Um Direito sem Estado: a noção de autonomia como fundamento da constituição jurídica medieval

ABSTRACT: This paper intends to propose the notion of autonomy as a key to understanding the medieval legal constitution. The proposal starts from the concern to avoid the anachronism of the projection of concepts so markedly modern, as State and sovereignty, in the Middle Ages, that is, of notions that tend to absolutize and to see the Law as an expression of a totalizing political entity. The notion of autonomy, stripped of any statist character and understood as institutional autonomy, allows a better understanding of a pluralistic legal experience such as the medieval one, in which law is much more the invisible pillar of society and not so much a reflection of the will of the political power, which, in turn, immersed in a set of relations, acted little as legislators or absolute rulers of a particular territory (which has a correlation with the non-absolute character of the medieval dominium, institute of private law).