Marsilio de Padua: Excerpts from "The Defender of Peace"

Abstract

On the need to make laws (taken in its broadest sense) and that no ruler, however virtuous, can govern without laws.

The main purpose of the law is justice and the common good, secondly, it must provide security for the rulers, especially those who agreed to the inheritance and those who assume a long mandate. The primary need of the law, then, can be established as such. In a political community, laws are needed to make decisions about that community that are fair. (...)