Lex Regia in the Writings of Oldrado da Ponte: Pros and Cons for the Emperor

Abstract

The article examines the argument elaborated by Oldrado da Ponte, an Italian postglossator, in one of his legal consultations known as Consilium 69. This piece of Oldrado’s writings is a refutation of the possibility of world monarchy de iure, which means the impossibility of one world laic power, the emperor’s power. In the corpus of Roman law which was studied and commented on by medieval jurists the emperor’s power was substantiated by lex regia, mentioned in the Digests, and according to them the emperor owes his power to the Roman people, who had transferred it into him. Among the glossators this fact was commented in different ways, but the emerging of the ius commune system of legal knowledge allowed Oldrado to create a universal hierarchy of different species of law as a genre. This hierarchy assumes and demonstrates that different species of law have different amount of authority, therefore the emperor’s power as instituted by ius civile can not pretend on the world scale, because ius civile is less authoritative then ius gentium which prescribes the existence of many kingdoms. Consequently, Oldrado refutes de iure the world monarchy and asserts the plurality of laic powers