English Great Charter, the charter of English liberties granted by King John in 1215 under threat of civil war and reissued with alterations in 1216, 1217, and 1225.
The charter meant less to contemporaries than it has to subsequent generations. The solemn circumstances of its first granting have given to Magna Carta of 1215 a unique place in popular imagination; quite early in itshistory it became a symbol and a battle cry against oppression, each successive generation reading into it a protection of its own threatened liberties. In England the Petition of Right (1628) and the Habeas Corpus Act (1679) looked directly back to clause 39 of the charter of 1215, which stated that “no free man shall be . . . imprisoned or disseised [dispossessed] . . . except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.” In the United States both the national and the state constitutions show ideas and even phrases directly traceable to Magna Carta.
Earlier kings of England, Henry I, Stephen, and Henry II, had issued charters, making promises or concessions to their barons. But these were granted by, not exacted from, the king and were very generally phrased. Moreover, the steady growth of the administration during the 12th century weakened the barons' position vis-à-vis the crown. But the need for heavy taxation for the Third Crusade, and for the ransom of Richard I after his capture by the Holy Roman emperor Henry VI, increased his successor's difficulties. John's position was further weakened by a rival claim to the throne and the French attack upon John's Duchy of Normandy. In 1199, 1201, and 1205 John's barons had to be promised their “rights”; his financial exactions increased after his loss of Normandy (1204), and, during his quarrel (1208–13) with Pope Innocent III, he taxed the English church heavily. It is, therefore, not surprising that after 1213 Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, directed baronial unrest into a demand for a solemn grant of liberties by the king. The document known as the Articles of the Barons was at last agreed upon and became the text from which the final version of the charter was drafted at Runnymede (beside the River Thames, between Windsor and Staines, now in the county of Surrey) and sealed by John on June 15, 1215.
Although written continuously, the charter has been traditionally discussed as consisting of a preamble and 63 clauses. Roughly, its contents may be divided into nine groups. The first concerned the church, asserting that it was to be “free.” A second group provided statements of feudal law of particular concern to those holding lands directly from the crown, and the third assured similar rights to subtenants. A fourth group of clauses referredto towns, trade, and merchants. A particularly large group was concerned with the reform of the law and of justice, and another with control of the behaviour of royal officials. A seventh group concerned the royal forests, and another dealt with immediate issues, requiring, for instance, the dismissal of John's foreign mercenaries. The final clauses provided a form of security for the king's adherence to the charter, by which a council of 25 barons should have the ultimate right to levy war upon him should he seriously infringe it.
Councillors for John's young son Henry III reissued the charter in 1216 and 1217, omitting all matters relating only to the political situation of 1215. In 1217 clauses relating to the forests were transferred to a separate forest charter. The great reissue of 1225, given by Henry III himself after his coming of age, differed little from that of 1217, and it was probably already realized that efforts to keep the charter up to date were impracticable. Thus the charter of 1225, again reissued by Henry III in 1264 and “inspected” and enrolled on his new statute rolls by Edward I in 1297, gradually became lessa statement of current law than a source book of basic principles. There are four extant “originals” of the charter of 1215, one each in Lincoln Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral, and two in the British Museum. Durham Cathedral possesses the charters of 1216, 1217, and 1225.
Translation of latin text of Magna Carta
Magna Carta[1215]John, by the grace of God, king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandyand Aquitaine, and count of Anjou, to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciars, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants, and to all his bailiffs and faithful subjects, greeting. Know that we, out of reverence for God and for the salvation of our soul and those of all our ancestors and heirs, for the honour of God and the exaltation of holy church, and for the reform of our realm, on the advice of our venerable fathers, Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England and cardinal of the holy Roman church, Henry archbishop of Dublin, William of London, Peter of Winchester, Jocelyn of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh of Lincoln, Walter of Worcester, William of Coventry and Benedict of Rochester, bishops, of master Pandulf, subdeacon and member of the household of the lord pope, of brother Aymeric, master of the order of Knights Templar in England, and of the noble men William Marshal earl of Pembroke, William earl of Salisbury, William earl of Warenne, William earl of Arundel, Alan of Galloway constable of Scotland, Warin fitz Gerold, Peter fitz Herbert, Hubert de Burgh seneschal of Poitou, Hugh de Neville, Matthew fitz Herbert, Thomas Basset, Alan Basset, Philip de Aubeney, Robert of Ropsley, John Marshal, John fitz Hugh, and others, our faithful subjects:
[1] In the first place have granted to God, and by this our present charter confirmed for us and our heirs for ever that the English church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished and its liberties unimpaired; and it is our will that it be thus observed; which is evident from the fact that, before thequarrel between us and our barons began, we willingly and spontaneously granted and by our charter confirmed the freedom of elections which is reckoned most important and very essential to the English church, and obtained confirmation of it from the lord pope Innocent III; the which we will observe and we wish our heirs to observe it in good faith for ever. We have also granted to all free men of our kingdom, for ourselves and our heirs for ever, all the liberties written below, to be had and held by them and their heirs of us and our heirs.
[2] If any of our earls or barons or others holding of us in chief by knight service dies, and at his death his heir be of full age and owe relief he shall have his inheritance on payment of the old relief, namely the heir or heirs of an earl 100 for a whole earl's barony, the heir or heirs of a baron 100 for a whole barony, the heir or heirs of a knight 100s, at most, for a whole knight's fee; and he who owes less shall give less according to the ancient usage of fiefs.
[3] If, however, the heir of any such be under age and a ward, he shall have his inheritance when he comes of age without paying relief and without making fine.
[4] The guardian of the land of such an heir who is under age shall take fromthe land of the heir no more than reasonable revenues, reasonable customary dues and reasonable services and that without destruction and waste of men or goods; and if we commit the wardship of the land of any such to a sheriff, or to any other who is answerable to us for its revenues, and he destroys or wastes what he has wardship of, we will take compensation from him and the land shall be committed to two lawful and discreet men of that fief, who shall be answerable for the revenues to us or to him to whom we have assigned them; and if we give or sell to anyone the wardship of any such land and he causes destruction or waste therein, he shall lose that wardship, and it shall be transferred to two lawful and discreet men of that fief, who shall similarly be answerable to us as is aforesaid.
[5] Moreover, so long as he has the wardship of the land, the guardian shall keep in repair the houses, parks, preserves, ponds, mills and other things pertaining to the land out of the revenues from it; and he shall restore to the heir when he comes of age his land fully stocked with ploughs and the means of husbandry according to what the season of husbandry requires and the revenues of the land can reasonably bear.
[6] Heirs shall be married without disparagement, yet so that before the marriage is contracted those nearest in blood to the heir shall have notice.
[7] A widow shall have her marriage portion and inheritance forthwith and without difficulty after the death of her husband; nor shall she pay anything tohave her dower or her marriage portion or the inheritance which she and herhusband held on the day of her husband's death; and she may remain in her husband's house for forty days after his death, within which time her dower shall be assigned to her.
[8] No widow shall be forced to marry so long as she wishes to live without ahusband, provided that she gives security not to marry without our consent if she holds of us, or without the consent of her lord of whom she holds, if she holds of another.
[9] Neither we nor our bailiffs will seize for any debt any land or rent, so long as the chattels of the debtor are sufficient to repay the debt; nor will those who have gone surety for the debtor be distrained so long as the principal debtor is himself able to pay the debt; and if the principal debtor fails to pay the debt, having nothing wherewith to pay it, then shall the sureties answer for the debt; and they shall, if they wish, have the lands and rents of the debtor until they are reimbursed for the debt which they have paid for him, unless the principal debtor can show that he has discharged his obligation in the matter to the said sureties.
[10] If anyone who has borrowed from the Jews any sum, great or small, dies before it is repaid, the debt shall not bear interest as long as the heir is under age, of whomsoever he holds; and if the debt falls into our hands, we will not take anything except the principal mentioned in the bond.
[11] And if anyone dies indebted to the Jews, his wife shall have her dower and pay nothing of that debt; and if the dead man leaves children who are under age, they shall be provided with necessaries befitting the holding of the deceased; and the debt shall be paid out of the residue, reserving, however, service due to lords of the land; debts owing to others than Jews shall be dealt with in like manner.
[12] No scutage or aid shall be imposed in our kingdom unless by common counsel of our kingdom, except for ransoming our person, for making our eldest son a knight, and for once marrying our eldest daughter, and for these only a reasonable aid shall be levied. Be it done in like manner concerning aids from the city of London.
[13] And the city of London shall have all its ancient liberties and free customs as well by land as by water. Furthermore, we will and grant that all other cities, boroughs, towns, and ports shall have all their liberties and free customs.
[14] And to obtain the common counsel of the kingdom about the assessing of an aid (except in the three cases aforesaid) or of a scutage, we will cause to be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls and greater barons, individually by our letters--and, in addition, we will cause to be summoned generally through our sheriffs and bailiffs all those holding of usin chief--for a fixed date, namely, after the expiry of at least forty days, and to afixed place; and in all letters of such summons we will specify the reason forthe summons. And when the summons has thus been made, the business shall proceed on the day appointed, according to the counsel of those present, though not all have come who were summoned.
