Civil Rights and Political Participation in Ancien Régime Europe

Abstract

After the Second World War, a wave of euphoria fostered an international consensus that led to the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Treaty for Human Rights, and institutions safeguarding their application. In the early 21st century, however, these great ideals and even parliamentary democracy appear to be open to various forms of manipulation tending to the restriction of its own constitutional rights and functions. This paper retraces the long-term genesis of these concepts which emerged in the course of a centuries-long development that is uniquely European. A constant tension can be observed between the difficult formulation of fundamental rights of subjects, originally on a local and regional basis, and the effectiveness of the institutions created to control governments. The growth of cities, which acquired various levels of autonomy and autarchy, was fundamental to make it possible that immunities and particular privileges similar to those of clerics and aristocrats were extended to the new communities. The periods of urban growth, and the density of cities within particular territories, determined which balance of powers was stabilised. The earliest and most intense wave of urbanisation, in North and Central Italy from the 10th to the 13th century, brought civil rights and privileges for local communes, but also domination of the largest cities as they absorbed or eliminated all potentially countervailing powers. In other regions, various balances were attained between the prevailing seigneurial interests and those of urban communities.