Online text: “Charlemagne & Kingship: The Responsibility of Absolute Power”, by Jane Swotchak Ourand

See this online text:

• Charlemagne and Kingship: The Responsibility of Absolute Power (M.A. Thesis), by Jane Swotchak Ourand, Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts (1988). Available in pdf format through ScholarWorks@UMassAmherst. [Note: Although it is not certain if this text was written by a Catholic Christian, it provides a useful introduction to the political ideas of Western Christendom’s foremost prince and, we believe, an appropriate model for other Christians in political life.]

See also the texts and ebooks listed on the pages History and Biography, Secular Law and Society and Social Teaching; under sub-list IX.B. Church and State on the page Church and Ecclesiology; and on the post “Free ebook: Church and State in the Formation of Christendom, by T.W. Allies“; as well as the following:

• Augustine and the Art of Ruling in the Carolingian Imperial Period: Political Discourse in Alcuin of York and Hincmar of Rheims, by Sophia Moesch, Ph.D. (London, New York: Routledge, 2020). Available in pdf format on this page at OAPEN. The text states: ““The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.” [Note: It is not certain if this text was written by a Catholic Christian. Nonetheless, the text is of value to researchers interested in the Christian civilisation of Latin Europe.]
• De l’Union Intime de la Foi Catholique et de la Foi Monarchique en France, par Ch. De Caqueray (Paris: Allouard et Kaeppelin, 1850). Disponible en Internet Archive et Open Library.

In belated remembrance of Charles the Great / Charlemagne, King of the Franks, Emperor of the Romans, Defender of Christendom. For other texts and ebooks, you may access the List of Free eBooks (Arranged by Title), the List of Free eBooks (Grouped by Subject), the List of Worth-It Catholic Books & eBooks, and the main page of the Catholic eBooks Project. From the text:

“[T]he most important factor that explains Charlemagne’s success and his enduring reputation lies in his conception of kingship… distinguished… by an awareness that power implies responsibility… The king’s power comes directly from God and elevates him to a status above all others, but, by its very nature, such power is limited by the king’s accountability to God for its proper exercise… [H]e saw himself as father to his people, with responsibility for their spiritual and physical well-being… [which] enjoined him to assume as his special concern the welfare of widows, orphans, the poor- all those least able to protect themselves.”

Online text: “Due Process, Community, and the Prince in the Evolution of the Ordo Iudiciarius”, by Dr. Kenneth Pennington

See this online text:

• “Due Process, Community, and the Prince in the Evolution of the Ordo Iudiciarius”, by Kenneth Pennington, Ph.D., Rivista Internazionale Di Diritto Commune, Vol. 9 (1998): pp. 9-47. Available in pdf format at the CUA Law Scholarship Repository; and available at Academia.edu. A slightly revised version may be read online at Ken Pennington.

On the Feast of Saint Susanna the Righteous in the Maronite Rite. For other texts and ebooks, you may access the List of Free eBooks (Arranged by Title), the List of Free eBooks (Grouped by Subject), the List of Worth-It Catholic Books & eBooks, and the main page of the Catholic eBooks Project.

Online text: “The Medieval University and the Ethos of Knowledge”, by Ana Paula Magalhães

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• “The Medieval University and the Ethos of Knowledge: Franciscan Friars, Patristic Tradition, and Scholastic ‘Instruments’”, by Professor Ana Paula Tavares Magalhães, Acta Scientiarum: Education, v. 37, n. 3, (July-Sept., 2015): pp. 237-245. Available in pdf format (here) through this page of the Digital Library of Intellectual Production of Universidade de São Paulo; at the Fundación Dialnet; and at ResearchGate.

On the Memorial of Saint Bonaventure of Bagnoregio in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite. See also these other texts by or about the Seraphic Doctor:

• “Francis of Assisi and Bonaventure’s Theology of the Cross”, by Noel Muscat, OFM. Available in pdf format at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine (the 14 May 2014 snapshot of the page from the former website of the Five Franciscan Martyrs Region of the Secular Franciscan Order).
• The Life of St. Francis of Assisi; from the ‘Legenda Santi Francisci’ of S. Bonaventure, edited and with a preface by the Archbishop of Westminster, Henry Edward [Manning] (London: R. Washbourne, 1868]. May be downloaded in PDF format through the Saints’ Books index. May be read online, and available in pdf, epub, mobi, and other formats, at Internet Archive.
• Des Sept Dons du Saint-Esprit, par Saint Bonaventure, Docteur de l’église. Disponible en JesusMarie.com.
• Théologie Séraphique: Extraite et Traduite des Oeuvres de Saint Bonaventure; Contenant “L’Itineraire de l’Ame vers Dieu”, “Le Traité du Mepris du Monde”, “L’Ecuelle d’Or des Vertus”, “Le Bouquet Spirituel”, “Le Traité des Vertus”, et “L’Incendie de l’Amour”, par l’Abbé Celeste Alix, et par Acc. Alix (Paris: Jacques LeCoffre et Cie., 1853). Disponible dans Internet Archive.

