The Source of Hooker's Knowledge of Marsilius of Padua

In the well-known passage in Book VII of Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity , where Hooker admits to having changed his mind on the subject of the origins of episcopacy, he cites the Defensor Pacis of Marsilius of Padua among a list of marginal references to late-medieval and sixteenthcentury writers who maintained the view, which he states he had once considered ‘a great deal more probable than now I do’, that bishops were not introduced into the Church until after the death of the Apostles. Since the 1930s, when A. P. d'Entrèves, Gottfried Michaelis and C. W. Previté-Orton drew attention to the resemblances between some of Hooker's arguments and those of Marsilius, this passage has frequently been quoted as evidence that Hooker was familiar with the writings of Marsilius and it has been used to support the theory, which has come to be widely held in recent years, that his political ideas were directly influenced by the Defensor Pacis . D'Entrèves, for example, stated on the strength of this reference that ‘Hooker certainly knew the works of Marsilius’ and most subsequent writers on Hooker's political ideas have tended to follow d'Entrèves's lead in assuming that Hooker must have been acquainted with the Defensor Pacis at first hand

Apostles · Art · Bishops · Political science · Politics · Polity · Subject (documents · Theology · Classics · Computer Science · Law · Medieval Literature and History · Medieval Philosophy and Theology · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity