Radical Republicanism

As I acknowledged in my recent book, the term 'republicanism' means different things to different people. Adding the adjective 'radical' to the term only complicates matters further, especially when the focus is the early modern period. The term 'radicalism' was not in use until the early nineteenth century, leading some scholars to argue that it should not be applied before that time. Yet 'Radical Republicanism in Early Modern Europe' was the title of an excellent conference organised by Anna Becker, Nicolai von Eggers, and Alessandro Mulieri in late June 2021. The conference organisers did not shy away from the difficulties with the terminology, indeed Nicolai von Eggers opened the proceedings by asking whether it is valuable to speak of 'radical republicanism'. What followed was a rich and lively discussion about what we mean by that label, what role the people should play within a republic, and why radical republicans are so often neglected within the historiography.

Niccolò Machiavelli by Santi di Tito. Taken from Wikimedia Commons.

The constitution of the citizen body and the role its members should play have been key questions for those discussing republican rule ever since ancient times. As Alessandro Mulieri noted in his paper, Aristotle argued for the wisdom of the many over that of the few, insisting that as a collective body the many (understood as the middle orders rather than the poor) would have greater expertise, prudence, and virtue when it came to the selection of magistrates and the judgement of their actions. Niccolò Machiavelli famously expanded Aristotle's assessment to incorporate the plebs and to include lawmaking as well as the selection of magistrates. John McCormick has drawn attention to this aspect of Machiavelli's thought in his published work on the Florentine's democratic credentials. He developed this idea further in his paper at the conference, by exploring in greater detail the aristocratic republicanism of Francesco Guicciardini, which was in large part a response to Machiavelli's democratic republicanism. McCormick convincingly demonstrated that Machiavelli had got under Guicciardini's skin, leading him to adopt awkward positions (such as justifying genocide).

Plans that appeared in the Revolutions de Paris for platforms designed to make it possible for orators to be heard in a large assembly that was part of the wider proposals made by radical republicans during the early years of the French Revolution discussed by Nicolai von Eggers. Source gallica.bnf.fr/BnF.

One feature of the more aristocratic form of republicanism advanced by Guicciardini is the mixed constitution. Both Markku Peltonen and Annelien de Dijn questioned its dominance within the republican tradition, showing that many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century republicans explicitly rejected that model, opting instead for a purer form of democratic rule. One of the key claims of Peltonen's excellent paper was that not only were republican arguments boldly made by a large number of English commentators during the period of the Commonwealth and Free State (1649-53), but that many described the government under which they were living positively as a democracy. De Dijn cited another seventeenth-century radical republican, Pieter De la Court who insisted that freedom would only be secure in a true democracy where decision-making power lay firmly with the people. Moreover, De Dijn argued that De la Court (along with his contemporary Baruch Spinoza and, later, Jean-Jacques Rousseau) took Aristotle's argument to its logical conclusion, insisting that the people were more likely to rule in the common good than the elite and arguing, therefore, that there should be no restraint on popular power but only a strict form of majoritarian rule.

In the discussion, Camilla Vergara articulated the distinction being explored very clearly: one form of republicanism involves the sharing of power between the elites and the plebs; whereas the other (democratic or plebeian republicanism) involves giving power to the people. Of course this raises further questions about how popular power can and should be exercised (especially in large modern states). This issue was broached in the two papers on the French Revolution. Ariane Fichtl explored the influence on the French revolutionaries of ancient institutions such as the popular tribunes. Nicolai von Eggers focused on those radicals who adopted an intermediate position between representative and direct democracy by calling for the use of imperative mandates that would bind deputies or delegates to act only on the instructions of those who had elected them.

Samuel Hayat's paper on the recent 'gilets jaunes' protests in France, opened up a further question of whether 'the people' speak with a single voice. This is certainly the impression the 'gilets jaunes' seek to present, but to do so they must downplay differences of opinion based on race, sex, or class. A further issue raised by Hayet's paper is the thorny relationship between the terms 'popular' and 'radical'. The importance of distinguishing the 'popular' from the 'radical' has long been acknowledged by historians of the British civil wars - not least John Morrill. Moreover, not only in that Revolution but also in France in 1793 and again in 1848, the revolutionary authorities were presented with a dilemma. Should free and fair elections be suspended if the outcome of such elections was likely to be a rejection of the revolutionary regime? 

Portrait of Pieter de la Court by Abraham van den Tempel, 1667. Taken from Wikimedia Commons.

Regardless of the different ways in which it has been defined, radical republicanism has long been obscured or even neglected. Throughout the conference we heard papers calling for the rehabilitation of important figures as diverse as Ptolemy of Lucca, Pier Filippo Pandolfini, and Pieter De la Court, as well as for recognition of the republican implications of the works of figures such as Étienne de La Boétie (examined in an interesting paper by Saul Newman). Selective borrowing has been in operation throughout history. In papers by Miguel Vatter and Alessandro Mulieri, Machiavelli was shown to have rejected Platonism and Aristotelianism while simultaneously taking on board certain ideas from them. In my own paper I showed that selectivity was also in operation in the use of James Harrington's ideas by eighteenth-century British thinkers.

This selectivity has continued in later scholarship. Jérémie Barthas noted that Rudolf von Albertini was crucial in downplaying the significance of radical republicans like Pandolfini, because of the perceived connection between his ideas and those of the Jacobins. Following John McCormick's account of the brutal side of Guicciardini's thought, Anna Becker posed the leading question of where the more positive reading of him had originated. Similarly, Markku Peltonen argued that radical republican writings of the early 1650s have largely been ignored by recent republican scholars.

Gaby Mahlberg and Anna Becker both wondered whether part of the reason for the dominance of a more elitist reading of the republican tradition arises from the source material that tends to be used - in particular the focus on a range of printed canonical texts. Gaby's exploration of translations, reviews and networks - along with Anna's work on women and republicanism - have the potential to offer an alternative view. While source material may be part of the problem, political attitudes and priorities no doubt also play their part. For this reason, radical republicanism not only offers a rich vein for future historical research, but also a potential source of valuable material to help us to understand the nature of the political system we have inherited and the means by which it might be improved in the future.

Experiencing Political Texts 7: Intertextuality

It is now several months since I have written a post under the 'Experiencing Political Texts' heading. For that reason alone I wanted to return to it this month, but there is a further incentive for doing so. We learnt in May that our application for an AHRC Networking Grant on this topic has been successful. So, from January 2022 we will be organising a series of workshops exploring the themes: 'Genre and Form in Early Modern Political Texts', 'The Materiality of Early Modern Political Texts', and 'Experiencing Early Modern Political Texts in a Digital Age'. We will also be running a monthly reading group at the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society and working with colleagues at the Robinson Library, Newcastle University and at the National Library of Scotland to put on exhibitions exploring the relative merits of print versus digital editions and the forms in which political arguments were articulated in the past and the present.

Screenshot from the Early Modern Ballot resource designed in conjunction with Animating Texts at Newcastle University (ATNU) as a pilot for the ‘Experiencing Political Texts’ project. It provides an animated version of James Harrington’s broadsheet The Manner and Life of the Ballot following the instructions set out in that publication.

In previous posts in this series I have written about the important role played by genre in early modern political texts and about the significance of the material dimensions of those texts. In this post I want to extend the discussion to think about how works were connected with each other: the issue of intertextuality. I should acknowledge here that my thinking on this was greatly influenced by supervising Thomas Whitfield's PhD thesis and, in particular, his work on the 'multi-media strategy' adopted by the radical printer and bookseller Thomas Spence. For those who are interested, you can find out more about Tom's work here.

Joseph Wilton, ‘Thomas Hollis’, marble bust, c.1762. National Portrait Gallery NPG 6946. Reproduced under a creative commons licence.

Thomas Hollis, who has featured previously in this blog, edited and financed the publication of a number of works on politics and government in the mid-eighteenth century, especially works of the republican canon, producing lavish copies with special bindings, illustrations and coded stamps. Hollis disseminated large numbers of works to city and university libraries across Britain, Europe, and North America. The most extensive collection of these books was sent to Harvard University. This donation, which was added to over many years, was so vast that the electronic library catalogue used at Harvard today is named after Hollis (and his forebears who also made donations to the College). Sending a huge collection of books allowed Hollis to seek to influence how readers read not just a single volume but the collection as a whole.

Hollis added handwritten annotations into a considerable number of the books he sent to Harvard that were designed to direct the reader to other works in the collection. In some cases the aim was to provide more detail on the author. On the flyleaf of Anthony Ascham's Of the confusions and revolutions of governments, for example, he directed readers wanting to know more about Ascham to Antony Wood's Athenae Oxoniensis, volume 2, p. 385, which he had also donated (William H. Bond, “From the Great Desire of Promoting Learning”: Thomas Hollis’s Gifts to the Harvard College Library. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press for the Houghton Library of the Harvard College Library, 2010, p. 39). Elsewhere, however, annotation was intended to provide further reading on the same topic. In William Atwood's Jani anglorum facies nova he directs the reader to 'See "Plato Redivivus", by the ingenuous Harry Neville" (Bond, Thomas Hollis’s Gifts, p. 40). Similarly, on the flyleaf of John Bridges's work, A brief account of many of the prosecutions of the people call'd Quakers, Hollis added the following annotation: 'In "The Pillars of Priestcraft" shaken is preserved a master tract in behalf of the Quakers & of Liberty; which was written by the late Lord Hervey, in answer to an artful tract of the late Dr Sherlock's, then B. of Salisbury, intitled "The Country Parson's Plea'" (Bond, Thomas Hollis’s Gifts, p. 55). Two copies of The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken, which was by Hollis's close friend Richard Baron, were also among the works sent to Harvard.

Giovanni Battista Cipriani, ‘Thomas Hollis’, etching, 1767. National Portrait Gallery NPG D46107. Reproduced under a creative commons licence. This portrait of Hollis by Cipriani was produced to appear in his Memoirs. It includes several of the emblems or tools used in the works Hollis commissioned., including the owl and the pileus or liberty cap between two Roman short swords. That combination of symbols appeared on coins issued by Brutus to commemorate the assassination of Julius Caesar.

In both of these cases the works to which the reader was directed expressed similar sentiments to the one in which the annotation appeared, but this was not always the case. On the half-title page of the first volume of The history of the rebellion, Hollis added a rather unflattering description of the author: "Edward Hyde, at length Earl of Clarendon, in the opinion of the writer, so far as he can judge, a hack Lawyer ... of working, but not first-rate abilities; a wordy, partial Historian." He went on to recommend that readers of Clarendon's volume should also read the works of one of his contemporaries: 'See the Prose-works of his opposite, the man, who in no respect, would subscribe slave, the matchless John Milton. T-H aug. 7. 1767" (Bond, Thomas Hollis’s Gifts, p. 67).

The printer and radical bookseller Thomas Spence did not have the resources that were at Hollis's disposal, but he too saw value in encouraging readers to read one text in the light of another, and found a much more direct way of encouraging them to do so. His weekly periodical One Pennyworth of Pig's Meat; or, Lessons for the Swinish Multitude comprised an eclectic mix of short extracts from works by authors as diverse as the Anglo-Irish cleric and satirist Jonathan Swift, the eighteenth-century reformer William Frend, the political theorist John Locke, and the French philosopher, writer and politician the comte de Volney. The extracts are carefully chosen and important in themselves, but additional messages are conveyed through their juxtaposition. For example, in an early issue Spence included two extracts from Frend's Peace and Union, one dealing with the recent regicide in France, drawing a parallel between it and the events of 1688, and another highlighting the negative impact of war on the poor. They are followed by Lord Chesterfield's letter to his son from April 1752 in which he predicts a decline in the power of kings and priests by the end of the century, on the basis of the 'symptoms of reason and good sense' breaking out in France, which he also links to 'Revolution principles' at home. Together these extracts are designed to encourage readers to view the French Revolution in a positive light and to oppose Britain's involvement in the war against France.

Token produced on Spence’s behalf to advertise his Pig’s Meat publication. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

One of Spence's particular aims in the work is to demonstrate that his arguments for equality, and in particular the fair division of land, are endorsed not just by many of the great political thinkers of the past, but also by the Bible. In another issue he includes two extracts taken respectively from Leviticus and Isaiah followed by a passage from Samuel Pufendorf's Whole Duty of Man. The labels Spence gives to these extracts hints at the connections between them. The Biblical passages are headed 'Lessons for the Monopolizers of Land', while the passage from Pufendorf is entitled 'On Equality'. The extract from Leviticus describes the idea of jubilee whereby every fifty years land that had been bought or sold in the intervening half century would be returned to its original owner. The passage from Isaiah also warned against the accumulation of land. The Pufendorf extract included the following claim: 'That no man, who has not a peculiar right, ought to arrogate more to himself than he is ready to allow to his fellows, but that he permit other men to enjoy equal privileges with himself.' (One Pennyworth of Pig’s Meat; or, Lessons for the Swinish Multitude. London, 1793, p. 91).

In fact both Hollis and Spence also went beyond intertextuality, making connections not just between one text and another, but also between texts and objects, and between text and place. Both men commissioned the production of images and tokens depicting individuals and emblems that embodied the causes for which they stood. The portrait of Hollis by Giovanni Battista Cipriani and the Spence token advertising his Pig's Meat periodical, both of which are depicted above, are good examples of this. Hollis also became obsessed with John Milton's bed, while Spence experimented with speakeasies and even embarked on a graffiti campaign chalking the words 'The Rights of Man' around the streets of London. Historians of political ideas must, therefore, venture beyond the words on the pages of individual texts if they are to make sense of the politics of the past. I hope that through the 'Experiencing Political Texts' project we will be able to identify fruitful ways of doing this.

Experiences of Urban Green Spaces 2: Present uses of urban commons

Having explored historical perspectives on urban commons in our first webinar, our second - held on 29th April 2021 - turned to ‘Present Uses of Urban Commons’. The webinar opened with a talk by Professor Chris Rodgers (PI on the Wastes and Strays project) entitled ‘Forever Green? Nourishing our urban commons in a post-pandemic context’. After the talk and a brief Q&A session, we divided into break-out groups for discussion around four themes: defining urban commons, tradition, identity, and environmentalism.

John Singer Sargent, Octavia Hill, oil on canvas, 1898. NPG 1746. Reproduced with thanks to the National Portrait Gallery under a creative commons license.

Professor Rodgers began his talk by noting that while the current global pandemic has highlighted the urgent need to protect green space, that imperative has been around for many years, citing the warning given in 1877 by Octavia Hill (one of the founders of both the National Trust and the Commons Preservation Society) that people should not allow any of their open space to be lost. Yet, urban commons remain under threat today, not least as a result of austerity and the selling off of open spaces by local councils desperate to maintain essential services. Moreover, preservation has been hampered by confusion and misunderstanding regarding the legal designation of urban commons and their protected status (or lack of it). The legislative framework varies from one urban common to the next. Moreover, legal definitions are not good at capturing the variety of uses to which green spaces are put, and can end up restricting rights to certain groups. Furthermore, legislation and judicial decisions have limited the ability of communities to acquire communal use rights and create new commons. Rather than relying on existing legal definitions, then, Professor Rodgers suggested that it would be better to think in terms of key characteristics shared by all urban commons. While they may have different origins, resulting in different legal protection, and are subject to multiple uses, all provide vital ecosystem services from which we benefit. Given this, Professor Rodger argued, it is ecosystem services that should provide the key to protecting these important spaces in the future.

So what do we mean by ecosystem services? They include a range of uses or benefits of the land, including resources for industry and/or agriculture, recreational access, spaces for social and political gatherings and protest, and sites of cultural heritage. One of the advantages of focusing on ecosystem services is that it allows for a dynamic assessment of the value of the space rather than one that is static and fixed on use at a particular point in time.

