Black and Islamic Calls for Autonomous Communities and Colonies in the West

On Tuesay I put up a piece comment on the plans by two Black entrepreneurs to set up a Blacks-only town in rural Georgia, to be named Wakanda after the fictional African supertechnological nation in Marvel’s Black Panther. The idea’s part of a long tradition of American ideal communities, beginning with the first Puritan settlers. it recalls the Utopian Socialist communities of the 19th century as well as the Free Black townships set up by Baptist missionaries in Jamaica, Antiqua, Demerara and Berbice in order to protect the newly freed former slaves from re-enslavement by the planters. However, coming nearly a century and a half after the abolition of slavery in America and the British Empire, this looks more like the compounds and proposed colonies of White racists, that have been set up in the Hayden Lakes area of America and which a group of British Nazis tried and failed to set up on a French farm.

Paul Boateng and the Black and Asian Studies Association

Way back in 1984/5 the Black British Labour politician, Paul Boateng, called for the establishment of autonomous Black communities in Britain. He was criticised for this in the pages of the Observer, which rightly viewed it as an attempt by Blacks to introduce apartheid. I’ve mentioned before that when I was doing voluntary work for the Empire and Commonwealth I was for a time corresponding with a Black studies organisation. This was the Black and Asian Studies Association, based in London. I split with them over the views they expressed of Whites in a copy of their magazine they sent me. I think it was no. 32/33, around about 2001-3 or so. One of the views, which I objected to was their comment that Blacks need their own space. I presume they meant by this separate arts and community centres, rather than separate geographical areas. When Blacks and other ethnic groups are a minority, and a depressed minority, this is actually reasonable and just. But they made it after reporting an article in the Observer that predicted that after the middle of this century Whites would be a minority in Britain and Europe. This was followed by another comment firmly rejecting any restrictions on non-White immigration, because it was racist. Now there was no comment about the Observer article itself. It was simply presented as something their readers should know about. I don’t know whether the editor believed the prediction or not. They could have felt it was alarmist. I don’t know. But coming after this prediction, the continued support for unlimited immigration and separate spaces for Blacks – but not for Whites – struck me as simply a form of colonialism.

Demands for Muslim Autonomous Colonies

I recall reading a passage in Ali A. Allawi’s The Crisis of Islamic Civilisation (New Haven: Yale University Press 2009) in which he discusses the establishment of autonomous Muslim communities in America. He bases his argument on the methods used by the British in founding their own colonies. The British themselves were a minority, and so they encouraged the citizens of other European nations to settle in their colonies in exchange for which they promised to respect and preserve these peoples’ own languages, culture and laws. Thus America should permit the similar establishment of autonomous Muslim communities, who would be free to follow their own culture under sharia law but which nevertheless would still be loyal to the American state. Allawi, a former Minister of Defence and Minster of Finance in the postwar Iraqi government, is a critique of both the westernisation of Islam and Salafi fundamentalism and Islamism. But this call for Islamic colonisation really can’t be tolerated. The best defence against it is the American separation of church and state, which was used against the followers of one of the grunge gurus from India when he tried to set up a theocratic town in Oregon.

The radical Islamist Anjem Chaudhry made the same demand for an autonomous Muslim community in the pages of the Financial Times colour supplement for the 1st January, 2000. Chaudhry, then running an outfit called Sharia4Belgium, was claiming that Muslims should have their own separate community with Arabic as its language under sharia law. I think he may have been able to argue this as Belgium is already split into several different regions occupied by its different traditional ethnic groups – French-speaking Wallonia, Flanders and a German-speaking enclave. Chaudhry’s own lack of engagement with Belgium’s traditional peoples is shown in the title of his organisation. The 4/for pun simply doesn’t work in either of the country’s two majority languages, French or Flemish. This is another demand for what is in effect Muslim colonisation.

Way back in the 1990s I briefly tried a postgraduate degree researching British Islam. I eventually gave up, partly because I couldn’t handle some of the polemic coming from the radical fringes. During this time I came across similar arguments contained in books from British Islamic publishers. One was on sharia law by Ibrahim E. Doi, the former head of the Islamic society at Oxford University. Another was a guide to the adab, the traditional Muslim system of morals and courtesy. The introductions to both books demanded the establishment of independent, autonomous Muslim communities, governed by sharia law, in Britain. If these were not permitted, then British multiculturalism was a sham.

Self-Enclosed Communities in Britain and Germany

Since then I have seen plenty of articles in the press, including liberal journals like Prospect, worrying about the increasing separation between White and Muslim communities. There was an article a while ago in that magazine discussing a city in the north of England, where the Muslim and non-Muslim White communities were nearly separate with a minimum of interaction. Other articles elsewhere in the press have mentioned the situation in Germany, where the Turkish minority may also form self-enclosed communities. It has been argued that in these communities, people can get by without any knowledge of German, supported as they are by Turkish businesses and able to watch and listen to Turkish broadcasting. But I don’t believe I’ve ever come across anyone discussing the demands for separate Islamic colonies, at least not in Britain. It’s possible that the journos writing those articles don’t know about and neither do British politicians. I’ve also never heard Tommy Robinson mention them either, so it seems very likely that he and his gang of thugs don’t know about it. On the other hand, it’s also possible that the authorities are aware of them. They’re just not publicising them for fear of riots and the breakdown of ‘community cohesion’. The same reason they permitted the Asian paedophile gangs in Rotherham to go on for so long.

In many ways this is doubtless a good thing, as you can imagine the massive scaremongering and islamophobia that would be generated by the right, including Tommy Robinson and the EDL and the Daily Heil. 9/11 saw a rise in hate crimes against Muslims, and Boris Johnson’s infamous article in the Torygraph attacking the burqa resulted in further physical attacks on the minority of Muslim women clad in the garment. Several were murdered.

