The Voice of the People?

Over the last two centuries, Europe has developed various forms of political representation from which democratic parliamentary systems gradually emerged. This book unravels the conditions, scale and impact under which political participation of common burghers and peasants emerged.

Autorentext

Wim Blockmans is Professor Emeritus of Medieval History at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. His previous publications include the co-editing of The Routledge History Handbook of Maritime Trade around Europe 13001600 (2016).

Inhalt

1 Historical roots of political voice

Voice and representation

A unique achievement

Continuity? 9

The state of research

Terminology

Theoretical points of departure

Political participation today

This book

2 The playing field is demarcated: Communities and political landscapes

Increasing differences in development

The geographic environment

The formation of political units from a dominant core

The imperial obsession

Alliances of free communities

Coasts, rivers and land masses

The political geography

The playing field

3 The players: The formation of political communities

Estates and their representation

The first estate: the clergy

The second estate: the nobility

Peace movements

Precedence

Concentration of power

Counsel and action

England: the early kingdom

Dynastic wars, bad kings and rebellious barons

Balances of power: Catalonia and Aragon

Dynastic discontinuity

Castile and León

Brabant and Castile

The leading actors

4 Game changers: The third estate makes itself heard

The Italian polyarchy

The astonishing North

The social composition of the Tuscan population

The Papal States

The South

Balances of power

Popular sovereignty in Flanders

Commercial interests

Peasants' voice

The common concern for water management in the Low Countries

Core concepts in the political debate

The triangular relationship: prince, nobility, cities

5 Within the lines: Institutionalized political voice

The vulnerability of princes

The Iberian cortes and Languedoc

Abuse of power and tyranny in England

Political voice on war

Representation of the land?

City leagues in the German realm

The microcosm of the Low Countries

From the Meuse region urban league to the land of Liège

The first socio-political revolution: Flanders

From city leagues to the Brabant constitutional tradition

Estates and princely ambitions

Contrasts

Expansion and emancipation

6 Spectators invade the pitch

The first religiously inspired revolution: Bohemia

The bourgeois revolution in the Low Countries

Church and religion as sources of division

The first sovereign popular representation

Religious polarization in the German realm

Elective kings and regional power in central Europe

Poland

Hungary

Swiss Confederation

Seizure of power by the privileged in France

Republics among monarchies

The Reformation as catalyst

7 Distribution of gain and loss

Societies in figures

Numbers of people and concentrations

Composition of the population

Forms of aristocratic rule in central and eastern Europe

Balances of power in the Holy Roman Empire

A dramatic case: Saxony

Estate members as brokers in the French periphery

The subjugation of Catalonia and the 'long sleep' of Iberia

Conclusion

8 The champions and the excluded

Sovereign republics

Revolution turning into oligarchy: the United Provinces

England and the United Kingdom: the monarchical republic

The bloody road to a constitutional monarchy

The consolidated Parliament

Sweden, a separate case

The formative period

Royal voluntarism and parliamentary opposition

Political parties

Colonies and the other excluded

Ireland

North America

Ascending and descending power

9 Conclusions: Participation versus Effectiveness

A dash of political anthropology

Phases of expansion and contraction

Political voice? Concerning what? The developmental phase, 1100-1350

Consolidation and trials of strength 1350-1600

Constitutional representation or fiscal-military monarchy, 1600-1848

The fundamental dynamics

Emancipation and stagnation

Representation from below

State power

Institutional inertia

The continuity of political cultures

General bibliography, Index