Nomansland Common, Hertfordshire. Wastes and Strays 20th April 2019. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

Professor Rodgers ended his talk by arguing for a new Community Charter for green space. At the heart of the Charter would be a new ecosystem services appraisal system. By embedding such an appraisal into the planning process it would be possible to prioritise and promote the provision of community green spaces, offering proper protection (on the basis of their use and value) to those that currently exist and facilitating the creation of new urban commons where they are not currently available. By this means, Professor Rodgers argued, we can perhaps ensure that Octavia Hill’s vision for the protection (and expansion) of green space can become a reality in post-pandemic times.

The entrance to Leazes Park, Newcastle. Wastes and Strays 1 September 2020. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

Professor Rodgers' reconsideration of how we define urban commons was explored in greater detail by one of our break-out groups. The group felt that the first question to ask was what purpose the definition was designed to serve. Whatever the purpose, group members were adamant that a single, fixed definition was unhelpful, and they called instead for a higher level, multi-faceted definition inclusive of different uses. They suggested that rather than speaking of urban commons it might be more helpful to refer to 'commons in urban areas' which would allow for the possible inclusion of both former rural commons now situated within city boundaries thanks to urban expansion, and even virtual commons. The group spent some time discussing the different connotations of the terms 'public good' and 'common good'. While the two are often used synonymously, there is more of a sense of coming together, reciprocity, and shared effort implied by the notion of the common good. Another issue that was explored was the fact that commons tend to be wilder than other public spaces such as parks. But it was noted that the fluid nature of commons can blur this distinction. Do public parks that lose their funding and become neglected automatically become commons? What is the status of wild spaces that are tidied up by the local authorities or by communities themselves, do they cease to be commons as a result? Finally, the group reflected on how Covid-19 has impacted on our understanding of commons. It was noted that, due to social distancing, people's experiences of urban commons over the last year have been more individualised and that this may have diluted the sense of the common ownership and shared use of these spaces.

While the events of the last year have impacted on how we think about urban commons, our understanding of them is grounded in a much longer history. The group focusing on tradition was asked to think about whether city residents are aware of the history of their local urban commons; if so, how they gain knowledge of them; and whether that history matters to them. Group members involved with the management and maintenance of Mousehold Heath noted that volunteers on that common vary as to how much historical knowledge of the area they have when they first arrive, but even those who come with little awareness often find that it becomes important to them as they become invested in the area. Particularly for those volunteering on a regular basis, there is a sense of being part of a tradition that stretches back over many generations and this creates a sense of belonging and adds significance to the work they do. The group reflected on contrasts in this regard between urban commons in cities of different sizes. Whereas Mousehold Heath and Newcastle's Town Moor are very closely identified respectively with Norwich and Newcastle and their inhabitants, there is not the same sense of communal ownership for a common like Epping Forest, which lies on the eastern edge of London and is unknown to many Londoners. The group also discussed the way in which the history of a common can play into current issues, noting that in recent campaigns on several commons reference was made back to the historic use and also to earlier opposition to encroachment. This can be seen historically too, with those involved in conflict in the mid-nineteenth century between the Freemen and the Town Council over Newcastle's Town Moor often invoking the controversies of the late eighteenth century. Finally, the group thought about how best to reflect and transmit the history of urban commons to visitors today. Some use is made of interpretation boards, leaflets, and history walks or school visits, but it was suggested that new digital technologies perhaps present possibilities that have not yet been fully exploited.

Long Valley, Mousehold Heath. Wastes and Strays. Image by Sarah Collins. This valley is thought by some to have been the site of the final battle during Kett’s Rebellion of 1549 an event still closely connected to Mousehold Heath in the popular imagination.

Perhaps not surprisingly, there was some cross-over between discussions in the group focusing on tradition and that exploring the theme of identity. Here too it was noted that it is often through engagement that people come to identify with a particular space and its history. The example of a neglected riverside area in Gateshead was given. It had been all but forgotten, but once members of the community were involved in renovating it, the direct engagement of individuals with the landscape helped to create a sense of identity. It was suggested that there is a distinction between rural and urban areas in this regard. In a region like the Cotswolds there is lots of open space, but that very abundance can mean that people do not identify with a particular common or area; and, of course, much of the land in those areas is privately owned. By contrast, in cities there are generally fewer green spaces, making them more precious but also potentially more fragile. Together these qualities can create a stronger sense of identification. Just as in the discussions at our previous webinar, it was observed that social class plays a role here, with a stronger sense of identification between locals and urban commons often evident in middle-class areas or among middle-class residents of an area. Furthermore it was noted that it is easier for those already in a position of influence within the community to engage productively with local authorities. In this regard, the impact of Covid-19 was deemed to be positive. Not only have urban commons been used more extensively during the pandemic, but they have also been used by a wider range of locals resulting in the creation of new identities and relationships to those spaces.

Wildflowers in Valley Gardens, Brighton. Wastes and Strays, 20 August 2020. Image by Siobhan O’Neil.

The importance of urban commons has not just been brought into focus by the pandemic, the protection of open green spaces was already rising up the political agenda prior to the emergence of Covid-19, thanks to the growth in environmental concerns. Urban commons are, of course, crucial tools in combatting climate change but, as the group focusing on this topic acknowledged, the issues are complex. Decisions about commons are not necessarily taken communally, but depend on the views of the landowner or those involved in the management of the space. Even among those who are committed to combatting climate change, there are debates around the best policies to pursue. Tree planting is seen by some to be key, but it may not always be the most effective option, with biodiversity regarded by some as a better strategy. Yet this in turn can raise problems, since, particularly in the early stages, biodiversity may interfere with the access of local communities to the space. The group had a lively discussion about rewilding, the extent to which that actually takes land back to an 'original' state, and the question of exactly what the 'original' state of the British countryside was. The group concluded that while sustainability is certainly to be encouraged, it is necessary to take ecological specificity into account.

In the final discussion it was noted that there is a need for communication and collaboration: between the authorities responsible for managing the commons and the communities in which they lie; and also between researchers and activists. It is our hope that through this project we can encourage, facilitate, and sustain those relationships so as to secure the valuable urban commons of this country for future generations.

Experiences of Urban Green Spaces: Historic Perspectives on the Urban Common

I have more I want to say on the theme of ‘Experiencing Political Texts’, so will return to that series of posts in due course, but I am interrupting it this month to reflect on the recent webinar I organised, together with other members of the AHRC-funded project ‘Wastes and Strays: The Past, Present, and Future of Urban Commons’. You can find out more about the project at our website.

It is coming up for two years since we held the first workshop for the project. So much has, of course, changed since then. Our project has been severely disrupted by the pandemic. Yet, there is now a much greater awareness among the public of the importance of open green spaces to our physical and mental health. In this context, urban commons (along with other green spaces, such as parks) are recognised as being of particular value in providing these benefits to city-dwellers, many of whom have no garden of their own and who may live many miles from the countryside. Consequently, discussion about the past, present and future of urban commons seems more timely than ever.

So it was with some excitement that we planned our delayed second and third workshops as two webinars on 'Experiences of Urban Green Spaces'. The first offered an 'Historical Perspective on the Urban Common'. The second focused on 'Present Uses of Urban Commons'. This blogpost will summarise the first of these two webinars.

The first webinar opened, after a brief introduction, with an excellent talk 'From open space to public space: the idea of the right to air and recreation' by Dr Katrina Navickas, Reader in History at the University of Hertfordshire. Dr Navickas began by highlighting the fact that there is a persistent tension between how common land, and the rights associated with it, are seen in the public imagination and their official legal status. In many cases, commons are not publicly owned at all, but instead they are private land over which certain people have been accorded rights to specific uses (for example grazing) and the access to exercise those rights. 

The bandstand in Leazes Park Newcastle. The park was built as part of the Victorian public parks movement on Castle Leazes, part of Newcastle’s urban common. Wastes and Strays. 1 September 2020. Image by Rachel Hammersley

Dr Navickas went on to point out that further ambiguity exists in the case of urban commons, which since the nineteenth century have had two dominant - but quite distinctive and sometimes conflicting - uses: first, as agrarian pastureland; and, second, as recreation grounds. The emergence of the latter use in the nineteenth century was particularly controversial. This was partly because the right to air and exercise was not at that time an explicit statutory right. This was only established in the Law of Property Act of 1925. At the same time, the provision of open space for recreation was closely tied to attempts on the part of Victorian authorities and elites to constrain and police the behaviour of working people. This was reflected in the rise of the Victorian public parks movement, which saw calls for the conversion of various English urban commons into public parks - the layout and nature of which made them easier to police. It also inflected the establishment of the Commons Preservation Society in 1865, and its early focus and direction. As Dr Navickas explained, these efforts were - at least in part - motivated by the desire to obstruct the organisation of political meetings.

The Chartists frequently held meetings on common land, a trend that was continued by later parliamentary reformers and other opposition groups. At the beginning of the nineteenth century such meetings often took place on town moors, with many being short affairs that workers could attend during their lunch hour. However, as town commons were increasingly built over, protestors in many areas found themselves either confined to small spaces or forced to move out to more distant rural commons. This change also prompted a shift in the timing and duration of the meetings. Increasingly, they were scheduled for Sundays or Mondays (traditional holidays) and became whole day events - a day out rather than just a political meeting. 

Dr Navickas ended her talk by noting that the tensions and issues surrounding urban commons survive to this day. This has been reflected most recently in the conflict over protests on Clapham Common in March 2021. (The slides from Dr Navickas's talk are available here).

After Dr Navickas's talk we divided into four break-out groups, each focusing on a different theme, with the members of each group having been provided in advance with a few short extracts from some of the sources we have discovered in the course of our research.

A poster advertising a demonstration in the Valley Gardens area, Brighton. Wastes and Strays. 28th August 2020. Image by Siobhan O’Neill.

Those focusing on the theme Assembly on the commons noted how difficult it is for historians to unpick the motivations behind large-scale popular protest, and the fact that different motives (political action, community building, entertainment) were probably intertwined. It was acknowledged that the rise in large mass meetings was linked to the widening of the franchise with the nineteenth-century Reform Acts. Furthermore, that an element of spectacle was always built into these events. Protesters often processed through the town to the meeting and use was made of music, banners, and sashes to indicate the cause and key issues to bystanders, elements that remain crucial to protests today. It was also observed that not all crowds are the same. The gathering on Valley Gardens to celebrate the Prince Regent's visit to Brighton in 1827 was very different from the demonstrations by local pitmen and those calling for the release of Irish prisoners on Newcastle's Town Moor in 1850 and 1872 respectively. It was noted that the question of who organised the gathering was key (particularly, whether it was organised by the authorities or by opposition movements), but it was also acknowledged that official gatherings could easily be subverted by a crowd.

The group considering Fringe Society was particularly interested in the connection their sources drew between marginal space and marginal people. The question of who has the authority over urban green space is a pertinent one, and is linked to assumptions about how particular spaces should be used. In addition to bylaws trying to stop the most exploited in society from using these spaces, there are also unwritten codes of behaviour. However, it was noted by the group that these codes of behaviour could change depending on the time of day or the season and that they could also be challenged or subverted. Siobhan O’Neill, who is working on the project and was a member of this group, observed that in more hidden areas of her local common, marginal groups such as gay men or homeless people claimed the space as their own by marking areas with white pebbles or hanging up clothes. There are broader issues here about the gradual regulation of space over time and ongoing conflicts and tensions between different users of urban green spaces.

This view of the Steine in Brighton from 1808 shows labour activities and recreational pursuits taking place side by side in the space. Thanks to the Society of Brighton Print Collectors or permission to use this image.

The group tasked with considering urban commons as Spaces of labour explored how both the work taking place on commons and the type of people conducting that work has changed over time. Labour on the commons might originally have centred on the grazing of animals and extraction of mineral resources, but today the focus is instead on recreation, meaning that although we treated them separately in our groups, labour and recreation are intimately intertwined. The shift towards commons being used for recreation expanded the types of labour taking place on them to incorporate things like operating fairground rides, performing in a circus, serving burgers from a van and even prostitution. This expansion of activities meant that many of those who now rely on common land for their subsistence and survival are not actually endowed with historic rights to use that land. Moreover, neither the use rights, nor the services required to make possible those activities, are enshrined in legal terms. Furthermore, it was noted that such activities challenge the notion of commons as egalitarian spaces, with hierarchies based on role, status, class and gender frequently on display. 

People taking air and exercise on Mousehold Heath, Norwich. N. Bucks, ‘Mousehold Heath’. Thanks to the Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library for permission to use this image.

The group exploring urban commons as Spaces of recreation made similar observations, noting the existence of hierarchies of recreational use and the fact that conflict has frequently arisen over the practice of specific leisure pursuits on commons. Whether or not a particular activity is deemed a nuisance may depend on precisely where on an urban common it takes place and whether it is appropriate to the time of day or season of the year. Who defines what constitutes a nuisance and manages the space is also crucial. The group felt that bylaws, though frequently used in these contexts, are not necessarily effective means of managing behaviour and balancing different uses and needs. The group was more interested in understanding how people organise spaces for themselves and the potential for self-management. It was suggested that this perhaps works best if the use of a space is allowed to grow and develop over time in response to demand. One group member drew the analogy with a swimming pool where the desire for some to swim seriously and others to play might lead to the demarcation of space through the introduction of swimming lanes or to rules about who can use the pool at different times of day.

Although the sources each group examined were different, a number of common themes emerged in the discussions. In the past as now, the question of who is responsible for the management of urban commons, and who has control over the activities that can and cannot take place there, is particularly significant. Though understood as common land available to all, the reality is that most commons are owned and managed either by the local city council or by an independent body or, perhaps most often, by a complex historic relationship between the two. In addition to tensions between the relevant authorities and local people, our discussions made clear that conflicts also arise among different user groups, each having its own understanding of what constitutes appropriate or inappropriate behaviour in the space. Such tensions are deep-rooted and have occurred over many years. We might even go so far as to say that they are inevitable, inherent in the very notion of open or common space. That does not mean, however, that there is no value in thinking carefully about how such tensions are managed, paying attention to different voices, and exploring how conflicting uses might be accommodated. Given what the last year has revealed to us about the importance of urban green space, we owe it to future generations to learn lessons from the past and to think creatively about how we can continue to share and enjoy these valuable urban commons in ways that are fair and sustainable.

A sign promoting inclusivity in The Levels playground, Brighton. Wastes and Strays. 17th August 2020. Image by Siobhan O’Neill.

Experiencing Political Texts 6: Materiality

We currently find ourselves on a cusp with regard to the materiality of texts. Print copies are still common, but digital editions and open access publishing are on the rise. Yet, for now, the conventions of print tend to provide the framework for digital editions with an emphasis on recreating the look and experience of reading a printed book (for example with 'Turning the Pages' technology) rather than exploring the new possibilities that digital editions might offer.

Despite his experimental use of genre and the blending of fact and fiction, the physical format of Yanis Varoufakis's book Another Now, which I have discussed in previous blogposts in this series, is relatively conventional. It is available in hardback, paperback, as an audio download, and in e-book form with the last of these merely comprising a digital version of the print copy. However, Varoufakis does acknowledge potential innovations in future in his description of what happens when the narrator Yango Varo first opens Iris's diary:

Two red arrows filled my vision as my hybrid-reality contact lenses detected audio-visual content in the diary and kicked in. Instinctively I gestured to switch off my haptic interface and slammed the book shut. Costa had explicitly instructed me to set up the dampening field device before opening the diary. Chastened by my failure to do so, I went to fetch it. Only once the device was on the desk, humming away reassuringly, was I able to delve into Iris's memories in that rarest of conditions - privacy. (Yanis Varoufakis, Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present. London: Bodley Head, 2019, p. 5).

Title page of Toland and Darby’s edition of The Oceana of James Harrington. Reproduced from the copy at the Robinson Library Newcastle University, BRAD 321 07-TP. I am grateful to the Library staff for allowing me to reproduce the work here.

