WRITING AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ... - Cornell University

Against what P.E. Russell and Eyda Merediz have argued, it is not the Aristotelian
emphasis on the social and human basis of sovereignty that is invoked by canonists as a
successful defence of infidel sovereignty. 88 Although Aristotle has a role to play in Vladimiri’s
logic, the foundations of his defense of natural rights are thoroughly theological. It is his
unequivocal defense of the absolute power of the Church as a sovereign entity that, according to
Vladimiri, prevents any Christian sovereign from rightfully claiming authority over the infidels:
Regnum in terris surgit tribus modis. Primo, per voluntatem Dei revelatam… secundo modo, per
consensum eourum qui reguntur; tertio modo, per violentiam. Primo modo et secundo modo,
regnum est iustum; tertio modo, non. Secundum primum modum iustificatur potestas papae,
postea resumpta a Christo…secundo modo, ex quo tota Ecclesia Catholica et omnium fidelium
congregatio in hoc consentit…Cum igitur non constat imperium super infideles praedictos
generaliter esse iustificatum primo aut secundo modo, non potest dici imperatorem aliquam
potestatem habere super dictos infideles, sed tantum tertio modo: per violentiam et tyrannidem.
Sovereignty in earth arises in three ways. First, through the revealed will of God…in the second
way, through the consent of those who are governed; in the third way, through violence. In the
first and second way, sovereignty is just; in the third it is not. According to the first mode, the
power of the Pope is justified, after it is taken from Christ…in the second way, from which the
whole Catholic Church and the congregation of all the faithful consents in it…Since therefore it
does not follow that sovereignty over the aforesaid infidels be generally justified in the first or
second mode, it cannot be said that the emperor has any power over said infidels, but only through
the third mode: through violence and tyranny [My emphasis]. 89
Since authority is just only when given by God or when it is authorized through all those “qui
reguntur” ‘who are governed,’ then only the Pope is the true authority on earth since he is the
only whom God has ascertained as having power and since he acts by the consent of “tota
Ecclesia Cathholica et omnium fidelium congregatio” ‘the whole Catholic Church and
congregation of all the faithful.’ A secular monarch, on the other hand, may only have power
over the infidels through their conquest and so illegitimately through violence and tyranny.
Vladimiri’s position, hence, echoes Augustine’s De Civitate Dei in arguing that all claims
to authority that proceed from a secular basis are unjust since they do not come originally from
right or by divine revelation but from a history of violence and conquest. He writes, “de iure
88 See Russell “El Descubrimiento” 14-15 and Merediz 9-10.
89 Belch 2.819.
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