The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c.350-c.1450 (The Cambridge History of Political Thought)

786 Pages·1991·46.51 MB·English

by  J. H. Burns

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL
POLITICAL THOUGHT
c. 350-c. 1450
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
T HE C A M B R I D GE
H I S T O RY OF M E D I E V AL
P O L I T I C AL T H O U G HT
c. 350-c. 1450
EDITED BY
J.H. BURNS
Emeritus Professor of the
History of Political Thought,
University of London
H CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Cambridge University Press 1988
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
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no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1988
First paperback edition 1991
Sixth printing 2007
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
The Cambridge history of medieval political
thought c. 350-c. 1450.
1 .Political science — History
I. Burns,J.H.
320.9l82'lJA82
Library of Congress Catalogue in Publication data
The Cambridge history of medieval political thought c. 350—c. 1450.
Bibliography.
Includes index.
i.Political science — History. I. Burns, J.H.
(James Henderson)
JA82.C27 1987 320'.0I 87-6601
ISBN-13 978-0-521-24324-7 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-42388-5 paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy
of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or approriate.
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CONTENTS
List of abbreviations
Introduction
J.H. BURNS
Emeritus Professor of the History of Political Thought,
University of London
I Foundations
1 Christian doctrine
HENRY CHADWICK
Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge
2 Greek and Roman political theory
JOHN PROCOPÉ
3 Roman law
P.G. STEIN
Regius Professor of Civil Law, University of Cambridge
II Byzantium
4 Byzantine political thought
D.M. NICOL
Emeritus Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek History, Language
and Literature, King's College, University of London
III Beginnings: c. 350-c. 750
5 Introduction: the West
R.A. MARKUS
Emeritus Professor of History, University of Nottingham
6 The Latin fathers
R.A. MARKUS
7 The barbarian kingdoms
P.D. KING
Senior Lecturer in History, University of Lancaster
IV Formation: c. 750-c. 1150
8 Introduction: the formation of political thought in the west
D.E. LUSCOMBE
Professor of Medieval History, University of Sheffield
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9 Government, law and society 174
R. VAN CAENEGEM
Professor of Medieval History and of Legal History at the University of
Ghent
10 Kingship and empire
JANET NELSON
Lecturer in History, King's College, University of London
11 Church and papacy 252
I.S. ROBINSON
Associate Professor of Medieval History and Fellow of Trinity College,
Dublin
12 The twelfth-century renaissance 306
D.E. LUSCOMBE and G.R. EVANS
Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
V Development: c. 1150-c. 1450
13 Introduction: politics, institutions and ideas 341
J.P. CANNING
Senior Lecturer in Medieval History, University College of North Wales,
Bangor
14 Spiritual and temporal powers 367
J.A. WATT
Professor of Medieval History, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
15 Law
I Law, legislative authority and theories of government, 1150-1300 424
K. PENNINGTON
Professor of Medieval History, University of Syracuse, New York
II Law, sovereignty and corporation theory, 1300—1450 454
J.P. CANNING
16 Government 477
JEAN DUNBABIN
Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford
17 Community
I Community, counsel and representation 520
JEANNINE QUILLET
Professeur à Г Université de Paris XII
II The conciliar movement 573
ANTONY BLACK
Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science and Social
Policy, University of Dundee
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vii
18 The individual and society 588
ANTONY BLACK
19 Property and poverty 607
JANET COLEMAN
Lecturer in the Department of Government, London School
of Economics and Political Science
Conclusion 649
J.H. BURNS
Biographies 653
Bibliography 691
General works 694
I Foundations 696
II Byzantium 699
III Beginnings: c. 350-c. 750 7°4
IV Formation: c. 750-c. 1150 710
V Development: c. 1150-c. 1450 747
Index of names of persons 779
Index of subjects 791
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viii
ABBREVIATIONS
Corpus Christianorum
Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
Regesta Pontificum Romanorum ab condita Ecclesia ad annum post Christum
natum MCXCVIIL ed. P.JafTé, 2nd edn, rev. by W. Wattenbach, 2 vols.,
contrib. P. Ewald, F. Kaltenbrunner and S. Loewcnfeld, Veit, 1885-8
Lexicon für Theologie und Kirche
Monumenta Germaniae Histórica
Auetores Antiquissimi
Cap. Capitularía regum Francorum
Cone. Concilia
Const. Constitutiones
DD Diplomata Karolinorum
Epp. Epistolae
Form. Formulae merovingia et karolini aevi
Leges Leges nationum Germanicarum
Libelli Libelli de Lite
Poetae Poetae Latini Medii Aevi
SS Scrip tor es
PG J.P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca
PL J.P. Migne, Patrologia Latina
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
INTRODUCTION
The character of 'medieval political thought' is problematic. Its very
