Joseph Canning

Through a focused and systematic examination of late medieval scholastic writers - theologians, philosophers and jurists - Joseph Canning explores how ideas about power and legitimate authority were developed over the 'long fourteenth century'. The author provides a new model for understanding late medieval political thought, taking full account of the intensive engagement with political reality characteristic of writers in this period. He argues that they used Aristotelian and Augustinian ideas to develop radically new approaches to power and authority, especially in response to political and religious crises. The book examines the disputes between King Philip IV of France and Pope Boniface VIII and draws upon the writings of Dante Alighieri, Marsilius of Padua, William of Ockham, Bartolus, Baldus and John Wyclif to demonstrate the variety of forms of discourse used in the period. It focuses on the most fundamental problem in the history of political thought - where does legitimate authority lie?

Ideas of Power in the Late Middle Ages, 1296–1417

Hartmut Lehmann

J. M. Winter

This unique volume undertakes the ambitious and entirely new task of analyzing, through comparison, the importance of power, violence and mass death in the fourteenth, seventeenth and twentieth centuries. In this way, Power, Violence and Mass Death in Pre-Modern and Modern Times makes progress towards reaching new perceptions of all three of these 'crisis' epochs as well as helping to illuminate wider questions about the nature of power, violence and mass death on European society.

Power, Violence and Mass Death in Pre-modern and Modern Times

Incorporating research previously unavailable in English, this clear guide gives a synthesis of the latest scholarship providing the historical and intellectual context for political ideas. This accessible and lucid guide to medieval political thought * gives a synthesis of the latest scholarship * incorporates the results of research until now unavailable in English * focuses on the crucial primary source material * provides the historical and intellectual context for political ideas. The book covers four periods, each with a different focus: * 300-750 - Christian ideas of rulership * 750-1050 - the Carolingian period and its aftermath * 1050-1290 - the relationship between temporal and spiritual power, and the revived legacy of antiquity * 1290-1450 - the confrontation with political reality in ideas of church and of state, and in juristic thought. Canning has produced an ideal introductory text for undergraduate and postgraduate students of the period.

300–1450

A History of Medieval Political Thought

Hermann Wellenreuther

Nationality, Society and Nobility in the Eighteenth Century

Britain and Germany Compared

Martial Staub

Edmund J. King

This collection of essays is based on a conference in honour of David Luscombe held at the University of Sheffield in September 2006 under the title "Knowledge, Discipline and Power in the Middle Ages."

Joseph Canning

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