Marsilius of Padua

Marsilius of Padua was an Italian physician and political philosopher who served as rector of the University of Paris. In The Defender of the Peace (1324), written during the conflict between Pope John XXII and Louis of Bavaria, he argued that political authority comes from the community of citizens, not from the Church. The clergy, he said, should have no coercive power, and the pope's supremacy is a human arrangement rather than a divine one. When his authorship became known he fled to Louis's court, and the pope condemned him as a heretic. His book is an early statement of popular sovereignty and of separating religious from political power.

Key ideas

• The source of law is the 'human legislator': the whole body of citizens or its weightier part.
• Peace, the condition of a good civil life, depends on a single coercive government within each political community.
• Priests may teach and administer sacraments but have no coercive jurisdiction over anyone.
• Papal supremacy has no basis in scripture, and the highest authority in the Church belongs to a general council.

Major works

• The Defender of the Peace (1324)
• Defensor minor (c. 1342)

In the Book corner

• The Defender of the Peace 1324 · Advanced
  A long treatise of political theory finished in 1324, during the conflict between Pope John XXII and Louis of Bavaria. Marsilius, a…

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