The Necessary Cruelty of Medieval Rulers

A detailed Summary of The Necessary Cruelty of Medieval Rulers

In reading Machiavelli's The Prince, one would gather many insights into the sort of moves a ruler should make and into the mind of Machiavelli. Machiavelli has many topics and gives a lot of advice, but some of his advice is more drastic than others. For instance, Machiavelli states that cruelty should be pursued in occasional acts of severity as needed to put a message out to the public. It is used to set an example and grab the attention and most importantly fear of the prince's subjects. Machiavelli states this because in order for the Prince to keep his subjects fearing him, which Machiavelli leans toward as a better option than their love, the Prince must exercise his authority and show the people that he means business. In order to keep them under control and prevent any sort of insurrection. Therefore, Machiavelli's references to necessary cruelty and being feared are simply actions a ruler must take to keep safety and order in a kingdom.

Cruelty is a subject which dictators and princes alike have dealt with as long as crimes have required punishment. It is a tough subject for a ruler to deal with, but it is necessary that a ruler, according to Machiavelli's point of view, be cruel when it is needed. Machiavelli's

In Machiavelli's The Prince he makes many references toward being cruel in order to preserve safety in a ruler's domain. He stresses that smaller acts of severity be inflicted before things become drastic for a crime problem. He sets a good point that it is safer to be feared than loved and that cruelty preserves fear. In turn he basically means that in order to preserve a good, safe kingdom a ruler must be cruel, and he must gain fear from his subjects.

The number of criminal's increases, and the possibility for some sort of insurrection increases. However this sort of rebellious feeling is not always the case. It could just be that more criminals are arising. Then when the Prince finally decides that for the sake of obedience he must be cruel. He is forced to commit cruel acts which dwarf the original cruel steps that he should've taken. Then when he takes these now completely necessary steps to get rid of his problems, he is made out to be a butcher before the public. Machiavelli makes perfect sense in this point. What ruler would look more just, a ruler who hangs two men for the murder of a soldier, or a ruler who hangs twenty for an attempted act of rebellion against many soldiers? Obviously, the first ruler looks less cruel in punishing two for a crime than the second one does in executing twenty. As Machiavelli states concerning the cruelty against many wh

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Approximate Word count = 940
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History