existence, as an identifiable entity or subject, may be questioned, and has
been denied. Yet such doubts and denials seem less than plausible in the light
of the sustained and fruitful scholarly investigation and exposition that the
subject - though not always under this title — has received for the best part of
a century. Some aspects of that historiography will be considered in a
moment. First, however, something needs to be said more directly about
the nature of the subject itself. It is no doubt true that if certain definitions of
'political thought' are accepted it will be hard to find such thought in the
period surveyed in this book. For most medieval thinkers the analysis,
whether conceptual or institutional, of 'politics' in its original Greek sense
was neither relevant nor possible. Even after the so-called 'Aristotelian
revolution' of the thirteenth century this is still substantially true. Concepts
and terminology derived from Aristotle's Politics then indeed became
common intellectual currency; and yet there is no medieval work
challenging even distant comparison with that massive treatise. The
influence of Platonic or neo-Platonic ideas was no doubt more continuous,
though the light it shed was refracted; but there is no medieval text of the
character, let alone the calibre, of Plato's Republic. Ideas, whether Platonic
or Aristotelian, rooted in the life of the polis or city-state had at best a limited
application in most medieval societies.
If, on the other hand, 'political thought' is understood in terms of 'the
state' as it has been experienced and analysed in the post-medieval western
world, we shall again encounter a concept largely inappropriate in the
medieval context. There is certainly room for argument both for and
against the view that some kind of'state' emerged, both in fact and in idea,
in medieval Europe. This is a recurrent issue in the chapters that follow.
Even if that question is resolved in an affirmative sense, however, it remains
a hazardous enterprise to credit any medieval writer with a 'theory of the
state' in what has been, at least for one tradition, the classic modern sense of
the term.
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2 Introduction
In comparison, it may seem, medieval thinkers were concerned with
issues much less distinctively 'political'. Walter Ullmann argued that the
medieval outlook in general was characterised by a 'wholeness point of
view'.1 By this he intended to discriminate between that outlook and one in
which, as in modern thinking, separate spheres are distinguished for what is
'moral', what is 'religious', and so on — including, specifically and
emphatically, a sphere of'the political'. It is certainly the case that this kind
of division and specialisation of disciplines has been a characteristic and
important modern development. It is not, however, the case that the
alternative 'wholeness point of view' has been peculiarly or exclusively
medieval. It is surely a viewpoint of that kind that makes Plato's Republic,
for instance, so much more than a 'theory of the state'. As for Aristotle, just
because the polis was for him a society uniquely capable of making possible a
'good life' in comprehensive terms, its analysis could not be narrowly
'political'. Thus a theory of the household forms an integral part of
Aristotle's 'political theory'; and his account of political systems as such
cannot dispense with such ethical concepts as 'friendship' and 'justice'.
Theories of'the modern state' have likewise transcended the restrictions of
the explicitly 'political'. There are 'sociological' dimensions in the thought
of Bodin or Montesquieu. Again, vitally important political thinking in
the modern period has developed within the matrix of jurisprudence or of
the 'political economy' which emerged from the moral philosophy of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As for explicit modern variants of the
'wholeness point of view', it may suffice to cite the influential case of Hegel,
for whom 'the strictly political state' is far from exhausting the content of
the term 'state' itself.2
The credentials of'medieval political thought', then, are not impugned
by the recognition that its subject-matter extends to themes which, in other
periods or for some thinkers, might seem alien to strictly political discourse.
Nor is it necessary, in the defence of those credentials, to have recourse to a
definition of politics as nothing less than (in Michael Oakeshott's phrase)
'the activity of attending to the general arrangements' of a society. 3 It is
sufficient to recognise that issues seemingly prima facie 'social', 'economic',
1. Cf., e.g., Ullmann 1975a, pp. i6ff.
2. Cf. translator's note to § 267, Hegel's Philosophy of Right, translated with notes by T.M. Knox,
Clarendon Press, 1942, pp. 364-5. For the phrase 'strictly political state' see § 267 (p. 163); and cf. 'the
state as a political entity', §§ 273, 176, (pp. 276, 179).
3. M. Oakeshott, Rationalism in Political and Other Essays, Methuen, 1962, p. 122: 'Politics I take to be
the activity of attending to the general arrangements of a set of people whom chance or choice have
brought together.'
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