outlook but which promotes economic values (econom-
ic achievement, competitiveness, and prosperity) that comprise Greenfelds
19. See the studies contained in Part IV of the present volume.

20. The texts are to be found in: Wynnere and Wastoure, ed. Stephanie Trigg (London: Ear-
ly English Text Society, 1990) and The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye, ed. George Warner (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1926). For discussions of their leading ideas, see Lois Roney, Win-
ner and Wasters Wyse Wordes: Teaching Economics and Nationalism in Fourteenth-Century
England, Speculum 69 (1994): 10701100; and Roger Ladd, Cheryshe marchandyse: The Li-
belle of Englyshe Polycye and Pro-Mercantilism, paper presented at the International Congress of
Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo Michigan, May 2001. (My thanks to Professor Ladd for sharing
a copy of his paper with me.) On the ethos in which these and similar works were created, see
Tracy Adams, Noble, wyse and grete lordes, gentilmen and mauchauntes: Caxtons Prologues
as Conduct Books for Merchants, Parergon 22 (2005): 5376; Paul Strohm, Politique: Languag-
es of Statecraft between Chaucer and Shakespeare (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
2005), 87169; David Harris Sacks, The Greed of Judas: Avarice, Monopoly, and the Mor-
al Economy in England, ca. 1350ca. 1600, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 28
(1998): 263307; and Arthur B. Ferguson, The Articulate Citizen and the English Renaissance
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1965), 3129.
21. On Sombarts critique of Weber, see McGovern, The Rise of New Economic Atti-
tudes, 21725.
spirit of capitalism. I conclude that, if Greenfeld is right about nation-

alism as the source or concomitant of the capitalist spirit, she must be
incorrect about the necessity of either its modernity or its individualistic
quality.
Fortescue is something of an enigma in the history of Western politi-
cal thought: he has been taken both as a culmination of medieval trends
and as a forerunner of modern developments. He has been crowned the
last great theorist of classical natural law, and also the harbinger of mod-
ern political doctrines such as constitutional government.22 Neal Wood, in
particular, has drawn attention to Fortescue as a forerunner of the eco-
nomic reform movement of the early Tudor period that affords some of
the primary evidence for Greenfelds account of the (early) modernity of
economic nationalism.23 Yet Fortescues central sources and doctrines, not
to mention his methodology, are firmly rooted in the Scholastic discourse
of the preceding two centuries.
In particular, Fortescue appropriated and reconfigured many of con-
cepts and terms developed in De regimine principum, Ptolemy of Luccas
continuatio of the de regno tract commonly attributed to Thomas Aqui-
nas.24 Scholars have devoted considerable attention in recent times to the
relationship between Fortescues writings and his medieval antecedents,25
a topic that I do not intend to address at present. Nor am I interested
22. Among the scholars weighing in on this topic are Max Adams Shepard, The Political
and Constitutional Theory of Sir John Fortescue, in Carl Witke, ed., Essays in History and Po-
litical Theory in Honor of Charles H. McIlwain (New York: Russell & Russell, 1967), 289319;
Franklin Le Van Baumer, The Early Tudor Theory of Kingship (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1940), 412; Donald W. Hanson, From Kingdom to Commonwealth: The Development of
Civic Consciousness in English Political Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1970), 21752; J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1975), 930; and Robert Eccleshall, Order and Reason in Politics: Theories of Absolute and
Limited Monarchy in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 1029.
23. Wood, Foundations of Political Economy, 4469. Similar observations are made by Eber-
hard Isenmann, Medieval and Renaissance Theories of State Finance, in Richard Bonney, ed.,
Economic Systems and State Finance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 4143.
24. On the twisted textual history, see James Blythes very useful introduction to his trans-
lation of Ptolemy of Lucca: On the Government of Rulers (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylva-
nia Press, 1997), 35.
25. Especially noteworthy are S. B. Chrimes, Sir John Fortescue and His Theory of Do-
minium, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th series, 17 (1934): 11747; Felix Gilbert,
Sir John Fortescues Dominium regale et politicum, Medievalia et Humanistica 2 (1944): 88
97; J. H. Burns, Fortescue and the Political Theory of Dominium, Historical Journal 28 (1985):
77797; J. H. Burns, Lordship, Kingship, and Empire: The Idea of Monarchy 14001525 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1992), 5870; and Edwin T. Callahan, The Apotheosis of Power:
Fortescue on the Nature of Kingship, Majestas 3 (1995): 3568.
in his immediate polemic agenda in the midst of the violent and tumul-
tuous conflicts between parties contending for royal supremacy. Rather,
my interest lies in how he employs these sources to articulate a version of
economic nationalism that reaches Greenfelds threshold for collectivism.
In chapter 7, I examined the main elements of Fortescues constitutional
theory as propounded in a series of legal-political treatises composed in
the 1460s and 1470s. Fortescue borrowed his intellectual terminology from
two categories of constitutional regime that Ptolemy had described in De
regimine principum: dominium regale (royal lordship, or the rule of a single
man according to his own will) and dominium politicum (political lord-
ship, namely, a mixed constitution based on consensual law and the shar-
ing of powerin sum, a republic). Fortescues innovation was a proposed
synthesis of these systems into a more satisfactory constitutional order,
which he labeled dominium regale et politicum. This regime for Fortescue
had been fully and adequately realized in the rule of the English monarchy.
And corresponding to the particular characteristics of this system is an idea
of governance distinct from that conceived by Ptolemy (a republican) or
the author (usually still identified as Aquinas) of the earlier portion of De
regimine principum (a monarchist). In turn, we also observed in chapter 7
that the superiority of the hybrid system rested on two factors: first, there
are distinct advantages to the king arising from the political character of
his regime; second, and perhaps most significantly, clear and tangible ben-
efits accrue to those who are governed by a political and royal system. And
these arguments turn him toward a doctrine of economic nationalism.
Fortescues preference for dominium regale et politicum is reflected spe-
cifically in his conception of the proper aim of government. All the pow-
er of a king ought to be applied to the good of his realm, he comments,
which in effect consists in the defense of it against invasions by foreigners,
and of the protection of the inhabitants of the realm and their goods from
injuries and rapine by the native population. Therefore, a king who can-
not achieve these things is necessarily to be judged powerless.26 Like John
Locke two centuries later, Fortescue upholds the central (perhaps sole) re-
sponsibility of government to be the protection of the life, liberty, and es-
tate of the inhabitants.27 (It is hardly surprising, in fact, that Locke in the
26. Sir John Fortescue, On the Laws and Governance of England, ed. Shelley Lockwood
27. A fact not missed by some of Fortescues commentators; see Shepard, The Political
and Constitutional Theory of Sir John Fortescue, 3024.
Second Treatise explicitly cites Fortescue as an antecedent authority on the

nature of government.)28 Fortescue consequently believes that those who
submit to dominium regale et politicum enjoy far greater benefit than the
subject of merely royal government for reasons that are strictly instrumen-
tal. The civic dimension of communal life is useful inasmuch as it con-
tributes to the ability of individuals to administer, consume, and augment
their personal possessions as they choose without interference from neigh-
bors, foreigners, or magistrates.29 The kings main goals should be avoid-
ance of poverty and lack of goods, and instead promotion of riches and
property, so that his kingdom is the mightiest and most wealthy realm of
the world.30 Fortescue resists assigning spiritual and moral goals to gov-
ernment, turning rather to material satisfaction (whether fear of its loss or
desire of its increase) as the primary factor motivating a populace to ac-
knowledge political authority. And so the greater the likelihood that sub-
jects will be free to take full advantage of their bodies and properties, the
better by definition that government will be.
The theme of reciprocity between regime type and the physical wel-
fare of the people runs throughout both of Fortecues major writings, De
laudibus legum Anglie and The Governance of England. In the latter work,
Fortescue explicitly assesses the relative fruits of royal, as contrasted with
royal and political, government by comparing the circumstances of France
with those of England. The French kings royal regime, which taxes sub-
jects arbitrarily and heavily, is held directly to blame for the immiseration
of the populace. The French commons are so impoverished and destroyed
that they can barely live, since the harshness of the kings exactions en-
sures that they live in the most extreme poverty and misery, and yet they
dwell in one of the most fertile realms of the world.31 Fortescue provides a
very detailed depiction of this povertydescribing the diet, clothing, and
working conditions of the French nation32and lays the blame squarely
on the royal system of rule through which France is governed.33 And just
28. John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge
29. For Fortescues concomitant quasi-Lockean individualism in respect to the acquisition
of property, see Edwin T. Callahan, Blood, Sweat, and Wealth: Fortescues Theory of the Ori-
gin of Property, History of Political Thought 17 (1996): 2135.
30. Fortescue, On the Laws and Governance of England, 138; these phrases derive from an
alternate version of chapter 16 of On the Governance of England that Lockwood includes as an
appendix.
31. Ibid., 88, 89. 32. Ibid., 89.
33. Ibid., 9092.
as the purely royal king causes such poverty, so he must constantly be on

his guard, lest his subjects muster the courage to rise up and oppose him,
contributing to the general instability of the realm.34
The contrast with England, and its mixed royal and political system,
is striking. According to Fortescue, This land is ruled under a better law;
and therefore the people are not in such penury, nor thereby hurt in their
persons, but they are wealthy and have all things necessary to the suste-
nance of nature. Wherefore, they are mighty and able to resist the adver-
saries of this realm....... Lo, this is the fruit of political and royal law, un-
der which we live.35 The major reason for this, says Fortescue, is that the
English king is restrained in his ability to lay claim to the goods of sub-
jects, should he ever desire to do so. The Governance of England recounts
in great detail the structure of fiscal administration that bridles the king.36
On the one hand, the English king is assured a sufficient income to per-
form the tasks appropriate to his office, so that he will not be tempted to
pursue illegal sources of income. But, on the other hand, the prerequisite
of parliamentary approval conjoined with the independent authority of
royal counselors and magistrates together form a check upon and barrier
to the whims to which a king who reigns royally might easily succumb.
Consequently, the royal and political ruler takes it as integral to his of-
fice not to drain income away from his subjects into his own coffers, but
to enact policies that enhance the wealth of the entire nation. It is the
kings honor, Fortescue remarks, and also his duty, to make his realm
rich; and it is a dishonor when he has but a poor realm. Yet it would be
a much greater dishonor, if he found his realm rich, and then made it
poor.37 In turn, the wealth of subjects that arises from royal and political
rule acts as an assurance of public order. Inhabitants who enjoy material
well-being are, in Fortescues estimation, more willing and able to fight for
their realm; they are less likely to engage in rebellious and seditious activi-
ties; and they possess the resources, not to mention the good-will, to subsi-
dize the government in times of particular need. Fortescues view, in short,
seems to be that the public bearing of the governed is strictly determined
by the measurable impact of government upon private benefit: if the peo-
ple are contented with their physical lot, they will gladly subject them-
selves to the king and will perform their roles; but if their ruler adopts
policies that impoverish them, they will express their displeasure directly
34. Ibid., 88, 11011. 35. Ibid., 90.

36. Ibid., 92108, 11220. 37. Ibid., 109.
and violently. The greatest safety, truly, and also the most honor that may
come to the king is that his realm should be rich in every estate, Fortescue
observes.38 A more succinct statement of the principle of economic na-
tionalism would be difficult to locate.
The physical benefits accruing to those who submit to dominium regale
et politicum are also underscored by Fortescue in De laudibus legum Anglie.
He directs our attention to the results of only royal government, such as
that with which the king of France rules his subjects; then [he counsels us]
to examine the practical effect of the royal and political government, such
as that with which the king of England rules over his subject people.39 In
French territories, despite the fact that they are naturally rich, the privi-
leges of the king despoil the people of their goods. On royal authority,
knights are billeted and fed without charge (or at least below market val-
ue) wherever they go in the realm; monopolies over essential commodi-
ties such as salt and wine compel the populace to pay extortionate prices;
and the Crown demands arbitrary and constant payments in the form of
monetary taxes and assessments in kind and in person. Exasperated by
these and other calamities, Fortescue concludes, the people live in no
little misery. He then describes the very stark poverty that the subjects
of the French king (or at any rate, the vast mass of the populace) endure,
echoing the depiction presented in The Governance of England.40 The royal
character of French government, by permitting the king to impoverish the
inhabitants of his lands with impunity, directly causes the material suffer-
ing of subjects.
By contrast, the English king, who rules royally and politically, does
not enjoy the privilege of purveyance, nor the right of monopoly, nor the
power to levy taxes arbitrarily.41 Thus, the English harvest the fruits of the
earth in all their abundance, without fear of confiscation. Because it is by
their own consent that subjects of a royal and political king are ruled, they
cannot be involuntarily denied their goods and abused in their persons.
On Fortescues account, the immediate result of such government renders
England a sort of Garden of Paradise.42 Who could fail to prefer a form
of government that defends and protects the populace and its property to
a system whose ruler is so overcome by his own passions or by such pov-
erty that he cannot keep his hands from despoiling his subjects, so that he
38. Ibid., 110. 39. Ibid., 49.

40. Ibid., 4951. 41. Ibid., 52.
42. Ibid., 5253.
impoverishes them, and does not allow them to live and be supported by
his own goods?43 As in The Governance of England, the presumed criteria
employed here by Fortescue to judge the impact of regime type on citizens
are not fundamentally civil, moral, or religious, but instead economic and
physical. Individuals are satisfied to leave the conduct of the daily affairs
of government to the king and his ministers, so long as their material well-
being is not imperiled. In turn, as private persons, they are encouraged (in-
deed, expected) to contribute to the public good by seeking their personal
advantage in economic activity. Thus, a nation that possesses large num-
bers of merchants engaging in commerce is one, Fortescue insists, that has
been truly blessed by God.44
All of the evidence thus far presented might seem to confirm Green-
felds analysis of nationalism as a force for jump-starting capitalism in
England. Fortescue appears as simply an early voice of the new social con-
sciousness that would take off in the sixteenth century and beyond. Yet
Greenfelds account requires not nationalism per se, but a particular sort of
nationalismcivic-individualist nationalismto form the spirit of capi-
talism. And Fortescue, for all of his apparent attention to the centrality
of economic life, does not meet the criteria for civic individualism; he re-
mains, at heart, a civic collectivist. This is seen especially in the social theo-
ry underlying his account of nationalism, which reaches back to the quint-
essentially medieval conception of the communal order as a body politic,
an organic totality greater than the sum of its parts. Fortescues self-con-
scious perpetuation of organic imagery marks him as firmly within the in-
tellectual terrain of the Latin Middle Ages.
Although Fortescue makes reference to the body politic throughout his
political writings, it is in De laudibus legum Anglie that we find the most
thorough exposition of the analogy. Chapter 13 of that treatise addresses
the question of how the political regime originated, arguing that gov-
ernment of this sort must have a voluntary basis. Citing Augustine and
Aristotle,45 Fortescue asserts that a kingdom ruled politically emerges
when a people, sharing a community of interest and law, appoints a head.
A people does not deserve to be called a body when it is acephalous, that is, with-
out a head. Because, just as in natural things, what is left over after decapitation is
not a body, but what we call a trunk, so in political affairs, a community without
43. Ibid., 53. 44. Ibid., 75.

45. Although his direct source seems to be Ptolemy of Lucca; see James M. Blythe, Aristo-
tles Politics and Ptolemy of Lucca, Vivarium 40 (2002): 12631.
a head is not by any means a body....... So a people that wills to erect itself into
a kingdom or any other body politic must always set up one man for the govern-
ment of all that body....... Just as in this way the physical body grows out of the
embryo, regulated by one head, so the kingdom issues from the people, and exists
as a mystical body, governed by one man as head.46
In many ways, Fortescues position constitutes a straightforward restate-

ment of a quite hierarchical version of the organic metaphor. He clearly
lacks any sympathy for republican or popular conceptions of self-governing
political institutions. Any political body worthy of the name must be ruled
from above; this is what nature teaches. Moreover, the reference to the com-
munity as a mystical body certainly echoes the theological language that
other theorists had left aside in favor of thoroughgoing naturalism. Even
the claim that the head arises from a public act of the people does not entail
populist conclusions inasmuch as it does not require accountability or con-
stitutional limitation of power.
As I demonstrated in Chapter 7 above, however, De Laudibus legum
Anglie does not leave the people entirely passive in relation to the king.
Rather, Fortescue argues that it is the people, not the ruler, who keep the
body politic alive and active.
And just as in the natural body, as the Philosopher said, the heart is the first liv-
ing thing, having in itself the blood that it sends forth to all the members, where-
by they are quickened and live, the will [intencio] of the people is the first living
thing, having in it the blood, namely, political provision for the interest of the
people, which it transmits to the head and all the members of the body, by which
the body is nourished and quickened.47
The head is not the supreme or final authority in the life of the body poli-
tic, for the kings will extends only to what has been approved by the peo-
ple for their interests. The head does not give direction autonomously, but
according to the principle of the public welfare from which he originates
and to which he remains permanently responsible. Indeed, this is what dif-
ferentiates a political regime from a purely royal onethe latter is ar-
bitrary and governs without necessary reference to the common good.48
Just as the body cannot exist without the head to coordinate and organize
its activities, so neither the head nor any other member can survive with-

47. Ibid., 2021 48. Ibid., 1920.
out the continuous functioning of the heart, which establishes the com-
mon purposes that define the community. The equilibrium of the body
politic derives from the operation of the heart in the circulation of blood.
This is a somewhat different way of describing the source of reciprocal eq-
uity within the political organism than we have previously encountered,
but it evokes the fundamental idea that public order is not identical to
simple subordination and rule.
Nor does this complete Fortescues employment of physiological im-
ages to describe the political community. Recall that what distinguishes
a political regime, according to him, is its foundation in law. Following
Augustine, Fortescue holds that the wellspring of a peopleeven before
they authorize a headis their agreement about shared legal principles.
Thus, as one might expect of an author trained not only just in Scholastic
philosophy but also in English common law, a central place must be made
in the body for legal statute. Law becomes the muscular structure of the
realm:
The law, indeed, by which a group of men is made into a people, resembles the
sinews of the physical body, for just as the body is held together by the sinews, so
this body mystical is bound together and preserved as one by the law, ..... and the
members and bones of this body, which signify the solid basis of truth by which
the community is sustained, preserve their rights through the law, as the natural
body does through the sinews.49
The heart, as the popular will, may pump the blood through the limbs and
organs. But what permits the body to act in concertto move itself for-
wardis the unity generated by the law. Without the system of muscles,
the body would remain limp and inert. In turn, because the law reflects an
agreement among the members of the body before the selection of a royal
head, the king lacks the authority to make any modifications of the law.
And just as the head of the physical body is unable to change its sinews, or to deny
its members proper strength and due nourishment of blood, so a king who is head
of the body politic is unable to change the laws of that body, or to deprive that
same people of their own substance uninvited or against their wills.50
The organic metaphor thus functions also in Fortescues account as a way of

stipulating the constitutional limits of political power. Just as the head can-
not change the physiology of the bodyto do so would be self-destructive
49. Ibid., 21. 50. Ibid., 21.
as well as dangerous to the other membersso the king is prohibited from

altering the legal conditions under which he rules. The physical constitution
of the body becomes a direct model for the legal constitution of the polity.
It should not escape our attention that the physiological analogy at the
core of Fortescues civic-collectivism is explicitly economic in nature. He
recognizes that a direct consequence of the organic community is the de-
fense of the material interests, including property, of all of its members. As
noted in chapter 7 above, the royal head firmly bound by the legal mus-
cle of the body is set up for the protection of the laws, the subjects, and
their bodies and goods, and he has power to this end from the people.51
A properly arranged body politic is one in which subjects can enjoy their
own lives and property securely. Fortescue states clearly that people are
motivated by the desire to possess safer than before both themselves and
their own, which they feared to lose. But such a goal would be thwarted
if a king were able to deprive them of their means, which was not permit-
ted before to anyone among men.52 Fortescue indeed sometimes moves
beyond merely or simply the level of analogy to a more direct correspon-
dence of bodies: the political organism is not merely like a natural creature,
it is immediately productive of the natural well-being of the human bodies
that form its membership.53 Thus, a sort of physiological microcosm and
macrocosm may be detected in Fortescues use of the metaphor.
This organicism does not fit comfortably within the specific nationalis-
tic framework that Greenfeld holds to stand behind Englands economic
miracle. There is no particular presumption of individual rights and cer-
tainly no sense that pursuit of perceived interest can occur or be justified
outside the regulation of the legal sinews of the body. What Fortescue de-
picts, in other words, is something far closer to the East Asian communi-
tarian capitalist model than what Greenfeld ascribes to sixteenth-centu-
ry England. And yet, given the attributes that she believes are necessary
for capitalist takeoff, namely, a social emphasis on economic achieve-
ment, competitiveness, and prosperity, there is no reason to suppose that
Fortescues civic-collectivism would be less effective at stimulating capital
accumulation than civic-individualism. The ethos of organic holism pro-
pounded by Fortescue, and grounded in the predecessor culture of the Eu-
ropean Middle Ages, shows itself equally suited to attain the kind of na-
51. Ibid., 2122. 52. Ibid., 23.

53. Fortescues somewhat obsessive use of organic language is noted by both Burns, Lord-
ship, Kingship, and Empire, 6770, and Callahan, Blood, Sweat, and Wealth, 2630.
tionalistic fervor that Greenfeld holds to be essential to the capitalist spirit.

