The other peculiarity to which we have referred, is
the medley of systems and maxims which had to do duty
in the middle ages as the factors of a political philosophy.
One theorist extracted from the Old Testament the
model of a hierarchy ; another read in Aristotle principles
nearly approaching those of a modern constitutional
polity. The civil law added something, added much
to the imperialists systems ; the canon-law, with its
wonderful adaptations of Biblical texts, was of no less
value to the curialists. But the basis of all was either
the Bible of the Christians or the Bible of the philosophers,
the Scriptures or Aristotle. And what is perhaps the
most curious fact of all is that none of the opponents of
papal claims (the advocates were naturally contented
with their own canon-law) make any attempt to adjust
their schemes to the political or legal framework of their
own country. The publicists not only of France but even
of England and Germany, write as though the state were
constructed on an Aristotelian basis or at most as though
its only law was that of the Roman jurisconsults. To
this rule however there is one exception, an exception
perhaps more illustrative of it than any direct confirmation. For the most ideal scheme of polity conceived
in the middle ages, and the furthest removed from practical
possibility, was also one modelled closely on the organisation of feudalism. This is the Doctrine of Dominion
suggested indeed by a previous English writer but so
appropriated and matured by John of Wycliffe that he
may be fairly considered its author.[1]
- ↑ The relation between Wycliffe’s doctrine and that of Richard fitz- Ralph, archbishop of Armagh, was pointed out by William Woodford, a younger contemporary. See his treatise Ad versus Johannem Wicle- fum Anglum, xvi. in Edward Brown s edition of Orthuinus Gratius Fasciculus rerum expeten- darum et fugiendarum, 1. 237, 1690. Compare Mr. F. D. Mat- thew s introduction to the volume of English Works of Wyclif hith- erto unpublished which he edited for the Early English Text Society in 1880, p. xxxiv. The fact is confirmed in many details by so much as I have read of fitzRalph’s treatise De pauperie Salvatoris in the Bodleian manuscript, auc.t. F. infra, 1. 2. [In 1890 I printed the first four books of this work as an appendix to Wycline s books De dominio divino, pp. 257-476.]
