Incorporating research previously unavailable in English, this clear guide gives a synthesis of the latest scholarship providing the historical and intellectual context for political ideas.

This accessible and lucid guide to medieval political thought

* gives a synthesis of the latest scholarship
* incorporates the results of research until now unavailable in English
* focuses on the crucial primary source material
* provides the historical and intellectual context for political ideas.

The book covers four periods, each with a different focus:

* 300-750 - Christian ideas of rulership
* 750-1050 - the Carolingian period and its aftermath
* 1050-1290 - the relationship between temporal and spiritual power, and the revived legacy of antiquity
* 1290-1450 - the confrontation with political reality in ideas of church and of state, and in juristic thought.

Canning has produced an ideal introductory text for undergraduate and postgraduate students of the period.

'The work of a scholar who is fully aware of the distinctive character and importance of all the sources he has to consider and who can evaluate the evidence in the context of a thorough knowledge and understanding of the societies that generated those sources.Canning has written one of those rare books which can be unreservedly recommended.' - Ecclesiastical History

Joseph Canning is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Wales, Bangor. He is the author of The Political Thought of Baldus de Ubaldis (1987).