Cette vieille constitution de la paroisse se retrouve chez toutes les nations qui ont été féodales et dans tous les pays où ces nations ont porté les débris de leurs lois. . . . Je me souviens que, quand je recherchais . . . dans les archives d'une intendance, ce que c'etait qu'une paroisse de l'ancien régime, j'étais surpris de retrouver, dans cette communauté si pauvre et si asservie, plusieurs des traits qui m'avaient frappé jadis dans les communes rurales d'Amérique, et que j'avais jugés alors à tort devoir être une singularité particulière au nouveau monde.1
Tocqueville's observation was at least partly correct. Recent studies found striking similarities between the communities of America and prerevolutionary Western and Central Europe. I am currently conducting research in the United States for a five-year project sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). The project concerns itself with communities and communal representation in early modern Europe and New England. The focus of the study will be on small rural communities. Urban systems and their specific social and administrative patterns will provide a contrasting matrix for further discussion.
Townspeople and peasants in early modern Europe no longer can be regarded as passive subjects without political ideas or aims. Neither is it sufficient to concentrate on short-lived upheavals and spectacular clashes between peasants and authorities. For the majority of the population - the inhabitants of villages and small towns without privileges concerning education, religious authority, economical or political power - the common men actively participated in the building of the early modern state.
Peasants and townspeople formed communities. Communities, settlements with more-or-less clearly defined boundaries and a set of legal obligations and privileges, were the basic unit of the political and cultural life of the common man. Forms of self-government existed in a large part of these communities, such as town meetings, committees with administrative functions and even courts staffed by the inhabitants. In order to describe towns that had such rights and institutions that provided them with a certain degree of autonomy, Peter Blickle introduced the term communalism.2 He defined communalism as a regional form of voluntary local organization of everyday life based on periodic meetings of residents and their rights to define local norms and to appoint nonprofessional representatives to put these norms into practice.3 The definition of communalism in legal and organizational terms must not obscure the fact that it describes a way of life, a worldview, and a cultural form interacting with political practice.4 Blickle has repeatedly questioned the distinction between villages and cities.5 As long as communalism is described in administrative and legal terms only, this distinction may indeed be of little concern. But if communalism is considered a cultural pattern encompassing a specific set of values, at least a rough distinction must be made between communities that had institutions of higher education, administrations run by professionals, and economic structures that focused on crafts and commerce rather than on agriculture, and other communities that lacked these characteristics. This differentiation allows for shifting boundaries and developments within individual communities. Although on the most abstract level the territorial state was antithetical to the community, it would be wrong to regard these organizational forms as rigidly separate entities that were necessarily opposed to each other. The source materials present conflict and cooperation in a complex system of interrelations that in some instances makes it difficult to tell both systems apart.6
Rural communities expressed and organized their interests in various ways. The most important platform for communal decision making was the town meeting.7 Concerning the communities' dealings with the territorial states, in addition to lawsuits, public protests, and the everyday practice of bargaining and compromise in local politics, forms of representation emerged. On the level of the Old Reich, there was a small and steadily decreasing number of peasant communities that were exempt from the jurisdictions of the principalities, forming states of their own, so to speak: These Reichsdörfer (imperial villages) were small, largely agrarian communities that had been granted the privilege of being summoned to the imperial diet. In 1803 only five were left. The Reichsdörfer should not be confused with the short-lived peasant republics of Dithmarschen - the Bremen and Oldenburg areas - all of which had been dissolved by neighboring principalities by the late sixteenth century.8 Because of their long existence and their considerable influence, the Landschaften seem to have been more important: In southern German states such as the margraviate of Baden, the duchy of Württemberg, and the Habsburg territories in the Tyrol and the Vorlande to name but the largest, rural communities formed regional corporations, so-called Landschaften. These Landschaften were collective political representations of villages and small towns within aristocratic states. They were entitled to send representatives to the Landtage - the regional estates of the respective principality. In various small territories these organizations of the peasantry were the only counterpart the prince had to face. Similar forms of collective representation of peasant communities were known in parts of northern Germany and the ecclesiastical territory of the archbishop of Trier. Thus, these representative organizations - Landschaften and Landtage - became the most important fora in which political issues could be sorted out between the communities and the state authorities. The collective bargaining concerning taxation, administration, policing, and often legislation provided ample opportunity for the communities to articulate their grievances (Gravamina) and to confront the territorial authorities with their demands. As a rule, the deputies of the Landschaften were elected by the villagers and townspeople themselves. Before the French Revolution imperative mandates were the norm in all representative systems. As a rule, the deputies were not free to make their own decisions. In addition, every resolution of the Landtage had to be ratified by the communities represented.9 Bosl characterized these practices as a "Vorform des Parlamentarismus" (protoparliamentarianism) including "Untertanenrepräsentation" (representation of subjects).10