[15] We will not in future grant any one the right to take an aid from his free men, except for ransoming his person, for making his eldest son a knight and for once marrying his eldest daughter, and for these only a reasonable aid shall be levied.
[16] No one shall be compelled to do greater service for a knight's fee or for any other free holding than is due from it.
[17] Common pleas shall not follow our court, but shall be held in some fixed place.
[18] Recognitions of novel disseisin, of mort d'ancester, and of darrein presentment, shall not be held elsewhere than in the counties to which they relate, and in this manner--we, or, if we should be out of the realm, our chief justiciar, will send two justices through each county four times a year, who, with four knights of each county chosen by the county, shall hold the said assizes in the county and on the day and in the place of meeting of the county court.
[19] And if the said assizes cannot all be held on the day of the county court, there shall stay behind as many of the knights and freeholders who were present at the county court on that day as are necessary for the sufficient making of judgments, according to the amount of business to be done.
[20] A free man shall not be amerced for a trivial offence except in accordance with the degree of the offence, and for a grave offence he shall be amerced in accordance with its gravity, yet saving his way of living; and a merchant in the same way, saving his stock-in-trade; and a villein shall be amerced in the same way, saving his means of livelihood--if they have falleninto our mercy: and none of the aforesaid amercements shall be imposed except by the oath of good men of the neighbourhood.
[21] Earls and barons shall not be amerced except by their peers, and only in accordance with the degree of the offence.
[22] No clerk shall be amerced in respect of his lay holding except after the manner of the others aforesaid and not according to the amount of his ecclesiastical benefice.
[23] No vill or individual shall be compelled to make bridges at river banks, except those who from of old are legally bound to do so.
[24] No sheriff, constable, coroners, or others of our bailiffs, shall hold pleas of our crown.
[25] All counties, hundreds, wapentakes and trithings shall be at the old rents without any additional payment, exept our demesne manors.
[26] If anyone holding a lay fief of us dies and our sheriff or bailiff shows our letters patent of summons for a debt that the deceased owed us, it shall be lawful for our sheriff or bailiff to attach and make a list of chattels of the deceased found upon the lay fief to the value of that debt under the supervision of law-worthy men, provided that none of the chattels shall be removed until the debt which is manifest has been paid to us in full; and the residue shall be left to the executors for carrying out the will of the deceased.And if nothing is owing to us from him, all the chattels shall accrue to the deceased, saving to his wife and children their reasonable shares.
[27] If any free man dies without leaving a will, his chattels shall be distributed by his nearest kinsfolk and friends under the supervision of the church, saving to every one the debts which the deceased owed him.
[28] No constable or other bailiff of ours shall take anyone's corn or other chattels unless he pays on the spot in cash for them or can delay payment by arrangement with the seller.
[29] No constable shall compel any knight to give money instead of castle-guard if he is willing to do the guard himself or through another good man, if for some good reason he cannot do it himself; and if we lead or sendhim on military service, he shall be excused guard in proportion to the time that because of us he has been on service.
[30] No sheriff, or bailiff of ours, or anyone else shall take the horses or cartsof any free man for transport work save with the agreement of that freeman.
[31] Neither we nor our bailiffs will take, for castles or other works of ours, timber which is not ours, except with the agreement of him whose timber it is.
[32] We will not hold for more than a year and a day the lands of those convicted of felony, and then the lands shall be handed over to the lords of the fiefs.
[33] Henceforth all fish-weirs shall be cleared completely from the Thames and the Medway and throughout all England, except along the sea coast.
[34] The writ called Praecipe shall not in future be issued to anyone in respect of any holding whereby a free man may lose his court.
[35] Let there be one measure for wine throughout our kingdom, and one measure for ale, and one measure for corn, namely "the London quarter"; and one width for cloths whether dyed, russet or halberget, namely two ells within the selvedges. Let it be the same with weights as with measures.
[36] Nothing shall be given or taken in future for the writ of inquisition of life or limbs: instead it shall be granted free of charge and not refused.
[37] If anyone holds of us by fee-farm, by socage, or by burgage, and holds land of another by knight service, we will not, by reason of that fee-farm, socage, or burgage, have the wardship of his heir or of land of his that is of the fief of the other; nor will we have custody of the fee-farm, socage, or burgage, unless such fee-farm owes knight service. We will not have custody of anyone's heir or land which he holds of another by knight service by reason of any petty serjeanty which he holds of us by the service of rendering to us knives or arrows or the like.
[38] No bailiff shall in future put anyone to trial upon his own bare word, without reliable witnesses produced for this purpose.
[39] No free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseised or outlawed or exiled or in any way victimised, neither will we attack him or send anyone to attack him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
[40] To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay right or justice.
[41] All merchants shall be able to go out of and come into England safely and securely and stay and travel throughout England, as well by land as by water, for buying and selling by the ancient and right customs free from all evil tolls, except in time of war and if they are of the land that is at war with us. And if such are found in our land at the beginning of a war, they shall be attached, without injury to their persons or goods, until we, or our chief justiciar, know how merchants of our land are treated who were found in the land at war with us when war broke out, and if ours are safe there, the othersshall be safe in our land.
[42] It shall be lawful in future for anyone, without prejudicing the allegiance due to us, to leave our kingdom and return safely and securely by land and water, save, in the public interest, for a short period in time of war--except for those imprisoned or outlawed in accordance with the law of the kingdom and natives of a land that is at war with us and merchants (who shall be treated as aforesaid).
[43] If anyone who holds of some escheat such as the honour of Wallingford, Nottingham, Boulogne, Lancaster, or of other escheats which are in our hands and are baronies dies, his heir shall give no other relief and do no other service to us than he would have done to the baron if that barony had been in the baron's hands; and we will hold it in the same manner in which the baron held it.
[44] Men who live outside the forest need not henceforth come before our justices of the forest upon a general summons, unless they are impleaded or are sureties for any person or persons who are attached for forest offences.
[45] We will not make justices, constables, sheriffs or bailiffs save of such as know the law of the kingdom and mean to observe it well.
[46] All barons who have founded abbeys for which they have charters of the kings of England or ancient tenure shall have the custody of them during vacancies, as they ought to have.
[47] All forests that have been made forest in our time shall be immediately disafforested; and so be it done with riverbanks that have been made preserves by us in our time.
[48] All evil customs connected with forests and warrens, foresters and warreners, sheriffs and their officials, riverbanks and their wardens shall immediately be inquired into in each county by twelve sworn knights of the same county who are to be chosen by good men of the same county, and within forty days of the completion of the inquiry shall be utterly abolished by them so as never to be restored, provided that we, or our justiciar if we are not in England, know of it first.
[49] We will immediately return all hostages and charters given to us by Englishmen, as security for peace or faithful service.
[50] We will remove completely from office the relations of Gerard de Athée so that in future they shall have no office in England, namely Engelard de Cigogné, Peter and Guy and Andrew de Chanceaux, Guy de Cigogné, Geoffrey de Martigny and his brothers, Philip Marc and his brothers and his nephew Geoffrey, and all their following.
[51] As soon as peace is restored, we will remove from the kingdom all foreign knights, cross-bowmen, serjeants, and mercenaries, who have come with horses and arms to the detriment of the kingdom.
[52] If anyone has been disseised of or kept out of his lands, castles, franchises or his right by us without the legal judgment of his peers, we will immediately restore them to him: and if a dispute arises over this, then let it be decided by the judgment of the twenty-five barons who are mentioned below in the clause for securing the peace: for all the things, however, whichanyone has been disseised or kept out of without the lawful judgment of his peers by king Henry, our father, or by king Richard, our brother, which we have in our hand or are held by others, to whom we are bound to warrant them, we will have the usual period of respite of crusaders, excepting those things about which a plea was started or an inquest made by our command before we took the cross; when however we return from our pilgrimage, or if by any chance we do not go on it, we will at once do full justice therein.
[53] We will have the same respite, and in the same manner, in the doing of justice in the matter of the disafforesting or retaining of the forests which Henry our father or Richard our brother afforested, and in the matter of the wardship of lands which are of the fief of another, wardships of which sort we have hitherto had by reason of a fief which anyone held of us by knight service, and in the matter of abbeys founded on the fief of another, not on a fief of our own, in which the lord of the fief claims he has a right; and when we have returned, or if we do not set out on our pilgrimage, we will at once do full justice to those who complain of these things.
[54] No one shall be arrested or imprisoned upon the appeal of a woman forthe death of anyone except her husband.
[55] All fines made with us unjustly and against the law of the land, and all amercements imposed unjustly and against the law of the land, shall be entirely remitted, or else let them be settled by the judgment of the twenty-five barons who are mentioned below in the clause for securing the peace, or by the judgment of the majority of the same, along with the aforesaid Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, if he can be present, and suchothers as he may wish to associate with himself for this purpose, and if he cannot be present the business shall nevertheless proceed without him, provided that if any one or more of the aforesaid twenty-five barons are in a like suit, they shall be removed from the judgment of the case in question, and others chosen, sworn and put in their place by the rest of the same twenty-five for this case only.
