Dominus Mundi: Political Sublime and the World Order

Description

This monograph makes a seminal contribution to existing literature on the importance of Roman law in the development of political thought in Europe. In particular it examines the expression ‘dominus mundi’, following it through the texts of the medieval jurists—the Glossators and Post-Glossators—up to the political thought of Hobbes. Understanding the concept of dominus mundi sheds light on how medieval jurists understood ownership of individual things; it is more complex than it might seem, and this book investigates these complexities. The book also offers important new insights into Thomas Hobbes, especially with regard to the end of dominus mundi and the replacement by Leviathan. Finally, the book has important relevance for contemporary political theory. With the fading of political diversity, Monateri argues ‘that the actual setting of globalisation represents the reappearance of the Ghost of the Dominus Mundi, a political refoulé—repressed—a reappearance of its sublime nature, and a struggle to restore its universal legitimacy, and take its place.’ In making this argument, the book adds an important original vision to current debates in legal and political philosophy. Acknowledgements Table of Contents Abbreviations 1. Master of the World and the Law of the Sea I. The Dominus, Carl Schmitt and Beyond II. The Dominus and Its Several Meanings III. The Dominus and Its Genealogy IV. Re-Thinking the Greek Rome 2. The Christian Empire as World Order I. The Revival of the Dominus II. Imperial Messianism III. The Lord of the Flies 3. Political Theology from Satan to Legitimacy I. Spatiality, Sovereignty and the Geopolitics of Discovery II. From Justinian in Paradise to Royal Occultism 4. Demonological Inversion and the Birth of the Leviathan I. James I, the Witches and Bodin II. Leviathan's Ambiguity III. The Dominus Mundi and Hobbes's Frontispiece 5. Sublime Dissolution I. The Collapse of Modernity II. New Monsters and Good Feelings III. The Political Refoulé IV. The Ghost of the Dominus Bibliography Index