[The
above video is mostly a reading of the text below, with an occasional aside
thrown in for good measure as they strike me as relevant. I
welcome questions, comments, or concerns about the material contained in this
video.]
How did the modern concept of the State develop, concomitant with its peculiar accoutrements of sovereignty and power? One of the aims of Skinner’s hook is to answer this question in the fullest, broadest, and most meticulous way possible.
Ever since Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, the Christian was urged not to pay any attention to this earthly world, but rather to focus on the everlasting blessings of the City of God. Understandably, this is hardly an exhortation for active engagement in the political sphere. It was not until William of Moerbeke’s 1250s translation of Aristotle’s “Politics” nearly a millennium later that the formal study of the communicatio politica saw a formal recrudescence. Brunetto Latini, Dante’s much-vaunted teacher and William’s contemporary, wrote one of the first important political treatises of the post-Roman era, the “Books of Treasure.” Latini’s intellectual heirs, however, were the humanists of the sixteenth century, with whom Skinner’s book is almost wholly concerned.
Another prerequisite for the development of the modern State is its asserted independence from any external or coequal powers, which was done when Bartolus and his students broke away from Justinian legist traditions to claim that the State was an “independent association not recognizing any superior.” But perhaps the most important formulation is the notion of sovereignty, which was completely foreign to medieval legal assumptions which emphasized feudal organization and the Church’s ability to assert itself as an equal power to that of the State. Marsiglio of Padua’s “Defensor Pacis,” which construed all power, even that of the Church, as secular, was one of the first death knells rung against this now-foreign complicity. Especially interesting is Skinner’s careful historical analysis of the world “State” from the condition in which a ruler finds himself (status principis) or the general “state of the nation” (status regni) to the wholly modern idea of the State as a sort of abstract, rarefied power apart from both ruler and ruled, constituting ultimate political authority within a geographically defined region.
For those readers whose groundings in Lutheran and Calvinist theology might not be the strongest, Professor Skinner provides a lush history of these ideas, as a knowledge of them is completely inseparable from broader cultural and political trends. A bit of warning, however: as the material might suggest, this is not a breezy apercu – or even just a moderately difficult one. Unless the reader is wholly interested in the subject, I would not recommend this book as something to read through systematically. However, even considering its age (it was originally published in 1975), the humbly named “The Foundations of Modern Political Thought” belies the massiveness of its achievement. It is nothing less than the best intellectual synthesis of sixteenth century theology, Reformation ideology, and political theory ever written.
Ever since Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, the Christian was urged not to pay any attention to this earthly world, but rather to focus on the everlasting blessings of the City of God. Understandably, this is hardly an exhortation for active engagement in the political sphere. It was not until William of Moerbeke’s 1250s translation of Aristotle’s “Politics” nearly a millennium later that the formal study of the communicatio politica saw a formal recrudescence. Brunetto Latini, Dante’s much-vaunted teacher and William’s contemporary, wrote one of the first important political treatises of the post-Roman era, the “Books of Treasure.” Latini’s intellectual heirs, however, were the humanists of the sixteenth century, with whom Skinner’s book is almost wholly concerned.
Another prerequisite for the development of the modern State is its asserted independence from any external or coequal powers, which was done when Bartolus and his students broke away from Justinian legist traditions to claim that the State was an “independent association not recognizing any superior.” But perhaps the most important formulation is the notion of sovereignty, which was completely foreign to medieval legal assumptions which emphasized feudal organization and the Church’s ability to assert itself as an equal power to that of the State. Marsiglio of Padua’s “Defensor Pacis,” which construed all power, even that of the Church, as secular, was one of the first death knells rung against this now-foreign complicity. Especially interesting is Skinner’s careful historical analysis of the world “State” from the condition in which a ruler finds himself (status principis) or the general “state of the nation” (status regni) to the wholly modern idea of the State as a sort of abstract, rarefied power apart from both ruler and ruled, constituting ultimate political authority within a geographically defined region.
For those readers whose groundings in Lutheran and Calvinist theology might not be the strongest, Professor Skinner provides a lush history of these ideas, as a knowledge of them is completely inseparable from broader cultural and political trends. A bit of warning, however: as the material might suggest, this is not a breezy apercu – or even just a moderately difficult one. Unless the reader is wholly interested in the subject, I would not recommend this book as something to read through systematically. However, even considering its age (it was originally published in 1975), the humbly named “The Foundations of Modern Political Thought” belies the massiveness of its achievement. It is nothing less than the best intellectual synthesis of sixteenth century theology, Reformation ideology, and political theory ever written.
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