I have already touched on the materiality of early modern texts in previous blogposts (January 2021, September 2020), but there is more to explore. One area of interest is the way in which the material or physical form of a text was deliberately designed to engage a specific audience. During the eighteenth century the English republican works first published during the mid-seventeenth century were directed, in successive waves, at different audiences and the physical format of those editions varied accordingly. 

Many of the original English republican texts published during the mid to late seventeenth century had been relatively small, cheap editions. When John Toland and John Darby decided to reprint these works at the turn of the eighteenth century, they deliberately reproduced them as lavish folio editions. We know from personal correspondence that they took care to use high quality paper and the title pages often include words in red type, which was more expensive. The size and quality of these volumes makes clear that they were aimed at a high-status audience - particularly members of the political elite. They were destined for their own private libraries or those used by them. While in one sense this was exclusionary - putting these works (and the ideas contained within them) beyond the means of ordinary citizens - there was a positive reason for doing so. Toland and Darby were keen to make clear that, although these texts had been published in the midst of the chaos of the civil war and interregnum, they remained of interest - and of relevance to those in government - even after the restoration of 1660. These works were not mere ephemera, but were of lasting significance and continued relevance in the eighteenth century even though England was no longer ruled as a republic.

Binding of Thomas Hollis’s edition of Harrington’s works. From Houghton Library, Harvard University. HOU GEN *EC65.H2381 656c (B) Lobby IV.2.18. I am grateful to the Houghton Library for giving me permission to reproduce this and to Dr Mark Somos for his assistance.

Thomas Hollis was aware of Toland's publishing campaign and built his own on its foundations. He republished many of the same texts, and again did so in the form of lavish folio volumes with expensive bindings. Hollis commissioned the Italian engraver Giovanni Cipriani to produce portraits of the authors to preface the volumes and to design little emblems that could be embossed onto the front as a key to the nature of the work inside. However, Hollis's dissemination strategy was aimed less at the private libraries of the elite and instead at institutional libraries - public libraries such as those established in cities like Leiden in the United Provinces and Bern in Switzerland, but also the libraries of educational establishments such as Christ's College Cambridge and, most famously, Harvard in the United States. This suggests that Hollis's target audience was less the current political elite than that of the future. His aim was to educate the next generation - especially in America where, from the 1760s, a crisis was brewing.

The American Revolution, when it came, had a significant impact on both sides of the Atlantic. The slogan 'no taxation without representation' flagged up political inequalities in Britain and provided fuel for the incipient reform movement. To further the cause of reform, the Society for Constitutional Information (SCI) was established in 1774. Its main mode of operation was to print cheap copies of political texts which were disseminated freely. In particular, members of the SCI believed it necessary to educate the people on the nature of the British constitution. As the Address to the Public, published in 1780, explained

John Jebb, one of the founder members of the Society for Constitutional Information. Portrait by Charles Knight, 1782. National Portrait Gallery NPG D10782. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

As every Englishman has an equal inheritance in this Liberty; and in those Laws and that Constitution which have been provided for its defence; it is therefore necessary that every Englishman should know what the Constitution IS; when it is SAFE; and when ENDANGERED (An Address to the public, from the Society for Constitutional Information. London, 1780, p. 1).

The Society focused on printing works that contributed towards this mission, stating that:

To diffuse this knowledge universally throughout the realm, to circulate it through every village and hamlet, and even to introduce it into the humble dwelling of the cottager, is the wish and hope of this Society.

Consequently, the SCI disseminated works such as Obidiah Hulme's Historical Essay on the English Constitution, but also extracts from older works that spoke to these issues. Yet, as the statement of intent makes clear, the Society aimed to disseminate political works not simply among an elite, as their predecessors had done, but throughout the population. This, it was believed, was the best means of awakening people to their rights and thereby furthering the case for the reform of Parliament.

The SCI continued to function into the 1790s and was, therefore, well placed to capitalise on further calls for reform sparked by the outbreak of the Revolution in France in 1789. In this febrile atmosphere, others took up the cause of educating the ordinary people about their rights by making available to them important political texts from past and present.

Spence token advertising Pig’s Meat. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

In 1793 the Newcastle-born radical Thomas Spence published the first issue of a weekly publication entitled Pig's Meat; or, Lessons for the Swinish Multitude, which printed extracts from political texts including from works that had been republished by Toland and Darby or Hollis. The title was a reference to Edmund Burke's derisory comment in Reflections on the Revolution in France which referred to the ordinary people as swine. Spence's publication cost just 1 penny, making it affordable even for those who were relatively poor, and as he explained on the title page, his aim was 'To promote among the Labouring Part of Mankind proper Ideas of their Situation, of their Importance, and of their Rights. AND TO CONVINCE THEM That their Forlorn Condition has not been entirely overlooked and forgotten, nor their just Cause unpleased, neither by their Maker nor by the best and most enlightened of Men in all Ages.' Alongside his Pig's Meat publications, Spence engaged in other means of spreading political ideas including writing works of his own and producing and disseminating tokens.

What is the relevance of all this? First, it reminds us that it is not just the content of political works that matters, but also the form in which they are printed, and the way they are disseminated and read. Literary critics like George Bornstein, inspired by Jean Genet and Jerome McGann, have been making this point for some time. But it has yet to fully penetrate the historical investigation of political texts. Secondly, the attempt by authors, editors and reformers to reach ever wider sections of the population during the course of the eighteenth century is striking. It reveals the importance of politics to eighteenth-century British society and the firm belief (at least on the part of some) that political education could and would bring political reform. Is there, I wonder, the same appetite for political knowledge today? What kind of publications would best attract twenty-first century audiences? And what kinds of reform might they propose?

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Since the anniversary of the start of the first lockdown in the UK is approaching, it seemed appropriate to interrupt my 'Experiencing Political Texts' series of posts to reflect on the current situation.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought restrictions to our liberties of a kind that would not previously have been imagined. Under the current lockdown the reasons for which we can leave our homes are severely limited, our right to gather with others in public places is almost completely denied us, and even the control we have over our own bodies is compromised through the requirement to wear a face covering in shops and on public transport. There is also pressure being exerted on us to be vaccinated, and there have even been suggestions that some types of worker will be forced to do this.

This situation has led me to reflect in more detail on the concept of liberty and its history. The right to liberty in the abstract - as well as to the more concrete liberties of free movement, gathering in public spaces, and control over one's own body - were by no means a given in the past. They were only secured after hard fought battles and painful individual sacrifices. Nor are they universally enjoyed across the globe today. Nonetheless, liberty is central to contemporary political philosophies, and politicians of all stripes in the UK are keen to defend and protect liberty.

The virus challenges all of this not only by inducing governments to limit individual freedoms, but also by raising the uncomfortable question of whether the dominant place accorded to liberty in certain societies (including the UK) has actually increased the threat the virus poses to us and our lives. Many commentators have drawn attention to the fact that countries where restrictions on the freedoms of their citizens are more common often have far lower numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths than those countries that prize liberty. Vietnam is often cited on this point. At the time of writing it had recorded just 2,448 cases and only 35 deaths as compared with 4.18 million cases and 123,000 deaths in the UK. While I do not underestimate the value and importance of liberty, I do wonder whether we are paying too high a price for it just now.

Declaration fo the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Liberty has always had to be set against other values - and not just the right to life. Our modern veneration of liberty owes much to the revolutionary upheavals of the late eighteenth century, especially the French Revolution. Its motto was Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. These three concepts were highlighted (and the relationship between them articulated) in the Declaration of the Rights of Man first issued in 1789, which began 'Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.' Soon after 'Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité was being emblazoned on everything from official documents and political texts to medals and even buildings.

The pandemic has not only brought restrictions to our liberties, but has also raised questions about our commitment to equality. In recent times, equal treatment, in various respects, has been extended for example to women, those from ethnic minorities, and those with disabilities. This equality is widely recognised today and enshrined in legislation such as the 2010 Equality Act in the UK. However, our experience of the impact of Covid-19 might lead us to question (if we had not done so before) the extent to which equality operates in practice. Commentators have noted that in many homes the burden of childcare and home schooling is falling more heavily on women than men. A recent government advert that was quickly withdrawn after complaints that it was misogynistic in its depiction of lockdown life, was perhaps more realistic than we might care to admit. As a result, the long term effect of the pandemic on women's careers may be more significant and long-lasting than its impact on the careers of men. There is also clear statistical evidence that both infection and death rates have been higher in people from ethnic minority backgrounds than among the population as a whole. There may be several reasons for this, but it is certainly clear that those with lower levels of income, amongst whom ethnic minority families are overrepresented, have been more harshly affected by the virus. This is true both in terms of rates of illness and death and as regards the impact on employment and household income. Rather than complaining about the restrictions on our liberties imposed by Covid-19, perhaps we ought to be inquiring more deeply into the unequal nature of its impact on our lives.

Fraternity is perhaps less central to political life today than liberty or equality. Not only are the masculine connotations of the word off-putting, but it sits sharply at odds with the liberty of the individual that we so highly prize. Yet for the French revolutionaries, liberty and fraternity were seen as complementary rather than competing concepts, capable of both reinforcing and tempering each other. Certain phenomena this year - including the Thursday night clapping that punctuated the first lockdown and the actions of individuals like Captain Tom Moore - suggest that the sense of altruism and community to which the  concept of fraternity refers has certainly not disappeared completely. Yet at the same time the stockpiling of provisions and ugly scenes in supermarkets that were a feature of the first lockdown, together with vaccine nationalism, raises questions about this me-first attitude remains not just strong but also acceptable.

Early in the French Revolution, not long before the Declaration of the Rights of Man was drawn up, Emmanuel Sieyès published his pamphlet What is the Third Estate? In that work he considered what a nation requires in order to survive and prosper. The nation, he observed, could continue to function efficiently without the privileged orders (the clergy and the nobility). But without the third estate everything would fall to pieces. The third estate, Sieyès argued, contains within itself everything that is required to form a complete nation. He then used this observation to justify the third estate's claim to political representation on an equal footing to that of the other two estates. Within six months of its publication, What is the Third Estate? had been used to justify the establishment of the National Assembly which represented the nation as a whole, but was made up simply of the third estate and those members of the other two estates who chose to join it.

Portrait of Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès. Image taken from Wikimedia Commons.

I was reminded of Sieyès's pamphlet, and of the notions of equality and fraternity it upholds, in the first period of lockdown, when our attention was drawn to the list of key workers who would have to continue working because our society cannot function without them. Despite their importance, it was apparent that many of these roles are neither the best paid nor high status in our society.

We should use the forthcoming anniversary of the lockdown to reflect more deeply on what we have learnt this year, on what Covid-19 has revealed about our society, and on what measures we need to take to construct a better future. Rather than rushing to recapture our lost liberties, I suggest that we devote our energies to reinvigorating our understanding of the other two concepts in the triad - equality and fraternity.

Experiencing Political Texts 5: Dialogues

In previous blogposts in this series I have discussed the use of fiction for political ends, and the blending of fact and fiction, in Yanis Varoufakis's Another Now (2019) and James Harrington's The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656). One genre in which fact and fiction are often knitted together is the dialogue. Early modern political thinkers made much use of this form, and while Varoufakis's book is not explicitly set out as a conversation it does adopt the essence of that form in its exploration of the views of the three main characters: Iris, Eva and Costa. Moreover, in the Foreword, the narrator Yango Varo admits to the kind of artistic licence or invention that is typical of political dialogues, reporting that:

In an attempt to do full justice to my friends' ideas and points of view, I have found it necessary to recount these debates as if I had been witness to them myself, pretending to inhabit a past from which I was mostly absent, fleshing out conversations I never participated in. (Yanis Varoufakis, Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present, London: The Bodley Head, 2019, p. 6).

There is, of course, an irony here in that Varo is himself a fictional character, but his account of 'fleshing out conversations' describes very accurately what early modern political thinkers were doing when they produced dialogues.

In an article in the Guardian advertising his book, Varoufakis offered some insight into why he chose to examine the views of his characters in this way:

In a bid to incorporate into my socialist blueprint different, often clashing, perspectives I decided to conjure up three complex characters whose dialogues would narrate the story - each representing different parts of my thinking: a Marxist-feminist, a libertarian ex-banker and a maverick technologist. Their disagreements regarding "our" capitalism provide the background against which my socialist blueprint is projected - and assessed. (Yanis Varoufakis, 'Capitalism isn't working. Here's an alternative', The Guardian, 4 September, 2020).

Thus for Varoufakis this form provided him with a means of putting onto paper a dialogue that had been playing out in his own head, and a means of working out some of the conflicts between different commitments and views held by him and other members of society.

Dialogue form was much used by early modern political thinkers and especially by seventeenth-century English advocates of republican government. It could be employed very simply to address and challenge alternative views, or to bring alive a debate between two or more positions, but there are also examples of more sophisticated usage, such as that which is in evidence in a manuscript dialogue written by the seventeenth-century political thinker Algernon Sidney.

Algernon Sidney (1623-1683) is best known for the manner of his death and his posthumous work Discourses Concerning Government, which was published by John Toland and John Darby in 1698. Sidney had fought for parliament during the Civil Wars and had gone into exile on the continent after the return of Charles II to power in 1660. He returned to England in 1677, but was implicated in the Rye House Plot of 1683. An arrest warrant was issued against him on 25 June 1683 and in November of that year he was brought before Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys. Since only one witness would testify against him and two were required for a conviction, the papers confiscated from his desk at the time of his arrest were deployed as a second witness. He was found guilty of treason and was executed on 7 December 1683.

Algernon Sidney by Bernard Picart (Picard) (1724). NPG D30364. Reproduced from the National Portrait Gallery under a Creative Commons licence.

Sidney wrote 'Court Maxims, discussed and refelled' early in 1665. It took the form of a dialogue between two friends Philalethes and Eunomius. Philalethes is a courtier who puts forward the 'court maxims' of the title. These supposedly self-evident propositions are used to argue in favour of monarchical government and the private interests that sustain it. They are challenged by Eunomius, a commonwealthsman, who presents the case for the public or common good and for republican government. While the question of whether Philalethes is ultimately converted by his friend is left open, Eunomius does have the last word insisting that monarchy can rarely be the best form of government. In one sense this is not surprising, since we would expect the author of the Discourses Concerning Government to have favoured the public good over private interests, and republican government over monarchy. Yet the meaning of the names that Sidney gives to his characters complicates the matter. 

The name Philalethes literally translates as 'lover of truth', yet Sidney gives this name not to the character with whom his own sympathies lie, but to the advocate of private interest and absolute monarchy. Eunomius, by contrast, was the name of the 4th Century Bishop of Cyzicus, a controversial figure who challenged the conventional understanding of the Trinity, particularly the relationship between God and Christ. Since anti-Trinitarianism was still considered a heresy in the late seventeenth century this choice of name was provocative.

If we read Philalethes's silence at the end of the dialogue as indicating that he has been converted by Eunomius, then Sidney's point is perhaps simply that the love of truth does eventually win out over Philalethes's personal views and prejudices - or rather over the views he has had to 'conform' himself to at court (Algernon Sidney, Court Maxims, discussed and refelled, ed. Hans Blom and Eco Haitsma Mulier, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 2). As Philalethes explains at the beginning of the dialogue, there is little time at court to examine the truth of things, so he relies instead on what others tell him (p. 9). Moreover, he acknowledges that those court maxims are often at odds with reason. Yet Sidney is perhaps also being deliberately playful in offering as the explicit aim of his dialogue the refutation of self-evident propositions expressed by a lover of truth. He is perhaps implying that what is presented as 'truth' needs to be handled with care - or perhaps even re-conceived - an argument that Eunomius of Cyzicus and others who shared his views in the early years of the church would also have made. Moreover, writing at a time when rule in England had recently shifted from a commonwealth to a monarchy, Sidney perhaps hoped that his readers might apply that lesson in their own world, and examine for themselves the extent to which the attitudes and principles of the new regime were in accordance with reason.

Experiencing Political Texts 4: Revolutionary Translations; Translators as Revolutionaries

On Friday 11 December I attended a convivial and inspiring online workshop entitled 'Revolutionary Translations; Translators as Revolutionaries'. It was organised by the team behind the AHRC-funded project Radical Translations: The Transfer of Revolutionary Culture between Britain, France and Italy (1789-1815) - Dr Sanja Perovic, Dr Rosa Mucignat, Dr Brecht Deseure and Dr Niccolo Valmori (all based at King's College London) and Dr Erica Mannucci from the University of Milan-Bicocca. Some of the themes we discussed link to ideas I have been exploring in this blog, so it seemed appropriate to share my reflections on the workshop here.

Since the project is explicitly concerned with radical translations it is not surprising that the question of what we mean by 'radical' - or what constitutes a radical text or translation - featured in a number of the papers. Setting aside broader debates about the meaning of the term, some texts might be deemed radical on account of their subject matter or the context in which they were produced. One such text is Jean-Gervais Labène's De l'éducation dans les grandes républiques, which features on the project database. Here, the aim of the translation - which in this case was by Angelica Bazzoni - is to make that radical text available to a new audience. This practice contributed to the exportation of the French Revolution abroad to Italy and other European countries.

William Blake’s design for Thomas Gray’s poem ‘Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard’. Taken from the Google Art Project via Wikimedia Commons.

There are other cases, though, where the text itself is more neutral, but the translation is radical. A good example of this is the French translation of the English poem Gray's Elegy that was discussed by Catriona Seth. Professor Seth noted that most eighteenth-century translations of this famous English verse were produced by individuals who favoured a moderate or even right-wing position. The 1805 translation, however, was produced by the French revolutionary Marie-Joseph Chénier. His decision to give the date on the title page according to the revolutionary calendar (at a time when this was no longer general practice) can be seen as an indication of his political position and of his aspirations for the translation. As was noted in the discussion at the workshop, there is a potential critique of social hierarchies in the poem, and this was perhaps something that Chénier was hoping to draw out.

Contributors to the discussion also noted that when judging the political radicalism of a translation it is necessary to pay attention to the attitude of the target audience. Rachel Rogers introduced us to the English translation of an account of the overthrow of the French monarchy on 10 August 1792, which was probably the work of the Irish translator Nicholas Madgett on behalf of the English exile Robert Merry. Dr Rogers demonstrated that the translation toned down the radicalism of the event, but noted that the purpose of doing so was to offer a more positive account of it than those that had appeared in London and to encourage sympathy among British readers.

This example highlights a point that was made explicitly by Paolo Conte and Catriona Seth, translations can be a form of activism by another means - a way to continue the fight when physical conflict is no longer safe or advantageous. In his paper, Patrick Leech demonstrated that as well as providing a means to continue the fight after the French Revolution, translation was already being used under the ancien régime to raise revolutionary ideas. The Baron d'Holbach translated key English texts to advance his agenda of spreading radical ideas such as anti-clericalism and materialism.

A second theme that cropped up repeatedly was the importance of form to the meaning of translations and the dissemination of ideas. This was central to my own paper in which I reflected on the importance of both the literary and physical form of translations, and highlighted examples among English republican texts where either the genre or the physical form of the translation was different from the original. Changes in physical form are not uncommon, but I was surprised by how many examples of changes in literary form were referenced in other papers. Professor Seth noted that many of the early translations of Gray's Elegy transformed the English verse into French prose. More surprisingly, Michael Schreiber's fascinating paper on the translations of French legal texts prompted the observation that there was a translation of the Civil Code into Latin verse and this led to reflection on the impact of such a change on the content and syntax of the translation. Both Professor Schreiber and David Armando referred to examples of dual translations where the original text and translation appeared side by side. In some cases this was a way of demonstrating the quality of the translation, but in the case of French legislation, Professor Schreiber argued, it was designed to draw attention to the original French text.

More common is the kind of shift that occurred in the case of the translation analysed by Rachel Rogers. The French original appeared as a newspaper article, the English translation took the form of a pamphlet. The reverse also occurred with pamphlets being serialised in newspapers. These shifts, while not as dramatic as the move between verse and prose, changed the context in which a piece was read and so could affect the way in which the account was perceived by the audience. For example, by incorporating the translation of James Harrington's A System of Politics into his journal Le Creuset, Jean-Jacques Rutledge was able to present the work in instalments and direct key points to events in France as they unfolded. Patrick Leech emphasised the importance in more general terms of journal literature and newspapers - noting that they included, not just translations, but also reviews and abstracts - which were also crucial to the transmission of ideas from one language to another. Janet Polasky went further - noting that ideas do not just travel via printed texts, but also via personal correspondence, conversation and even rumour.

The cover of the Hollis edition of Algernon Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government, HOU F *EC75.H7267 Zz751s Lobby IV.4.14, Houghton Library, Harvard University. The image here is the figure of liberty. I am grateful to the Houghton Library for giving me permission to include this here and to Dr Mark Somos for his assistance.

Finally, given that an online database is one of the major outputs of the Radical Translations project, it is not surprising that observations regarding digital humanities also loomed large in our discussions. Questions were raised about the limitations and challenges of producing a database. For example, Erica Manucci noted one difficulty faced by the project team had been linking individuals to places when some of those individuals resided in many different locations during their lives. Similarly, Janet Polasky wondered how something like rumour might be incorporated into a database.

Yet there was also an appreciation of the positive benefits that digital humanities can bring. Ryan Heuser's excellent paper on computational semantics epitomised this. He showed how digital analysis can help us to trace changes in the use of words over time. By analysing the words that surround and are associated with keywords in a corpus of texts, it is possible to assess which of those keywords retained a stable meaning over the period and which were transformed. Digital humanities also offers possibilities for the presentation of texts and translations. Many texts (including Gray's Elegy) have been translated multiple times, being constantly improved or updated. It is difficult to reflect this in print editions, but it would be possible to show and compare variants in digital form.

The owl from the cover of the Hollis edition of James Harrington’s The Commonwealth of Oceana, HOU GEN *EC65.H2381 656c (B) Lobby IV.2.18, Houghton Library, Harvard University. I am grateful to the Houghton Library for giving me permission to include this here and to Dr Mark Somos for his assistance.

In her concluding remarks, Dr Perovic made a comment that draws all three of my points together. She said the team had reflected on placing a liberty bonnet next to passages or sections of text that might be deemed radical. This immediately brought to my mind Thomas Hollis's Library of Liberty, which I have mentioned in a previous blogpost. Hollis had special tools designed by Giovanni Cipriani that he used to emboss little gold symbols onto the bindings of texts to provide a short-hand message on the content. The liberty bonnet was one of these, which was employed to identify those works that commended liberty. My favourite example, however, is the owl, which could be placed right way up, to indicate that the work contained wise ideas, or upside down, to suggest the opposite.

Experiencing Political Texts 3: The Power of the Paratext

The end of Yango Varo’s Foreword to Another Now, which gives the date.

As readers we often skip over or neglect the additional material that precedes and follows a text - such as the preface, dedication and acknowledgements. Yet this material can serve an important function in both literally and metaphorically framing a text. For this reason literary theorists have started to take it more seriously, inventing the term 'paratext' to describe it and investigating the ways in which it directs the reader's attention and shapes their reading. In last month's blogpost I focused on the blending of fact and fiction in political texts, setting Yanis Varoufakis's recent work of 'political science fiction', Another Now, alongside James Harrington's The Commonwealth of Oceana of 1656. In texts that blend fact and fiction, paratextual material serves a particularly important function and this is certainly true of Varoufakis's book.

The Foreword to Another Now is signed by the narrator of the work Yango Varo (clearly a fictionalisation of Varoufakis's own name) and is dated 10:05 a.m. Saturday 28 July 2036. This immediately draws attention to the fictional nature of the work and, more specifically, to the fact that it is set in an imagined future. The content of Varo's Foreword introduces the three main characters of the novel: Iris, who we are told in the opening sentence died a year ago; her friend Eva, who we learn was not at Iris's funeral; and Costa, who was present but chose to observe from a distance. Yango, a friend of all three, plays the role of communicator, being the purported author of what follows. He is directed by Iris and Costa to tell the story contained in Iris's diary, which she bequeathed to him before her death. Yet he is also instructed not to reveal any of the 'technical details' it contains. This makes little sense initially, but as the narrative unfolds the meaning of both the 'directive' and the 'injunction' become clear. The Foreword, then, sets up the work both by introducing the characters and plot, but also by posing puzzles or raising questions in the mind of the reader that will be resolved in the main body of the work.

Title page to Oceana including the dedication and epigram. James Harrington’s The Commonwealth of Oceana in The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington, ed. John Toland (London, 1737). Copy author’s own.

Harrington too framed his text with paratextual material. The main body of Oceana is preceded by an epigram from Horace, a dedication to Oliver Cromwell, an 'Epistle to the Reader', and 'The Introduction or Order of the Work' - which presents Oceana (England) and its neighbours Marpesia (Scotland) and Panopea (Ireland). However, since I have written extensivesly about Harrington's ideas - including his use of literary strategies - I will focus here, instead, on another early modern political text: the 1675 English edition of Niccolò Machiavelli's political works produced by Harrington's friend Henry Neville (The Works of the Famous Nicholas Machiavel, Citizen and Secretary of Florence, London, 1675).

Harrington and Neville had been close friends since before the publication of Oceana in 1656, and they worked together to promote Harrington's constitutional model, particularly during 1659 when implementation seemed most likely. According to a contemporary and friend, John Aubrey, Neville supported Harrington 'to his dyeing day', continuing to visit him even when Harrington's mind was affected by illness (Aubrey, Brief Lives, ed. K. Bennett, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, I, p. 322).

The third edition of Neville’s translation of Machiavelli’s works. Taken from Wikimedia Commons.

Neville appears to have shared - and even extended - his friend's playfulness. Neville added to his edition of Machiavelli's political works a letter supposedly written by Machiavelli to his friend Zanobius Buondelmontius in which he offered a vindication of himself and his writings. On the surface this was a conventional addition to a scholarly text - it was not unusual at the time to include additional material relating to the author. A more careful reading, however, reveals the letter to be a fraud or joke. In fact, as in Varoufakis's Foreword, even the date on the letter (1 April 1537) is suggestive. April 1st is, of course, April Fool's Day. Moreover, since Machiavelli had died on 21 June 1527, the letter was supposedly written almost ten years after his demise. The letter also refers to John Calvin's flight from Picardy to Geneva which, since it occurred in the 1530s, was something of which the real Machiavelli could not have been aware.

Machiavel’s Letter to Buondelmontius. Taken from the third edition - as previous image.

These features affects how we view the content of the letter, but that content in turn provides a clue to Neville's purpose. The topic of the letter is the corruption introduced into Christianity by the Catholic Church. Neville's 'Machiavel' points out that there is no evidence in the Bible for beliefs central to Catholic doctrine, such as purgatory, the worship of saints and idols, and the inquisition. These 'innovations', he suggests, were introduced by the Catholic clergy to increase their temporal power and to keep the people in ignorance. Using a term that had been coined by Harrington, he blames 'Priest-craft' for much of the current trouble, yet he remains hopeful that God will inspire Christian princes to bring about a return to 'the true Original Christian Faith', reminding them that in order to do so they will have to root out all traces 'of this Clergy or Priest-craft' or their efforts will be in vain.

In tricking his readers by including this fictional letter, Neville was deliberately echoing what he saw as the longstanding and calculated efforts of the clergy to deceive the laity. His aim in doing so was perhaps to draw the attention of his readers to their own foolish credulity, and to inoculate them against future deception. Having been stung by his prank, they would perhaps think more carefully in future about the ideas presented to them by others. Such trickery is less common as a literary technique today, and Varoufakis's Foreword is more deliberately part of his narrative. But, in an age when 'Fake News' has become a political weapon, and conspiracy theories are rife, I would hesitate to suggest that the credulity Neville identified has completely disappeared.

Experiencing Political Texts 2: Fiction and the Future

Earlier this year the well-known Greek economist and member of the Greek Parliament Yanis Varoufakis published a book entitled Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present. The purpose of the book is to set out the key features of a 'fair and equal' society, or to present the case for - and a vision of - a society based on democratic socialism. Keen as I am to see this ambition made into a reality, what struck me on reading Varoufakis's trailer for the book in The Guardian was less its content than its form or structure. Instead of setting out his argument in a conventional, factual, way - presenting key principles and justifying them - Varoufakis has adopted a fictional format, what he describes as 'political science fiction'. He presents his case, or as he puts it 'narrate(s) the story', via three characters: Iris, a Marxist-feminist; Eva, a libertarian ex-banker; and Costa, a maverick technologist.

Several of the techniques that Varoufakis employs, including his blending of fact and fiction, are reminiscent of the literary devices used by early modern authors of political texts, which are the focus of my current research project. Varoufakis's book can be used as a springboard for thinking about the value of such devices, the role that they played in specific texts in the past, and the use they might have today.

The Occupy Movement forms the basis for the transformations that take place in the ‘Other Now’. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

At the heart of Another Now is the idea of an imagined alternative society, which we could attain if only we make changes in our present (which is of course what Varoufakis is hoping to make us do by writing his book). While trying to develop a highly complex computer program Costa inadvertently finds a wormhole that gives him access to an alternative universe and the means to communicate with his alter-ego, whom he calls Kosti, who lives in that world. By sending messages back and forth through the wormhole, Costa learns that up until the banking crash of 2008, Kosti's life - and the world in which he lived - were identical to Costa's own. However, after that point this 'Other Now' took a very different direction, with several grassroots organisations using crowd sourcing and people power to dismantle the entire capitalist system. Over the space of several years these groups created a world in which employees are equal shareholders in the companies for which they work; all receiving the same basic pay along with bonuses that are decided upon by their colleagues. Banks no longer exist, instead each citizen has three digital accounts over which (s)he has direct control, subject to certain restrictions: a legacy account into which a sum of money is put at birth; a current account; and a savings account.

The title page of James Harrington’s The Commonwealth of Oceana in The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington, ed. John Toland (London, 1737). Copy author’s own.

Readers of my last blog post, will perhaps notice the parallel with what I have suggested James Harrington was doing in adopting a semi-utopian format for his major work The Commonwealth of Oceana, which appeared in 1656. In the first section of that work, called 'The Preliminaries', Harrington set out the principles on which his political theory was built and offered an account of English history from before the Norman Conquest up to April 1653 when Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Rump Parliament, which had ruled as a single chamber following the execution of King Charles I on 30 January 1649. At that point, however, Harrington's account moves from history to fiction. Though written in 1656 he narrates not what actually happened between 1653 and 1656, but rather 'another now'; an alternative reality that could have emerged if different decisions had been taken by Cromwell and those around him. Harrington has the character Olphaus Megaletor (who represents Cromwell as he ought to have been) gather around him a 'Council of Legislators' who research various past commonwealths from ancient Athens and Sparta to Venice and the Dutch Republic, and construct an ideal commonwealth from the best elements of each. That commonwealth is then instituted by Olphaus Megaletor in his position as the Lord Archon. Moreover, like Varoufakis, Harrington also projected his story on into the future to indicate the consequences that would have unfolded if that alternative path had been taken. The Corollary at the end of the work takes the story on into the next century. Olphaus Megaletor has just died, at an impossibly old age, and the commonwealth is flourishing. The population has increased by almost a third and the coffers are so full that the nation had been able to go three years without raising taxes. For Harrington, as for Varoufakis, fiction can be used as a tool to justify, and thereby to bring about, a change of course in the present.