Sharia Law Small Minority in British Islam

It’s important not to exaggerated the numbers of western Muslims, who may support this view. One of the papers a few years ago notoriously claimed that the majority of British Muslims wanted the establishment of sharia law here. In fact a close reading of the stats showed that only 5 per cent of Britain’s Muslims wanted it, and then only where it didn’t conflict with British law. I’ve heard that most Muslims in the West base their ideas on Islamic law on the Qu’ran, where most of this is about inheritance, rather than systems of government. I very much doubt that the majority of Muslims would welcome the formal imposition of what amounts to a system of autonomous ghettos, and certainly not those immigrants who have come to Britain to escape persecution in very draconian and authoritarian Islamic states.

The demands for separate, autonomous Muslim communities seem to be attempts by Islamic traditionalists to impose their views on the majority of their coreligionists, who seem more comfortable in a multi-faith society allowing the free interactions of people with different religious or non-religious views. And the general Muslim community seems to have become less insular, stressing engagement with wider British society rather than retreat. This has been shown in Muslim restaurants feeding the poor and homeless during the Christmas period, and community festivals like Eid, commemorating the end of Ramadan. This is celebrated with a large feast, which the Muslim community in parts of Bristol shared with their non-Muslim fellow residents.

No No-Go Zones in Britain

Fox News made itself a massive laughing stock a few years ago when it hysterically claimed that Muslims were taking over Britain. Birmingham was 100 per cent Muslim, which surprised the mayor and people of that great city. There were no-go areas in towns throughout Britain, where non-Muslims feared to tread. This was also angrily refuted by the mayors and politicos of those towns so accused, as well as ordinary British peeps.

Nevertheless, these calls for segregation do seem to be still around. A while ago I noticed in the ‘ethnicity’ shelves in Bristol’s Central Library a book by a prominent Muslim woman from one of the northern cities. I can’t remember who she was, but one of her claims was she was a matchmaker and an agony aunt, who had appeared on the Beeb’s Asian Network. The book’s blurb stated that it was about the rise of racial conflict and violence between Asians and other ethnic groups, and offered ‘a surprising solution’. The only surprising solution I can think of is segregation. I didn’t look at the book, so I might be wrong.

Belfield on Islam in Birmingham

I also wonder if this, or similar views, are secretly held by some of the leaders of Britain’s Muslim communities. Following the stabbings in Birmingham, right-wing radio host and Youtuber Alex Belfield put up video calling for Birmingham’s authorities to clamp down on the threatening environment in one particular area of the city. Some of this was uncontroversial. He specifically mentioned the druggies on the streets there. But he also, and some of the callers to his programme, claimed that there was a Muslim presence there which was overpowering and threatening to non-Muslims. He attacked the chanting coming from the local mosque, as well as preaching, some of which seemed to be political by Muslims on the street. This, he said, was not tolerated in other towns.

I wouldn’t like to say that Belfield is personally racist. Certainly one of the callers supporting his view wasn’t. She said she had no problem with the Black population of the area, who were also Brummies. But he is vehemently anti-immigrant, condemning the arrival of asylum seekers from Calais. He also seems to be have been taken in by the rumours that the stabbings were committed not by a Black Brit with mental health problems, but by one of the Somalian asylum seekers he and Nigel Farage have been moaning about. He also attacked Leeds English language local radio for broadcasting warnings about the Coronavirus in Urdu, which is the language, or one of the languages used on the Beeb’s Asian Network, which is also based in Leeds.

Covert Support for Extremism Among Some British Muslim Leaders

But there is a problem in that the leaders of Birmingham Central Mosque and British Islamic organisations have a history of saying one thing and believing quite another. Ed Hussain in his book, The Islamist, an account of his time as a militant Islamic radical, describes the various leaders of the British Muslim community, who visited No. 10 to reassure Tony Blair that they supported his campaign against Islamic radicalism, all the while holding the very beliefs they affected to condemn. It’s therefore quite possible that the leaders of whatever mosque Belfield was attacking may want Muslim autonomous areas, and are acting on this belief as far as they can in a democratic, pluralist society. I hope not, but I don’t know.

This is a situation that needs watching. It will be interesting to see if Black British and Muslim radicals start making demands for autonomous areas following developments in America. If so, they need to be discussed, refuted and fought. Such views would be unacceptable coming from White supremacists and racists, and should be no more tolerated coming from any other colour or religion.

John Wycliff’s Arguments for Pacifism

Last Sunday I put up a piece about the Lollard sermon, The Perversion of the Works of Mercy. The Lollards were the late fourteenth-early fifteenth century followers of the English theologian and reformer, John Wycliffe. Wycliffe was a kind of proto-Protestant, who denounced the corruption of the church, rejected the papacy and maintained that the Bible should be the sole authority for Christian doctrine. The Perversion of the Works of Mercy attacks the way people have turned away from performing their Christian obligations to feed, clothe, give drink to the poor, visit and care for the sick and prisoners, and instead do this all for the rich and powerful. It’s a powerful message for today, when the Tories’ official policy is to increase the tax burden of the poor, in order to give massive tax cuts to the rich. The Tories are also cutting benefits to the poor, unemployed, sick and disabled as part of this programme of making the rich even richer, while at the same time claiming that the destruction of the welfare state is all for the benefit of the poor themselves. It’s saving them from ‘welfare dependency’, and is encouraging them, in the notorious words of Norman Tebbit, to get on their bikes and look for work. It’s all part of the Tory and Thatcherite embrace of the Victorian attitude of ‘less eligibility’, which stated that conditions of state aid should be as harsh as possible in order to deter people from taking it up, and encourage them to take any job, no matter how low paid or exploitative.