[56] If we have disseised or kept out Welshmen from lands or liberties or other things without the legal judgment of their peers in England or in Wales, they shall be immediately restored to them; and if a dispute arises over this, then let it be decided in the March by the judgment of their peers--for holdings in England according to the law of England, for holdings in Wales according to the law of Wales, and for holdings in the March according to the law of the March. Welshmen shall do the same to us and ours.
[57] For all the things, however, which any Welshman was disseised of or kept out of without the lawful judgment of his peers by king Henry, our father, or king Richard, our brother, which we have in our hand or which are held by others, to whom we are bound to warrant them, we will have the usual period of respite of crusaders, excepting those things about which a plea was started or an inquest made by our command before we took the cross; when however we return, or if by any chance we do not set out on our pilgrimage, we will at once do full justice to them in accordance with the laws of the Welsh and the foresaid regions.
[58] We will give back at once the son of Llywelyn and all the hostages from Wales and the charters that were handed over to us as security for peace.
[59] We will act toward Alexander, king of the Scots, concerning the return of his sisters and hostages and concerning his franchises and his right in the same manner in which we act towards our other barons of England, unless it ought to be otherwise by the charters which we have from William his father, formerly king of the Scots, and this shall be determined by the judgment of his peers in our court.
[60] All these aforesaid customs and liberties which we have granted to be observed in our kingdom as far as it pertains to us towards our men, all of our kingdom, clerks as well as laymen, shall observe as far as it pertains to them towards their men.
[61] Since, moreover, for God and the betterment of our kingdom and for the better allaying of the discord that has arisen between us and our barons we have granted all these things aforesaid, wishing them to enjoy the use of them unimpaired and unshaken for ever, we give and grant them the under-written security, namely, that the barons shall choose any twenty-five barons of the kingdom they wish, who must with all their might observe, holdand cause to be observed, the peace and liberties which we have granted and confirmed to them by this present charter of ours, so that if we, or our justiciar, or our bailiffs or any one of our servants offend in any way against anyone or transgress any of the articles of the peace or the security and the offence be notified to four of the aforesaid twenty-five barons, those four barons shall come to us, or to our justiciar if we are out of the kingdom, and, laying the transgression before us, shall petition us to have that transgression corrected without delay. And if we do not correct the transgression, or if we are out of the kingdom, if our justiciar does not correct it, within forty days, reckoning from the time it was brought to our notice or to that of our justiciar if we were out of the kingdom, the aforesaid four barons shall refer that case to the rest of the twenty-five barons and those twenty-five barons together with the community of the whole land shalldistrain and distress us in every way they can, namely, by seizing castles, lands, possessions, and in such other ways as they can, saving our person and the persons of our queen and our children, until, in their opinion, amends have been made; and when amends have been made, they shall obey us as they did before. And let anyone in the land who wishes take an oath to obey the orders of the said twenty-five barons for the execution of all the aforesaid matters, and with them to distress us as much as he can, and we publicly and freely give anyone leave to take the oath who wishes to take it and we will never prohibit anyone from taking it. Indeed, all those in the land who are unwilling of themselves and of their own accord to take an oathto the twenty-five barons to help them to distrain and distress us, we will make them take the oath as aforesaid at our command. And if any of the twenty-five barons dies or leaves the country or is in any other way preventedfrom carrying out the things aforesaid, the rest of the aforesaid twenty-five barons shall choose as they think fit another one in his place, and he shall take the oath like the rest. In all matters the execution of which is committed to these twenty-five barons, if it should happen that these twenty-five are present yet disagree among themselves about anything, or if some of those summoned will not or cannot be present, that shall be held as fixed and established which the majority of those present ordained or commanded, exactly as if all the twenty-five had consented to it; and the said twenty-five shall swear that they will faithfully observe all the things aforesaid and will do all they can to get them observed. And we will procure nothing from anyone, either personally or through anyone else, whereby any of these concessions and liberties might be revoked or diminished; and if any such thing is procured, let it be void and null, and we will never use it either personally or through another.
[62] And we have fully remitted and pardoned to everyone all the ill-will, indignation and rancour that have arisen between us and our men, clergy and laity, from the time of the quarrel. Furthermore, we have fully remitted to all, clergy and laity, and as far as pertains to us have completely forgiven, all trespasses occasioned by the same quarrel between Easter in the sixteenthyear of our reign and the restoration of peace. And, besides, we have caused to be made for them letters testimonial patent of the lord Stephen archbishop of Canterbury, of the lord Henry archbishop of Dublin and of the aforementioned bishops and of master Pandulf about this security and the aforementioned concessions.
[63] Wherefore we wish and firmly enjoin that the English church shall be free, and that the men in our kingdom shall have and hold all the aforesaid liberties, rights and concessions well and peacefully, freely and quietly, fully and completely, for themselves and their heirs from us and our heirs, in all matters and in all places for ever, as is aforesaid. An oath, moreover, has been taken, as well on our part as on the part of the barons, that all these things aforesaid shall be observed in good faith and without evil disposition.Witness the above-mentioned and many others. Given by our hand in the meadow which is called Runnymede between Windsor and Staines on the fifteenth day of June, in the seventeenth year of our reign.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Machiavelli
born May 3, 1469, Florence died June 21, 1527, Florence
Italian writer and statesman, Florentine patriot, and original political theorist whose principal work, The Prince, brought him a reputation of amoral cynicism.
Early life.
Machiavelli's family, from the 13th century onward, had been counted among the wealthy and prominent houses of the city, holding on occasion the most important offices. His father, a doctor of laws, was nevertheless among the poorest members of the family; he lived frugally, administering his little landed property near the city and supplementing his meagre income from it with small earnings from the restricted and almost clandestine exercise of his profession, since he was debarred from any public office as an insolvent debtor of the commune of Florence. Niccolò was to write later that he had “learnt to do without before he learnt to enjoy”; and this poverty may have been the reason why he did not have the education suited to his ability. In the years when young Florentines crowded to the lectures of Politian, then Italy's leading scholar of Greek and Latin, Machiavelli never embarked on the study of Greek. His father's memoirs show Niccolò working at Latin under obscure teachers: he learned more by himself in the books that were the only luxury of his home than he did at school. This kind of education saved him from the faults and excesses of Humanist erudition and preserved the originality of his thought and the unequalled force of his style, which was elevated and popular at the same time.
Under the republic.
In 1498, after the changes in the Florentine government following the execution of Savonarola—the ascetic monk who tried to impose extreme political and religious reforms on the republic—and the triumph of the opposing faction, Niccolò Machiavelli was made head of the second chancery (cancelleria) at the early age of 29. He was then completely unknown; the tradition of his having an apprenticeship in the lower grades of the chancery from 1494 onward is not confirmed by documentary evidence, and his own statements tend to disprove it. The office to which he was appointed, though not comparable in power with that of first chancellor, was an important one. Originally it dealt only with internal affairs of the republic, but it was later merged with the secretariat of the Ten (i Dieci), the executive council. Machiavelli was, moreover, secretary to the magistracy, which, in the name of the Signoria, the governing council, and under its authority, directed foreign affairs and defense. The chancellors were often entrusted with diplomatic missions to Italian and foreign courts when it was not desirable to send ambassadors. Machiavelli's first important mission was to the French court in 1500. Five months spent beyond the Alps introduced to his eager mind the people and customs of a strong nation united under the rule of a single prince.
On his return to Florence, Machiavelli found much to do, as the republic was on the verge of being ruined by the ambitions of Cesare Borgia, who was then in the midst of attempting to create a principality for himself in central Italy. Besides dictating letters in the chancery, Machiavelli undertook missions whenever the need arose; he was always ready to ride off and to face danger and hardship, being fonder of action than of words. His short work Del modo di trattare i sudditi della Val di Chiana ribellati (1503; “On the Way to Deal with the Rebel Subjects of the Valdichiana”) belongs to this period. In it, the fundamentalprinciple of a new doctrine is enunciated for the first time: “The world has always been inhabited by human beings who have always had the same passions.” He was sent twice to Cesare Borgia; and he was a witness to the bloody vengeance taken by Cesare on his mutinous captains at the town of Sinigaglia (Dec. 31, 1502), of which he wrote a famous account, Descrizione del modo tenuto dal Duca Valentino nello ammazzare Vitellozzo . . . (“On the Manner Adopted by the Duke Valentino to Kill Vitellozzo . . . ”). That strong, sinister prince caught the imagination of the Florentine statesman with his natural bent for abstraction and theory. Implacable, resolute, ferocious, and cunning, Cesare Borgia had conquered a dominion for himself in a few months; and Machiavelli adapted Cesare's qualities and methods to his own ideal of a “new prince” who would provide a desperate remedy for the desperate ills of Italy. It is clear that this was a case of idealization and that his admiration for the Prince did not go hand in hand with admiration for the man. When Pope Alexander VI, the father of Cesare Borgia, died in 1503 and his successor, Pius III, also died shortly afterward, Machiavelli was sent to Rome for the duration of the conclave that elected Julius II, an implacable enemy of the Borgias. There, with ever-increasing scorn, Machiavelli witnessed the decline of his hero and finally celebrated Cesare's imprisonment “which he deserved as a rebel against Christ.”