Similar forms of communal representation existed in Sweden, France, the Netherlands, and, of course, Switzerland. In Britain the enfranchised boroughs had been empowered by royal privilege to return members to the House of Commons, irrespective of communal structures. In many cases the enfranchisement of a town seems to have been just a means to create seats in Parliament for the clientele of the gentry loyal to the king. The English concept of "virtual representation" reduced the moment of consent and procuration between the "representatives" and those supposed to be "represented" to a minimum. However, it of course helped to preserve the idea of representation as an indispensable element of the political system.11
Virginia Dejohn Anderson wrote that "no single trait defined the New England settlers . . . more clearly than their self-conscious commitment to communalism."12 Her statement sums up one of the most important results of the historiography of early America. The entire political system of Puritan New England was based on communities. This is exactly what distinguished the colonies most prominently from the motherland.13 Timothy H. Breen addressed this element of early American politics as "localism."14 Zuckerman even considered "a broadly diffused desire for consensual communalism as the operative premise of group life" the New England town's most significant contribution to American culture.15 Breen suggested that the settlers of the 1630s went to America because Stuart centralization had threatened the traditional institutional forms of communities in the motherland. Charles I's attempts to interfere with the traditional franchise and representation of incorporated boroughs such as Boston, Ipswich, and Norwich during the 1620s and 1630s had been witnessed by many of the settlers, most of whom came from these parts of England.16 It might well be that these experiences led them to attribute such overwhelming importance to the rights of the townships and to local elections undisturbed by outside influences. According to Breen, the settlers attempted to preserve or rather recreate community life in the colonies as they had known it in the motherland prior to the king's ill-fated absolutist endeavor. In trying to do so they created a political and social system based on the most powerful communities of the early modern period. This is the primary and probably decisive reason why the American system eventually developed into something quite unlike the English one.17
Until the Dominion period (1686-9) all officeholders in New England were elected directly or indirectly by the communities. This holds true for all local officials, the deputies, that is, the representatives of the townships at the General Court, the militia leaders, the magistrates, and the governor himself. The antagonism between the upper chamber of the magistrates and the lower house of the deputies that informed the first decades of the New England colonies was a result of the clash between two corporations elected by the people.18 Even though the magistrates accumulated considerable power as administrators and judges they remained dependent on the consent of the organized freemen.19 It is typical for New England that the revolutionaries who overthrew the Dominion regime in 1689 and reinstalled the political system of the 1640s called themselves simply "the Representatives of the several Towns and Villages of the Massachusetts." They stated that they had "fully and deliberately examined the Minds and Instructions of the several Towns" and formed a new government according "to the Directions by our several Towns."20 They referred neither to any abstract tradition nor to any legal principle, nor to the Charter of 1629, nor to the colony itself as the source of their power and the justification of their rebellion. The revolutionaries presented themselves exclusively as executioners of the communities' mandates.
The communities were de facto in charge of the franchise itself. During the first years of the colony, officially only members of the Congregationalist church in full communion were allowed to become freemen entitled to vote. But according to Congregationalist principles the parishioners themselves decided who was to be admitted as a church member. In 1647 the General Court confirmed the power of the community: Everyone could take part in communal elections who was declared fit to do so by his fellow residents, even if he was no freeman.21 The various censuses introduced in compliance with English tradition did not effectively narrow the franchise: In fact, practically everyone who owned a farm, that is, the large majority of the population, was able to qualify for the census.22 In this context, it is well worth remembering that Bosl coined the term Hausväterdemokratie for the Landschaften of Germany, whereas Brown depicted prerevolutionary New England as a "middle-class democracy."23 Both terms are certainly overenthusiastic, but still, the similarities suggested by the results of research are striking.
