The Prince and the Law, 1200-1600

Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition

Kenneth Pennington

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9780520079953
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520913035
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

The power of the prince versus the rights of his subjects is one of the basic struggles in the history of law and government. In this masterful history of monarchy, conceptions of law, and due process, Kenneth Pennington addresses that struggle and opens an entirely new vista in the study of Western legal tradition.

Pennington investigates legal interpretations of the monarch's power from the twelfth to the seventeenth century. Then, tracing the evolution of defendants' rights, he demonstrates that the origins of due process are not rooted in English common law as is generally assumed. It was not a sturdy Anglo-Saxon, but, most probably, a French jurist of the late thirteenth century who wrote, "A man is innocent until proven guilty."

This is the first book to examine in detail the origins of our concept of due process. It also reveals a fascinating paradox: while a theory of individual rights was evolving, so, too, was the concept of the prince's "absolute power." Pennington illuminates this paradox with a clarity that will greatly interest students of political theory as well as legal historians.


The power of the prince versus the rights of his subjects is one of the basic struggles in the history of law and government. In this masterful history of monarchy, conceptions of law, and due process, Kenneth Pennington addresses that struggle and opens

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• CHAPTER 1 The Emperor Is Lord of the World The Bolognese Lawyers and Imperial Ideology
• CHAPTER 2 The Prince’s Power and Authority 1150—1270 The Contribution of the Canonists
• CHAPTER 3 The Power of the Prince in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
• CHAPTER 4 Natural Law and Positive Law Due Process and the Prince
• CHAPTER 5 Henry VII and Robert of Naples
• CHAPTER 6 The Authority of the Prince in the Late Middle Ages
• CHAPTER 7 The Pazzi Conspiracy and the Jurists
• Epilogue The Sixteenth Century and Beyond
• Bibliography of Works Cited
• General Index
• Index of Manuscripts
• Index of Legal Citations