This is a chapter in Guides to Peace and Justice from Ancient Sages to the Suffragettes,
which is published as a book.
For ordering information, please click here.
Since individual men find that
they grow in prudence and wisdom
when they can sit quietly,
it is evident that mankind, too,
is most free and easy to carry on its work
when it enjoys the quiet and tranquility of peace.
Dante, On World-Government 1:4Justice has greatest power under a unitary government;
therefore the best order of the world
demands world-government.
Dante, On World-Government 1:11The human race is at its best when most free.
Dante, On World-Government 1:12O humanity, in how many storms must you be tossed,
how many shipwrecks must you endure,
so long as you turn yourself into a many-headed beast
lusting after a multiplicity of things!
You are ailing in both your intellectual powers,
as well as in heart:
you pay no heed
to the unshakable principles of your higher intellect,
nor illumine your lower intellect with experience,
nor tune your heart to the sweetness of divine counsel
when it is breathed into you
through the trumpet of the Holy Spirit:
"Behold how good and pleasant it is
for brethren to dwell together in unity."
Dante, On World-Government 1:16The fruits of peace or tranquility, then,
are the greatest goods, as we have said,
while those of its opposite, strife, are unbearable evils.
Hence we ought to wish for peace,
to seek it if we do not already have it,
to conserve it once it is attained,
and to repel with all our strength
the strife which is opposed to it.
To this end individual brethren,
and in even greater degree groups and communities,
are obliged to help one another,
both from the feeling of heavenly love
and from the bond or law of human society.
Marsilius of Padua, The Defender of Peace 1:1:4Just as the love of the people is gained more easily
by mercy and generosity than by any other quality,
so, conversely, nothing is more guaranteed
to provoke a people's hatred than cruelty and greed.
Petrarch, "How a Ruler Ought to Govern His State"
In 1306 Pierre Dubois offered a plan for a league of nations
in his book The Recovery of the Holy Land.
Dubois had studied
at Paris under Thomas Aquinas and Siger de Brabant.
He became
a lawyer and was a member of the Estates General assembly.
He
was a chauvinist patriot who believed in a strong French military,
and he wanted
the French king to rule the West and the East, including
Palestine and the Greek Empire.
He suggested the education of
both boys and girls for service in the East.
He proposed that
disputes between sovereign princes be settled by means
of arbitration
by a council of appointed clerics and laymen from each nation.
He exhorted all Christian believers to join in peace and refrain
from war,
and
he suggested as a penalty for violation the loss
of property and exile to the Holy Land.
Dubois proposed establishing
a league of universal peace.
He advised that a council of prelates
and princes along with secular knights
owing service should solemnly
swear to uphold with all their power
this league of peace and
its penalties and see that it is observed.
Unfortunately his scheme
was obviously too biased in favor of the French.
Dante Alighieri was born at Florence under the sign of Gemini
in 1265.
He went to the Franciscan school of Santa Croce.
As a
young man he wrote the romantic poem The New Life in
1292,
and three years later he entered politics, serving on
the council.
In 1300 Dante was elected as one of the six priors
who ruled Florence.
At the time Florence was rife with civic strife
between two groups called the Whites and the Blacks.
In his History
of Florence Machiavelli mentioned how Dante tried to make
peace.
Both parties being in arms, the Signory,
one of whom at that time was the poet Dante,
took courage, and from his advice and prudence,
caused the people to rise for the preservation of order,
and being joined by many from the country,
they compelled the leaders of both parties to lay aside their arms,
and banished Corso, with many of the Neri (Blacks).
And as an evidence of the impartiality of their motives,
they also banished many of the Bianchi (Whites),
who, however, soon afterward,
under pretense of some justifiable cause, returned.1
Corso Donati was a relative of Dante's wife, and he had also
agreed
to banish his best friend, the poet Guido Cavalcanti, in
his effort to be fair.
Dante as a White opposed the interference
of the Pope,
but Pope Boniface VIII sent Charles of Valois to
intervene.
