Marsilius of Padua: The Defender of the Peace

At this point, however, we should say something of the unity of that which exercises the function of prince or the principate. Let us make a start on this subject and say that in a single city or a single realm there should be only one single principate; or if there are several, in number or in species – as seems expedient in great cities, and most of all in a realm taken in its first sense – then there should be among them one in number that is supreme over all, to which and through which the rest are reduced and regulated, and any errors that arise in them corrected.

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Now it is only this principate, sc. the supreme, that I say must necessarily be one in number, and not several, if the realm or city is to be rightly ordered. And I say the same of that which exercises the function of prince: a prince that is one in number, not in respect of human subject but in respect of office. For there is a type of supreme and well-tempered principate that is one in number and where more than one man exercises the function of prince, as in an aristocracy and a polity (of which we spoke in chapter 8 of this discourse). These several individuals do indeed form a principate that is one in number in respect of function, because of the numerical unity of whatever action, judgement or sentence or command issues from them; for no such action can issue from any one of these individuals by himself, but only from their common decree and consent or that of their prevailing part, according to the laws that have been established in these matters. And because of the numerical unity of the action that issues from them in this way, the principate is and is said to be one in number, whether it is ruled by one man or several.