Republics
Renaissance republicanism – key thinkers:
Classical texts - Plato, Republic, Aristotle, Politics Cicero, De Officiis; Titus Livy, Ab Urbe
condita, Tacitus, Histories and Annals; Sallust, Catalinarian Conspiracy and Jugurthine
War.
Italy – Leonard Bruni (1370-1444), History of the Florentine People; Poggio Bracciolini
(1380-1459), History of Florence; Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), Discourses, Florentine
Histories; Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540), History of Florence.
France – Hubert Languet (1518-1581): probable author of Vindicae Contra Tyrannos;
Francois Hotman (1524-1590), Franco-Gallia; Theodore Beza (1519-1605), De jure
magistratum.
England – John Milton (1608-1674), Tenure of Kings and Magistrates; Readie and Easie
Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth; James Harrington (1611-1677), The Commonwealth
of Oceana.
Original loose definition – any system of government that serves public interest of the
governed, not private interest of the governors.
- English equivalent = ‘commonwealth’.
- Common usage of term hardens over period to carry more anti-monarchical connotations.
Republican systems/ ideas developed since C13th in Italian city states – reflect rising
wealth and power of late-Medieval, Florence, Venice and Genoa:
- Gucciardini – each city aims ‘to preserve its own territory and to defend its own interest by
carefully making sure that no one of them grew strong enough to enslave the others, and to
this end each gave the most careful attention to even minor political events or changes’.
- Civic humanist ideology – principle of libertas derived from traditions of Roman Republic.
- Bruni, Panegyric of the Florentine People (1404) - ‘For who could bear that the Roman
state... fell into the hands and under the domination of Caligula and other monsters and vile
tyrants who were innocent of no vice and redeemed by no virtue?... Has anything touched the
people of Florence more deeply than the sorrow of seeing the Roman people, its progenitor
and founder... suddenly lose their own freedom at the hands of the most criminal of men?’
- Implementation of these ideas questionable – Venetian republic increasingly elitist: c. 40
ruling families by 1500; rising influence of key families in Florence e.g. Medicis.
- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651) – republican liberty = ‘not the Libertie of Particular
men; but the Libertie of the Common-wealth... to do what it shall judge (that is to say, what
that Man, or Assemblie that representeth it shall judge) most conducing to their benefit...’
Italian cities placed under pressure by expansion of royal/ imperial power i.e. ambitions
of Spain, Austria, France:
James Whiston, (A Discourse of the Decay of Trade 1693), ‘For since the Introduction of the
New Artillery of Powder Guns, &c and the Discovery of the Wealth of the Indies, War is
become rather an Expence of Money than Men, and Success attends those that can most and
longest spend Money’.
- Italian Wars (1494-1559) = disastrous for Italian city states.
- 1536 - imperial army of Charles V in Italy = 20,00 Germans, 20,000 Italians, 10,000
Spaniards.
- By 1559, only independent self-governing republics left in Italy are Venice and San Marino.
- Machiavelli, The Prince: Florence ‘overrun by Charles, sacked by Louis, outraged by
Ferdinand and disgraced by the Swiss’ before falls under Medici oligarchy, 1512.
Republican ideals disseminated outside Italy even as Italian states collapse:
- Collinson, ‘Monarchical Republic of Elizabeth I’; Goldie - C17th England an
‘unacknowledged republic’ due to citizenship ideals fostered in humanist education and in the
governance of towns an cities
- ‘Chambers of Rhetoric’ est. in Low Countries towns and cities e.g. Antwerp, Amsterdam.
Republican goals shape aristocratic challenges to power of monarchs:
- 1569 – Lublin Union seals conversion of the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania into an
elective monarchy.
- Reflects growing dependence of kings upon nobility in governance of large and diverse
composite monarchy esp. after incorporation of Ukraine.
- Power held by bicameral sejm; liberum law gives power of veto to any article of royal
legislation.
Republicans and rebels:
- Republican ideals inform Huguenot revolt against French monarchy1560-1579:
- Hotman supports power of parlements against ‘ferocious license of kings’; Languet– the
people = ‘true proprietors’ of a commonwealth, possess ‘supreme dominion’ and have ‘to
take up arms and fight against tyranny’, ‘not merely for the sake of our religion, but also in
the name of our health and homes’.
- Blend of classical republicanism with Calvinist monarchomach ideas i.e. right of godly
people to resist.
- Republican language directs radical Calvinists defending deposition of Mary, Queen of
Scots (1567) e.g. Knox, Melville, Buchanan and execution of Charles I (1649).
Establishment of the Dutch Republic (1581) - similarly blends Calvinist with neoRoman ideas:
- Parallel with northern and central Italy – reflects emergence of wealthy urban and
commercial domain with high levels of civic participation.
- Dutch Revolt against Spain triggered by actions of Philip II - imposition of autocratic
governance and Catholic inquisition – provokes Calvinist religious riots, 1566.
- Displaced Dutch aristocrats under William of Orange link themselves to rebels to take on
leadership of the interregnum.
- Successful revolt seen as one of the principal triumphs of international Protestantism.
Political organisation of the United Provinces (Dutch Republic):
- Confederation of seven autonomous provinces sending representatives to States-General in
The Hague: united in matters of common security/commercial policy/ foreign affairs.
- Develop common civic institutions e.g. schuetterij - prestigious civic militias shaped by
precedents of Republic Rome.
- United Provinces beset by tensions e.g. merchant pressure for widened religious toleration
vs Calvinist influence; controversy over role of Princes of Orange as hereditary stadtholders:
rule of Johan de Witt as Grand Pensionary (1650-1672) before overthrow and murder, and
restoration of William III.
- But United Provinces established as world’s leading commercial and naval power c. 16001700.