Representation, Consent and the Aristocratic Ethos: Two Late Medieval Theories

• In Event: Democracy in the Middle Ages? Views from Islam and the West

Abstract

We do not ordinarily count the European Middle Ages among the “democratic times” in Western history. Indeed, the very word “democracy” does not seem to have entered the medieval lexicon (as the Latin democratia) prior to the translations of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics that began to circulate in the middle of the thirteenth century. Yet elements that we associate today with democratic government, such as political representation and the consent of the governed, enjoyed considerable cachet during the period in theory as well as in practice. At the same time, aristocracy (understood not merely as noble birth, but as wisdom and virtue as well) had a venerable intellectual pedigree as well. Philosophers addressed both the exact nature of so-called bene natus and the means appropriate to acquiring it. On the face of it, these two aspects of medieval political thought would seem to be in total conflict, or at least uncomfortable bedfellows. This dilemma was confronted squarely by at least some political theorists during the later Middle Ages. In the proposed paper, I wish to consider the solutions offered by two such authors who sought to reconcile the apparently contradictory principles of aristocratic superiority and democratizing populism: Walter Burley (c.1275-1344) and Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464). Burley was a Paris-trained Oxford schoolman best known for his contributions to logic and metaphysics; he also evidently served English King Edward III in various capacities. Cusa’s background was in theology and canon law, although he was also steeped in the humanistic learning of the early Renaissance; he rose through the clerical ranks to attain the office of cardinal. They converged, however, in their efforts to carve out a place for the wisdom and virtue of aristocrats in a political environment increasingly characterized by mechanisms of consent and representative government.

Author

• Cary J. Nederman, Texas A&M University