In line with Fortescue, people will view economic goals as worthy of pur-
suit for the sake of king and country instead of private advantage. This
does not mean that individualism is incompatible with capitalism, at least
in its early phase, simply that concentration on the individual is not re-
quired or entailed. That conclusion, however, undermines the entire ratio-
nale for Greenfelds distinction between individualist and collectivist ver-
sions of nationalism.
There is a broader historiographical issue concerning the modernity
of capitalism at stake as well in this discovery of a capitalist spirit inher-
ing within civic-collectivist nationalism. If Greenfelds general point about
nationalism is sustained, then there is nothing necessarily or particularly
modern about capitalism; the capitalist spirit as she conceives it could,
and perhaps in some ways did, flourish during the Latin Middle Ages. And
if so, why did no full-blown capitalist practice emerge until later times?
Two answers suggest themselves. On the one hand, the transformation of
the cognitive and moral organization of reality, in sum, of social con-
sciousness, that Greenfeld posits as the precursor of capitalism as a mate-
rial way of life simply took far longer than she imagines and can be traced
to the cultural and intellectual developments that characterized the rise of
legal, Scholastic, and political doctrines in medieval Europe. This would
certainly be in line with what we are coming to realize generally about the
nature of economic reflectionincluding what I have previously termed
policy or early political economyfrom 1100 onward. Such a conclu-
sion would also be in line with the emerging tendency, among intellectual
historians at any rate, to identify far more consistency between medieval
and early modern Europe than earlier generations supposed. Alternatively,
we might conclude that Greenfeld is simply wrong, in the sense that na-
tionalism was not in fact the salient stimulus to capitalism, since values she
holds to be the requisite ones for the creation of capitalist enterprise were
entirely consonant with and acceptable within a noncapitalist worldview. I
leave it to the reader to decide which conclusion to endorse.
Regardless of ones choice, however, one must take issue with the pre-
sumptionand it is only ever an unstated premise in Greenfelds work
that a bright line exists between the intellectual terrain of modernity and
that of the medieval era. Time and again, this modernist prejudice has
been proven grossly inaccurate or just plain mistaken, yet scholars con-
tinually return to the same well of historical ignorance. One cannot help
concluding that this arises from an invidious stereotype among historians
of modernity that caricatures the European Middle Ages as rigidly and

monolithically dedicated to a narrow set of principles and ideals rooted in
Roman Christianity. Indeed, this perception has sometimes been inadver-
tently encouraged by medievalists themselves, whose occasionally infelici-
tous choice of terminology (think of R. I. Moores persecuting society)
lends itself readily to popularization that conforms to and reinforces exist-
ing preconceptions. The myth of the unified and authoritarian Respub-
lica Christiana plays as well into the hands of modern secularists and skep-
tics as once it did into the haughty self-image of popes and potentates.
Medievalists and scholars attuned to the Middle Ages know better.
18
V i r t , F o r e si g h t , an d G r ac e
Machiavellis Medieval Moments
f e w t o pics c o nc e r nin g the political thought of Nic-

col Machiavelli inspire more controversy and contention
than his attitude toward religion, in particular, Christian-
ity.1 To be sure, Machiavelli was no friend of the institutional-
ized Christian Church as he knew it. His examination of repub-
lican political theory, the Discourses on the Ten Books of Titus Livy,
makes clear that conventional Christianity saps from human be-
1. See Delio Cantimori, Machiavelli e la religione, Belfagor 21 (1966): 62938;
Bruno Di Porto, Il problema religioso in Machiavelli, in Le religione in Machia-
velli, Guiccardini e Pascoli (Rome: Idea, 1968), 550; Mario Tenenti, Le religione di
Machiavelli, Studi storici 10 (1969): 70948; Giuseppe Prezzolini, The Christian
Roots of Machiavellis Moral Pessimism, Review of National Literatures 1 (1970):
2637; Giuseppe Prezzolini, Cristo e/o Machiavelli (Milan: Rusconi, 1971); Clifford
Orwin, Machiavellis Unchristian Charity, American Political Science Review 72
(1978): 121728; J. Samuel Preus, Machiavellis Functional Analysis of Religion:
Context and Object, Journal of the History of Ideas 40 (1979): 17190; Sebastian
de Grazia, Machiavellis Biblical Accuracy, Renaissance and Reformation17 (1981):
14145; Paul Norton, Machiavellis Road to Paradise, History of Political Thought 4
(1983): 3142 ; Timothy J. Lukes, To Bamboozle with Goodness: The Political Ad-
vantages of Christianity in the Thought of Machiavelli, Renaissance and Reforma-
tion 8 (1984): 26677; Vickie B. Sullivan, Neither Christian nor Pagan: Machia-
vellis Treatment of Religion in the Discourses, Polity 26 (1993): 25980; Vickie B.
Sullivan, Machiavellis Three Romes: Religion, Human Liberty and Politics Reformed
(DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996); essays by Benedetto Fontana,
John Najemy, Marcia Colish, and Cary Nederman in a special issue of Journal of
the History of Ideas 60 (OctoberDecember 1999) devoted to Machiavelli and Reli-
gion; and Marjorie ORourke Boyle, Machiavelli and the Politics of Grace, MLN
119 Supplement (2004): S224S246.
277
ings the vigor required for active civil life.2 And his notorious little book
the Prince speaks with equal parts disdain and admiration about the cor-
rupt and worldly condition of the Roman Church and its papal head.3
Scholars have taken such evidence to indicate that Machiavelli was himself
profoundly anti-Christian, preferring the pagan civil religions of ancient
societies such as Rome, which he regarded to be more suitable for a city
endowed with virt.4 At best, Machiavelli has been described as a man of
conventional, if unenthusiastic, piety, prepared to bow to the externalities
of worship but not deeply devoted in either soul or mind to the tenets of
Christian faith.5
The main dissenting voice of note has been Sabastian de Grazia, whose
Pulitzer Prizewinning intellectual biography Machiavelli in Hell attempt-
ed to rescue Machiavellis reputation from those who view him as deeply
hostile to Christianity.6 De Grazia argued that not only do central biblical
themes run throughout Machiavellis writings, but that these works reveal
a coherent conception of a divinely centered and ordered cosmos in which
other forces (the heavens, fortune, and the like) are subsumed under a
divine will and plan. Machiavelli in Hell points to evidence from through-
out the Machiavellian corpus supporting an idea of divine ordination of
earthly events, especially in the case of the accomplishments of extraordi-
nary individuals. For de Grazias Machiavelli, success in human affairs de-
pends primarily upon the friendship of God.
If de Grazias basic observation is well grounded, why have Machia-
vellis religious ideas been so widely overlooked (or indeed dismissed) by
recent scholars? To explain this, we have to take into account Machiavel-
lis own exaggerated statements regarding the originality of his teachings,
2. Niccol Machiavelli, The Chief Works and Others, ed. Alan Gilbert (Durham: Duke
University Press, 1965), 22829, 33031. I have occasionally altered Gilberts translation when
I felt that it strayed too far from Machiavellis clear meaning; when I have disagreed with Gil-
bert, my alteration has been based on my consultation of Machiavelli, Tutte le opere, ed. Mario
Martelli (Florence: Sansoni, 1971).
3. Machiavelli, Chief Works, 29, 4446, 65, 9192.
4. See Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1958), 196232; Mark
Hulliung, Citizen Machiavelli (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 20318, 23854.
5. Dante Germino, Second Thoughts on Strausss Machiavelli, Journal of Politics 28
(1966): 37284; J. G. A. Pocock, Prophet and Inquisitor, Political Theory 3 (1975): 385401.
6. Sebastian de Grazia, Machiavelli in Hell (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989),
3087, 37684. Note, however, that de Grazia realizes that Machiavellis Christian sentiments
did not extend to the ecclesiastical persons and institutions of his day: Niccol cannot be
found to speak irreverently of God. The same cannot be said for his writings about the church
and churchmen (87; cf. 88121).
m ac h iav e l l i s m e d i e va l m o m e n t s 279
as well as his already mentioned antipathy toward the institutions and of-
ficials of the Roman Church. Just as significant, perhaps, has been the
tendency of scholars to suppose the devout Christianity of Machiavellis
day to be just likeor at least very similar toours, and thus to judge
him by modern (post-Reformation, post-Enlightenment) standards. As I
argue in the present chapter, however, tenets of Machiavellis belief sys-
temsuch as his conflation of the revelation of a divine plan with vari-
ous stellar movements and mundane omens and portentsthat have been
deemed irreligious or pagan were in fact not merely acceptable but intel-
lectually respectable to mainstream Christian thinkers of his time. Machia-
vellis adherence to the study of the occult sciences as the necessary means
to overcome the uninspired subjection of men to fortune (Fortuna) indeed
reflected a long-standing and well-established view of medieval doctrine,
as I intend to demonstrate. Occult knowledge, in other words, represented
for many medieval and Renaissance authors a bridge through which a few
wise men might establish an understanding of the inner workings of the
divine plan.
Machiavellis adaptation of this essentially Christian worldview com-
ports well, in particular, with his recognition that the most salient qual-
ity that a ruler could possess was foresight. In his Prince as well as in many
other works, Machiavelli argued that all governments were subject to the
fluctuations of Fortuna, which were largely inscrutible to the ordinary
person, who relied mainly on chance and habit to guide his own actions.
By contrast, the ideal Machiavellian politician, possessed of the proper-
ty termed virt (variously translated as skill, strength, prowess), is able to
dominate fortune by foretelling future events: All wise rulers ought .....
not only to pay attention to immediate crises, but to foresee those that will
come, and to make every effort to prevent them. For if you see them com-
ing well in advance, then you can easily take the appropriate action to rem-
edy them ....... In essence, once the cause of the crisis has occurred, it is
too late to prevent events from unfolding. In politics, Machiavelli holds,
if you foresee problems while they are far off (which only a prudent man
is able to do) they can easily be dealt with; but when, because you have
failed to see them coming, you allow them to grow to the point where any-
one can recognize them, then it is too late to do anything.7 Despite Alas-
dair Macintyres claim that Machiavellian Fortuna is insusceptible to the
sort of reduction to rigorous nomological explanation that typifies modern
7. Machiavelli, Chief Works, 1617.
social science,8 Machiavelli evidently believed that the politically attuned

individual could indeed draw sufficient conclusions about future events
through careful study that he might control his own destiny.
In part, Machiavelli thought that this capacity to predict and thus to
dominate the future could be refined through the study of history and the
imitation of the great rulers of the past. He is skeptical, however, that such
a method will assure success: ..... you cannot walk exactly in the footsteps
of those who have gone before, nor is it easy to match the skill [virt] of
those you have chosen to imitate.9 The reason, presumably, is that For-
tuna is too fickle and unstable to assure that the circumstances in which
some previous historical figure succeeded will be identical to those faced
by his imitators. Hence, it will always be unreliable to use the past as a
pointer to the future, unless one can be absolutely sure that the situation
one confronts in the present is precisely the same as that which some great
leader dealt with before. And Machiavelli imagines that such knowledge of
identical circumstance largely eludes human grasp.
Since history and experience are inadequate for human beings to
achieve systematic predictive knowledge such that they may control their
futures, then, Machiavelli endorses an alternate, occult path to such fore-
sight: the magical arts, and especially astrology. As Anthony Parel has ex-
haustively documented, Machiavellis writings are littered with references
to the motions of the heavens, fate, the humors, and much of the relat-
ed language associated with the pursuit and application of occult knowl-
edge. Parel contends that the appeal to extraterrestrial forces is not win-
dow dressing or rhetorical flourish in Machiavellis thought; it demands
to be taken with the utmost seriousness.10 Parel asserts that Machiavelli
appears to accept the contemporary position of astrological natural philos-
ophy that the heavens are the general cause of all the particular motions
human, elemental, and naturaloccurring in the sublunar world.11 Thus,
Machiavellian Fortuna amounts to a shorthand expression for all of the oc-
cult effects that govern the lives of human beings without their knowl-
edge.12 And Machiavellian virt involves the ability to employ knowledge
8. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd ed. (London: Duck-
worth, 1984), 88108.
10. Although see the attempted reply by Mikael Hrnqvist, Machiavelli and Empire (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 22863, that Machiavellis orientation is radically
sublunar and thus temporal.
11. Anthony Parel, The Machiavellian Cosmos (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 7.
12. Ibid., 6385.
of the hidden realm of existence (through divination, astrological charts,

phrenology, etc.) in order to predict and control its effects so as to sustain
stable governance (whether of principalities or republics).13 Astrology and
related arts constitute, then, the quintessential elements of Machiavellian
political science.14
Parel concludes from this, however, that Machiavelli overthrew Chris-
tian beliefs about Providence and free will in favor of the more (if not en-
tirely) deterministic cosmology of the ancients, endorsing a fully pagan
vision of the operations of the planets upon human nature that he encoun-
tered in some of the scientific literature of his era. What Machiavelli re-
ally wants to do, Parel declares, is to attack Christianity on the basis of
the principles of sixteenth-century astrological historiography.......15 In
support of this view, Parel posits an unbridgeable chasm between religious
opposition to astrology (manifested by medieval thinkers such as John of
Salisbury in the Policraticus and Nicole Oresme in Livre de divinations, as
well as numerous Renaissance Christian humanists) and the neo-Ptolemaic
naturalism found in a large body of Renaissance natural science.16 By con-
trast, I maintain that Machiavellis conception of religion in general is more
conventionally Christian and less incompatible with the views of orthodox
religion than Parel and many others have given credit. As a direct corollary,
I contend that Machiavellis occult attachments represent not a rejection of
Christianity, as Parels argument presumes, but an affirmation of an astro-
logical understanding that formed part of accepted Christian cosmology
and natural philosophy.
Even Parel acknowledges that during Machiavellis time Giovanni Pon-
tano attempted to offer a compromise position that denied any in-
compatibility between the Christian foes of astrology and its naturalis-
tic friends.17 Parel does not seem to realize, however, that Pontano was
merely reiterating a claim that stood at the core of a large body of quite
conventional writing with which Machiavelli may have been familiar. This
literature includes the advice books to princes indebted to the pseudo-
Aristotelian Arabic treatise the Secreta (or secretum) secretorum and the
many Latin and vernacular translations of that tract, as well as various
13. Ibid., 86100.

14. Parel admits that many other leading scholars of Machiavelli and the Renaissance, in-
cluding Eugenio Garin and Hans Baron, also noted the importance of astrology in his works;
cf. ibid., 46.
15. Ibid., 61. 16. Ibid., 1125.
17. Ibid., 2425.
Scholastic defenses of astrology and related forms of knowledge that were

disseminated throughout Europe between the thirteenth and the fifteenth
centuries. By the time Machiavelli set pen to parchment to compose his
major and minor writings in the early sixteenth century, there would have
been nothing especially irreligious about maintaining that the key to po-
litical success was a complete and careful knowledge of the occult sciences
that afforded foresight into the future and the consequent ability to con-
trol events before they happened. Mainstream Christian thought had long
before Machiavellis lifetime embraced astrology and its associated arts as
a valid and fruitful methodology for confronting and staving off politi-
cal adversity. In turn, Machiavelli reproduces the central features of the
theological and political underpinnings that supported the Christian en-
dorsement of magical techniques. The foretelling of events on the basis
of the stars was consonant with free will; insight into the occult promised
to open a path to political success in the management of temporal affairs;
and the ability of human beings to attain the secret knowledge of the
meaning of extraterrestrial events itself depended upon Gods grant of un-
derstanding in the form of grace. Machiavellis writings share all of these
themes with medieval Latin forebears.
In support of this claim, we must initially turn to the question of the
status of the occult sciences in the centuries immediately preceding Ma-
chiavelli. Despite Parels assertions about the poor reputation of astrology
during the Latin Middle Ages, there were plenty of orthodox and conven-
tionally Christian authors for whom the study of the stars in their relation
to earthly events was uncontroversial. Valerie Flint explains the acceptance
of astrological investigation on the basis of both its authorization by ir-
reproachable orthodox sources (such as Isidore of Seville and the Venera-
ble Bede) and its observable practicality in matters such as agriculture and
medicine.18 At the very minimum, medieval thinkers maintained that the
foresight produced by astrological knowledge readied one for the inevita-
ble: The wise man ruled the stars and foreknowledge of events eased their
impact and enabled men to prepare for disaster.19 But there was certainly
a proactive element implicit in many forms of astrologically derived pre-
diction. General or mundane astrology, which dealt with broad patterns in
18. Valerie Flint, The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1991), 12846. A useful set of sources has been compiled by P. G. Maxwell-Stuart, ed.,
The Occult in Medieval Europe, 5001500: A Documentary History (New York: Palgrave, 2005).
19. Sophie Page, Astrology in Medieval Manuscripts (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2002), 31.
the natural and human worlds (including weather and the transformations
of nations), might be employed to make decisions about when it was most
propitious to enter into warfare or to sue for peace, as well as which plants
or minerals afforded useful effects. Judicial astrology, dealing with particu-
lar human affairs such as personal character, certainly lent itself to determi-
nations of when to undertake specific plans of action, whom to trust, and
how to treat ones friends and enemies.20 Mastery of astrological knowl-
edge thus afforded a political tool of potentially incomparable value.
An especially clear instance of the dissemination of the political di-
mensions of astrology is afforded by the widely circulated Secreta secreto-
rum, which entered the West via Philip of Tripolis Latin translation. In all
essentials, the Arabic version of the Secreta secretorum that Philip rendered
into Latin after 1230 was the text known and disseminated throughout the
Westincluding its considerable advice about the political uses of occult
knowledge. Indeed, Sophie Page regards the Latin version of the Secreta se-
cretorum to be a vital source for the diffusion of astrological teachings dur-
ing the High and Late Middle Ages.21 The prologue to the Secreta secreto-
rum reports that the keys to successful rule demand both extrinsic and
intrinsic forms of knowledge.22 The former comprises the moral prin-
ciples known to all (such as liberality and justice) by which governance
ought to proceed; the latter involves the secrets of the ancient philoso-
phers and just counselors whom glorious God has chosen and endowed
with His knowledge [scientia].23 In other words, occult knowledge is un-
derstood by the author to be a divinely granted gift that is open to a few
who have been judged wise and worthy. Here, as throughout the treatise,
God is seen to be the source of those qualities necessary for successful rule
and no king will prosper without religion.24 In turn, the author (purport-
edly Aristotle) promises to convey to his royal reader (Alexander the Great)
all of the intrinsic knowledge that he himself has received from his in-
sight into divine wisdom, in order to assure a fruitful and stable reign.
A central feature of intrinsic knowledge is acquaintance with the ex-
traterrestrial forces that guide the universe under the general plan laid by
20. Ibid., 2631. 21. Ibid., 3740.

22. Secreta secretorum cum glossis et nolutis, ed. Robert Steele in Opera hactenus inedita
Rogeri Baconi, fasc. V (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1920), 14142. All translations from Latin
are mine. This edition also contains an English translation by A. S. Fulton of the Arabic text,
which differs in important respects from Philip of Tripolis Latin version.
23. Ibid., 42.
24. E.g., ibid., 4748, 5457, 12325.
divine creation by means of astrological inquiry. Aristotle declares to Al-

exander that if you can do it, neither stand nor sit nor eat nor drink nor
do anything else without the counsel of men expert in the art of astrolo-
gy. You know for certain that glorious God does nothing in vain or useless
in nature, but everything that happens occurs for a cause and a most cer-
tain reason.25 In other words, astrology is an inspired means of improving
ones understanding of Gods plan, not an irreligious spurning of divine
providence. Purity of soul is a prerequisite for openness to knowledge of
the divinely ordained scheme: the truth of prophesy or divination depends
on a mind and vision open to inspiration.26 Thus, Aristotle cautions Alex-
ander against those who say that knowledge of the planets is so difficult
to learn that no one can attain it, as well as against others no less fool-
ish who assert that since God foresees and preordains everything from
eternity, ..... one may not act on foreknowledge of future events which
ought to occur necessarily. Why therefore should one wish knowledge of
the stars?27 The Secreta secretorum directly confronts the challenge posed
by skeptics as well as theologians to the nature of astrological knowledge.
The gist of the response is not to deny directly the inevitability of fu-
ture events, but to cast astrology commonsensically as yet another weapon
of preparation and protection. Surely there is nothing religiously danger-
ous or dishonorable about making accommodation for the change of sea-
sonslaying up appropriate supplies in expectation of the cold of winter
or the heat of summeror indeed for laying away stores of food when
famine or other natural disasters threaten. Likewise, astrology simply deep-
ens our knowledge of natural patterns so that we are readied to react: If
[events] may be pre-known, they may be tolerated more readily, avoided
more prudently, and in a certain measure evaded, because, should future
events be in my notice and foresight, when they occur they will be received
with care and discernment, and endured without molestation and without
great disturbance.28 At the very least, the Secreta secretorum points out, we
may pray to and exhort God in His mercy to intervene by miraculous ac-
tion to avert whatever the stars may have in store for us. Thus, astrology
may even serve as a stimulus to repentance and religiosity.29
It may seem that this represents a fairly weak and passive attitude to-
ward the ability of human beings to employ occult science in order to con-
25. Ibid., 60. 26. Ibid., 164.

27. Ibid., 61. 28. Ibid., 61.
29. Ibid., 6162.
trol events. After all, prayer and patient acceptance are no substitute for
outright avoidance. Yet the language of the Secreta secretorum also suggests
that individuals may put astrological knowledge to use in order to escape
what might otherwise be their fate. When the Secreta secretorum advises Al-
exander that your works in public and in private are to be ..... set forth
in the manner appropriate to the narration and qualities or dispositions
of the science of the stars,30 it is because knowledge of heavenly causes
sharpens the kings ability to achieve his political goals. The text confirms
this implication by employing both general and particular forms of predic-
tion made on the basis of reference to the stars.
The mundane form of astrology, for instance, provides the king with
highly useful information about the nature and use of talismans and of the
star-determined properties of naturally occurring entities, such as plants
and minerals. Aristotle explains that all manner of created existence has a
sort of prototype in the heavenly world, and that the former is the cause
of the existence of the latter and rules it, so that all inferior forms are
ruled by heavenly forms.31 In turn, the relationship between the mun-
dane and the celestial is governed by the particular qualities and motions
of the stars, in sum, astrological principles.32 The overtly Neoplatonic cast
of this position ought not to distract us too greatly from its occult implica-
tions: those who know and understand the celestial realm come to grasp,
by extension, the true and hidden physical characteristics of earth-bound
objects. To be among the select who possess the science of comprehending
the relations between the stars and the sublunar world gives one a tremen-
dous amount of power. For instance, the king can benefit from the cre-
ation of amulets that combine the properties of natural objects in astrolog-
ically informed ways, inasmuch as such a talisman
confers kingship and reverence and draws out favor and obedience and repels en-
emies with fear and trembling; it inflicts the envious, the unyielding, and ene-
mies; and it creates loving and hating, laughing and crying, raging and calming,
and it performs great and strange and stupefying miraculous works that are long
recounted.......33
The possession of a properly aligned talisman is indeed a potent weapon

of political control. Likewise, the prince who has knowledge of the occult
characteristics of individual natural typesstones and plantsmay make
30. Ibid., 15455. 31. Ibid., 157.

32. Ibid., 15960. 33. Ibid., 162.
use of them to his own advantage.34 There is a strong impulse toward con-
trol over future events, then, in the recommendation to the king that he
learn the arts associated with mundane astrology.
In the field of judicial astrology, the Secreta secretorum cautions the
king to employ occult investigation in the appraisal of both his own condi-
tion and of the persons who surround him. Aristotle cautions Alexander to
use the stars to determine the apt moment for medical treatment:
And do not open veins at some time unless you receive counsel and approval of
men knowledgeable in the high science of astrology, because the power [virtus] of
nature is made clear in this. Beware, therefore, O Alexander, that you do not take
medicine or open veins or be scarified at some time except with the permission
of astrological knowledge, because the utility of medical science is exalted or im-
proved by this.35
The author then offers precise and extensive advice about when in the
changes of the firmament one should accept various forms of medical treat-
ment, with an emphasis placed on the signs of the sun and the moon.36
Likewise, astrology should be consulted to determine when a ruler should
fight a battle or commence a war. The disposition of the celestial spheres
foretells the martial vigor of ones own troops and the potentency of ones
enemies.37 The ability to predict the actions and reactions of those who
surround the king, such as his counselors, depends on an astrological anal-
ysis of their birth (genesis or nativitas) with an eye to the disposition of
the planets.38 All of these appeals to judicial astrology assume that a ruler
forewarned will be strengthened in his capability of warding off evils and
threats to his power: in sum, advance knowledge permits control.
The claim widely repeated among scholars that the Secreta secretorum
was the subject of late thirteenth-century ecclesiastical censorship and ex-
purgation, directed particularly toward the examination of the occult sci-
ences, has been systematically and convincingly refuted by Steven Wil-
liams.39 Although some manuscripts eliminated references to astrology
and related topics, the excisions seem to have been guided more by the
audience to whom the redactor was directing his work. This is especially
apparent when the Secreta secretorum was included in collections of Aristo-
34. Ibid., 16061, 11422. 35. Ibid., 108.
36. Ibid., 10810. 37. Ibid., 15556.
38. Ibid., 13637.
39. Steven J. Williams, The Secret of Secrets: The Scholarly Career of a Pseudo-Aristotelian
Text in the Latin Middle Ages (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), 14282.
telian libri morales, such as that compiled by Engelbert of Admont in the

early fourteenth century.40 Where the intended readership was comprised
of scholars in the field of natural philosophy, however, the astrological and
other magical sections remained largely intact and even foregrounded,
as in the case of Roger Bacons appropriation of the work.41 Likewise, the
many vernacular translations dating from the later Middle Ages, which
were presumably intended for a courtly audience, commonly reproduced
the discussions of occult knowledge found in the Latin version, and some-
times even supplemented them with more recent discoveries.42 Thus, Wil-
liams seems to me to be quite correct about the diversity of the medieval
hermeneutics of the Secreta secretorum: its reception, and the consequent
condition of the text, tended to turn upon the readership for whom the
work was being adapted.
Bacons use of the Secreta secretorum is especially significant for present
purposes. He challenged head-on the major supposed Christian objection
to astrological ideas and practices: namely, that they lead ineluctably to the
denial of free will. On the contrary, Bacon remarked, the powers of the
heavens and the stars do not constrain free will but alter bodily complex-
ions, to which alterations the mind is attracted, so that without coercion it
wills freely that toward which it is attracted.43 In other words, Bacon, and
other thirteenth-century Scholastics such as Albertus Magnus and Thom-
as Aquinas, built on the standard Christian distinction between body and
soul. Because they partake of substance that is different from and superior
to earthly corporeal matter, human voluntary and rational powers are ex-
empt from control by the stars, at least in the case of persons who are capa-
40. Discussed by ibid., 257, 26465.

