Kings, Peers, and Parliament: Virtue and Corulership in Walter Burley's Commentarius in VIII Libros Politicorum Aristotelis*
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Although he was one of the most eminent philosophers of the early fourteenth century, Walter Burley has seldom attracted much attention for his contributions to political theory. To some extent, this neglect may be blamed on the unfortunate history of the dissemination of Burley's major political work, theCommentarius in VIII Libros Politicorum Aristotelis(composed between 1338 and 1343). While widely circulated during the later Middle Ages, a fact indicated by the large number of extant manuscripts, theCommentariusdid not follow Burley's other commentaries on Aristotle's writings into print during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. To my knowledge, no satisfactory explanation has ever been adduced for this lacuna, but it has not been rectified to the present day; a printed edition of theCommentarius, based either on a single manuscript or a critical examination of all the manuscripts, has yet to appear. This absence of a printed version of the text is especially inexplicable in view of the rarity of commentaries on thePoliticsprior to the end of the fourteenth century.