In brief, it may be said that in the political system of New England a most extreme form of communalism had taken shape. With regard to the emergence of a democratic territorial state in eighteenth-century America, representation and participation prior to that date are of special interest.24 One might ask whether the strength of the communalist tradition in the respective countries set the pace for the development of a democratic society. This of course would imply a re-evaluation of the revolutions. After studying communalist systems in America and France, respectively, Robert Brown and Wolfgang Schmale both concluded that the revolutions failed to bring about significantly more freedom or to improve chances for participation.25
To fully understand the conditions and consequences of communalism and representation it is necessary to compare the European systems with New England. This comparison has been recognized as a desideratum by American and European historians alike.26 If representation is regarded not from the perspective of the centralized power and its administrative agencies but from the viewpoint of represented townships, the form of the representative institution itself (the two-chamber system of England and New England or the three-curia model of France and Germany) is of secondary importance.27 A comparison has to deal with this important variant; but it is not a difference that renders the comparison meaningless.
Comparative historiography has made considerable progress in recent years. As a result, it now provides a variety of models for a comprehensive study of prerevolutionary forms of popular political participation. The aims of historical comparison fall into five broad categories. Every comparative study concentrates on at least one of them. The notorious question of comparability as well as the construction and use of the background matrix or tertium compara-tionis (that is, the third issue of comparison) are not a problem of general comparative theory but rather a function of the aims of comparison.28
First, of course, all comparisons focus on their specific objects. This means that comparisons may give individual historical phenomena a clearer profile and shed light on aspects that so far have been overlooked or misrepresented.29 Defining the objects of comparisons is a methodological challenge in itself. The comparative approach probably more than any other metamethod is apt to tempt the researcher into isolating objects from their social and historic contexts. A mistake of that kind, of course, would reduce comparative historiography ad absurdum.30 Analyzing the interrelation of the contexts and the objects of comparison or, in the terms of Marc Bloch, between "milieu" and "phénomène," is an essential part of comparative historiography.31 To complicate matters even further, it must be taken into account that one phenomenon could be part of another one's milieu. In this context, it is obvious that studies of cultural transfers and comparative studies presuppose each other.32 Second, a comparative approach can be used to analyze systems. Comparing individual elements of a system to each other with respect to the functions they serve within the system provides a key to a better understanding of the system itself.33 Patterns of development and causality are the third category of comparative historiography. Chris Lorenz stressed that the genuinely historical answer to the question of causation is Komparatistik: Only elements that feature in the development of one phenomenon and in a similar fashion in the developments of similar phenomena can be regarded as the cause of the phenomenon.34 Earlier on, Gerhard Haupt and Jürgen Kocka explicitly suggested replacing models of gradational evolution with comparisons.35 Otto Hintze's work on the origins of political representation - a topic closely related to my own project - is an example of this kind of comparative historiography. Hintze's arguments seem questionable because he failed to use the comparative approach consistently: He focused on just one chain of causation that was illustrated with but not founded on comparisons.36 Fourth, comparisons aim at either, the construction or the destruction of theories and paradigms, including typologies. Émil Durkheim's somewhat misleading equation of comparisons in the humanities and experiments in the natural sciences is valid only in this context: Comparisons as well as experiments are means for hypothesis testing.37 Synthesis is the fifth possible aim of comparative historiography.38 The synthesizing comparison aims at establishing individualities of a higher order: Historical phenomena from various contexts that share at least one distinctive quality, such as belonging to the same large-scale structure or process, are grouped together as a new unit. This new unit provides a hermeneutic model similar to the Weberian ideal-type.39 Comparing its elements with each other would produce an exhaustive analytical synthesis of its aggregative forms and conditions. Leopold von Ranke's essay on the great European powers paved the way for this kind of historical comparison, and the works of Alexander Gerschenkron on the industrialization of Europe and Barrington Moore on the origins of dictatorship and democracy in the United States, Europe, and Asia are probably the best examples.40
In order to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of early modern communal representation it seems best to emphasize the synthesizing aspect of the comparison. This provides me with the opportunity to focus not so much on the variety of political systems but on communalism and representation as large-scale phenomena that took various shapes in the respective political systems. This approach not only adds more details and regional variants to the history of state building. Because it provides structured and critically evaluated information only a synthesizing comparison can answer the question of what influence communalism had on state building in general and if it has sufficient hermeneutic value to be regarded as a master narrative of the early modern period.
