Abstract
For too long, historians have seen the French Revolution as a watershed between a political dark age of oligarchy and absolutism, and the enlightened era of democracy that presumably started in 1789. This image was the result of the combination of three research interests that all developed since the 1960s: state formation, the social composition of elites, and riots and rebellions. The first privileged the state over local authorities, even though it was at the local level that most public services were delivered. The second implied that elites were only responsive to their own interests, and disregarded the concerns of their constituents. The third suggested that ordinary people were merely relevant as political actors on an incidental basis, during riots and rebellions, and disappeared into the background again as soon as the dust had settled.1
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Notes
This argument is made more elaborately, and with appropriate references, in Maarten Prak, “Urban governments and their citizens in early modern Europe,” in: Matthew Davies and James A. Galloway(eds.), London and beyond: Essays in honour of Derek Keene (London: Institute of Historical Research, 2012), 269–73.
Some of the crucial works include Robert D. Putnam, Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993);
Charles Tilly, European revolutions, 1492–1992 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993);
Peter Blickle (ed.), Resistance, representation, and community (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997);
Wayne te Brake, Shaping history: Ordinary people in European politics, 1500–1700 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998);
Christopher R. Friedrichs, Urban politics in early modern Europe (London: Routledge, 2000); for the British Isles, also Phil Withington, The politics of commonwealth: Citizens and freemen in early modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press);
and David Rollison, A commonwealth of the people: Popular politics and England’s long social revolution, 1066–1649 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010);
for the Dutch Republic, Maarten Prak, “Citizen radicalism and democracy in the Dutch Republic: The Patriot Movement of the 1780’s,” Theory and Society 20 (1991), 73–102;
and Maarten Prak, Republikeinse veelheid, democratische enkelvoud. Sociale verandering in het Revolutietijdvak: ’s-Hertogenbosch 1770–1820 (Nijmegen, the Netherlands: SUN, 1999).
Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms and communities in Western Europe 900–1300 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), chapter 6.
Catherine F. Paterson, Urban patronage in early modern England: Corporate boroughs, the landed elite and the Crown, 1580–1640 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999).
D. M. Palliser, “The birth of York’s civic liberties, c. 1200–1354,” in: S. Rees Jones (ed.), The government of medieval York: Essays in commemoration of the 1396 royal charter (York, UK: Borthwick Institute for Archives, 1997), 88–93.
D. M. Palliser, Tudor York (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 60–9.
Maarten Prak, “Corporate politics in the Low Countries: Guilds as institutions, 14th to 18th centuries,” in: Prak, Catharina Lis, Jan Lucassen, and Hugo Soly (eds.), Craft guilds in the early modern Low Countries: Work, power, and representation (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006), 83–4.
Maarten Prak, “Verfassungsnorm und Verfassungsrealität in den niederländischen Städten des späten 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. Die Oligarchie in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Deventer und Zutphen 1672/75–1795,” in: Wilfried Ehbrecht (ed.), Verwaltung und Politik in Städten Mitteleuropas. Beiträge zu Verfassungsnorm und Verfassungswirklichkeit in altständischer Zeit Städteforschung, vol. A/34 (Cologne, Germany: Böhlau, 1994), 58.
Nicholas Rodgers, Whigs and cities: Popular politics in the age of Walpole and Pitt (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 298.
Wyger Velema, Republicans: Essays on eighteenth-century Dutch political thought (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2007), 59–60.
A classic work is Henk van Dijk, D. J. Roorda, “Social mobility under the regents of the Republic,” Acta Historiae Neerlandicae 9 (1978), 76–103; see also Prak, “Verfassungsnorm und Verfassungsrealität”;
and Julia Adams, The familial state: Ruling families and merchant capitalism in early modern Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005).
Peter Clark, “The civic leaders of Gloucester 1580–1800,” in: Clark (ed.), The transformation of English provincial towns, 1600–1800 (London: Hutchinson, 1984), 312–13;
also Robert Tittler, The Reformation and the towns (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 182;
and Rosemary Sweet, The English town, 1680–1840: Government, society and culture (Harlow: Longman, 1999), 56.
