(4) A fourth factor was the growing custom on the part of the States of sending and receiving permanent legations. In the Middle Ages the Pope alone had a permanent legation at the court of the Frankish kings. Later, the Italian Republics, as Venice and Florence for instance, were the first States to send out ambassadors, who took up their residence for several years in the capitals of the States to which they were sent. At last, from the end of the fifteenth century, it became a universal custom for the kings of the different States to keep permanent legations at one another's capital. The consequence was that an uninterrupted opportunity was given for discussing and deliberating common international interests. And since the position of ambassadors in foreign countries had to be taken into consideration, international rules concerning inviolability and exterritoriality of foreign envoys gradually grew up.
(5) A fifth factor was the custom of the great States of keeping standing armies, a custom which also dates from the fifteenth century. The uniform and stern discipline in these armies favoured the rise of more universal rules and practices of warfare.
(6) A sixth factor was the Renaissance and the Reformation. The Renaissance of science and art in the fifteenth century, together with the resurrection of the knowledge of antiquity, revived the philosophical and aesthetical ideals of Greek life and transferred them to modern life. Through their influence the spirit of the Christian religion took precedence of its letter. The conviction awoke everywhere that the principles of Christianity ought to unite the Christian world more than they had done hitherto, and that these principles ought to be observed in matters international as much as in matters national. The Reformation, on the other hand, put an end to the spiritual mastership of the Pope over the civilised world. Protestant States could not recognise the claim of the Pope to arbitrate as of right in their conflicts either between one another or between themselves and Catholic States.
(7) A seventh factor made its appearance in connection with the schemes for the establishment of eternal peace which arose from the beginning of the fourteenth century. Although these schemes were utopian, they nevertheless must have had great influence by impressing upon the Princes and the nations of Christendom the necessity for some kind of organisation of the numerous independent States into a community. The first of these schemes was that of the French lawyer, Pierre Dubois, who, as early as 1306, in "De Recuperatione Terre Sancte" proposed an alliance between all Christian Powers for the purpose of the maintenance of peace and the establishment of a Permanent Court of Arbitration for the settlement of differences between the members of the alliance.[37] Another project arose in 1461, when Podiebrad, King of Bohemia from 1420-1471, adopted the scheme of his Chancellor, Antoine Marini, and negotiated with foreign courts the foundation of a Federal State to consist of all the existing Christian States with a permanent Congress, seated at Basle, of ambassadors of all the member States as the highest organ of the Federation.[38] A third plan was that of Sully, adopted by Henri IV. of France, which proposed the division of Europe into fifteen States and the linking together of these into a federation with a General Council as its highest organ, consisting of Commissioners deputed by the member States.[39] A fourth project was that of Émeric Crucée, who, in 1623, proposed the establishment of a Union consisting not only of the Christian States but of all States then existing in the whole of the world, with a General Council as its highest organ, seated at Venice, and consisting of ambassadors of all the member States of the Union.[40]
[37] See Meyer, "Die staats- und völkerrechtlichen Ideen von Pierre Dubois" (1909); Schücking, "Die Organisation der Welt" (1909), pp. 28-30; Vesnitch, "Deux Précurseurs Français du Pacifism, etc." (1911), pp. 1-29.
[38] See Schwitzky, "Der Europaeische Fürstenbund Georg's von Podiebrad" (1909), and Schücking, "Die Organisation der Welt" (1909), pp. 32-36.
[39] See Nys, "Études de Droit International et de Droit Politique" (1896), pp. 301-306, and Darby, "International Arbitration" (4th ed. 1904), pp. 10-21.
[40] See Balch, "Le Nouveau Cynée de Émeric Crucée" (1909); Darby, "International Arbitration" (4th ed. 1904), pp. 22-33; Vesnitch, "Deux Précurseurs Français du Pacifism, etc." (1911), pp. 29-54.
The schemes enumerated in the text are those which were advanced before the appearance of Grotius's work "De Jure Belli ac Pacis" (1625). The numerous plans which made their appearance afterwards—that of the Landgrave of Hesse-Rheinfels, 1666; of Charles, Duke of Lorraine, 1688; of William Penn, 1693; of John Bellers, 1710; of the Abbé de St. Pierre (1658-1743); of Kant, 1795; and of others—are all discussed in Schücking, "Die Organisation der Welt" (1909), and Darby, "International Arbitration" (4th ed. 1904). They are as utopian as the pre-Grotian schemes, but they are nevertheless of great importance. They preached again and again the gospel of the organisation of the Family of Nations, and although their ideal has not been and can never be realised, they drew the attention of public opinion to the fact that the international relations of States should not be based on arbitrariness and anarchy, but on rules of law and comity. And thereby they have indirectly influenced the gradual growth of rules of law for these international relations.