ABSTRACT
THE HISTORIAN INQUIRING into the principles animating the medieval papacy must see the institution from within itself and from its own premisses. By the very terms of his calling the historian cannot enter into any discussion as to whether the principles set forth and applied by the medieval papacy were ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, were in agreement with the Bible or violated biblical themes, were justified or unjustified. The historian must set out from the evidence which the institution itself supplies-and fortunately enough supplies copiously-and which alone provides a secure basis for the reconstruction of papal principles of government. The question whether a particular papal tenet can be squared with biblical data is one that belongs to the theologian; the question whether the papacy based the tenet on the Bible comes within the precincts of the historian’s quest. But so do many other questions: the reliance of the papacy on Roman law and the Roman constitution is a fact which lies within the historian’s field of inquiry, but whether the application of Roman law principles was correct only the Romanist can tell us. The incorporation of platonic and neoplatonic ideas into the papal ideology is a feature which it is the business of the historian to point out, but whether the utilization of these ideas by the papacy was correct only the philosopher can tell us.
