Medieval Legal and Political Thought: From Isidore and the Quran to Maimonides and the Incas

This book argues that the so-called Dark Ages had very significant ideas about the law, especially how violence is to be contained, which make this early Medieval period anything but “Dark.” It suggests that the Christianization and Islamization of legal and political thought created almost as many problems as solutions to the increasingly diverse times that arose in the middle of the Middle Ages. The book also shows that the late Middle Ages already held many of the most important legal and political ideas of the Renaissance–showing that there was no clear break from the Medieval to the Modern periods of legal and political thought. Of central importance is the way that the development of the idea of conscience made the natural law theories of the Medieval times a robust set of ideas that is still felt quite strongly today.