In Florence, meanwhile, Piero Soderini had been elected gonfalonier (chief magistrate) for life, and Machiavelli was immediately able to win his favour and become his right-hand man. This remarkable influence over the head of state encouraged him to realize his military ideas. For centuries the states of Italy hadused mercenary troops in their wars, and Machiavelli had seen in practice their lack of discipline, their faithlessness, and their unbearable arrogance. Inspired both by the military enterprises of ancient Rome and by his own observations inFrance (where he went on a second mission early in 1504) and in Romagna (where Cesare Borgia had replaced mercenaries with levies from his own territory), Machiavelli ardently pursued the idea of giving the Florentine state a militia of its own, recruited from the peoples under its control. Age-old prejudices had to be overcome, as well as the reluctance of suspicious townsmen, to arm men from the country districts around. Having set to work immediately after his return from the Roman legation, he succeeded in persuading the gonfalonier to risk an experiment and then to have a law passed in order to establish a militia (1505). In 1506, as the importance of the new militia increased, the council of the Nine was created to control it, and Machiavelli was made secretary of this body. The territory of the republic was divided into districts, and Machiavelli himself went out to see to the levies and tocarry out inspections, alternating these military tasks with those of the chancery and with a further mission (1506) to Julius II, whose armies, moving up to free the states of the Church from their various usurpers, entered Bologna in triumph.
In December 1507 the Holy Roman emperor, Maximilian I, was preparing an invasion of Italy from Germany. Florence's gonfalonier, who did not trust his ownambassador at the imperial court, accordingly sent Machiavelli on another journey beyond the Alps. On the journey Machiavelli passed through Switzerland, and three days spent in that country were enough for him to produce some brief but acute observations on it. He did the same, at greater length, for Germany, composing on the day after his return to Florence (June 17,1508) a Rapporto delle cose della Magna (“Report on the State of Germany”). In this work, compiled in the course of his official duties, and likewise in the literary version made four years later under the title Ritratto delle cose della Magna (“Portrait . . . ”), he was able to pick out with great acumen the reasons both for the strength of the German nation and for its political weaknesses. Yet all his official reports, though marvelously intuitive, are marred by a tendency to theorize; they are bold syntheses, not complete and accurate sources of information.
On his return from Germany, as the Florentines were showing new strength in an effort to recapture the city of Pisa, which had temporarily freed itself from Florentine rule, Machiavelli was able to try out the militia that he had created. Hewent to command his troops at the front and put all his usual enthusiasm into the task: when the Ten begged him to remain at headquarters, he answered that they must let him be with his soldiers, since behind the lines he would die of melancholy. Such was the patriotism and passion of a man who has been represented as skeptical, cautious, and cynical. Pisa capitulated on June 8, 1509, and Machiavelli with his militia had no small share in this success for Florence.
After a mission to Mantua in connection with yet another invasion by Maximilian, Machiavelli had to go again to France, in July 1510, to persuade Florence's ally Louis XII to make peace with Pope Julius II or at least not to drag Florence into a war that would bring the republic to needless ruin, emphasizing that a neutral Florence could be useful to the French. The French, however, “who knew nothing about statecraft,” were not influenced by what Machiavelli had to tell them. From this mission, which resulted in the Ritratto di cose di Francia, he returned in October 1510 convinced that there would be a major war between the French king and the pope and that the Florentines would be involved. All of his efforts now were to arm his country. At the end of the summer of 1511 he went once more to France to persuade Louis XII to remove the schismatic council that he was sponsoring in Pisa, since this had brought upon the Florentines the rage of Julius II. As soon as he was back from France, Machiavelli himself went to Pisa and removed this council without much ceremony. For the free republic, however, the last hour had already come: the army of the pope's Holy League was on its way to punish Florence. The gonfalonier Soderini was deposed, and in 1512 the Medici returned as masters of the city.
Under the Medici.
Machiavelli lost his position and was forbidden to enter the Palazzo della Signoria. Also, when a conspiracy against the Medici was found early in 1513, Machiavelli, already an object of suspicion to the new government, was accused of complicity. Thrown into prison, he maintained his innocence even under tortures that often persuaded the innocent to declare themselves guilty. His name, however, was on a list taken from the conspirators, and finally, though he was released from prison, restrictions were put on his freedom. In the meantime, Julius II had died, and Giovanni de' Medici had become Pope Leo X. Machiavelli composed for the celebrations on that occasion a pious “Canto degli spiriti beati” (“Song of the Blessed Spirits”) and sought in vain to get into the good graces of the Medici.
Reduced to poverty, Machiavelli sought refuge in the little property near Florencethat he had inherited from his father. There he employed his leisure in writing, between spring and autumn 1513, his two most famous works, Il principe (The Prince) and a large part of the Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio (“Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy”).
Machiavelli's affections always lay with the republic, and all of his theories were intended for its betterment; but the corruption of the times, the weakness of the states of Italy, and the threat of foreign conquest made him long for that “new prince” who might give reality to his great dream of the redemption of Italy. This “redeemer,” to whom he sought in vain to give a face and a name, would have had to overcome superhuman difficulties; nor could there be much choice of means in attaining such ends. Machiavelli, in Il principe, attempted to indicate to the prince those means that were compatible with the conditions of the time and with human nature. Even religion—for which he had a deep feeling though he was not outwardly pious—was subordinated by him to the state's iron necessity and made into a tool of power. Indeed, Machiavelli is regarded as the inventor of the “reason of state,” though that expression appears for the first time 20 years after his death. Il principe, while its underlying ideas are the same as those of the Discorsi, won a greater reputation, thanks to its concision,its vigorous imagery, and the bluntness of some of its aphorisms, which were taken too literally by contemporaries and by posterity. He remarked of certain cynical precepts that he would not have proffered them if mankind had not been wicked. This bleak pessimism is certainly not refuted by the annals of his own time. Yet his longing was for a society of good and pure men; he sought it in ancient times and, in his own day, admired less civilized nations as being less corrupt. Machiavelli's great hope was that Il principe, dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence from 1513, would obtain from the Medici an office to support his family and satisfy his love of action; but the hope was in vain.
From this time also dates the comedy first entitled Commedia di Callimaco e diLucrezia, later La Mandragola (1518; “The Mandrake”), in which the wickedness and corruption of men, particularly of the clergy, are the subject of laughter—but of a bitter and painful laughter that is never an end in itself.
Machiavelli's hopes were raised when, on the death of Duke Lorenzo, the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici came to govern Florence. He was presented to the Cardinal by Lorenzo Strozzi, to whom in gratitude he dedicated the dialogue Dell'arte della guerra (1521; The Arte of Warre, 1560) which is complementary to his two political treatises.
The first employment given him by the cardinal was to go to Lucca on a matter of small importance. Presently, however, the cardinal agreed to have Machiavelli elected official historiographer of the republic, a post to which he was appointed by the University of Florence in November 1520 with a salary of 57 gold florins a year, later increased to 100. The university's terms allowed for Machiavelli's also being employed in other ways. In the meantime, he was to compose for the Medici pope Leo X a Discorso on the organization of the government of Florence after the death of Duke Lorenzo; in this he boldly advised the Pope to restore the city's ancient liberties. Shortly after, in May 1521,he was sent to the Franciscan chapter at Carpi.
After Pope Leo X's death (December 1521), the cardinal Giulio de' Medici, who remained sole master of Florence, was more than ever inclined to reform its government. He sought the advice of Machiavelli, who simply refurbished the Discorso composed for Leo X. After the death of Pope Adrian VI in September 1523, Giulio de' Medici became Pope Clement VII. Machiavelli now worked with more enthusiasm on the Istorie fiorentine, his official history of Florence; in June 1525 he was able to present the Pope with eight books, and he received in return 120 florins and encouragement to continue the work. The Istorie fiorentine, like his earlier writings, bears the impress of a powerful and original mind. In this work, written by fits and starts and wearily dragged on into his later years, Machiavelli enters on a new road, leaving behind him the traditions and methods of Humanist historiography. His love of truth often in conflict with the necessity to avoid offending his powerful patrons, he writes history more as a politician than as a historian set on discovering the truth, often accepting sources uncritically and accommodating facts to his thesis. It is not narrative exactitude that is to be sought in the Istorie but the power of synthesis, the brilliant coordination and organization of facts.
In April 1526 Machiavelli was elected secretary of a five-man body lately constituted to superintend the fortifications. Next, the Pope having formed the League of Cognac against the Holy Roman emperor Charles V, Machiavelli went with the army to join Francesco Guicciardini, the Pope's lieutenant, with whom he remained almost continuously until the sack of Rome by the Emperor's forces brought the war to an end in May 1527. Florence having regained its freedom by casting off the Medici, Machiavelli on his return hoped to be restored to his old post in the chancery; but the little favours that the Medicihad so meagrely doled out to him caused the supporters of the free republic to forget the love that he had always had for his native city and for freedom. It was the last of his disappointments and the greatest. Machiavelli fell ill and died, with the comforts of religion, within a month.
Character and thought.
