ABSTRACT
The reception of worldly Roman law conveyed a notion of temporality that was reflected in the fact that the faculties of jurisprudence were entirely independent of the faculties of theology. This, in turn, spawned a third topos of legitimation: the will of the authorities. As Ernst Kantorowicz has pointed out, they were, to greater or lesser degree, drawing upon a repertoire of absolutist formulae from the classical world, most notably the formulae of princeps legibus solutus and quod principe placuit, legis habet vigorem. Decretum Gratiani, postulates a correlation between even the smallest details of legislation and the fundamental principles of ius divinum. Law constitutes a clearly structured pyramidical hierarchy of norms supported by the ecclesiastical claim to order. Natural law in the sense of this new 'politics' was based on the 'probability' of the behaviour of political powers as documented by historical example. At the same time, there was an erosion of the Christian element in the justification of law.
