This chapter examines the role which theological considerations have played in conceiving of popular sovereignty. It does so by way of an examination of J.N. Figgis and the influence his historical narrative has had on Quentin Skinner’s enormously influential take on the origins of the modern state and on the conceptions of authorisation, representation and popular sovereignty which undergird it. Both Figgis and Skinner trace sovereignty’s roots to ancient Roman notions of imperium and popular sovereignty’s roots to late medieval conciliarism. The normative lessons each drew from their histories differed, though. For Figgis it led him to develop a theory of authorisation of rulers which yielded a state that was a communitas communitatum, a community of communities, a society of social unions. For Skinner, this history led him to embrace the Hobbesian modern unitary state and an understanding of popular sovereignty consonant with it. This chapter shows that these normative differences stem from theological differences, not differences of historical interpretation, and invites readers to question the coherency of a chronological, conceptual history of popular sovereignty.