Charles helped the Blacks to power and exiled over
six hundred Whites
including Dante, who was charged with corruption
in office.
While in exile Dante supported reconciliation and refused
to take up arms
against his native city of Florence even though
he "formed a party by himself."
In 1306 he was sent
by Marchese Franceschino Malaspina as
an ambassador to Sarzana,
where he concluded a peace with the Bishop of Luni.
In 1310 when
Henry VII of Luxemburg set off for Rome with the Pope's approval
to restore peace in Italy, Dante wrote a letter to the princes
and people of Italy
asking them to welcome Henry as a peace-bringer.
During this time Dante wrote his political treatise De Monarchia
(translated as On World-Government) in which he
urged that
everyone accept the Emperor as the temporal sovereign
authority
who could unite the world under one rule of law.
Dante's
masterpiece Divina Commedia was composed in exile and was
completed
shortly before he died in 1321 of a fever he caught
while on a diplomatic mission.
In the first book of De Monarchia Dante argued that
humanity needs unity and peace.
He noted that the knowledge of
a single government for all humanity
is most important but has
been least explored.
Since his higher nature loved truth, Dante
felt that he should use his capabilities
to work for posterity
to help future generations by publishing
useful truths that have
been neglected by others.
He believed that the knowledge of one
government has been disregarded,
because it is not immediately
gainful.
Dante suggested that the goal of human civilization should
be the same as that
for all particular civilizations and that
the need was not merely for thought but for action.
He believed
that human intelligence aims at this conclusion,
because the best
means to the happiness of all is universal peace.
Similarly the
wisdom of individuals can best develop
when they are able to sit
in peaceful tranquility.
Thus the angelic host announced to the
shepherds glory to God
in the highest and on earth peace to people
of good will.
Jesus and the early Christians greeted each other
"Peace be with you."
Dante followed Aristotle in arguing that one must regulate
and rule,
and the others must be regulated.
Thus for an individual
to find happiness the intellect must be the guide;
the household
must have a head; and every community needs a leader.
A kingdom
divided against itself will be destroyed.
So the well-being of
the world requires a single government.
Human government is only
a part of the larger
administration of the universe by the one
God.
Humans are most like God when they act like God in unity.
Humanity should follow the pattern of God, who rules the heavens.
Dante quoted from The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius.
O happy human race,
if love guides your souls
as heaven is guided!2
Dante prophesied that human governments would be imperfect
as long as they are
not
subordinate to a supreme tribunal, because
there must be adjudication between them.
Thus the one government
must provide a supreme judge to settle conflicts.
Dante believed
that the world government is likely to be least greedy and most
just,
because it has nothing more to gain.
Justice can be obscured
by will when it is not free of greed.
In his Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle pointed out that greed is the opposite of justice.
Dante
believed that charity and joy in being just refine and enlighten
justice.
The world government by already being most powerful can
afford
to be most charitable and devoted to the good of all.
Dante believed that humanity is at its best when it is most
free,
and for him this human freedom consisted of being
ruled
by reason and living for the good of all.
Such freedom is only
possible under a united government.
Lower animals are not free,
because they are dominated by their appetites.
Those who let their
desires block their judgments are slaves of their desires.
Only
a single government for the world can check the abuses of partial
governments,
whether they be democracies, oligarchies, or tyrannies.
These perverted politicians can enslave people.
Laws are made
for the sake of social order, not the reverse,
and those who follow
them do so for that purpose, not for the sake of the legislators.
The legislators should serve law; laws should not be made to benefit
the legislators.
The world government itself must be ruled by
the universal laws that
are for the good of all and should be
regarded as the servant of all.
Dante believed that a world government is most apt to be reasonable,
because it has the fewest obstacles from selfish interests that
might
prevent it from attaining universal justice than any other
government.
The universal government could guide the particular
governments
by establishing laws that lead all people to peace.
Nations, states, and cities have their own internal concerns that
require special laws;
but the world government could provide the
more general laws that lead all to peace.