41. Ibid., 28286. See also Hilary Carey, Courting Disaster: Astrology at the English Court
and University in the Later Middle Ages (London: Macmillan, 1992), 136.
42. This can be confirmed from a cursory glance at some of the printed versions of later
medieval various translations and adaptations, such as Aristotle, Secreta Secretorum (London,
1528; reprinted New York: Da Capo Press, 1970); Oliver A. Beckerlegge, ed., Le Secr de Secrez
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell for the Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1944); Philip B. Jones, ed., The
Secreto de Los Secretos: A Castilian Version (Potomac, Maryland: Humanistica, 1999); M. A.
Manzalaoui, ed., Secreta Secretorum: Nine English Versions (Oxford: Oxford University Press for
the Early English Text Society, 1977); and Robert Steele, ed., Three Prose Versions of the Secreta
Secretorum (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trbner, and Co., for the Early English Text Society,
1898). For one example of the continuing interest in, indeed deep fascination with, astrology
and magic at late medieval courts, see Anthony Gross, The Dissolution of the Lancastrian King-
ship: Sir John Fortescue and the Crisis of Monarchy in Fifteenth-Century England (Stamford, Con-
necticut: Paul Watkins, 1996), 1327, 11021.
43. Secreta secretorum, 121.
ble of resisting domination by the flesh.44 The slogan The wise person will
rule the stars was often repeated during the Middle Ages.45 Indeed, Al-
bertus went so far as to assert in his Speculum astronomiae that it was reck-
less and contrary to free will to refrain from acting at times when astrologi-
cal charts suggested the best prospects for success.46
The basic position that astrological investigation could be squared with
freedom of the will would be echoed and sharpened by Latin Christian schol-
ars for the next three hundred years or more.47 While during the later Mid-
dle Ages some authors, such as Nicole Oresme and Henry of Langenstein,48
adopted a form of Christian naturalism that denied occult forces, there were
equally forceful voices that persisted in upholding the direct effects of stel-
lar forces on sublunar events. Perhaps the best known among the latter was
Pierre dAilly, a leading Scholastic theologian at the University of Paris who
was also deeply involved in the politics of the Church in the early days of
the Great Schism. As Laura Smoller has exhaustively demonstrated, dAilly
devoted a great deal of intellectual effort to mastering and applying astrol-
ogy at a level well beyond that of basic textbook learning. DAillys concern,
in particular, was the development of an astrological interpretation of the
course of human history that was not merely retrospective but also predic-
tive. DAilly wished to determine whether the Great Schismthe existence
of two papal claimants, each with a veneer of legitimacy, that had com-
menced in 1378 and continued until 1417constituted a momentous sign
of the impending arrival of the Antichrist and the final struggle or wheth-
er instead it carried less fearful overtones than a signal of Armageddon. In-
deed, Smoller has shown that as he improved his knowledge of astrology, he
fundamentally changed his judgment on this matter, moving from a more
to a less apocalyptic perspective in the years after 1400.49
44. On this, see Laura Ackerman Smoller, History, Prophecy, and the Stars: The Christian
Astrology of Pierre dAilly, 13501420 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 3031.
45. See G. W. Coopland, Nicole Oresme and the Astrologers (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
46. Albertus Magnus, Speculum astronomiae, ed. Stefano Caroti et al (Pisa: Domus Gal-
ilaeana, 1977), 145.
47. Another late medieval thinker who grappled mightily with these issues was the Fran-
ciscan mystic and natural philosopher John of Rupescissa (c. 13101364); see Leah DeVun, John
of Rupescissa and the States of Nature: Science, Apocalypse and Society in the Fourteenth Century
(New York: Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Department of History, Columbia University,
2004), esp. chap. 4.
48. See Coopland, Nicole Oresme and the Astrologers and Herbert Pruekner, Studien zu den
astrologischen Schriften des Heinrich von Langenstein (Leipzig: Teubner, 1933).
49. Smoller, History, Prophecy, and the Stars, 10230
For present purposes, two facets of dAillys astrological thought may

be highlighted. First, he followed very closely the views of Bacon and the
other thirteenth-century thinkers who had pioneered the Christian inter-
pretation of astrology as compatible with free will. DAilly systematical-
ly proposed and defended a concordance of astrology and theology, the
view that Gods hand may be seen in the motions of the stars and their
earthly effects and hence that astrological inquiry aids in the revelation
of the divine plan.50 Second, dAilly came to hold that the human under-
standing of stellar causation could positively impact the capacity to pro-
duce positive outcomes in earthly events, that is, to control the future by
means of reason and will. Specifically, once he accepted that the Schism
was not a sign of immediate Apocalypse, he turned to the problem of how
astrological knowledge could be employed to heal the divisions within the
Church by earthly means. If the Schism did not signal an epochal moment
in the ultimate divine design, then the stars could be used to prognosti-
cate the resolution of the conflict and the renewed order and good health
of the Church, accomplished by the reinvigorated efforts of men of good-
will. DAilly, in other words, turned to the realm of free action to end the
Schism by the imposition of human control over the contending parties.
Did Machiavelli know some version of the Secreta secretorum, or was he
perhaps familiar with the astrological debates of the late Middle Ages and
Renaissance? Given our relative lack of knowledge about his education,
and his own clever concealment of many of his sources and references, this
question is probably impossible to answer definitively. Judith Ferster, for
one, seems to suppose that Machiavelli could not have been ignorant of
the Secreta secretorum, whether he knew the text itself or some adapation
in a medieval mirror.51 At minimum, it appears reasonable to assert that
Christian versions of astrology and other occult sciences were as much in
the air as the pagan ideas that Parel ascribes to Machiavelli. More to the
point, the outlines of the conventional Christianized astrological thought
that I have surveyed fit comfortably with Machiavellis own remarks about
the heavens and human capacities, as well as his appropriation of the theo-
logical language of grace and free will. In other words, I believe that we
may see how the supposedly anti-Christian reliance in Machiavelli on clas-
sical naturalism in fact reflects long-standing themes of Latin Christian-
50. Ibid., 124.

51. Judith Ferster, Fictions of Advice: The Literature and Politics of Counsel in Late Medieval
England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 16073.
ity concerning the role played by the stars in determining mundane events
and the ability of humanity to employ knowledge of this by means of rea-
son and willforesight, one might sayto control the future successfully.
The reason for his appeal to occult forces has to do with what we might
conceive of as the quintessential Machiavellian quandry. In a 1506 letter to
Giovan Battista Soderini, Machiavelli purports to be perplexed by the ap-
parently unpredictable consequences of political action: I do not know
why it should happen that different ways of acting are sometimes both
successful and sometimes both unsuccessful, but I would certainly like to
know.52 In turn, precisely this dilemma animates the core of his political
thought. In the Prince, for example, he comments, I would observe that
one sees a ruler flourishing today and ruined tomorrow, without his hav-
ing changed at all in nature or quality.53 How are we to explain the varia-
tions in the success or failure of rulers? To answer this question, he turns
his eyes to the stars.
There is virtually no part of Machiavellis corpus that does not include
reference to astrological themes, often discussed in conjunction with For-
tuna.54 He recurrently refers to the irresistible force of fortune in terms
of the heavens or other occult powers that direct human action.55 As
he states in the Discourses, If we observe carefully how human affairs go
on, many times we see that things come up and events take place against
which the Heavens do not wish any provision to be made....... Men are
able to assist Fortune, but not to thwart her. They can weave her designs
but cannot destroy them.56 The same recognition of celestial forces is
echoed elsewhere in the Discourses: To achieve something good is diffi-
cult unless Fortune, aiding you, with her power overcomes the obstacles
set for human beings.57 The Prince is rife with similar remarks. From the
53. Ibid., 90.
54. The literature on Fortuna is prodigious. For a sprinkling of diverse perspectives, see
Mario Santoro, Fortuna, ragone e prudenzia nella civitt literaria de Cinquecento (Naples: Lig-
uori, 1967); Thomas Flanagan, The Concept of Fortuna in Machiavelli, in Anthony Parel,
ed., The Political Calculus: Essays on Machiavellis Philosophy (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1972), 12956; Hannah F. Pitkin, Fortune Is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the Thought
of Niccol Machiavelli (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984); and
Oded Balaban, The Human Origins of Fortuna in Machiavellis Thought, History of Political
Thought 11 (1990): 2136.
55. There is a clear confluence of this terminology in Machiavellis work, as was the case is the
writings of many of his contemporaries; see Hrnqvist, Machiavelli and Empire, 22930, 23233.
56. Machiavelli, Chief Works, 406, 408.
57. Ibid., 512.
dedicatory epistle onward, fortune is cited as the cause of the greatness

or malice that people experience.58 Machiavelli concludes the often-cited
chapter 25 with the declaration that men are successful when they are in
close harmony with Fortune, and when they are out of harmony, they are
unsuccessful.59 Human beings are largely victims of fortune; and fortune
itself is aligned with heavenly motions and forces. Any ruler who counts
on fortune to support him, or who bases his decisions and policies on the
previous course of events, will inevitably be disappointed and eventually
destroyed (unless, as in the case of Pope Julius II, death intervenes before
circumstances can change).60
Interpretations of Machiavelli have often associated him with the hu-
manistic assumption that individuals are capable of making their own
choices and guiding their own conduct apart from occult forces.61 But Ma-
chiavelli gives us reason to believe that the real assurance of political suc-
cess, and hence the conquest of fortune, stems from knowing stellar (and
hence divine) principles. Book 1, chapter 56, of the Discourses affords the
quintessential example of this position: What causes it I do not know, but
both ancient and modern instances indicate that nothing important ever
happens in a city or a region that has not been foretold either by diviners
or by revelations or by prodigies or by other celestial signs.62 Machiavel-
li points to Savanarolas prediction of the 1494 French invasion of Italy, as
well as portents widely observed in Tuscany; he mentions the strange light-
ening strikes that immediately preceded the death of Lorenzo deMedici Il
Magnifico and the downfall of his own master, Piero Soderini. Machiavel-
li speculates that the key to political opportunity is held by those who are
qualified to interpret correctly such events whose meanings are otherwise
hidden, and he explicitly invokes the cosmological beliefs held by medieval
Christian predecessors:
The cause of this I believe should be considered and interpreted by a man who has
knowledge of things natural and supernatural, which we do not have. Yet it could
be that since, as some philosophers hold, the air about us is full of intelligences
and these through their natural abilities foreseeing future things and having com-
passion on menthese spirits warn men with such signs, so they can prepare for
58. Ibid., 11. 59. Ibid., 92.

61. See Neal Wood, Machiavellis Humanism of Action, in Parel, ed., The Political Cal-
culus.
resistance. At any rate, however it is, so the truth seems to be; and always after
such strange events new things happen to countries.63
It is odd that Mikael Hrnqvist quotes the first sentence of this passage
(without citing the rest or mentioning the context) as proof positive of
Machiavellis categorical rejection of the providential perspective and of
his equally radical emphasis on the sublunar world.64 On the contrary,
Machiavelli clearly seems to embrace a cosmological principle that opens
up the possibility of foreknowing future events by supernatural means. He
teaches the lesson here that those who enjoy occult knowledge are not re-
strained by the limits otherwise imposed by fortune. Indeed, they may
achieve immunity from misfortune and full control over themselves.
Machiavelli thus consistently implies that there is some plan (however
inscrutable) standing behind the course of human events. This is evident in
his remarks that fortune or the heavens or some other occult power actively
selects certain individuals for a special role in history. Speaking in the Dis-
courses of the reform of a corrupt city, he states,
Truly the Heavens cannot give a greater opportunity for glory....... Those to whom
the Heavens give such an occasion should observe the two roads put before them:
one makes their lives secure and after death renders them famous; the other makes
them live in continual anxieties and after death leaves them an ill repute that nev-
er ends.65
From this, it is evident that individuals are selected by a power or force

outside of themselves for the task of rulership (although they still utilize
their free choice in taking advantage of their opportunities, as we shall
see). The active quality of supernatural design is also emphasized elsewhere
in the Discourses:
Men who commonly live amid great troubles or great successes deserve less praise
or blame, because most of the time we see that they have been pushed into a de-
structive or elevated action by some great advantage that the Heavens have be-
stowed on them, giving them the opportunityor taking it away from themto
work effectively. Skillfully Fortune does this, since she chooses a man, when she
plans to bring about great things, who is of so much perception and so much abil-
ity that he recognizes the opportunities she put before him.66
63. Ibid., 31112.

64. Hrnqvist, Machiavelli and Empire, 232.
65. Machiavelli, Chief Works, 223. 66. Ibid., 407.
Likewise, in the Prince, Machiavelli remarks that the capacity of the ruler
to recognize the ills in his state when they spring up ..... is given to a very
few.67 That some plan or wisdom stands behind fortune forms an article
of faith in Machiavellis thought. Even if the scheme cannot be discerned
by most people (hence, the arbitrary appearance of fortune to most men
at most times), it is present. Indeed, this counts for Machiavelli as a rea-
son for optimism: people ought never to give up as beaten, because, since
they do not know [fortunes] purpose, and since she goes through crooked
and unknown roads, they can always hope.68 To make the observation
that fortune is purposive, even providential, is already to dispel as a by-
product of human ignorance the notion that events and circumstances oc-
cur without rhyme or reason.
Machiavellis Prince, that supposedly sacrilegious and impious book,
provides key evidence for his occultist Christian orientation. In it, he re-
peatedly defends the view that the only truly safe means of acquiring a
state is through the exercise of ones virt, rather than by means of fortune,
since rulers who depend upon chance circumstance to maintain them-
selves are invariably frustrated in achieving their goal. He who depends
least on Fortune sustains himself longest, Machiavelli asserts, Those who
..... become princes simply through Fortune may become so with little ef-
fort, but with much effort sustain themselves.69 Now, at the same time,
he realizes that fortune is the source of all opportunities to govern; no
one can achieve rulership if he is opposed by fortune. But the examples of
princes held in highest esteem by Machiavelli are drawn from among those
who had from Fortune nothing more than opportunity, which gave them
matter into which they could introduce whatever form they chose; and
without opportunity, their strength of will would have been wasted, and
without such strength the opportunity would have been useless.70 This,
then, seems to form the essence of virt: knowing when one is well situ-
ated to act and grasping the occasion. Such knowledge, in turn, depends
upon insight into occult meanings. Consequently, virtthe word that
summarizes for Machiavelli the totality of skills, talents, and abilities that
the successful ruler needscannot be activated without some supernatural
element. Consider Machiavellis declaration in the Second Decennale:
67. Ibid., 54. 68. Ibid., 408.

69. Ibid., 27. 70. Ibid., 25.
Oh proud men, ever you have arrogant faces, you who hold the scepters and the
crowns, and of the future you do not know a single truth!
So blinded are you by your present greed which over your eyes holds a thick
veil that things remote you cannot see.
From this it comes that heaven, shifting from this to that, shifts your states
more often than the heat and the ice are changed, because if you turned your pru-
dence to learning the ill and finding its remedy, such great power from heaven
would be taken.71
Rulers must set aside mundane interests and come to understand how the
celestial realm guides sublunar events. Once they do so, they will be able
to gain the foresight they require in order to escape from the throes of for-
tune. The role of a political advisor such as Machiavelli is thus at best only
preparatory, as he himself admits in the Preface to the second book of the
Discourses: It is the duty of the good man to teach others anything of value
that through the malice of the times and of Fortune you have been unable
to put into effect, in order that since many will know of it, some of them
more loved by Heaven may be ready to put it into effect.72 To the extent
that the individual is the source of his own success, Machiavelli supposes,
this is a function of ones attuned and educated insight and intellect coop-
erating with the divinely ordained plan. Thus, Machiavellis solution to the
predicament with which he was obsessedthe inability of human beings
to conquer fortune permanentlydrew directly upon central themes of
contemporary Christian belief. Transcendence of mere earthly affairs and
grasping their supernatural significance constitute the sole source of con-
trol over temporal events.
Completely fatalistic resignation is not, therefore, in keeping with Ma-
chiavellis teachings. While certainly attracted to a deterministic stance
in order to explain both the failure and the success of human initiative
in overcoming events, he does not utterly surrender human efficacy. This
is suggested, for example, in the opening paragraph of chapter 25 of the
Prince:
I am not unaware that many have thought, and still think, that the affairs of the
world are so ruled by Fortune and by God that human prudence is incapable of
controlling them, as a result of which nothing that goes astray has a remedy; and
therefore it could be judged that it is useless to worry too much about things, but
let them be governed by happenstance....... When I think about this, I am some-
71. Ibid., 461. 72. Ibid., 324.

times inclined, to some extent, to share this opinion. Nevertheless, so as not to

eliminate our free will [libero arbitrio], I judge it to be the case that Fortune is the
arbiter of half our actions, but that it lets us control roughly the other half.73
The way in which Machiavelli has phrased his observation is revealing, in

particular because of his use of the technical Latin term for freedom of the
will, liberum arbitrium, in a theological sense.74 Given the emphasis on
free will by medieval proponents of astrology, Machiavelli seems to draw
support from the Christian Scholastic discourse that rendered the effects of
the movements of the heavens compatible with the human ability to mas-
ter ones fate through knowledge and action. We might then summarize
Machiavellis position as follows. No one ought to think that he is capable,
purely by dint of his own abilities and talents, of acquiring and maintain-
ing a state; extrinsic limitations of fortune, as well as intrinsic constraints
of human nature and character, are too formidable. Instead, the effective
ruler grasps the occult meanings of the stars, and hence divine purposes.
That Machiavelli had something very like this position in mind is con-
firmed by a remark in chapter 26, just following an account of heavenly
portents of Medici success: Everything points to your greatness. The rest
you must do yourself. God does not do everything, so as not to take from
us libero arbitrio and part of the glory that pertains to us.75 Heavenly se-
lection must not be an excuse for passivity, as though achievements will
fall into ones lap without effort. God provides the opportunity and the
means for success, but the will of the chosen individual must still be exer-
cised, his virt must be displayed. As Machiavelli asserts in The Ass,
To believe that without effort on your part God fights for you, while you are idle
and on your knees, has ruined many kingdoms and many states....... There should
be no one with so small a brain that he will believe, if his house is falling, that God
will save it without any other prop, because he will die beneath that ruin.76
Machiavellis lesson is clear: Gods call to action is an awakening of the free

will with the assurance that the course of conduct undertaken will produce
the redemption sought. Only the redemption in question is not personal
73. Ibid., 8990.
74. For the precise theological meaning of liberum arbitrium, see J. R. Korolec, Free Will
and Free Choice, in Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg, eds., The Cam-
bridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982),
62941. Previous scholarship regarding Machiavellis use of the phrase is summarized by Marcia
L. Colish, The Idea of Liberty in Machiavelli, Journal of the History of Ideas 32 (1971): 32527.
salvation, but the attainment of a public salvation of the citizens and sub-
jects over whom the ruler governs and the consequent realization of his
own glory.
If the practice of the occult sciences affords the means for overcoming
fortune, Machiavelli also supposes that the possession of such knowledge
itself still reflects an expression of divine providence. Those who ultimately
succeed, while they undertake freely chosen actions, nonetheless do so be-
cause they enjoy Gods grace. The theme of grace runs throughout Machi-
avellis works, including such expressions of conventional Christian piety
as An Exhortation to Penitence and Allocution Made to a Magistrate.77
In the former work, especially, a clearly Christian God is portrayed as a giv-
er of gifts, and in turn the greatest sin human beings can commit is to be
ungrateful to Him.
In order to realize our ingratitude, it is necessary to consider how many and of
what sort are the benefits we have received from God. Consider, then, how all
things made and created are made and created for the benefit of man....... Con-
sider the beauty of the things we see. Of these, part he has made for our use, part
in order that, as we observe the glory and the marvelous workmanship of these
things, upon us may come a thirst and a longing to possess those other things that
are hidden from us....... See, then, with how much ingratitude man rises against
such a great benefactor! And how much punishment he deserves when he perverts
the use of these things and turns them toward evil!78
Machiavellis God has bestowed upon humankind every favorfrom ma-

terial goods and resources to speech and reasonand thereby demands
penitence from those who do not accept and appreciate the great gifts they
have been granted. Nor is penitence understood in terms of inward contri-
tion alone; it must be manifest in actions consistent with gratefulness for
what God has given us.79 The gracious nature of the Machiavellian deity
thus directly correlates to the function of assigning personal destiny that is
allotted to fortune and the heavens elsewhere in his writings.
In the Prince, likewise, Machiavelli acknowledges one certain guarantee
that fortune may be overcome: the gift of grace granted by God. In chap-
ter 6, he singles out a few men who through their own ability and not
77. On the Exhortation, see Anthony J. Parel, Machiavelli Minore, in Parel, ed., The
Political Calculus, 199208, and Norton, Machiavellis Road to Paradise; on the Allocution,
see Anthony J. Parel, Machiavellis Notion of Justice, Political Theory 18 (1990): 52544.
79. Ibid., 17374.
through Fortune have been transformed into princes[:] ..... Moses, Cyrus,
Romulus, Theseus, and the like.80 In Machiavellis view, Moses seems to
be the greatest among these. The obvious reason for this, as stated in the
Discourses, is that among all famous men those are most famous who have
been heads and organizers of religion. Next after them are those who have
founded either republics or kingdoms.81 Moses thus stands atop Machia-
vellis list of glorious men: alone among those illustrations that he offers,
Moses was the founder of both a religion and a state.82
The awe in which Machiavelli holds Moses is evident in the Prince:
Although Moses should not be discussed, since he was a mere execu-
tor for things laid down for him by God, nevertheless he ought to be ex-
alted, if only for the grace [grazia] that made him worthy to speak with
God.83 Moses was Gods chosen, His anointed. Machiavelli notes later
in the chaptermaking a famous contrast with Savonarola84that Mo-
ses was the ultimate armed prophet, prepared to employ force in a righ-
teous cause against those who would oppose Gods will.85 As Machiavelli
observes in the Discourses, He who reads the Bible intelligently sees that
if Moses was to put his laws and regulations into effect, he was forced to
kill countless men who, moved by nothing else than envy, were opposed
to his plan.86 Machiavelli finds in Gods grace an authorization to act as
necessary for the sake of realizing the divine plan. Having been selected to
receive Gods favor does not constrain the range of options available to the
ruler. If anything, the graced prince may act with greater impunity, know-
ing that his cause is righteous and that he enjoys an extraterrestrial assur-
ance of a successful end to his endeavors.87
80. Ibid., 25. 81. Ibid., 220.

82. See John T. Scott and Vickie B. Sullivan, Patricide and the Plot of the Prince: Cesare
Borgia and Machiavellis Italy, American Political Science Review 88 (1994): 897.
84. See Donald Weinstein, Machiavelli and Savanarola, in Myron P. Gilmore, ed., Stud-
ies on Machiavelli (Florence: Sansoni, 1972), 25164.
86. Ibid., 496.
87. In light of Machiavellis reverence for Moses as an agent of divine grace, it is difficult
to understand the remarks of scholars who, while acknowledging the role played by grace in his
thought, deny its political efficacy. See, for example, Parel, Machiavelli Minore, 192: Grace
can produce spiritual regeneration in individuals; it cannot bring about political regeneration;
or J. G. A. Pocock, Custom & Grace, Form & Matter: An Approach to Machiavellis Concept
of Innovation, in Martin Fleischer, ed., Machiavelli and the Nature of Political Thought (New
York: Athaneum, 1972), 171: He had no great faith in the actions of a special grace in the field
of politics.
Yet might not we say that Moses is unique in this regard, as the only
prince on Machiavellis list who actually converses with God (at least if
one discounts unarmed prophets such as Savonarola)? While Machiavelli
clearly singles Moses out for special praise, however, he does not mean to
suggest that the case of the Old Testament figure is entirely unique. Rath-
er, he remarks, But look at Cyrus and the others who gained and founded
kingdoms. You will find them all amazing; and if you look at their actions
and their individual methods, they seem no different than those of Moses,
who had so great a teacher.88 While Moses certainly benefited from di-
rect divine guidance, the other founders whom Machiavelli praises also en-
joyed some special favor from God, both in terms of the gift of an oppor-
tunity for acting propitiously and the divine encouragement to seize the
chance that they had been granted. The possession of divine inspiration
is the most fundamental source of the similarities between Moses, Cyrus,
Romulus, and Theseus. For what other reason would Machiavelli term all
new rulersnot simply Mosesprofeti?89
The idea that secular rulers, no less than theocratic ones, are agents of
the divine will and serve at Gods pleasure is not so contrary to conven-
tional religion as it may seem at first glance. Rather, the worthiness of the
greatest pagan rulers in the eyes of God was upheld by medieval think-
ers. Witness the story of the Emperor Trajan, widely recounted during the
Middle Ages: so just was he that, although a pagan, he was saved from the
tortures of Hell after the intervention of Pope Gregory with God.90 Ma-
chiavelli indeed knew this tale, for in his Allocation Made to a Magis-
trate, he cites Trajans example of justice, quoting in this connection from
Dantes Purgatorio and concluding, From this we can see how much God
loves justice and mercy.91 In a similar vein, medieval Christians saw Gods
hand at work in the successes of other pagan rulers. As the late thirteenth-
century Scholastic Ptolemy of Lucca declared in De regimine principum,
With regard to those [pagans] exercising lordship, God seems to have granted the
legitimacy of lordship....... God makes a disposition on behalf of the subjects to
bring about a better result when a ruler, although a sinner, strives to please God.

