Early Modern Democracy in the Grisons: Social Order and Political Language in a Swiss Mountain Canton, 1470–1620

ISBN-13: 9780521470865 / Angielski / Twarda / 1995 / 308 str.

Riverside) Randolph C. Head (University of California

Opis

The Freestate of the Three Leagues in the Grisons, a rural confederation of peasant villages in the Swiss Alps, was one of the most unusual political entities found in early modern Europe. Its inhabitants enjoyed popular sovereignty and remarkable local autonomy, and many of them insisted on political equality among citizens, and on political leaders' responsibilities to their communities. The author uses pamphlets and political documents to trace the Freestate's evolution, focusing on its institutional structure and on the political language used by its in habitants.

Recenzje

"Head's approach is a convincing one. His study treats the political culture at three different levels: that of the constitutional institutions, that of popular actions, and that of the political language." Andreas WÜrgler, Jrnl of Modern History

Spis treści

Acknowledgments; List of illustrations; Note on languages, orthography and abbreviations; Introduction: social order, politics, and political language in the Grisons, 1470–1520; 1. Communalism and other political models in Europe and the Grisons; 2. Rhaetia to 1520: geography, society, history; 3. Local practice and federal government in the Freestate; 4. From consolidation to communal politics, c. 1580–1620; 5. Elite power and popular constraint in sixteenth-century Rhaetia; 6. Reform, communal action and crisis, c. 1580–1620; 7. Political language and political cosmology during the crisis years, 1617–22; Conclusion: democracy in early modern Rhaetia.