Yet, as both authors seem to recognise, the power of fiction lies not only in deploying the author's imagination, but also in engaging the imagination of the reader. As I suggested in last month's post, Harrington's decisions regarding the form of his major work were also influenced by his understanding of people (especially his fellow countrymen) and how they thought about and engaged with politics: 'The people of this land', he accepted, 'have an aversion from novelties or innovation' and 'are incapable of discourse or reasoning upon government' (James Harrington, The Political Works of James Harrington, ed. J. G. A. Pocock, Cambridge University Press, 1978, p. 751). Yet he was confident that if they were given the opportunity to experience a good constitutional model they would recognise it as such. People might never agree to introduce a new form of government, but if they were able to 'feel the good and taste the sweet of it' they would then 'never agree to abandon it' (Harrington, Political Works, ed. Pocock, pp. 728-9). People were more likely to be convinced by political innovation if they experienced it rather than reading accounts of it and there was also a sense of their having to be led towards doing so. Harrington's book was his attempt to do just that. As an author (rather than a politician or head of state) he was not in a position to implement the system in the real world, but by presenting a fictional account he could provide his readers with the opportunity to 'experience' his model within their imaginations. His hope was that this would convince enough of them to make his 'airy model' a reality.

Varoufakis seems to have a similar attitude to the relationship between politics and fiction for readers as well as authors. Not only is the form of Another Now directed at engaging readers' imaginations by offering an alternative vision of the present and future, but this point is made explicit in the opening pages of the book when Iris gives the diary to the narrator and insists that the 'dispatches' in it should be used 'to open people's eyes to possibilities they are incapable of imagining unaided' (Varoufakis, Another Now, p. 2). 

‘The Council of Legislators’ section of The Commonwealth of Oceana.

I have no idea whether Varoufakis has read Oceana. Harrington is not listed in the index to Another Now, but it is perhaps revealing that, just over half way through, there is a reference to what economists call a 'self-revelation mechanism design': arrangements that motivate people to act honestly, 'as in the famous method of dividing a pie between two people, whereby one cuts the pie and the other chooses which they want' (Yanis Varoufakis, Another Now, Bodley Head, 2020, p. 138). Those familiar with Harrington's ideas will immediately recognise this as the story of the two girls dividing a cake that is a well-known feature of Oceana.

In an age of Fake News it often feels as though the malleability of facts is dangerous and that blurring the line between fact and fiction will further dupe the public. However, works like Another Now and Oceana remind us that these techniques can also be productive and can be used to reinvigorate, rather than to undermine, the public good. Perhaps, in this brave new world, fiction is one of the most powerful political weapons we have at our disposal.

Experiencing Political Texts 1: Endings and Beginnings

While it is January that is named after a god who looks both forwards and backwards, for those of us working in educational establishments in the UK, the early autumn is also a good time for simultaneous reflection on the past and forward planning. In this spirit, this month's blogpost will look back to a project I have recently completed and offer a preview of a new project I am planning.

On 25 September Republicanism: An Introduction was published by Polity Press. As we approach the final month of the Presidential election campaign in a country that has long claimed to exemplify republican ideals, the United States, the questions: what is republican government? and what is required in order for it to function effectively? are more pertinent than ever. As I explain in my book, the older definition of a republic was a system in which government operated in the interests of the common or public good. The violent clashes that have taken place recently between Black Lives Matter protestors and Trump supporters throw doubt on any claim that there is a single, shared understanding of the common good in the US today. Of course, in the now more commonplace definition of republican government as the antonym of monarchy, it may seem that the US is unquestionably a republic, but can this judgement survive in the face of rule by a billionaire who wields far greater powers than any sitting monarch in the world and who gifts members of his own family positions of high office?

I explore these definitions more fully in a blogpost I have written for Polity Press. The book takes a chronological approach, starting with the ancient ideas and practices that formed the basis of later republican theories, before examining how those theories developed and were put into action in the context of the Renaissance, early modern Europe and the Enlightenment, and the English, American and French Revolutions. It then considers the ways in which republican ideas have been adopted by new groups, and adapted to new ends in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Overall, the book argues that republicanism is a dynamic, living language, the survival of which is predicated on its adaptability, and which retains the potential to offer answers to the pressing political issues of the twenty-first century.

Last month's blogpost on this site, which focused on the material culture of republican rule, was the last in a series about myths of republican government, exploring current political issues on which the history of republican thought offers useful insights. Yet that post simultaneously pointed towards my next project.

The cover of Thomas Hollis’s edition of James Harrington’s The Commonwealth of Oceana, Houghton Library, Harvard University: HOU GEN *EC65.H2381 656c (B) Lobby IV.2.18. I am grateful to staff at the Houghton for giving me permission to include this here and to Dr Mark Somos for his assistance. Note the owl on the front cover which indicates the wisdom of the text.

In early modern Europe, improvements in the mechanics of printing, rising literacy levels, and a series of political crises, combined to provide both the means and the market for an outpouring of political texts. Historians of political thought have paid great attention to the content or substance of those texts; analysing the language used, the arguments made, the debates to which they contributed, and the historical contexts out of which they emerged. Far less attention has been paid to the form of these texts, by which I mean both the genre(s) in which they were written and their physical or material aspects. There was no uniform genre for early modern political works, they could take the form of philosophical treatises, dialogues, travel literature, utopias, even poetry or drama. Moreover, many of them playfully blended fact and fiction. Similarly, the material dimensions of political texts - including their size, paper quality, frontispieces, typeface and binding - varied enormously and often provide clues as to their intended audiences and relate closely to the arguments they were designed to convey. Moreover understanding the ways in which those texts circulated as physical objects is also crucial to making sense of both the intentions of their authors and the ways in which they were received and used by readers.

Paying attention to these aspects of early modern political texts is crucial if we are to understand fully the functions of those texts. Often they were designed not merely to inform their readers and convince them of the validity of the arguments presented, but to prompt their readers' engagement with those arguments and even incite them to action. This was particularly important for republican texts, which were often explicitly concerned with provoking a shift from otium (contemplation) to negotium (action).

The elaborate frontispiece to John Toland’s edition of James Harrington’s The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington (London, 1737), Copy author’s own.

It was my work on James Harrington that first drew these neglected aspects of early modern political texts to my attention. Scholars have long found it difficult to explain why Harrington veiled his greatest work, The Commonwealth of Oceana, in a rather laboured utopian form. The common argument - that it was a way of avoiding censorship - is inadequate given that a work advocating commonwealth government was in line with the views of the authorities in 1656 and that he actually removed the utopian veil from the works he produced in 1659-60 - a much more dangerous moment to voice republican arguments with the return of the monarchy looking increasingly likely. Rather, as I argued in my book, Harrington used the utopian format to indicate that what he was offering in that work was an alternative vision of England's future - one that departed in crucial ways from the actual path that had started to be taken after the dissolution of the Rump Parliament in 1653. Moreover, the fictional elements were designed to give the impression to his readers that the events he was describing were actually taking place, thereby providing them with the opportunity to imagine his ideal commonwealth and effectively to try it on for size - albeit in their imaginations rather than in reality. This fitted with Harrington's underlying philosophy that people are more likely to be convinced of the viability of new systems and institutions if they experience them rather than just read about them. This strategy also extended beyond the genre of the work to its physical form, with the constitutional orders printed in black type to make them look to seventeenth-century readers like official proclamations issued by the Government.

As my initial research has revealed, Harrington was by no means unique in using this sort of strategy. Examining the form of other early modern political texts therefore has the potential to enrich and expand our understanding of those texts, the arguments their authors were advocating, and the impact they were designed to elicit in their readers. Over the next few months I will offer a number of case studies of early modern political writers whose attention to form was central to their mission and purpose.

Exploring these methods and considering how effective they were in achieving their ends has implications for our reading of those texts today and for the ways in which they are presented to modern audiences. It raises questions, for example, about the relative advantages of accessing the text in its original form, in a modern paper edition, or in a digital version. It also prompts us to think about whether there may be ways of reflecting the material elements of a text (its size, paper quality etc.) in digital form. Finally, all of this raises questions about how political arguments are articulated today. Does the format in which we receive political information or opinion affect how we understand or approach it? How far does the layout of a text determine the extent to which we engage with or interact with it? Do we respond differently to political ideas that come to us in hard copy (in a newspaper or printed book) as compared with those that we access digitally? And how do different digital formats affect our understanding? In both these contexts, paying attention to form as well as to substance may yield some interesting observations.

Myths Concerning Republicanism 6: The Material Culture of Republican Rule or the Problem of the King's Head

The Seal of the Commonwealth. This is the version from 1651, the earlier 1649 version wore out.

The prospect of executing Charles I raised a problem for the English Parliament that, on the face of it, may look trivial but which was in fact very important: what was to be done about the royal seal? The seal was used to indicate royal approval on official documents and was therefore a crucial mark of legitimacy. Yet the royal seal (which depicted the King's head on one side and his coat of arms on the other) could not be used by a regicidal regime. Monarchies had a ready-made symbol in the image of the monarch, republics had to be more creative to find effective ways of representing the regime in material form. Another myth of republican government might then be that it is difficult to create a powerfully symbolic material culture for a republican regime. Yet various creative and innovative attempts have been made to do so.

The English regicides were certainly not deterred by the problem. Before Charles I had even been condemned to death plans were in train to produce a replacement seal. Four weeks before the regicide a new 'republican' seal had been designed and four days before Charles's death Thomas Simon was paid to produce it. As a result, the seal of the commonwealth was ready for use just a week after Charles had been executed. In place of the King's arms it depicted a map of England, Wales and Ireland (Scotland was not yet under the control of the English republic). In place of the King's head was an image of Parliament in session, reinforcing the point that that body (rather than a single individual) was now the sovereign.

Bust of a boy wearing a phrygian cap. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

One obvious source of inspiration for later republicans was the Roman Republic where inscriptions, images, material objects, architecture and rituals were all developed to reflect and reinforce the power of the state. The acronym SPQR (senatus populusque romanus, 'the senate and people of Rome') served as a reminder of where power lay in the Roman system and was used as an emblem of Rome's republican government, being emblazoned not just on official documents, but also on coins and buildings. The Roman legacy also furnished a number of motifs that were picked up by later republican states. One of these was the phrygian cap or liberty bonnet. Its origins lay in the practice of shaving the heads of slaves in ancient Rome. Freed slaves would, therefore, be given a hat to hide their shaved head while their hair grew back. On this basis the phrygian cap became a symbol of liberty.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti, ‘The Allegory of Good Government’ from the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

The frescoes that the artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti produced for the Sale dei Nove of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena between 1337 and 1339 constitute a particularly lavish example of the way in which republican ideology can be reflected in visual form. The cycle of six paintings present good and bad government and the effects of each in the city and in the countryside. Like written texts, the frescoes have been subject to conflicting interpretations. Quentin Skinner has challenged the traditional Aristotelian or Thomist reading, arguing instead that the frescoes reflect the ideology of pre-humanist texts and, more especially, the particular account set out in Bruno Latini's Li Livres dou trésor (Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics, Volume II: Renaissance Virtues, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 39-116). On this basis Skinner argues that the placing of the figure of peace in the middle section of the middle painting of the cycle reflects the pre-humanist view that the goal of good government is the preservation of peace and concord. He also claims that the regal figure, which had been seen as a symbolic representation of the Thomist doctrine of the common good, is in fact supposed to indicate the kind of magistrates the city should elect in order to secure the common good. Moreover, by simultaneously depicting this figure as representing the city of Siena and a supreme judge, Lorenzetti was emphasising Latini's point that the supreme ruler or judge of Siena must be the Sienese themselves. However we interpret these images, they constitute a powerful representation in visual form of republican political ideas.

Republican material culture could be used not simply to reinforce and disseminate the values of the ruling powers, but also as a tool of opposition. In eighteenth-century Britain Thomas Hollis and Thomas Spence both deployed images and artefacts alongside texts to mount extra-parliamentary republican campaigns.

The cover of the Hollis edition of Algernon Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government, F *EC75.H7267.Zz751s Lobby IV.4.14, Houghton Library, Harvard University. I am grateful to the Houghton Library for giving me permission to include this here and to Dr Mark Somos for his assistance.

At the heart of Hollis's campaign were the texts of earlier republican authors that he republished. These included Algernon Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government, James Harrington's The Commonwealth of Oceana, Edmund Ludlow's Memoirs, Marchamont Nedham's The Excellencie of a Free State and works by John Milton. But it was not merely the words of these volumes that mattered to Hollis, their physicality or material form was also crucial to the messages that he wanted to convey. The volumes that Hollis republished, and then sent to furnish public and university libraries across Europe and North America, were lavishly produced and deliberately associated with each other by their appearance. They were bound in red leather and embossed with symbols - including a small liberty bonnet. Each volume also bore a portrait of the author designed by the Italian-born painter and engraver Giovanni Battista Cipriani. The portraits were enclosed within a wreath made by two laurel branches (alluding to the victory laurels of ancient Rome) underneath which the liberty cap was repeated. Copies of the portraits were also printed separately, perhaps as advertisements for the volume or to be displayed on a wall. Hollis also commissioned Cipriani to design medals to commemorate key victories, including one which depicted Britannia wearing a liberty cap that was designed to celebrate the victory of the British over the French at Louisbourg in 1758.

Thomas Spence's political programme was grounded in the 'Land Plan' that he first presented in a lecture to the Newcastle Philosophical Society in November 1775. Though the lecture caused controversy and resulted in Spence being expelled from the society, he continued to promote his plan in a variety of publications. These included, not just conventional political pamphlets, but also utopian, semi-fictional works such as Crusonia and Spensonia, and his cheap periodical Pig's Meat. Like Hollis, Spence also experimented with visual representations. In particular he produced tokens depicting images that reflected or served as short-hand reminders of his land plan. He also used the images, as Hollis did, to reflect his broader political views, though he was less reverential. Rather than celebrating military victories he tended to use his tokens to complain about present day injustices. Spence's tokens were subversive in their function as well as their appearance. They were produced in response to the shortage of low denomination coins in the eighteenth century. Spence's tokens could be used by the public as small change and then exchanged for legal tender at his shop. By this means his tokens could be seen as replacing or subverting government authority and royal power. This was particularly the case with those on which the head of the monarch was replaced by an image of a radical activist such as John Horne Tooke or John Thelwall. Spence also counter-stamped official regal coinage with his slogans.

Royal iconography has always been dominated by the image of the monarch. Finding an equivalent symbol to represent republican authority has been a matter of debate and experimentation for republican regimes and opposition republicans alike. Their endeavours have produced a rich repertoire of republican imagery which draws heavily on the Roman legacy, but also reflects different national and temporal contexts.

The concern of those involved in the redesign of the seal in 1649 was to ensure that it reflected the reality of the new situation. By contrast, the official iconography of the United Kingdom today misrepresents the form of government that now prevails. The state is officially a monarchy, as reflected in the fact that the Queen's head is depicted on the royal seal, coins and postage stamps. Yet sovereign power now lies not with the monarch, but in the Houses of Parliament. Perhaps it is time to return to the iconography of 1649? Contrary to the myth, there is plenty of scope for doing so.

Myths Concerning Republicanism 5: Republics are only suited to small states

Anonymous portrait of Montesquieu after Jacques-Antoine Dassier (c.1728). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

It was a commonplace in the eighteenth century that republics are suited only to small states. This idea was memorably articulated by two of the most significant political theorists of the eighteenth century the Frenchman the Baron de Montesquieu and the Genevan Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

In The Spirit of the Laws Montesquieu declared:

It is in the nature of a republic to have only a small territory; otherwise, it can scarcely continue to exist. In a large republic, there are large fortunes, and consequently little moderation in spirits: the depositories are too large to put in the hands of a citizen; interests become particularised; at first a man feels he can be happy, great, and glorious without his homeland; and soon, that he can be great only on the ruins of his homeland.

In a large republic, the common good is sacrificed to a thousand considerations; it is subordinated to exceptions; it depends upon accidents. In a small one, the public good is better felt, better known, lies nearer to each citizen; abuses are less extensive there and consequently less protected (Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, ed. A. Cohler, B. Miller and H. Stone. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 124).

