Politically indeed the teaching of the schoolmen was of immense value, for
it set on a religious basis and gave an intellectual form to the
constitutional theory of the relations between king and people which was
slowly emerging from the struggle with the Crown. In assuming the
responsibility of a Christian king to God for the good government of his
realm, in surrounding the pledges whether of ruler or ruled with religious
sanctions, the mediæval Church entered its protest against any personal
despotism. The schoolmen pushed further still to the doctrine of a contract
between king and people; and their trenchant logic made short work of the
royal claims to irresponsible power and unquestioning obedience. "He who
would be in truth a king," ran a poem which embodies their teaching at this
time in pungent verse--"he is a 'free king' indeed if he rightly rule
himself and his realm. All things are lawful to him for the government of
his realm, but nothing is lawful to him for its destruction. It is one
thing to rule according to a king's duty, another to destroy a kingdom by
resisting the law." "Let the community of the realm advise, and let it be
known what the generality, to whom their laws are best known, think on the
matter. They who are ruled by the laws know those laws best; they who make
daily trial of them are best acquainted with them; and since it is their
own affairs which are at stake they will take the more care and will act
with an eye to their own peace." "It concerns the community to see what
sort of men ought justly to be chosen for the weal of the realm." The
constitutional restrictions on the royal authority, the right of the whole
nation to deliberate and decide on its own affairs and to have a voice in
the selection of the administrators of government, had never been so
clearly stated before. But the importance of the Friar's work lay in this,
that the work of the scholar was supplemented by that of the popular
preacher. The theory of government wrought out in cell and lecture-room was
carried over the length and breadth of the land by the mendicant brother,
begging his way from town to town, chatting with farmer or housewife at the