Preaching the body politic: John of Wales and Franciscan political thought in the late thirteenth century

This chapter explores how John of Wales, OFM, integrated extensive citation from the De XII abusiuis saeculi with Stoic thought in the tradition of John of Salisbury to generate a new vision of the Christian body politic in his popular manual for preachers, the Communiloquium. Unusually, he prioritized the twelfth abuse, a people without law, rediscovering the original social emphasis of the Twelve Abuses. John probably encountered the Twelve Abuses in the context of the baronial rebellion in mid-thirteenth century England, but used it to encourage guided conversation as a means of promoting moral and socio-political reform, rather than advocating violence. The popularity of his Communiloquium may have promoted wider acquaintance with the Twelve Abuses in the later Middle Ages.