MARSIGLIO OF PADUA. 139 stages of the quarrel between the papacy and the empire, involv- ing the most momentous principles of public law, those principles, in the manifestoes of either side, assume quite a subordinate posi- tion. The shrewd and able men who conducted the controversy evidently felt that public opinion was much more readily influ- enced by accusations of heresy, even upon a point so trivial and unsubstantial, than by appeals to reason upon the conflicting juris- dictions of Church and State.* Yet, as the quarrel widened and deepened, and as the stronger intellects antagonistic to papal pre- tensions gathered around Louis, they were able, in unwonted lib- erty of thought and speech, to investigate the theory of govern- ment and the claims of the papacy with unheard-of boldness. Unquestionably they aided Louis in his struggle, but the spirit of the age was against them. Spiritual authority was still too aw- ful for successful rebellion, and when Louis passed away affairs returned to the old routine, and the labors of the men who had waged his battle in the hope of elevating humanity disappeared, leaving but a doubtful trace upon the modes of thought of the time. The most audacious of these champions was Marsiglio of Padua. Interpenetrated with the principles of the imperial jurisprudence, in which the State was supreme and the Church wholly subordi- nated, he had seen in France how the influence of the Roman law was emancipating the civil power from servitude, and perhaps in the University of Paris had heard the echoes of the theories of Henry of Ghent, the celebrated Doctor Solemnis, who had taught the sovereignty of the people over their princes. He framed a conception of a political organization which should reproduce that of Pome under the Christian emperors, with a recognition of the people as the ultimate source of all civil authority. Aided by Jean de Jandun he developed these ideas with great hardihood and skill in his "Defensor Pads" and in 1326, when the strife be- tween John and Louis was at its hottest, the two authors left Paris to lay the result of their labors before the emperor. In a brief tract, moreover, " De translatione imperii" Marsiglio subse-
- See the documents in the second prosecution of Louis by John, where the
accusations against him constantly commence with his pertinacious heresy in maintaining the condemned doctrine of the poverty of Christ. — Martene Thesaur. II. G82 sqq. Cf. Guill. Nangiac. Contin. ann. 1328.
