The political thought of Baldus de Ubaldis (review)

Reviews 137 about. It is the problem with which this work starts and pursues with considerable success. Conal Condren Political Science University of N e w South Wales Canning, J., The political thought ofBaldus de Ubaldis, Cambridge, C.U.P., 1987; pp. xii, 300; R.R.P. A U S $110.50. Some years ago this reviewer obtained a copy of the anastatic reprint of Baldus de Ubaldis' Consilia for the University of Sydney Library in the hope that one day a student would come along who would be willing to do a Ph.D. thesis on the social and economic thought of Baldus. Canning's book constitutes a salutary lesson to any such student foolish enough to entertain the thought not to do so. Not because the book is bad, indeed the contrary, but rather because of the sheer magnitude of the task. Baldus was one of the greatest legal minds of the Middle Ages. With a creative life spanning the second half of the fourteenth century, he was a worthy successor to Bartolus of Sassoferrato and all the great Romanists and Canonists of the Middle Ages. However, there are no m o d e m critical editions of his works and students of him interested in any particular aspect of this thought have had to comb the many Renaissance editions of his various works. These in themselves are voluminous. Then, there is the difficulty that he writes as a medieval jurist and one has to weave a path through a maze of late medieval juristic thought in which most statements can be understood only with reference to the sources cited. Canning's achievement in producing a readable, comprehensive, systematic analysis of Baldus' thought is very considerable indeed. As a practising doctor of laws in a series of north-Italian universities, Baldus had a refreshingly practical approach to political thought in which he almost always accepted the realities of poltical life in his time and then found intellectual paths through the authorities with which he worked to justify those realities. In his political thought he does not rank as a great innovator of the type of Marsilius of Padua but for that very reason his thought is the more valuable. A reading of Canning's book introduces one to the realitites of political thought in the world of late medieval Italian real politique. Through the application of juristic techniques such as the distinctions between de iure and defacto authority, between the ius civile and ius gentium, as well as juristic understandings of the ius naturale, Baldus was able to reconcde the realities of political life of his time with the concepts of his ultimate authority: the Corpus iuris civilis. Baldus was able to reconcile imperial rights with the virtual absence of imperial authority in the world of his lime. Imperial powers were de iure 138 Reviews universal and unlimited but defacto abrogated and constrained by feudal law, the procuratorial responsibilities of emperors, and higher norms of ius naturale and ius divine. Baldus was an imperialist, but a practical one who also found ways to justify both the essence of the theory of papal sovereignty and the realities of papal power in fourteenth-century Italy. Noteworthily, he did not question either the authority or the genuineness of the Donation of Constantine. But his address to the issues of the two powers was balanced and within his thought there was much room for independence of imperial sovereignty from the Church. Ultimately, his thought was essentially dualist To me, the more interesting chapters of the book deal with Baldus' justification of the independent authority of republican city states through recourse to the defacto absence of the exercise of imperial authority and to the nature of government in the ius gentium, and also with the independent sovereignty and authority of monarchies and kings. The analysis of the legislative authority of these institutions is complex yet fascinating. The signorie are dealt with much more laconically, their authority being justified through imperial concession and welcomed, as a good Romanist would, as an index of the reappearance of imperial authority in Italy. Here the reference is to the Visconti dukes of Milan. Through it all w...