Wycliffe was also a pacifist. I also blogged a month or so ago about a book I found on his pacifism in the Oxbow Bargain Book Catalogue. Wycliffe’s pacifism is also discussed by Basil Cottle in his The Triumph of English 1350-1400 (London: Blandford Press 1969). Here’s the passage where he discusses Wycliffe’s rejection of war, quoting the medieval theologian himself:

In each particular, Wyclif’s views are revolutionary, and his treatment of of war is typical of this: those who go to war cannot with justice say the Lord’s Prayer. ‘And before the seven axingis that Crist techith in the Pater Noster meneth … algatis to axe in charite, and thefore men that liven in werre ben unable to have their axinge; but thei axen ther owne dampnynge in the fifte peticioun, for ther thei axen that God for3yve hem ther dettis that thei owen to Hym, ri3t as thei for3yven men that ben dettours unto hem.’ [And for this reason the seven askings that Christ teaches in the Lord’s Prayer mean… at all events to ask in charity, and therefore men that live in war are unable to have what they ask; but they ask for their own damnation in the fifth petition, because there they ask that God may forgive them their debts that they owe to Him, even as the forgive men that are debtors to them.] But what was the situation in which the divided Church now found herself?-the Pope offering indulgences t6o those who would fight against the antipope (a subject extensively treated in a sermon on Martyrs) , and Bishop Despenser of Norwich leading his beastly and futile ‘crusade’ of 1383 against Flanders: ‘now men seyen that thei shulden, bi lore of ther feith, werre upon Cristen men, and turnen hem to the Pope, and slee ther persones, ther wyves, and ther children, and reve hem ther goodis, and thus chastise hem. But certis this came nevere of chastyment of Crist, sith Crist seith He cam not to lese lyves bu save hem. And hefore this is chastyment of the fiend, and never chastyment of Crist, that uside pacience and myraclis.’ [Now men say that they should, by the teaching of their faith, war upon Christian men, and win them over to the Pope, and kill their persons, their wivs, and their children, and rob them of their goods, and thus punish them. But certainly this kinid of punishment never came from Christ, since Christ says He came not to destroy llives to save them. And for this reason this is a punishment from the dreadful fiend, and never a punishment from Christ, who used patience and miracles.] Yet ‘blynde heretikes wanten witt as ydiotis, whan thei seien that Petre synnede not in smytynge of Malcus ere, but 3af ensaumple to preestis to fi3t’ [blind heretics lack understanding, like idiots, when they say that Peter did not sin in striking off Maclhus’s ear, but set an example for priests to fight]-though Christ prevented him from fighting further. ‘Lord, where this Pope Urbane hadde Goddis charite dwelling in him, whan he stired men to fi3te and slee many thousaund men, to venge him on the tother People and of men that holden with him?’ [Lord, did this Pope Urban have ~God’s charity dwelling in him, when he incited men to fight and kill many thousand men, to avenge himself on the other Pope and on men who belong to his side?] The friars, says Wyclif, preach to a bellicose text- that the English must get in first with their attacks on their enemies in other countries, for fear they do the same and sin be increased on both sides; a hideous doctrine of sinning so as to good.)

Cottle goes on to observe that ‘This new pacifism may have distasteful to readers who still enjoyed the memory of Crecy and Poitiers and to the old soldiers who must have figure among the 1381 malcontents’ (the Peasant’s Revolt). (pp. 235-6).

This hatred of war was shared by Sir John Clanvowe, soldier, diplomat, courtier, poet, crusader, and the author of the Boke of Cupide. This was so similar to Chaucer’s works, that for a time it was accepted as that great poet’s own composition. Clanvowe himself died in a village near Constantinople. Clanvowe wrote

‘The world holt hem worshipful that been greet werryours and fi3teres, and that distroyen and wynnen manye londis, and waasten and 3even muche good to hem that haan ynou3, and that dispenden oultrageously in mete, in drynke, in clothing, in building, and in lyuyng in eese, slouthe, and many oothere synnes.’ [The world considers them honourable who are great warriors and fighters and destroy and conquer many lands, and waste and give much property to them that have plenty, and spend outrageously on food, drink, clothing, building, and living in ease, sloth, and many other sins.] (Cottle, op. cit., p. 253).

Cottle himself says of this passage that ‘the attack here is almost on rank, and Clanvowe is disgusted that it is of these proud and vengeful people that ‘men maken books and soonges, and reeden and singen of hem for to hoolde the mynde of here deedes the lengere here vpon erth’. [Men make books and songs, and recite and sing of them so as to keep the memor of their deeds the longer here on earth.] (p. 254).

As I said with my earlier post about the Perversion of the Works of Mercy, I’m not putting this up to attack Roman Catholicism. I despise religious intolerance and don’t want to provoke any more sectarian religious hatred. I’m also deeply impressed with the various Roman Catholic organisations, clergy and lay people that genuinely work for the poor and those in the needy, and radical groups like Doris Day’s Catholic Workers. My point here is to show merely that religious radicals, like Wycliffe and Clanvowe, despised the way the poor were ignored and treated by the rich, and condemned war as fundamentally unchristian.

This is an attitude that attacks and refutes the vicious opinions of the religious right, with their prosperity gospel – that Christ wants everyone to be rich, and if you’re poor, it’s your fault – and is solidly behind the wars in the Middle East and elsewhere. These wars aren’t being fought to protect America, Israel or anyone else. They’re fought purely for the profit of immensely rich multinational corporations, who hope to profit from the theft of these nations’ state industries and oil reserves. As the above texts show, they would have been thoroughly condemned by Wycliffe and Clanvowe.

A First World War Indian Army Recruiting Poster

This week I’ve been blogging about the contribution of non-White servicemen and women and that of Chinese labourers to the imperial forces during the First World War. This has partly been because, as Guy Debord’s Cat reported earlier this week, one of the Nazi splinter groups of the Fascist Right has been selling poppies and other merchandise. They’re trying to cash in on the patriotic mourning in Remembrance Day, and appropriate it for White Nationalism.

This is in complete contradiction to history. I’ve described in my previous blog posts how the scholars at the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres have researched and teach the multicultural composition of the British imperial forces. The former British Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol even had a display on it. After nearly a century of scandalous neglect, there is now a monument to these brave men and women amongst the monuments to the White fallen in Flanders. Radio 4 has also broadcast a programme on the contribution of the Chinese labourers, and tomorrow at 9 pm, Radio 2 will also broadcast a show on the Indian squaddies, who did their patriotic duty and joined up.

I found this recruiting poster for the Indian Army in one of the history books I’ve got here at home, simply entitled History of the World: the Last Five Hundred Years, edited by Esmond Wright, and published by W.H. Smith in 1984. The text reads: ‘This soldier is guarding India. He is guarding his home and his household. Thus we are guarding your home and you must join the army.’ While the British exploitation of India under the Empire is a fact of history, this shows without doubt that Indian soldiers fought in the imperial forces for their homeland. It disproves any attempt to claim Remembrance Day by White bigots for themselves.

