Quentin Skinner accorded scholastic authors a prominent role in putting in place ‘the foundations of modern political thought’. This much is plain if we consider the four essential preconditions for ‘the acquisition of the modern concept of the State’ that he listed in his conclusion. Skinner postulated, first, that ‘the sphere of politics should be envisaged as a distinct branch of moral philosophy, a branch concerned with the art of government’; secondly, that ‘the independence of each regnum or civitas from any external and superior power should be vindicated and assured’; that ‘the supreme authority within each independent regnum should be recognised as having no rivals within its own territories as a law-making power and an object of allegiance’; and finally that ‘political society is held to exist solely for political purposes’. According to the narrative offered over the course of the two volumes of Foundations, thirteenth-century scholastic doctors at the university of Paris, together with those members of religious orders and others who developed their work in the context of the northern Italian city-states, were critical in establishing the first precondition, by vindicating Aristotle's vision of politics against conservative forces within the church.