How did the Notion of Commonwealth Change over the 17th century?
Origins
 Thomas More: until the mid 17th c was a relatively uncontroversial term
referring to the public, social or political community
 Subscribed to Plato and Aristotle’s notions of public good
 Commonwealth deriving from res publica-public thing
 Cicero: concern of a people
Commonwealth as a set of ideas
 Multitude of associating terms e.g. common weal, community, common
interest etc.
 Idea of commonwealth as a concept and notion
 Understood as the polity and the common good
Mid 17th C:
Nedham’s Journalism
 Mercurius Politicus 1645 onwards
 Defended England’s new republican government with what he called
good Commonwealth language
 Before this the term quite ubiquitous, thanks to republican journalism
term seen to have an anti monarchy flavour
Commonwealth of England
 Cromwell’s seal of Commonwealth: parliamentary sovereignty and
individual freedom
1660s-Restoration of the Monarchy
 Term associated with republicanism
 Dangers of Commonwealth notion
 1681: Algernon Sidney and Sir William Jones expressing indignation that
a reputed ‘commonwealthsman’ had become a brand of infamy,
dishonour and shame
Summary
 Three main meanings; before, during and after Cromwell
 Process was social as well as linguistic
 Commonwealth therefore a very charged term, emotive and political
meanings
 Impact of journalism
Sources
 Marchamont Nedham’s Journalism
 Locke on Government Chapter 10: Of Commonwealth
 Jonathon Scott: What Were Commonwealth Principles?
 Early Modern Research group: Commonwealth: The Social, Cultural and
Conceptual Contexts of an Early Modern Keyword