Machiavelli was an upright man, a good citizen, and a good father. He was not by any means a faithful husband but lived in affectionate harmony with his wife, Marietta Corsini (whom he had married in the latter part of 1501), and had five children by her. He loved his native city “more than his own soul,” and he was generous, ardent, and basically religious.
Out of a desire to shock his contemporaries, Machiavelli liked to appear more wicked than he was. This, together with certain blunt maxims in his works, gavehim a reputation for immorality. The maxims became a target for attacks by the Catholic Counter-Reformation; and the word “Machiavellianism” was coined as a term of opprobrium by the French, out of hatred for all things Italian. He “was ascapegoat because he was a great man and because he was unfortunate.”
As one of the founders of the philosophy of history, he well knew that he was opening “a road as yet untrodden by man.” He was the first to propound the thesis of historical cycles and—starting from the principle that human nature does not change—the first to build a political science based on the study of man.
Machiavelli was a great writer because he was a great thinker. He was also a poet; his poetry, however, is to be found not so much in his verse as in his prose, which has no equal in Italian literature. It is also noteworthy that his greatgifts showed themselves in nearly all the genres that he attempted: in historical writings, in political treatises, in the short story and, particularly, in comedy.
Italian writer and statesman, Florentine patriot, and original political theorist whose principal work, The Prince, brought him a reputation of amoral cynicism.
Early life.
Machiavelli's family, from the 13th century onward, had been counted among the wealthy and prominent houses of the city, holding on occasion the most important offices. His father, a doctor of laws, was nevertheless among the poorest members of the family; he lived frugally, administering his little landed property near the city and supplementing his meagre income from it with small earnings from the restricted and almost clandestine exercise of his profession, since he was debarred from any public office as an insolvent debtor of the commune of Florence. Niccolò was to write later that he had “learnt to do without before he learnt to enjoy”; and this poverty may have been the reason why he did not have the education suited to his ability. In the years when young Florentines crowded to the lectures of Politian, then Italy's leading scholar of Greek and Latin, Machiavelli never embarked on the study of Greek. His father's memoirs show Niccolò working at Latin under obscure teachers: he learned more by himself in the books that were the only luxury of his home than he did at school. This kind of education saved him from the faults and excesses of Humanist erudition and preserved the originality of his thought and the unequalled force of his style, which was elevated and popular at the same time.
Under the republic.
In 1498, after the changes in the Florentine government following the execution of Savonarola—the ascetic monk who tried to impose extreme political and religious reforms on the republic—and the triumph of the opposing faction, Niccolò Machiavelli was made head of the second chancery (cancelleria) at the early age of 29. He was then completely unknown; the tradition of his having an apprenticeship in the lower grades of the chancery from 1494 onward is not confirmed by documentary evidence, and his own statements tend to disprove it. The office to which he was appointed, though not comparable in power with that of first chancellor, was an important one. Originally it dealt only with internal affairs of the republic, but it was later merged with the secretariat of the Ten (i Dieci), the executive council. Machiavelli was, moreover, secretary to the magistracy, which, in the name of the Signoria, the governing council, and under its authority, directed foreign affairs and defense. The chancellors were often entrusted with diplomatic missions to Italian and foreign courts when it was not desirable to send ambassadors. Machiavelli's first important mission was to the French court in 1500. Five months spent beyond the Alps introduced to his eager mind the people and customs of a strong nation united under the rule of a single prince.
On his return to Florence, Machiavelli found much to do, as the republic was on the verge of being ruined by the ambitions of Cesare Borgia, who was then in the midst of attempting to create a principality for himself in central Italy. Besides dictating letters in the chancery, Machiavelli undertook missions whenever the need arose; he was always ready to ride off and to face danger and hardship, being fonder of action than of words. His short work Del modo di trattare i sudditi della Val di Chiana ribellati (1503; “On the Way to Deal with the Rebel Subjects of the Valdichiana”) belongs to this period. In it, the fundamentalprinciple of a new doctrine is enunciated for the first time: “The world has always been inhabited by human beings who have always had the same passions.” He was sent twice to Cesare Borgia; and he was a witness to the bloody vengeance taken by Cesare on his mutinous captains at the town of Sinigaglia (Dec. 31, 1502), of which he wrote a famous account, Descrizione del modo tenuto dal Duca Valentino nello ammazzare Vitellozzo . . . (“On the Manner Adopted by the Duke Valentino to Kill Vitellozzo . . . ”). That strong, sinister prince caught the imagination of the Florentine statesman with his natural bent for abstraction and theory. Implacable, resolute, ferocious, and cunning, Cesare Borgia had conquered a dominion for himself in a few months; and Machiavelli adapted Cesare's qualities and methods to his own ideal of a “new prince” who would provide a desperate remedy for the desperate ills of Italy. It is clear that this was a case of idealization and that his admiration for the Prince did not go hand in hand with admiration for the man. When Pope Alexander VI, the father of Cesare Borgia, died in 1503 and his successor, Pius III, also died shortly afterward, Machiavelli was sent to Rome for the duration of the conclave that elected Julius II, an implacable enemy of the Borgias. There, with ever-increasing scorn, Machiavelli witnessed the decline of his hero and finally celebrated Cesare's imprisonment “which he deserved as a rebel against Christ.”
In Florence, meanwhile, Piero Soderini had been elected gonfalonier (chief magistrate) for life, and Machiavelli was immediately able to win his favour and become his right-hand man. This remarkable influence over the head of state encouraged him to realize his military ideas. For centuries the states of Italy hadused mercenary troops in their wars, and Machiavelli had seen in practice their lack of discipline, their faithlessness, and their unbearable arrogance. Inspired both by the military enterprises of ancient Rome and by his own observations inFrance (where he went on a second mission early in 1504) and in Romagna (where Cesare Borgia had replaced mercenaries with levies from his own territory), Machiavelli ardently pursued the idea of giving the Florentine state a militia of its own, recruited from the peoples under its control. Age-old prejudices had to be overcome, as well as the reluctance of suspicious townsmen, to arm men from the country districts around. Having set to work immediately after his return from the Roman legation, he succeeded in persuading the gonfalonier to risk an experiment and then to have a law passed in order to establish a militia (1505). In 1506, as the importance of the new militia increased, the council of the Nine was created to control it, and Machiavelli was made secretary of this body. The territory of the republic was divided into districts, and Machiavelli himself went out to see to the levies and tocarry out inspections, alternating these military tasks with those of the chancery and with a further mission (1506) to Julius II, whose armies, moving up to free the states of the Church from their various usurpers, entered Bologna in triumph.
In December 1507 the Holy Roman emperor, Maximilian I, was preparing an invasion of Italy from Germany. Florence's gonfalonier, who did not trust his ownambassador at the imperial court, accordingly sent Machiavelli on another journey beyond the Alps. On the journey Machiavelli passed through Switzerland, and three days spent in that country were enough for him to produce some brief but acute observations on it. He did the same, at greater length, for Germany, composing on the day after his return to Florence (June 17,1508) a Rapporto delle cose della Magna (“Report on the State of Germany”). In this work, compiled in the course of his official duties, and likewise in the literary version made four years later under the title Ritratto delle cose della Magna (“Portrait . . . ”), he was able to pick out with great acumen the reasons both for the strength of the German nation and for its political weaknesses. Yet all his official reports, though marvelously intuitive, are marred by a tendency to theorize; they are bold syntheses, not complete and accurate sources of information.
On his return from Germany, as the Florentines were showing new strength in an effort to recapture the city of Pisa, which had temporarily freed itself from Florentine rule, Machiavelli was able to try out the militia that he had created. Hewent to command his troops at the front and put all his usual enthusiasm into the task: when the Ten begged him to remain at headquarters, he answered that they must let him be with his soldiers, since behind the lines he would die of melancholy. Such was the patriotism and passion of a man who has been represented as skeptical, cautious, and cynical. Pisa capitulated on June 8, 1509, and Machiavelli with his militia had no small share in this success for Florence.
After a mission to Mantua in connection with yet another invasion by Maximilian, Machiavelli had to go again to France, in July 1510, to persuade Florence's ally Louis XII to make peace with Pope Julius II or at least not to drag Florence into a war that would bring the republic to needless ruin, emphasizing that a neutral Florence could be useful to the French. The French, however, “who knew nothing about statecraft,” were not influenced by what Machiavelli had to tell them. From this mission, which resulted in the Ritratto di cose di Francia, he returned in October 1510 convinced that there would be a major war between the French king and the pope and that the Florentines would be involved. All of his efforts now were to arm his country. At the end of the summer of 1511 he went once more to France to persuade Louis XII to remove the schismatic council that he was sponsoring in Pisa, since this had brought upon the Florentines the rage of Julius II. As soon as he was back from France, Machiavelli himself went to Pisa and removed this council without much ceremony. For the free republic, however, the last hour had already come: the army of the pope's Holy League was on its way to punish Florence. The gonfalonier Soderini was deposed, and in 1512 the Medici returned as masters of the city.
Under the Medici.