Statue of Jean-Jacques Rousseau near the Pantheon in Paris. Image by Rachel Hammersley

Similarly, in The Social Contract Rousseau argued that a true republic was only possible in a small state, where the whole population could gather together on a regular basis: 'The Sovereign, having no other force than the legislative power, acts only by means of the laws, and the laws being nothing but the authentic acts of the general will, the Sovereign can only act when the people is assembled.' (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. Victor Gourevitch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 100).

This myth relied on the fact that most republics both past and present had been small; operating in city-states rather than nation-states. Moreover, it was precisely the expansion of the Roman republic that was viewed by figures like Montesquieu as having caused its political and moral corruption, ultimately resulting in the shift to imperial rule (Montesquieu, Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Declension of the Roman Empire from The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu, translated from the French. London, 1777, pp. 61-66).

While there were a few exceptions in the form of the Dutch, Swiss, and English republics, all of which had emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, these were generally seen as proving rather than challenging the rule. The Dutch and Swiss republics were confederacies or leagues bringing together several city-states rather than being single large republics. The English 'commonwealth and free state' of the mid-seventeenth century was a genuine exception, but its reputation as a short-lived, precarious, and contentious regime did more to hinder than to advance the cause of large republics.

It goes without saying that the idea that republics are only suited to small states does not remain a potent myth today. Most governments calling themselves republican now rule over states that are large in both population size and area. The republic that did more than any other to undermine the myth was the American one established following the Declaration of Independence of 1776.

Howard Chandler Christy, Signing of the Constitution of the United States (1940). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

Yet the extent to which the United States of America really was - or is now - a republic in the traditional sense of the term is open to challenge. One such challenge has been articulated in forceful terms by the historian Eric Nelson. In The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding (Cambridge - Massachusetts, 2014) Nelson argues that America's founding fathers owed as much to royalist arguments of the mid-seventeenth century as they did to republican ones. Far from opposing royal tyranny in 1776, many American revolutionaries were reacting against the actions of Parliament and what they saw as its usurpation of royal prerogative in relation to the colonies. Moreover, in doing so they drew on the arguments of those who had opposed Parliament's attack on the prerogative of Charles I in the mid-seventeenth century. When it came to designing new constitutions, these men argued for a strong, single executive holding sweeping prerogative powers. As a result the American president was assigned far greater power than any British monarch had wielded for over a century. The legacy of those decisions remain today in the considerable powers still afforded to the US president and his ability to take crucial decisions for good or ill - the consequences of which are currently on display.

A different challenge to America's status as a republic was raised by the political philosopher Michael J. Sandel. In Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge - Massachusetts, 1996) Sandel argued that while the original constitution was grounded in republican ideas, they had gradually been eroded. By the late twentieth century there was considerable discontent with public life, and in particular fears around the loss of self-government and the erosion of a sense of community or public spirit. Despite America's status as a republic, the dominant political philosophy, Sandel argued, was no longer republicanism but a version of liberalism which placed centre stage the idea that the government should remain neutral in regard to the moral and religious views of its citizens. These issues have been brought into sharp relief by the current crisis. One feature of this liberalism is the absence of a public health service in the US. In the current crisis this means that those without adequate private healthcare provision may be left to die and it has made a co-ordinated public response to the crisis difficult. This lack of co-ordination has been identified as one reason why cases have advanced more quickly in the US than in other countries - such as Germany - which have a stronger health and social security system.

Of course the shortcomings of the current US system do not prove the impossibility of large-state republics. Republican government operates today in a variety of large states - including Germany. Yet eighteenth-century concerns - and the US example - should serve to remind us of the need to think carefully about what is necessary in order for a republic to function effectively in a large state, and to warn us that such states must be closely monitored for evidence of decline. The establishment of representative government and a strong executive undoubtedly provided useful means of making large-state republics possible, but such states can only function effectively where there are robust processes in place to hold both representatives and executive officers (including the president) to account. In addition, careful attention must be paid to the nature of, and the means to achieve, the public good. After all, government in the service of the public interest was one of the early definitions of republicanism.

Myths Concerning Republicanism 4: Republican Government and Commercial Society

Justin Champion delivering the first annual Christopher Hill memorial lecture at the National Civil War Centre, Newark, November 2018.

This month's blogpost, the latest in a series I have written on the myths surrounding republican government, is dedicated to the memory of the inspirational historian Justin Champion, who died last month, and whose research has fed directly into my thinking on this issue - and so many others.

The recent Covid-19 pandemic has raised important questions regarding the role of the state - particularly in times of crisis. In the UK, government intervention has been crucial in the form of the furloughing scheme and in providing cash injections to support small and medium sized businesses. At the same time, the high death rate in this country and the difficulties faced by the NHS have been blamed on decades of underfunding. On a broader scale it is self-evident that at a time when there is a high demand for Personal Protective Equipment and coronavirus testing kits in countries across the world, a market economy will operate in the interests of the richest and most powerful countries at the expense of poorer ones, bringing increased risks for their citizens and for the world.

This therefore seems a good moment to pay attention to another 'myth' relating to republicanism: that it either has little to say about twenty-first century economic matters or that it offers an unrealistic approach to economics that is antagonistic towards the market - regarding it, in Gerald Gaus's words, as 'inherently unfree and immoral' (quoted in Richard Dagger, 'Neo-republicanism and the civic economy', Politics, Philosophy and Economics 5:2, 2006: 158). In the same vein Gordon Wood, the historian of revolutionary America, has described republicanism as 'essentially anti-capitalistic' (Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787. Chapel Hill, 1969, p. 418). This attitude has led some to conclude that republicanism can have no place in the politics of the twenty-first century.

However, this is open to serious question. As is the case with many of these modern myths, its roots are to be found deep in history - or perhaps more accurately in historiography. In 1975 the great intellectual historian John Pocock produced a groundbreaking book The Machiavellian Moment, which traced the journey of republican ideas from the ancient world, via Renaissance Italy and early modern England, to their zenith in revolutionary America. Pocock paid particular attention to how those ideas faired in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Britain, highlighting the inevitable tension between the republican emphasis on virtue and the rise of commerce, and presenting republican authors as antagonistic to the new commercial society that was emerging around them. This fed into a wider argument about an incompatibility between liberalism and republicanism that was central to Pocock's book.

The Ponte Vecchio which spans the Arno river in Florence and has been the location for shops since the thirteenth century. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

While the distinction between liberalism and republicanism was challenged from the outset, the notion of republican virtue as inherently at odds with commercial society and a market economy proved more persistent. Nonetheless, recent research has begun to reveal it too to be a false dichotomy.

In a 2001 article Mark Jurdjevic took issue with Pocock's account of Renaissance Italy, arguing that Florentine civic humanism (the underpinning of the republican arguments of that time) was in fact the ideology of an 'ascendant merchant class'. He went on to suggest that commerce and private wealth were not a threat to the republic, but rather were crucial to its survival (Mark Jurdjevic, 'Virtue, Commerce, and the Enduring Florentine Republican Moment: Reintegrating Italy into the Atlantic Republican Debate', Journal of the History of Ideas, 62:4, 2001: 721-43).

The dedicatory letter at the beginning of John Toland’s edition of The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington (London, 1737), one of the texts cited in Justin Champion’s article. Here Toland celebrates the wealth and riches of London, which he attributes to English liberty, and likens Harrington’s constitution to that of the Bank of England. Copy author’s own.

Jurdjevic's conclusion chimes with the findings of Steve Pincus on seventeenth-century England, which at that time was already experiencing an expansion of trade. Pocock had focused on figures like James Harrington and John Milton who were hostile to commercial culture. Yet, as Pincus shows, there were plenty of supporters of commonwealth government prepared to defend the new commercial society (Steve Pincus, 'Neither Machiavellian Moment nor Possessive Individualism: Commercial Society and the Defenders of the English Commonwealth', The American Historical Review, 103:3, 1998: 705-36). The author of The Grand Concernments of England, for example, declared that 'trade is the very life and spirits of a common-wealth' (Anon., The Grand Concernments of England Ensured... London, 1659, p. 32).

Justin Champion has gone even further, drawing on little known published writings and unpublished manuscripts produced by John Toland and Robert Molesworth to show that these eighteenth-century 'commonwealthsmen' had a more subtle and sophisticated attitude to commerce than they have been given credit for. While they were certainly worried about the corruption that might be introduced by speculation, paper stocks, and credit, they drew an important distinction between schemes in which these mechanisms served only private interests and those that operated for the benefit of the public. While they condemned the former, they accepted that the latter could perform an important function in a well-organised republican state (Justin Champion, '"Mysterious politicks": land, credit and Commonwealth political economy, 1656-1722' in Money and Political Economy in the Enlightenment, ed. Daniel Carey. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2014, pp. 117-62).

Thomas Paine, copy by Auguste Millière after an engraving by William Sharp, after George Romney, c.1876, based on a work of 1792. Reproduced under a creative commons license from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, NPG 897.

Could that notion of an economy operating in the interests of the public good, rather than in private interests, provide the basis for a republican political economy in the twenty-first century? The political philosopher Richard Dagger certainly thinks so. In a 2006 article he sketched out the key features of a neo-republican economy where the market would be preserved but be directed towards the service of the public good. This would require that certain values be allowed to trump the unfettered operation of the market. Efficiency in the production and distribution of goods and services would certainly be valued, but the interests and well-being of citizens would be deemed more important. For example, there would be constraints on managerial decision-making and institutional guarantees for workers to be able to contest managerial directives. Similarly, the market would be curbed to secure the protection and flourishing of communities, which might mean giving careful consideration to the impact of economic decisions on the environment or on particular groups within society. Dagger also proposes several mechanisms designed to secure greater financial equality and a better redistribution of wealth among citizens. These include a robust inheritance tax, a progressive consumption tax, and a minimum level of financial support for all citizens to help make financial security - and therefore self-government - possible for all, regardless of background. Options for the delivery of this financial support could include a basic income, of the kind advocated recently by the economist Guy Standing, or a basic capital grant, an idea originally proposed by the eighteenth-century revolutionary Thomas Paine in The Rights of Man.

If Dagger is right then perhaps it would be possible to build on republican arguments of the past to develop an economic system in which the market can be directed towards advancing the public good. The current crisis provides an incentive for us to do so, and perhaps also the opportunity.

Algernon Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government: The Journey of a Text from Manuscript to Translation

Covid-19 has disrupted everything, including academic conferences, workshops and seminars. In the light of the necessary postponement of this year’s Translating Cultures workshop in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, I have chosen to suspend my series on Myths Concerning Republican Government for one month more in order to offer a brief account of the paper I would have given at that workshop, which reflects the new project that I am currently in the process of developing.

Scholarship on translation inevitably focuses on words. How are specific terms translated? How accurately does a translation convey the meaning and sentiment of a work? But what about the form in which those words are presented: what role does the genre that is used or the physical appearance of a text play in conveying meaning, indicating audience, and determining purpose; and what happens when a translation appears in a different form from the original? These are questions I had begun to ponder during previous Wolfenbüttel workshops.

Algernon Sidney, after Justus van Egmont, based on a work of 1663. National Portrait Gallery NPG 568. Reproduced thanks to a Creative Commons license.

For my contribution to our postponed third workshop I plan to explore these issues using Algernon Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government as a case study. Though an important seventeenth-century work with a long afterlife in England and abroad, the original 'text' was simply a collection of manuscript sheets found on Sidney's desk when he was arrested, in May 1683, for his alleged involvement in the Rye House Plot. In its journey from Sidney's desk to the French Revolution, where it generated particular interest, Discourses Concerning Government was transformed multiple times through the interventions of various collaborators.

The first stage of this was its publication as a physical book in 1698 by the editor John Toland and printer John Darby. In 1762, Thomas Hollis published a new edition in his 'Library of Liberty' and, a further thirty years on, Daniel Eaton followed suit with his own edition. Over the same period The Discourses established a French presence. Toland's edition was reviewed in the Huguenot periodical Nouvelles de la République des Lettres in 1699. Soon after, a French translation was produced by a Huguenot refugee Pierre-August Samson. It too was reviewed in Huguenot periodicals as well as being reprinted in 1755 and 1794. In 1789 Sidney's ideas were drawn to the attention of a wider French audience via Lettre de félicitation de milord Sidney aux Parisiens et à la nation françoise. Exploring the different stages of this text's journey, and changes in its form that occurred in the process, reveals interesting evidence about the relationship between the form and content of texts and translations.

The frontispiece to Toland and Darby’s 1698 edition of Sidney’s text. I am grateful to Gaby Mahlberg for providing me with this image.

First, the physical form of a text - its size, the quality of the paper, the sophistication of the frontispiece - offers indications as to its audience, purpose, and significance. Here there is a marked contrast between the different versions of The Discourses. The Toland and Hollis editions are large lavish volumes intended for the private libraries of the rich (Toland) or major university and public libraries (Hollis). Hollis went so far as to bind the works in his Library of Liberty in red leather and to emboss them with symbols of liberty such as the bonnet rouge. By contrast Daniel Eaton's edition was more modest, being part of a scheme by the London Corresponding Society to make available cheap versions of key political texts. In fact, Eaton not only published Sidney's text in full, but also included excerpts in his weekly periodical Politics for the People. The French translations too were generally smaller than Toland's original, perhaps reflecting the humble and transient lifestyle of Huguenots at the time.

Secondly, it is interesting to observe the connections these editors and translators saw between texts. Toland was largely responsible for the creation of a canon of English republican works and he deliberately associated Sidney's Discourses (written in the 1680s) with works produced during the English Revolution, emphasising their common themes. His 1704 reprint of the Discourses explicitly alerted readers to the fact that John Milton's, Edmund Ludlow's and James Harrington's works could also be found in Derby's shop. Similarly, Hollis's Library of Liberty set Sidney's text alongside works by Milton, Ludlow, Andrew Marvell and Marchamont Nedham; and the common binding used physical resemblance to reinforce the ideological connection. In sending collections of works to particular institutions Hollis was also able, as Mark Somos demonstrated to us last year, to use marginalia to create a trail of republican writings and to influence how they were read.

Pierre-August Samson’s 1702 French translation of Sidney’s Discourses. With thanks to Gaby Mahlberg for providing the image.

Thirdly there is the question of genre. Knowledge of Sidney in France came initially via the reviews in periodicals. Here, then, The Discourses was associated with Huguenot concerns - in particular Protestantism and resistance to absolute monarchy. How did this affect French readings of Sidney's text? And what about Lettre de félicitation de milord Sidney. This was not a translation, but a short work pretending that Sidney had returned from the dead to counsel the French. Presenting Sidney's ideas in the form of a letter addressed to the revolutionaries allowed those ideas to be targeted at their concerns. Content and form, then, are inextricably bound together. To fully understand the one - we must also pay close attention to the other.

People's Parks

I am interrupting my series on ‘Myths Concerning Republicanism’ to include a post relating to the project Wastes and Strays: The Past, Present and Future of Urban Commons on which I am a Co-investigator. It seemed appropriate to include the post here not just in terms of reflecting current work with which I am engaged, but also on the grounds that some of the issues explored in this blogpost relate to the public good and control of public resources, which have been key themes in my ‘Myths Concerning Republicanism’ series. I will return to that series proper in June.

With the spread of COVID-19 confining us all to our homes, the value of green space - and of access to it - has taken on new meaning and importance. Mine cannot be the only family that has come to realise in the last few weeks how lucky we are to live close to an urban park. Our regular evening walks there lift our mood and provide time for conversation and reflection after a day cooped up indoors.

The benefits of access to green space for physical and mental wellbeing have been regularly cited in the media for some years now and are acknowledged by the World Health Organisation (https://www.who.int/sustainable-development/cities/health-risks/urban-green-space/en/). Living in close proximity to such space has been linked to very specific health benefits such as the later onset of the menopause among women and better mortality rates.

