#Examples of tyranny free#

His examples of tyrants were drawn from the Old Testament and Scottish history. Among his classical authorities was Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 –43 b.c.e.).

#Examples of tyranny free#

Buchanan repeated the Aristotelian marks of tyranny and defined the concept as the treatment of a free people as if they were slaves. A tyrant was defined not only as one who despoiled the people and refused them justice, but also as one who broke divine law.Īnother advocate of tyrannicide was the Scottish Presbyterian humanist George Buchanan (1506 –1582), who composed De Jure Regni apud Scotos (1579 Concerning the law of the kingdom among the Scots) when Mary, Queen of Scots, was deposed in 1567.

Ponet answered his own question 'whether or not it is lawful to depose an evil governor and kill him?' in the affirmative, and Goodman expressed similar views. 1520 –1603), wrote How Superior Powers Ought to be Obeyed (1558). John Ponet, bishop of Winchester (1514 –1556), was the author of A Short Treatise of Politic Power (1556), and Christopher Goodman, professor of divinity at Oxford (c. Two Protestant exiles during the restoration of Roman Catholicism in England under Queen Mary I (ruled 1553 –1558) had a different view. Little was said about tyranny in the century following Petit, but the doctrine again became important during the Reformation, even though Martin Luther (1483 –1546) taught that a tyrant was God's punishment for a sinful people, who should suffer and obey. Petit's assertions were criticized by the chancellor of the University of Paris, Jean Charlier de Gerson (1363 –1429), who persuaded the ecclesiastical Council of Constance (1414 –1418) to ban tyrannicide except in the circumstances outlined by Aquinas. A less inhibited attitude to tyrannicide was held by another Dominican, Jean Petit, who justified the 1407 murder of Louis of Orl éans, brother of Charles VI of France. Thomas Aquinas (1225 –1274), who allowed tyrannicide in extreme cases, but only if the consequences were likely to be better than the preceding oppression. They provoked flattery and conspiracy and employed foreign guards.Īmong medieval thinkers whose writings on tyranny remained influential in early modern times were the jurists Bartolus of Sassoferrato (1314 –1357) and Baldus de Ubaldis (1327 –1400) the papal agent John of Salisbury (1115/1120 –1180), whose Policraticus (1159) made the important distinction between a tyrant-usurper and a legitimate king who chose to rule by force rather than law and the great Dominican theologian St. Tyrants were reputed to be greedy, lustful, and distrusting. Tyranny was seen as a corrupt form of monarchy where the ruler acted despotically and preferred his own profit and pleasure to the common good. The characteristics of tyranny were defined by Aristotle (384 –322 b.c.e.) in his Politics.