Who Do You Root For: Hundred Years War

[crazy canuck]

An English victory in the Hundred Years' War would have reinforced the English trend towards absolutism, not weakened it.  The trend towards centralized tax collection was spurred by the need to pay for the war.  An English "victory" would have guaranteed another century of on-and-off war, IMO.

I think I was just set to argue that connection to the Continent did not necessarily mean absolutism as I don't think that was really a trend on the continent at the time. I also do not think there was a strong trend towards absolutism going on in England at the time. The Parliament kept a pretty firm grasp on the purse strings.

But, you know, maybe I am wrong about that.

I'm not sure about it just because it's difficult to read back from absolutism which is really a later concept. I similarly don't think it's terribly easy to look back and say democracy was helped or not by it.

What is true which may have later led to more democratic/absolutist institutions is that England through the Hundred Years War (but in many ways before then too) managed to balance feudal institutions with a centralised state. So, my understanding is, it was rare elsewhere in Europe for the members of Parliaments to also be the local enforcement officers as was the case in England where MPS were routinely justices of the peace or sheriffs in their home area.

Again I may be wrong but my understanding is that England was unusual in that respect. The people who voted for laws were also the ones who ensured they were then followed. So local notables were tied into an effective centralised body rather than just one that tended to guard local privileges in exchange for subsidies (though that was part of it).

I believe, though I could be wrong again, that France had more of a separation of power and enforcement which did mean the monarchy had to rely on people other than the estates.

I'm sure Oex knows more though, only read one book on the (beginning of) the Hundreds Year War and found it all a bit confusing for me

I think the flaw in the argument that British Parliamentary traditions led directly to democratic principles we know today is that the British Parliament was really just a contest between the King on the on hand and local elites on the other.  It took the French to form the beginnings of a democracy we would more readily recognize.  Without the French experience modern democracy could have been significantly delayed.

Put another way, Magna Carta is the foundational myth of democracy in the English speaking world.  But if one actually reads it, there is very little to do with democracy and everything to do with the Barons' ability to rule their own lands as arbitrarily as they wish.

[Tonitrus]

I'm a crazed girl who preys on desperate men.

Any teenage peasant girl in the Middle Ages who manages to prey on full grown noblemen is pretty awesome in my book.

Okay fan of teen dystopia fiction.

Better than the Seige-y fanfiction route I was afraid that might go.

[Archy]

,"And Joan the Hot teen girl threw the body of Englishmen in the wells to poison their water supply. After having a prayer in name of God the Father and the Singularity she kissed her king an older veteran of actions against the English."

[viper37]

Not France. Have you seen that country?

Yes.  There's a lot more bikinis than in England.
I vote France.

[Agelastus]

And, just as in the War, in this poll an early lead for England over France disappears.

[Valmy]

Put another way, Magna Carta is the foundational myth of democracy in the English speaking world.  But if one actually reads it, there is very little to do with democracy and everything to do with the Barons' ability to rule their own lands as arbitrarily as they wish.

Which was a very French type of ideal. But rights for Nobles was a necessary first step. I think the Magna Carta deserves its place in history.

[Sheilbh]

I mean Magna Carta's an important document in terms of our development of democracy not because of what's in it but because of its symbolic value which has been appealed to throughout history by far more radical movements, in favour of far more expansive rights: Coke, the Levellers, Wilkes, the Chartists, the American Revolutionaries, right down to Occupy outside St Paul's.

But it does seem to have a particular resonance for Americans for some reason, partly for the same plus some differences no doubt. For example the monument to it at Runnymede was paid for by the American Bar Association and in the recent 800th anniversary they paid for a lot of events around Magna Carta too (and we've sent one of the surviving copies for exhibition in Washington in 1976 and on the 800th anniversary).

[Valmy]

But it does seem to have a particular resonance for Americans for some reason,

Does it? Huh. I only remember it being discussed in the context of English history.

[Sheilbh]

But it does seem to have a particular resonance for Americans for some reason,

Does it? Huh. I only remember it being discussed in the context of English history.

Yeah. As I say there's barely a memorial event that isn't significantly funded or sponsored by the ABA. You're as likely to see articles by say John Roberts on it as you are the Master of the Rolls.

[Valmy]

But it does seem to have a particular resonance for Americans for some reason,

Does it? Huh. I only remember it being discussed in the context of English history.

