Unit 4: Political Thought in the Medieval Europe

Introductıon

“Middle ages” started with the decline of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and finished when Ottoman Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror conquered Istanbul in 1453 B.C. The periods of medieval thought were“prescholastic”, “scholastic” and “late scholastic” periods.

The Bible And Its Political Legacy

Middle Age is Europe was characterized with the effect of Christianity. There are two main parts of the Bible, the holy book of Christianity:

1. The Old Testament: Judaism
2. The New Testament: Christianity

Political ideas have been mentioned in the Bible in many places. Most of these mentions are related to obeying certain rules.

Slavery is one of the issues of this age. Christianity was neutral to slavery just like Ancient Greek thought. The different parts of The New Testament show that slavery is not considered a big social problem in Christianity.

Christianity is not against having property; it is even natural. However, Christianity suggests voluntary poverty, which means sharing property as in communism. As a result, monasticism and other forms of religious life occurred in Medieval Age that praise poverty and communal living.

Monasticism or monkhood is a religious way of life in worldly wishes are more important than spiritual ones.

Medieval Christians believed that Jesus Christ was a king. The Church saw itself as Christ’s kingdom on earth, and want to get power from Christ’s power. Later, Popes in Christianity has become very powerful figures in the history.

The Ecclesiastic Influence

The most influential Christian theologists in medieval Europe were Augustine, Ambrose, Cyprian, and Gregory. Augustine, who was influenced by Neoplatonism, was the person who triggered the transition from Fathers of the Church to early scholastics. His most important book was The City of God.

Augustine claims that State is a divine kingdom, and it is ruled by God Himself. God has absolute justice and the ultimate judge at the Eschaton. Eschaton is a theological term and it means the final event in the divine plan; the end of the world.

Augustine developed his famous doctrine of predestination, which means that some people wikk get special help for salvation and other will suffer from eternal punishment.

Civitas terrana means “the earthly/worldly state”.

Civitas Dei means “the state of God”, which is a divine, infinite and a just state.

Massa damnata means “mass of perdition, condemned crowd”; Augustine uses this to remind us of the original sin (Adam’s sin).

In the book, there are two cities, the city of God and the earthly city and two loves; love of God and love of self. Although the members of the two cities have different values, they may have some common wishes such as peace.

Argumentum ad hominem means argument against human; as a kind of criticism/objection. It might be directed against a certain individual/society.

Augustine believes that Christian virtue leads to better government and real virtue is to obey God’s rules.

According to Augustine good and bad governments have the following characteristics:

1. Government must be ruled by the ideal Christian ruler
2. Government may simply be a tyranny-as a realisation of evil and/or love of self,
3. Government exists to organise the cooperation of “men of good will”

Augustine emphasises that both rulers and soldiers must avoid bad feelings such as greed, hatred etc.

Major Problems, Concepts And Philosophers In The Medieval Political Thought

Civil law (ius civile) is the law in the city of Rome and it is different from the ius gentium, the law of all nations, throughout the empire.

Canon law (ius canonicum) is the laws made within certain Christian churches.

The medieval thinkers examined law texts and found the following characteristics:

• Different kinds of law such as natural law (ius naturale), law of nations (ius gentium), and civil law (i.e., the law of a particular community),
• The presence of natural rights such as human rights,
• The idea that human beings are basically equal and that slavery is contrary to natural law,
• The origin of property,
• The doctrine that the source of political authority is the people,
• Either the pope or emperor (or both) has a “fullness of power”,
• Natural law permits an individual to resist force by force,
• A distinction between Church and State in terms of power.

Natural law (ius naturale) is a system of right or justice for all human beings and it is based on nature, rather than from the rules of society.

According to Isidore, natural law is about the common possession of all things, the one liberty of all, and the acquisition of what is taken from air, land and sea; and the restitution of a thing or money left for safekeeping.

The dominant view in the Medieval Age was “If there is no power but from God, the pope is God’s representative on earth, then it seems that power comes to Christian kings through the pope.

Ratione peccati means “due to sins”, and it means the situation when popes intervene in political issues because of the injustice of the secular rulers. This injustice is considered a sin.

Thomas Aquinas wrote about dominion in the state of innocence, natural law and other kinds of law, property, the best form of government, the duty of obedience, war, coercion of heretics and infidels, and other political matters.

Magnum opus means “great work/masterpiece”; and is the best known and most influential work/masterpiece of a thinker, writer, composer, etc.

Dominium means ownership or right to possess a property, or, to have control over a certain property

According to Natural Law, property rights does not work in extreme need, so it is possible to use another person’s property without permission is not theft.

According to Thomas Aquinas, the best form of government is a mixed government combining elements of democracy, aristocracy and kingship. Also, the followings are necessary for a just war:

• It must be commanded by someone in authority,
• There must be a just cause,
• and it must not be carried on through a disproportionate violence.

According to John of Salisbury; freedom is the most important condition to have moral goodness in the society. He also states that people should develop their natural capacities by means of practice and people should collaborate in a voluntary way to live well together in the society. He also believes that politics is a secular identity. John of Salisbury’s conception of justice is based on a duality of negative obligation and positive duty. Not giving harm to anybody is necessary. According to John of Salisbury, philosophy is helpful to have a good life for both the individual and the entire society.

According to John of Paris, ownership and rulership are different from each other. A community (a state, or the Church, etc) takes property only from individuals, and the leader of the community is the administrator of the community’s property, not its owner.

According to John of Paris, there are two powers:

• The secular power which uses natural means,
• The Church which uses supernatural means.

Marsilius of Padua believes that the Pope is not-and should not be- the source of government power. There must be only one coercive power in a state and it should not be religion-based. In other words, the Church is subordinated to the secular government.

Legibus solutus means solved/released from laws; and used to show the situation when the ruler is not subject to the sanctions of laws, or, when the ruler- a tyrant, or a dictator in this case- sees himself as “above the laws.

According to William of Ockham, A particular community uses its power to establish government by choosing a ruler and a form of government; so, the ruler’s power comes from God, and also “from the people”, i.e. from the community. if the ruler turns into a dictator, or if there is some other probems with the common good, the community can change its ruler or its form of government.

The Philosophical Foundations Of The “Modern” State

Following ideas were taken from Aristotle:

1. It is natural for human beings to form cities (Politics).
2. The city or state exists not just for security and trade, but to foster the “good life".
3. Women should, in general, be ruled by men,
4. The good forms seek “the common good”, i.e., the good of both ruler and ruled. The best is kingship, the worst tyranny.
5. The “ideal polity” was not a topic of preAristotelian medieval thought, but it became a common theme.
6. "The rule of law” is better than “the rule of men”, which means leaving every decision to others is not a good idea. Decisions must be taken impartially.
7. Since no legislator can foresee every case that may arise, it is necessary to apply general rules when exceptional cases arise.
8. A good form of government must be stable, not liable to revolution ot prevent the degeneration of kingship into tyranny.
9. Although Aristotle regarded kingship as ideally best governing type, he states that in good government there is a role for ordinary people who may make sound decisions.
10. All of Aristotle’s works supported disputation wh,ch means opposing positions and supporting them with strong arguments, then evaluates the arguments by criticism.