Cambridge history of medieval political thought, c. 350-c. 1450, The (review)

Abstract

Reviews 129 practical account of how the dictionary can be used in classroom teaching of English as a Second Language to adult learners. Rosemary Huisman Department of EngUsh University of Sydney Cambridge history of medieval political thought, c. 350-c. 1450, The, ed. J. H. Burns, Cambridge, C. U. P., 1988; cloth; pp. viii, 808; R. R. P. AUS$204.00. It has been a long while since scholarship has witnessed the publication in the English language of a systematic survey of medieval Latin political thought. The six volumes by the Carlyles at the beginning of the century were perhaps the most recent contribution to this genre; although, Ewart Lewis's two-volume 1954 study Medieval political ideas rivals their achievement. Surveys on a smaller scale, such as the commonly cited works of Macllwain, UUmann, and MorraU, were invariably flawed or distorting because they were unsuited to the vast expanse of time and sizeable number of texts and themes associated with the development of medieval political theory. With the publication of the longawaited Cambridge history of medieval political thought, however, a reliable overview of the topic which takes into account the many important scholarly discoveries of the twentieth century is now available. Although the volume will remain largely a reference work, J. H. Burns and his collaborators have succeeded in producing an accurate and inclusive yet readable introduction to the political ideas of the Latin Middle Ages. It is not really possible in the present context to do full justice to a book which contains 21 substantive essays by eighteen different contributors. For the most part, the authors are active specialists in some aspect of medieval political thought who have been granted a unique opportunity to summarize and synthesize the best current scholarship in their particular fields. Thus, the contributions by, for instance, Janet Nelson, Joseph Canning, John Watt, Antony Black and Janet Coleman reflect a balanced and up-to-date presentation of their respective themes. This reliance upon specialists makes all the more inexplicable the decision to invite David Luscombe to introduce the section on the formation of political thought between c. 750 and c. 1150 and to co-author the treatment of the 'Twelth-Century Renaissance.' Luscombe is a noted Abelard scholar but he has never included political theory among his research specialities; even if one counts his outmoded and lightly researched essay on 'The state of nature and the origin of the state' in the Cambridge history of later medieval philosophy. Luscombe is unaware of current scholarship in the field and this is reflected, for example, by his unwavering commitment to the now heavily discredited idea of a completely disjunctive 'Aristotelian revolution' in 130 Reviews political thinking (see pp. 169, 173, 306-7 and 338). H e also makes an especially poor job of John of Salisbury, with whose ideas he seems to have only superficial acquaintance. T w o other observations about the contributors are also relevant. The volume has less of an international flavour than one might desire and more of an historical one. All the authors are essentiaUy historians by disciplinary training, a fact which is sometimes reflected in the absence from the volume of philosophical or theoretical analysis of texts and ideas. This only reinforces the already existing impression of many political theorists that rational argumentation and philosophical reflection is lacking in scholarship on the Middle Ages and that the study of medieval ideas is a purely antiquarian pursuit in a way that the study of, say, Plato or Machiavelli is not. The tendency to treat medieval political thought mainly from the perspective of the intellectual historian does not serve to promote wider interest in the topic. Moreover, all but four of the authors represented here have a British institutional affiliation and only one teaches outside of Europe. Yet there are surely a number of worthy established scholars in North America and Australasia (Francis Oakley, Arthur McGrade, Alan Gewirth and Conal Condren come quickly to mind) who could have contributed to the volume and thereby expanded the range of visions and interests incorporated within it. The important articles by Condren on Marsiglio of Padua are even left out of the Bibliography. Unlike the...