Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/221

Rh tyrannicide. Those passages of the New Testament which have been held to bespeak a divine right for kings are completely ignored, and the hierarchical pamphleteers, almost without exception, draw their lessons from the theocratic, or rather sacerdotal, teaching of the Hebrew scriptures or from the commonplaces of classical history.

A most interesting example of this method is to be found in a work written by Manegold, a priest of Lautenbach in Alsatia, in defence of Gregory. King, he says, ''is not a name of nature but a title of office: nor does the people exalt him so high above itself in order to give him the free power of playing the tyrant against it, but to defend him from the tyranny of others. So soon as he begins to act the tyrant, is it not plain that he falls from the dignity granted to him and the people is free from his dominion? since it is evident that he has first broken that contract by virtue of which he was appointed. If one should engage a man for a fair wage to tend swine, and he find means not to tend but to steal or slay them, would not one remove him from his charge? It is impossible to express the theory of 'social contract' more clearly than Manegold does: since, he says, no one can create himself emperor or king, the people elevates a certain one person over itself to this end that he govern and rule it according to the principle of righteous government; but if in any wise he transgresses the contract by virtue of which he is chosen, he absolves the people from the obligation of submission, because he has first broken faith''