ABSTRACT
To what extent did men of learning - scholastics and jurists - conceptualize or legitimize the civitas and its government either on the basis of guild concepts and values, or in terms of civil society? While the values of civil society entered into medieval philosophy at ail levels (national as well as provincial), guild values were principally referred to in the context of the civitas (city, city-state or simply state). To answer that question, therefore, we must consider the notion of civitas, which relates back to that of the commune.
