WRITING AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ... - Cornell University

tamen laicus ante aliquam constitutionem numquam habuit potestatem in laicos, sed sola
usurpatione... imperium dependet a potestate papae, qui habet utrumque gladium” ‘although [the
Emperor] is secular before any constitution by right, he has no power over secular men, but only
usurpation. Command depends from the power of the Pope, who holds both swords.’ 90 Repeating
Augustine’s claim that, outside of divine justice, sovereignty amounts only “latrocinia”
‘robbery,’ Vladimiri argues—almost foreshadowing Nietzsche’s critique of law—that, from the
vantage point of history, “right” is merely an institutionalized alibi of centuries of oppression and
conquest. 91 Therefore, rightful authority is only possible outside a temporal perspective from an
absolute viewpoint which would bind Christians and infidels, “boves et oves” ‘cows and sheep,’
as immediate reflections of one universal idea.
Vladimiri thus uses a very old but effective argument to undermine his opponents: the
charge that human institutions are mere representations which dissemble “ideal” truth. This
indictment against basing a theory of justice from pure representation is the heart of his formal
accusation against the Teutonic Order delivered before the Council of Constance. Its most
explicit articulation is found in the Incipit of his polemical Articuli Contra Cruciferos in Prussia:
In nomine Domini nostri Iesu Christi. Amen. Quia praesens Generale Constantiense Concilium
propter tria principaliter convocatum exsistit ac etiam in Spiritu Sancto congregatum: primo, ut
schisma pestiferum tollatur ab Ecclesia; secundo, ut haereses exstirpentur; tertio, pro reformatione
Ecclesiae facienda tam in capite quam in membris, duobus aliis non omissis. Quantum ad
secundum istorum docet Salvator noster procedere (in Evangelio Matthaei, vii c.) dicens: Attendite
a falsis prophetis, qui veniunt ad vos in vestimentis ovium, intrinsecus autum sunt lupi rapaces. Et
subdit: a fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos; et, post pauca, non potest …arba mala bonos fructus
facere, etc. Igitur de fructibus haeresis Prussianae—quae non minor videtur, immo multo maior,
horribilior, deteriror et damnabilior, quam Wicklephistarum et Hussonistarum, videlicet Fratum,
qui Fratres Hospitalis Sanctae Mariae de domo Teutonicorum Ierosolimitani se appelant, alias de
Prussia ponuntur articuli infrascripti.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Because the present General Council of Constance
exists principally convoked and even congregated in the Holy Ghost for three things: first, so that
the schisms of pestilences be destroyed from the church; second, so that the heretics be extirpated;
third, for the acting reformation of the Church as much in the head as in the members, with the
90 Belch 2.875.
91 Ibid. and “Remotaque iustitia quia sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia?” ‘And with justice removed, what are
kingdoms if not great dens of robbers?’ (Augustine “De civitate” Book 4. Chapter 4.113).
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