Our attitude towards green space might seem very particular to the twenty-first-century, given its association with current concerns surrounding the environment, curbing obesity, and improving mental health. Yet, these modern debates are only the latest manifestation of discussions that have taken place for centuries. As far back as 1861, one Newcastle journalist wrote in words which with just minor tweaking could have appeared in today's Newcastle Chronicle: 

The pure and bracing air of the Town Moor, and Leazes, so frequently recommended by medical men to their patients for the restoration of health, and the footpaths and pleasant walks, with liberty to stroll where you will, and not suffer confinement to harsh gravel walks, have always been highly conducive to the health and enjoyment of the inhabitants, who ought to be extremely grateful that there is so large a tract of ground adjoining the town, open to them at all times for exercise and recreation. To be deprived of it, on any pretence, plausible as it may be, would be felt as a great misfortune ('The Corporation and the Town Moor', Newcastle Journal, 20 September 1861).

Interestingly, this article was part of a campaign opposing the proposal by Newcastle Council to convert the city's Town Moor into a 'People's Park'. Moreover, Newcastle was not the only place in the 1860s where the idea of creating a 'People's Park' was stiffly rebutted by defenders of existing urban commons. In Norwich the proposal by the Dean and Chapter that Mousehold Heath be transformed into a 'People's Park' provoked a strong and vociferous opposition movement which held out for more than twenty years. So why did the Victorian idea of a 'People's Park' fail to appeal even to those who acknowledged the health benefits of access to open spaces? As will become clear, the issue is more complicated than it seems at first sight.

Newcastle Case

In the summer of 1861, the Town Moor Committee of Newcastle Town Council sought to make a recommendation to Parliament to convert part of the Town Moor and Leazes into a People's Park incorporating 'rides, drives, cricket and drill grounds - a gymnasium, in fact, for all classes' ('Newcastle Corporation - The Town Moor', Newcastle Journal, 8 August 1861). While the case appeared public-spirited, opponents dismissed the proposal as the latest of many attempts by the Newcastle Corporation to seize possession of land that belonged to the freemen. While not denying the positive benefits of access to green open space, not just for the freemen and their widows and orphans but for all inhabitants of the city, it was argued that 'the Town Moor, Nun's Moor, and Castle Leazes already form the most healthy and extensive public park in the north of England, and perhaps in the kingdom' ('The Corporation and the Town Moor', Newcastle Journal, 20 September 1861). Turning these commons into a People's Park, it was asserted, would be a waste of taxpayers' money.

Plan of the proposed public park on the Town Moor and Castle Leazes, Newcastle Upon Tyne, January 1869. From Newcastle Libraries, Fulton (J.) L912.2 N536.

This debate was one strand of a larger conflict between the freemen and the Corporation over the Town Moor, which had a long history. Trouble had flared in the 1770s resulting in the passing of the Town Moor Act in 1774. According to this legislation portions of the Moor could be let out for cultivation, but only under strict regulations

At a meeting in September 1861 to arrange that year's lettings, trouble flared. Acting as a freeman and on behalf of a large group of others, the solicitor Mr E. Story entered a protest against the re-letting of the intakes which were at present under lease to tenants. Concerned at the impact repeated letting of the same intakes was having on the land, Mr Story pointed out that re-letting was contrary to the letter of the 1774 Act. When the chairman of the incorporated companies, Mr Meikle, insisted that despite the objection they should proceed to the letting, Mr Story opposed each one in turn and as a result no bids for previously cultivated land on the Town Moor were made, only the lots on the previously uncultivated Leazes being let ('The Town Moor Intakes', Newcastle Journal, 5 September 1861; 'Letting of Intakes on the Town Moor', Newcastle Courant, 6 September 1861; 'The Freemen and the Town Moor' and 'The Town Moor Intakes - Protest of Freemen', Newcastle Guardian and Tyne Mercury, 7 September 1861). At least one newspaper report in discussing the case linked the dispute to internecine conflict among the freemen, not least over rights to graze cattle on the Moor.

What appears to have been at stake in Newcastle in the 1860s, then, was not whether maintaining an area of open space close to the heart of the city was a good idea, but rather who had control over that space, how that control was to be exercised, and how the space itself should be used.

Norwich Case

In Norwich, too, the call to establish a People's Park was bound up with the issue of who controlled the urban common land, in this case Mousehold Heath, an area of heathland that had originally stretched from the edge of the city of Norwich to the Norfolk coast. By the early nineteenth century much of this area had been enclosed, but the portion closest to the city remained. On the surface this case looks very different from that of Newcastle. Rather than the city authorities seeking to seize control, the owners - the Dean and Chapter - wrote to the sheriff of Norwich in 1864 offering all rights in Mousehold to the city on condition that the area be transformed into a People's Park. In order to make sense of this apparent act of self-sacrifice and public-spiritedness on the part of the Dean and Chapter, we need to delve a little deeper. The fact that the Dean and Chapter were said to be tired of having legal responsibility for Mousehold Heath suggests that control over the commons had become a burden rather than a benefit. One reason for this can be found in council debates dating back to the late 1850s.

On 23 May 1857 the Norfolk Chronicle reported a discussion in the recent quarterly council meeting regarding the condition of Mousehold Heath. Some development of this part of the heath had begun in the late eighteenth century and by the 1850s it was a popular place for Norwich's growing middle class to walk and take exercise. One of those present at the meeting described it as 'one of the finest places in the world to gallop over' and claimed 'it renovated any one to do so'. There were, however, concerns that these activities were being negatively affected by other uses to which the heath was being put. A number of representations were made to the watch committee regarding encroachments on the heath - in particular marl pits and ditches. Concern was expressed that these features negatively affected the experience of walkers and riders, but also that they made the road 'extremely dangerous'. One council member went so far as to suggest that the activities of a few individuals were rendering the area 'entirely useless' ('Norwich Corporation', Norfolk Chronicle, 23 May 1857).

While the Dean and Chapter, the city authorities, and the middle class inhabitants of Norwich, may have been in agreement that a People's Park provided the solution to the problem of Mousehold, other users of the common were less convinced (Neil MacMaster, 'The Battle for Mousehold Heath 1857-1884: "Popular Politics" and the Victorian Public Park', Past and Present, 127 (1990), 117-154). Residents of the parish of Pockthorpe, which bordered the Heath, had long used the land for the purposes of brick making - a key local industry. It was this activity that created the pits and quarries that caused such consternation among the more well-to-do inhabitants of the area. Their claim to the land is reflected in the fact that on historic documents the area is often described as 'Pockthorpe Heath'. These residents already felt disadvantaged by the earlier enclosures and so were keen to retain rights over the heathland that remained. They were, of course, less powerful and not as well-connected as Newcastle's freemen, making it remarkable that they were able to delay Mousehold's conversion into a People's Park for more than twenty years. This achievement was largely the work of the Pockthorpe committee but, as Neil MacMaster has argued, this group benefitted from the passing of the Reform Act of 1868, which made electoral candidates reluctant to give their support to policies that were expressly opposed by the new working-class voters. In the end the case went to Chancery, where a decision was taken in 1883 in favour of the city and the creation of a People's Park.

Nathaniel Bucks, Mousehold Heath (1741). With thanks to the Norfolk Heritage Centre at the Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library.

These cases remind us that while the idea of a People's Park, and the associated drive to encourage more ordinary people to engage with the natural environment and gain the benefits of fresh air and exercise, may seem uncontroversial and self-evidently good, apparent short-term gains could be used to mask longer term losses. This might be the transfer of rights over common land to those with a vested interest in exploiting that land for profit, or middle and upper classes uses of the land trumping any claims of members of the lower orders. What these cases reveal above all else is that the control of common land is a political issue.

Myths Concerning Republicanism 3: Republics Require Virtuous Citizens

The events of the last two weeks have brought to the fore the relationship between the individual and society. The spread of Covid-19, as well as our ability to access food and other basic necessities, depend on whether people behave in their own or the public interest. Moreover, many commentators have noted that this crisis has brought out both the best and worst in people. Though this blogpost was written before the Coronavirus situation in the UK escalated and we were confined to our homes, exploring the role that virtue can and should play in society now seems particularly pertinent.

Those who have written about the history of republicanism tend to agree that two key concepts lie intertwined at its heart: liberty and virtue. Recent scholarship has placed greater emphasis on the former. Particularly influential has been Quentin Skinner's argument that there is a distinctive understanding of liberty popular with past republican thinkers, which insists that freedom requires not just the absence of physical restraint (as the liberal understanding would suggest) but also not being dependent on another person's will. This understanding of liberty as non-dependence is central to Philip Pettit's influential attempt to establish neo-republicanism as an alternative to modern liberalism today. It is no doubt easier for current advocates of republican government to emphasise liberty, which remains a fundamental and respected value in the twenty-first century, than to try to argue in favour of virtue, a value that, aside from aficionados of virtue ethics, brings with it connotations of ancient self-sacrifice and Christian moralising.

Another myth about republican government that potentially amounts to an objection to its revival in the present, then, is that it requires the exercise of an unreasonable degree of virtue on the part of citizens. As with the other myths that have been explored in this blog, there is some justification for this.

Jacques-Louis David, ‘Brutus and the Lictors’ reproduced thanks to the Getty’s Open Content program.

The ancient philosopher Cicero did much to cement the importance of virtue within the republican tradition. In his book De Officiis (On Duties) he took from Plato's Republic two crucial pieces of advice for those taking charge of public affairs: 'first to fix their gaze so firmly on what is beneficial to the citizens that whatever they do, they do with that in mind, forgetful of their own advantage. Secondly, let them care for the whole body of the republic rather than protect one part and neglect the rest' (Cicero, On Duties, ed. M. T. Griffin and E. M. Atkins, Cambridge, 1991, p. 33). Elsewhere in the work he voiced the idea that makes such behaviour seem impossible. Noting that, of the many fellowships that bind humans together, the most precious is the republic, he went on: 'What good man would hesitate to face death on her behalf, if it would do her a service?' (Cicero, On Duties, p. 23). 

This idea that republican virtue requires the subordination of one's private interests to the public good, and that a good republican must be prepared to make immense sacrifices for the good of the whole, was reiterated in the eighteenth century. Perhaps the most powerful reflection of it is to be found in the art work of the French revolutionary painter Jacques-Louis David. His painting Brutus and the Lictors (1789) drew on a famous story from Roman history to explore the central themes of patriotism and the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the state. Lucius Junius Brutus, who had been responsible for expelling the Tarquins from Rome and thereby establishing the republic, discovered that his sons had been acting to restore the monarchy. He prioritised the good of the state over his own family by sentencing his sons to death for treason. While David's picture captures the enormous weight of Brutus's sacrifice, the message is clear that he made the right decision.

This understanding of 'virtue' is still in evidence today in the respect shown to veterans and their families. Moreover it is currently on display among those working in the NHS, care homes, supermarkets, and other essential services who are continuing to attend work despite the risks to their own health. Nevertheless few would welcome the notion, under normal circumstances, that civilian citizens should regularly be expected to put their lives or those of their family on the line for the public good.

I want to offer two thoughts in response to this myth. First that if we understand what is required in less extreme terms we can perhaps find some value in grounding our society more firmly in virtue - in a concern for the public good rather than mere private interests. Secondly, that some republican theorists were well aware that expecting human beings willingly to make huge sacrifices for the good of the public was unrealistic. They suggested, instead, that laws and systems of rewards and punishments could be used to create a situation in which people could be motivated by self-interested concerns to behave in a way that benefited the public as a whole. This approach might offer some possibilities for future policy.

To some degree those of us living in countries with a welfare state already accept the principle of sacrificing individual advantages for the good of the whole. The National Health Service in the UK, for example, is premised on the belief that free health care at the point of need is a public good and that individual citizens must sacrifice a portion of their income in order to pay for it. Similarly, here in the UK taxes ensure that free primary and secondary education is available to all children up to the age of 18, and this is paid for by all citizens regardless of whether they themselves have children, or indeed whether they choose to send their children to state schools.

We could extend this idea to other aspects of society. In an article that I linked to in last month's blogpost, George Monbiot argues that the choice we have to make is between 'public luxury for all, or private luxury for some'. He encourages us to imagine a society in which the rich sacrifice their private swimming pools and the middle class their private gym membership, reinvesting that money in high quality public sports facilities that are open to all. A society where a purpose-built public transport system provides swift, efficient, and comfortable travel for everyone, making it rational for individuals to leave their cars at home or abandon them altogether. One in which private gardens of varying sizes are exchanged for vast public parks complete with imaginatively thought out, well constructed, and properly maintained playgrounds that provide opportunities for all children to play and have fun, while in the process improving their health and wellbeing

Portrait of Pieter de la Court by Abraham Lambertsz van den Tempel (1667). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

The problem is how we persuade people to make such sacrifices. We can find some answers by examining republican arguments of the past. While some republicans - particularly those of a strongly religious bent such as John Milton and Algernon Sidney - insisted on the need for genuine virtue on the part of rulers and citizens alike, others - including the Dutch thinkers Johann and Pieter de la Court, the Englishman James Harrington, the Frenchman the Abbé Mably, and the American John Adams - did not have such high expectations of the human capacity for virtue. They accepted that the majority of people would not be willing to make sacrifices for the public good unless it was clearly in their interests to do so. Consequently they argued that laws should be designed so as to direct people towards virtuous behaviour or that other incentives - such as honours and rewards - could be used to induce people to act in the public interest.

Harrington's whole constitutional system was designed with this end in mind. His most famous articulation of the argument was his story of two girls dividing a cake between them. If one girl cuts the cake, but the other gets first choice as to which piece she wants, the first girl will be led by her own self-interest (in this case understood as her desire to get the largest piece of cake) to divide the cake as evenly as she possibly can. Harrington used this as a metaphor for the organisation of legislative power within the state. He insisted on a bicameral legislature and argued that the upper house or senate should make legislative proposals, but the lower house should have the final say as to whether to accept or reject them. By this means the senate would be induced only to propose legislation that was in the public interest, since if they put forward measures in their own interests, the lower house would reject them.

Portrait of Gabriel Bonnet de Mably. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

A different method was proposed by Mably. He insisted that human reason and virtue were too weak to act alone  and that only a small proportion of people in any society would be capable of being led by reason at all times. Yet, he believed that even some of the strongest passions, if carefully orchestrated, could become virtues by being directed towards the public good. Offering rewards for public-spirited behaviour could ensure that ambition or the desire for fame and glory could be channelled towards positive ends. There is a close link between these methods and what modern behavioural scientists call nudge theory.

It would be naïve to think that society could be transformed overnight, but it would also be wrong to think that governments are impotent in these matters. Changes can be made by those courageous enough to do so. On 29 February 2020 the government of Luxembourg introduced free public transport  across the entire country. In addition to seeing public transport as a public good, this is also a move designed to bring an even greater public benefit - that of improving the environment. There is evidence to suggest that this move alone may not be sufficient to encourage car users to make fewer journeys. But when pull factors - such as free public transport - are combined with push factors - an increase in parking fees, congestion charging, and increased fuel taxes - the desired outcome can perhaps be achieved. The pertinent question, then, is not whether citizens are virtuous enough to put the public good before their own private interests, but rather whether politicians are courageous enough to put in place the measures that would induce them to do this.

Myths Concerning Republicanism 2: Republican Government has always been Aristocratic

January's blogpost explored the myth that republican government is necessarily anti-monarchical. This month I want to consider another myth: that republican government is inherently aristocratic or élitist in character and therefore unsuited to the democratic nature of twenty-first-century states.

Print of Geneva in 1630. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

There is some justification for this characterisation. In the ancient world republican government was associated with slavery, the exclusion of women from the political sphere, and the restriction of political participation to certain groups. Indeed, the exercise of citizenship depended on the work carried out by non-citizens (including slaves, women, servants, and foreigners), which made it possible for citizens to devote their attention to political matters. Moreover, later republican governments were criticised for descending into oligarchy. Venice's Grand Council was initially composed of all male inhabitants but due to citizenship being restricted to the descendants of those original citizens, by 1581 it was accorded to just over 1% of the population. In the Genevan republic the cost of claiming citizenship became more expensive over time, restricting who could take it up. In addition, power was increasingly moved away from the General Council - comprising all citizens - and towards smaller bodies that were dominated by a few families.

