The princely head

This chapter opens with a treatment of two of the cardinal virtues - fortitude and justice - virtues which have particular relevance for the prince. It suggests that, just as the good prince is obliged to be virtuous, so the tyrant is defined by his lack of respect for the virtues and moderation. It investigates John’s account of tyranny in detail, looking at his grounds for validating tyrannicide. It situates John’s political theories in their context of production by looking his presentation of three contemporary political events - the reign of King Stephen, the activities of Frederick Barbarossa, and the exile and subsequent murder of Thomas Becket.

Moderation and the virtuous life

This chapter looks at a fundamental aspect of John’s recommendations for life in the political sphere, namely the role played by moderation - a moderation that is heavily influenced by Roman Stoic theory. It introduces the question of the appropriate goal for life in the polity, suggesting that John requires the ruler of the polity, but also all of its members, to live in accordance with virtue. It examines the presentation of the virtues in John’s work, looking in particular at prudence and temperance, with a particular focus on John’s critique of avarice and recommendation of frugal living.

Political relationships in context: the body politic

This chapter takes an indepth look at John’s famous metaphor of the body politic. After comparing his model to those of his contemporaries, it notes that John takes the metaphor a step further by exploiting its physiology to suit his political theory. It looks in detail at John’s alleged letter from Plutarch to Trajan, examining the offices of the polity in turn. It looks first at internal, decision-making, offices of the body politic, then at it external, active, offices, before turning to the contested relationship between the prince and priesthood, its head and its soul.

Nature and reason

This chapter discusses the significance of the term natura in John’s works and the notion of ‘living in accordance with nature’ - a guideline borrowed from the works of Cicero. It compares John’s views to those of his contemporaries, illustrating how he transformed the Ciceronian trope into one that had direct application in a Christian context. It examines the role played by reason in this transformation, and looks particularly at the example of intention to illustrate how the interior character of the individual was the principal factor in determining the worth of an act.

Defining duties: the cooperative model of the polity

This chapter brings the question of appropriate duties to the fore, looking at their implications for life in the polity. It introduces the concept ofoikeiosis, illustrating how it was a fundamental aspect of the works of the Roman Stoics that ensured the performance of reciprocal duties throughout the polity. It argues that John’s account of political relationships was influenced by this concept, suggesting that he transformed aspects of it to suit a Christian model of ethics. It introduces the metaphor of the body politic, with particular reference to its Ciceronian roots, and argues that it demonstrates reciprocal political relationships in action.

The Roman inheritance

This chapter opens with an investigation of John’s impression of the material inheritance of ancient Rome. It examines how John would have accessed Roman writings, looking in particular at his means of access to sources in the library of Canterbury cathedral. It looks in depth at John’s use of the works of Cicero and Seneca, establishing the texts to which he had access at the point of composition of his major works. Finally, it introduces the role played by patristic writers in the transmission of classical texts to the Middle Ages, focusing particularly on the works of Augustine, Lactantius, Gregory and Ambrose.

Conclusion

John of Salisbury – who styled his Roman predecessors as Cicero noster and Seneca noster – was an avid consumer of classical texts, and in that respect he was a typical product of the Parisian schools of the twelfth century. However, his works are far more than a formulaic assemblage of pithy aphorisms pulled from the classical collections of the libraries to which he had access. Instead, they must be seen as genuine attempts to interrogate the classical world in order to find lessons for the medieval present. This is what differentiates him from many of his contemporaries, who used the classics only to add rhetorical flourishes to their works or as a source of illustrative anecdotes. John also employed these techniques, but went beyond them, engaging fully with the philosophical ideas the texts contained. His incorporation of key concepts from Stoicism places him at the apogee of the Roman Renaissance of the twelfth century, a revival that was, in part, crafted by his pen. John’s writings, however, must be seen within the context of their production; his political thought is best understood when his works are examined within the social and cultural milieux in which he was an actor. John – as cleric, advisor, Christian, scholar and exile – used classical sources to formulate a political thought that defies unitary classification. Although the ...

Introduction

This chapter provides an introduction to the life and works of John of Salisbury, as well as an overview of existing scholarship on this key figure of the twelfth-century Renaissance. It presents the method of the study, namely to look at John of Salisbury’s writings in the context in which they were produced, as well as introducing the principal argument of the monograph - that John’s works were influenced by Roman Stoic writing to a degree that has thus far been underestimated. It concludes by investigating annotations appended to early examples of John’s Policraticus, suggesting they provide an insight into how the text was first read.