The comparison describes communal representation in its various forms and contexts as a segment of the political reality from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The question discussed by Edward Freeman, Herbert Baxter Adams, and others at the end of the nineteenth century - whether the New England township is to be regarded as a survivor or a revival of Germanic traditions going back to the early Middle Ages or even to antiquity - will not be dealt with here.41 Rather, my project focuses on the effectiveness of communal representation between the Reformation and the age of revolution. In order to do so, it will address mutual influences and cultural transfer between Europe and New England during that period. Therefore, institutional "ancestors" that both systems allegedly had in common are of secondary importance.
The comparison will be informed by three issues that address basic conditions of communalism and representation. 1. Popular Christianity and the Invention of the Community
As soon as the demands of the Reformation had been popularized by sermons and pamphlets, community theology became a vital issue. The demand of the German revolutionaries of 1525 to base ecclesiastical administration on individual communities resembled Puritan practice in New England. But it is not sufficient to describe communities as actively participating in the reform movements or to give a redefinition of state power by communal theology as the only interrelation between communalism, theology, and lay piety. Popular Christianity helped to construct the idea of the community as a political unit. It created political awareness in and for the community.42 The starting points and prerequisites of this popular communal theology were, among others, Huldrych Zwingli's political teachings and Heinrich Bullinger's covenant doctrine. Interpreted by English Puritans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries such as William Tyndale, John Preston, and Richard Baxter, they influenced the concepts of the social covenant and the covenant of grace that prevailed among the New England Congregationalists. Church, state, and society were regarded as a voluntarily formed union based on a covenant between God and the faithful. At the same time local communities could be regarded as covenants formed between God and the settlers and among the settlers themselves. Congregationalism fused the parish, church-going, and the community as the basis for the entire ecclesiastical organization. It thereby considerably strengthened the position of the communities in the sociopolitical sphere.43 The formation of a new town, that is, a new local covenant, could take the form of a contract or a sworn confederacy.44
The oath was part and parcel of the religious foundation of communities and corporations. As a rule, peasant organizations in early modern Germany were sworn confederacies. This holds true especially for the rebel groups of peasant revolts. In everyday life, after town meetings had decided on important local issues, the villagers formed a Verbündnis - a sworn confederacy that obliged everyone to respect the town meeting's decision.45 The state authorities, however, denounced such confederacies of subjects as coniuratio (confederacy or conspiracy). The refusal to swear oaths of fealty to the prince was a most profound act of resistance. The oath as mutual obligation before God as well as to God added a religious quality to confederacies. Confederacies had an egalitarian character as opposed to the "vertical" oaths of fealty or oaths of office in traditional feudalistic systems. Claiming God as the foundation and the guarantor of their existences, confederacies indirectly challenged the absolutist doctrine of divine right.46 Confederacy and covenant undermined the emerging hierarchies of absolutist-style administrations in the same way the corporations of medieval cities had challenged feudalism.47 It is noteworthy in this context that Jean Bodin depicted confederacies and corporations founded on oaths as atavistic relics that could not claim to be legally binding without the king's consent. Bodin suggested allowing only oaths of loyalty sworn by officeholders to the sovereign, thus trying to limit access to God as the source of political legitimacy.48
The political system of New England was founded on oaths: Apart from local covenants, settlers bound themselves to the colony by the so-called oath of fealty. To exercise political rights they had to swear the oath of freemanship. By 1648 the Massachusetts code of law included an elaborate system of oaths for all officials and magistrates, which informed the corporate character of Massachusetts. Swearing the respective oaths, the settlers formed mutual bonds between themselves and their elected government or bound the officials to the good of the colony and the orders of the General Court. Until 1671 the king was not mentioned.49 According to a law enacted as early as 1641 only the General Court, that is to say the elected representatives of the townships and the magistrates, was entitled to demand obligatory oaths.50
The religious foundation of communities was twofold: The community theology of the Reformation and the oath. Both questioned aristocracy and state hierarchy, thereby providing a firm basis for communal representation. 2. Intermediators Between the Community and the Territorial State
In order to understand the relationship between the community and the territorial state one must focus on the persons that monitored contacts between these systems. Being spokesmen and agents of the townships, they dealt with the institutions of the state on the communities' behalf. In order to be successful these persons had to reconcile the interests of the respective community and the territorial authority, finding their position within both systems. To that extent, these intermediators did more than just represent a township. Borrowing a neutral anthropological designation these persons could be called "brokers"; the term representative should be used only in a strictly technical sense.