Machiavelli lost his position and was forbidden to enter the Palazzo della Signoria. Also, when a conspiracy against the Medici was found early in 1513, Machiavelli, already an object of suspicion to the new government, was accused of complicity. Thrown into prison, he maintained his innocence even under tortures that often persuaded the innocent to declare themselves guilty. His name, however, was on a list taken from the conspirators, and finally, though he was released from prison, restrictions were put on his freedom. In the meantime, Julius II had died, and Giovanni de' Medici had become Pope Leo X. Machiavelli composed for the celebrations on that occasion a pious “Canto degli spiriti beati” (“Song of the Blessed Spirits”) and sought in vain to get into the good graces of the Medici.
Reduced to poverty, Machiavelli sought refuge in the little property near Florencethat he had inherited from his father. There he employed his leisure in writing, between spring and autumn 1513, his two most famous works, Il principe (The Prince) and a large part of the Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio (“Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy”).
Machiavelli's affections always lay with the republic, and all of his theories were intended for its betterment; but the corruption of the times, the weakness of the states of Italy, and the threat of foreign conquest made him long for that “new prince” who might give reality to his great dream of the redemption of Italy. This “redeemer,” to whom he sought in vain to give a face and a name, would have had to overcome superhuman difficulties; nor could there be much choice of means in attaining such ends. Machiavelli, in Il principe, attempted to indicate to the prince those means that were compatible with the conditions of the time and with human nature. Even religion—for which he had a deep feeling though he was not outwardly pious—was subordinated by him to the state's iron necessity and made into a tool of power. Indeed, Machiavelli is regarded as the inventor of the “reason of state,” though that expression appears for the first time 20 years after his death. Il principe, while its underlying ideas are the same as those of the Discorsi, won a greater reputation, thanks to its concision,its vigorous imagery, and the bluntness of some of its aphorisms, which were taken too literally by contemporaries and by posterity. He remarked of certain cynical precepts that he would not have proffered them if mankind had not been wicked. This bleak pessimism is certainly not refuted by the annals of his own time. Yet his longing was for a society of good and pure men; he sought it in ancient times and, in his own day, admired less civilized nations as being less corrupt. Machiavelli's great hope was that Il principe, dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence from 1513, would obtain from the Medici an office to support his family and satisfy his love of action; but the hope was in vain.
From this time also dates the comedy first entitled Commedia di Callimaco e diLucrezia, later La Mandragola (1518; “The Mandrake”), in which the wickedness and corruption of men, particularly of the clergy, are the subject of laughter—but of a bitter and painful laughter that is never an end in itself.
Machiavelli's hopes were raised when, on the death of Duke Lorenzo, the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici came to govern Florence. He was presented to the Cardinal by Lorenzo Strozzi, to whom in gratitude he dedicated the dialogue Dell'arte della guerra (1521; The Arte of Warre, 1560) which is complementary to his two political treatises.
The first employment given him by the cardinal was to go to Lucca on a matter of small importance. Presently, however, the cardinal agreed to have Machiavelli elected official historiographer of the republic, a post to which he was appointed by the University of Florence in November 1520 with a salary of 57 gold florins a year, later increased to 100. The university's terms allowed for Machiavelli's also being employed in other ways. In the meantime, he was to compose for the Medici pope Leo X a Discorso on the organization of the government of Florence after the death of Duke Lorenzo; in this he boldly advised the Pope to restore the city's ancient liberties. Shortly after, in May 1521,he was sent to the Franciscan chapter at Carpi.
After Pope Leo X's death (December 1521), the cardinal Giulio de' Medici, who remained sole master of Florence, was more than ever inclined to reform its government. He sought the advice of Machiavelli, who simply refurbished the Discorso composed for Leo X. After the death of Pope Adrian VI in September 1523, Giulio de' Medici became Pope Clement VII. Machiavelli now worked with more enthusiasm on the Istorie fiorentine, his official history of Florence; in June 1525 he was able to present the Pope with eight books, and he received in return 120 florins and encouragement to continue the work. The Istorie fiorentine, like his earlier writings, bears the impress of a powerful and original mind. In this work, written by fits and starts and wearily dragged on into his later years, Machiavelli enters on a new road, leaving behind him the traditions and methods of Humanist historiography. His love of truth often in conflict with the necessity to avoid offending his powerful patrons, he writes history more as a politician than as a historian set on discovering the truth, often accepting sources uncritically and accommodating facts to his thesis. It is not narrative exactitude that is to be sought in the Istorie but the power of synthesis, the brilliant coordination and organization of facts.
In April 1526 Machiavelli was elected secretary of a five-man body lately constituted to superintend the fortifications. Next, the Pope having formed the League of Cognac against the Holy Roman emperor Charles V, Machiavelli went with the army to join Francesco Guicciardini, the Pope's lieutenant, with whom he remained almost continuously until the sack of Rome by the Emperor's forces brought the war to an end in May 1527. Florence having regained its freedom by casting off the Medici, Machiavelli on his return hoped to be restored to his old post in the chancery; but the little favours that the Medicihad so meagrely doled out to him caused the supporters of the free republic to forget the love that he had always had for his native city and for freedom. It was the last of his disappointments and the greatest. Machiavelli fell ill and died, with the comforts of religion, within a month.
Character and thought.
Machiavelli was an upright man, a good citizen, and a good father. He was not by any means a faithful husband but lived in affectionate harmony with his wife, Marietta Corsini (whom he had married in the latter part of 1501), and had five children by her. He loved his native city “more than his own soul,” and he was generous, ardent, and basically religious.
Out of a desire to shock his contemporaries, Machiavelli liked to appear more wicked than he was. This, together with certain blunt maxims in his works, gavehim a reputation for immorality. The maxims became a target for attacks by the Catholic Counter-Reformation; and the word “Machiavellianism” was coined as a term of opprobrium by the French, out of hatred for all things Italian. He “was ascapegoat because he was a great man and because he was unfortunate.”
As one of the founders of the philosophy of history, he well knew that he was opening “a road as yet untrodden by man.” He was the first to propound the thesis of historical cycles and—starting from the principle that human nature does not change—the first to build a political science based on the study of man.
Machiavelli was a great writer because he was a great thinker. He was also a poet; his poetry, however, is to be found not so much in his verse as in his prose, which has no equal in Italian literature. It is also noteworthy that his greatgifts showed themselves in nearly all the genres that he attempted: in historical writings, in political treatises, in the short story and, particularly, in comedy.
Hudges, Ted
born Aug. 16, 1930, Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire, Eng. died Oct. 28, 1998, Devon.
byname of Edward J. Hughes English poet whose most characteristic verse is without sentimentality, emphasizing the cunning and savagery of animal life in harsh, sometimes disjunctive lines.
The dialect of Hughes's native West Riding area of Yorkshire set the tone of his verse. At Pembroke College, Cambridge, he found folklore and anthropology of particular interest, a concern that was reflected in a number of his poems. In 1956 he married the American poet Sylvia Plath. The couple made a visit to the United States in 1957, the year that his first volume of verse, The Hawk in the Rain, was published. Other works soon followed. Selected Poems, with Thom Gunn (a poet whose work is frequently associated with Hughes's as marking a new turn in English verse), was published in 1962.
Hughes stopped writing poetry almost completely for nearly three years following Plath's suicide in 1963 (the couple had separated earlier), but thereafter he published prolifically, often in collaboration with photographers and illustrators, as in Under the North Star (1981). He wrote many volumes for children, including Remains of Elmet (1979), in which he recalled the world of his childhood. From 1965 he was coeditor of the magazine Modern Poetry in Translation in London. Some of Hughes's essays on subjects of literary and cultural criticism were published as Winter Pollen (1994). After decades of silence on the subject of his marriage to Plath, Hughes addressed it in the poems of Birthday Letters (1998). In 1984 he was appointed Britain's poet laureate.
byname of Edward J. Hughes English poet whose most characteristic verse is without sentimentality, emphasizing the cunning and savagery of animal life in harsh, sometimes disjunctive lines.
The dialect of Hughes's native West Riding area of Yorkshire set the tone of his verse. At Pembroke College, Cambridge, he found folklore and anthropology of particular interest, a concern that was reflected in a number of his poems. In 1956 he married the American poet Sylvia Plath. The couple made a visit to the United States in 1957, the year that his first volume of verse, The Hawk in the Rain, was published. Other works soon followed. Selected Poems, with Thom Gunn (a poet whose work is frequently associated with Hughes's as marking a new turn in English verse), was published in 1962.
Hughes stopped writing poetry almost completely for nearly three years following Plath's suicide in 1963 (the couple had separated earlier), but thereafter he published prolifically, often in collaboration with photographers and illustrators, as in Under the North Star (1981). He wrote many volumes for children, including Remains of Elmet (1979), in which he recalled the world of his childhood. From 1965 he was coeditor of the magazine Modern Poetry in Translation in London. Some of Hughes's essays on subjects of literary and cultural criticism were published as Winter Pollen (1994). After decades of silence on the subject of his marriage to Plath, Hughes addressed it in the poems of Birthday Letters (1998). In 1984 he was appointed Britain's poet laureate.
Heaney, Seamus
born April 13, 1939, near Castledàwson, County Londonderry, N.Ire.
in full Seamus Justin Heaney Irish poet whose work is notable for its evocation of events in Irish history and its allusions to Irish myth. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995.