90. On the tale and its dissemination, see Parel, Machiavellis Notion of Justice, 539
41, and Marcia Colish, The Virtuous Pagan: Dante and the Christian Tradition, in William
Cafero and Duncan G. Fisher, eds., The Unbounded Community (New York: Garland, 1996),
4391.
91. Parel, Machiavellis Notion of Justice, 52627.
Isaiah writes [in 4 Kings 15.17] about Cyrus, King of the Persians: I, the Lord,
say these things to my Christ, Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, so that I
might subject the nations to him and turn the backs of kings. I will open the doors
before him and the gates will not be closed....... God disposed things in this way
because Cyrus showed humility towards His faithful Jews....... As a result of these
good and virtuous works in favor of the divine cult and the people of God, he ob-
tained the monarchy of the entire East.92
So Machiavellis description of Cyrus as an armed prophet on par with

Moses is neither singular nor sacrilegious after all. Rather, to claim that
the success of rulers depends upon a gift directly from God, regardless of
whether they enjoy some immediate relationship with the divine being,
was a hallmark of Christian thought long before the Prince. At best, Ma-
chiavelli is simply adapting this tradition to explain how the greatest princ-
es have managed to overcome the limitations imposed by fortune as well as
their own natures and characters: they benefited from Gods aid.
In the final chapter of the Prince, Machiavelli returns to the theme that
rulers are sure to succeed only when the hand of God assists them. His goal
is to implore the Medici family to look upon themselves as the new re-
deemers of Italy.93 In this regard, he compares the current predicament of
Italy with the situations encountered by Moses among the Hebrews, Cyrus
in Persia, and Theseus in Athens: in all cases, the nation was without lead-
ership, without order, beaten, despoiled, lacerated, devastated, subject to
every sort of ruination, in sum, ready for a new founding.94 Just as God
had once granted the opportunity to act gloriously to His earlier armed
prophets, so it exists in Machiavellis own day. Indeed, the Prince in this
passage overtly invokes the divine dimension of Italys need for salvation,
identifying Gods hand both in the existence of propitious circumstances
and in the selection of a leader:
And though up to now various gleams have appeared in some Italians from which
we might judge them ordained by God for her redemption, nevertheless we have
seen that, in the highest course of their actions, they have been disapproved by For-
tune....... [Italy] is now praying to God to send someone to redeem her from such
barbarous cruelty and arrogance....... There is not, at present, anyone in whom she
92. Ptolemy of Lucca, De regimine principum, in St. Thomas Aquinas, Opuscula Omnia
necnon Opera Minora, v. I, Opuscula Philosophica, ed. R.P. Joannes Perrier (Paris: Lethielleux,
1949), 3.7.4.
can have more hope than in your glorious family, which, through its fortune and
its wisdom and strength, favored by God and by the Church (of which it is now
head), can make itself the leader of this redemption. This will not be very hard
if you bring before you the actions and lives of those named above [viz., Moses,
Cyrus and Theseus]. And although these men were exceptional and marvelous,
nevertheless they were men; and every one of them had a poorer chance than the
present one, because their undertaking was not more just than this, nor easier, nor
was God more friendly to them than to you.95
Machiavelli then goes on to list numerous omens and portents (biblical

in inspiration), which accord perfectly with the occultism that forms part
and parcel of his Christian belief system. He proclaims that now we see
marvelous, unexampled signs that God is directing you: the sea is divid-
ed; a cloud shows you the road; the rock pours out water; manna rains
down.......96 These statements perhaps constitute the most extreme illus-
tration of Machiavellis reliance upon a medieval Christian theology that
made room for the sublunar understanding of supernatural plans. From
this, he concludes that human beings cannot overcome the obstacles to
rulership on their own, but must be selected by divine grace, and thereby
authorized by Gods providence, in order to assure success.
Is the intimation of the Medicis divine appointment mere hyperbole
or even sheer flattery on Machiavellis part? Scholars have certainly sus-
pected as much. Hrnqvist asserts, for example, that the religious imag-
es of chapter 26 form mere pretexts, or covers, for taking up arms, .....
rhetorical devices designed to promote Medicean expansionism.97 But it
should be evident that Machiavellis scripturally flavored forecast is entire-
ly consistent with his remarks about grace elsewhere in his corpus. It is
therefore plausible to sustain de Grazias conclusion that the references to
the divine in The Prince comprise significant metaphysical and theologi-
cal statements, with political bearings just as significant; hence, Machia-
vellis remarks are not trivial.98 Not only does Machiavelli articulate an
internally consistent position with regard to the divine design regarding
earthly political affairs, but he does so in a manner that perpetuates medi-
eval Christian doctrines. And his reliance upon Gods ordination and grace
has a very serious and important purpose: to act as a counterweight to the
95. Ibid., 9394.

96. Ibid., 94.
97. Hrnqvist, Machiavelli and Empire, 258.
98. De Grazia, Machiavelli in Hell, 31.
claim that the forces of fortune necessarily constrain the ability of people
to succeed in the conduct of government.
Even with so much evidence on display that Machiavelli absorbed and
embraced the Christian cosmology of his day, there remains a pronounced
tendency to ignore the medieval backdrop to his ideas. Rather, Machia-
vellis doctrines are still ordinarily approached from the perspective of the
debate between the via antiqua and the via moderna,99 or as constitut-
ing a radical break with the teachings of the Latin Middle Ages. Scholars
seem happy to repeat uncritically the view that Giuseppe Prezzolini once
bluntly stated: Machiavelli is anti-medieval. He represents the most com-
plete rupture with the medieval world, in the most extensive way.100 Yet
Machiavellis conception of rulership truly possesses, in the words of Sil-
via Ruffo Fiore, a sacral nature: As a leader the new prince embodies
the biblical prophet-king who has received a special divine call, a covenant
from God to guide the destiny of the nation toward an appointed goal.101
Nor is Machiavellis sacral ruler a mere parody of religious themes, as
Fiore would have it. Machiavelli is, rather, deadly serious about the need
for a ruler who activates his free will by means of acquiring occult knowl-
edge of future events in order to fulfill the purposes stemming from the
grace granted by God, for no other means of success is possible, given the
natural and supernatural limits that otherwise burden human beings.
The charge of an ironic or otherwise unserious stance on the part of
Machiavelli toward God and supernatural powers is a most troublesome
one. Among the more popular images of him is that of a satirist, a purvey-
or of parody, none of whose statements may be taken at face value.102 This
is the reason, for instance, that the Exhortation to Penitence has been so
99. See Isaiah Berlin, The Originality of Machiavelli, in Henry Hardy, ed., Against the
Current (New York: Random House, 1980); Nathan Tarcov, Quentin Skinners Method and
Machiavellis Prince, Ethics 92 (1982): 692709; Donald McIntosh, The Modernity of Ma-
chiavelli, Political Theory 12 (1984): 184203; W. R. Newell, How Original Is Machiavelli? A
Consideration of Skinners Interpretation of Virtue and Fortune, Political Theory 15 (1987):
61234; Larry Peterman, Gravity and Piety: Machiavellis Modern Turn, Review of Politics 52
(1990): 189214; Anthony J. Parel, The Question of Machiavellis Modernity, Review of Poli-
tics 53 (1991): 32039; and Roger D. Masters, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power
(Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1996), 161205.
100. Giuseppe Prezzolini, Machiavelli Anticristo (Rome: Casini, 1954), 8687.
101. Silvia Ruffo Fiore, Upon Eagles Wings: The Sacral Nature of Machiavellis New
Prince, Rivista di Studi Italiani 3 (1985): 2.
102. Garrett Mattingly, Political Science or Political Satire? The American Scholar 27
(1958): 48291; see Mary G. Dietz, Trapping the Prince: Machiavelli and the Politics of De-
ception, American Political Science Review 80 (1986): 77980.
readily rejected as hypocritical or worse. Indeed, one of the primary criti-

cisms of de Grazias reading of Machiavelli is his credulity of the Floren-
tines references to God. As one critic has asserted, it would make more
sense if de Grazia took his interpretation just one step further to ques-
tion whether it was all a hoax. Perhaps the assertions regarding God and
the conclusion that special treatment awaits the new prince are Niccols
way of easing the good prince into committing evil acts.103 Another of
de Grazias reviewers complained that he embraces the sincerity premise
that is conventional to modern scholarship. For whatever reasons, Machia-
velli is sincere and never tries to trick his readers....... Nothing would have
amused our Niccol more.104 What such critics lack is an explanation of
why we should not take Machiavelli at his word on the subject of the di-
vine and the supernatural. The reason appears to be that they have judged
his Christianity by their own far more modern standards and found him
wanting.
The present chapter has attempted to demonstrate, on the basis of the
human predicament posited by Machiavelli himself, why he had to be per-
fectly and profoundly serious in his references to the Christian God and
to related supernatural forces, as well as to the power of free will. The
cards are stacked against the ruler who supposes that his talents, abilities,
and strengthapart from some divine ordinationare sufficient to earn
him stable dominion over a state: the vicissitudes of fortune dictate that
his ventures will end in failure in the short run or at best the medium
term. Hence, the true, assured, and everlasting glory of the political leader,
whether princely or republican, is to be found solely in extraterrestrial ap-
pointment. Of course, just as no one can know whether or not he is truly
a bearer of divine grace, so Machiavelli advises in a passage of the Discours-
es already cited that no prospective governor ought to give up his cause as
entirely lost. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, and any man, no matter
how downtrodden, may properly hope and pray for the improvement of
his present condition. In this way, Machiavelli encourages a sense of uncer-
tainty, and optimism for future betterment, on the part of human beings:
God may call upon anyone at some pivotal moment, and thus may con-
fer glory everlasting (temporal as well as spiritual) upon any person. The
whole thrust of Machiavellis political theory is the promotion of prepara-
103. Susan Benhuniak-Long, The Elusive Machiavelli, Review of Politics 52 (1990): 319.
104. Harvey C. Mansfield, untitled review of Machiavelli in Hell, American Political Sci-
ence Review 87 (1993): 765.
tion for divine ordinationalbeit such readiness is accomplished as much

by the study of the stars and portents as of the Holy Book. Nonetheless,
the arbiter of political success and failure is God, not humanity. To ascribe
some other view to Machiavelli would be to endow him with either an ex-
cessively positive or an inordinately negative view of the human condition
that a careful examination of the full range of his writings will not sustain.
19
A r g u in g S o v e r e i g n t y in t h e
Seventeenth Century
Bractons Readers
o d e r n p o l i t ica l a u t h o r s read medieval textsof

that there can be no doubt. But does the modern recep-
tion, even the citation, of writings dating from the Middle Ages
amount to a discernable influence? Some historians of politi-
cal thought, perhaps most notably Quentin Skinner, have chal-
lenged the attribution of influence on the grounds that ideas
are not disembodied units capable of transmission across the
ages.1 Other scholars, such as Francis Oakley, insist that when
modern writers draw upon medieval sources, we must judge them
to have been influenced by the authorities that they choose to
cite and quote.2 The dilemmas posed to the historian of Euro-
pean political thought by such methodological quandaries are
immediately evident to anyone who has sought to appraise the
use made of medieval political texts and doctrines by English au-
1. As Anthony Pagden stressed in his introduction to The Languages of Politi-

cal Theory in Early-Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987),
12. For a classic statement of this view, see Quentin Skinner, Meaning and Un-
derstanding in the History of Ideas, History and Theory 8 (1969): 422. A more
elaborate discussion of issues stemming from the unit idea approach is presented
by Conal Condren, Ideas and the Model of Political Events: A Problem of Histo-
ricity in the History of Ideas, Political Science 36 (1984): 5366.
2. Francis Oakley, Politics and Eternity: Studies in the History of Medieval and
Early-Modern Political Thought (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 13887.
304
b r ac t o ns r e a d e r s 305
thors during the Civil War and its aftermath. Even a superficial survey of
mid- and late-seventeenth-century tracts suggests that their authors were
familiar not only with a host of Scholastic writers, but also with the so-
called operative political theories contained in medieval English legal and
administrative manuals.3 One finds references to the lawbooks Fleta and
Speculum justiciariorum,4 and to the procedural handbook Modus tenendi
parliamentum,5 in writings dating from the period between the outbreak
of the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution. Perhaps the most widely
cited of the medieval treatises in this genre was the De legibus et consuetu-
dinibus Angliae customarily ascribed to Henry de Bracton.
Scholars have long recognized that the presence of Bractonian ideas
and language was a feature of political debate in seventeenth-century Eng-
land.6 And true to the unit idea methodology, they have assumed that De
legibus was an influence on, or a source for, the development of the politi-
cal doctrines of its later readers. Thus, when it is observed that De legibus
was quoted with equal approval by both parliamentarian and royalist au-
thors, the presumption has been that this was only possible because of an
ambiguity in Bractonian thought itself, an internal tension between con-
stitutionalist and absolutist strains within the text.7 The following chap-
3. The distinction between Scholastic and operative theory is defended by Donald W.
Hanson, From Kingdom to Commonwealth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1970), 1213.
4. These two treatises are both available in modern critical editions: Fleta was edited by H.
G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, 3 vols. (London: Selden Society, 19551972); and the Specu-
lum justiciariorum by W.J. Whittaker (London: Selden Society, 1895). On the background to
their composition, see Noel Denholm-Young, Who Wrote Fleta? English Historical Review 58
(1943): 112, and H. G. Reuschlein, Who Wrote The Mirror of Justices? Law Quarterly Review
58 (1942): 26579.
5. The Modus tenendi parliamentum was edited most recently by Nicholas Pronay and John
Taylor in Parliamentary Texts of the Late Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 1363.
A useful appraisal of the text is that by George P. Cuttino, A Reconsideration of the Modus
Tenendi Parliamentum, in F. L. Utley, ed.. The Forward Movement of the Fourteenth Century
(Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1961), 3160.
6. See Charles H. McIlwain, Constitutionalism: Ancient and Modern, rev. ed. (Ithaca: Cor-
nell University Press, 1947), 7374, and The Growth of Political Thought in the West (New York:
Macmillan, 1932), 37172; Frances D. Wormuth, The Origins of Modern Constitutionalism (New
York: Harper, 1949), 3739; R. F. Treharne, The Constitutional Problem in Thirteenth-Centu-
ry England, in T. A. Sandquist and M. R. Powicke, eds., Essays in Medieval History Presented
to Bertie Wilkinson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968), 54; Walter Ullmann, The Indi-
vidual and Society in the Middle Ages (London: Methuen, 1966), 14951; and D. E. C. Yale, Of
No Mean Authority: Some Later Uses of Bracton, in M. S. Arnold, T. A. Green, S. A. Scolly
and S. D. White, eds., On the Laws and Customs of England (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1981), 39092.
7. Among those who have emphasized such an irreconcilable tension between the abso-
ter seeks to demonstrate, however, the falsity of this assumption. I propose

instead that in order to make Bracton speak with a seventeenth-century
voice, it was necessary to impose distinctively modern intellectual catego-
ries upon the text.
A modern reading of De legibus could be accomplished in a number
of ways. The present investigation does not pretend to be exhaustive;8 in-
stead, the argument will be confined to four theorists of widely varying
political commitments: Sir Robert Filmer, Thomas Hobbes, John Milton,
and Algernon Sidney. These authors were united in their attempt to recon-
struct the conception of kingship and government in De legibus with refer-
ence to a distinctively modern theory of sovereignty (construed as inalien-
able and indivisible).9 Such a notion of sovereignty was both intellectually
and historically foreign to the Latin Middle Ages. Not only did medieval
authors lack a term that we might consistently and coherently translate as
sovereignty,10 but the political contexts within which they functioned
yielded a conceptual matrix that was incompatible with the notion of a
sovereign.11 The ability of thinkers during the Middle Ages to distinguish
meaningfully between regular and casual power excluded a modern
conception of sovereign authority.12 Nor would inalienable and indivis-
lutist and the constitutionalist strains in the argument are McIlwain, Constitutionalism, 7792;
Walter Ullmann, Principles of Government and Politics in the Middle Ages (London: Methuen,
1961), 17678; and Treharne, The Constitutional Problem in the Thirteenth Century, 5560.
8. The list of seventeenth-century authors who drew on De legibus is startlingly long. A
partial list compiled by Andrew Sharp from his doctoral thesis points to twenty or so tracts in
which a Bractonian influence may be detected; see Andrew Sharp, The English Peerage in Po-
litical and Heraldic Thought during the Civil War and Interregnum (Cambridge: unpublished
Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1971). One mixed monarchy theorist of some prominence
who makes extensive use of Bracton is George Lawson, Politica Sacra et Civilis, ed. Conal Con-
dren (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
9. By this use of sovereignty, I mean only to imply a minimal, essentially Bodinian con-
ception of a single and unified political power. I follow the usage of F. H. Hinsley, Sovereignty,
2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 27: The idea of sovereignty was the
idea that there is a final and absolute political authority in the political community; and every-
thing that needs to be added to complete the definition is added if this statement is continued
in the following words: and no final and absolute authority exists elsewhere.
10. Gaines Post, Review of Wilks, The Problem of Sovereignty in the Later Middle Ages,
Speculum 39 (1964): 36668.
11. Joseph R. Strayer, On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1970), 89 and 57.
12. This distinction is surveyed by Arthur S. McGrade, The Political Thought of William
of Ockham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 7880; and Michael Wilks, The
Problem of Sovereignty in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963),
12728, 134.
ible sovereignty have had much appeal in circumstances where power was
commonly understood in terms of cooperation or sharing among dif-
ferent individuals and groups.13 In sum, a unit idea approach to intel-
lectual history will not suffice to explain how sovereignty could come to be
ascribed to Bractonian political thought. It was not Bractonian ideas that
stimulated seventeenth-century concepts of sovereign authority; the doc-
trines of De legibus are neither sources nor influences in a conventional
sense. We must instead employ other categories to describe the citation of
Bractonian political thought by the authors mentioned above.
As discussed in chapter 6 above, De legibus operates from the premise
of personal monarchic rule. The kings potestas (power) rests upon the roy-
al voluntas (will). The Bractonian royal voluntas is not primarily concerned
with legislation. Laws are promulgated through a cooperative process; the
king assents to those statutes that have received approval from the mag-
nates and the community of the realm. In addition, De legibus acknowl-
edges that local custom may also have the force of law. Hence, the law of
the land is more properly understood as the creation of the subjects over
whom it is imposed.14 The proper authority of the king is consequently
exercised mainly by enforcement of law through judicial judgment and co-
ercive punishment. De legibus regards the crucial feature of royal potestas as
the performance of justice in conjunction with the penalization of offend-
ers by means of the material sword. In view of this role, the king is lik-
ened to God. The divine will is both the ultimate source of all justice and
the final avenger of all transgressions. Insofar as the rulers voluntas is char-
acterized by analogous tasks, the royal office is an imitation (albeit imper-
fect and earthly) of the supreme will. It is for this reason that De legibus re-
currently describes the king as the divine minister or vicar.15
The God-like stature and duties attributed to the Bractonian monarch
implies that he can have neither peer nor superior. Although no king could
possibly hear all cases and enforce all laws by himself, the ruler is ultimate-
ly responsible for regulating delegated authority and for protecting against
abuses by lesser powers. But how can it be ensured that the monarch him-
self will uphold justice and judge in accordance with it? Why should the
13. The cooperative theme has been addressed by Cary J. Nederman, Political Thought in
Early Fourteenth-Century England (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Stud-
ies, 2002), 613.
14. Bracton, De Legibus et Consuetudines Angliae, ed. Samuel E. Thorne, 4 vols. (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 19681977), 2:19 and 22.
15. Ibid., 2:33 and 305.
king, against whom no writ runs, voluntarily obey legal statute? De legibus
resolves this dilemma by construing the rulers voluntas in terms of a habi-
tus (ingrained disposition) to perform justice.16 Thus, the king can be ex-
pected to do what is just because the characteristic moral orientation of his
voluntas toward goodness entails a stable disposition to obey all just legisla-
tion. In this sense, the king is said to be non sub homines, sed sub deo et
sub leges because he bridles himself through the self-imposed restraint
of his own voluntas. No man can force the king to be just in his acts and
decisions; it is sufficient that his will be so firmly fixed upon justice that it
cannot choose an course of action that is unjust.
To the extent that the king commits a positive and flagrant injury, how-
ever, he may be bridled by those personshis barons and countswhom
he has associated with himself in the performance of justice.17 While the
monarch has no peer in the commission of just deeds, neither has he an
unlimited capacity to do injury to his subjects. Since the royal will is a
characteristically good moral will, the kings privileged status is erased by
his refusal to correct a clear injustice. The magnates are thereby admon-
ished to censure or impose judgment upon the tyrannical monarch in the
royal curia itself. If they decline to do so, they will receive the same eter-
nal damnation as their royal master; but no further action by the people
short of prayer is contemplated.18 De legibus applies to the problem of the
tyrannical ruler the typically medieval claim that a prince who ordinar-
ily exercises a given set of political rights may, in exceptional circumstanc-
es, legitimately have his authority overridden by another powerwithout,
however, losing or abrogating his original rights.
Few features of the Bractonian conception of kingship and govern-
ment were left untouched or unaltered by those seventeenth-century theo-
rists committed to a strong doctrine of sovereignty. Rather, in view of the
authoritative weight that the name of Bracton doubtless lent to any po-
lemical position, authors working between the reigns of Kings Charles I
and William III sought to recover what Sir Robert Filmer called the
true sense of Bractons words.19 However, this process of recovery was ac-
16. Ibid., 2: 23. For a full discussion of the significance of the Bractonian theory of habitus
for the understanding of the works political ideas, see Cary J. Nederman, Bracton on King-
ship Revisited, History of Political Thought 5 (1984): 6673.
17. Bracton, De Legibus, 2:10910.
18. For a more thorough examination of this argument, see chaper 6 of the present volume.
19. Sir Robert Filmer, Patriarcha and Other Political Works, ed. Peter Laslett (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1949), 139.
complished by means of the reconstruction of the political ideas contained

in De legibus along lines consistent with indivisible and inalienable sov-
ereignty. Filmer himself affords a prime case in point. His approach to
Bractonian thought in Patriarcha derives from his promotion of absolute
monarchy. According to Filmer, Bractons authority for the unlimited ju-
risdiction of kings20 rivals that of Scripture or the Fathers of the Church.
Indeed, Bracton is preferable as a source of establishing royal sovereignty
because he is an Englishman who lived since the institution of Parlia-
ments, and thus had ample opportunity to observe the rights of the Eng-
lish Crown in relation to the alleged liberties of the Commons.21 Patriar-
chas quotations from the text of De legibus in support of royal absolutism
are highly selective: Filmer consistently extracts excerpts that appear to ex-
empt the king from the obligation to obey statutes and to render him sub-
servient to God alone. Yet these remarks occur in the midst of passages of
De legibus in which the principle of royal submission to law forms the ma-
jor theme.22
That Filmer was untroubled by attributions that seem to us wholly
fraudulent reflects his belief that genuine legislative proclamations logi-
cally require a sovereign who is above any law: There can be no laws with-
out a supreme power to command or make them..... . In a monarchy, the
king must of necessity be above the laws. There can be no sovereign maj-
esty in him that is under them. That which giveth the very being to a King
is the power to give laws.23 This concept of absolute and indivisible sover-
eignty is placed by Filmer directly into Bractons mouth. Filmer states (ac-
curately enough) that Bracton defends the primacy of the king in the per-
formance of justice, so that judges in the royal court should be regarded
strictly as deputies of the Crown. But Patriarcha then insists that the Brac-
tonian position entails the sovereign unity of legislation and adjudication:
It is most reasonable that the lawmaker should be trusted with the appli-
cation or interpretation of the laws.24 As proof that this is the actual view
of Bracton, that learned Chief Justice in the Reign of Henry III, Filmer
mistranslates a sentence of De legibus (without providing the Latin, which
was his usual practice) to the effect that in doubtful and obscure points
the interpretation and will of our Lord the King is to be expected, since
20. Ibid., 96. 21. Ibid.,100.

