Overview

Medieval legal and political thought encompasses the period from approximately 500 CE to 1500 CE. The term ""Medieval"" refers to the legal and political thought from the time of the late Roman Empire to that of the Renaissance. The legal and political thought of the Middle Ages is overwhelmingly characterized by the increasing role that religion played in influencing politics and law. By the high Middle Ages, we find the great theorists, Averroes, Maimonides, and Aquinas linking law to their respective religions of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.This book argues that the so-called Dark Ages had very significant ideas about the law, especially how violence is to be contained, which make this early Medieval period anything but ""Dark."" It suggests that the Christianization and Islamization of legal and political thought created almost as many problems as solutions to the increasingly diverse times that arose in the middle of the Middle Ages. The book also shows that the late Middle Ages already held many of the most important legal and political ideas of the Renaissance–showing that there was no clear break from the Medieval to the Modern periods of legal and political thought. Of central importance is the way that the development of the idea of conscience made the natural law theories of the Medieval times a robust set of ideas that is still felt quite strongly today.

Full Product Details

9781527575820

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Larry May is a political philosopher and legal theorist who taught for 40 years at various universities in the US and Australia. He holds advanced degrees in Philosophy and Law and he is the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Law, and Professor of Political Science Emeritus, at Vanderbilt University, USA, and Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of 38 books, including Ancient Legal Thought (2019), The Cambridge Handbook of the Just War (as editor, 2017), International Criminal Tribunals: A Normative Defense (with Shannon Fyfe, 2017), and Necessity in International Law (with Jens Ohlin, 2016). His books have won awards in law, philosophy, and political science, and his work has been translated into French, Spanish, German, Italian, Serbian, Polish, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available