Aristocratic Republic

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Aristocratic republic denotes a form of rule in which ideally the best, in reality rather the wealthiest, rule within the framework of a republican form of government. Often, however, aristocratic rule is equated with that of the nobility. One also speaks of an aristocratic republic as a special form of the corporate state . In contrast to this, however, there were also bourgeois patrician rule within the framework of the urban aristocracies .

Such corporate state tendencies were widespread throughout Europe in the 16th century. They were heirs to the founding of cities in the High Middle Ages, city economies and the formation of estates in poorly organized countries or the result of a successful defensive struggle against the centralistic attempts to rule by leading princes. However, similar state structures already existed before in the ancient context (see e.g. Roman Senate , Germanic aristocratic rule). In essence, an autonomous corporate state, aristocratic republics were characterized by the fact that they were dominated only by a privileged class, the patriciate , families able to advise or a class of nobility. Ultimately, they succumbed to the expansionist urge of absolutist states, the emerging nation- states and new democratic ideas and failed because of the lack of will to reform on the part of the ruling class.

System features

In the conflict between the estates in Europe, especially with the founding of cities up to the 13th century, other forms of government, urban economy and aristocratic republics were established alongside feudal forms of rule with a tendency towards an absolutist state orientation. This is understood to mean political systems in which a union of autogenous estates or even noble families are outside the reach of centralized princely rule and are not to be regarded as vassals of a central monarchy . They safeguarded their interests through representative bodies with privileged access such as city councils or general assemblies. These instruments ensured them political autonomy without opening up to bourgeois impulses and developing a state-wide consciousness, as in libertarian systems such as in England or the Netherlands.

The extent to which aristocratic, non-aristocratic corporate states are to be regarded as an independent form of economy is controversial. Aristocratic corporate states ideally existed on the basis of feudal economic methods .

Aristocratic republics

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Apart from the differently constituted ancient city-states (see Polis ), the later aristocratic corporate states developed in countries without bourgeois traditions. Until the submission by the House of Austria in 1627, the Kingdom of Bohemia was an aristocratic republic in which the king only played a role that was dependent on the estates. In Novgorod and the Pskov Republic, too , the nobility - sometimes together with the bourgeoisie - played a decisive role, so that they can be regarded as early aristocratic republics.

The best-known example of an early modern aristocratic republic is Poland-Lithuania with the system of golden freedom , the principle of the formation of confederations , liberum veto and a state parliament . The term aristocratic republic is not without problems (it only emerged in the enlightened journalism as republique des nobles ); the term “mixed monarchy” ( monarchia mixta ) is more precise . For despite the elective monarchy and all subsequent constitutional processes, the Polish aristocratic republic remained a feudal corporate state under the de facto rule of the magnate aristocracy until the constitution of May 3, 1791 .

There are also numerous empirical case studies for aristocratic republics (e.g. Hawaii, Japan, Malaysia) outside of Europe.

Relics from the times of aristocratic rule can still be found in modern democracies, for example the British upper house as a representative of the nobility and clergy.

Urban aristocracies

The Italian city-states and some German free imperial cities were bourgeois republics with an aristocratic constitutional order . Despite the aristocratic, often aristocratic state organization, they did not have any feudal rule, but were evidence of medieval and early modern civil societies .

This applies in Italy z. B. for Florence, Genoa , Pisa, Venice , in Germany z. B. for Augsburg , Frankfurt , Hamburg , Lübeck , Nürnberg (see also: patriciate (Nuremberg) ), in Switzerland for the patriciate in the old confederation , such as the Bernese patriciate , the Lucerne patriciate or the Daig (patriciate of Basel) . In the Republic of the United Netherlands , the trading cities set the tone, in them the patriciate, the most powerful were the rulers of Amsterdam .

Venice

In the Republic of Venice constituted in the 13./14. Century the ruling class, the Venetian Nobilhòmini , from a broad class of merchants politically as a Grand Council . They always remained merchants until the dissolution of the so-called Venetian aristocratic republic in 1797, but nevertheless saw themselves as nobles.

For details, see Political Institutions of the Republic of Venice and Ruling Family Associations

Hamburg

In Hamburg , a civil republic developed in the 13th century , but it had oligarchic features and whose constitutional order was therefore interpreted as aristocratic and not democratic, regardless of the exclusion of the nobility.

In 1189, Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa is said to have given the city the license . In 1270 the “Ordeelbook” (judgment book) came into force with its provisions for civil, criminal and procedural law, in which the term “free city” was used. Since 1292 the council of Hamburg had legislative power.

Knights were already forbidden to live within the walls of Hamburg in the city register of 1276. Until 1860, the constitutional ban on the acquisition of inner-city land by the nobles in Hamburg was in effect. Foreign nobles could not acquire citizenship in Hamburg or participate in public life. Likewise, a citizen who accepted the title of nobility from a foreign ruler was henceforth excluded from participating in the political life of his hometown. This also applied to ennobling during the Holy Roman Empire , although Hamburg was a part of it.

