1st Edition

Law and Jurisdiction in the Middle Ages

By Walter Ullmann, George Garnett Copyright 1988
    352 Pages
    by Routledge

    Walter Ullmann's contribution to the study of medieval political and legal thought needs no emphasis. In the present volume are collected a number of the early articles which it was not possible to include in his previous collections, together with others published since those volumes appeared. The articles display a striking consistency of approach, though in the more than forty years separating the earliest from the latest there is an obvious development in his thought. Ullman held the view that the law must be studied in its own historical context, as a function of society and a product of the factors which shaped social life; equally, he stressed the central position of the law in the study of medieval history, for its precise character meant that it could provide a more reliable probe into medieval beliefs and doctrine than any other form of evidence.

    Contents: Supplementary bibliography of Walter Ullmann; Public law as an instrument of government in historical perspective; Königs- und Papstherrschaft im Spiegel der Bistumsbesetzungen; Zum Papstwahldekret von 1059; Alexander III and the conquest of Ireland; Frederick II’s opponent, Innocent IV, as Melchisedek; The medieval papacy, St Thomas and beyond; The development of the medieval idea of sovereignty; A medieval document on papal theories of government; Personality and territoriality in the Defensor pacis; Baldus’s conception of law; The medieval theory of legal and illegal organisations; Medieval principles of evidence; Honorius III and the prohibition of legal studies; Medieval views concerning papal abdication; The defence of the accused in the medieval Inquisition; Historical introduction to Lea, The Inquisition; Reflections on medieval torture; Index.