After graduating from Queen's University, Belfast (B.A., 1961), Heaney taught secondary school for a year and then lectured in colleges and universities in Belfast and Dublin. In 1982 he joined the faculty of Harvard University as visiting professor and, in 1985, became full professor—a post he retained while teaching at the University of Oxford (1989–94).
Heaney's first poetry collection was the prizewinning Death of a Naturalist (1966). In this book and Door into the Dark (1969), he wrote in a traditional style about a passing way of life—that of domestic rural life in Northern Ireland. In Wintering Out (1972) and North (1975), he began to encompass such subjects as the violence in Northern Ireland and contemporary Irish experience, though he continued to view his subjects through a mythic and mystical filter. Among the later volumes that reflect Heaney's honed and deceptively simple style are Field Work (1979), Station Island (1984), The Haw Lantern (1987), and Seeing Things (1991). His Selected Poems, 1966–1987 also was published in 1991. The Spirit Level (1996) concernsthe notion of centredness and balance in both the natural and the spiritual senses.
Heaney also wrote essays on poetry and poets, including such figures as William Wordsworth, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Robert Lowell. Some of these essays appeared in Preoccupations: Selected Prose, 1968–1978 (1980). A collection of his lectures at Oxford was published as The Redress of Poetry (1995). The Cure at Troy (1991) is Heaney's version of Sophocles' Philoctetes, and a later volume, The Midnight Verdict (1993), contains translations of selections from Ovid's Metamorphoses and from Cúirt an mheadhon oidhche (The Midnight Court), a work by the 18th-century Irish writer Brian Merriman.
in full Seamus Justin Heaney Irish poet whose work is notable for its evocation of events in Irish history and its allusions to Irish myth. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995.
After graduating from Queen's University, Belfast (B.A., 1961), Heaney taught secondary school for a year and then lectured in colleges and universities in Belfast and Dublin. In 1982 he joined the faculty of Harvard University as visiting professor and, in 1985, became full professor—a post he retained while teaching at the University of Oxford (1989–94).
Heaney's first poetry collection was the prizewinning Death of a Naturalist (1966). In this book and Door into the Dark (1969), he wrote in a traditional style about a passing way of life—that of domestic rural life in Northern Ireland. In Wintering Out (1972) and North (1975), he began to encompass such subjects as the violence in Northern Ireland and contemporary Irish experience, though he continued to view his subjects through a mythic and mystical filter. Among the later volumes that reflect Heaney's honed and deceptively simple style are Field Work (1979), Station Island (1984), The Haw Lantern (1987), and Seeing Things (1991). His Selected Poems, 1966–1987 also was published in 1991. The Spirit Level (1996) concernsthe notion of centredness and balance in both the natural and the spiritual senses.
Heaney also wrote essays on poetry and poets, including such figures as William Wordsworth, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Robert Lowell. Some of these essays appeared in Preoccupations: Selected Prose, 1968–1978 (1980). A collection of his lectures at Oxford was published as The Redress of Poetry (1995). The Cure at Troy (1991) is Heaney's version of Sophocles' Philoctetes, and a later volume, The Midnight Verdict (1993), contains translations of selections from Ovid's Metamorphoses and from Cúirt an mheadhon oidhche (The Midnight Court), a work by the 18th-century Irish writer Brian Merriman.
Read as a Graduate Student
Introduction...
One of the things professors are paid to do is to read books and journals, especially those relating to their area of scholarly inquiry. While many, if not most, professors spend a lot of time engaged in reading, most graduate students are not paid to read books and journals. Many are paid, however, by full-time employers and work 40 (or more) hours each week. These individuals do not possess the luxury of time to engage in reading books and journals that their professors possess.
During their undergraduate years, many students approached required course reading filled with a sense of reluctance. For these undergraduates, reading wasn't fun. No, it was something one had to endure in order to achieve a desired grade for the course. And so, these undergraduates were willing to read one or perhaps two textbooks; but, in the instance that a professor required students to read several (if not many) textbooks, undergraduates who were reluctant to read would most likely drop the course rather than devote the amount of time it would take to hone their ability to read well.
Unfortunately, these undergraduates based their judgment on the assumption that they had to memorize everything they were required to read for their courses. This assumption may well have been true: knowing that undergraduates typically won't read what professors require, some professors quiz students about the content of what they have (and especially, have not) read, especially the content not explicated in Cliff's Notes. Thus, reading meant memorizing and more reading meant more memorization. As they read, these students wondered: How am I to remember all of this stuff for a quiz or test? More likely than not, these students will forget what they memorized and will blackout when tested or quized on the material they read and memorized.
To the professor in the classroom, the tell-tale sign of an undergraduate student who reads required texts with reluctance is rather obvious. The first clue is any student who is poring through the text during class time. The second clue is any student whose text looks like it was dipped into a bucket of yellow highlighter ink.
Reading as a graduate student...
At the graduate level---and especially for those graduate students seeking degrees in professional studies---it is important to progress beyond this immature approach to reading textbooks and journal articles. These students need to consider two issues as they engage in reading. One of the most crucial issues focuses upon how to read a textbook. The second issue focuses upon why one is reading a textbook or journal article in the first place.
Yes, graduate students read books and journal articles to know what the author is communicating, that is, to become more competent not only in reading more advanced textual materials but also in one's knowledge of a scholarly field of inquiry. As important as this competency is (after all, the facts are the facts and knowing them is crucial), that is not the primary purpose for engaging in reading. At the graduate level, required reading is explicitly intended to introduce students systematically to a field of scholarly inquiry and through the exercise of reading, to inculcate in students the ability to converse intelligently about the content of that field, that is, to be conversant with it. Specifically, this means inculcating in the graduate student---through the process of reading---knowledge, understanding, and conversancy with intellectual history.
And yet, many graduate students---especially those who are used to memorizing what they read for their professors---find it almost impossible to believe that their professors don't want them to memorize what they are reading. Instead, imposing their undergraduate experience upon their graduate program like a template and complicating it with the fact of being employed at the same time means, for these students, that there will be no time "to have a life," that is, outside of class and for the next two years...at least. Looking at the pile of textbooks and journal articles depresses these students.
Unfortunately, these students have everything backwards. What they fail to recognize is that if only they would engage in reading purposefully, they would then not only develop greater competence in reading more advanced textual material but also in expressing what they know and understand as a consequence of reading. In addition, this process makes students quite conversant in scholarly dialogue and not only with the authors they are reading but also with others, especially their professors and classmates.
Reading texts and journal articles...
To approach required reading, then, the thought that graduate students should have in mind is: If I set about memorizing facts, I probably will not develop conversancy. But, if I set about developing conversancy through my reading, I will also increase my knowledge base.
To move beyond strict memorization and to develop the habit of reading well as well as becoming more conversant with an area of scholarly inquiry and to increase one's knowledge base, graduate students might read the required textbooks and journal articles for their courses following the eight rules proposed by Adler and Van Doren (1972):
Read the text or article as if it is a prescription for actual professional practice. That is, what is the literature telling you to do in actual practice?
Decide whether the text or article is theoretical or practical in its intent. That is, what is the author's intent? To theorize? To prescribe?
Classify the text or article according to the major strands of intellectual history. That is, does the literature give primary emphasis to general ideas that authors argue about?
Decide whether the text or article is about general issues or about more specific problems. That is, does the literature have as its objective to orient the reader and the reader's subsequent practice to deal with global issues or to provide tools to solve specific problems?
Identify the author's perspective. That is, what is the implicit philosophy embedded in the text or article?
Specify what the text or article advocates you to do. That is, ask yourself, "What does the author want me to do?"
Identify the purpose for which this is to be done. That is, ask yourself, "Why does the author want me to do this?"
Make an informed judgment about the validity of these matters for actual practice. That is, ask yourself, "Do I believe that what the text or article suggests is a good thing? Is this better than what I am doing at present?"
Perhaps these eight rules strike a familiar chord, transporting graduate students back to their elementary school years when their teachers told them to survey a book before reading it. Although that's not bad advice, it doesn't get at the interactive and dynamic nature of reading a text or journal article for application in actual practice episodes (Sergiovanni, 1986) because authors oftentimes introduce and clarify key concepts as they develop their argument. Authors will also oftentimes contrast their concepts and arguments with what other authors have proposed. And, it is also not unusual for an author to lead the reader along only, in the last chapter, to pull everything together into a unified whole in a surprising way.
Is the solution to read the last chapter first?
No, definitely not. Because the process of reading develops one's powers of intellect, it is crucial for graduate students to think about all of the matters implied by Adler and Van Doren's (1972) eight rules as graduate students engage in the challenging work of reading. As one reads, then, the goal is to grasp the author's philosophy and main points and to note the key concepts the author uses in support of the argument as well. In addition, a good author will juxtapose arguments with other authors who have expressed contrary views. It is important, then, for graduate students to bounce these rival ideas around in their minds as they read, that is, if they are going to develop their intellectual powers. This is how reading can become interesting, if not enjoyable, as the reader begins to predict where the author is leading the reader and begins to respond to the text while reading it. Unfortunately, reading the last chapter first and knowing ahead of time where the author is leading the reader is like reading a mystery novel already knowing what the outcome is. This does not hone the mind's powers of intellect to become increasingly alert to clues, shifts, nuances, and gaps.
