The Dominican Political Theory of John of Paris in its Context

Abstract

The Dominican John of Paris (d. 1306) wrote a tract De potestate regia et papali which would later influence fifteenth-century conciliarists and seventeenth-century republicans. But the manuscript tradition shows no widespread diffusion of the work in its own times, and, according to Leclercq, the Depotestate does not figure amongst the works attributed to John of Paris in ancient Dominican catalogues of Dominican authors. It has long been thought that it should be dated c. 13023 as a contribution to the debate between Boniface VIII and Philip the Fair of France. John has been judged a major advocate of the royal position and his treatise has been taken to be a principal literary weapon in Philip’s arsenal against the Pope. It has also been judged by many to be a single-issue treatise of great coherence.