WRITING AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ... - Cornell University

angle, as the rays are declined in the ‘medium.’ This is why ‘simulacrum’ may be both
representation of right intention or an idol [My emphasis]. 104
Wyclif argues that sovereignty—whether rightfully or wrongfully held—is a simulacrum of God.
A sinner, therefore, cannot exercise dominion because he is not properly representing it, because
he is outside the realm of faith and simulation altogether.
Rocha, like most of the Council and like Vladimiri, took Wyclif’s position at its bare
minimum: thinking of sovereignty (an idea held by God) as representative (like human speech)
was to argue that divine qualities had a being dependent on human actions. This in turn meant
that true sovereignty was by nature impossible for humans because, through original sin, no
human could rightfully represent the being of God. If sovereignty is not an idea but an
ontological representation of God’s grace, then no one could be a lord, a prelate, or a pontiff
because, in respect to God, everyone is a sinner.
Because he does not seem to cite Vladimiri, it may be argued that Rocha is not closely
following Vladimiri’s logic. 105 However, it is hard to make sense of Rocha’s arguments without
the background of Vladimiri’s Opinio and Articuli particularly when, in the manner of Vladimiri,
Rocha describes the taking of infidel lands as a problem of thinking authority as purely semantic:
Principaliter arguitur, quia dato, quod rex Plonorum esset talis, sicut supponitur per confectorem
libelli, nichilominus ad hoc, quod licite possent insurgere contra ipsum principes christiani,
exigeretur, quod esset notoria talis; alias possent principes insurgere contra quemcumque, dicendo
ipsum inimicum esse fidei christiane, hereticum vel ydolatrantem, quod est absurdum.
Principally it is argued, because given, that the king of the Poles would be such [an idolater] as if
it is supposed through the makings of libel, as such to this he would be expelled, because licitly
the Christian princes can rise against him because such a notoriety; [following this logic however]
other times, the princes can rise against anyone, saying that he is an enemy of the Christian faith,
heretic, or idolater, which is absurd. 106
104 Elemér Boreczky, John Wyclif’s Discourse on Dominion in Community (Leiden: Brill, 2007) 184-185, note 91.
105 Stanslius Belch argues that Rocha was not influenced by Vladimiri because to him “A war to death against any
infidels would, therefore, be just in itself” (1.722). Belch’s argument forgets Rocha’s more profound agreement with
Vladimiri that Hostiensis’s logic “savored of heresy” (Ibid).
106 Acta 366.
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