Cultures of Voting in Pre-modern Europe

Description

Cultures of Voting in Pre-modern Europe examines the norms and practices of collective decision-making across pre-modern European history, east and west, and their influence in shaping both intra- and inter-communal relationships. Bringing together the work of twenty specialist contributors, this volume offers a unique range of case studies from Ancient Greece to the eighteenth century, and explores voting in a range of different contexts with analysis that encompasses constitutional and ecclesiastical history, social and cultural history, the history of material culture and of political thought. Together the case-studies illustrate the influence of ancient models and ideas of voting on medieval and early modern collectivities and document the cultural and conceptual exchange between different spheres in which voting took place. Above all, they foreground voting as a crucial element of Europe’s common political heritage and raise questions about the contribution of pre-modern cultures of voting to modern political and institutional developments. Offering a wide chronological and geographical scope, Cultures of Voting in Pre-modern Europe is aimed at scholars and students of the history of voting and is a fascinating contribution to the key debates that surround voting today. Cover Title Copyright Contents List of figures and table Notes on contributors Introduction Part One Ideas and representations 1 Not just voting, but being counted: the cases of Ancient Greece 2 Roman reflections on voting practices: also a Pythagorean affair 3 Cultures of unanimity in Carolingian councils 4 A vote for the new world order: the Dardanelles meeting in 1235 (the Council at Lampsacus-Gallipoli) 5 Voting at the Council of Constance (1414–18) 6 Cultures of secrecy in pre-modern papal elections 7 ‘Conforme al vivere civile et politico’: Machiavelli’s newly discovered proposal for electoral reform in 1512 8 A culture of voting in seventeenth-century England 9 Dead and buried after the elections? Voting and citizenship in the Batavian Revolution Part Two Practices, institutions, procedures 10 The culture of voting in medieval Split: appearance and reality 11 From discussion to vote: practices of political deliberation and written records in communal Italy 12 Parties, quotas and elections in late medieval Genoa 13 The election of the abbess: political reasons of monastic discipline in Renaissance Parma 14 Political decision-making in the Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 15 ‘Il fait bon voir de tout leur sénat ballotter’: the ubiquity of voting in late medieval and Renaissance Venice 16 The citizens and the king: voting and electoral procedures in southern Italian towns under the Aragonese 17 Voting in the parliaments of the Crown of Aragon, c. 1300–1716 18 Voting and elections in the elite Ragusan confraternities of St. Anthony and St. Lazarus 19 Voting at home and on the move: elections of mayors and caravanbashi by Armenian merchants in Poland and the Ottoman Empire, 1500–1700 20 Municipal elections and contested religious space: electoral practices and confessional politics in Mediterranean France during the French Wars of Religion Index