For other online texts and legally free ebooks, you may access the List of Free eBooks (Arranged by Title) and the List of Free eBooks (Grouped by Subject).

Online ebook: “Saint Bonaventure”, by Fr. Laurence Costelloe

See this online ebook:

• Saint Bonaventure: The Seraphic Doctor; Minister-General of the Franciscan Order; Cardinal Bishop of Albano, by the Rev. Fr. Laurence Costelloe, O.F.M. (New York: London, Bombay and Calcutta: Longmans, Green and Co., 1911). With Imprimatur. Available at Internet Archive, ManyBooks.net, and  Project Gutenberg.

See also these texts by and about the Seraphic Doctor (very incomplete list):

• Address at a Meeting with the Local People during a Pastoral Visit to Viterbo and Bagnoregio, by Pope Benedict XVI, 6 September 2009. May be read online at the Holy See. [N.B., The address concerned Saint Bonaventure of Bonaventure.]
• “Francis of Assisi and Bonaventure’s Theology of the Cross”, by Noel Muscat, OFM. Available in pdf format at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine (the 14 May 2014 snapshot of the page from the former website of the Five Franciscan Martyrs Region of the Secular Franciscan Order).
• The Life of St. Francis of Assisi; from the ‘Legenda Santi Francisci’ of S. Bonaventure, edited and with a preface by the Archbishop of Westminster, Henry Edward [Manning] (London: R. Washbourne, 1868]. May be downloaded in PDF format through the Saints’ Books index. May be read online, and available in pdf, epub, mobi, and other formats, at Internet Archive.
• Loving in the Present: The Theological and Pastoral Influences of St. Bonaventure’s Critical Retrieval of Joachim of Fiore on Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI (Theology Graduate Thesis), by William L. Patenaude (2013). Available in pdf format at Providence College Digital Commons.
• “The Medieval University and the Ethos of Knowledge: Franciscan Friars, Patristic Tradition, and Scholastic ‘Instruments’”, by Professor Ana Paula Tavares Magalhães, Acta Scientiarum: Education, v. 37, n. 3, (July-Sept., 2015): pp. 237-245. Available in pdf format (here) through this page of the Digital Library of Intellectual Production of Universidade de São Paulo; at the Fundación Dialnet; and at ResearchGate.
• Des Sept Dons du Saint-Esprit, par Saint Bonaventure, Docteur de l’église. Disponible à JesusMarie.com.
• “St Bonaventure and the History of Salvation”, by Pope Benedict XVI (Preface of the second volume of Gesammelte Schriften by Joseph Ratzinger). Taken from: L’Osservatore Romano, Weekly Edition in English, 23 September 2009, page 7. May be read on this page of the EWTN Libraries.
• “St. Bonaventure, Benedict XVI, and the New Evangelization”, by William L. Patenaude, May 9, 2012, at Catholic World Report.
• Théologie Séraphique: Extraite et Traduite des Oeuvres de Saint Bonaventure; Contenant “L’Itineraire de l’Ame vers Dieu”, “Le Traité du Mepris du Monde”, “L’Ecuelle d’Or des Vertus”, “Le Bouquet Spirituel”, “Le Traité des Vertus”, et “L’Incendie de l’Amour”, par l’Abbé Celeste Alix, et par Acc. Alix (Paris: Jacques LeCoffre et Cie., 1853). Disponible à Internet Archive.
• [Three Discourses on Saint Bonaventure] by Pope Benedict XVI: (1) General Audience of 3 March 2010 The text may be read at the Holy See, and the video address may be viewed at Youtube; (2) General Audience of 10 March 2010. The text may be read at the Holy See, and the video address entitled “St. Bonaventure and [the] Theology of history” may be viewed at Youtube; and (3) General Audience on 17 March 2010. The text may be read at the Holy See, and the video address may be viewed at Youtube.

On the Feast of Saint Bonaventure of Bagnoregio in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite. For other online texts and legally free ebooks, you may access the List of Free eBooks (Arranged by Title) and the List of Free eBooks (Grouped by Subject).

Online text: “Thomists and Thomas Aquinas on the Foundation of Mathematics”, by Armand Maurer

See this online text:

• “Thomists and Thomas Aquinas on the Foundation of Mathematics”, by Armand Maurer, Review of Metaphysics, vol. 47, no. 1 (1993): pp. 43-61. Available in pdf format at the University of Arizona.

Retroactively posted on March 14 at 1:59 a.m. for Pi (π) Day and the anniversary of the birth of Albert Einstein. For other online texts and more legally free ebooks, you may access the List of Free eBooks (Arranged by Title) and the List of Free eBooks (Grouped by Subject).

 

Online text: “The Medieval Revival of Roman Law: Implications for Contemporary Legal Education”, by Henry Mather

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• “The Medieval Revival of Roman Law: Implications for Contemporary Legal Education”, by Henry Mather, The Catholic Lawyer, Vol. 41, No. 4 (2017): pp. 323-362. Available in pdf format through this page of The Catholic Lawyer.