The loyalty of these brokers to their clients was seen as a central point for the functioning of the political system. J.G.A. Pocock even described accusations of corruption against these brokers as an integral part of Western political culture.51 It is striking that the General Court did not prescribe an oath of office for the deputies, although it had formulated obligatory oaths for the officeholders of the colony and the towns, and even the freemen themselves. The impression that the deputies were responsible to the central organization of the colony thus was avoided. In fact, the legislator sidestepped stating whether a deputy's loyalty belonged to the township he represented or to the colony within which he represented the town.
So far, scholars have taken an institutional approach when dealing with representation in early modern Europe. They have focused on the function that the representative institution had for the state rather than on its significance for those it represented. Hardly any attention has been paid to the members of regional parliaments as a distinctive group, let alone to the representatives of towns.52 As a rule, the deputies of the rural communities at the Landtage were local officeholders. These local offices, such as Dorfvogt (village constable), Ammann (sheriff), and Schultheiß (bailiff), often had the character of an "institutionalized compromise" between the territorial state and the village: Their authority and competencies were the result of protracted, often permanent negotiation between both agencies, so that it was sometimes impossible to decide whether these offices were part of the communal or the state organization. The officeholders served territory and town alike: They were - at least in practice - responsible to both. In that respect, they were brokers par excellence even before they were sent to the Landtag as the communities' deputies. The education, private means, and personal power of these deputies were as diverse as the backgrounds they came from: The officeholders in the agrarian small towns of the Habsburg territory of Oberhohenberg could hardly be distinguished from their fellow villagers, whereas an Ammann from Vorarlberg might have legal training, extensive administrative experience, and considerable interregional influence.53
Extensive research into the general assemblies of New England has provided a comparison that facilitates the critical transfer of explanatory models. Recruitment patterns of leaders and the relationship between the electorate and its representatives were at the core of the old debate between Progressives and Neo-Whigs.54 Prosopographical research for the eighteenth century suggests that the leaders of the Massachusetts colony held strong positions in their hometowns as the basis of their power. Most members of the political elite were affluent, but personal wealth and education were less meaningful than the reputation of the families they came from. More important was the trust of their fellow townsmen they had earned while serving in minor local offices.55 This supports Jack P. Greene's interpretation of the New England elite as a meritocracy.56 More recent research has demonstrated that absentee landowners figured prominently among New England magistrates and deputies.57 The relative stability of the colony's political elites in spite of annual elections was explained in various ways. P.M.G. Harris's intriguing study suggested a cyclical system that allowed members of the lower strata of society to obtain leading positions in regular intervals dictated by population growth. This approach of course ignores the question why elites remained stable between intervals.58 Some historians assume that the common man of New England was led by "deference": Out of an unthinking respect for his "betters" he readily granted them leading positions.59 This explanation is hardly satisfactory; it has been criticized as tautological.60 Even if deference was an important element of the political ideas of the majority, it remains to be explained in what ways deference was secured: by birth, by property, or by achievement? The American debate about deference has largely ignored the concept of Ehre (honor) that has occupied German historians and is now recognized as a central element of early modern European peasant culture. In any case, however, the problem of the Ehre of officeholders has been neglected.61
Puritan New England has been called a theocracy. It certainly had its own doctrine of divine right spread by election-day preachers and advocated by such notables as John Cotton, Nathaniel Ward, and John Winthrop: The ruler's office was of divine nature. He was able to govern because God's predestination and grace had enabled him to do so. In a manner reminiscent of Bodin's absolutist ideology, New England magistrates presented themselves as God's vice regents on earth.62 Even less willing than Luther to acknowledge the German Peasants' War as lawful resistance, preachers in New England condemned it as an exemplary attack on God's order and anathematized Thomas Müntzer.63 In an election sermon of 1676 William Hubbard explained that God created men as either "Heads," born leaders, or "Brethren . . . whose wisdome it is to obey rather then dispute the Commands of their Superiours."64 Political disputes between settlers were not frequent occurrences in colonial New England, and virtually none of them were violent. If this doctrine ever attracted a response from the New Englanders, it is likely that it took the form of deference for political leaders. This might make it easier to accept deference as a historical category, even if the principle of deference itself is not sufficient to explain the working of the colony's political system. But the New England divine-right theory had another important aspect. According to this political theology, the election by the people was a merely formal, administrative act by which the ruler's divine quality was publicly acknowledged and confirmed. Basically, the election was not part of the theocratic concept. But only the