Marsiglio of Padua’s ‘Political Science’: Medieval Aristotelianism, Cicero, and the Theory of Political Consent

• In Event: Populism and Privilege in the Middle Ages

Abstract

The masterwork by the fourteenth-century Italian political theorist Marsiglio of Padua, the Defensor pacis, has been lauded for, among other contributions, the articulation of a strong theory of the consent of citizens to the laws and rulers to which they are subject. Scholars have proposed that he drew heavily on Cicero’s thought in his formulation of this theory. Very recently, however, some have pointed to elements found in some medieval commentaries of Aristotle’s Politics as a possible influence that supplants the alleged Ciceronianism of the Defensor. The present paper attempts to demonstrate that this “discovery” misconstrues fundamentally the nature and foundation of the Marsiglian approach of consent.

Author

• Cary J. Nederman, Texas A&M University