Latin noun (the plural is auctoritates), literally meaning "authority". Referring to the Middle Ages, this terms is used to mean those people whose ideas and culture were considered perfect and untouchable, as supreme undiscussable models. In the Middle Ages, the political auctoritas was the Emperor and the religious auctoritas was the Pope. Culturally, the auctoritates were the Bible and the work of Aristotle.

Auctoritas is the Latin origin of English "authority". According to Benveniste , auctor (which also gives us English "author") is derived from Latin augeō ("to augment"): The auctor is is qui auget, the one who augments the act or the juridical situation of another. (J.B.