The English Franciscan, William of Ockham (c. 1285 1349), was one of the most important thinkers of the later middle ages. Summoned to Avignon in 1324 to answer charges of heresy, Ockham became convinced that Pope John XXII was himself a heretic in denying the complete poverty of Christ and the apostles and a tyrant in claiming supremacy over the Roman empire. Ockham's political writings were a result of these personal convictions, but also include systematic discourses on the basis and functions of spiritual and secular power as well as exhaustive discussions of Franciscan poverty and the...

Presented in modern english for the first time, this is an accessible language edition of Richard Hooker's Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, the major prose work of the English 16th century. Hooker's monumental work was the first substantial contribution to theology, philosophy, and political thought written in English. It is important for the language and thought of all three fields and is a founding text of Anglophone cultural identity, in particular the self-understanding of the Church of England and its descendants in the worldwide Anglican Communion. Its great human interest lies in...