ABSTRACT
This chapter is about a relatively less known period of democratic history. It argues that the theory and practice of the Middle Ages had more influence on the handling of majority tyranny than it is usually recognized. Based on the texts of Thomas Aquinas, Peter of Auvergne, John of Paris, William of Ockham and the tradition of Roman and Canon Law, ecclesiastical institutions experimented with many techniques that would only gain widespread use in the modern era. The election of leaders and representative bodies by majority vote (the maior pars), balanced by a supposedly more responsible elite (the sanior pars) to prevent the majority from acting as a single powerful person (quasi unus tyrannus), which may be worse than any individual tyranny, from which it is only numerically different (sola pluralitate differens) may indeed be called laboratory experiments, but not without a practical impact on later centuries.