The German Workers Who Struck For Peace

Corpse of German trooper outside his dugout: a vivid image of the horrific carnage experienced by all the combatants in the ‘War to End All Wars’.

This year is the centenary of the beginning of the First World War. The BBC has already commemorating this by putting on numerous documentaries about the Great War, setting up on-line resources for schools so you can see what your particular bit of the country was like and did at the time. they’re also running trailers for forthcoming dramas where idealistic young nurses meet handsome soldiers in a saga of love amid the mass slaughter of the War. Documentaries about the World Wars are a staple of British television anyway. Dan Snow on the One Show has appeared several times striding across a World War I battlefield, while a few years ago Tony Robinson presented a Time Team special on the excavation of a system of WWI trenches in Flanders. Some of the coverage has already proven somewhat controversial. There was some comment a few weeks ago on television that something the BBC broadcast had provoked a complaint from the German embassy. There’s a difference of opinion here between German historians and the rest of the world. Most other nations see the War as being caused by Germany. German historians, on the other hand, believe that no single nation is to blame and that the growth of international tension and the web of alliances with which each nation surrounded itself led inexorably to the War. I really don’t know anything beyond the most general outline of events surrounding the First World War, and so leave it to people much better informed than I do to explain it.

One immediate result of the War was the break-up of international socialism. Previously the European Socialist parties had opposed working class involvement in any conflict between the European nations. For them, it would be a fratricidal conflict, as the working classes in each country had more in common with each other than with their rulers. The war would be a bourgeois war, started by the European ruling classes for their own further profit and enrichment, with the working class troops solely the exploited means by which they sought to do so. When the War finally broke out, however, the Socialist parties all over Europe joined the other parties in backing their governments.

Karl Kautsky, the head of the German Social Democrats, modified his party’s view of the conflict. He considered that Socialists in each country should now see the war only as defending their homelands. They should also campaign for a just peace, which would maintain the integrity of the defeated nations and avoid any cause for resentment on their part. This would prevent any further War from breaking out. He wrote

Further, the Social Democracy in every nation is obliged to consider the war only as a war of defence, and to set as its goal only defending itself against the enemy, not of ‘punishing’ or belittling the enemy. As this conception seeks the causes of the war not in the personal depravity or inferiority of the opponent, but in objective conditions, it will strive for the security which they conclusion of peace brings not by humiliating or mutilating its opponent, which would only cause new wars in the future, but by replacing those condition which led to the war – that is, imperialist conflicts and the armaments race.

Patrick Goode, ed. and trans., Karl Kautsky: Selected Political Writings (London: Macmillan Press 1983) 95.

It’s a pity that the Allies did not follow this advice when imposing the reparations and conditions on Germany afterwards. This could have removed some of the feelings of humiliation and resentment felt in Germany, feelings on which the Nazi preyed and used in their campaign to seize power.

Some Socialist parties continued to campaign against the War, such as the Bolsheviks in Russia, and the USPD – the Independent Social Democratic Party in Germany. One of those who campaigned against the War was the radical deputy, Karl Liebknecht, who went on to found the Spartacist League and the German Communist Party. There were also a number of strikes in Germany against the War. When Liebknecht was tried by a court martial for treason on the 28th June 1916, 55,000 workers went on strike in solidarity.

In April 1917 there was a much larger strike due to the government cutting the bread ration by a quarter. In Leipzig, the striking workers demanded in addition to the removal of their economic grievances the introduction of a direct, general and equal franchise, the removal of the state of siege, lifting of censorship, the release of all political prisoners, the re-instatement of the right to strike and hold political meetings. the government was also to make a declaration in favour of immediate peace without annexations.

On the 28th January 1918 a further mass strike broke out. In Berlin alone 200,000 workers downed tools and elected an action committee consisting of eleven Revolutionary Shop Stewards from The Turners’ union, and three delegates each from the pro-War Social Democratic and anti-War Independent Social Democratic Parties. Their demands included the

speedy conclusion of a peace without annexations and indemnities, on the basis of the nations’ right to self-determination, according to the provisions formulated by the Russian People’s Commissars at Brest-Litovsk.

They also wanted the removal of the state of siege and military control of the factories, the release of all political prisoners, the introduction of a general and equal franchise and a thorough democratisation of all institutions of the state. The strike spread rapidly to towns throughout Germany, including Munich, Mannheim, Brunswick, Bremen, Cologne, Hamburg, Kiel, Danzig (now Gdansk in Poland) Leipzig and Nuremberg. In all of these towns with the exception of Munich and Berlin the strike collapsed after a week. In Berlin Military Command suppressed it by placing the leading armaments factories under martial law. In Munich Kurt Eisner, one of the leading USPD politicians and opponent of the War, Kurt Eisner, was arrested before he could call for a general strike to bring down the government. The moderate Social Democrats were thus able to retake control and the Strike ended a few days later.

See F.L. Carsten, Revolution in Central Europe 1918-1919 (Aldershot: Wildwood House 1972) 14-15.

I’ve blogged about the bitterness caused by the First World War across Europe, and the anti-War poems of some of the soldiers, who fought in it, like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. Germany also has its great anti-War work from the time of the First World War, Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. The original German title is Nichts Neues Im Westen – ‘There is Nothing New in the West’. It’s also a bitter comment on the belligerent nature of Western civilisation. I think it’s also important At this time to recognise that Germany also had its campaigners for an end to the War and for a just peace that would establish friendship between nations afterwards. It’s a point that could easily get forgotten in the programmes, documentaries and debates about the War during this centenary.

The Medieval Christian Contribution to Western Democracy: Part One

The Middle Ages aren’t a period people would normally associate with democracy. This was, after all, the period when kings and princes ruled through hereditary right and military prowess and the mass of the population were landless serfs working on their estates. Nevertheless, as I have pointed out in the two articles on Judaism, Christianity and the origins of western democracy, the Bible expressed and commanded the fundamental values at the heart of democracy – the moral commitment to denounce tyranny and to work for the common welfare of humanity, and the idea that everyone is equal before God. These ideas continued into Christianity, which took over Roman constitutional theories of popular sovereignty.

