Scholastic, And Medieval Political Thought Thomist Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Between 1100 and 1400, the rudiments of a distinctively European approach to political theor y, based on ancient Greco-Roman and Christian sources, and also the Arab and Jewish traditions, emerged in the writings of Latin authors. These texts framed the development of political ideas that remained influential well into the modern period of Western European history.

Kingship

During the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, little direct familiar ity with the main political philosophies of pagan antiquity existed: The works of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero were for the most part unavailable. Thinkers were thus compelled to cobble together the few known sources of classical political thought with the teachings of the Bible and of church fathers, such as Augustine, in order to invent a new approach to understanding government and public affairs appropriate to the emerging forms of territorial centralization and urbanization. Roman law doctrines, such as the teaching that the ruler was legibus solutuis (a law unto himself), were combined with Christian views about the divine origins of natural and human law to create a vision of governmental office as responsible to and limited by the common good, yet simultaneously answerable to no earthly power. Monarchy was assumed to be the only legitimate form of ruler ship; the king and his mirror image, the tyrant, were seen to be agents of God.What distinguished them were the moral and spiritual orientations of their respective wills: The king personally acknowledged a binding duty to submit to law and to serve the welfare of his subjects; the tyrant rejected justice and mercy in favor of self-will and personal aggrandizement.

The English churchman John of Salisbury (ca. 1115–1180) exemplified this trend in his book, the Policraticus. John proposed an extended analogy between the political community and the natural human body that included all of the main elements of medieval society, including the king, the nobility, the royal servants (i.e., judges and tax collectors), soldiers, and peasants and artisans. When a good ruler governed, the body politic was ordained toward virtue and salvation as well as earthly well-being. However, when a tyrant came to power, vice and impiety reigned. Although John held that the tyrant’s government reflected God’s punishment of wicked mankind, he also countenanced the legitimacy of the killing of tyrannical rulers by their subjects under certain specified conditions.

The Aristotelian Revival

During the middle of the thirteenth century, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics were translated into Latin and soon circulated widely throughout Europe. Within a few years, Aristotle’s works had become the official textbooks for the study of political questions, albeit often supplemented by the commentaries of Arab philosophers, such as Avicenna and Averroes, and the writings of Jewish thinkers, especially Moses Maimonides. The rise of university education and a for mal scholastic curriculum facilitated this transition. Thereafter, the political theorists of the Latin Middle Ages acknowledged Aristotle as the supreme authority on political life and governance, even when they ultimately disagreed with his conclusions.

Specifically, Aristotle’s reappearance occasioned two important advances. First, his writings systematized the intellectual status of political science and related topics. Politics was henceforth conceived to be the “master science of the good,” facilitating the practical fulfillment of human virtue and happiness by specifying the laws and systems of rule that promoted the greatest earthly felicity of human beings. In contrast to the lessons of St. Augustine, government came to be viewed as a positive force in temporal life, both because it educated people in the virtues and because it could serve and protect the Christian Church.

Second, Aristotle’s works reopened the “constitutional” question about the nature of the best regime. A central theme of Politics concerned whether and under which conditions one form of just government—kingship, aristocracy, or polity (i.e., a mixed constitution)—might be preferable. Scholastic authors fiercely debated this issue. Some of them, such as Giles of Rome (ca. 1243–1316) and John of Paris (ca. 1240–1306), held that kingship was best suited to pursue the ends of political life because it was the most “natural” form of rule, or because it had a long history or a divine inspiration that justified its legitimacy. Others—such as St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), in his major treatise, the Summa Theologiae, and Ptolemy of Lucca (ca. 1236–1327)— advocated a mixed, republican, regime as the preferable system of government. Some authors, like Dante (1265–1321) and Engelbert of Admont (ca. 1250–1331), even employed Aristotelian arguments to favor the rule of a universal empire. These differing views were always defended on the grounds that each was most consonant with the teachings of Aristotle and thus confirmed by his authority.

Political Applications

Scholastic political theory during the later Middle Ages was by no means confined to dry and arcane academic debate devoted to uncovering the “real” doctrine of Aristotle. Many political treatises were devoted to taking sides in the deep disputes between the church and the earthly powers, as well as within the church itself, that roiled the period. For example, prominent teachers associated with the University of Paris wrote numerous tracts favoring or opposing the claims of the French king Philip IV to tax the property of the church without the permission of the pope. Likewise, the conflict between the Franciscan order and the papacy concerning the question of “spiritual poverty” led authors to apply scholastic lessons to the constitution of the church, especially in regard to the powers enjoyed by the pope.

The most famous late medieval example of scholastic engagement with the affairs of church and earthly government is probably the Defensor pacis (Defender of the Peace), written by Marsilius of Padua (ca. 1275–1343), finished in 1324. Using the language of Aristotle’s Politics, Marsilius produced an extensive defense of the autonomy of temporal communities from the control or interference of the church with regard to the creation of law and the appointment of rulers. Moreover, he argued that the ultimate authority in ecclesiastical matters was a general council representing the entire body of Christian faithful, thus directly attacking and undercutting the claim of papal supremacy.

Bibliography:

Black, Antony. Political Thought in Europe, 1250–1450. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Burns, J. H., ed. The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c. 350–c. 1450. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Coleman, Janet. A History of Political Thought from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.
Monarchy, translated by Prue Shaw. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Dyson, R.W., ed. Three Royalist Tracts, 1296–1302. Bristol, UK:Thoemmes Press, 1999.
Izbicki, Thomas M., and Cary J. Nederman, eds. Three Tracts on Empire. Bristol, UK:Thoemmes Press, 2000.
John of Paris. On Royal and Papal Power, translated by J. A.Watt.Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1971.
John of Salisbury. Policraticus, translated by Cary J. Nederman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Marsilius of Padua. Defensor pacis, translated by Alan Gewirth. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.
Thomas Aquinas. Political Writings, translated by R.W. Dyson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

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