In Hamburg, 'bourgeois' and 'democratic' meant: class-conscious and autocratic. The rulership of the city was in the hands of the Hanseatic merchants and, after the fall of the Hanseatic League at the beginning of the 17th century, in the hands of the Hanseatics , the thin, strictly demarcated upper class of the sovereign republics of Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck (merged there in the circle society and constitutionally until 1848 privileged), which held the city rulers in Hamburg until the November Revolution 1918/1919 .

literature

  • Karl Wilhelm books : The emergence of the national economy . Tübingen 1898; Reprint of the supplemented seventh edition (Tübingen 1910) Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-86383-058-8 ; Reprints of the 10th corrected and expanded edition o. O., o. J. (2009) ISBN 978-1-117-28054-7 and o. O., o. J. (2010) ISBN 978-1-147- 88553-8
  • Richard van Dülmen: World history: emergence of early modern Europe 1550-1648 , Weltbildverlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-89350-989-5 .
  • S. John M. Najemy: A History of Florence . Blackwell 2008.
  • Daniel Waley: The Italian city-states. Munich 1969.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fernend Braudel: Social history of the 15th – 18th centuries Century . Daily life, Munich 1985, special edition 1990, p. 560: The first great centuries of urban development in Europe led to an "unconditional victory of the city, at least in Italy, Flanders and Germany".
  2. ↑ see economic level theory ; Communalism
  3. ^ Jürgen Heyde: History of Poland. 4th edition. Munich 2017, p. 28 f.
  4. ↑ Peter Borowsky: Does the “citizenship” represent the citizenship? Constitutional, civil and electoral law in Hamburg from 1814 to 1914. In: Rainer Hering (Hrsg.), Peter Borowsky: Schlaglichter historical research. Studies on German history in the 19th and 20th centuries. Hamburg University Press, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-937816-17-8 , p. 93
  5. ^ Arne Cornelius Wasmuth: Hanseatic Dynasties. Die Hanse, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-434-52589-0 , p. 9.
  6. ^ Matthias Wegner: Hanseatic League . Siedler, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-88680-661-8 , p. 42.
  7. ^ Annette Christine Vogt: A Hamburg contribution to the development of world trade in the 19th century. 2004, ISBN 3-515-08186-0 , p. 113, fn. 9 - at the beginning of the 19th century, the proportion of long-distance traders, the Hanseatic people, was just over one per thousand in Hamburg's population. limited preview in Google Book search
  8. ↑ Meyer's Conversations-Lexicon , 1840 ff., Volume 14, p. 922: In Hamburg there was “an old-fashioned Oberservanz in relation to the strictest separation of the various classes ... where the three classes: the commercial aristocracy, the wealthy industrialist or small merchant and the plebs were severely separated ”.
  9. ↑ Peter Borowsky: Does the “citizenship” represent the citizenship? Constitutional, civil and electoral law in Hamburg from 1814 to 1914. In: Rainer Hering (Hrsg.), Peter Borowsky: Schlaglichter historical research. Studies on German history in the 19th and 20th centuries. Hamburg University Press, Hamburg 2005, p. 103: Only a few percent of the city's residents were citizens eligible to vote for the Hamburg citizenship, of which the Hanseatics, who were favored by various constitutional provisions, only formed a fraction.
  10. ↑ Werner Jochmann, Hans-Dieter Loose: Hamburg, history of the city and its inhabitants. Volume 2 (From the Empire to the Present), Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-455-08255-6 , p. 80/81: In 1879, of the approximately 450,000 inhabitants of Hamburg, only 22,000 had citizenship and thus the right to vote.
  11. ^ Andreas Schulz: Guardianship and Protection: Elites and Citizens in Bremen 1750-1880. 2002, p. 14 ff. (“Research Object Hanseatic City”) on the special, “free-bourgeois”, culturally based on England development in contrast to the “mediatic and mediocre German bourgeoisie seduced by the authoritarian state” in the cities located in monarchies. limited preview in Google Book search
  12. ^ Percy Ernst Schramm: Hamburg. A special case in the history of Germany. Hamburg 1964
  13. ↑ In Lübeck, as a result of the revolution of 1848, the inhabitants of the city were equated with the citizens, the Lübeck right of merchant companies (guilds) to exclusive representation in council and citizenship was abolished.
  14. ↑ Peter Borowsky: Does the “citizenship” represent the citizenship? Constitutional, civil and electoral law in Hamburg from 1814 to 1914. In: Rainer Hering (Hrsg.), Peter Borowsky: Schlaglichter historical research. Studies on German history in the 19th and 20th centuries. Hamburg University Press, Hamburg 2005, p. 93: Historical research assumes a “fundamentally oligarchic character of the Hamburg constitution ..., the constitutional order was therefore interpreted as an aristocratic and not a democratic one”, one of the reasons why Hamburg “as a city republic In 1815 she was able to become a member of a league of sovereign princes "
  15. ^ Andreas Schulz: Guardianship and Protection: Elites and Citizens in Bremen 1750-1880. 2002, p. 15: The aristocracy and the pauperized masses in particular were excluded , but also the bourgeois middle classes