Dante noted that Moses
composed general laws but
appointed chiefs to make judgments for
the tribes.
Dante believed that concord in a person or a social
group depends on unified will.
All concord depends on a unity of wills;
the best state of mankind is a kind of concord,
for as a man is in excellent health
when he enjoys concord in soul and body,
and similarly a family, city, or state,
so mankind as a whole.
Therefore, the well-being of mankind
depends on the unity of its wills.3
Dante cried out to humanity to see how greed
has torn apart
the seamless garment of peace,
and to urge them to act he concluded
the first book of De Monarchia
by quoting the beginning
of the Second Psalm.
Behold how good and how pleasant it is
for brethren to dwell together in unity.
Why have the nations raged,
and the people devised vain things?
The kings of the earth stood up
and the princes met together against the Lord,
and against his Christ.
Let us break their bonds asunder:
and let us cast away their yoke from us.4
After two centuries of crusades, it is not surprising that
Dante as a Ghibelline turned
to the German Emperor of the Holy
Roman Empire to try to institute in practice his theory
of one
government rather than to the Pope, who was supported by the rival
Guelfs.
In the second book of De Monarchia Dante argued
that
Roman rule of the world was acquired by right.
This is obviously
questionable.
In the third book he suggested that the Emperor
was
sanctioned directly from God and not through the Pope.
He
argued that although the Church may hold the spiritual power,
the temporal power should belong to the Emperor.
Also in an era
when most governments had been dominated by kings and emperors
for many centuries it is not surprising that Dante would visualize
his call for a
single government in one person, especially as
he had suffered personally
from the strife in Florence under its
experiments as republican city-states.
In this he failed to see
the danger of tyranny from a single ruler.
Yet many of his arguments
and fundamental principles are of great value.
He was the first
to argue so persuasively for the unity of a world government
that
could establish a supreme court to settle all international disputes;
in this he planted an important seed.
His turning away from the
authority of the Church as a practical
and
political peacemaker
also indicated the trend toward secular government.
Another Ghibelline who turned from Church authority toward
secular government
for peace was Dante's younger contemporary
Marsilius of Padua.
Three years after Dante died, Marsilius completed
The Defender of Peace (Defensor Pacis) in 1324.
Marsilio
dei Mainardini was born in Padua between 1275 and 1280.
He studied
with Peter of Abano and other Averroists and
was briefly rector
of the University of Paris in 1313.
Marsilius was sent by Can
Grande della Scala and Matteo Visconti to offer
the captaincy
of the Ghibelline League to Count Charles of La Marche
some time
before 1319; but nothing came of this, and Marsilius returned
to Paris.
When the authorship of Marsilius became known two years after
publishing
his masterpiece, The Defender of Peace, he fled
papal condemnation
to take refuge with Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria
at Nuremberg.
In April 1327 a papal bull called Marsilius and
Jean de Jandun "sons of perdition"
bearing "fruits
of malediction," and they were excommunicated a few days
later.
That year Marsilius accompanied Ludwig to Rome in quest
of the imperial crown,
which he received from Sciarra Colonna
as a representative of the people.
Ludwig then declared Pope John
XXII deposed and replaced him with
the Minor Friar Peter of Corbara,
appointing Marsilius imperial vicar of Rome.
However, the next
year the Romans forced Ludwig
and Marsilius to withdraw back to
Bavaria.
Ludwig supported Marsilius even while he was trying to
be reconciled
with Pope John XXII and Pope Benedict XII.
In response
to Ockham's criticism Marsilius wrote his Defensor minor.
Marsilius probably died in 1342, because the next year
Pope Clement
VI proclaimed the "heresiarchs" were dead.
Marsilius blamed the papal Guelfs for the wars and
miseries
suffered by the city-states of northern Italy.
In his Defensor
Pacis Marsilius used Aristotelian logic and citations of many
sources
from the Bible as well as philosophical books to demonstrate
three main themes.
First, states are created by human reason so
that people can live well together.
