History of the Origin of Representative Government in Europe

by François Guizot

General character of political institutions in Europe, from the fourth to the eleventh century.
Political sterility of the Roman Empire.
Progress of the Germanic invasions.
Sketch of the history of the Anglo-Saxons

Fall Of The Roman Empire.

I have divided the history of the political institutions of modern Europe into four great epochs, the first of which extends from the fourth to the eleventh century. This long interval was required to introduce a little light and fixity into the changeful chaos of those new empires which the successive invasions of the Roman territory by the barbarians had called into being, and whence issued those mighty states whose destiny constitutes the history of modern Europe. The essential characteristics of this epoch are: the conflict and fusion of Germanic customs with Roman institutions, the attempt to establish monarchical government, and the formation of the feudal regime. No general system of political institutions then existed; no great dominant influence can be discerned; all was local, individual, confused, obscure. A multitude of principles and forces, mingling and acting (as it were) by chance, were engaged in conflict to resolve a question of which men were completely ignorant, and the secret of which God alone possessed. This question was: What form of government would issue from all these different elements, brought so violently into contact with each other. Five centuries elapsed before the question was decided, and then feudalism was the social state of Europe.

Causes Of Its Decay.

Before entering, however, upon the history of institutions, let me say a few words upon the progress of the fall of the Roman Empire, and of the invasions of the barbarians.

From the accession of Augustus to the death of Theodosius the Great, the Roman Empire, in spite of its greatness, presents a general character of impotence and sterility. Its institutions, its government, its philosophy, its literature, indeed everything connected with it, bears this sad impress; even the minds of its most illustrious citizens were confined to a circle of antiquated ideas, and wasted in vain regrets for the virtues and glories of the Republic. The fermentation of new ideas produces no decadence; but when, in a great empire, society, feeling itself oppressed and diseased, can conceive no new hopes, no grand ideas,—when, instead of pressing onwards towards the future, it invokes only the recollections and images of the past,—then there is a real decline; it matters not how long the state is in falling, its ruin is thenceforward continuous and inevitable. The fall of the Roman Empire occupied fifteen centuries; and for fifteen centuries it continued to decline, until its downfall was consummated by the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. During this long period, no new idea, no regenerative principle, was employed to reinvigorate the life of the government; it was sustained by its own mass. Towards the end of the third century, when the universal servitude seemed to be most firmly established, imperial despotism began to feel the precariousness of its position, and the necessity for organization. Diocletian created a vast system of administration. Throughout this immense machine, he established underworks in harmony with the principle of his government; he regulated the action of the central power in the provinces, and surrounded himself with a brilliant and puissant court: but he did not rekindle the moral life of the Empire; he merely organized more perfectly a material resistance to the principles of destruction which were undermining it; and it was with this organization that, first in the West as well as in the East, and afterwards in the East alone, the Empire was able to struggle on, from the fourth to the fifteenth century. Theodosius the Great, who died in 395, was the last emperor who tightly held and skilfully managed the heterogeneous bundle of the Roman power. He was truly a great man; for great men appear in disgraceful times, as well as in times of success; and Theodosius was still the master of the Roman world. As soon as he was dead, the dissolution broke out, under his sons Honorius and Arcadius.[Footnote 2]

[Footnote 2: Honorius succeeded peaceably to the sovereignty of the West, which he had received from his father in the preceding year; while his elder brother Arcadius obtained possession of the East.]

Abandonment Of Its Colonies.

There was now no real unity or central force in the government; Rome gradually abandoned her provinces—Great Britain, Armorica, [Footnote 3] and Narbonnese Gaul. [Footnote 4]