Gary S. de Krey, A fractured society: The politics of London in the first age of party, 1688–1715 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 40.
Sybil M. Jack, Towns in Tudor and Stuart Britain, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 77–8.
Clark, “Civic leaders of Gloucester,” 336–7; John Miller, Cities divided: Politics and religion in English provincial towns, 1660–1722 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 12–13.
Jonathan Barry, “Bourgeois collectivism? Urban association and the middling sort,” in: Jonathan Barry and Christopher Brooks (eds.), The middling sort of people: Culture, society and politics in England, 1550–1800 (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1994), 84–112;
Barry, “Civility and civic culture in early modern England: The meanings of urban freedom,” in: Peter Burke, Brian Harrison, and Paul Slack (eds.), Civil histories: Essays presented to Sir Keith Thomas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 181–96; Withington, Politics of commonwealth, 52–3;
also Christopher R, Friedrichs, The early modern city, 1450–1750 (London: Longman, 1995), 48–51.
Charles Tilly, From mobilization to revolution (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1978).
Christopher R. Friedrichs, “Urban elections and decision-making in early modern Europe and Asia: Contrasts and comparisons,” in: Rudolf Schlögl (ed.), Urban elections and decision-making in early modern Europe, 1500–1800 (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 300–21;
Christopher R. Friedrichs, “What made the Eurasian city work? Urban political cultures in early modern Europe and Asia,” in: Glenn Clark, Judith Owens, and Greg T. Smith (eds.), City limits: Perspectives on the historical European city (Montreal, QC, and Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010), 29–64.
David Gary Shaw, The creation of a community: The city of Wells in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 164–5.
J. C. Streng, “Stemme in staat”: De bestuurlijke elite in de stadsrepubliek Zwolle 1579–1795 (Hilversum, the Netherlands: Verloren, 1997), 96.
Ian Archer, The pursuit of stability: Social relations in Elizabethan London (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 83, 200, 202–03.
Keith Lindley, Popular politics and religion in Civil War London (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997), 153–4.
Gabriëlle Dorren, Eenheid en verscheidenheid: De burgers van Haarlem in de Gouden Eeuw (Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2001), chapter 3.
Herman Roodenburg, “Naar een etnografie van de vroeg-moderne stad: de ‘gebuyrten’ in Leiden en Den Haag,” in: P. te Boekhorst, P. Burke, and W. Frijhoff (eds.), Cultuur en maatschappij in Nederland, 1500–1850: Een historisch-antropologisch perspectief (Amsterdam: Boom, 1992), 219–43;
L. Bogaers, “Geleund over de onderdeur: Doorkijkjes in het Utrechtse buurtleven van de vroege middeleeuwen tot in de zeventiende eeuw,” Bijdragen en mededelingen betreffende de geschiedenis der Nederlanden 112 (1997), 336–63.
Paul Knevel, Burgers in het geweer: De schutterijen in Holland, 1550–1700 (Hilversum, the Netherlands: Verloren, 1994), chapters 2 and 3.
Clazina Dingemanse, Rap van tong, scherp van pen: Literaire discussiecultuur in Nederlandse praatjespamfletten (circa 1600–1750) (Hilversum, the Netherlands: Verloren, 2008), 197.
D. J. Roorda, Partij en factie: De oproeren van 1672 in de steden van Holland en Zeeland, een krachtmeting tussen partijen en facties (Groningen, the Netherlands: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1961);
J. A. F. de Jongste, Onrust aan het Spaarne: Haarlem in de jaren 1747–1751 (s.l.: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1984).
Maarten Prak, “The politics of intolerance: Citizenship and religion in the Dutch Republic (17th–18th c.),” in: Ronnie Po-chia Hsia and Henk van Nierop (eds.), Calvinism and religious toleration in the Dutch golden age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 172.
E. Haverkamp-Begemann, Rembrandt: The Nightwatch (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982);
M. Carasso-Kok and J. Levy-van Halm (eds.), Schutters in Holland: Kracht en zenuwen van de stad (Zwolle, the Netherlands: Waanders, 1988); Knevel, Burgers, 311–22.