Interacting with one's reading...
As graduate students engage in reading required texts and journal articles, they should consider responding to the eight rules identified above. For some, making sidebar notes and underlining critical concepts and notions is a helpful way to achieve this objective. Other students prefer to keep notes, for example, by jotting their responses to the rules in a notebook, on sheets of paper, on the text's inside cover. Then, as graduate students continue their reading, they can revise and edit these ideas into annotations, that is, statements identifying what the text or journal article was about. In addition, students can reference these notes and annotations in classroom discourse and in one's course projects without having to flip through the text time and again to find the point one wishes to raise.
Interacting with a text or journal article---the process through which the student, the text, and one's notes clarify the responses to the eight rules---is what hones the student's ability to read well, to know what one is reading, and to be able to engage in intelligent conversation about an area of scholarly inquiry...which is the goal at the graduate level. In sum, this is why professors assign scholarly books and journal articles for their students to read. And, to the degree that graduate students engage successfully in reading well, they need not fear forgetting what they've read because they can reconstruct factual knowledge through scholarly discourse and inquiry.
Reading can be rewarding...What otherwise might be experienced as a very challenging and time-consuming chore---reading required texts and journal articles---can also become an interesting and rewarding personal and professional venture. What graduates students enrolled in programs of professional studies are required to read provides an opportunity to think about themselves, their lives, and their work in new ways, to critique their organizational experience from new perspectives, and to consider how they will use what they are reading and learning in actual practice.
One of the things professors are paid to do is to read books and journals, especially those relating to their area of scholarly inquiry. While many, if not most, professors spend a lot of time engaged in reading, most graduate students are not paid to read books and journals. Many are paid, however, by full-time employers and work 40 (or more) hours each week. These individuals do not possess the luxury of time to engage in reading books and journals that their professors possess.
During their undergraduate years, many students approached required course reading filled with a sense of reluctance. For these undergraduates, reading wasn't fun. No, it was something one had to endure in order to achieve a desired grade for the course. And so, these undergraduates were willing to read one or perhaps two textbooks; but, in the instance that a professor required students to read several (if not many) textbooks, undergraduates who were reluctant to read would most likely drop the course rather than devote the amount of time it would take to hone their ability to read well.
Unfortunately, these undergraduates based their judgment on the assumption that they had to memorize everything they were required to read for their courses. This assumption may well have been true: knowing that undergraduates typically won't read what professors require, some professors quiz students about the content of what they have (and especially, have not) read, especially the content not explicated in Cliff's Notes. Thus, reading meant memorizing and more reading meant more memorization. As they read, these students wondered: How am I to remember all of this stuff for a quiz or test? More likely than not, these students will forget what they memorized and will blackout when tested or quized on the material they read and memorized.
To the professor in the classroom, the tell-tale sign of an undergraduate student who reads required texts with reluctance is rather obvious. The first clue is any student who is poring through the text during class time. The second clue is any student whose text looks like it was dipped into a bucket of yellow highlighter ink.
Reading as a graduate student...
At the graduate level---and especially for those graduate students seeking degrees in professional studies---it is important to progress beyond this immature approach to reading textbooks and journal articles. These students need to consider two issues as they engage in reading. One of the most crucial issues focuses upon how to read a textbook. The second issue focuses upon why one is reading a textbook or journal article in the first place.
Yes, graduate students read books and journal articles to know what the author is communicating, that is, to become more competent not only in reading more advanced textual materials but also in one's knowledge of a scholarly field of inquiry. As important as this competency is (after all, the facts are the facts and knowing them is crucial), that is not the primary purpose for engaging in reading. At the graduate level, required reading is explicitly intended to introduce students systematically to a field of scholarly inquiry and through the exercise of reading, to inculcate in students the ability to converse intelligently about the content of that field, that is, to be conversant with it. Specifically, this means inculcating in the graduate student---through the process of reading---knowledge, understanding, and conversancy with intellectual history.
And yet, many graduate students---especially those who are used to memorizing what they read for their professors---find it almost impossible to believe that their professors don't want them to memorize what they are reading. Instead, imposing their undergraduate experience upon their graduate program like a template and complicating it with the fact of being employed at the same time means, for these students, that there will be no time "to have a life," that is, outside of class and for the next two years...at least. Looking at the pile of textbooks and journal articles depresses these students.
Unfortunately, these students have everything backwards. What they fail to recognize is that if only they would engage in reading purposefully, they would then not only develop greater competence in reading more advanced textual material but also in expressing what they know and understand as a consequence of reading. In addition, this process makes students quite conversant in scholarly dialogue and not only with the authors they are reading but also with others, especially their professors and classmates.
Reading texts and journal articles...
To approach required reading, then, the thought that graduate students should have in mind is: If I set about memorizing facts, I probably will not develop conversancy. But, if I set about developing conversancy through my reading, I will also increase my knowledge base.
To move beyond strict memorization and to develop the habit of reading well as well as becoming more conversant with an area of scholarly inquiry and to increase one's knowledge base, graduate students might read the required textbooks and journal articles for their courses following the eight rules proposed by Adler and Van Doren (1972):
Read the text or article as if it is a prescription for actual professional practice. That is, what is the literature telling you to do in actual practice?
Decide whether the text or article is theoretical or practical in its intent. That is, what is the author's intent? To theorize? To prescribe?
Classify the text or article according to the major strands of intellectual history. That is, does the literature give primary emphasis to general ideas that authors argue about?
Decide whether the text or article is about general issues or about more specific problems. That is, does the literature have as its objective to orient the reader and the reader's subsequent practice to deal with global issues or to provide tools to solve specific problems?
Identify the author's perspective. That is, what is the implicit philosophy embedded in the text or article?
Specify what the text or article advocates you to do. That is, ask yourself, "What does the author want me to do?"
Identify the purpose for which this is to be done. That is, ask yourself, "Why does the author want me to do this?"
Make an informed judgment about the validity of these matters for actual practice. That is, ask yourself, "Do I believe that what the text or article suggests is a good thing? Is this better than what I am doing at present?"
Perhaps these eight rules strike a familiar chord, transporting graduate students back to their elementary school years when their teachers told them to survey a book before reading it. Although that's not bad advice, it doesn't get at the interactive and dynamic nature of reading a text or journal article for application in actual practice episodes (Sergiovanni, 1986) because authors oftentimes introduce and clarify key concepts as they develop their argument. Authors will also oftentimes contrast their concepts and arguments with what other authors have proposed. And, it is also not unusual for an author to lead the reader along only, in the last chapter, to pull everything together into a unified whole in a surprising way.
Is the solution to read the last chapter first?
No, definitely not. Because the process of reading develops one's powers of intellect, it is crucial for graduate students to think about all of the matters implied by Adler and Van Doren's (1972) eight rules as graduate students engage in the challenging work of reading. As one reads, then, the goal is to grasp the author's philosophy and main points and to note the key concepts the author uses in support of the argument as well. In addition, a good author will juxtapose arguments with other authors who have expressed contrary views. It is important, then, for graduate students to bounce these rival ideas around in their minds as they read, that is, if they are going to develop their intellectual powers. This is how reading can become interesting, if not enjoyable, as the reader begins to predict where the author is leading the reader and begins to respond to the text while reading it. Unfortunately, reading the last chapter first and knowing ahead of time where the author is leading the reader is like reading a mystery novel already knowing what the outcome is. This does not hone the mind's powers of intellect to become increasingly alert to clues, shifts, nuances, and gaps.
Interacting with one's reading...
As graduate students engage in reading required texts and journal articles, they should consider responding to the eight rules identified above. For some, making sidebar notes and underlining critical concepts and notions is a helpful way to achieve this objective. Other students prefer to keep notes, for example, by jotting their responses to the rules in a notebook, on sheets of paper, on the text's inside cover. Then, as graduate students continue their reading, they can revise and edit these ideas into annotations, that is, statements identifying what the text or journal article was about. In addition, students can reference these notes and annotations in classroom discourse and in one's course projects without having to flip through the text time and again to find the point one wishes to raise.
Interacting with a text or journal article---the process through which the student, the text, and one's notes clarify the responses to the eight rules---is what hones the student's ability to read well, to know what one is reading, and to be able to engage in intelligent conversation about an area of scholarly inquiry...which is the goal at the graduate level. In sum, this is why professors assign scholarly books and journal articles for their students to read. And, to the degree that graduate students engage successfully in reading well, they need not fear forgetting what they've read because they can reconstruct factual knowledge through scholarly discourse and inquiry.
Reading can be rewarding...What otherwise might be experienced as a very challenging and time-consuming chore---reading required texts and journal articles---can also become an interesting and rewarding personal and professional venture. What graduates students enrolled in programs of professional studies are required to read provides an opportunity to think about themselves, their lives, and their work in new ways, to critique their organizational experience from new perspectives, and to consider how they will use what they are reading and learning in actual practice.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
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