Abstract

The Quaestio de potestate papae, commonly known by its incipit, Rex pacificus, has long been recognized as a scholastic tract written sometime during the struggle between Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII. However, its authorship and exact date of composition have been shrouded in mystery. Of seven recorded manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, none has offered a clue as to the author of the treatise or the circumstance of its composition. The treatise was translated into French for Charles V, but the translator, Raoul de Presles, left no information to resolve the questions of date and authorship. When the treatise was printed for the first time in 1506, the editor, Jean Petit, identified the Quaestio de potestate papae as the work of an unknown. Subsequent reprintings in 1614 and 1655 offer no further elucidation. jQuery.click { event.preventDefault(); })