Historians have traditionally attributed the origin of modern Western democracies to classical Athens and Republican Rome, but recently I've read about a widespread Germanic institution called the thing, which was essentially the governing assembly of all free people in a Germanic community. The Wikipedia article on the subject has something I found especially captivating to say about it:thing evolved into the modern British Parliament, which supposedly was in turn a major influence on the modern American government's design (or so my dad, a major American history enthusiast, claims). In other words, the Germanic thing may be a good candidate for the ancestor to modern Western democracy; better, perhaps, than the short-lived and ultimately conquered Athenian democracy.
Traditionally historiographers have attributed the better aspects of Western civilization to classical Greece and Rome while vilifying pre-Christian northern Europeans as primitive barbarians. However, it appears that one of the most fundamental characteristics of the modern West, representative democracy, may in fact be indigenous to inner Europe rather than a Mediterranean imposition. I say it's time to give the so-called "barbarians" more credit.
The thing met at regular intervals, legislated, elected chieftains and kings, and judged according to the law, which was memorized and recited by the "law speaker" (the judge). The thing's negotiations were presided over by the law speaker and the chieftain or the king. In reality the thing was of course dominated by the most influential members of the community, the heads of clans and wealthy families, but in theory one-man one-vote was the rule.The part about the community's leaders being elected reminded me of a modern Western-style representative democracy. Earlier in the article, it's claimed that the Anglo-Saxon variant of the
Traditionally historiographers have attributed the better aspects of Western civilization to classical Greece and Rome while vilifying pre-Christian northern Europeans as primitive barbarians. However, it appears that one of the most fundamental characteristics of the modern West, representative democracy, may in fact be indigenous to inner Europe rather than a Mediterranean imposition. I say it's time to give the so-called "barbarians" more credit.