In this essay I hope to continue my examination of the way Christianity contributed to the emergence of democracy through the establishment of limits on the power of monarchs. This was achieved through the notion that sovereignty belonged to the people, and was only delegated to princes. The idea of delegated authority, elaborated by Canon lawyers, strengthened the position of the consultative assemblies that had been called by monarchs as an instrument of government since the early Middle Ages, and allowed them to develop into parliaments. Canon lawyers also stressed that monarchs were bound by the law, and that the people were also the source of law in the case of the popular customs that comprised much of medieval law. Philosophers and theologians such as Thomas Aquinas considered monarchs and authorities should interfere as little as possible in popular customary law as too much legistlation and interference in custom weakened the law generally. The result was that by the end of the Middle Ages many states in Europe had developed parliaments and governmental assemblies to advise and check the power of the monarch, as well as other constitutional limits to their power.

In this first part of the essay I shall examine the strong sense of popular rights, which existed in the Middle Ages, the existence of medieval republics and monarchical states governed through parliamentary assemblies, such as the republic of Novgorod in Russia and the Italian city states. I will also discuss the existence of the feudal assemblies kings and princes had called to advise them and assist them in government since the France of Charlemagne, and how these developed into parliaments in England and Spain, noting that the papacy approved of these governmental assemblies and called and used similar assemblies in the government of its own territories, the papal states. Although Thomas Aquinas considered that monarchy was the best form of government, nevertheless he also argued that the best form of the state was a well-mixed constitution, which included elements of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. His view that the sovereignty on which the monarch based his power belonged to his people was developed by later philosophers and theologians to justify the right of the people to depose an unjust ruler.

Medieval View of Popular Rights and Sovereignty

The Middle Ages also possessed a strong sense of popular rights, which the king was bound to uphold, and whose violation by the king was just cause for resistance to the sovereign. The Sachsenspiegel, a medieval 14^th century law code, stated clearly that if the king acted contrary to the ‘good customs’ of the people, their resistance to him to recover their rights was not a rejection of their allegiance. 1 As kings owed their sovereignty to the people, the people therefore possessed the power to depose a corrupt or tyrannical king. Manegold of Lutterbach, defending Pope Gregory VII during the Investitures Contest with the German emperor, stated that ‘since no-one can create himself Emperor or King, the people elevates a single one person over itself to the end that he may rule and govern it according to the principle of righteous government; but if in any wise he transgresses the contract of which he is chose he absolves the people from the obligation of submission, because he has first broken faith with it.’ 2 The result of this conception of popular sovereignty was that by the end of the Middle Ages, some statesmen, philosopher, theologians and lawyers had developed constitutional theories of the people as the foundation of the state that come very close to the modern conception of popular democracy. The Seneschal of Burgundy, Philippe Pot, at a meeting of the French estates-general – a meeting of the representatives of the nobility, clergy and ‘third estate’ to discuss the state of France after the death of Louis XI, declared that in the case of a king who was unable to govern, the right to rule lay in all the people, not just a few.

‘I wish to tell you, as far as my intelligence will allow me, what I have learned from great and wise men on the authority and the liberty of States. It is certain that the royal power is a dignity and not the property (haereditas) of the prince. History relates that at the first the sovereign people created Kings by its vote. It is in its own interest that each nation gave itself a master. The whole world repeats that the state is the creation of the people. If it is so, how could the people abandon its charge? How can flatterers attribute supreme power to the prince who exists only in virtue of the people? That being so, what is the power in France which has the right of governing when the king is incapable of doing so? Clearly this task reverts neither to a sole prince, nor a handful of men, but to all, that is the people, the giver of power. This task it must take up as it were its own, all the more so because it is always the victim, the sole victim of a bad government.’ 3

Republic of Novgorod Ruled by Governmental Assembly

The vast majority of European states remained feudal monarchies, ruled by kings and princes, though with governmental institutions that limited their power and represented the interests of the wider people. A very few states, however, did develop a very democratic character very much like the later constitution monarchies in which kingship was limited by representative, elected governmental institutions. 12^th century Novgorod has been described as a republic. Historians have considered that its constitution ‘may be characterized as a democracy limited to a certain extent by the interests of the upper classes – de facto, if not de jure.’ 4

In Novgorod, sovereignty rested in the city, described as ‘Lord Novgorod the Great’, rather than the prince. This sovereignty was exercised through the veche, the city assembly, which met either in the square before the Prince’s Palace or in front of the cathedral of St. Sophia. These meetings were called by the tolling of the cathedral bell. 5 The male head of every free family in Novgorod had the right to vote, with the exception of slaves and the smerdy, free peasants who were under the authority of the local prince, or in the case of Novgorod, the city itself. 6 Laws could only be passed with the unanimous consent of the assembled citizens. To prevent the appearance of violent conflict between competing factions in the absence of a clear majority, the veche possessed a ruling committee of 300 members, chaired by the archbishop, called ‘the Lords’, composed of the prince’s lieutenant, senior municipal officials and the local boyar aristocracy, with the duty of preparing bills for debate in the veche. 7

The two most important officials were the mayor, termed the posadnik, and the chiliarch or tysiatsky. The posadnik was responsible for the city’s government, though he was also chief justice for legal disputes over land. The tysiatsky, however, commanded the city militia and was the chief justice for commercial law. Both posadnik and tysiatsky were elected for brief, but unspecified periods of time, though they could be re-elected, and continued to hold considerable authority even after leaving office. 8 The city was further divided into five autonomous boroughs or communes, each of whom elected their own mayor, called a starosta or elder. 9

Constitutional Limits Power of the Prince in Novogord

Although the city was ruled by a Grand Duke, the prince’s right to rule was strictly limited by city’s constitution. From 1136 onwards princes and their non-Novgorodian retainers could not own estates within the state of Novgorod. In 1196 a congress of Russian princes recognised that the people of Novgorod had the right to elect their own prince, provided that the elected prince should always be a member of the House of Riurik. Each prince on his accession to power, was required to sign a contract with the people of Novgorod in which he formally recognised the prohibition against him and his retainers owning land in Novgorod. He also recognised that the people of Novgorod had the right to elect city officials without interference from the prince, that these official could not be dismissed by him without a trial by either a court or the veche, and that the veche, not the prince, was the supreme judicial authority. 10

