And the Res Publica distinction was what let Rome become an Empire where other city states couldn't -- Rome could widen the border of citizenship, though it didn't do it easily.
I think you underestimate the significance of the Rule of Law which was the enduring Roman legacy to the West -- often via the Church, especially outside the old borders. During the collapse of the Western Empire, people kept saying what a scandal it was that Bishops administered their own justice and held courts, but in fact it was a way Roman law and Roman concepts of law survived. If you look at the Laws of Hywel Dda (ninth century, Wales -- and he had a parliament too) you see all these odd Celtic survivals mixed with odd Roman survivals but what you see most of all is the idea of a codified law code and a land ruled by laws not people. I don't think you'd have had the charters and so on if not coming from this soil -- it was lost in the East.
Also, you touch on this idea with John not keeping his oaths -- the underlying bedrock of "Christendom" as they called their civilization, was that everyone (except enemies across the borders and the Jewish minority, whose rights were accordingly limited and who were from time to time persecuted) was a Christian and could take a Christian oath and be counted on to keep it. I don't think you can have an oath-bound society under law without the belief in a deity on top watching and making sure everyone keeps their word.
One of the things that drives me mad in fantasy and religious novels is the author assuming that the Church of some early period of the Church of the Spanish Inquisition, or even worse, modern US fundamentalism.
I don't suppose you've read my novels The King's Peace and The King's Name? Because I did a lot of stuff with the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West and the Saxon invasions and the consequent shifts in society, and the incoming of Christianity, as well as the change from a city-based to a village based civilization -- the whole cusp of Late Antiquity to Early Medieval thing -- in those books, and you seem like someone who might actually appreciate that.
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Date: 2006-07-02 12:49 pm (UTC)1776? You mean 1680, surely?
And the Res Publica distinction was what let Rome become an Empire where other city states couldn't -- Rome could widen the border of citizenship, though it didn't do it easily.
I think you underestimate the significance of the Rule of Law which was the enduring Roman legacy to the West -- often via the Church, especially outside the old borders. During the collapse of the Western Empire, people kept saying what a scandal it was that Bishops administered their own justice and held courts, but in fact it was a way Roman law and Roman concepts of law survived. If you look at the Laws of Hywel Dda (ninth century, Wales -- and he had a parliament too) you see all these odd Celtic survivals mixed with odd Roman survivals but what you see most of all is the idea of a codified law code and a land ruled by laws not people. I don't think you'd have had the charters and so on if not coming from this soil -- it was lost in the East.
Also, you touch on this idea with John not keeping his oaths -- the underlying bedrock of "Christendom" as they called their civilization, was that everyone (except enemies across the borders and the Jewish minority, whose rights were accordingly limited and who were from time to time persecuted) was a Christian and could take a Christian oath and be counted on to keep it. I don't think you can have an oath-bound society under law without the belief in a deity on top watching and making sure everyone keeps their word.
One of the things that drives me mad in fantasy and religious novels is the author assuming that the Church of some early period of the Church of the Spanish Inquisition, or even worse, modern US fundamentalism.
I don't suppose you've read my novels The King's Peace and The King's Name? Because I did a lot of stuff with the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West and the Saxon invasions and the consequent shifts in society, and the incoming of Christianity, as well as the change from a city-based to a village based civilization -- the whole cusp of Late Antiquity to Early Medieval thing -- in those books, and you seem like someone who might actually appreciate that.