Yeah. As I say there's barely a memorial event that isn't significantly funded or sponsored by the ABA. You're as likely to see articles by say John Roberts on it as you are the Master of the Rolls.

Ah ok. A Law nerd type deal.

[Oexmelin]

Well sure. To the extent France actually was a centralized absolutist monarchy it still had those qualities. But that is different from the provinces being basically independent like what had gone one before.

France was never a centralized absolutist monarchy, if by that we assume something akin to a kind of ideal-type totalitarian regime where decisions taken by one person are uniformly applied and executed everywhere. As I said, if we measure centralization by the amount of intermediary bodies that exist between, say, the Crown and the village, England is *a lot more* centralized than France ever will be before the Revolution.

What you measure as provinces being independent only makes sense if we assume that 1) provinces exist, as a political entity and 2) the king's authority there is somehow thwarted. This is certainly the reading that 16th century thinkers of the absolutist monarchy will make of the middle ages; the fact that they, historically, "won" within kingly circles means that it has been assumed to be the actual historical development: kings slowly regaining what they had lost.

But that was anachronistic, and politically motivated in the 16th century. Medieval forms of power did not entail unquestioned obedience, the concept of "central authority" vs "local authority", or standardization of governing practices. The form of the king's authority in the middle ages takes the form of injunctions being dispatched to towns, bishops, important nobles, etc. Provinces have very little existence in this scheme of power. To be brief: the forms of government developed at court, the attempts at channeling more money into the royal treasury are also in use in towns, and bishoprics. It is precisely at that time that Provinces gain "materiality" so to speak. They become powerful institutions in their own right, that go above town and bishopric and nobles alone. They organize their own taxation, collect a lot more money, for their own purposes. The emergence of the Estates, *during* the Hundred Years War, as well as of the Parlements, shows that the kings are keen to redirect that capacity to the royal treasury, and hoping to streamline negotiations with a narrower set of actors. And they often fail, and are often thwarted by these growing institutions: indeed, the so-called "permanent taxes" are only called thus because they succeeded in persisting - but they were actually put to vote every Estates General during the 13th and 14th century. Which means that the Estates General's role became *stronger* as time passes, displacing previous modes of negotiation, but energizing the new provincial organizations. The heyday of provinces is truly the 16th century: by that time, provinces can potentially bring in so much revenue, can offer so many occasions of patronage, are latticed by such dense political networks that they become high stake political issues.

[Oexmelin]

I think I was just set to argue that connection to the Continent did not necessarily mean absolutism as I don't think that was really a trend on the continent at the time. I also do not think there was a strong trend towards absolutism going on in England at the time. The Parliament kept a pretty firm grasp on the purse strings.

But, you know, maybe I am wrong about that.

It's actually quite difficult to separate foundational myths from historical analysis when one wants to compare England and the Continent. A lot of the comparisons are made almost casually, sometimes taking for a fact what is little more than preconceived notions understood as "common knowledge". A a lot of the historiography about absolutism reads it backward, from the apex of Louis XIV, and there is a strong, and vigorous tradition of English propaganda, esp. during the Glorious Revolution, that actually made the sort of historical argument we read in this thread, precisely to mark the difference between Evil France, enemy of Liberty, and proponent of Tyrannical Government, and Awesome England, which cherishes and preserves Liberty. In the 1990s, Europe funded a lot of comparative historiographical projects on "state-formation", but such projects have since receded with the decline of Europe as a political project.

I think the major distinction between France and England, which should bear more scrutiny, is the divide between the Parlement and the Estates; in England, Parliament played both roles, which was helped by the fact that all of the kingdom was reputed to be under the same law, whereas in France, you needed to have a number of regional Parlements to sit as court to all the various customs. In the Estates, the recruitment (i.e., the election) was indeed mostly made up of royal agents of all kinds, or rather, local notables who succeeded in gaining access to royal roles - provost, baillifs, sergeant at arms - but you can also find cobblers, carpenters, winemakers in the Estates of the 13th and 14th century. The Parlements, limited to their role as court, became peopled with jurists first and foremost.

[Ed Anger]

,"And Joan the Hot teen girl threw the body of Englishmen in the wells to poison their water supply. After having a prayer in name of God the Father and the Singularity she kissed her king an older veteran of actions against the English."

HOTT