When we do nothing wrong, we are peers: Peter the chanter and twelfth-century political thought

Abstract

This article scrutinizes the political thought of a twelfth-century Parisian master, Peter the Chanter (d.1197), with reference to a theme that has been prominent recently in political philosophy. This is the idea that a just government ought to be free from every kind of arbitrary interference in the lives of those governed, that is, that no person ought to be governed according to another's unconstrained will.