Bartolus of Sassoferrato : His Position in the History of Medieval Political Thought

Published in 1913, this book is the only full-scale treatment of the political thought of the Italian jurist Bartolus of Sassoferrato (1314–57). Bartolus dominated the theory and practice of continental jurisprudence until the early seventeenth century, accommodating the text of the Corpus iuris civilis to late-medieval political reality.

Cecil Nathan Sidney Woolf (1887–1917), Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was killed in the First World War. In this prize-winning book, published in 1913, Woolf examines the way in which the medieval jurist Bartolus of Sassoferrato (1314–57) interprets the Roman Law to make it relevant to fourteenth-century Italian political reality. Considering Bartolus's treatment of the relationships between the Roman Empire and the papacy, kingdoms and city-republics, Woolf places Bartolus's thought in its wider historical context by surveying the complex problem of the empire from the mid-thirteenth century onwards. In particular, he assesses Bartolus's most famous argument that the city is its own emperor. Arguing that Bartolus's influence lasted into the early modern period, both in the practice of law and in the use made of his works by writers like Bodin and Albericus Gentilis, this book also includes a useful table explaining Bartolus's distinctions between imperium and jurisdiction.