22. Compare Filmers quotations at ibid., 100, with Bracton, De legibus, 2:33 and at Patri-
archa, 104, with De legibus, 2:306.
23. Patriarcha, 105. 24. Ibid., 109.
it is his part to interpret who made the law.25 In the Latin text, the final
clauses reads ..... cum eius sit interpretari cuius est condere (since it is
for him who establishes to interpret).26 The context is the discussion by
De legibus of royal charters rather than of leges. Filmer, in brief, has altered
the meaning of the passage from De legibus to reflect the only doctrine that
makes sense to him: namely, if the king is the supreme judge, then he must
also be the sole legitimate source of legislation within his realm.
Filmer reaffirms and defends this basic stance in the Freeholders Grand
Inquest.27 Against authors who would deny to the king any positive role in
the pronouncement of law, Filmer again contraposes the quotation from
De legibus about the interpretation of doubtful and obscure matters. But
this time, he cites the passage more completely and in its proper context;
he also replaces his extrapolation who made the law with the more accu-
rate phrase who makes the charter.28 Nevertheless, Filmer feels justified
in extracting the same lesson from De legibus as previously: When Brac-
ton wrote, the laws that were then made, and strived for, were called the
Kings Charters, as Magna Charta, Charta de Foresta, and others, so that
in Bractons judgment the King hath not only a legislative voice to hinder
but an affirmative to make law.29 By means of the identification of char-
ters with lawshowever historically suspect that might beFilmer attri-
butes to Bracton the doctrine that the royal will is characteristically legisla-
tive. De legibus becomes an authority for the traditional legislative role of
the English king. And just as in Patriarcha, Filmer immediately joins this
law-making capacity to the more genuinely Bractonian contention that the
Crown is the source of all jurisdiction and judgment. According to Filmer,
Not only the law-maker, but also the sole judge of the people, is the King,
in the judgment of Bracton,30 an idea that Filmer had earlier construed to
mean that the King only and none but he, if he were able, should judge
all cases, saith Bracton.31 Bractonian political thought is thereby convert-
ed into a witness for the sovereignty of the English monarchy: the king is
25. Ibid., 109.
26. Bracton, De legibus, 2:109.
27. Although Filmers authorship of the Freeholders Inquest has been disputed, whether
or not it is genuinely his work is not germane here. For the present, I shall continue the con-
vention of referring to Filmer as author of the Freeholders Inquest until more definitive evi-
dence emerges. On the reasons for questioning of Flimers authorship, see Corinne Comstock
Weston, The Authorship of the Freeholders Grand Inquest, English Historical Review 95 (1980):
7498.
28. Filmer, Patriarcha, 17273. 29. Ibid., 173.
30. Ibid., 173. 31. Ibid., 154.
vested with all powers of justice as well as legislation, none of which can be
exercised by others except through his explicit authorization.
Filmers belief that Bracton espoused such a conception of royal sover-
eignty, in turn, encourages him to confront some of the evidence favoring
a different reading of De legibus. In particular, those who would contend
that the kings power is subservient to or dependent upon his subjects are
mistaken if they find any authority for that view in Bracton. Filmer ad-
mits that, in the addicio de cartis, Bracton does appear to concede to law
and to a court of Earls and Barons a place above the King (although
he goes on to stress that the text mentions not a word of the Commons,
or the representative body of the kingdom being any part of the superior
court).32 But Filmer does not regard Bracton to have meant in truth that
the king is inferior to any of his subjects; this would violate the principle
of sovereignty already ascribed to the Bractonian king, and it would be in-
consistent with statements found elsewhere in De legibus. Filmer thinks it
possible, however, to resolve the apparent dilemma posed by the text with-
out undermining royal sovereignty. As conceived by the Freeholder, the su-
periority of law and the baronage is of an advisory nature only:
The law and the court of Earls and Barons ..... must of necessity be understood
to be superiors, so far only as to advise, and to direct the King out of his good
grace and will only: which appears plainly by the words of Bracton himself.......
The same man, who speaking according to some mens opinion, saith, the law and
court of Earls and Barons are superior to the King; in this place he tells us himself,
the King hath no superior but God: the difference is easily reconciled; according to
the distinction of the schoolmen, the King is free from the coactive power of laws
or counselors: but may be subject to their directive power, according to his own
will: that is, God can only compel, but the law and his courts may advise him.33
It is important to note that the difference of which Filmer speaks only

raises a problem under the assumption of an absolute and indivisible con-
ception of sovereignty. Filmer effectively transforms superiority into sov-
ereign authority, so that a true superior in one case must be superior in all
instances. Thus, Filmer supposes that there must be two senses of superi-
ority present in De legibus: one, reflecting political sovereignty or coact-
ive power, is an unqualified prerogative of the king; the other, a right to
counsel and guide royal decisions, may be found in laws and in the curia,
32. Ibid., 139.

33. Ibid., 140.
but exists only at the behest and with the approval of the king himself. The
second form of superiority is consequently of an inferior sort. Obviously,
as a coherent interpretation of the text, Filmers attempted reconciliation
is unsatisfactory,34 but more to the point, both the alleged contradiction
and the proposed resolution are directly the product of Filmers attribution
of the idea of royal sovereignty to the political argument of De legibus.
Bractonian doctrines were used to similar effect by another eminent
proponent of royal absolutism, Thomas Hobbes. Hobbess interest in Brac-
ton is manifested in the Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of
the Common Laws of England.35 Like Filmer, Hobbes found in De legibus
an authority of unimpeachable antiquity for the contention that the Eng-
lish Common Law, no less than the reasoning of philosophers, affirms the
sovereignty of the Crown. Describing Bracton as the most authentick Au-
thor of the Common Law, Hobbes declares that De legibus is foremost
among the legal Books to be consulted regarding points of the Right of
Soveraignty.36 At the same time, Hobbes repeatedly states that Bractonian
doctrines reflect Reason; in other words, they accord with the conclu-
sions of rational inquiry apart from the authority of legal precedent.
The Dialogue concentrates upon De legibus in a chapter devoted main-
ly to the question of whether there exist any independent grounds for sub-
jects to resist the commands of sovereigns. Hobbes had established that
human justice proceeds from the creation of legal statute: there is no jus-
tice or injustice before there is law defining it as such, and thus there is
no property or secure possession in the absence of law.37 By extension,
he argues that the very existence and continuation of law and justice (not
to mention property) depend upon the vitality of the will of the sover-
eign who makes and enforces law: It is in virtue of the Soveraignty, that
every man may not enter into, and Possess what he pleaseth; and conse-
quently to deny the Soveraign any thing necessary to the sustaining of his
Soveraign Power, is to destroy the Propriety he pretends to.38 Sovereignty
and safe ownership are but two sides of the same coin; the presence of sov-
34. A quite similar reading of De legibus was proposed by Brian Tierney, Bracton on Gov-
ernment, Speculum 38 (1963): 31416, and H. G. Richardson, Bracton: The Problem of His Text
(London: Selden Society, 1965), 3334.
35. The editorial history of the Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common
Laws of England is synopsized by Joseph Cropsey in his edition of the text (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1971), 28. References shall be to this edition, followed by the pagination of
the first edition of 1681.
36. Ibid., 74; 38. 37. Ibid., 7273; 36.
38. Ibid., 43; 3637.
ereignty is all that stands in the way of the assertion by individuals of their
Right to all things.39 As a consequence, the welfare of subjects depends
upon the rulers exercise of the full range of political powers. Hobbes speci-
fies these powers by creating a pastiche of phrases derived from the text of
De legibus. The distinct impression left by this compilation is that Brac-
tons king was the maker as well as the enforcer of law, and that all the
rights within the realm were inseparable from the Crown.40 Hobbes posits
the Common Law tradition as the source of the indivisibility and inalien-
ability of the monarchs sovereign power. The philosophical interlocutor of
the Dialogue asks, If Bractons Law be Reason, as I, and you think it is;
what temporal power is there which the King hath not? What is there that
the King cannot do, except sin against the Law of God?41 In short, the
Bractonian monarch as reconstructed by Hobbes acquires all the salient
characteristics of the absolute sovereign.
Finding in De legibus such a reliable authority for royal sovereignty,
Hobbes seeks to refute those opponents of absolute monarchy who ascribe
to the Common Law a pervasive preference for popular liberty. The Di-
alogue infers from the Bractonian insistence that the king is supreme in
the performance of justice that all royal acts are beyond question or resis-
tance. But was not the inviolability of the royal will precisely an idea con-
demned by parliamentarians during the Civil War as incompatible with
the principle of Common Law? To Hobbes, it appears that Bractons doc-
trine concerning the Rights of Soveraignty so much cryed down by the
long Parliament, is the Ancient Common Law, and that the only bridle of
the Kings of England ought to be the fear of God.42 It was the enemies of
the Crown, rather than its proponents, who sought to overthrow the legal
and political traditions endemic to the English. Any rational person could,
Hobbes concludes, have adduced the doctrine of royal sovereignty from
the Bractonian precept of the kings superiority:
There be many men that are able judges of what is right Reason and what not;
when any of these shall know that a man has no Superior, nor Peer in the King-
dom, he will hardly be persuaded he can be bound by any Law of the Kingdom, or
39. Ibid., 73; 36.

40. Ibid., 74; 38. Oddly, Cropsey remarks, Many of Hobbess quotations are to some ex-
tent paraphrases. He never, to my knowledge, corrupts the sense of what he renders ..... (49).
Apparently, Cropsey did not bother to consult very carefully the text of De legibus.
41. Ibid., 74; 38.
42. Ibid., 74; 39.
that he who is subject to none but God, can make a Law upon himself, which he
cannot also as easily abrogate, as he made it.43
Once again, the Bractonian statement that the king is superior in matters
of justice is construed as a fully elaborated notion of sovereignty. For Hob-
bes, the stress in De legibus on royal superiority implies nothing less than
a monarch whose will is legislative in nature and hence above law. It then
becomes possible for him to transform the Common Law into a refutation
of numerous facets of the parliamentary case. If De legibus did not support
the limitation of royal power by the Commons or the laws of England, one
of the major pillars of parliamentarian thoughtthat the ancient English
constitution placed law above will44collapses. The presentation of Brac-
tonian ideas in the Dialogue, then, should not be characterized as either
rhetorical flourish or as a superficial appeal to authority. Rather, Hobbess
ability to invoke De legibus as a source clearly favoring royal sovereignty
was crucial to his effort to bring the Common Law into line with the les-
sons of reason regarding the absolute nature of monarchy.
While Bracton may have been a familiar and friendly name among ad-
vocates of English absolutism, he was no less popular among theoretically
minded adherents to the parliamentary cause. Like their absolutist oppo-
nents, some parliamentarian theorists invoked a notion of sovereignty in
order to interpret De legibus in an un-Bractonian fashion. Such filtering
of a modern concept of sovereign power into the pages of De legibus in
order to support popular rights is evident, for instance, in John Miltons
Pro populo Anglicano defensio.45 Miltons reliance upon De legibus at first
seems to be unexceptional. Bractonian citations are employed to explain
the common medieval distinction between kingship and tyranny. The king
rules well, according to reason and law, and thus as divine representative
on earth; the tyrant, by contrast, is the image of the devil, governing by
passion and force. Milton ascribes a similar foundation to law: Nothing
contrary to the laws of God or to reason can be considered law, any more
than a tyrant can be considered a king, or the servant of the Devil a servant
of God.46 Like kings, laws must live up to the absolute standards imposed
43. Ibid., 7576; 41.
44. On this doctrine, see J. G. A. Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law:
English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century (New York: Norton, 1967), 5152.
45. The background to the Defensio is reviewed by William J. Grace in his preface to the
edition of the text in D. M. Wolfe, ed. Complete Prose Works of John Milton (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1966), 4:28586.
46. Ibid., 492.
by God and reason. Should either a ruler or a statute fail the test, each los-
es its legitimacy: the king becomes a tyrant, the law is effectively no true
law at all. Thus, conformity with divine and rational dictates constitutes
the limit of obligation, in the sense that no one should obey an invalid law
or submit to the will of a tyrant. The Defensio proclaims that since law is
above all else right reason, it appears that, if we must obey a king and a ser-
vant of God, for the same reason and by the same law, we must resist a ty-
rant and a servant of the Devil.47 While De legibus itself did not explicitly
draw such a conclusion, the doctrine that tyrants ought to be stripped of
their power enjoyed a long history during the Latin Middle Ages. Certain-
ly, nothing in Bractonian thought suggested that subjects ought to obey a
tyrant just as they would a king.
But Milton, recognizing the difficulties implied by the attempt to de-
termine whether a specific ruler is a king or a tyrant, proceeds to argue that
even a legitimate king is not exempt from external constraints. Governing
in general accord with Gods law and reason does not render royal power
absolute. Rather, the Defensio maintains on Bractons authority that since
there is doubt about the title more often than about the fact, the king
of England, even though he has not lost the title of king, can and should
be judged like any ordinary man.48 It is not necessary for a monarch to
be dethroned or otherwise proclaimed tyrannical as a prerequisite for him
to face judgment and condemnation, a view for which Milton finds his
source in the statement in De legibus that the king should be the last to
receive justice. Similarly, Milton employs Bractonian grounds in order to
specify the identity of those who may impose a verdict upon the king. Mil-
ton remarks that since our king should be subject to judgment whether
under the title of tyrant or king, it is easy to see who should be his law-
ful judges, whereafter he cites the addicio de cartis section of De legibus in
which the barons are described as royal superiors and bridles.49 Milton
does not, however, deduce from the text that the magnates of the realm
must occasionally rectify an injury committed by the Crown. Instead, he
concludes that this is a statement of the ultimate supremacy of the peo-
ple and its immediate representative, the Commons. Milton reasons that
by barons, Bracton would have meant the representatives of the people
rather than the peers of the realm. The House of Commons is included
under the name of barons, the Defensio asserts, a claim that is justified by
47. Ibid., 492. 48. Ibid., 493.

49. Ibid., 493.
reference to passages from the Modus tenendi parliamentum which demon-

strate that our most ancient writings on the law call them from time to
time the Peers of Parliament.50 In other words, Milton locates in De legi-
bus a defense of the ultimate right of royal subjects (by way of their chosen
delegates) not merely to bridle and restrain him but to judge and punish
him as well ..... should the king do wrong to the whole people.51 Parlia-
ment enjoys an independent authority, derived from its popular mandate,
to bring the Crown to account for its conduct and to rectify the injuries
committed by the monarchy.
Miltons use of the reputation of Bracton is thus diametrically opposed to
that of the absolutists. The Defensio attributes to De legibus the ideas that the
king is subservient to the people and that the latter retain a full set of sover-
eign powers. Milton argues that since, on a Bractonian account, the creation
and authorization of law pertain to the common agreement of the populace,
the justice that is rendered on the basis of statutes must derive solely from
the people. Making direct reference to a passage of Fleta excerpted from De
legibus,52 Milton concludes that at first the right to judge belonged to the
people themselves, and that the English never transferred that right to the
king by any law of royalty, for the king neither can nor does judge anyone
save by laws already established and approved....... This same power remains
to the people undiminished in its entirety.53 Once again, the presumption
of the indivisible and inalienable nature of sovereignty influences the under-
standing of the political thought of De legibus: if law is popular in origin,
then so must be the judgments to which it gives rise. The assignment to the
king of responsibility for executing justice does not confer upon him any
measure of independent sovereign authority. Milton asks,
Will any king make a claim such as this, that he alone knows better than the whole
people what is just and profitable, especially when according to Bracton III. 9, He
was created and appointed for this end, that he might dispense justice to all, and
dispense it in accordance with those laws which the populace has chosen?54
For Milton, the power to legislate is inseparable from the power to deter-
mine ultimately what is just. Hence, inasmuch as the people constitute
the supreme legislative authority in the land, they must also be the well-
spring and foundation of all adjudication. It is because of the sovereignty
50. Ibid., 493. 51. Ibid., 494.

52. Compare Bracton, De legibus, 2:305 with Fleta 2:36.
53. Milton, Defensio, 486. 54. Ibid., 496.
lodged in the people (and wielded by their ordained representative, the

Commons) that even kings may be judged and condemned.
The obvious consequence of Miltons reading of De legibus is a vast re-
duction in the role and status of the king as compared with the absolutist ac-
count. The Defensio does not deny the superiority of the Crown, but it as-
serts that the monarchs claim to be superior is based purely on the fact that
he enforces justice on behalf of the people. Thus, Milton says that while pri-
vate persons ought to be subject to the determinations of the king, the mon-
arch in turn must himself be subservient to the whole people, who legislate
and define what is just. According to the Defensio, this sovereignty of the
people is rooted in the oldest traditions of English Common Law:
It is impossible to prove by any ancient evidence that the government of the King-
dom of England is absolute monarchy. The King, says Bracton, has jurisdiction
over all. That is, in court, where justice is rendered in the kings name to be sure,
but according to our laws. Everyone is subject to the king: as an individual, that
is, as Bracton himself makes clear.......55
The Bractonian king is transformed by Milton into an executive agent of

the public justice codified in the law. The monarch is certainly the greatest
magistrate in the realm, but his exercise of power over individuals is not to
be confused with sovereignty. Indeed, even judgments by royal courts are
to be free of interference from the king. Citing the precept of our writer
Bracton that royal authority extends only to the performance of justice,
Milton comments that the king could imprison no man, confiscate no
property, execute no men save after trial in another court whose decision
has been rendered by the regular judges, not by the king, and, as I have
said before, often in opposition to the king.56 The monarch becomes little
more than an administrative convenience, a civil servant whose task is to
carry out the decisions of the judicial system in accordance with the laws
approved by the people in their Commons. For Miltons Defensio, such a
conception of royal power is justified by the doctrines of De legibus: if the
English people are sovereign legislators and ultimate judges, then any ju-
risdictional authority employed by the king must be delegated by and be-
holden to a popular source. Institutionally, this source is the Commons,
which is charged with the careful regulation of royal power.
Even after the Restoration, Bractons name was still associated with the
cause of popular sovereignty espoused by English political authors. Perhaps
55. Ibid., 505. 56. Ibid., 500.
the most extensive utilization of De legibus in the post-Commonwealth pe-

riod is to be found in Algernon Sidneys Discourses Concerning Government, a
thorough commentary on, and rebuttal of, Filmers patriarchal monarchism.
In the process, Sidney condemns Filmer for his willful perversion of the
Bractonian text, while purporting to maintain complete fidelity to De legibus
in his own interpretations. Specifically, Filmer is accused of seeking to
put a false sense upon our law. According to his custom he takes pieces of passages
from good Books, and turns them directly against the plain meanings of the Au-
thors, exprest in the whole scope and design of their Writings. To show that he in-
tends to spare none, he is not ashamd to cite Bracton who of all our ancient Law-
writers is most opposite to his Maxims.57
Sidney identifies the motive behind Filmers misrepresentation and distor-

tion of the Common Law doctrines articulated in De legibus: it is to com-
pel Bracton to speak with an absolutist voice. Yet Bracton will not meet
Filmers own needs without the commission of violence against his text:
Tis a strange impudence in Filmer to cite him [Bracton] as a Patron of the ab-
solute Power of Kings, who dos so extremely depress them. But the grossest of
his follys is yet more pardonable than his detectable fraud in falsifying Bractons
words, and leaving out such as are not for his purpose, which show his meaning to
be directly contrary to the sense put upon them.58
Sidney charges Filmer with nothing less than intentional deception. To as-
cribe an absolutist stance to De legibus is only possible, Sidney asserts, inas-
much as passages are quoted out of context and meanings are manipulated
to fit extraneous purposes. The Discourses consequently aims to correct the
corruptions of Bractonian political thought engendered by Filmer.
Predictably, however, Sidneys own reading of De legibus involves an
equally inaccurate and selective interpretation of the text. In reaction to
Filmers royalism, Sidney converts the Bractonian framework into a total
vindication of the sovereign rights of the English people. In familiar fash-
ion, Sidney begins with the Bractonian conception of the kings relation to
law. He proclaims that the English have a King who reigns by Law. His
power is from Law that makes him Kinga footnote expressly states Lex
facit ut fix Rex. Bractonand we can know only from thence what he
57. Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government, 2nd ed. (London: J. Darby, 1704),
26263.
58. Ibid., 264.
is to command, and what we are obliged to obey.59 The royal preroga-

tive, in sum, is defined and circumscribed by law. In the terms of Bracto-
nian discourse employed by Sidney, to be king is esse sub lege just as surely
as the meanest subject.60 Law vests the king with power and simultane-
ously determines the nature of the justice that must in each case be per-
formed. Thus, logic dictates the independence of the law from the will of
the monarch; no ruler could ever become a tyrant if the legislation of the
kingdomdeparture from which constitutes tyrannywas wholly reliant
upon the kings personal whim. Where a tyrant does emerge, it must be
by departing from that which does not depend upon his will, and is a rule
that is prescribed by a power that is above him. This indeed is the doctrine
of Bracton who ..... said that the Power of the King is the Power of Law, be-
cause the Law makes the King.61 The lesson that Sidney derives from De
legibus is straightforward: the king is unerring and insusceptible to correc-
tion to the precise extent that he abides by the law.62 Sidney acknowledges
that this statement has two possible yet completely consistent meanings.
With regard to the politick capacity of the Kingthe monarch properly
speaking, who always meets his dutiesno one may presume to tell him
how to conduct his government or may criticize him. This is how Sidney
explains away the more overtly absolutistic passages of De legibus: a king
in his politick capacity cannot commit a wrong because it is a necessary
characteristic of kingship only to do what is right and just in accordance
with law. By contrast, the monarch in his natural capacity is fallible: as
an individual person, his will may be diverted from the path charted by
law; when he strays, he must be corrected or even punished. Hence, to im-
pose the law upon a particular officeholder is not to diminish the majesty
of the Crown, since the politick aspect of kingship is constituted by per-
fect obedience to law. Sidney twice insists that this distinction between the
natural and the politick is implicit in Bractonian discussions of monar-
chy.63 And it is alleged to be Filmers failure to identify the difference that
generated his erroneous absolutist reading of De legibus.
In contrast with Filmer, the Discourses maintains that the correct inter-
pretation of Bractons text requires us to recall that English Kings are sub-
ject to Laws, because they can make no Law.64 The legislative process in-
stead pertains solely and inalienably to the people of England as adequately
59. Ibid., 258. 60. Ibid., 283.

61. Ibid., 287. 62. Ibid., 26364.
63. See ibid., 26364. 64. Ibid., 261.
represented in Parliament. Sidney proclaims that it has always been the

case that the ultimate power within the nation was located in such Coun-
cils or Assemblys of the People as had the power of the whole, and made
or unmade such laws as best pleased themselves.65 Inasmuch as Sidney as-
sumes the unity of sovereign authority, the right of legislation immediately
implies the concomitant right to determine the correct meaning of statutes
and thereby to act as final judge in all litigation. The Discourses asserts that
our Parliaments having the power of making and abrogating Laws, they
only can interpret the true significance of legislation.66 In view of what
amounts to a doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty (despite Sidneys reluc-
tance to employ that term), the Bractonian principle that the king is sub
lege readily equates with the idea that the monarch is subservient to Parlia-
ment. Simply by proposing that to be king demands obedience to the law,
De legibus becomes a vital tool in Sidneys defense of the sovereign rights of
the English people and Commons.
What is especially striking about Sidneys discussion in this regard is his
claim that the rendering of judgment is not an inherent feature of the poli-
tick capacity of royal power. According to the Discourses, The King, mere-
ly as King, has none of the qualitys required for judging all or any cases.67
Such a doctrine we have seen implied in the use made of Bracton by Mil-
ton. But Sidney is explicit both in stating the idea and in ascribing it to
Bracton. Lest the Discourses seems to contradict the Bractonian remark that
the king alone should render judgment (if it were but physically possible
for him to do so), Sidney suggests that this statement pertains to the person
of the monarch and not to his office. That is, individual kings might prove
to possess the skills necessary to be competent judges; when this has oc-
curred, they have been empowered to perform tasks associated with render-
ing justice. Bracton was evidently referring to a situation of that sort, which
is purely a matter of the natural condition of the monarch rather than his
politick capacity. The Discourses contends that we may conclude, with-
out contradicting Bracton that no King as King has the power of judging,
because some of them are unable and unfit to do it; and if any one has such
a power, it must be conferd upon him by those who think him able and fit
to perform that work.68 If whatever person who happened to become king
were thereby allowed to judge, there would emerge an incongruity with the
politick character of kingship, which requires the monarch to commit no
65. Ibid., 263. 66. Ibid., 34546.

