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Property and Protest: Political Theory and Subjective Rights in Fourteenth-Century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Cary J. Nederman
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Extract

It has become common to locate the origins of the modern notion of subjective rights theory in late medieval scholastic and juristic writings. But comparatively little effort has been made to connect medieval ideas of individual rights to some of the other key political ideas associated with it in early modern thought, such as consent, limited government, and resistance to illegitimate power. This article argues that a little-known work by the English churchman William of Pagula, known as the Speculum Regis Edwardi III (1331–1332), constructs such a connection. Starting with the concept of a basic human right to property and its free use, William argues that the ruler must respect the individual lordship of his subjects if he is to gain and retain their love and approval. He also asserts in a rudimentary way the legitimacy of popular revolt against a government which violates their subjective rights.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , Spring 1996 , pp. 323 - 344
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1996

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References

1 See Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953)Google Scholar and Macpherson, C. B., The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962).Google Scholar

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18 In the volume edited by Moisant, Joseph, De Speculo Regis Edwardi III (Paris: J. Picard, 1891)Google Scholar. Moisant, however, believed the tracts to be the work of Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, an attribution convincingly refuted by Tait, James, “On the Date and Authorship of the Speculum Regis Edwardi,” English Historical Review 16 (1901): 110–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This misascription in no way detracts from Moisant's edition, which will be cited in the text (with translations by the present author) according to the recension (either “A” or “B”) and section number.

19 For example, the treatise receives no mention whatsoever in either Burns, , Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought or Antony Black, Political Thought in Europe, 1250–1450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).Google Scholar The only recent remark on its ideas that I have encountered is in Jean-Philippe, Genet's “General Introduction”; to Four English Political Tracts of the Later Middle Ages (London: Royal Historical Society, 1977), pp. x-xi.Google Scholar

20 The dating was first established by Tait, “On the Date and Authorship.” It was confirmed, and the authorship of Pagula finally established, by Boyle, Leonar, “William of Pagula and the Speculum Regis Edwardi III,” Mediaeval Studies 32 (1970): 326–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The circumstances of its composition have been analyzed in an unpublished paper by Nederman, Cary J. and Neville, Cynthia J., “The Origins of the Speculum Regis Edwardi IIIof William of Pagula.”Google Scholar

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30 Maddicott, , English Peasantry, pp. 15–23.Google Scholar

31 Although it must be pointed out that, here and there, jurists began to change their attitudes towards commercial wealth during the late Middle Ages. See Nicolini, Ugo, La proprietà, il principe e l'espropriazione per publica utilità (Milan: Giuffrè, 1952), pp. 15–36Google Scholar and McGovern, John F., “The Rise of New Economic Attitudes in Canon and Civil Law, A.D. 1200–1550,” The Jurist 32 (1972), pp. 39–50.Google Scholar

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33 On the foundations of Marsiglio's doctrine of consent, see Nederman, Cary J., Community and Consent: The Secular Political Theory of Marsiglio of Padua's Defensor Pacis (Lanham, MD.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995), pp. 75–79, 83–94.Google Scholar

34 See the texts edited by Genet, Four Englbh Political Tracts of the Later Middle Ages, for a comparison. Given the very concrete observations made by William, it is odd that Genet characterizes the Speculum Regis Edwardi III as “highly polished, theoretical and scholastic” (pp. x-xi).

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37 There was considerable medieval precedent for the view that God might authorize violence against an evil ruler; for example, see Nederman, Cary J., “A Duty to Kill: John of Salisbury's Theory of Tyrannicide,” Review of Politics 50 (1988): 365–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 John of Paris, De potestate regia et papali, ed. Bleiestein, F. (Stuttgart: Klett Verlag, 1969), chap. 7.Google Scholar

39 Ibid.

40 Another rare case of a late medieval theorist firmly resisting this trend was Marsiglio of Padua, who insisted in his Defensor Paris that individuals must retain their power to consent to laws even if the ensuing legislation is “less useful.” In sum, individual consent takes priority over objective definitions of common benefit. On this remarkable argument, see Nederman, , Community and Consent, pp. 75–79.Google Scholar