Ockham's philosophical and theological writings are difficult to interpret; they contain little that is directly concerned with politics, and Ockham himself seldom referred to them in the polemical writings central to the present study. For these reasons, and fortified by the example of such scholars as Boehner, Jacob, and Bayley, we have attempted in the preceding chapters to understand Ockham's political thought in its own terms, with little reference to his predominantly earlier work in other fields. This course has led to a surprisingly clear view of the territory so far explored. That we have been proceeding in a reasonable direction is also attested by the moderate, somewhat anti-metaphysical character of Ockham's chief constitutional doctrines. Yet, if it would be an ‘adventure’ or a ‘construction of the writer’, as Boehner has it, to develop Ockham's political ideas from his ‘so-called metaphysics’, it does not follow that there is no significant connection between the academic and political phases of his thought.