The levy system in the western Netherlands in the Early and High Middle Ages

I have provided some of this information in response to inquiries before, where certain local military mechanics were also applicable to those of the military apparatus of feudal territories in general, such as the 40-day levy period (which also applied to the mobilisation of nobles and their retinues, but that is outside the scope of this post). However, I have had little opportunity so far to further bare the intricacies of the mobilisation of common troops in the western Netherlands, with emphasis on the County of Holland, as this is where local geographical and cultural phenomena meant that its functioning was different from the rest of feudal Europe, even in relation to the other territories associated with the Holy Roman Empire. The geographical situation of the western Netherlands in particular, a coastal area shot through by the delta and various tributaries of the Rhine river, alternating impassable woodland with peat bogs, the latter increasingly reclaimed during the course of the High and Late Middle Ages, meant that the origin of the local approximant of the levy system was strongly tied with the prominence of water^(1).

The system was originally known as expeditio navalis (naval expedition), scipheervaerde in Middle Dutch, denoting its original purpose of a naval levy^(2). First hypothesised to be Norse in origin - supposedly introduced by Viking invaders of the 9th century such as Rorik and Godfrid Haraldsson - and thought to be related to their skipleding**^(3), the current standing theory is that it was established by the Franks/Carolingians against such naval incursions: apart from etymological improbabilities associated with the Viking hypothesis, the local Norse overlords would have had little interest in organising their foreign subjects militarily and were not serious in their contractual obligations to the Franks concerning the defence of these territories against further incursions by Viking colleagues anyway^(4). The naval levy itself is an interesting system that functioned on the premise of riemtalen (oar counts) - the amount of oars that the common man had to bring onboard the heerkoggen (rowed ships able to navigate the shallows and rivers) - established per ambacht (areas comparable on organisational level to modern day shire districts in England and (etymologically related to) the German Ämter still existing in some federal states) according to their estimated population^(5). Depending on the necessity that the military situation posed, the Prefectus (in Carolingian times) anon Count could summon full scipheervaerde (also called riem riem gelycke), double scipheervaerde, triple scipheervaerde, or quadruple scipheervaerde: one, one-and-a-half, two, or three men^(6) (or two-and-a-half?^(7)) per oar respectively.

Throughout the course of the High Middle Ages, it became more and more frequent for this scipheervaerde to be effected as a regular heervaerde (heervaart in Modern Dutch) in which the troops were still summoned according to the riemtalen but lost its naval functionality - instead appearing as a normal levy^(8) – no doubt related to the absence of Viking incursions since the early 11th century, even though the scipheervaerde always remained an option alongside the regular heervaerde, coming into play on several occasions still during the 14th and early 15th century^(9). In the (scip)heervaerde there was a distinction between the farmer (from an economic and social point of view it would be improper to call the rural commoners in the western part of the Netherlands peasants^(10)) with a modest income and the wealthier (non-noble) landowner. The latter was summoned personally rather than en masse and were expected to adhere to the summons without exception: with increased privilege came increased military responsibility^(11). Special circumstances surrounding the (scip)heervaerde were in place in the region of Zeeland, an archipelago southwest of Holland proper, where the Count had to ask the relatively autonomous local nobility for permission to instigate the heervaart^(12).

Week 67

 

The period of the post-Napoleonic Restoration in Italy was marked by waves of social and political unrest, by moments of economic growth and moments of stagnation, by the progressive affirmation of national ideas and their adaptation into a somewhat coherent unified theory, achieved by the future national leadership at the end of a complex process of “natural” selection which left the moderate, unitarian, monarchical, liberal current represented by the Piedmontese Prime Minister Cavour ahead of the other currents: republican, federative, guelph, etc.

It was also a time of secret societies, whose spread and development – begun already during the period of the first “French” wave – progressed largely during the following thirty years, growing from “secret” and obscure coalitions of initiates to a common feature of the Italian political and social landscape, where at the turn of mid century many could conceive their participation to a secret society as almost collateral to their main political, cultural or intellectual works.

It should appear obvious that the spread of those groups and their connection on a nation wide – or even international – level was largely influenced by the frequent restriction, or even prohibition, of conducting what we would regard nowadays, or even a few decades later, as a public “political” action. Things such as political organizations, “parties”, political and opinion press, existed and operated in a frequently semi-clandestine or completely clandestine fashion, subject to the recurrent threat of dissolution, and their members to that of exile or even imprisonment – in addition to this, the very idea of “political parties” had little meaning in a society which not only did not recognize the principle of electoral representation, but conceived the public sphere as something different from the organization of the people of a nation, something more akin to a sphere of personal initiative where the members of the national elite found themselves operating.

For an illustration of this point, consider what Massimo's father, the Marquis Cesare D'Azeglio (a loyalist, who had been exiled during the 1796-98 occupation and then worked as a high ranking functionary for King Victor Emmanuel I), had to say about loyalty to one's King and constitutional government in a letter written to another of his sons – Roberto, an active figure in the Italian unification movement, and member of the Carboneria, while his father, as we saw before, was an active participant to the Catholic society of the Amicizia Cattolica - around 1825-26. His son had asked him if he wasn't at least questioning his choices on the matter, seeing how many less honorable men, and of more questionable loyalty, had risen to higher positions within the state administration – to which the Marquis replied:

Who do I labor for? For the family, a few poors, for the Motherland which is the exact same thing as the King. [Indeed] I would call ungrateful one who knows the good done to them, knows it was done intentionally to assist them, and knows it wasn't strictly due them [that is out of natural obligation]; and being in a position to acknowledge it by practical terms or pure recognition, chooses not to […] The Motherland and the King, objects of immutable love and reverence for me, are at all exempt from such accusations. And if you insist in dividing the two, then the Motherland is reduced to that part of the people who know me, my actions and my sentiments. […] And consider also how such public gets smaller and smaller for each person […] if you think of how many in Turin and within the whole Country have never heard of me! and how many have heard but the name! Those who know more are that public, that Motherland I would have cause to complain of.

But from those – he argued – he had received enough recognition and praise. In fact

when I mange to be of any assistance to he public, then I am not laboring for someone ungrateful […] since in fact I enjoy more praise than my limited political presence would warrant. And from this a new sentiment of gratitude for the Motherland grows in me, that I would not experience in a Republic or under a Constitutional rule. In a pure Monarchy, those who are not favored [by the King] can always find consolation in the thought of being victims of some courtesan intrigues, and that vague public sentiment I mentioned before lets them believe to be well loved by their fellow citizens. In this circumstance (but this one alone) one can take apart [the public] from the Monarch and think that, if he is helpful to the Motherland, than [the public] proves not ungrateful and gives back with its gratitude and consideration. If a portion of the people concurs to the government function, then such distinction ceases to be possible.

And he continued explaining that

If the news that a constitutionalization of the whole Europe is imminent are true; which may very well be […] that's not in contrast with what I discussed before. If Piedmont were to become constitutional […] for a rebellion […] I would certainly fight against such rebellion with whatever strength, sense and power I have. […] If it were for the will of the King, either for persuasion or to prevent a larger threat, then I would conform to the King's ordaining: and once established the new system, I would be a staunch supporter of it. To obey the ruler is duty [and I had in fact] begun certain studies concerning such means of public administration; for the very reason that, if such a change were to take place, I would not wish to find myself ignorant in the matter. If [a change] were to take place by quiet means, I believe I'd have a place in one of the two chambers and the interests of the state shouldn't be debated by [people who can't see well through them].

 

With the rapid execution of Gioacchino Murat on October 13^th 1815 – in a small town of the southern region of Calabria, where the former King of Naples had made one last attempt to regain a kingdom of his own – a few months after the end of the Congress of Vienna had sanctioned the restoration of Ferdinand IV to the throne of the Two Sicilies (or rather, unbeknownst to a few delegates, that of Ferdinand I the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies), the experience of the Napoleonic rule over Italy was definitely extinguished (despite the various half hearted plans to restore some of the great general's descendants to one of the Italian thrones).

By then, there was already an established tradition of secret societies, of conspiracies, of alleged plots and intrigues – as well as a certain proclivity of the upper classes towards such practices, and an even more widespread belief (which appears to have trickled down onto the middle and lower classes) that such secret organizations were always at work, always doing something, and always influential. A belief that would remain as a background for the Italian political world, well after “modern politics” had become a thing.

The spread of secret societies had certainly been a result of the sudden enthusiasm created by the French Revolution, sparking ideas of national unification, independence, vast social and political reforms, which seemed to herald a period of progress where the new ideals of freedom (of opinion, congregation, press, action of the citizen within the public sphere) could become the practical foundations of a new form of government; by which the intellectual leadership had often felt compelled to devise means to “activate” the masses and promote this transformation to a new regime. A parallel impulse had come from the first experiences of actual government in the Italian regions – the republican wave of 1796-98; the reaction of 1799; the Napoleonic conquest and the new Italian Kingdoms of 1805-14 – where most of those (often unreasonable but no less genuine) ideas of self-determination, self-rule, democratic principles had to contend with the practical and continuously mutating needs of the Napoleonic “work in progress” organization of Europe. A persistent state of war which forced the Italian States to provide the French Army with troops and large financial contributions, which increased the already heavy burden caused by the French fiscality and reparation demands; a renewed fragmentation of those forces and political structures that had hoped at times for the beginning of a process of national unification, as well as a confinement of the Italian leadership to political and administrative subordination that mirrored to some extent what had been experienced during the previous Austrian and Spanish regimes; furthermore the reintroduction of means of control of public opinion, of the press, etc. that had in fact never been fully abandoned, and which reduced the space for public political organization and circulation of ideas among the Italian elites.