It would be romanticism to evoke the Middle Ages from its tomb to serve as a model for our own thinking about political morals. However, quite apart from the specific and characteristic medieval features, there is another element which goes back to antiquity and forward into our modern epoch—the great continuity of ideas embraced in the terminology and the practical rules which make for their efficiency. It may be worthwhile to study these ideas instead of dismissing them as unimportant generalities.