Condemnation of Slavery, Existence of Serfdom by Church and Recognition of Women’s Rights in Novgorod

While the Church strengthened the authority of princes through the example of the strict subordination of its members in its organisational hierarchy, it also acted to preserve some freedom by condemning complete slavery and supporting the social class of izgoi. 11 These were mostly freedmen, though they also included priest’s sons who remained illiterate, bankrupt merchants and orphaned princes, who had nowhere to go and no means of earning a living. The Church protected them from re-enslavement and gave them a livelihood by granting them church land, for which they paid rent and services and to which they were tied. They were thus serfs under the jurisdiction of the church. 12

Kievan Russia also recognised women as possessing rights. The ‘Church Statute’ of Yaroslav the Wise, compiled in the 13^th century, punished with a fine the man who stole his wife’s hemp, flax, linen or other fabrics. Husbands were fined if they committed adultery, and parents were held responsible for the death of a daughter if she committed suicide after being forced to marry against her consent. 13 Women also were able to hold property and inherit property in their own right. 14

Limits on the Power of the Monarchy in Kievan Russian Polictical Philosophy

There was no comprehensive treatise on government in Kievan Russia, though some of the political ideas of that period in Russian history can be found in the sermons and correspondence of Russian clergy. All of them accepted the institution of monarchy, but every discussion of the powers of the monarch stated that the ruler was bound by the law. The monk Iakov, in his epistle to Prince Dmitry of c. 1072, stated that the ruler should retain his guiding principles, even when threatened with force, and should not permit any arbitrariness in his government.

Contemporary discussions of the nature of government and royal power did not recommend any particular legislation limiting royal power. They did not mention the democratic institutions of the republic of Novgorod, and so political theory was in many ways behind the reality. 15 However, Russian chronicles such as the Book of Annals considered that in order to rule well, a wise prince should surround himself with good councillors and pay attention to the Duma, the council of the boyar aristocracy. Similarly, the institution of the veche as the popular legal assembly was recognised. The Laurentian edition of the Book of Annals, compiled in the 14^th century, states that ‘From aboriginal times, the Novgorodians, as well as the Smolensk, and the Kiev, and the Polotsk men, and the people of other lands, used to assemble for the veche for the deliberation of their affairs.’ 16 It was considered that there was a moral pact between the prince and his people. If the people were corrupt, then the prince had a duty to correct and punish them. If the prince was evil, he should be overthrown and replaced with a better ruler. 17

Republican Institutions and Government through Councils of Citizens in Italian City States

Novgorod was remarkable in the extent to which it had limited the power of the monarch and developed democratic, republican institutions, but not unique. The mid- and late thirteenth century saw Italian mercantile cities such as Florence and Perugia similar throw off the power of local feudal lords to become republics. The Italian republics had originally been communes, towns, which had acquired a degree of autonomy, governing themselves through a municipal guild. Such towns had been established across Western Europe in countries such as France, Flanders, Germany, England and Scotland during the urban revival of towns in the 11^th and 12^th centuries. Originally the Italian communes had been governed by a parliament of all the citizens, the arenga, and a class of administrative officials, the consuls. By the early thirteenth century, however, the consuls had been replaced by a single official, the podesta, who functioned as a kind of ‘town manager’. 18 The supreme authority in the commune, however, was the guild or popolo. This was governed at first by a captain, and then, by the late 13^th century, a number of guild officials called priors. 19 These city states then passed a series of legislation excluding the feudal aristocracy from power. In Florence in 1293 the citizens established the post of Standard-bearer of Justice, or Gonfaloniere de Giustizia with the responsibility of punishing crimes by the local aristocracy. A magnate who killed a member of the guild automatically received the death penalty. His house would be destroyed and his property confiscated. If he vanished and could not be found, his next of kin was liable to be punished in his place. As aristocrats could not be members of the guilds, they were unable to hold office as priors. 20

Independent Towns Ruled by Councils in Medieval France and Flanders

Similar communes with a high degree of independence existed in north-western France and Flanders, where the ruling officials were termed echevins. These had originally been appointed by the towns’ feudal lords to dispense justice. After these towns gained their independence from their feudal overlords, the echevins formed the cities’ governing councils. Originally appointed by the lords for life, their term in office was now limited to one year, though in practice towns such as Ghent rotated the office among a strictly limited number of individuals, so that while it was in theory governed by a council of thirteen, it was in fact ruled by an oligarchy of 39 leading citizens. 21

Development of Feudal Councils as Part of Royal Government into Parliamentary Assemblies in Middle Ages

Medieval political theorists, however, generally considered monarchy to be the best form of government. As God was monarch of the universe, so secular monarchs were considered to be limited representations of God’s lordship of the cosmos. Medieval political theory stressed the goal of social unity, and considered this could only be achieved through the government of a single individual. 22 In practice, however, the power of the king was limited through consultative assemblies of his lords and vassals, such as the witangemot, or council of wise men in Anglo-Saxon England, and the feudal grand council of nobles elsewhere in Europe. Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims, in his treatise on royal government, The Government of the Palace, written in 818 for Charlemagne’s grandson, Carloman, gave a detailed description of the operation of the royal feudal assembly in France. 23 This met twice a year. In winter, a small number of experienced councillors met to consider the issues that would need to be discussed at the main meeting in the summer. It was during the plenary meeting of the main summer council, usually held in the afternoon and attended both by the great magnates and the lesser lords, that the issues and legislation proposed by the Frankish emperor were heard and occasionally discussed. It was after the assembled lords had confirmed them that the king’s proposals formally became law. 24 Individual lords attending the assembly were questioned by the king whether there were any complaints or dissatisfaction in his part of the kingdom, which the assembly needed to deal with. Thus, Frankish kings used the assembly to deal with popular unrest before it could escalate into rebellion. 25

