Marsilius of Padua and political representation

Abstract

In The Defender of Peace, there are two theories of representation as incarnation. The first, which is described in the first part, is concerned with the relationship between the first legislator, the people (populus) or the whole body of citizens (universitas civium), and the valentior pars. The second model of representation-incarnation is found in the second part ofhis work and applies to Marsilius’ theory of the Council, which represents Christ the legislator of the eternal law or the Congregation of the Apostles and their Church. Both theories of representation-incarnation reflect the typical medieval employment of the language of representation in corporate theory. However there is one clear difference that affects the relationship between the valentior pars and the civium universitas, on the one hand, and that between the Council as a congregatio and the fidelium universitas, on the other hand. While in the first case, it seems that the valentior pars is just a fiction, a normative fiction, which echoes the civil lawyers’ theories of universitates as legal fictions, in the second the Council members are real individuals who have to physically gather in a specific place. In both cases, the representatives incarnate a human group (a universitas) by standing for them. However the two theories have different political functions in Marsilius’ thought.