The Medieval Origins of the Western Natural Rights Tradition : the Achievement of Brian Tierney

Brian Tierney has established himself over the course of forty-five years of writing and teaching as one of the world's leading authorities on the history of medieval canon law and political thought. In a series of foundational works, he has offered important new interpretations of the origins of Western constitutionalism, tracing many concepts believed to be modem or early modem innovations to the work of twelfth-century canon lawyers.' He has spent the past fifteen years ex-