The thirteenth century saw the appearance of such grand councils as an established governmental institution in England, Aragon and Castile. These assemblies – parliament in England, and the cortes in Spain – originally could only advise the king and had no power to block royal legislation. Nevertheless, they were de facto limitations of the royal power, and indicated the possibility of further constitutional developments. 26 In Aragon, each of the three constituent provinces had its own cortes, representing the clergy, nobility and the towns. These met every three years, regardless of the wishes of the monarch. During the 14^th century, Catalonia, then Aragon and Valencia, established a standing committee, the generalitat. This was originally responsible for supervising that the grants of money made by the assembly were properly spent, but soon acquired judicial and military functions. Royal power was further limited in Aragon by the justicia, which was elected by the minor aristocracy to protect their interests from attack by royal officers. 27 The great law code compiled by Alfonso X of Castile, the Siete Partidas, stated that while only kings, emperor or the deputies could make laws, this could only be done in counsel with the good, most honoured and learned men in the kingdom. 28

Similar assemblies were called by the emperor Frederick II in Foggia for the southern kingdom of Italy in 1232, including representatives from the towns; by William of Holland in the Rhineland from 1247-56, and by Pope Innocent III in the Papal States in 1207. Indeed, similar meetings were held regular in some provinces of the papal states in the second half of the thirteenth century. 29 These early parliamentary assemblies chiefly represented only the aristocracy, knights and the new urban industrial and mercantile classes. The peasants, who constituted the vast majority of the medieval population, were generally excluded from them. Remarkably, some provincial assemblies, such as the provincial diets of Tyrol and Wurttemberg in Germany, did include the peasants. 30 This was extremely unusual, considering the strongly hierarchical nature of medieval European feudal society. Nevertheless, it illustrates how these early governmental assemblies had the potential to develop something like the character of a democratic parliament.

Concern by Papacy for Royal Justice

While the struggles between popes and emperors for political ascendancy are one of the most important and recurring features of medieval history, the papacy was nevertheless genuinely concerned to ensure that secular monarchy was the source of justice. When Charles of Anjou ascended to the throne of Sicily and Naples, he received a letter from Pope Clement IV advising him on how to rule justly. The pope advised that royal judges should be incorruptible, with a salary and sitting daily. Complaints against royal officials should be investigated rapidly, by an official, either a monk or a good-natured knight, who was specifically responsible for handling them. The king should take innocent people hostage, or make them pay for those who were genuinely guilty. During inquiries about royal rights, the burden of proof should only be placed on the subjects in reasonable circumstances. Furthermore, the king should not abuse his feudal rights to interfere in the marriage of his tenants’ daughters. He was also advised to find a solution to the problem of that year’s taxes through agreement with his barons, clergy and townspeople. 31 Thus in practical politics the papacy here was concerned to ensure that Charles of Anjou governed well as a feudal monarch through just, efficient administration and a process of consultation and agreement with his vassals.

View of Aquinas that Best Constitution included Element of Democracy

Thomas Aquinas also made a contribution to political theory, particularly in his treatises On Kingship and the Treatise on Law. Although he strongly supported monarchy as the best form of government, nevertheless in the answer to the question ‘Whether the Old Law Enjoined Fitting Precepts Concerning Rulers?’ Aquinas considered that the Mosaic Law provided for the inclusion of a democratic element in government. 32 In his discussion of the nature of the state and the best type of government, Aquinas combined Aristotelian political theory with the contemporary, medieval view of government, supporting his conclusions with reference to scripture. Historians have therefore considered that ‘in his writings is to be found the same characteristically medieval blend of classical influences with those of contemporary society: his views on politics comprise in essence an attempt to apply a Christianized version of Aristotle’s thought to the feudal monarchies of his own day.’ 33

Monarchy the Best Form of Government in Aquinas

Aquinas considered that the best institution or process was always one that most closely corresponded to a natural process. Monarchy was the best form of government, because in nature government was always by a single entity. Thus, according to Aquinas, the human body was moved only by one organ, the heart, the human soul possessed a single, ruling faculty in reason, bees had one ruler, and there was only one God in the universe. 34 Monarchy was further better than democracy or oligarchy, because government by a single person could promote unity in peace, while government by many produced dissension and conflict. He considered that experience demonstrated that the cities and provinces, which were not ruled by a single person, were therefore subject to division and political turmoil. Aquinas accepted Aristotle’s view that the majority of people were unable of attaining moral standards. Moreover, humans possessed a great variety of talents. Some were more talented than others. Aquinas considered that government should always be by the best individuals, a principle that could clearly justify monarchy, aristocracy or rule by a military elite. 35 Thus, Aquinas himself was not a supporter of democracy, and indeed considered the best form of government to be a monarchy.

Support for Democratic Ideas of Human Equality and the Direction of the law to the Common Good in Aquinas

Nevertheless, Aquinas also provided support for democracy through his philosophical views on human equality, the necessity of working towards the common good, and particularly his idea of the constitution of a well-mixed regime. Christianity, like Judaism, maintained the Biblical view of the fundamental equality of the human race before the Lord. Aquinas supported this view with the argument in his work, Being and Essence, based on Aristotelian philosophy, that there was one, universal human essence, which was abstracted from all the differences of individual humans. 36 Aquinas was also influenced by Aristotle’s Politics that the essential goal of political organisation, institutions and policies should be the common good. The common good was the standard governing everything from the imposition of taxation to the constitution of states. 37 Thus, in his Treatise on Law, in his answer to the question, ‘Whether the reason of any man is competent to make laws’, Aquinas stated

‘A law, properly speaking, regards first and foremost the order to the common good. Now to order anything to the common good, belongs either to the whole people, or to someone who is the vice-gerent of the whole people. And therefore the making of a law belongs either to the whole people or to a public personage who has care of the whole people: since in all other matters the directing of anything to the end concerns him to whom the end belongs.’ 38

View of Aquinas that Rulers Govern on Behalf of their People Source of View that People Have Right to Depose Unjust Monarchs

