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Influential thinkers like John Wycliffe and Marsilius of Padua began to question the worldly authority of both the Church and the state, arguing that power rested ultimately with the populace rather than the ruler, and the unworthy ruler could lose their right to govern.

He had gathered round him strange allies; on the one hand, the more advanced Franciscans, apostles of the cause of clerical disendowment, and inimical to a wealthy papacy; on the other hand, jurists like Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, who brought to the cause of Louis the spirit and the doctrines which had already been used in the struggle between Boniface VIII. and Philip IV. of France.

Because it was a being of their thought, it stirred men to reflection: the Empire, particularly in its clash with the Papacy, produced a political consciousness and a political speculation reflected for us in the many libelli de lite imperatorum et pontificum, and in the pages of Dante and Marsilius of Padua.

The absolutist principles cherished by the papal court in the 12th and 13th centuries did not pass unchallenged; but the protests of Marsilius of Padua and the less radical William of Occam remained barren until the Great Schism of 1378.

The ablest writer of the Ghibelline party was Marsilius of Padua.