67. Ibid., 339. 68. Ibid., 339.
injustice. In other words, to allow an unqualified ruler to judgeone who

would inevitably commit injuriesis to violate the very essence of the roy-
al office itself. That De legibus advocated precisely this view, Sidney claims,
is visible from its discussion of the terms of both the coronation oath and
the judicial mandate: the section of the oath that demands that the king
give just judgment could never be honestly administered to a monarch un-
tutored in law; at the same time, De legibus insists that only those persons
with the highest personal and intellectual qualifications should be permit-
ted to judge.69 The lesson of De legibus is that, because judgment must he
given by skilled individuals in accordance with law, Kings and their Offi-
cers do not possess their places for themselves, but for the People, and must
be such as are fit and able to perform the dutys they undertake.70 And the
ultimate determinant of competence is the assent of the people (through
their parliamentary delegates). Sidney asserts that the question therefore is
not, what is good for the King, but what is good for the People, and he can
have no right repugnant to them.71 The people alone must decide whether
the justice they receive is satisfactory.
Should the populace be displeased with its government, or should a
ruler overstep the bounds of his assigned duties, Sidney is happy to say that
the king (at least in his natural capacity) is himself susceptible to judg-
ment at the hands of his subjects. Once again, Bracton is invoked to testify
to the antiquity of Sidneys position. The Discourses observes, In England,
the Kings do not judg, but are judgd: and Bracton says, That in receiving
justice the King is equal to another man; which could not be if judgments
were given by him, and he were exempted from the judgment of all by that
Law, which has put all judgments in the hands of the people.72 Nor will
Sidney accept apparently contradictory evidence from De legibus, such as
the Bractonian claim that when the king refuses to amend his own actions
the punishment of God the Avenger should be awaited.73 It is no less true
of the murderer or thief that he will receive the divine penalty, comments
Sidney, and yet we think nothing of judging such a criminal on earth as
well. Why should the king, if he is also sub lege, be any different? The Dis-
courses declares that we all know how to proceed with those who being
69. Ibid., 339 and 34041.

70. Ibid., 341. 71. Ibid., 340.
72. Ibid., 338.
73. The widespread appeal by the Bractonian author(s) to an avenging God has been ad-
dressed by Gaines Post, Bracton on Kingship, Tulane Law Review (1968): 52535; and W. C.
Jordan, On Bracton and Deus Ultor, Law Quarterly Review 87 (1972): 2529.
under the Law, offend against it. For the Law is not made in vain. In this
case something more is to be done than petitioning.74
Since the English people through Parliament make their own laws,
which the king is beholden to observe, and since the people are simultane-
ously the supreme judge of all violations of law, the monarch who disobeys
legislationwhose person does not live up to the officemay properly be
summoned and condemned before his rightful master. The name of Brac-
ton thus comes to be staunchly affiliated by Sidney with the cause of pop-
ular rule. Indeed, the Discourses occasionally even implies that the Brac-
tonian defense of the peoples rights is more rigorous and resolute than
Sidneys own position.75 In turn, this interpretation of De legibus neces-
sarily presumes that buried beneath the surface of the Bractonian text is a
doctrine of inalienable and indivisible sovereignty, a belief that all political
powers and rights may be traced to a single ultimate source.
The fact that the Bractonian text was so widely cited by such a vast
range of seventeenth-century authors originally inspired Charles McIlwain
to ask the now-classic question: Was Bracton, then, an absolutist, or a
constitutionalist, or was he just a blockhead?76 We ought to be able, at
the conclusion of the present chapter, to recognize the extent to which it
was an error even to ask such a question and thus to saddle De legibus (or
indeed any medieval text) with the interpretive apparatus laid on it during
the middle and late 1600s. The doctrines of De legibus were not transmitted
or received in pristine fashion, unaffected by the radical changes in both
political reality and mentalit that distanced the seventeenth century from
the thirteenth. None of this, of course, explains why authors like Filmer,
Hobbes, Milton, and Sidney felt the need to convert Bracton to their own
views in the first place. The solution to that problem no doubt has much
to do with the ideological functions of the English Common Law tradi-
tion.77 But we are perhaps now better positioned to realize that, in tracing
apparent long-run continuities in political concepts and discourse, the his-
torian of European political thought must be closely attuned to those im-
portant differences that often belie ostensible continuity.
74. Sidney, Discourses, 264. 75. Ibid., 287341.

76. McIlwain, Constitutionalism, 73.
77. The most useful recent studies are Jeffrey Golsworthy, The Sovereignty of Parliament:
History and Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999); J. W. Tubbs, The Common Law Mind:
Medieval and Early Modern Conceptions (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000);
and Alan Cromartie, The Constitutionalist Revolution: An Essay on the History of England, 1450
1642 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
20
H e g e l o n t h e M e d i e va l F o u n d at i o ns
o f t h e M o d e r n S t at e
t h as b e c o m e a c o m m o np l ac e for political theorists

and historians to emphasize that a complete appreciation of
the emergence and nature of the modern state presupposes an un-
derstanding of the medieval backdrop out of which it evolved.1
This perspective has rightly been hailed by scholars in both disci-
plines for exploding the long-standing myth of the medieval pe-
riod as a Dark Age separating the more enlightened epochs of
antiquity and modernity. But it may be too hasty to assert that
the discovery of the medieval foundations of the modern state is
of recent vintage. It may be argued, rather, that far earlier think-
ers acknowledged the contribution of the Middle Ages to the for-
mation of the modern conception of the state. The social and po-
litical thought of the nineteenth-century German philosopher
G. W. F. Hegel affords one example of such recognition.
At first glance, Hegel may seem an unlikely advocate for the
relevance of medieval political experience to modern politics. Af-
ter all, throughout his career, Hegel never sought to mask his dis-
dain for the political, social, and cultural world of the European
Middle Ages. One memorable passage from the Lectures on the
1. This position was pioneered by scholars as diverse as Joseph Strayer, On the

Medieval Origins of the Modern State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970);
Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London: NLB, 1974); and Quentin
Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1978).
323
Philosophy of History spoke of the long, ominous and terrible night of the
Middle Ages,2 from which men were liberated only by the dawning of
religious, scientific, and political enlightenment. Most particularly, Hegel
was an implacable foe of what he took to be the typical form of medieval
social and political organization, the feudal bond, as well as a fluent critic
of contemporary theorists such as Montesquieu who evinced great sym-
pathy for feudalism.3 Where the political system of Greek antiquityand
sometimes even of Romewas lauded by Hegel,4 he found little to ap-
plaud in the medieval polity. Indeed, as W. H. Walsh comments, Hegel
writes as if there were no true state in the Middle Ages, only an aggregate
of particular individuals, more or less personally powerful.5 We ought not
to be surprised, then, that scholars have devoted minimal attention to He-
gels interpretation of the medieval moment in his historical and political
analysis.
Yet it is impossible to neglect the fact that Hegels idea of the modern
state is constructed around numerous institutions and structures charac-
teristic of medieval politics: monarchic government, intermediary bodies,
guild values, militaristic organization. Hegel himself thus employs many
elements crucial to the political model that he condemns the Middle Ages
for upholding. For this reason, students of European political theory ought
to ask: In what manner and to what extent do these features of medieval
political life matter to the understanding of the Hegelian notion of the
modern state? Provisionally, we may answer this question in the following
terms: Hegels modern state is derived dialectically from historical experi-
ence in the European Middle Ages. Hence, while Hegel finds little to ad-
mire in medieval Europe on its own terms, the dialectical nature of histori-
cal progress, through which the past is retained in mediated form, renders
the Middle Ages of significance to modern politics. Hegel seems to take
seriously what so many postmedieval political theorists have not, name-
ly, that the modern state emerged not directly out of classical society, but
instead through the apparently circuitous route afforded by the medieval
2. G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen ber die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, ed. Georg Lasson
(Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1976), 871.
3. F. R. Cristi, The Hegelsche Mitte and Hegels Monarch, Political Theory 11 (1983): 60122.
4. Hegels debts to the ancient Greeks and Romans are surveyed by Raymond Plant, Hegel
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), 1727.
5. W. H. Walsh, Principle and Prejudice in Hegels Philosophy of History, in Z. A. Pel-
czynski, ed., Hegels Political Philosophy: Problems and Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1971), 189.
h e g e l 325
polity. As a profoundly historical thinker, Hegel did not dismiss this de-
velopmental transformation of the medieval into the modern; rather, he
sought to demonstrate the rational kernel contained in its historical occur-
rence. Therefore, it is one thing to claim that Hegel harbored a deep dis-
taste for the Middle Ages, and quite another to assert that he regarded the
medieval period as irrelevant to the formation of the modern state. The
first is quite obviously true, the second equally false.6
Still, it is easy enough to confuse Hegels aesthetic preferences with his
political judgments, especially if we limit our focus to the Lectures on the
Philosophy of History, which contains his most detailed, yet most superfi-
cial, analysis of the Middle Ages. During medieval times, Hegel says, the
kings and emperors were no longer the chiefs of the state, but of the princ-
es who were indeed their vassals, but possessed sovereignty and territori-
al lordship of their own. The whole social condition therefore ..... [was]
founded on individual sovereignty.7 The grounds for the claim to sov-
ereignty were the power and prestige that certain individuals rather arbi-
trarily possessed: Individuals were therefore obliged to consult for them-
selves by taking refuge with Individuals, and submitted to the authority
of certain powerful persons, who constituted a private possession and a
personal sovereignty out of that authority which formerly belonged to the
Commonwealth.8 Hegels image of the feudal system in the Lectures on
the Philosophy of History is thus one of isolation and chance powerthe
Hobbesian state of nature taken as an actual historical instance.9 Only the
Church seems to possess any measure of overarching sovereignty, and that
in direct violation of its own inner spiritual principle.10 The conclusion to
which we are led is that without a sovereign political authority, a true state
within the context of the feudal system is impossible.
This evaluation may initially appear to parallel Hegels political ideas
6. A similar ambiguity present in Hegels attitude toward Roman society has been ex-
plored by George Heiman, Hegel and the Roman World, a paper presented to the Canadian
Political Science Association, 1983.
7. G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History, rev. ed., trans. J. Sibree (London
and New York: Colonial Press, 1900), 371; Hegel, Vorlesungen ber die Philosophie der Weltge-
schichte, 813.
8. Ibid., 370; 811.
9. To be sure, Hegel does not make Marxs error of romanticizing the manorial life of the
Middle Ages; see Karl Marx, Early Writings, ed. T. B. Bottomore (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1964), 11415.
10. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History, 38183; Hegel, Vorlesungen ber die Philoso-
phie der Weltgeschichte, 82930, 836, 841.
in the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Philosophy of Right. In the Phenom-

enology, for instance, Hegel suggests that because medieval society is merely
a conglomeration of social classes or factions (Stande) that argue endlessly
about the general good, it lacks a government, an essential power of de-
cision that would direct the actions of a state in a nonpartisan manner.11
Whichever group has power at a particular moment, Hegel seems to sup-
pose, controls social activity with reference to its version of the general good
only. Hegel reiterates this point in the Philosophy of Right, commenting that
in the feudal constitution, political life rests on privileged persons and a
great part of what must be done for the maintenance of the state is settled at
their pleasure. The result is that their services are the objects not of duty but
only of ideas and opinions.12 Hegel uses this fragmentation as an example
of the failure of a society that does not realize that sovereignty is not consti-
tuted by a faction or group (e.g., the people or the monarch), but by the
state itself.13 The state as a unity is alone the bearer of sovereignty. Medieval
society, as a mere conglomeration of factions, does not possess the harmony
and unity of functions characteristic of the state. As Hegel puts it,
Sovereignty depends on the fact that the particular functions and powers of the
state are not self-subsistent or firmly grounded either on their own account or in
the particular will of the individual functionaries, but have their roots ultimately
in the unity of the state as their single self.14
A community that lacks the essential decision-making power (or will) to

act for the genuine public good cannot be considered sovereign. The clos-
est we come to sovereignty in the Middle Ages, Hegel asserts in the Lec-
tures on the Philosophy of History, is the a priori constitution that Charle-
magne imposed on the Frankish empire. But since that system was not
based on the spirit of the people, relying instead on the personal power
and prestige of the king himself, it collapsed with the disappearance of the
man who sustained it.15
The absence of a medieval state containing within itself a principle of
11. G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1977), 307; G. W. F. Hegel, Phnomenologie des Geistes, ed. Johannes Hoffmeister (Ham-
burg: Felix Meiner, 1952), 361.
12. G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1967), 178 (cf. 180); G. W. F. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, ed. Johannes
Hoffmeister (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1955), 23839 (cf. 240).
13. Ibid., 18283; 24445. 14. Ibid., 17879; 241.
15. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History, 36869; Hegel, Vorlesungen ber die Philoso-
phie der Weltgeschichte, 808.
h e g e l 327
unity reflects other more general qualities of society in the Middle Ages.
As Hegel points out in the Phenomenology, medieval culture was consti-
tuted by a condition of self-estrangement in which all actions were taken
in direct relation to the will of God.16 The driving force of the medieval
world was the actualization of Gods universal plan on earth, so that the
hierarchy of feudal relations held its authority not by any will in the pres-
ent world, but by the will of God. Feudalism constituted a network of re-
lations under God; God sat on the throne that would later be brought to
earth in the form of the absolutist monarch (who would, of course, still
claim divine right). When the essential will of the state, its basic power of
decision, rests in the estranged realm of the beyond, however, each partic-
ular interested class or faction can possess a different notion of what God
commands. So long as God stands at the pinnacle of the social system and
is the universal essential will of society, the fragmentation that permeates
the medieval world will not be overcome. The equation of doing Gods
will with the principle of the general good simply offers an excuse for
each faction to resist views contrary to its own best interests. Under such
circumstances, the unification and articulation of public functions, which
constitutes the principle of sovereignty, is impossible.
This would only seem to confirm the supposition that time spent on
Hegels treatment of medieval society is time wasted. But as with much
of Hegels thought, the matter is not so simple as it might initially appear.
In Hegels view, the sovereignty of the state has a double aspect. Sover-
eignty as the rationally constituted essential will of the state is merely sov-
ereignty at home.17 A states sovereignty must also be seen from the per-
spective of its relationship to foreign states. That is, its sovereignty is also
constituted by its negative relation to another state as something exter-
nal, as an Other in which it discovers itself.18 Thus, a state is character-
ized not only by its own positive inner principle, but moreover by its self-
maintenance over against opposing sovereign powers. The latter is an es-
sential moment of the state, since through its external relations a state de-
fines itself as a unitary and individual power. Just as when formed into a
government, the state alone is sovereign within its borders, so its author-
ity to draw such boundaries at all concretizes that state in its negative rela-
16. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, 29596; G. W. F. Hegel, Phnomenologie des Geistes,
24850.
17. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, 181; G. W. F. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts,
241.
18. Ibid., 208; 278.
tion to other principalities. A states true independence and autonomy are

tested precisely in its ability to maintain sovereignty vis--vis other states.
In the recognition and acknowledgment of its sovereignty by state-powers
external to it, one element of the state is established. And this aspect of a
states sovereign authority is not grounded on will, but on force, that is, the
strength that the state-power commands in relation to foreign states.
Hegel thereby ascribes to the medieval polity a measure of sovereign-
ty, so that it is in some sense a genuine state. It is, we might want to say, a
negative state, since it derives its sovereignty solely from its external rela-
tions with foreign powers.19 In feudal times, Hegel says, the state was
certainly sovereign vis--vis other states.20 While the internal activities of
the medieval state might be subject to the instability of factional strife, still
its territorial sovereignty, the unity in which it makes its appearance to
other states, establishes the feudal system as fully political. Despite the fact
that they lack inner articulation, for example, medieval France or England
are states because they present a unified front in their external relations,
they claim sovereignty within certain boundaries, and they are willing to
fight for it. The absence of an internal authority or will does not indicate a
lack of force in relation to foreign states. The negative state of the Middle
Ages thus possesses state-power (the term Hegel continually uses with
regard to medieval social consciousness) without thereby possessing a uni-
versal will of its own.21 It is only with the dawning of absolutist monarchy
that state-power acquires a will of its own, becomes a government, from
which commences the rise of the modern state.
Even in the modern state, however, the two aspects of sovereignty
will and forcedo not appear together, but come to the surface at differ-
ent times. While both moments are essential to the modern state, one or
the other predominates depending upon the circumstances. If the society
is in a period of peace, the particular spheres and functions pursue the
path of satisfying their particular aims and minding their own business.22
Their universal production still supports the social whole,23 but individu-
als are themselves unconscious of the wider implications of civil society.
19. The phrase negative state has been derived from Hegels description of deise negative
Beziehung des Staates auf sich (this negative relation of the state of itself ), which he ascribes
to the state as seen from the aspect of an Other (ibid., 209; 279).
20. Ibid., 180; 241.
21. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, 301; Hegel, Phnomenologie des Geistes, 355.
22. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, 18081; Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, 242.
23. Ibid., 123; 165.
h e g e l 329
The general good rests on each individual doing what is good for himself.
The general good is thus formed by a wide variety of disparate activities,
none of which is by itself the embodiment of the general good. The sov-
ereignty of the state at homeits Ideais the harmonious activity of the
commonwealth. In a time of war, however, the state comes into its own as
force, as the unification of the divergent interests of civil society into the
single directed activity of repelling and overcoming an external threat.24
The sovereignty of the state is the rallying point for the common defense,
which transcends all particular interests and all internal mechanisms of so-
ciety, since in war the general good is incontestable and unambiguous. The
states sovereignty in its external relations is only really manifested in war.
And this negative form of sovereignty is present not merely to a foreign
state, but also to the citizens of ones own state, during periods of war.
There is a lesson in this dual aspect of sovereignty for the study of He-
gels concept of the medieval state. For it is only when the general good
can be served in an unambiguous manner, that is, only in wartime, that
the medieval state seems able to claim sovereignty. Indeed, the institu-
tions of feudalism are the institutions of a society that is based on war.
We need only to think of Hegels comments in the Phenomenology about
the noble consciousness to validate this view. Noble consciousness places
itself at the service of state-power, but more than that, it is the conscious
essence of universal state-power.25 Now, its service to the state is, in its
own mind, service to God; the state represents the will of God on earth,
through which the noble mind finds its salvation. It supposes itself merely
to be performing the good works required for it to escape the present self-
estranged world and find a permanent home in the world beyond. But the
fact of the matter is that state-power is made actual only through the ac-
tivity of the noble consciousness. State-power is a production of the noble
consciousness insofar as the latter subsumes its own ends under the de-
mands placed upon it by state-power. The sacrifice of possessions, wealth,
and even life for the sake of the universal gradually brings noble conscious-
ness to the awareness that it is the very essence of state-power itself. The
renunciation engaged in by the noble consciousness is at the same time
the establishment of the heroism of service, in the form of the knight who
provides service to God and country on the basis of devotion to duty.26
24. Ibid., 181; 242.

26. Ibid., 306; 360.
In its service, the noble mind can truly claim identity with state-power.
But what is the nature of this service? Given the view that its sole cri-
terion is renunciation, it can be nothing else than military service. No-
ble consciousness as actual state-power is based on the fact that the noble
fights for the state in times of war, surrenders all that he has in the name
of the state. In the military service that it provides in wartime, noble con-
sciousness sacrifices itself as is demanded for the continued subsistence of
the state. Noble consciousness carries the burden of responsibility for the
states very future existence. Hence, the identification of the noble con-
sciousness with state-power is premised on the circumstances of warfare.
There the noble has but one duty and one interest: to conquer the foe and
maintain the state. State-power proves to be the negative state, since the
former denotes the force that the state exerts in opposition to other states
in the conduct of war. The essential characteristic of the medieval state is
warfare.
Correspondingly, the whole system of state that the noble conscious-
ness maintains begins to disintegrate only when there are no battles to be
fought, when no external threats are posed to the state-power (the sover-
eignty of the state in its external aspect). At that point, particular interests
and self-will begin to intrude: the noble mind, not surprisingly, expects
some more tangible payoff for its willingness to risk everything in wag-
ing war for the state. Hence, high-minded service to the state is degraded
through successive steps into a base grasping for wealth.27 In its one-sided
negative character, then, the ultimate failure of the medieval state is that
it cannot tolerate a prosperous peace. The state-power of the feudal sys-
tem (as well as the actual consciousness that corresponds to it) is geared to
warfare, and when none is forthcoming, the state rapidly loses its claim to
sovereign authority. Various classes and factions form, each with their own
best interests in mind, all asserting their unique true sovereignty (knowl-
edge of the genuine public good) and aiming to reserve for themselves a
preeminent place in the state apparatus. Each faction maintains itself and
in doing so is productive only of itself and not of the others at the same
time, as Hegel comments in the Philosophy of Right.28
The result is widespread unrest and competition between factions in
which each side establishes itself as something of a state-within-a-state.
The core of Hegels account in the Phenomenology of the collapse of the
27. Ibid., 31213; 367.

h e g e l 331
medieval political world is grounded precisely on the shift from wartime

to peacetime.29 In a period of peace, the essential decision making of the
monarch is required, since the general good is now a matter of hotly con-
tested debate. The unambiguous imperative of winning the war is re-
placed by less straightforward matters of public administration. The peace-
time society needs a will of its own, and so the absolutist monarchthe
harbinger of the modern stateis empowered to perform the functions of
arbitration and decision.30 Only when such an essential will of the state is
in place can the notion of sovereignty at home (or in its internal aspect)
come to have any meaning. Of course, absolutism is in itself only a start;
it is eventually washed away to be replaced by a fully articulated constitu-
tional system.
What is interesting about this view of the medieval state is that it al-
most completely reverses the statement by Walsh quoted near the outset of
this chapter. It is not that Hegel supposes there to be no true state in the
Middle Ages, but that the medieval state clings too strongly to the highest
principle of statehood. In his discussion of sovereignty and war in the Phi-
losophy of Right, Hegel asserts that the state comes most completely into its
own during a period of war, when its citizens must renounce all particular
interests of life and property in order to defend the states sovereignty. War
makes the citizenry aware that it is bound up with a larger social whole
that transcends the private world of civil society and on which the latter
is grounded. As the negative relation between states, war is the moment
wherein the substance of the statei.e., its absolute power against every-
thing individual and particular, against life, property, and their rights, even
against societies and associationsmakes the nullity of these finite things
an accomplished fact and brings it home to consciousness.31 Or, as He-
gel puts it in somewhat more succinct fashion: War is the state of affairs
which deals in earnest with the vanity of temporal goods and concerns.32
War signifies the unity of the state, the coming together of men, who at all
other times have nothing in common, for the express purpose of defend-
ing the state as the foundation of their very existence. It is only in waging
war for the state, Hegel says, that individual citizens recognize the rela-
tive unimportance of their own private goals, the universal and essential
30. Ibid., 31011; 36465.
32. Ibid., 210; 280.
character of the state, and the community of interest that they share with
all their fellow citizens. The sovereign status of the state achieved in times
of war is unsurpassed by any other circumstances; war is that moment in
which the state is most supremely its own, the states actual infinity as the
ideality of everything finite within it.33 The state in such periods takes
on the significance of being something even more essential and basic than
the individuals own life.34 The medieval state, as I have sketched it above,
would seem to fit very well into this scheme of sovereignty and war.
Hegel intended this account to be applied to the modern state. He was
concerned with the implications of the theory of war proffered by various
contractarian philosophers to the effect that the individual ought to serve
his country in times of war in order to defend his own life, liberty, and
property. In other words, such theorists grounded the state upon civil soci-
etyreversing Hegels formulaso that ones going to war for the state
is nothing more than the self-interested proposition that one is protecting
ones own stake in civil society. This principle has been presented in nu-
merous more or less sophisticated versions throughout the history of po-
litical thought: it is the basic insight of positions ranging from crude ego-
ism to the natural law doctrine (derived from Roman private law) that one
has a subjective right to repel a physical threat against life or property with
violence. Hegels objection to the account of war offered by those theories
that place civil society at their core is devastatingly simple: if military ser-
vice is really viewed in purely self-interested terms, then the true child of
civil society would, at the first sign of war, eschew military service and be-
take himself, with his family and [movable] property, to a safe shelter.35
Such a cowardly course of action would clearly be the most rational given
the civil society theorists view of the state; but it hardly produces the result
desired by him, namely, a justification for taking up arms. Hegel pounces
on this inconsistency in order to establish that the state must have a char-
acter that, at least at certain times (times of war), stands above civil soci-
ety, places an objective demand on citizens, and hence makes apparent the
contingency and externality on which civil society is based. In wartime,
the true principle of the state is revealed to be in perfect harmony with
33. Ibid., 209; 279.