Second, political authority
is needed to resolve conflicts,
and to do so it must have coercive
power.
Third, the only legitimate source of this political power
is from the will or consent of the people.
Marsilius began the first discourse with a quote from Cassiodorus
on the importance of tranquility, and then he quoted Job,
"Be
at peace, and thereby thou shalt have the best fruits."5
He noted also how Jesus and his disciples emphasized
peace among
themselves and toward others.
Marsilius complained that Italy
was being battered from all sides and
was so weakened by strife
that almost anyone could invade and seize it.
Thus he considered
strife an unbearable evil as peace is the greatest of goods.
The
health of the state depends upon its being governed by reason
in tranquility.
He agreed with Aristotle that in a good society
the people live well,
free to exercise their virtues, and are
not in slavery.
In order to prevent oppression and slavery it
was found necessary
to give the sentences of judges coercive force,
and a military was needed to protect the state from outside forces.
In a healthy state the government, whether it be one ruler, a
small group,
or many people, operates for the good of all, and
the efficient cause of
the government is the minds and wills of
the people, or occasionally God.
Marsilius found that election
was the best method for choosing good governors.
Some governments
are chosen by lot or by hereditary succession, and
diseased governments
take power by fraud or force or both.
So he concluded,
The authority to make or establish the laws,
and to give a command with regard to their observance,
belongs only to the whole body of the citizens
or to the weightier part thereof as efficient cause,
or else to the person or persons to whom
the aforesaid whole body has granted this authority.6
In the long second discourse of The Defender of Peace
Marsilius argued against any
temporal power for the papal authority,
citing numerous passages from Christian scripture.
He blamed such
interference by Church authority in political affairs
as the main
cause of the discord in European cities and states.
In the short
third discourse he summarized his main points.
He blamed the Roman
bishop and his clerical coterie for trying to
seize secular rulerships
and for possessing excessive material wealth.
Marsilius believed
that no such rulership or coercive judgment over
anyone in the
world belonged to the Pope or any other priest.
Marsilius believed
in divine scripture but held that it should be defined
by a general
council of believers, and only such a council can
dispense with
the commands or prohibitions of the divine law.
He argued that
scripture does not command anyone
to be compelled by temporal
punishment.
Rather salvation depends upon following divine law
according to the dictates
of correct
reason, and he did not believe
that all the commands of the Old Law must be obeyed.
For Marsilius the only human legislator is the
whole collection
of citizens or its weightier part.
Papal decrees made without
consent of the human legislators
bind no one to punishment in
this world.
Only the human legislator or someone acting by its
authority can dispense human laws.
An elected official has that
authority of the legislative will
to use coercive force and needs
no other confirmation.
A city or state must have only one supreme
government.
Officials must be appointed according to the laws.
No ruler or partial groups, regardless of their status,
has power
except by the determination of the legislators.
Marsilius went
so far as to say that no bishop or priest has
coercive jurisdiction
over anyone, even a heretic.
Only the ruler authorized by the
legislator has such
coercive jurisdiction over both clergy and
lay persons.
He believed that all bishops should have equal authority
through Christ
and that other bishops can excommunicate the Roman
bishop.
No mortal can give a dispensation for marriages prohibited
by divine law;
but those prohibited by human law are under the
authority of the legislator.
A litigant may always appeal from
the jurisdiction of a bishop or priest
to the legislator or to
those governing by its authority.
What made The Defender of Peace by Marsilius especially
loathsome
to the Roman Catholic Church was that he went even farther
than asking
the papacy to stay out of secular affairs by suggesting
that the civil legislators
can have authority over traditional
church issues such as regulating the
number of churches, priests,
deacons, and other officials who minister.
Marsilius wanted the
secular authorities to have jurisdiction
over the bestowing of
church offices, public teachers, and
even over church possessions
and their distribution.
It is one thing for the state to be involved
in education and charitable work,
as it is in the modern era,
but quite another to argue in this religious era that the state
should take over the prerogatives and possessions of the Church
and its religious affairs.
