Bartolus of Sassoferrato, the leading jurist of the fourteen century of Italy, devoted the Treaties on City Government to evaluate the ways of ruling a city. His concerns were with the law and the persons of the rulers of the city. His series of political comments were based on identifying the suitable form for his city. To argue about that, he followed the doctrines of Aristotle in Politics by unfolding the several forms of ruling a city. By defining Democratic, oligarchy, kingship and others, he tried to solve the internal weaknesses of the Italian city republic. In the filtering process, he pointed out the advantages and disadvantages of the policies of the forms of political systems. Finally he concluded, “A tyrant is the worst of all of the forms of government.” His definition included, “every bad kingship can be called in common parlance a tyranny, namely the tyranny of the people, the tyranny of certain people, and the tyranny of one person.”
Tyranny has been one of the most emphasizing points in his writing. To elaborate all the political system he used the negative approach of tyranny to highlight the actual consequences of the systems with respect to the populace of the cities. He argued in favor of kingship, senate and republic form of government in cities with largest, larger and large population respectively. He cited examples of the city of Florence, Rome, Pisa in favor of his argument. He termed the existing form of government of Rome to be the worst, where, ‘there are many tyrants in different areas, so strong that none can overcome the others.’ He also stated it to be monstrous thing. He mainly favored the republican form of government for Italy as he claimed that the city of Rome grew to greatness under republic. He reminded the distrust for Julius Caesar to illustrate the condition under supreme power of emperor and regime of tyranny.
On his Tract on Tyranny (De Tyranno), he finally explained the origin of the word and the characteristics of tyrants. These included destruction of rivals, banishment of wise men, ruin of study and education, prohibition of private associations and lawful public meetings, maintenance of informers, impoverishment of citizens to keep them supine, use of foreigners as personal bodyguard, provocation of wars abroad to weaken internal resistance at home. He also referred to instances where Pope or Emperor confirmed a tyrant's rule, as did Clement VI and Emperor Charles with the 'tyrants of Lombardy.' He classified types of tyrannies: they were open or manifesti, disguised or velati, concealed or taciti. The first were subdivided into the tyranny arising from defect of title (ex defectu tituli), as in the case of usurpation or conquest through aggression) and the tyranny arising from misconduct on the part of a legitimate ruler (ex parte exercitii).
While sorting the perfect ruler for the city, he evaluated the opinions of Aristotle and Aegidius. According to him, the ideal king must be ‘faithful, Christian, just, neither overweening nor one who burdens his people, no lover of luxury, neither greedy nor proud.’ Therefore the concept of tyrant also acted as contrasting foil. The distinction between the two ideas can be judged through the instances of Tarquin, Phalaris, Dionysius of Sicily or Saul of Jadaca. Bartolus also extracted the cases of city of Siena, Pisa, Perugia, Florence and Venice. He concluded republic form to be suitable. The history of Rome supported his view and regained the position of Cicero and Cato as the paragon of civic virtue, who tried to preserve liberty of the republic from the onrush of tyranny. He also referred to the Corpus Luris, Scriptures, Giles of Rome, Gregory I and Aquinas.
The classical definition for tyranny is therefore the regime in which the ruler aims at his own advantage over the welfare of his people. The same ideas were revised by Marsiglio of Padua, Chaucer and many others. The concept of tyranny always came as negative approach while defining ruler. The Christian concept also came side by side with it. Man is inherently sinful. The political management of this sociality thus allowed restricting interest in crime. The tension between the doctrines of kings and tyrants was in part of legacy from twelfth century. It represented the struggle between the empire and papacy. The biblical examples strengthened the assumptions. He modified the ideas of the classical scholastics by terming it as monstrous.
He also verified the possibility of the rightness of kingship with reference to Prophet Samuel’s preaching. According to the words of God, it seemed worst to be ruled by kings because they would misuse power and encourage slavery. But these qualities indicated the uprising of tyrant. Therefore Samuel predicted, “This shall be the law of the king who will rule over you.” Another preventive idea emerged as relevant, that one must be made king by another, rather than assuming the kingship on one's own authority. He elaborately described the condition of a city under the rule of tyrant as well. When virtue unites for a bad thing, the result is worse and similarly tyranny is the worst principate. The social harmony, equality and peace got hampered under monstrous regime. The welfare and progress ceased to function. Bartolus pointed out that several bad men were less harmful than a single tyrant, as in the course of action they lost their ground and turned into a one-man tyranny. At the end he concluded by affirming the rule of tyrant in a city as God’s own will as it is written: "He who makes a hypocrite to rule, for the sins of the people," Job 34.
The main focus of the rhetorical writer was to determine the range of good qualities of the ideal ruler by contrasting with the concept of tyranny. The intention was to bring out the true nobility of the ruler and their genuine devotion for general welfare. The manifestation of the idea of tyrants is advocated in both the works with great concern to emphasize the sovereignty.
PG-I, ROLL-24.
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