The Watershed of Modern Politics: Law, Virtue, Kingship, and Consent (1300†“1650)

Description

The concluding volume of Francis Oakley's authoritative trilogy moves on to engage the political thinkers of the later Middle Ages, Renaissance, Age of Reformation and religious wars, and the era that produced the Divine Right Theory of Kingship. Oakley's ground-breaking study probes the continuities and discontinuities between medieval and early modern modes of political thinking and dwells at length on the roots and nature of those contract theories that sought to legitimate political authority by grounding it in the consent of the governed. Contents General Introduction Acknowledgments Prologue: Late Medieval and Early Modern Political Thinking: Some Metahistorical Challenges 1. Historical Orientation: From War, Plague, and Schism to Renaissance, Reformation, and Revolt 2. The Politics of Nostalgia: Empire, Papacy, and Their Twilight Struggle 3. The Politics of Virtue: Italy, the Republican Tradition, and the Humanist Political Legacy 4. The Politics of Sin: From Aegidius Romanus, Fitzralph, and Wycliffe to Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and the Radical Reformers 5. The Politics of Deference: Old Regal Sacrality and New Divine Right of Kingship 6. The Politics of Consent (i): politia saecularis 7. The Politics of Consent (ii): politia ecclesiastica 8. The Watershed of Modern Politics Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index