In the last chapter Marsilius concluded that if elected secular
governments were not impeded by Church authorities,
they could
use their coercive jurisdiction to maintain civil peace.
He called
upon rulers and subjects to realize what
they must do to preserve
their peace and freedom.
Yet he noted that even the supreme ruler,
though elected, is still obligated to obey the laws.
The first citizen or part of the civil regime,
the ruler (whether one man or many),
will comprehend that to him alone
belongs the authority to give commands
to the subject multitude collectively or distributively
and to mete out punishment to any person
when it is expedient,
in accordance with the established laws.
And the ruler will also learn that
he must do nothing apart from the laws,
especially on important matters,
without the consent of the subject multitude or legislator,
and that the multitude or legislator
must not be provoked by injury,
because in its expressed will consists
the virtue and authority of government.7
He also urged the people to elect wise rulers who will follow
the laws.
Thus rulers and the people will be able to live in peace
and will prosper together.
Francesco Petrarch was born at Arezzo on July 20, 1304.
Seven
years later his family moved to Pisa, and he met Dante.
In 1312
the Petrarchs took up residence in Avignon, the current papal
center.
His father wanted Francesco to be a lawyer, and
he studied
at Montpellier and at the university in Bologna.
After his father
died, Petrarch began an ecclesiastical career at Avignon in 1326.
On April 6 the next year he saw Laura in a church.
She was married
and eventually had eleven children; but Petrarch later
rhapsodized
in his love for her in many sonnets of his Canzoniere.
Petrarch traveled in France, Germany, and Flanders,
and during
his life he lived in several Italian cities.
He was not married to
the mother when his son Giovanni was born in 1337.
Petrarch worked
on the epic poem Africa about the
victory of the Roman
Scipio over the Carthaginians but never finished it.
As early
as 1339 Petrarch wrote to a Milanese official hoping
that his
lord Luchino Visconti would bring unity to Italy.
In 1341 Petrarch was crowned Poet Laureate by
Robert of Naples
on the Capitoline hill in Rome.
Four years later he discovered
the letters Cicero wrote to his friend Attica.
In his many letters
Petrarch often referred to the humanistic writings
of Cicero and
other classical philosophers.
In his letter to posterity, Petrarch
explained that he always felt contempt for wealth
and hated the
anxiety it demanded; so he practiced plain living and ordinary
fare.
He believed he had a well balanced intellect rather than
a sharp one
and that he most inclined to moral philosophy and
the art of poetry.
In this letter he also mentioned that he disliked
the dishonesty
in the legal profession and so could not practice
it.
In 1343 the demagogic tribune of Rome, Cola di Rienzo, expelled
aristocratic families and declared a Roman republic with himself
as ruler.
Petrarch wrote Cola several letters urging him to unite
Italy,
return the papacy to Rome, and bring peace to the region.
After Cola was arrested, Petrarch wrote a letter to the Roman
people
urging them to intervene; he complained the magistrates
denied Cola legal counsel,
although this was the common practice
of the Inquisition.
Concern over German mercenaries and the hired
soldiers called condottieri
and the violent calamities in Italy
stimulated Petrarch to write a
canzoni called "My
Italy," which he concluded as follows:
My song, be humble, for you are addressed to haughty folk,
ever hostile to the truth.
Speak then to those few high hearts that love virtue.
Say to them: “Who gives me strength to speak,
as I go crying: ‘Peace! Peace! Peace!’”8
Conditions were so violent in Italy that when Petrarch first
visited Rome,
his friends provided an escort of a hundred horsemen
to protect him from the Orsini family.
Petrarch spent much of
his life studying and writing at his retreat in Vaucluse
near
Avignon, and even this place was once plundered and burned.
Starting
in 1350, Petrarch began writing letters to persuade Holy Roman
Emperor
Charles IV of Bohemia to come to Rome to be crowned,
and
Charles finally did so in 1354; but he soon left.
Petrarch had
hoped that one head could establish peace and order in Italy.