34. For a more thorough analysis of Hegels attitude toward warfare, see D. P. Verene, He-
gels Account of War, in Pelczynski, ed., Hegels Political Philosophy, 16880; and Colin Tyler,
Hegel, War and the Tragedy of Imperialism, History of European Ideas 30 (2004): 40331.
35. Shlomo Avineri, Hegels Theory of the Modern State (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1972), 195.
h e g e l 333
indeed, identical tothe true principle of each individual. The state there-
by comes most completely into its own.
It would appear, then, that Hegels analysis of the modern state con-
tains, at least in one important aspect, an element also present in the me-
dieval state, namely, that its universality and essentiality only come to be
felt in the face of war. Of course, it is true that medieval state-power or
the negative state is founded, according to Hegel, on the goal of actu-
alizing Gods universal plan, that is, its internal sovereignty is displaced
into a world beyond. But the point is not that Hegel means for us to view
the medieval and modern states as wholly coextensive. Rather, the mod-
ern state takes up certain moments of the medieval state and rejects oth-
ers; it is both founded on the medieval state, and, at the same time, less
one-sided than its feudal predecessor. This transition occurs, of course, in
successive steps from the feudal system (God as sovereign) to absolute or
unlimited monarchy (divine right of kings) to a completely articulated sys-
tem of sovereignty; but throughout, one aspect of the state, the appearance
of its highest character and aspirations in war, is carried along and reinte-
grated at each level. As it stands, the medieval state is inadequate because
it is one-sided; its acknowledged sovereignty derives solely from its nega-
tive power to make war. Internal sovereignty, since it rests with God in
His heaven as absolute Lord and Master, is utterly estranged. Yet this one-
sidedness should not indicate to us a rejection of the medieval state out of
hand. Rather, it guides the way to a completion of its development, cul-
minating with the modern state. It is not that the state was unformed in
the Middle Ages; it was merely unfinished. To find the state completed,
we need to move beyond the Middle Ages and into the era of the modern
nation-state.36
36. Hegels account of representation in the German Constitution and elsewhere only tends
to confirm the significance of the feudal structure for the development of the modern state. He
suggests, for instance, that it was the world-historical character of the feudal system that carried
the idea of representation out of the forests of Germany and into the modern world, since in
the deliberation of vassal with overlord on matters of common concern ..... the vassals per-
sonal and representative capacities are not distinguished (G. W. F. Hegel, Political Writings,
ed. T. M. Knox [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964], 2034; G. W. F. Hegel, Schriften zur
Politik und Rechtsphilosophie, ed. Georg Lasson [Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1913], 9394). In speak-
ing for himself, the vassal speaks for his territory as well. As this system of representation was
broadened in the late Middle Ages into a more fully formed organization of Estates, and par-
ticipation was extended to the burgers and lesser nobility, the notion of representation took
on the wider meaning that is adopted in the structure of the modern legislative process. See
Hegel, Philosophy of Right, 29394, 201; Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, 26869,
27071.
The incompleteness that is exhibited in the medieval state also has an-
other aspect, if we consider the structure of social life in the Middle Ages.
As we have seen in Hegels analysis of the modern political world in the
Philosophy of Right, the state only comes into its own during times of war;
during periods of peace, civil society embodies the dominant mode of in-
tercourse between individuals. Similarly, Hegels treatment of medieval so-
ciety in the Phenomenology suggests that whereas negative state-power is
manifested in wartime, wealth takes on the element of essentiality dur-
ing peaceful epochs.37 When there are no wars to be fought, the pursuit of
wealth becomes the individuals mode of actualizing Gods universal plan,
since it has the characteristic of providing for the common wealth of all.
Moreover, Hegel seems to say in the Phenomenology that it is as a result
of prosperous peace, rather than any other element, that medieval society
reveals its own inner weaknesses and ultimately establishes the absolutist
monarchy that puts a close to the political system of the Middle Ages. But
though we have discussed previously how this occurs, we have still not ad-
equately clarified why this must be so for Hegel. In other words, why does
the medieval system of wealth fail in a way that the modern civil society
does not and cannot? The solution to this puzzle must, I think, be found
in Hegels view of the organization of medieval society during times of
prosperous peace.
Once again, we should not be misled by Hegels fairly simplistic ac-
count of the matter in the Lectures on the Philosophy of History. Predictably,
Hegel there interprets the economic order of the Middle Ages in terms
of the isolated capacities of individuals; as with the politics of medieval
society, Hegel insists that the organization of wealth is founded on the
capricious or arbitrary power of private individuals.38 Indeed, Hegel
seems to make no meaningful distinction in the Lectures on the Philosophy
of History between the two moments of state-power and wealth, wartime
and peacetime, as he does in other texts. Fortunately, Hegel presents some-
what more interesting discussions of the structure of medieval peacetime
society elsewhere. For instance, Hegel refers in the Phenomenology to the
ambiguous status of the general good during peaceful eras; the will of
the state at such times, he suggests, is divided up among the various class-
es and estates, and this, in spite of its chatter about the general good, re-
37. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, 303, 313; Hegel, Phnomenologie des Geistes, 357, 367.
38. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History, 399; Hegel, Vorlesungen ber die Philosophie
der Weltgeschichte, 86061.
h e g e l 335
serves to itself what suits its own best interest.39 So the medieval system of
wealth did possess some measure of organization, even insofar as its class-
es engaged in endless debate and controversy about what course should
be pursued. Regarding the nature of medieval class, Hegel says noth-
ing more in the Phenomenology. In the Philosophy of Right, however, he
seems to suggest that the social classes of the Middle Ages were not loosely
structured, but rather highly organized, discrete, and self-contained units,
independent Corporations and societies.40 The medieval social class was
constituted by the corporation.
Hegels paradigm here is certainly provided by medieval guilds,41 in-
corporated groups of artisans or professionals that controlled not only the
livelihoods, but also the social and political circumstances, of their mem-
bers. These corporations, each struggling for a privileged position within
the political life of the medieval community, were decisive impediments
to a fully formed and completed state. Through the corporations and so-
cieties, the particular functions and powers of the state and civil society
were arranged. But since each was utterly self-contained and indepen-
dent, the state as a whole was rather an aggregate than an organism.42
Indeed, the corporation was something of a state-within-a-state, hindering
the full internal articulation of the state. The various corporations and so-
cieties all supposed that what was good for the community generally was
coextensive with what benefited them specifically. Political decision mak-
ing, consequently, was a virtual impossibility; it meant reaching an agree-
ment among a broad range of self-interested groups that each claimed that
their own version of the general good was correct. And obtaining agree-
ment among parties so diverse as shoemakers, lawyers, and landed nobles
could not readily be expected, as even a cursory study of the twelfth- and
thirteenth-century European polity reveals.43 Hegels claim, then, is that
so long as corporations, societies, and the like remained wholly indepen-
dent and without tie to an overarching essential will, medieval society was
41. Antony J. Black, Guild and State: European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century
to the Present, rev. ed. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2003) argues that Hegels
view of corporations was the first explicit attempt by a modern philosopher to give guild values
and aspirations a central place (202).
43. The possibilities for tension among various guilds and other corporate bodies during
the Middle Ages are examined by Black, Guild and State, 710; and Lauro Martines, Power and
Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy (New York: Knopf, 1979), 3841.
doomed to lack a state that was internally sovereign. Conversely, when the
elements of a disinterested monarchy began to arise, the medieval system
was bound to develop beyond its own principle. The aggregate character
of such independent corporations, which was at the core of the peacetime
world of the Middle Ages, must thus be seen as the leading cause of the in-
completeness of the medieval state.
Admittedly, Hegel has little to say about the medieval corporations in
the Philosophy of Right. But in a passage from his essay on the Wurtemberg
Estates Assembly, the matter is addressed at some length. When the early
medieval kingship represented by the Carolingian Empire collapsed, Hegel
says, the whole dissolved into atoms. This atomized society did not, how-
ever, take on the characteristic of mere personal power, as we might sup-
pose from limiting our attention to the Lectures on the Philosophy of His-
tory. Rather, the knights, freemen, monasteries, nobility, merchants and
tradesmen formed themselves into societies and corporations to counteract
this state of disorganization. These associations were the direct products of
a vacuum in public authority. Insofar as no sovereign state existed for the
regulation of the activities of the various interests contained within the so-
ciety, classes were compelled to introduce a structured system of section-
al communities that merely tolerated one another as neighbors. In turn,
this corporate system became increasingly closed and rigid, adopting what
Hegel called the spirit of a guild. One presumes from this comment, and
from his reference to the aristocratic nature of the corporation, that He-
gel thought the medieval corporate system to be constituted by a strict hi-
erarchy that imposed a cramped formalism on social relations. The cor-
poration regulated all forms of social intercourse among its members; its
authority, rather than that of any state apparatus, prevailed in peacetime,
since the creation of the common wealth was under its direct control and
guidance. As a necessary consequence, once the corporate structure was
firmly in place, it served as a hindrance and a danger to the development
of the public authority.44 Since corporations were essentially autonomous
and self-regulating bodies, they resisted the creation of any sovereign pow-
er capable of standing above them and exercising greater authority than
the incorporated associations themselves. The corporations thus atomized
both the state and the private interests of inhabitants of the medieval so-
cial world; their very principle of organization as discrete units that merely
44. G. W. F. Hegel, Political Writings, 263; G. W. F. Hegel, Schriften zur Politik und Re-
chtsphilosophie, 176.
h e g e l 337
rubbed up against one another militated against the rise of an internally

sovereign peacetime state. The peacetime public authority, such as it was,
could not lay claim to sovereignty because the final power over the char-
acteristic activity of peaceful periodsthe accumulation of wealthwas
firmly planted in the corporations and similar associations of interests. The
dominant role of the corporations and societies, which related to one an-
other merely as inessential individuals, was the primary obstruction in the
way of an adequate and articulated state.
One consequence of the dominance of the corporation was that its for-
tunes fell in direct proportion to the rise of fortune of the absolutist mon-
archy. Once a universal sovereign will of the state was empoweredas a
result (need it be said again?) of the inability of the aggregate corporations
to decide on a common course of action for the state that reflected an ac-
tual general goodthe independent corporations were increasingly seen
to be redundant and even reactionary. Hence, these subordinate commu-
nities and guilds were dissolved or at least deprived of their political role
and their relation to internal constitutional law. As typically medieval
institutions, their value was thought to be counterfeit, a holdover from the
quickly receding social and political chaos of the Dark Ages. But Hegel
does not leave the matter at that, implicitly relegating the corporation to
the scrap heap of the Middle Ages. On the contrary, Hegel suggests in the
Wurtemberg essay that it would surely be time, after concentrating hith-
erto mainly on introducing organization into the circles of higher state au-
thority, to bring the lower spheres back again into respect and political sig-
nificance, and, purged of privileges and wrongs, to incorporate them into
an organic structure of the state.45 In short, Hegel recommends the rein-
troduction of a corporate system into modern societyan idea borrowed
and expanded upon in the Philosophy of Right.
The modern corporation, Hegel insists, would resemble its medieval
ancestor insofar as its internal cohesion would be based on shared inter-
ests, occupations, and the like.46 Moreover, the corporation serves to me-
diate the purely selfish economic goals of individual members of civil so-
ciety, to draw together fragmented individuals into a fellowship which,
though not so high-minded as the community that develops in the state at
war, nonetheless allows members to recognize each other in some not en-
tirely self-centered manner. Indeed, the modern corporation both looks
45. Ibid., 263; 17677.

after the general economic interests of its membership in the society at

large and cares for individual members by providing education, welfare,
and self-regulation. In a sense, the corporation is the individuals family
raised to the level of civil society, a second family for its members.47 He-
gel remarks that the sanctity of marriage and the dignity of corporation
membership are the two fixed points around which the unorganized atoms
of civil society revolve.48 The similarities here to the role of the medieval
corporation are striking; particularly on its internal side, in its function
as a means for separate individuals to find a broader identity, the mod-
ern corporation parallels the role of earlier guilds and societies. But ex-
ternally, in its relation to the state, the corporation has a restricted and
finite existence.49 Its activities are susceptible to the legislation and con-
tinual supervision of the public power; it must maintain itself as a purely
voluntary organization, and one utterly subordinate to the essential deci-
sion-making power of the state. Though on its external side, the corpora-
tion is the institutionalized mechanism for the defense of members against
the states encroachment in economic matters,50 it cannot claim to know
and do the general good. Rather, the modern corporations concern is self-
consciously the common interest of its members only; it is always acting
solely for the particular sphere of interest that composes its membership,
unlike the medieval corporation that declared itself a uniquely competent
arbiter of what was good for all of society.51 In the structure of the mod-
ern constitutional state, debates about matters of the public good are left
to the legislative process.52
Hegels insistence on the revitalization of the corporation is, like his
claim about the connection between war and sovereignty, based on a re-
jection of various modern theoristsnot only of the liberal-democratic
variety, since Hobbes fits very wellwho hold that there should be no in-
termediate bodies standing between the atomistic individual and the state.
Given the preceding feudal systems labyrinth-like layers of hierarchy, the
theorists of the individual would seem to make good sense. But Hegel per-
ceives in their revulsion at any regimented social structure some poten-
47. Ibid., 153; 205. 48. Ibid., 154; 206.

49. Ibid., 154; 206. 50. Ibid., 189; 253.
51. The modern corporation as Hegel envisages it is not so much reflected in the notion of
a political party (the analogy suggested by Avineri, Hegels Theory of the Modern State, 163) as in
that of the political lobby for a special interest group.
52. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, 197, 201; Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, 263
64, 26869.
h e g e l 339
tially dangerous consequences, especially with regard to the situation in

which the individual would find himself vis--vis the state. If civil society
lacks a corporate structure, and is nothing more than an accumulation of
monads, then the individual is without rank or dignity, his isolation re-
duces his business to mere self-seeking, and his livelihood and satisfaction
become insecure. Consequently, he has to try to gain recognition for him-
self by giving external proofs of success in his business, and to these proofs
no limit can be set. He cannot live in the manner of his class, for no class
really exists for him, since in civil society it is only something common to
particular persons that really exists, that is, something legally constituted
and recognized.53
In short, the individual who lacks a corporate identity can only assert
himself over against his fellows through the accumulation of ever-increas-
ing amounts of wealth. Not only is this child of civil society perpetually
dissatisfiedno matter how much he possesses, it is never enoughbut
the amassing of tangibles becomes his single goal and purpose in life,
to the detriment of his other social obligations, for instance, toward the
state. The corporation serves the very definite function of acknowledging
the intrinsic worth of the individual as a somebody54just because he
is a member of the corporation, and not on the basis of some external and
purely contingent mark of achievement. The corporation stands as the sol-
id foundation for the individual who participates in the proceedings of
civil society.
Moreover, the corporation gives the individual a sense that his voice
can be heard, that he can have some measure of direct impact on the po-
litical structure of modern society. As a mediating force between the indi-
vidual and the state, the corporation guarantees the individual influence in
the making of decisions, at least with regard to matters of economic self-
interest. Faced with a large and necessarily bureaucratic nation-state, the
individual tends to perceive himself as impotent and insignificantthe
phenomenon to which we affix the sociological (as opposed to Hegelian
or Marxian) meaning of the term alienation. But since the corporation
is designed to reflect the individuals interestsif it does not, he is at lib-
erty to withdraw from it, which indicates the importance of Hegels pro-
viso that the corporation be a voluntary associationhe will have a much
53. Ibid., 15254; 2056.

54. Hegel uses this phrase in both the Wurtemburg essay (26263; 176) and the Philosophy
of Right, 153; 205.
greater assurance that his particular concerns are taken into account in
the process of legislating and executing the public will.55 The corporation
thus fulfills an essential need in the balanced functioning of the organism
of modern society on two counts, neither of which are considered by zeal-
ously individualistic political theorists. The individual stripped of an iden-
tifiable community lacks the recognition and self-certainty that forms the
very groundwork of his existence. When the state is not at war, that is,
when the highest public authority seems very distant and unapproachable,
the corporation serves this purpose of identification admirably.
So once again, Hegel draws on medieval experience in his construc-
tion of modern political society, and just as in his treatment of the relation
between the medieval and the modern state, it is the one-sidedness of the
medieval corporation that conditions its transformation.56 The medieval
corporation, because it can tolerate no public authority standing over it,
lacks the mediating character Hegel assigns to its modern successor. Since
it overwhelms and subdues the will of the state, the incorporated associa-
tion of the Middle Ages shares only its internal side with the modern cor-
poration. Its external aspect must give way to the fully articulated constitu-
tional state, which can genuinely determine and execute the general good.
The corporation is still the highest authority in the system of wealth (civil
society), but it has no pretensions beyond that. It exists solely for the pro-
tection of the common interests of its members. The modern corporation
is thus the medieval corporation stripped of its one-sidedness and assigned
defined powers and limitations. The former represents the Aufhebung of
the latter, a simultaneous preservation and cancellation. As with his no-
tion of the state, Hegels treatment of the medieval system of wealththe
peacetime predominance of independent corporations and societiessug-
gests mere incompleteness rather than abject failure. The corporation need
not be a relic of the medieval past; when viewed from the proper perspec-
tive, as an entity wholly concerned with the interests of its membership,
the corporation can be an indispensable element in the individuals rela-
tion to his wider community. Despite Hegels consistent hostility to the
feudal system, spread through the body of his writings,57 both the medi-
55. Ibid., 193; 258.
56. George Heiman, The Sources and Significance of Hegels Corporate Doctrines, in
Pelczynski, ed., Hegels Political Philosophy, 11135, provides a good overview of Hegels interest
in corporatism and corporations and of the traditions with which he was working.
57. Hegel saw feudal traditions and practices as especially dangerous to the development
of the modern state when they were associated with the institutions and interests of reaction.
h e g e l 341
eval state and corporation find their completion, rather than their utter
destruction, in the Hegelian conception of the modern social world.
Hegel thus refused to cast aside the social and political experiences and
institutions of the Middle Ages, any more than he rejected the develop-
ments of other historical epochs. Where certain theorists of modern soci-
ety (say, Rousseau) dispensed with any aspect of social organization rooted
in medieval principles, Hegel steadfastly held to a framework that dictated
that no stage of human history lacked a moment of essentiality, and hence
that each contributed to the development of the whole. Indeed, Hegel oc-
casionally seems to employ feudal or medieval ideas as a counterbalance
to the enthusiasm for wholesale change that tended to infect fellow theo-
rists of a more individualistic bent. (The results of radical individualism
Lockes way of ideas put into political practiceHegel observed in the
Terror that culminated the French Revolution.)58 While it is improper to
see the modern state and civil society as mere extensions of medieval state-
power and wealth in the Hegelian scheme,59 it is equally mistaken to sup-
pose that the social and political system of the Middle Ages represented for
Hegel an unfortunate incident in the history of Europe. Hegel, in spite of
his relative distaste for the medieval period (so prominently displayed in
the Lectures on the Philosophy of History), nonetheless understood the sig-
nificant contribution that certain moments of that epoch could make to
his own political theory of the modern world. It has been a shortcoming
of commentators on Hegels political thought that they have focused so
little attention on his treatment of medieval social and political organiza-
tion. Deeper research illuminates Hegels own emphatic insistence that the
Middle Ages left an indelible mark on the character of the modern state.
Hegel, then, provides a clear example of the Hereclitean interpreta-
(See the essays on the German Constitution and the English Reform Bill in Hegel, Political
Writings, 143242, 295330.) But Hegels hostility to the decidedly feudal reactionism of his
own day must be separated from his views on feudalism as a historical phenomenon whose es-
sential features are capable of making a positive, although one-sided, contribution to the mod-
ern world.
58. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, 29596, 35563; Hegel, Phnomenologie des Geistes,
34850, 41422.
59. This seems to be the implication, for instance, of Jean Hyppolites statement: State
power and wealth correspond to what the last Philosophy of Right calls the state and civil so-
ciety (or bourgeois societydie burgerliche Gesellschaft) (Genesis and Structure of Hegels Phe-
nomenology of Spirit, trans. Samuel Cherniak and John Heckman [Evanston, Ill,: Northwestern
University Press, 1974], 395). Alternatively, it may be that Hyppolite did not recognize that He-
gels notions of state power and wealth in the Phenomenology refer to peculiarly medieval,
rather than modern, constructs.
tion of the medieval/modern divide enunciated at the beginning of this

book. His dialectic permits continuity without embracing it entirely. He-
gels project, of course, was not that of the intellectual historian, but of
the philosophically driven historical reconstructionist. Yet his lesson gen-
eralizes. The European Middle Ages were neither the fount of all things
modern nor a theoretical and conceptual dead end. The intellectual ter-
rain that connects and divides medieval and modern Europe represents,
instead, a high point, one that affords the historian of ideas the opportuni-
ty to glance simultaneously backward and forward. Hegel understood this
in the early nineteenth century. His insight is one from which twenty-first-
century scholars might and should gain considerable benefit.
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Index
absolutism, 36, 47, 16162, 172, 174, Barber, Benjamin, 112

190, 305, 30914, 318, 319, 322, 327, Baron, Hans, xviii, xxii, 14243, 157,
331, 337 177, 179, 188
Adrian IV, Pope, 69, 72 Bartolus of Sassoferrato, xix
Africa, 185 Barzan, Jacques, xx
Albertus Magnus, 28788 Bede, Venerable, 282
Alexander the Great, 28386 Bible, 73, 137, 297
Alighieri, Dante, 56, 12223, 141, 182, Birch, A. H., 100
298 Black, Antony, 9, 14, 3037, 41, 99
Allocution Made to a Magistrate 100, 19091, 19798
(Machiavelli), 296 Blythe, James, 44
Althusser, Louis, 52 Bobbio, Norberto, 45
Anderson, Perry, 21 Bodin, Jean, 2324, 25, 55
Ankersmit, F. R., 100 Boniface VIII, Pope, 227
Aquinas, St. Thomas, xiii, 56, 114, 223, Bracton, Henry de, xxii, 8198, 30522
228, 266, 267, 287 Breviloquium (William of Ockham),
Aristotle, 58, 19, 57, 74, 107, 112, 144, 47
14648, 15051, 213, 224, 226, 235, bribery, 20910
23841, 246, 255, 271, 28384, 285, Bruni, Leonardo, 179, 187
286 Burgundy, 18687
aristocratic government, 165 Buridan, Jean, 236
Asia, 185, 274 Burke, Edmund, 46, 101
Ass, The (Machiavelli), 295 Burley, Walter, 95, 107
astrology, 279, 280, 281, 28284, Burns, J.H., xvi, 3, 9, 109
28586, 28788, 289, 290, 295 Byzantium, 172
Athens, 299
Augustine of Hippo, St., xiii, 122, 224, Calvin, John, 64
271, 273 Cambridge History of Medieval Political
avarice, 135, 203 Thought (Burns), xvi, 34, 32
Averrosim, 167 Cambridge History of Political Thought,
14501700 (Burns and Goldie), 9
Bacon, Roger, 287, 289 Cambridge University, 3, 11, 59
Bagge, Sverre, xix capitalism, xxiii, 45, 26163, 266, 271,
Baldwin, John, 2034 27476
Ball, Terence, xv cardinals, college of, 170
Barbarism and Civilization (Pocock), Carinthia, 169
xviii, 17779 Carlyle, A. J., 4, 10, 50
369
370 in d e x
Carlyle, R. W., 4, 10 Cronmartie, Alan, 119

