Political Theory

A quick look at medieval political theory

This ideal situation of course never existed in reality, and no one in the Middle Ages for a moment imagined that it did. It did exist, however, as an ideal that was possible, at least until Dante's day. And it framed virtually all political thought in the Middle Ages.

The chief questions that occupied political thinkers were those concerning the relation between pope and emperor. Both had claims to supremacy. One school of thought held their powers to be wholly separate, with the pope supreme in spiritual matters and the emperor supreme in worldly matters. This is the so-called Gelasian Doctrine, also called the doctrine of the two swords.

From the time of Pope Gregory VII on, there was a second school that argued for the supremacy of the pope in all things. As in so much else medieval, Thomas Aquinas laid out this position clearly and in detail. He marshalled much evidence to demonstrate that Christendom could not be ruled by two heads but only by one; once that was established, it was a short step to proving that spiritual authority was greater than temporal authority.

The issue was much more complicated than this, of course. What, for example, if the pope were a sinful man, or even a heretic? What then of his authority? And did kings receive their authority to rule through the pope or directly from God? The extreme papalist position argued that the pope was the sole source of earthly authority and that there was no limit to that power.

This extreme position had no shortage of critics, of course. Among the most cogent of them, and one who anticipates much later political thought, was Marsilius of Padua.

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