James of Viterbo: On Christian Government (De regimine Christiano)

James of Viterbo (c. 1255-1308) was one of the most respected intellectuals of the late thirteenth century. Combining an academic and an ecclesiastical career, he was professor of theology at the University of Paris from 1293-1300 and then, from 1302, successively Archbishop of Benevento and Archbishop of Naples. The papalist treatise De regimine Christiano (On Christian Government)is his only venture into the field of political theory; an exhaustive analysis of the distribution of power within the Christian community, it was composed at the height of the conflict between Pope Boniface VIII and king Philip IV of France, probably during the spring and summer months of 1302. Written from a standpoint of Thomist Aristotelianism, the work seeks to defend the view that the pope is the supreme judge of the world in spiritual and temporal matters alike and that temporal princes are to regard themselves as the servants and auxiliaries of the Church.Dr R.W. DYSONis Lecturer in Politics at the University of Durham; he has also translated Aegidius Romanus's De ecclesiastica potestate, published by Boydell & Brewer as Giles of Rome on Ecclesiastical Power.