ABSTRACT
De rigueur, any account of the 'esprit laique' in the medieval world, must start with the work of Georges de Lagarde. The broad meaning of esprit laique allowed Lagarde to include a wide range of fourteenth-century developments as expressions of that spirit, culminating in the work of two authors: Marsilius of Padua's Defensor pacis and William of Ockham's Dialogus. Marsilius considers sacerdotium as one of the six parts of the political community, and devotes a chapter to the truth of the Christian faith; still, the sphere of its expression is neatly distinct from politics. William of Ockham serves of course as an important test-case, being at the same time one of the outstanding figures of late medieval 'nominalism' and intellectually the most prominent member of the group of Franciscans. Ruedi Imbach and scholars want to investigate the role laymen, understood as a social and cultural group distinct from the clergy, played in the philosophical discourse of the late Middle Ages.
