ABSTRACT
The demand for consent to government only emerged in the late Middle Ages, but the idea of natural equality on which it was based had coexisted with hierarchical theories since the beginning of political speculation in the West. An examination of some of the medieval conceptions of hierarchy, equality, and consent may be useful in understanding and evaluating more modern views. Differentiated inequality was the fundamental characteristic of the created world, and existence and value issued from above in a "great Chain of Being". An argument from the order of the angels was used to defend hierarchy in political and social life, and the hierarchical order among the angels became a model for political inequality on earth. The principal arguments for authority in the Middle Ages were thus based on premises that began and concluded with inequality. The conciliarist theory of consent on the basis of original natural equality was later taken up by writers of the early modern period.
