We conclude, then, that temporal and local diversification is a prime
mark of political organization, and one which, when it is analyzed,
supplies a confirming test of our theory. A second mark and evidence
is found in an otherwise inexplicable fact that the quantitative
scope of results of conjoint behavior generates a public with need
for organization. As we already noted, what are now crimes subject
to public cognizance and adjudication were once private ebullitions,
having the status now possessed by an insult proffered by one to
another. An interesting phase of the transition from the relatively
private to the public, at least from a limited public to a larger one,
is seen in the development in England of the King’s Peace. Justice
until the twelfth century was administered mainly by feudal and shire
courts, courts of hundreds, etc. Any lord who had a sufficient number
of subjects and tenants decided controversies and imposed penalties.
The court and justice of the king was but one among many, and primarily
concerned with royalty’s tenants, servants, properties and dignities.
The monarchs wished, however, to increase their revenues and expand
their power and prestige. Various devices were invented and fictions
set up by means of which the jurisdiction of kingly courts was
extended. The method was to allege that various offenses, formerly
attended to by local courts, were infractions of the king’s peace. The
centralizing movement went on till the king’s justice had a monopoly.
The instance is significant. A measure instigated by desire to increase
the power and profit of the royal dynasty became an impersonal public
function by bare extension. The same sort of thing has repeatedly
occurred when personal prerogatives have passed into normal political
processes. Something of the same sort is manifested in contemporary
life when modes of private business become “affected with a public
interest” because of quantitative expansion.
A converse instance is presented in transfer from public to private
domain of religious rites and beliefs. As long as the prevailing
mentality thought that the consequences of piety and irreligion
affected the entire community, religion was of necessity a public
affair. Scrupulous adherence to the customary cult was of the highest
political import. Gods were tribal ancestors or founders of the
community. They granted communal prosperity when they were duly
acknowledged and were the authors of famine, pestilence and defeat in
war if their interests were not zealously attended to. Naturally when
religious acts had such extended consequences, temples were public
buildings, like the agora and forum; rites were civic functions and
priests public officials. Long after theocracy vanished, theurgy was a
political institution. Even when disbelief was rife, few there were who
would run the risk of neglecting the ceremonials.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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