Frontispiece to The Federalist Papers. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

The rise of the modern representative republic proved a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it undercut the need for citizens to be supported by non-citizens by making citizenship a less onerous activity. Yet, at the same time, it created a political élite distinct from the wider citizen body whose role it was to govern. For some thinkers this was a positive move. They saw representation not simply as a necessary evil in the large states of the modern world, but as a good in itself. In The Federalist Papers James Madison insisted that in a representative government 'public views' would be 'refined' and 'enlarge[d]' by being passed through 'the medium of a chosen body of citizens' who would be wiser than the rest and therefore better able to determine the true interest of the nation. He went on: 'Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose.' (Publius, The Federalist Papers, X).

Yet, as debates at the time make clear, this was not the only way of organising representative government. Anti-Federalists in America, and various individuals and groups in Europe, proposed representative systems that maintained a closer connection between elected delegates and those they represented. The mechanisms they advocated included short terms and regular rotation of office, powerful local assemblies, binding mandates, and even the popular ratification of laws. The way in which the modern representative republic was organised did serve to create a narrow political élite, but that was a deliberate choice rather than the only option available.

Where the Federalists chose to build on the aristocratic tendency within republican thought, an alternative more democratic strand also existed

Portrait of James Harrington from The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington… ed. John Toland (London, 1737). Image by Rachel Hammersley.

Some republicans insisted that popular participation (rather than anti-monarchism) was the defining feature of republican government. William Walker argues that the ancient historian Sallust saw the establishment of the tribunate as more important to the Roman Republic than the displacement of the monarch by consuls (William Walker, 'Sallust and Skinner on Civil Liberty', European Journal of Political Theory, 5:3, 2006). Likewise, for James Harrington it was not the presence or absence of a single figurehead at the apex of the system that determined whether or not a regime was a commonwealth, but rather whether or not the people (via their popular assembly) had the final say over which legislation was passed and enacted (Rachel Hammersley, James Harrington: An Intellectual Biography, Oxford, 2019). Similarly, John P. McCormick has argued that Niccolò Machiavelli offered an anti-élitist critique of republican practice. In contrast to Francesco Guicciardini's "senatorial" model of politics, he favoured a "tribunate" model which embraced popular deliberation and employed extra-electoral methods to secure the accountability of those in power (John P. McCormick, 'Machiavelli Against Republicanism On the Cambridge School's "Guicciardinian Moments", Political Theory, 31:5, 2003, 615-43).

Both Machiavelli and Harrington were also advocates of the idea that extremes of wealth and poverty would pose a direct threat to the survival of the republic. Machiavelli famously argued that if the system was well-constituted the public should be rich, but the citizens poor (Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970, p. 475). This idea has a modern echo in the notion that we must choose between public luxury for all or private luxury for some. Other thinkers called for balance and moderation. Harrington claimed that: 'There is a mean in things: as exorbitant riches overthrow the balance of a commonwealth, so extreme poverty cannot hold it nor is by any means to be trusted with it.' (James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana, ed. J. G. A. Pocock. Cambridge, 1992, p. 77). A similar view was endorsed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau who insisted that in order to secure civil freedom: 'no citizen [can] be so very rich that he can buy another, and none so poor that he is compelled to sell himself.' (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract, ed. Victor Gourevitch. Cambridge, 1997, p. 78). The problem with wealth and luxury, Rousseau insisted, was that they exerted a corrupting influence, encouraging the citizens to put their own private interests above those of the republic.

The Leaders of the Knights of Labour with Terence Powderly in the centre. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

It is also evident that even after the emergence of representative republics, the language of republicanism could be used by marginalised or excluded groups against their oppressors. As Alex Gourevitch has demonstrated, this tactic was deployed to great effect by 'The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor', the first labour organisation in the United States of America to admit both white and black workers (Alex Gourevitch, From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth. Cambridge, 2015). Its leaders deliberately used republican arguments to criticise wage labour. George McNeill spoke of the 'inevitable and irresistible conflict' between the system of wage labour and republican governance (p. 100). The reason for this, as Terence Powderly explained, was that the wage labour system generated economic inequalities that were translated into political inequalities. Drawing directly on the understanding of liberty as non-dependence, and on arguments that had been used in the seventeenth century to insist that subjects were unfree even under a mild and gentle monarch, the Knights insisted that a worker would be a slave even if employed by 'the gentlest man in the world' 'if he must obey his commands and depend upon his will' (pp. 14-15). The solution, they argued, was to establish cooperatives so that workers could collectively own and manage the factories in which they worked. By applying the conception of liberty as non-dependence to the economic as well as the political sphere, these labour republicans succeeded in making republican arguments applicable not just to independent property owners, but to all workers - white and black, male and female.

While republicanism has taken an aristocratic form in both theory and practice in the past this was often a deliberate strategy rather than a necessity. The history of the republican tradition can provide arguments in favour of popular participation in government, warnings against excessive inequalities among citizens, and evidence of the importance of economic as well as political inequalities (and of the relationship between the two). Rather than dismissing republicanism as inherently aristocratic, then, it might be more profitable to draw on these resources to create a version of republicanism suited to the democratic states of the twenty-first century.

Transcultural Conversations

Having just returned from a fascinating conference at the European University Institute (EUI) near Florence I feel I must interrupt my series of posts on Republicanism to offer some reflections on that event.

Villa Salviati. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

The conference was expertly organised by four PhD students based at the EUI: Thomas Ashby, Ela Bozok, Muireann McCann and Elisavet Papalexopoulou. It was held in the beautiful Villa Salviati. Medici imagery appears throughout the villa in reference to the family link via Lucrezia, the wife of Jacoo di Giovanni Salviati who owned the villa in the sixteenth century and whose renovations determined the current layout. Contributors to the conference were lucky enough to be shown the private chapel that Jacopo constructed, probably for his daughter's wedding, with its beautifully decorated ceiling bearing heraldic devices alluding to the alliance between the Medici and Salviati families.

The ceiling of the private chapel at Villa Salviati. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

The conference theme, 'transcultural conversations', is not only academically popular at present (as evidenced by the excellent papers), but also has potential contemporary relevance. My own work in this area has tended to focus on the crossing of linguistic boundaries particularly through translations. In my paper I reflected on this work arguing that to fully understand the impact of translations we need to go beyond the conventional texts to look not only at  explicit and acknowledged translations, but also at works that perform similar functions; to consider the form and materiality as well as the content of the text; and to look at the uses to which translations and associated texts were put. The conference organisers and participants very deliberately chose the term 'transcultural' rather than 'transnational' and took a broad approach.

Some papers did consider conversations that took place across national and linguistic boundaries - for example Arnab Dutta's paper on discussions between Bengali and German scholars and intellectuals in the 1920s and 30s over the meaning of the term 'kultur' and Simone Muraca's paper on cultural diplomacy between Italy and Portugal in the same period. Others considered conversations that occurred across confessional divides. Thomas Pritchard's paper on pan-European Anti-Spanish polemic highlighted the distinction between Anti-Catholic and specifically Anti-Spanish arguments. Concerns about the establishment of a Spanish universal monarchy were articulated not just by Protestant authors but also by Catholics such as Trajano Boccalini and Paolo Sarpi, whose works were then translated into English and used to further English campaigns. Such conversations could even cross the religious/secular divide as Agathe de Margerie's paper on the Austrian Paulus Gesellschaft made clear. She showed how in the late 1960s attempts were made by the group to open up a dialogue between Catholic and Marxist thinkers and the ideologies they embraced. Other papers explored conversations across philosophical boundaries, as in Nicholas Devlin's paper on 'The continental Marxist origins of American totalitarian theory' and Luke Illott's paper exploring Michel Foucault's crossing of the boundary between the English and Continental philosophical traditions. Moreover, Benjamin Thomas, in his paper 'Intra-Party Contestation: Ideological Transformations and Neoliberalism', emphasised the importance of considering conversations within, as well as between, ideological groups. In a number of these cases, conversations took place across multiple cultural boundaries simultaneously.

The means by or through which these conversations occurred were equally complex. While some participants focused on the reading, translation, and writing of published texts, others engaged with conversations that took place in private correspondence or even face-to-face. Thus, the kind of 'conversation' that Hugo Bonin explored in his paper on  Henry Reeve's English translation of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, and the British reception of the work that resulted from it, was very different from the face-to-face encounters discussed by Dutta's Indian and German intellectuals or de Margerie's Marxists and Catholics. In both types of conversation, however, it was noted that the engagement could be either monolingual or multilingual (the conversations Dutta described took place in English, French, and German as well as in various Indian languages).

Alex Collins's paper looked more theoretically at methods of communication. He argued that the pioneering seventeenth-century scientist Henry Oldenburg expressed an explicit preference for knowledge gained via acquaintance (for example news that came directly from his contacts) as compared with knowledge by description (such as the information he might gain from newspapers). For Oldenburg the advantage lay primarily in the importance of trust in knowledge formation. In our discussion, however, we also considered the fact that direct engagement between people tends to encourage cultural conversations that are multi-directional rather than ones in which ideas flow in only one direction.

Portrait of Henry Oldenburg, attributed to Jan van Cleve. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

All of this complexity inevitably generates obstacles to communication. These might include problems of vocabulary and language. Dutta noted that initially there was no Bengali word for kultur, it simply had to be transliterated from the German. But there was another word from the west of India, 'Sanskrita', the etymology of which derived from the notion of krishe/krishti or cultivated ground, which brought fresh connotations to the Indian version of the kultur/civilisation debate. Similarly, Bonin noted that 'democracy' had different connotations in English from how the word was used in French. For British readers it still tended to be understood to refer to a type of regime, whereas in Tocqueville's French account it had a broader meaning, referring to a relatively egalitarian form of society.

One way around obstacles to communication is to use different formats for the transmission of ideas.  This was a particular focus of Panel 2 'Transfer through print, visual arts and music'. As Lia Brazil demonstrated, English pamphlets engaging with the South African War took very different forms, with the strong graphics and poetry of the Stop the War Committee publications contrasting starkly with the much more plain, cautious approach of those produced by the South African Conciliation Committee. Here, form was probably designed to mirror content, with the Conciliation Committee publications engaging in much deeper legal and philosophical debate, which Brazil expertly analysed. Arthur Duhé focused to an even greater degree on form in his paper 'Affective transfer in revolutionary times'. He noted how engravings and songs were used to convey the emotional aspect of the 1848 revolutions - and particularly the impact of the deaths of revolutionary martyrs - to foreign audiences. Duhé argued persuasively that historians of revolutions need to pay more attention to visual and musical sources, their production and material transfers. In a later panel Jessica Sequeira picked up this theme. Her protagonists - Pedro Prado and Antonio Castro Leal - did not merely translate poetry, but actually went so far as to invent an Afghan poet Karez-i-Roshan. As Sequeira argued, this playfulness was not simply a prank or joke, but had a deeper meaning and resonance as a deliberate method of enacting a transcultural conversation.

Il Duomo. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

Other contributors explored other means by which different communities could dialogue with each other when holding conflicting views and opinions. Luke Illot made a strong case for the fact that it was Foucault's reading of the Oxford Analytic philosophers - and the conception of language that he derived from that reading - that provided a basis on which he could open a dialogue between the English and Continental philosophical traditions, one which had seemed impossible at the time of the Royaumont Conference in 1958. Highlighting the contingency that often facilitates or frustrates these conversations, Illot noted that it was in Tunisia, and via the library of Daniel Defert, that Foucault gained access to these ideas. Similarly, Anna Adorjána referred in her paper 'Conceptualising and experiencing (inter) nationalism. The Case of the Social Democratic Party of Hungary in 1903' to Martin Fuchs's concept of the 'third idiom'. This is an overarching or higher level discourse that provides space for communication in a conflicted situation. In the case of the Hungarian Social Democrats, international class struggle performed this role, but in cases discussed by other participants human rights or religion enacted a similar function.

Yesterday's 'Brexit Day' reflects the huge political and ideological divisions that not only affect Britain's relations with the rest of Europe but also run right through the UK itself. Now, more than ever, it would seem we need to find ways to engage in positive and constructive transcultural conversations. The diverse and myriad ways in which such conversations have taken place across more than five centuries is perhaps grounds for some small hope and optimism.

Myths Concerning Republicanism 1: Republicanism is simply the Antonym of Monarchy

Republicanism is not a major political discourse in the UK today. In the recent parliamentary elections no candidate standing on the express ticket of republicanism was elected to power. Some might, therefore, conclude that my forthcoming book with Polity Press - Republicanism: An Introduction - is of merely academic interest. But, in fact, the arguments of the republican tradition are of direct relevance to us today, and their neglect has less to do with the ideas themselves than with the persistence of several common myths. The beginning of a New Year - and indeed a new decade - has prompted me to start a fresh series of posts which will explore these myths and suggest some lessons that might be learned from historical research on the republican ideas of the past.

In common parlance the very definition of a republic is that it is not a monarchy; so America and France are republics because both have a President as their head of state, whereas the United Kingdom and Holland are monarchies because their heads of state are a Queen and a King, respectively. Yet the differences between how these countries are actually governed on a day-to-day basis are relatively small. Moreover, the American President wields far more extensive powers, and is therefore closer to being a monarch, than the British or Dutch heads of state, and more power than these countries' Prime Ministers, who are more closely bound by their governments and parliaments.

Bust of Cicero. Image courtesy of Dr Katie East.

This blurring of the distinction between republics and monarchies reflects the history of the terms. The original meaning of 'republic' did not contrast it with monarchy, that contrast gradually emerged between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Before that, republican government was simply understood as a form of rule that operated in the interests of the public or common good (res publica means public thing) rather than in the private interests of rulers. This understanding was reflected in the Roman statesman and political writer Cicero's claim in De Republica 'That a commonwealth [republic] (that is the concern of the people) then truly exists when its affairs are conducted well and justly, whether by a single king, or by a few aristocrats, or by the people as a whole'. (Cicero, On the Commonwealth and On the Laws, ed. James E. G. Zetzel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 59). For Cicero, republican government was simply good government, and monarchies could not meet this requirement.

Ironically, given their current political systems, the Dutch and the English were at the forefront of overturning this definition, making anti-monarchism the touchstone of republican rule. The Dutch were unusual among sixteenth-century republicans in their insistence that anti-monarchism is a crucial component of republicanism. Similarly, it was in England in the mid-seventeenth century that practical expression was given to the idea that only a government that is grounded in the will of the people can be legitimate and that, therefore, all forms of non-elective monarchy and hereditary political privilege had to be rejected.

The Execution of Charles I. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

Today, attacks on the monarchy tend to focus on its public funding, which in the UK operates via the Sovereign Grant, or on scandals involving members of the royal family - such as the recent debacle over Prince Andrew's involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. While royal scandals are certainly embarrassing for us as a nation, they do not directly threaten the government of the country. By comparison, the question of whether the state is being run in the public interest (including the uses to which public expenditure is put) is far more pertinent. On this question, so-called republics are as much at risk as monarchies. On 4 December 2019 the House Intelligence Committee of the US Congress approved an impeachment report against President Trump. In that report Trump is accused of abusing his power for personal gain by pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals and obstructing Congress's investigation into his actions: the President is being accused of putting his own private interests before the public good.

Of course, there are some fundamental questions lying beneath the older interpretation of republican government: What exactly is the public interest? How could it be rationally determined? Is the public interest the same as what is in the interests of the majority? Does this mean that the interests of minorities can be ignored? Is the public interest merely what is expedient, or does it take account of principles that are held to define the character of the nation; or perhaps ones that are universal in character - as the French would certainly claim in their case? There are no easy answers to these questions, but they need to be given a great deal more attention than they currently are if the UK and other countries today are to become genuine republics. From this point of view, what we do about the royal family is a sideshow