Ancient and medieval life and institutions have received much attention and have been the source of a literature which throws a brilliant lustre upon the scholarship of England and America. Besides the political and ecclesiastical institutions that have particularly attracted investigators, the conscious reflection of the peoples treated has been traced out with much diligence in the fields of belles-lettres, theology, metaphysics and ethics; but no one hitherto has sought to follow through ancient and medieval times the course of ideas on the topics of political science. It is to fill the void here indicated that the present volume is submitted to an indulgent public. The author feels no overwhelming confidence that the work is worthy of the subject; yet he hopes to have contributed something toward a clarification of our knowledge. If the successive transformations through which the political consciousness of men has passed from early antiquity to modern times are rendered in any degree more intelligible, or even if any suggestion is given through which another pen may hereafter render them more intelligible, this volume will not have been issued in vain.
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