Cassiodorus, 239 Cyrus, 29799
Catline, Chief Justice, 81
Celestial Hierarchies Revisited (Oakley), dAilly, Pierre, 41, 28889
8 Declaration of the Rights of Man and
Ceres, 25657 Citizen, 64
Charlemagne, 326 Decline and Fall, xviiixix, 17779, 187,
Charles I, king of England, 308 188
Charles V, king of France, 23537 De concordantia catholica (Nicholas of
Christine de Pizan, xiv, 138, 24858 Cusa), 37, 4144, 179, 18289
Christianity, 7, 4546, 66, 103, 105, 138, de Grazia, Sebastian, 278, 300302
15758, 16768, 188, 19091, 192, 19698, Defensor Minor (Marsiglio of Padua),
22324, 276, 27778, 279, 281, 28990, 7879, 16063, 169
300 Defensor Pacis (Marsiglio of Padua), 46,
Church, 7, 20, 37, 40, 4142, 43, 44, 53, 56, 7378, 101, 10811, 16068, 17172, 175,
69, 79, 102, 103, 104, 163, 164, 16768, 179, 181
169, 170, 187, 19396, 219, 223, 251, De inventione (Cicero), 14445, 256
27778, 279 De iuribus regni et imperii (Lupold of
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 66, 14445, 256 Bebenberg), 169
citizenship, xviii, 6, 38, 45, 66, 75, 10910, De laudibus legum Anglie (Fortescue),
11213, 117, 119, 14849, 154, 15859, 165, 11518, 268, 27073
33132 De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae
civil society, 331, 332, 33440 (Bracton), 8198, 30522
Coleman, Janet, xiv, xx, xxiv, 189, 191, 226 democracy, 8, 11921, 159, 165
Colish, Marcia, xvii Democracys Discontent (Sandel), 15859
commercial revolution, 2012, 217, 223 De monarchia (Dante), 12223, 169
communal functionalism, 43, 6566, 67, De moneta. See Oresme
7576, 80, 243, 244 De natura legis naturae (Fortescue), 1145
communitarianism, 158 dEntrves, Alexander Passerin, xxii, 4960
conciliarism, 10, 3033, 3437, 4144, 45, De ortu et fine imperii (Engelbert of
1025, 19192, 193 Admont), 169
Condren, Conal, 34, 168, 176 De pace fidei (Nicholas of Cusa), 188
Connell, William, 157 De potestate regia et papali (John of Paris),
Conring, Hermann, xix 22630
conscience, 57, 6364, 71, 80 De regimine civitate (James of Viterbo), 144
consent, xvi, 6, 10, 25, 44, 48, 52, 53, 74, De regimine principum (Giles of Rome),
7677, 78, 1056, 156, 165, 168, 17273, 124, 132
174, 181, 18486, 187, 270 De regimine principum (Ptolemy of Lucca),
constitutionalism, xvi, xvii, xxii, 6, 8, 9, 10, 26667, 298
11, 25, 30, 3233, 3438, 43, 4445, 48, De translatione imperii (Marsiglio of
49, 52, 119, 266, 26970, 27374, 305, Padua), 17982
322, 340 Deuteronomy, 206
corporation, 19, 33540 Dialogue between a Philosopher and a
co-rulership, 95, 107 Student of the Common Laws of England
Cosmographia (Bernard Sylvester), 39 (Hobbes), 31214
cosmology, 38, 41, 45, 192, 198, 278, 281, Dialogue between Pole and Lupset (Starkey),
29192, 300301 220
Council of Basle, 184 Dialogue of the Exchequer (FitzNigel), 205,
Council of Constance, 3031, 193 21421
Council of Pisa, 193 Didascalicon (Hugh of St. Victor), 202
in d e x 371
Discourses Concerning Government (Sidney), Foulchat, Denis, 244

31822 Foundations of Concilar Theory (Tierney), 10
Discourses on the Ten Books of Titus Livy Foundations of Modern Political Thought
(Machiavelli), 277, 29092, 294, 297, 302 (Skinner), xviii, 1322, 52, 54
dissent, xxii France, 6, 20, 106, 124, 153, 160, 185, 235,
double majesty, 8889 242, 249, 268, 270
Durandus, William the Younger, 36 freedom of will, 281, 282, 28788, 289, 295,
302
ecclesiology, 10, 30, 31, 37, 4041, 99, 163, 191 Freeholders Grand Inquest (Filmer), 31011
Economics (pseudo-Aristotle), 246 French Revolution, 341
Economics in the Medieval Schools friendship, 148
(Langholm), 204
Edward II, king of England, 131 Gaius, 112
Edward III, king of England, 12631, 231 General Council of Church, 30, 4144,
Egypt, 257 1035, 108, 163, 17072, 186, 193, 19697
empire, universal, xix, xxiixxiii, 16162, general will, 197, 327
16668, 17071, 172, 17476, 178, 179, Germany, 169, 181, 187
18081, 182, 18384, 18587 Gerson, Jean, xxii, 41, 1035, 19198
Engelbert of Admont, 169, 287 Gewirth, Alan, 162
England, 6, 20, 100, 106, 11315, 118, 124, Gibbon, Edward, 177
201, 21718, 262, 264, 26871, 274, Giles of Rome, 119, 124, 132
31314 Godefroid of Fontaines, 226
equality, 184, 262, 263 Godthardt, Frank, 180
Europe, 99, 101, 114, 122, 2023, 222, 249, Governance of England (Fortescue), 115, 117,
258, 263, 275, 282 26871
excommunication, 7879, 169, 170, 193, 219 grace, divine, 134, 282, 289, 29697, 300, 302
Exhortation to Penitence, An Gratian, 31
(Machiavelli), 296, 301 Great Schism, 30, 103, 193, 28889
Greece, xvii, 26, 100
Fasolt, Constantin, xix, xxi, xxiiixxiv, Greenfeld, Liah, 26166, 27475
3637, 44, 65 Gregory the Great, Pope, 192, 298
feudalism, 6, 7, 8, 21, 66, 101, 105, 113, 263, Grotius, Hugo, 233
324, 32526, 327, 328, 330, 333, 336, 338, Growth of Papal Government in the Middle
340 Ages (Ullmann), 4
Femia, Joseph, 18, 24 Guene, Bernard, 182
Ferster, Judith, 289 guild, 6, 335, 336, 337, 338
Figgis, John Neville, 10, 2934
Filmer, Robert, 81, 306, 30812, 322 Hanson, Donald W., 88
Fiore, Silvia Ruffio, 301 happiness, 7, 79, 132, 163
FitzNigel, Richard, 205, 21421, 264 Hegel, G. W. F., xxiii, 32342
Flanders, 168 Henry I, king of England, 217
Flathman, Richard, 112 Henry II, king of England, 214, 217
Fleta, 84, 305 Henry III, king of England, 97, 129, 309
Flint, Valerie, 282 Henry of Langenstein, 288
Florence, xviii, 144, 147, 168 heresy, 7879
foresight, 27980, 282, 290, 294 hierocratic thesis, 4, 56, 7
Fortescue, John, xxiii, 101, 11319, 138, History of Political Thought: The Middle Ages
26576 (Ullmann), 5
fortune, 278, 279, 280, 29091, 29293, Hobbes, Thomas, 1718, 26, 81, 101, 119,
294, 299, 301, 302 233, 306, 31214, 322, 338
372 in d e x
Holofernes, 73 Lagarde, Georges de, 161

Hooker, Richard, 50 Landolfo Colonna, 180
Hrnqvist, Mikael, 189, 292, 300 Langholm, Odd, 204, 22426, 228, 233,
Hugh of St. Victor, 2023 237, 246
Huguenots, 25 Latini, Brunetto, xxii, 138, 14159, 179
humanism, 9, 14243 law: canon, 11, 87, 99, 184, 193, 203; divine,
humility, 132, 133 215; human, 19, 32, 71, 7475, 7677, 78,
79, 89, 108, 111, 11415, 11617, 118, 125,
ideology, 13, 1516, 17, 21 134, 152, 154, 165, 168, 170, 174, 175, 183,
Inferno (Dante), 141 193, 27374, 3078, 30911, 312, 31415,
injustice, 9091, 93, 96, 137, 173, 216, 227, 31617, 31820, 322; natural, 47, 51, 134,
230, 231, 240, 242, 308 166, 185, 266, 332
Isidore of Seville, 282 Lectures on the Philosophy of History (Hegel),
Isis, 257 32326, 33436, 341
Islam, 183, 192 Legacy of Scholasticism in Economic Thought
Israel, 114 (Langholm), 233
Italy, 6, 58, 73, 153, 16364, 18687, 291, 299 lese-majesty, 9596
Lestat et le gouvernment comme les princes et
Jacquerie Rebellion, 124 seigneurs se doivent gouverner, 125, 13138
Jerome, St., 41 Leviathan (Hobbes), 1718
John II, king of France, 23637 lex regia, 171
John Balls Rebellion, 124 Libelle of Englyshe Polycye, 265
John Henry, prince of Bohemia, 169 liberalism, xxii, xxiii, 57, 64, 80, 159, 261,
John of Jandun, 180 332, 338, 341
John of Paris, 11, 47, 22530, 23334 liberality, 134
John of Salisbury, xxii, 3840, 43, 6673, liberty, xxii, 6364, 6673, 74, 7778, 79,
80, 122, 20513, 22021, 243, 251, 264, 281 80, 115, 143, 18485, 22223, 224, 225,
John of Turrecremata, 44 228, 229, 23031, 23233, 240, 24142,
John of Viterbo, 144 313, 332
Jones, William, 82 license, 80, 115
Juan de Segovia, 37 Limits of History (Fasolt), xix
Judith, 73 Little, Lester K., 233
Julius II, Pope, 291 Livre de Corps de Policie (Christine de
Julius Caesar, 181, 206 Pizan), 24954
Jurdjevic, Mark, 15758 Livre de Divinations (Oresme), 281
jurisdiction, 227, 229 Livre de la Cit des Dames (Christine de
justice, 73, 88, 8990, 9293, 128, 136, 145, Pizan), 249, 25558
14950, 15153, 165, 209, 213, 225, 228, Livre des Trois Vertus (Christine de Pizan),
229, 3078, 309, 312, 316 249
Livres dou Tresor (Latini), 14259
Kant, Immanuel, 6364, 80 Locke, John, 81, 119, 226, 228, 233, 26768,
Kaye, Joel, 246 341
kingship, 56, 8, 19, 21, 27, 71, 83, 8586, Lombardy, 187
87, 88, 8990, 9197, 107, 11418, 119, London, 106
123, 12637, 183, 189, 19697, 21113, lordship (dominium), 47, 93, 11317, 155,
21416, 21820, 23233, 238, 240, 245, 225, 227, 228, 23031, 26768, 325
251, 25354, 25556, 258, 26768, 26970, Louis, Emperor, 185
27173, 3078, 30912, 31314, 31415, love, 12223, 125, 126, 128, 129, 130, 13233,
317, 31820 135, 13738, 15556, 255
Low Countries, 262
in d e x 373
Ludwig of Bavaria, 160, 162, 166, 16970, Moses, 29798

172, 17980 Muldoon, James, 10
Ludwig of Brandenberg, 169, 174
Lupold of Bebenberg, 169 nationalism, 5859, 188, 26266, 271, 274,
Luther, Martin, 64 275
Lycurgus, 207 Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity
(Greenfeld), 262
Maccabees, 172 naturalism, 7, 8, 123, 14748, 178, 206,
Machiavelli, Niccol, xxiii, 51, 55, 5758, 2078, 211, 213, 244, 272, 274, 288
119, 13435, 189, 27782, 289303 Natural Law (dEntrves), 50, 60
Machiavellian Moment (Pocock), 177 neo-Figgiste, xvii, 30, 31, 32, 3536, 48, 178
MacIntyre, Alasdair, 45, 6465, 279 Nicholas of Cusa, xxii, 37, 4144, 179,
Macpherson, C. B., 45 18289, 196
Madison, James, 31 Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle), 144, 14647,
Magna Carta, xviii, 310 15051, 204, 235, 246
Maitland, F. W., 83 Notion of the State (dEntrves), 5152, 55,
Manin, Bernard, 100 60
Mansfield, Harvey, 11112, 120
marriage, 169, 174 Oakeshott, Michael, 14
Marsiglio of Padua, xviii, xxii, 11, 2325, Oakley, Francis, xvi, xxii, 8, 3037, 4041,
42, 46, 51, 5557, 66, 73, 101, 10811, 138, 304
16076, 17982, 18889, 247, 251 obligation, political, 11112, 315
Marx, Karl, 56 occult, 279, 280, 281, 282, 28485, 287, 289,
Maultasch, Margaret, 169, 174 290, 29394, 300, 301, 303
McGovern, John, 204, 264 Octavian, 181
McIlwain, Charles, 10, 322 Oresme, Nicole, 23549, 281, 288
mechanical arts, 14546, 14748, 154, 202, organic metaphor, 3844, 45, 70, 71, 72, 73,
207, 24243, 246, 25253, 255, 25658, 117, 151, 19293, 198, 206, 24344, 245,
336 25051, 254, 255, 27174
Medici, Lorenzo, 291 Origins of the Great Schism (Ullmann), 10
Medici family, 295, 299 Otto I, Emperor, 18687
Medieval Contribution to Political Thought Oxford University, 11, 4950, 126
(dEntrves), 50, 55
Medieval Papalism (Ullmann), 4 Padua, 168
merchants, 2089, 21819, 239, 242, 246, paganism, 278, 279, 281
252, 255, 256, 271, 336 Page, Sophie, 283
mercy, 137 papacy, 8, 30, 3637, 42, 44, 53, 69, 72,
Metalogicon (John of Salisbury), 208 1045, 163, 164, 165, 166, 169, 17071,
Miliband, Ralph, 52 19396, 278
Mill, John Stuart, 101 Parel, Anthony, 28082, 289
Milton, John, 81, 306, 31417, 322 Paris, 35, 168, 17980, 203, 225, 235
Minogue, Kenneth, 14 parliamentary government, 98, 99100,
Modus Tenendi Parliamentum, 107, 305, 316 1068, 118, 197, 269, 31516, 31617, 320,
money, 148, 15051, 20611, 215, 21719, 231, 32122
23645, 247 Patriarcha (Filmer), 30910
Monfort Rebellion, 97 peace, 57, 74, 79, 80, 163, 164, 165, 186, 215,
Montesquieu, baron de, 101, 324 32829, 33031, 334, 337
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1112 Pennington, Kenneth, xvi, xxiv, 10, 30, 31
Moore, Robert I., 276 Persia, 299
Moralium Dogma Philosophorum, 144 Peter, St., 170, 194
374 in d e x
Peter of Celle, 38 Quillet, Jeannine, 1089, 162, 182

Peter the Chanter, 203
Petronius, 2067 Radding, Charles M., 94
Phenomenology of Spirit (Hegel), 32631, Rahe, Paul, 15758
33435 Rawls, John, 64
Philip IV, king of France, 227, 236 reason, 165, 166, 168, 183, 296, 314
Philip of Tripoli, 283 representation, 10, 30, 44, 99112, 11820,
Philosophy of Right (Hegel), 326, 33031, 171, 197, 315, 317
33437 republicanism, xxiixxiii, 52, 7374, 141,
Piccolomini, Aeneas Sylvius, 37 15259, 16162, 176, 187, 18889, 19091,
piety, 128, 132 19293, 19698
Pitkin, Hanna, 100, 110 Republics Ancient and Modern (Rahe), 157
Plato, 70, 213 revolt, xxii, 9798, 12324, 13031, 13738,
plena potestas, 107 23233, 243, 25556, 26970
Pocock, John, xviiixix, xxii, 112, 15758, rhetoric, 145
17782, 18889, 205 Richardson, H. G., 87
Poitiers, 236 Riesenberg, Peter, 112
Policraticus (John of Salisbury), 39, 6773, rights, xiv, xvi, xvii, 10, 11, 32, 44, 4548, 49,
20513, 243, 251, 281 57, 93, 226, 227, 332
policy, 205, 22021, 234, 275 Roboam, 137
political economy, xxiii, 12324, 14344, Roman law, 66, 94, 112, 224, 22526, 229,
152, 158, 205, 234, 24546, 247, 250, 258, 230, 231, 233, 332
275 Rome, xvii, 7, 66, 100, 114, 162, 170, 173,
Political Liberalism (Rawls), 64 176, 178, 18085, 324
political science, 146, 281 Romulus, 29798
Politics (Aristotle), 58, 19, 74, 107, 144, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 2324, 101, 159,
204, 235, 24647 19798, 341
Pontano, Giovanni, 281 Rubinstein, Nicholai, 161
popular sovereignty, xvi, 78, 30, 317,
31819 Samuel, 20910
Post, Gaines, 93 Sandel, Michael, 15859
Poulantzas, Nicos, 52 Savonarola, Girolamo, 291, 298
power, xxii, 56, 116, 167, 169, 170, 174, 193, Scholasticism, xvi, 2034, 22425, 233, 236,
226, 307, 32526 239, 266, 275, 282, 287, 295, 305
Prezzolini, Giuseppe, 301 Second Decennale (Machiavelli), 293
Prince (Machiavelli), 58, 135, 27879, 290, Second Treatise of Government (Locke),
29394, 29697, 299300 22629, 26768
Principles of Government and Politics in the Secreta secretorum (pseudo-Aristotle), 134,
Middle Ages (Ullmann), 5 281, 28389
property, 170, 21213, 225, 22628, 229, 274, self-interest, 7475, 76, 77, 80, 111, 144,
31213, 331, 332 149, 159, 240, 263, 26970, 271, 272, 332,
Pro populo Anglicano defensio (Milton), 81, 33435, 337, 339
31417 Shapiro, Ian, 14
providence, divine, 136, 137, 278, 281, 284, Sidney, Algernon, 81, 306, 31822
29293, 294, 296, 300, 327 Sigismund, Emperor, 184
Ptolemy of Lucca, 179, 26667, 298 Sigmund, Paul, xiii, 182
Purgatorio (Dante), 298 Skinner, Quentin, xvixvii, xxii, 1328, 54,
purveyance, 127, 12829, 230, 23132, 270 73, 14243, 304
Pythagoras, 207 Skocpol, Theda, 52
Smith, Adam, 205
in d e x 375
Smith, Thomas, 118 Trajan, Emperor, 298

Smoller, Laura, 288 translato imperii, 17879, 181, 182, 188
Soderini, Giovan Battista, 290 Tuscany, 291
Soderini, Piero, 291 tyranny, 7173, 74, 13637, 173, 240, 308,
Sombart, Werner, 265 31415, 319
sovereignty, xvii, 10, 53, 263, 3067, 309, Tyrol, 169
311, 31214, 31617, 320, 322, 32530,
33132 Ullmann, Walter, xxii, 312, 19, 31
Spain, 20, 106 unit idea, 16, 3334, 3536, 304, 305, 307
Speculum astronomiae (Albertus Magnus), University of Paris, 225, 288
288 usury, 21920, 233, 241
Speculum justiciariorum, 9798, 106, 305
Speculum regis Edward III, 12531, 138, valentior pars, 1089, 165
23034 Variae (Cassiodorus), 239
speech, 145, 296 vice, 6970, 71, 7273
Spirit of Capitalism (Greenfeld), 26164 Villani, Giovanni, 141
Starkley, Thomas, 22021 Vindicae Contra Tyrannos, 35
state, 13, 1415, 1825, 2627, 49, 5155, 58, Viroli, Maurizio, 142
323, 32425, 32730, 331, 33233, 337, 338, virt, 278, 279, 280, 293, 295, 296
339, 340, 341 virtue, 67, 68, 71, 72, 116, 125, 132, 136, 138,
Strauss, Leo, 45 238, 251, 256
Strayer, Joseph, 21 Visconti, Matteo, 180
Studies of Political Thought from Gerson to von Gierke, Otto, 4
Grotius (Figgis), 29
subjects, 11213, 117, 123, 129, 255 Walsh, W. H., 324, 331
Summa de ecclesia (John of Turrecremata), war, 215, 32830, 33132, 334, 337, 338
44 Watanabe, Morimichi, 182
Sylvester, Bernard, 39 Weber, Max, 262, 265
What Is Enlightenment? (Kant), 63
Tartars, 183 Wilks, Michael, 162, 168
Tawney, R. W., 262 William I (the Conqueror), king of
taxation, 118, 123, 152, 210, 216, 25152, 254, England, 216
270 William III, king of England, 308
Terrence, 70 William of Ockham, xiv, 4647
Theseus, 29799 William of Pagula, xxii, 47, 12531, 138,
Thorne, Samuel E., 8284 23034, 243, 264
III Consideracions Right Neesserye to the Williams, Steven, 286
Good Governaunce of a Prince. See Lestat wisdom, 136, 137, 183, 184, 185, 202
et le gouvernment women, 24950, 25458
Tierney, Brian, xvixvii, xxii, xxiv, 911, Wood, Diana, 264
3037, 4548, 87, 99 Wood, Neal, 266
Timaeus (Plato), 70 Wynnere and Wastoure, 265
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 159
toleration, xxii, 20, 6365, 67, 188 Zabarella, Cardinal, 10
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Cary Nederman Lineages of European Political Thought Explorations Along The Medieval Modern Divide From John of Salisbury To Hegel

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Lineages of European Political ought

Lineages of European Political

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rough good timesand bad

Introduction. Why Study Medieval Political Thought? xiii

Pa rt I . Historiographies of the Early European

Pa rt I I . Dissenting Voices and the Limits of Power

Pa rt I I I . Republican Self-Governance and

Pa rt I V. The Virtues of Necessity: Economic Principles of Politics

Pa rt V. Modern Receptions of Medieval Ideas

I never intended to make a career out of the study of medieval

My current doctoral student Mary Elizabeth Sullivan provided vital

or of John O. Ward (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2003), 14968; Chap-

There is surely no field of study within the broad tradition of

At the same time, we must be prepared to accept the medievalness

In sum, the changes separating medieval from modern patterns of political

himself repeatedly invokes this in order to identify Decline and Fall as

18. Ibid., 98100.

The obvious solution is to split the difference in Heraclitean fashion by

27. Fasolt, The Limits of History, 210.

by-side with the belief in the legitimacy of imperial power expressed by a

ing for full-blown anachronism or for a return to a problematic perennial

28. Ibid., 241, n. 13.

not correspond to the actual writings and statements of many medieval

briefly still: Seventeenth-century writers were often thinking medieval

22. Ibid., 105.

26. Oakley, Celestial Hierarchies Revisited, 47.

arthur: I am your king.

I can think of no more fitting memorialization of Walter Ullmanns vi-

als that Skinner is compelled by his goals to address, it is hardly surprising

of whether they generally applaud or condemn Skinner, these commen-

construes ideology as the normative vocabulary available to any given

hibiting a legitimate basis for a definite action or set of actions.22 No mat-

the source of the allegation that the Foundations embraces an unresolved

28. Skinner, Foundations, 2: 351. 29. Ibid., 2: 352.

knowledged by historians of all historiographical predilections. Perry An-

tradition unique to early modern Europe. In a sense, then, the widespread

to be historical. By familiarizing ourselves with the theorists historical

The methodological approach proposed at present does not implicitly

problems presented a persistent challenge to the organization of Western

lt h o u g h t h e cas u a l o bs e rv e r might presume

of modern political thoughtin particular, the idea of limited or constitu-

the chronology seem less significant to me than the broad agreement on

Such remarks suggest a scholar who is trying to illuminate the predica-

12. Figgis, Studies in Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius, 2

independent of language, and language itself is always fluid and composed

certain ideas in fact appears to be a hallmark of the neo-Figgisite enter-

the conceptual distinction between conciliar and papal theories of government is a

(1) a personalized conception of rulership; (2) moral-theological rather than

mension to the Churchs organic structure, not surprisingly, the natural-

The Church partakes, as a mystical body, of the same ordering principles

Consequently, no Council of the Church has the authority to eliminate

The complaint of abuse of power is, of course, a chronic one in medieval

53. Nederman, Freedom, Community and Function, 978.

ciples supplement the rule of law so as to compose the core of modern

Christian, Occidental circumstances of the High and Late Middle Ages.63

63. Ibid., 34648.

66. Ibid., 174. 67. Ibid., 185.

ney apparently rejects or overlooks this approach to grounding the consent

n t h e p r e c e d in g e x a m inat i o n of some of the major re-

scholarship of dEntrves, running from his prewar scholarship up to his

2. Alexander Passerin dEntrves, The Medieval Contribution to Political Thought (Oxford: