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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 2454914" data-attributes="member: 7240">Sorry to keep pestering you with questions but a little more detail will be handy. Okay -- is this a free city/republic/principality or is it the capital of a larger jurisdiction? This will affect what power bases are in play.Whose support matters in your world? Obviously, the acclaim of the masses is useful but not nearly so useful as the support of genuinely influential constituencies like merchant guilds, landowners, religious cults, the army, etc. Prior to about 1850, the support of people who didn't fall into one of these categories was rarely politically influential or part of the process in the West. Generally, only in imperial despotisms like China, Rome, Byzantium and Russia did the will of the masses have any formal recognition or de facto power. Of course, it is important to court everyone but, in a feudal system, one is essentially going over the head of a lord by speaking directly to his peasants and thereby causing offense. In a free city, republic or principality without significant land, this tendency also operates but less intensely -- all but the bottom rung of society will be addressed through their guild or church rather than directly. And there are risks in courting the bottom rung.It would take more than this to bring democracy into being in a feudal city. A contender wouldn't ask himself, "What ideas would appeal to the labourers?" Instead he would ask, "Whose support am I courting?" Of course this is true in democratic politics today when appealing to highly organized constituencies like the Christian right but these groups are the exception rather than the rule today.Well, of course people make deals to gather support in any period but many of these deals will be private because there is nothing to gain by making these promises publicly. The only public promises in a city should be bread and circuses promised to the masses and, depending on the size and composition of the military, increased rations and salaries for the non-officers.</blockquote>

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