Overview

Crises are never the best of times and the era of the Great Western Schism (1378-1417) easily qualifies as one of the worst of times. As a professor of canon law at the University of Padua and later cardinal, and as a major theorist in the conciliarist movement, Franciscus Zabarella (1360-1417) tried to do what a good legal mind does: find and explicate a viable and legal solution to the crises of his time, a solution that would stand up in his own era and for the generations that followed. In this volume Thomas Morrissey looks at what he said, wrote and did, and places him and his thought in the context of the late medieval and early modern era, how he reflected that world and how he influenced it. Particular studies elucidate what he wrote on the authority and on the duty of the people in power, what they could do and should do, as well as what they should not do. They also show how he explored the area of early constitution law and human rights in civil and religious society and that his work leads down the road to our modern constitutional democratic societies. The volume includes two previously unpublished studies, on the situation in Padua c. 1400 and on a sermon from 1407, together with an introduction contextualizing the articles.

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9781032921068

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Reviews

"""Morrissey’s studies provide an excellent account of Zabarella as both a man of thought and a man of action, a friend of humanists, and above all a consummate jurist. The author also nicely illustrates Zabarella’s practical realism by editing and translating a little handbook of advice that the great canonist wrote for the university teachers and students of his age. Most of it would apply just as well to their present-day counterparts."" - Catholic Historical Review ""Morrisey’s articles are an indispensable resource for studying the Conciliar Movement. So this is a book for libraries of law, history and theology, and one that scholars working on the history and theory of conciliarism will need to use."" - Paul Avis, University of Exeter"

""Morrissey’s studies provide an excellent account of Zabarella as both a man of thought and a man of action, a friend of humanists, and above all a consummate jurist. The author also nicely illustrates Zabarella’s practical realism by editing and translating a little handbook of advice that the great canonist wrote for the university teachers and students of his age. Most of it would apply just as well to their present-day counterparts."" - Catholic Historical Review ""Morrisey’s articles are an indispensable resource for studying the Conciliar Movement. So this is a book for libraries of law, history and theology, and one that scholars working on the history and theory of conciliarism will need to use."" - Paul Avis, University of Exeter

Author Information

Thomas E. Morrissey is Distinguished Teaching Professor in the History Department at SUNY Fredonia, USA.

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