small governing elite of magistrates claimed divine calling. At least according to Winthrop, a divine election was not necessary to be made a representative, to be able to acknowledge, to understand, and to work for the aims and needs of the majority.65 There was a fundamental difference between being elected magistrate, responsible for the state of the whole, and being elected deputy: The deputies were "but the representative body of the people, . . . the Democraticall parte of our Gouerment."66 Winthrop suggested that God punished New England because it had trusted the deputies, that is, persons without divine calling.67 The character of the deputies' office was exclusively secular, maybe the most unequivocally secular part of Puritan political culture.68 The oath or covenant on which the community was based did not endow the representative with sacral qualities. All their authority was based on election by the people. If it was Thomas Hobbes's merit to have founded a political theory on a secular basis, it was the merit of the system of communal representation to have founded political practice on a secular basis. 3. Preconditions and Purposes of Representation: Political Ideas of the Common Man
The oath and community theology, recruitment and the role of the brokers necessarily presuppose another, in fact the most important, question: What were the communities' political aims? How did they define their role in the emerging territorial states, and what did they expect from these states?69 It is not possible to understand the historical significance of communalism without addressing these problems, even if one admits that these aims and the influence that forms of communal representation had on state-building might be two quite different issues. The answers to these questions aid in describing the civic awareness, that is, the political thought of the common man. When the political identity of the majority is looked at within the framework of a comparative study of rural communities, a locale is provided within which political values and mentalities could take shape. Thus, explanatory models that are designed to encompass the whole of the society and are therefore probably too far-reaching to be meaningful can be avoided. At the same time, it becomes possible to outline the political worldview of a significant portion of the population.70 Of course, it is to be expected that popular political thought was informed by denominational traditions, local and regional economics as well as social differences within the communities, and therefore was far from homogeneous.71 Nevertheless, to reduce the political awareness of the common man to denominational belief and social status would once more render the majority of the population incapable of thinking in political terms.
Various large-scale patterns of political values of peasant communities have been discussed in recent years. Kenneth Lockridge regarded autonomy, or rather self-sufficient "splendid isolation," as the aim and the very core of community politics: "This was what many New Englanders meant by 'freedom': the right to secede into their own little worlds."72 Breen provocatively depicted not the political independence of the villages but rather the emergence of a territorial state - in spite of the prevailing localism - as the issue that needs explaining.73 Wolfgang Kaschuba ascribed the same objective to German villages: The common sense of communalism was first and foremost conservatism, the preservation of the village's status quo.74
Communalist villages claimed that they sought the "common good" or Gemeinnutz - the welfare of the community as a whole. At first glance, common good hardly seems to be more than an empty vessel that might be used by any lobby to pursue its respective aims. In fact, the authorities of the aristocratic territorial German states usurped that phrase to justify centralization and the ever-increasing power of their administrative apparatus.75 Nevertheless, common good was, on the one hand, a basic category in the political thought of rural communities. Various elements could be depicted as referring to the common good: the use of the Allmende (pasture and woodlands collectively owned and used by a village), infrastructure, such as bridges and highways, the availability of interchangeable currency - a major issue in an early modern German economy infested with counterfeiting. On the other hand, and probably more important, the meaning of common good was a negative one: It implied the communities' intolerance toward individuals who seemed to place their own ends before those of the community.76 In addition, authorities were accused of neglecting the common good. The rebellious peasants of Württemberg proclaimed in 1514 that next to the greater honor of God the common good should be the purpose of politics.77 Under the pressure of villages and towns, Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand even granted a new Landesordnung (constitution) for Tyrol in 1526 that gave as its main objective the "gemainen vnd vnserer Lanndschafft frumen vnd nutzen" (the common welfare and the common advantage as well as the welfare and the advantage of all the villages in this country).78
In a manner very similar to that of the rebellious German peasants Winthrop described in his famous speech aboard the Arrabella: "The Common good of the Creature, Man," next to the glory of God, is the aim of the settlers' endeavor.79 The oaths that the freemen of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven had to swear obligated them to promote the public good.80 Reflecting on the controversy concerning the need for written secular laws in a society that accepted the Bible as its guideline and "visible saints" as its leaders, the "Laws and Liberties" of Massachusetts defined in 1648 that all "humane law that tendeth to common good . . . is mediately a law of God."81 This meant that the common good was seen not only as the yardstick with which to measure laws, sentences, and political rule but also was the key to understanding the will of God.