Prior to the war between Genoa and Venice, Petrarch sent exhortations
for peace
to the doges of both cities, explaining to himself,
"I thought myself blameworthy if, in the midst of warlike
preparations,
I should not have recourse to my one weapon, the
pen."9
In 1353 Petrarch was sent to Venice to negotiate a
peace and was there for a month.
While living in Milan he also
undertook diplomatic missions for
the Visconti family to Prague
in 1355 and to Paris in 1361.
Shortly before he died in 1374, Petrarch wrote a long letter
to Francesco da Carrara,
who had been ruling Padua since his father
had been assassinated in 1350.
A new code of laws was promulgated
in 1362.
In striving to become independent of Venice, Padua fought
several wars
against this powerful neighbor, followed by increased
taxes to pay for them.
Petrarch praised Francesco da Carrara for
ending the border war
with Venice in 1373 to bring peace to northern
Italy.
Petrarch wrote Carrara that the first quality of a good leader
should be friendship
to the good citizens, though one must terrify
the evil ones to be a friend of justice.
Petrarch believed that
nothing was worse for the state
than to use fear and cruelty to
maintain power.
Roman history has shown that fear is opposed to
longevity and security while goodwill favors both.
He quoted Cicero
that love is the best influence, and fear is the worst.
A knight
once told Julius Caesar that a man who is feared by many must
fear many,
and
Cicero wrote that those who wish to be feared must
be afraid of those they intimidate.
Petrarch believed that public
love is like private love,
as Seneca wrote, "If you want
to be loved, love."10
Petrarch advised the ruler to love
the subjects like one's own children.
In one of his orations Cicero
had pointed out that the prince should be surrounded,
not with
arms, but with the love and goodwill of the citizens.
Next Petrarch emphasized justice so that each person gets what
is due,
and no one is punished without a good reason.
He recommended
gaining the citizens' affection through generosity and suggested
building walls around the city, repairing the roads, and draining
swamps.
Superfluous expenditures should be avoided, and taxes
should be only for public need.
It is better when riches are not
held by one person, and it is more useful
for private citizens
to earn money by their own work.
Justice must be accompanied by
mercy as well as generosity,
because nothing arouses hatred as
much as cruelty and greed.
Cruelty is harsher, but greed affects
more people.
Petrarch warned Carrara against letting any of his
courtiers control the state.
True friends are needed; but one
must never ask a friend to do anything dishonorable
nor should
one ever do something dishonorable for a friend,
for there can
be no true friendship without virtue and wisdom.
He should give
to the needy, not only from his own resources
but also passing
along donations from the rich to the poor.
The good ruler is magnanimous
while facing one's enemies in adversity,
but at home the prince
should be humble.
He complained about pigs in the streets and
excessive mourning in public.
Petrarch advised the ruler to give
the first place
in governing to those with ability who are learned.
Love and devotion to justice should accompany knowledge of the
law.
1. Machiavelli, Niccolo, History of Florence tr. Hugo
Albert Rennert, p. 68.
2. Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 2:8 tr. Sanderson
Beck.
3. Dante, On World-Government 1:15 tr. Herbert W. Schneider,
p. 22.
4. Psalm 2 quoted in Dante, On World-Government
1:16 tr. Herbert W. Schneider, p. 23.
5. Job 12:21.
6. Marsilius of Padua, The Defender of Peace 1:13:8 tr.
Alan Gewirth, p. 55.
7. Ibid., 3:3, p. 431-2.
8. Petrarch, Francesco, Canzoni 128 tr. Morris Bishop in
Petrarch and His World, p. 234.
9. Bishop, Morris, Petrarch and His World, p. 286.
10. Seneca, Epistulae 9:6 in Petrarch, "How a Ruler
Ought to Govern His State"
tr. Benjamin G. Kohl in The
Earthly Republic, p. 45.
This is a chapter in Guides to Peace and Justice from Ancient Sages to the Suffragettes,
which is published as a book.
For ordering information, please click here.