Marsilius of Padua

Lawmaking belongs to the whole body of citizens.

In Defensor Pacis, Marsilius argued that the coercive force of law comes only from the citizen body, that the clergy hold no worldly jurisdiction, and that a ruler governing against the common good may be corrected. Written against papal absolutism, it gave later defenders of limited government the argument that legitimacy flows upward from the governed rather than down from an office.