Exiit edictum a Caesare Augusto ut describeretur universus orbis’ (Luke 2:1-2). Debating imperial authority in late medieval legal and political thought (12th-14th cent.)

This chapter explores the interpretations given by various late medieval authors of the universal census which, according to the Gospel of Luke (2:1-2), was ordered by Augustus at the time of Jesus’s birth. After some remarks on the juridical institution of the census in ancient Rome, and on the theological translation of this institution developed by Christian thinkers such as Ambrose and Orosius, the use of this translation in certain medieval political and juridical texts to discuss the legitimacy and universality of imperial authority is examined. A number of sources, including the Quaestiones de iuris subtilitatibus, Ptolemy of Lucca’s De regimine principum, Dante’s De Monarchia, Bartolus of Saxoferratus’ comment on the lex ‘Hostes’, Ockham’s Breviloquium de principatu tyrannico, and the Somnium Viridarii, are considered. The aim of the chapter is twofold. It argues that the political value of Luke’s pericope should be reassessed, which requires that the passage be considered alongside other, nowadays better-known biblical references – such as Matthew 22:21, Rom 13:1-7, 1Pet 2:13-14, John 19:11 – that were so importantly used in discussions of both the extent of political submission and the relationship between spiritual and temporal authority from Christian perspectives. It also demonstrates that the census, and the invocation of a universal authority implicit to it, provides an excellent example of the overlapping and intertwining of theological, political, and juridical conceptualisations and practices in Western thought. On this ground, the historical understanding of the conceptualisation of ‘universal authority’, ‘empire’ and ‘emperor’ in the Western tradition can then be deepened.