A Short Discourse on the Tyrannical Government: Over Things Divine and Human, but Especially over the Empire and Those Subject to the Empire, Usurped by Some Who Are Called Highest Pontiffs, by William of Ockham, and: A Letter to the Friars Minor and Other Writings by William of Ockham

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS87 a year at Frederick's court in 1313-14. For a brief period it even proved possible to invest Frederick with a quasi-messianic role as the leader of a crusade to the east, or the sponsor of a mission to Tunisia. Royal evangelism and rampant anticlericalism, the legacy of years of continual interdict during the War of the Vespers, made Sicily a natural refuge for the Spiritual Franciscans. This caused another breach with the papacy whenJohn XXII turned against the Spirituals in 1317. The island was again placed under interdict, and the economic troubles and baronial brigandage of the 1320's and 1330's made the Church as impoverished , harassed, and unpopular as it had ever been. This book's title is melodramatic and misleading, but its other faults are few. Clifford Backman guides his readers with authority through notoriously complex themes, and his lively prose style disguises an impressive depth of scholarship . He has written an admirable first book, and while his arguments are unlikely to be accepted in full, his study will be required reading in its field. Norman Housley University ofLeicester A Short Discourse on the Tyrannical Government: Over Things Divine and Human, butEspecially over the Empire and Those Subject to the Empire, Usurped by Some Who Are Called Highest Pontiffs. By William of Ockham . Edited by Arthur Stephen McGrade; translated by John KilcuUen. [Cambridge Texts in the History of PoUtical Thought.] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1992. Pp. xxxiv, 215. $4995 cloth; $1595 paperback .) A Letter to the Friars Minor and OtherWritings. ByWilliam of Ockham. Edited by Arthur Stephen McGrade and John Kilcullen; translated by John Kilcullen . [Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought.] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1995. Pp. xl, 390. $64.95 cloth; $24.95 paperback .) These volumes present a translation of Ockham's Breviolquium or Short Discourse—the first complete translation of any of Ockham's political treatises —together with substantial translated excerpts from Ockham's other political works. The two volumes are very welcome. Ockham's political writings are among the most important of the medieval era but, until now, they have been inaccessible except to scholars who can read them in the original Latin. The editor and translator have done their work exceUently. The introductions of McGrade are clear and concise, the translations of Kilcullen fluent and accurate ,and the footnotes provide material that will be helpful to a student without being too intrusive. I have only one quibble about the translation—the persistent rendering of the word dominium as "lordship." This sometimes obscures Ockham's meaning and even leads to phrases that are hardly Enghsh at all. Thus 88BOOK REVIEWS Kilcullen has Ockham write that "someone is said to have lordship over a horse when he can manage it as he pleases" (p. 103); but in English we never say that a rider has "lordship" over his horse. The word needed here is "mastery." In other contexts "jurisdiction" or "ownership"would be appropriate. In the Short Discourse the editors made an excellent choice of a work to translate in full. This treatise presents in a clear, straightforward, and accessible fashion Ockham's case against the contemporary popes. He attached not only specific abuses of the papal power, but a whole theory ofpapal absolution that he regarded as corrupt and heretical. (It is important to note,however,that Ockham never attacked the papacy as such.) The theory of papal authority that Ockham rejected held that the pope, as vicar of Christ on earth, was supreme lord of the world in all temporal and spiritual affairs. All rights of government and rights of property were derived from him. It followed that no licit government and no valid claims to property existed outside the CathoUc Church. Against this Ockham argued that the right to institute rulers and the right to acquire property were granted by God to all peoples "without intermediary" (p. 91). Ockham made a significant contribution to the emerging doctrine of natural rights in this work, referring several times to the inviolabUity of "the rights and liberties granted by God and Nature." Although Ockham has often been treated as a merely destructive critic of the papacy...