Two potential misunderstandings of this concept must be ruled out. Early modern peasant societies in America and Europe accepted the common good as a value. First, this of course does not mean that individuals were not interested in personal material gain.82 Second, the preoccupation with the common good did not portend an interest in equality. Münch and Walker described order as a central category not only for peasant communities and small towns but also for the whole of the early modern estates system.83 The order of early modern political thinking remained compatible with the ordo of the Middle Ages. Müntzer, the Diggers, and other radical minorities were the exceptions that strengthened the rule. The social stratification of society was regarded as God given. In source materials from New England there is abundant evidence for this idea of societal order as a harmony of inequality. This notion helps us understand why a basic feature of New England settlement went largely undisputed, namely, that the system of land allotment distributed land unequally in favor of affluent settlers. Although it made it easy for almost everyone to acquire a certain amount of land, it cemented social differences.84 New England's doctrine of divine right was a part of this set of ideas.
Nevertheless, early modern American and European peasants accepted the common good as a social ideal and in addition to that as a guiding principle of politics: They accepted the common good as a genuinely political idea. On the very eve of the American revolution the Enlightenment's idea of the state protecting individualism was still alien to the New England public: The privileging of the common good over private interest or factionalism was still taken for granted.85 The dominant role of the common good as a concept was one of the reasons why the protection of private property, which figured so prominently as a raison d'tre of the state in the eighteenth century, played but a minor role in the earlier discussion on both sides of the Atlantic.86
Closely related to the common good, in fact part and parcel of the community's welfare, was peace. In German Dorfordnungen (town laws), it is one of the main tasks of the inhabitants to keep the peace within the village. They had not only to avoid conflicts, but they often had a legal obligation to intervene as peacemakers when quarrels arose and to report any disturbance of the peace.87 Blickle even regarded communal peace as the basis of and driving force behind the process that led to the delegitimization of feuds at the end of the Middle Ages.88 Town courts staffed by peasants sanctioned breaches of peace and petty crime. Even though most peasant communities in early modern Germany did not officially participate in the administration of criminal justice, recent research has proved that they had a keen interest in punishing delinquents. They actively participated in criminal procedures as pressure groups, collectively brought charges, and even usurped legal functions of the territorial authorities.89 In a very similar way the communities of New England, too, were integrated in the system of peacekeeping and law enforcement.90 The principle of the covenant of course prescribed strict maintenance of peace.91 To guarantee "Tranquility, Quietess (or Peace)" not with respect to outside forces but within the colony and the individual villages was characterized as one of the main duties of New England "rulers."92
The preamble of Massachusetts's earliest code of law, the "Body of Liberties" of 1641, presents the political ideology of New England Puritanism in a nutshell. The text is worth quoting:
The free fruition of such liberties Immunities and priveledges as humanitie, Civilitie, and Christianitie call for as due to every man in his place and proportion without impeachment and Infringement hath ever been and ever will be the tranquilitie and Stabilitie of Churches and Commonwealths. And the deniall or deprivall thereof, the disturbance if not the ruine of both. We hould it thererfore our dutie and safetie whilst we are about the further establishing of this Government to collect and expresse all such freedomes as . . . we foresee may concerne us, and our posteritie after us, And to ratify them with our sollemne consent.93
The concept of order and inequality ("liberties . . . as due to every man in his place and proportion") was clearly in effect. Rights and liberties were defined according to denominational standards. But the law itself and all the civil rights of the settlers were subordinate to the main issue of harmony and peace ("tranquilitie and Stabilitie"). The "Body of Liberties" - as in the case of all laws that were to follow it - was enacted by the consent of the communities' representatives. One might even say the consensus and the ratification clause were the necessary consequences of the concept of peace: A commonwealth guaranteeing harmony could only be based on unanimous acceptance. Drafts of the "Body of Liberties" had been submitted to the townships for their suggestions and their criticism. It might therefore at least be regarded as compatible with the majority's political objectives.94
