ABSTRACT
AS WITH ALL public officers the overriding problem of medieval kingship was the source of royal power. Where did it originally reside? In the earlier period, we have seen, the seat of public and hence of royal power was in the electing body, the people, however narrow this term may be taken. But this ascending thesis of government gave way, almost imperceptibly, to the descending standpoint which was most clearly epitomized in the ‘Rex Dei gratia’. The king by the grace of God had effectively emancipated himself from the populus itself and on the other hand freely acknowledged God as the source of his royal power. The ascending conception of kingship had faded out: in the Middle Ages its place was taken by the descending or theocratic thesis.