On the feast of Saint Edmund of Abingdon; and on the anniversary of the publication of the 2nd edition of the Corpus Iuris Civilis. For other legally free ebooks, you may access the List of Free eBooks (Arranged by Title) and the List of Free eBooks (Grouped by Subject).

“If there is an expression of the unity of the human race and of equality between all human beings, this expression is rightly given by the law, which can exclude no one from its horizon under pain of altering its specific identity. In this perspective, the international community’s efforts in recent decades to proclaim, defend and promote basic human rights are the best way that law can fulfil its profound vocation. Therefore jurists must always feel they are in the front line in the defence of human rights, for through them it is the human person’s very identity that is defended…

“What Catholic jurists and those who share the same faith possess is the awareness that their work, passionately supporting justice, equity and the common good, belongs to the plan of God, who asks all human beings to recognize one another as brothers and sisters, as children of one merciful Father, and who gives them the mission of defending every individual, especially the weakest, and of building a society on earth that conforms to the requirements of the Gospel. The establishment of universal brotherhood certainly cannot be the result of jurists’ efforts alone, but their contribution to accomplishing this task is specific and indispensable.”

(John Paul II, Address to the International Union of Catholic Jurists, 24 November 2000. Paragraph breaks modified)

Online text: “Duns Scotus on Metaphysics”, by Peter King

See this online text:

• “Duns Scotus on Metaphysics”, by Peter King, in The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus (Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 15–68. Available in pdf format at the University of Toronto (linked from the Bl. John Duns Scotus page of the Franciscan Archive).

On the Feast of Blessed John Duns Scotus. For other legally free ebooks, you may access the List of Free eBooks (Arranged by Title) and the List of Free eBooks (Grouped by Subject).

“Concerning the teaching on the Immaculate Conception, important theologians like Duns Scotus enriched what the People of God already spontaneously believed about the Blessed Virgin and expressed in acts of devotion, in the arts and in Christian life in general with the specific contribution of their thought. Thus faith both in the Immaculate Conception and in the bodily Assumption of the Virgin was already present in the People of God, while theology had not yet found the key to interpreting it in the totality of the doctrine of the faith.

“The People of God therefore precede theologians and this is all thanks to that supernatural sensus fidei, namely, that capacity infused by the Holy Spirit that qualifies us to embrace the reality of the faith with humility of heart and mind. In this sense, the People of God is the “teacher that goes first” and must then be more deeply examined and intellectually accepted by theology. May theologians always be ready to listen to this source of faith and retain the humility and simplicity of children!” (Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience of 7 July 2010)

Online ebook: “On Kingship”, by Saint Thomas Aquinas

See this online ebook:

• On Kingship: To the King of Cyprus (De regem ad regem Cypri), by Saint Thomas Aquinas, translated by Gerald B. Phelan, revised by I. Th. Eschmann, O.P. (Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1949). Re-edited and chapter numbers aligned with Latin, by Joseph Kenny, O.P. [The English-Latin parallel text (here) and the English text (here) may be read online through the index of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Works in English at the Dominican House of Studies, Priory of the Immaculate Conception.]
  • Update: We regret to inform our readers that the above links have become inactive as of 19 December 2020. In default of suitable replacement links or texts, we recommend the texts indexed on the pages Ethics and Moral Law and Society and Social Teaching.

On the Memorial of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist in the Roman Rite. For other texts and ebooks, you may access the List of Free eBooks (Arranged by Title), the List of Free eBooks (Grouped by Subject), the List of Worth-It Catholic Books & eBooks, and the main page of the Catholic eBooks Project.

Free ebook: “The Orthodox Eastern Church”, by Dr. Adrian Fortescue

See this legally free ebook:

• The Orthodox Eastern Church, 2^nd edition, by Adrian Fortescue, Ph.D., D.D. (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1908). May be read online, and available in various formats (pdf, mobi/kindle, epub, etc.) at Internet Archive and Open Library., with a second copy at Internet Archive and Open Library. The 1^st edition (1907), with illustrations by the author, is available at Internet Archive and Open Library.

On the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle in the one true Church. For other legally free ebooks, you may access the List of Free eBooks (Arranged by Title) and the List of Free eBooks (Grouped by Subject).

O God, our refuge and our strength, look down with mercy upon the people who cry to Thee; and by the intercession of the glorious and immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God, of Saint Joseph her spouse, of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and of all the saints, in Thy mercy and goodness hear our prayers for the conversion of sinners, and for the liberty and exaltation of the Holy Mother the Church. Through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen. (From Sancta Missa)

Online text: “The Divine Will and the Human Will of Jesus Christ”, by Leonard Tony Farauanu

See this online text:

• “The Divine Will and the Human Will of Jesus Christ: The Answer of St. Maximus the Confessor and St. Thomas Aquinas to Monothelitism”, by Leonard Tony Farauanu, Studia Theologica VIII, 4/2009, pp. 237–249. Available in PDF format (on this page) at Studia Theologica.

On the Memorial of Pope St. Martin I in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite. For other legally free ebooks, you may access the List of Free eBooks (Arranged by Title) and the List of Free eBooks (Grouped by Subject). Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man!