little plot of earth belonging to mortal men, life may pass in freedom and with peace. And since the order of this world follows the order of the heavens, as they run their course, it is necessary, to the end that the learning which brings liberty and peace may be duly applied by this guardian of the world in fitting season and place, that this power should be dispensed by Him who is ever present to behold the whole order of the heavens. And this is He who alone has preordained this, that by it in His providence He might bind all things together, each in their own order. But if this is so, God alone elects, God alone confirms: for there is none higher than God. And hence there is the further conclusion, that neither those who now are, nor any others who may, in whatsoever way, have been called "Electors," ought to have that name; rather they are to be held as declarers and announcers of the providence of God. And, therefore, it is that they to whom is granted the privilege of announcing God's will sometimes fall into disagreement; because that, all of them or some of them have been blinded by their evil desires, and have not discerned the face of God's appointment. It is therefore clear that the authority of temporal Monarchy comes down, with no intermediate will, from the fountain of universal authority; and this fountain, one in its unity, flows through many channels out of the abundance of the goodness of God. And now, methinks, I have reached the goal which I set before me. I have unravelled the truth of the question which I asked: whether the office of Monarchy was necessary to the welfare of the world; whether it was by right that the Roman people assumed to themselves the office of Monarchy; and, further, that last question, whether the authority of the Monarch springs immediately from God, or from some other. Yet the truth of this latter question must not be received so narrowly as to deny that in certain matters the Roman Prince is subject to the Roman Pontiff. For that happiness, which is subject to mortality, in a sense is ordered with a view to the happiness which shall not taste of death. Let, therefore, Cæsar be reverent to Peter, as the first-born son should be reverent to his father, that he may be illuminated with the light of his father's grace, and so may be stronger to lighten the world over which he has been placed by Him alone, who is the ruler of all things spiritual as well as temporal. Life and Times: SELECTED REFERENCES Symonds, Introduction to the Study of Dante, chs. i-iii. Kelsen, Die Staatslehre des Dante Alighieri, chs. i and ii. Franck, Réformateurs et publicistes de l'Europe, môyen age, pp. 103-108. Exposition and Criticism: Dunning, Political Theories, Ancient and Medieval, ch. ix, § 4. Franck, Réformateurs et publicistes de l'Europe, môyen age, pp. 108-134. Janet, Histoire de la science politique, Vol. I, pp. 433-445. Church, Dante, pp. 84-97. Kelsen, Die Staatslehre des Dante Alighieri, chs. iii-x. Bryce, Holy Roman Empire, pp. 280–284. VI. MARSIGLIO OF PADUA (1270-1372) INTRODUCTION One of the most prolonged of the many contests between secular and ecclesiastical authorities in the middle ages was the dispute between Lewis of Bavaria and Pope John XXII, in the fourteenth century. This conflict originated in a contention for the German crown, between Lewis and a cousin. The Pope, instigated by the King of France, refused to recognize either claimant and put forward a third candidate. There then reappeared the controversy over the Pope's claim of right-through absolving subjects from their oaths of allegiance to withhold sanction to the accession of a secular ruler. As in other such controversies a multitude of polemical tracts were put forth, arguing the old questions of ultimate supremacy as between the two authorities, and of the functions and powers appropriate to either. A dispute within the church brought additional support to Lewis; the dispute arose from the decree of Pope John attacking the doctrine of poverty held by the Franciscan order of friars. This action of the Pope evoked general antagonism to him on the part of the Franciscans; and among the leading defenders of the imperial claims in the contest between Lewis and the Pope were partisans of the Franciscans; the ablest of these was the Italian, Marsiglio of Padua. Marsiglio was a member of the secular clergy; he seems also to have followed other callings, including the practice of medicine; and he was for a few months rector of the University of Paris. His Defensor Pacis, written in support of imperial authority and of its freedom from rightful control by the church, has been called "the greatest and most original political treatise of the middle ages." It brings forward, early in the fourteenth century, ideas which did not receive wide expression until the time of ecclesiastical reconstruction in the sixteenth century, and the periods of political revolution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.2 1 Poole, Illustrations of the History of Mediaval Thought, p. 265. Cf. Lützow, Life and Times of Master John Huss, p. 5. |