archaeological and ethnological series now being issued by its press, includes monographs which embody the results of the latest research in this field. Of special importance are the treatises,1 by H. Munro Chadwick, Fellow of Clare College, in which primitive conditions in England and on the continent are surveyed, and then Teutonic antiquities are compared with Greek, Celtic and Slavonic antiquities. The general nature of the conclusions reached is indicated by such extracts as the following:

"It is commonly assumed that before the period of autocracy a more or less democratic form of government prevailed, the chief power being vested in a tribal assembly, but the primitive assembly seems rather to have been religious gatherings of hereditary local chiefs with their followers. . . From the very beginning of historical times we meet with a system in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which may be described as more or less autocratic. Conditions which go back to the fourth century give no hint of a different type of government."

The assemblies to which Turner and Kemble, followed by Freeman, imputed a representative character, were "essentially meetings of the king's personal dependents. . . . In England evidence seems to be altogether wanting for any

1 Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions; 1904. The Origin of the English Nation; 1907. The Heroic Age; 1912.

assemblies which could properly be called national."

In reaching such conclusions modern scholarship has definitely parted company with Turner, Kemble and Freeman on questions of institutional value. The weight of authority is now overwhelmingly against the Teutonic theory of the origin of representative government."

1 Origin of the English Nation, pp. 318-320, 369.

2 J. M. Robertson, An Introduction to English Politics, p. 394, gives a good summary of the data which have established the fact that the mass of the Anglo-Saxons were serfs and not freemen.

CHAPTER IX

THE GENESIS OF REPRESENTA

TIVE GOVERNMENT

THE evidence now available warrants the following statements:

1. Representative government originated as a bud put forth by monarchy.

2. It developed first in England, not because people were more free there but because monarchy was stronger there than elsewhere.

3. In making its start it got its mode and form from the church.

Research into the early history of society has collected much evidence to the effect that there was no distinction between religious, family and political authority in the primitive form of the State. The ordinary principle of government was the rule of the elders-a principle of which there are still vestiges in modern institutions. It was the origin of such terms as aldermen, senators. Government of this sacred type laid down the primary strata of art and culture on which civilization rests, and it continues to be

an essential element of social stability whatever be the form of government.

Modern politics dates from the transition from sacred status to political contract which took place in the city states that formed in nooks supplied by the configurations of the Mediterranean littoral.1 This transition did not tend to produce representative government, for the city state was so small that public policy could be considered in general assembly of the citizens.2 Some leagues or confederacies were formed which required the periodical meeting of delegates, but such meeting was essentially a diplomatic congress an organ of international relations.

When the Roman empire was established developments took place which approximated representative institutions and might have definitely produced them but for certain counteracting conditions. The Roman empire was built up by gradual extension of the power of the Roman city state, and the emperors were habitually jealous and suspicious of any organization of authority that might serve as a basis of opposition to

1 Coulanges gave a remarkably vivid and interesting account of the process in his celebrated treatise, The Ancient City. The classic examination of institutional results is Sir Henry Maine's Ancient Law.

2 Thucydides abounds in allusions to this situation, as, for instance, when Corinth and Corcyra, at war, both sent to Athens for assistance, "an assembly was convoked and the rival advocates appeared." Book I, chap. 2.

Roman authority. Nevertheless, provincial councils were formed consisting of delegates from cantonal and municipal districts, and to some extent they were employed in the government of the provinces. Imperial rescripts are known to have been addressed to such bodies in regard to various matters of public concern, but in general their activity was strictly confined to the care of temples and sacred monuments, and the cult of emperor worship. The status of these concilia was about the same as that of the collegia of Rome, licensed and regulated by the state, but forming no part of the ordinary imperial machinery of administration.1

Meanwhile the growth of the church was developing institutions which necessitated consultative arrangements. "The Catholic church," Gibbon remarked, "soon assumed the form, and acquired the strength, of a great federative republic. With the triumph of Christianity and the growth of friendly relations between the church and the imperial administration, the ancient hostility that had repressed the development of representative assemblies died out, and as a feature of ecclesiastical administration they received imperial favor and coöperation. Gibbon

1 Tenney Frank's History of Rome gives a number of instances of developments in the direction of representative government. See pp. 61, 68, 142, 157, 209.

2 The Decline and Fall, chapter XV.