Thomas Gilbey, in his 1966 translation of Aquinas’ writings on law and political theory, noted that the term ‘vice gerent’ was derived from the Latin phrase ‘gerere vicem’, to act on behalf of someone. The vice-gerent was thus, for Aquinas, ‘the public personage, the figure who personifies the community, and is its guardian and, in the fullest sense, its caretaker.’ 39 If the government was not directed towards the common good of the majority of citizens, but only towards the private good of the ruler, it was unjust and the ruler was clearly a tyrant. 40 Aquinas further supported his argument on this point by quoting Ezekiel 34:2 ‘Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks’ 41 It has been noted that Aquinas in this passage does not recommend that the ruler should consult with the people before passing a law, only that he does so as the representative of the whole community. 42 Nevertheless, Roman Catholic theologians and political theorists such as Cardinal Cajetan, Cardinal Bellarmine and Francisco Suarez based their views on the limitation of the power of the monarchy on this passage. Cajetan considered that while the Pope could not be deposed, he therefore had the power to depose secular rulers. Bellarmine considered that no single individual possessed power, but it belonged to the people as a whole. Suarez went further and argued that the most natural form of government was democracy, because it required no institution, while all other forms of government were the result of a conventional institution. 43

Thus the medieval view that kings were bound by the law and that sovereignty ultimately lay in the people, rather than the monarch, resulted in the idea that unjust kings could be legitimately deposed. As a result, republics emerged during the Middle Ages, like the Italy city states and the republic of Novgorod, which were ruled by governmental assemblies. Monarchies, such as those of England, France, Germany, Spain and Italy also included parliamentary assemblies in their governmental systems. Although monarchy was considered the best system of government, nevertheless Thomas Aquinas strongly argued for human equality and provided the philosophical and theological arguments that formed the basis for the views of later philosophers and theologians that the monarch could be legitimately deposed by the sovereign people or the papacy as a check on immoral or corrupt government.

In the second part of the essay I will examine the way Aquinas, although he considered monarchy to be the best form of government, nevertheless also argued that the best form of constitution included features of aristocracy and democracy, as well as monarchy. I will also discuss the way the view of Aquinas and the Canon lawyers that the people were also the source of law in the case of the customary law which operated in medieval Europe, and that as law was innately rational, unreasonable laws had no force. I will also discuss the emergence of the Conciliarist movement, which attempted to govern the church through a system of ecumenical councils that were superior to the papacy, and the philosophical and theological link this had with the development of secular political assemblies. Medieval Canon law provided the basis for the authority of such advisory councils and governmental assemblies on behalf of the wider community through its notion of mandated authority, developed to allow ecclesiastical authorities to make decisions on behalf of the wider church. I will also discuss the theological views articulated by the English peasants in the Peasant’s Revolt that serfdom should be abolished as all humans had been created equal. Although the medieval governmental assemblies were strongly oligarchic, with membership reserved for nobles, knights and members of the urban elite, nevertheless these provided the foundation for later parliamentary democracy while the Conciliarist movement may have inspired and provided the basis for the arguments of the parliamentarians during the British Civil War/ War of the Three Kingdoms. Thus the constitutional theories developed by philosophers, theologians and lawyers during the Middle Ages formed the basis for modern, parliamentary democracy.

Notes

1. E.F. Jacob, ‘Political Thought’ in C.G. Crump and E.F. Jacob, The Legacy of the Middle Ages, (Oxford, Clarendon 1926), p. 526.
2. Jacob, ‘Political Thought’, in Crump and Jacob, Legacy of the Middle Ages, p. 529.
3. Jacob, ‘Political Thought’, in Crump and Jacob, Legacy of the Middle Ages, p. 531.
4. George Vernadsky, Kievan Russia (New Haven, Yale University Press 1948), p. 199.
5. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, p. 198.
6. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, p. 144, 198, 199.
7. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, pp. 198-9.
8. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, p. 199.
9. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, pp. 199-200.
10. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, pp. 197-8.
11. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, p. 205.
12. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, pp. 153-4.
13. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, p. 156.
14. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, pp. 155-6.
15. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, p. 288.
16. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, p. 289.
17. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, p. 289-90.
18. Daniel Waley, Later Medieval Europe from St. Louis to Luther, Second Edition (London, Longman 1985), p. 21
19. Waley, Later Medieval Europe, p. 22.
20. Waley, Later Medieval Europe, p. 21.
21. Waley, Later Medieval Europe, p. 23.
22. Jacob, ‘Political Thought’, in Crump and Jacob, Legacy of the Middle Ages, p. 518.
23. Janet L. Nelson, Charles the Bald (London, Longman 1992), p. 43.
24. Nelson, Charles the Bald, p. 46.
25. Nelson, Charles the Bald, p. 48.
26. Waley, Later Medieval Europe, p. 10.
27. ‘The Rise of Spain and Portugal’ in Esmond Wright, History of the World: Prehistory to the Renaissance (Feltham, Newnes Books 1985), p. 498.
28. Waley, Later Medieval Europe, p. 7.
29. Waley, Later Medieval Europe, p. 10.
30. Charles Johnson, ‘Royal Power and Administration’, in Crump and Jacob, Legacy of the Middle Ages, p. 483.
31. Waley, Later Medieval Europe, p. 6.
32. John P. Hittinger, Liberty, Wisdom and Grace: Thomism and Democratic Political Theory (Lanham, Maryland, Lexington Books 2002), p. 50.
33. Waley, Later Medieval Europe, p. 8.
34. Waley, Later Medieval Europe, p. 9.
35. Hittinger, Liberty, Wisdom and Grace, p. 50.
36. Hittinger, Liberty, Wisdom and Grace, p. 44.
37. Waley, Later Medieval Europe, p. 8.
38. St. Thomas Aquinas, cited in Hittinger, Liberty, Wisdom and Grace, p. 42.
39. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Law and Political Theory, Thomas Gilbey, ed. and trans., in Blackfriars vol. 28 (New York, McGraw-Hill 1966), cited in Hittinger, Liberty, Wisdom and Grace, p. 47.
40. Waley, Later Medieval Europe, p. 8.
41. Ezekiel 34:2, in the Bible, KJV (London, Collins), p. 799.
42. Hittinger, Liberty, Wisdom and Grace, p. 47.
43. Hittinger, Liberty, Wisdom and Grace, pp. 40-1.