Book Description

The concepts of popular consent and limit as applied to the exercise of political authority are fundamental features of parliamentary democracy. Both these concepts played a role in medieval political theorizing, although the meaning and significance of political consent in this thought has not been well understood. In a careful, scholarly, and readable survey of the major political texts from Augustine to Ockham, Arthur Monahan analyses the contribution of medieval thought to the development of these two concepts and to the correlative concept of coercion. In addition, he deals with the development of these concepts in Roman and canon law and in the practices of the emerging states of France and England and the Italian city- states, as well as considering works in legal and administrative theory and constitutional documents. In each case his interpretations are placed in the wider context of developments in law, church, and administrative reforms. The result is the first complete study of these three crucial terms as used in the Middle Ages, as well as an excellent summary of work done in a number of specialized fields over the last twenty-five years.