ABSTRACT
MARSILIAN AND BARTOLIST thought could without difficulty be wedded: they were in many ways a perfect match. The marriage concerned the combination of juristic and philosophic elements. What the one lacked was supplied by the other. The practical application of this Marsilian-Bartolist conflation can well be illustrated by the conciliar theme. Its gist is that the sum-total of power is located in the populus christianus which finds its representative organ in the general council, and has as the twin roots the themes of Marsiglio and Bartolus. The hallmark of the conciliar theme is the denial that the source of power is transmitted downwards through the mediating agency of the priesthood. This rejection of the descending theme and the powerful endorsement of the ascending theme is the application of the Marsilian and Bartolist views to the ecclesiological sphere, that very sphere which, at first sight, would have seemed immune to the germ of populism. That there was no writer who in one way or another had not embraced the conciliarist theme can be explained by the influence which either or both of the roots exercised before and during the period of Constance. If the writer was a jurist, the Bartolist point of view appealed to him-whether Romanist or canonist makes no difference in this context-not only because his doctrine appeared so eminently practical, but also because so many of the corporation theories, evolved long before, seemed to support the essential correctness of the great Master’s views. In particular, canonistic doctrines about the corporation could be fitted into the scheme without effort.1 The Conciliar Movement was a juristic movement in which the theme of the populus could find a juristic habitat in the ecclesiological field. That the great conciliarists were eminent jurists has long been recognized. Their influence shows itself perhaps most brilliantly in the decree of Constance, which only a jurist could have drafted. Was not the declaration of the assembled wisdom of Europe at Constance that the general council represented the whole Catholic Church rather a strong echo of Bartolus’ thesis that ‘Concilium representat totam civitatem’? That the other tenet of the ascending theme, namely the responsibility of the elected to the electors, also made its re-appearance cannot cause surprise: every officer, including the pope, and every functionary, of whatever dignity or status, was responsible to the general council, because it was the representative organ of the whole Catholic Church. The ascending theme had won an undisputed victory in the sphere of ecclesiastical government. Out of the pope, the master who possessed the sum-total of power, became the pope who was the servant and officer of the Church.
