Forme e lessico della concettualizzazione del potere sovrano nel Medioevo

The enquiry about the concept of medieval sovereignty is problematic both in relation to its very object and as a form of knowledge. Jean Bodin has been regarded as the creator of the modern concept sovereignty, the only true type of sovereignty. Although the idea has struggled to make its way, it can now be taken as a safe point of reference: Bodin’s concept of sovereignty does not break with the medieval tradition. The fact that throughout the Middle Ages jurists continued to ignore the word sovereignty in its vernacular variants as they were used in sources that were not taken into consideration with the law schools of Europe, preferring terms such as maiestas, summum imperium, summa potestas, iurisdictio and dominium can be explained by their distinctive attitude towards the apprehension of jurisprudence and their corporatist spirit. Rightly or wrongly, medieval jurists maintained that the leges of the Roman tradition were venerable as ratio scripta. They believed that the related vocabulary was exhaustive of political knowledge. This essay examines the major conceptual and linguistic forms through which the concept of sovereignty has been fashioned in the Middle Ages.