The Individual and Society in the Middle Ages (Routledge Revivals)

Originally published in 1967, these lectures delivered at The Johns Hopkins University focus attention on the historically and politically crucial distinction between the individual as a mere subject of higher authority and the individual as an autonomous and independent citizen. The author’s command of the source material enables him to show why the conception of the individual as a subject predominated in the earlier Middle Ages. He throws into clear relief the multifarious factors which brought about the emergence of the citizen as an individual taking full part in public government. Ullman’s studies demonstrated the constructive role which feudalism played in the transformation of the subject into a citizen, and in doing so throw much light on the development of English common law and set the problem of modern constitutionalism in its historical context. The book opens up entirely new perspectives in the history of political and social ideas.