Peace implied unity. Even if they were not threatened from the outside, communities in America and in Europe regarded unity as a value in itself. In German and American source materials the communal obligation to stand together and act "as one man" occurs time and again. In his "Arrabella" speech Winthrop urged his fellow settlers to "be knitt together in this worke [that is, the building of the colony] as one man."95 When they decided on more important business, town meetings in the electorate of Trier formally proclaimed their willingness "beyeinander zu stehen, ein Mann zu sein, auch leib und gut beieinander zu lassen" (to stand together, to be one man, and to win or lose life and livelihood together).96 The term Einung (oneing) was used for the gatherings of rebellious peasants as well as for the bylaws of villages the inhabitants had agreed on.97 Hobbes's description of the Leviathan as a created god, a "person" formed by the consent of persons as well as the terms legal person or Rechtsperson might rather be derived from this communal tradition than directly from the theological metaphor of the church as the mystical body of Christ, even if that was the common source of both.98 In New England and in Germany town meetings seem to have regarded unanimous decisions as the rule or even as necessary.99 During the first gathering of the New Haven settlers in 1639 every item of the constitution read to the assembly was agreed on in a series of unanimous votes. Only one person, whose name the official record discreetly omits, voiced a dissenting opinion concerning a specific issue. He did so after he had voted in favor of the proposal "because he would nott hinder whatt they agreed upon" and was quickly silenced.100 The election sermon preached in Boston in 1671 described it as a prime duty of the rulers to "care to quiet Complaints and Contentions, and to heal dissatisfactions that arose among" the settlers.101 When the victory of the revolution was officially proclaimed in 1689 the representatives of the towns assembled in Boston stressed the fact that all political decisions had been made unanimously.102
By emphasizing the values of peace and unity the community protected itself; its ability to act and its very existence depended on it. The hostility toward factionalism made it difficult to form supralocal interest groups that transcended the boundaries of the individual town; the political system was shaped by communal representation, not by the representation of regional pressure groups such as guilds or merchants' associations. Within the community, unity and peace marked the willingness of individuals to obey to its rules and accept standards of conduct that were based on reciprocity. The covenant and the confederacy illustrate this point. Both created obligations of individuals toward each other and thereby created communities. In contrast to Lockean concepts of contract, they did not mention individual rights.103 Strict social control was one of the basic features of early modern community life. Regional studies suggest that the concept of unity and peace could become ideologically contorted to the point of being dysfunctional. Tensions within the community were not resolved but smoldered quietly for years, providing among other things a breeding ground for accusations of witchcraft.104 Zuckerman explains that, as a result of this striving for unity, no election campaigns took place in New England and that the source materials seldom yield details concerning village political factionalism, the exact outcome of elections, or unsuccessful candidates. Open division and the clash of differing opinions was to be avoided or at least not be remembered for too long. When the decision had been made, village unity was restored. Even the secret ballot that was common in seventeenth-century New England might be regarded not only as a means to protect voters from the pressure of powerful candidates but also as a way to avoid obvious factionalism, that is, the clash of articulate supporters of different candidates during the election meeting. Indirectly, the central ideas of unity and peace discouraged opposition and strengthened the positions of representatives.105
Villagers consciously and eagerly contrived unity: It was by no means - as Tönnies's romantic construction would have it, Gemeinschaft (traditional community)106 - an unproblematic result of living in small-scale communities. Of course, factionalism, pluralism, individualism, and self-interest existed within village communities, but they were rejected and sanctioned because they contradicted the political ideal of unity.107
Given the importance of the religious foundation of the community, the strict obligation of the representative to his constituency and the decisive roles peace, unity, and the common good played in political thought, it comes as no surprise that communities on both sides of the Atlantic addressed charity and neighborly love as the ruling principle of politics.108 The idea of mutual obligation prevailed over that of divine election. The pattern of neighborly love facilitated the organization of community-state relations by means of representation based on elections. However, the utter lack of respect for pluralism and individualism in the political thought of the common man makes it impossible to regard early modern communal systems as democratic. Even though elections, representation, and participation had become integral parts of the political structure, it would still be anachronistic and misleading to call this structure "democracy."109 There could be no democracy without democratic thought.