Keith Roberts, “Citizen soldiers: The military power of the City of London,” in: Stephen Porter (ed.), London and the Civil War (London: Palgrave, 1996), 102.
S. R. E. Klein, Patriots republikanisme: Politieke cultuur in Nederland (1766–1787) (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1995), 78;
also John Robertson, The Scottish enlightenment and the militia issue (Edinburgh: Donald, 1985), chapter 2.
Peter Clark, British clubs and societies: The origins of an associational world (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 26, 58, 60, 64, 76, 128;
also Phil Withington, Society in early modern England. The Vernacular origins of some powerful ideas (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010).
Joost Kloek, Wijnand Mijnhardt, 1800: Blueprints for a national community (London: Palgrave, 2004), chapter 7.
Jeremy D. Popkin, “Print culture in the Netherlands on the eve of the revolution,” in: Margaret C. Jacob and Wijnand W. Mijnhardt (eds.), The Dutch Republic in the eighteenth century: Decline, Enlightenment, and revolution (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), 273–91.
Heinz Schilling, “Civic republicanism in late medieval and early modern German cities,” in: Schilling (ed.), Religion, political culture and the emergence of early modern society: Essays in German and Dutch history (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 1992), chapter 1.
Korte en eenvoudige deductie, waer by getoont wordt de wettigheit van de keur van de magistraet, door de gemeinsluiden … der stadt Groenlo, in martio 1703…. en ‘tgeene vervolgens sig daer omtrent heeft toegedraegen (Knuttel 15252); a comparable document from Arnhem is analyzed in Arjan van Dixhoorn, “‘Voorstanden van de vrije wetten’: Burgerbewegingen in Arnhem en de Republiek tussen 1702 en 1707,” Tijdschrift voor sociale geschiedenis 25 (1999), 25–54.
Rosemary Sweet, “Freemen and independence in English borough politics, c. 1770–1830,” Past and Present 161 (1998), 84–115.
Lex Heerma van Voss (ed.), Petitions in social history (International Review of Social History, Supplement) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002);
also R.W. Hoyle, “Petitioning as popular politics in early sixteenth-century England”, Historical Research, 75 (2002), 365–89.
Maarten Prak, “Individual, corporation and society: The rhetoric of Dutch guilds (18th. c.),” in: Marc Boone and Maarten Prak (eds.), Statuts individuels, statuts corporatifs et statuts judiciares dans les villes européennes (moyen âge et temps modernes)/Individual, corporate, and judicial status in European cities (late middle ages and early modern period (Louvain, Belgium, and Apeldoorn, the Netherlands: Garant, 1996), 262.
James E. Bradley, Popular politics and the American Revolution in England: Petitions, the Crown and public opinion (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1986), 37.
Wayne te Brake, Regents and rebels: The revolutionary world of an eighteenthcentury Dutch city (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 47, 49 (quote), 50, 70, 75–79.
Marjolein ’t Hart, “Intercity rivalries and the making of the Dutch state,” in: Charles Tilly and Wim P. Blockmans (eds.), Cities and the rise of states in Europe, A.D. 1000 to 1800 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), 196–217.
Maarten Prak, Jan Luiten van Zanden, “Tax morale and citizenship in the Dutch Republic,” in: Oscar Gelderblom (ed.), The political economy of the Dutch Republic (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2009), 151, 154–5.
Jan Luiten van Zanden and Maarten Prak, “Towards an economic interpretation of citizenship: The Dutch Republic between medieval communes and modern nation-states,” European Review of Economic History 10 (2006), 129–35.
David Stasavage, States of credit: Size, power, and the development of European politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011) has a narrower interpretation. He claims that low interest rates do not so much reflect general trust in the government, but more specifically trust of a relatively small group of investors in government bonds.
Peter Lindert, Growing public: Social spending and economic growth since the eighteenth century, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 22–3, 46–7.
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© 2013 Margaret C. Jacob and Catherine Secretan
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Prak, M. (2013). The People in Politics: Early Modern England and the Dutch Republic Compared. In: Jacob, M.C., Secretan, C. (eds) In Praise of Ordinary People. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137380524_7
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