Great Landsmeet

The Great Landsmeet was a socio-political institution in Urcea during the early history of Urcea. As a descendant of the tribal assembly of ancient Great Levantia, it sat as the primary representative of the estates of Urcea and served a quasi-legislative role in addition to being an advisory body for the Apostolic King of Urcea. It had the authority to approve or deny the levy of new taxes. The Landsmeet was first convened in 1022 and was envisioned as a way to mitigate disputes between the estates of Urcea while also strengthening the rule of the Julian dynasty by implementing a kind of rule-by-consensus, an early example of later principles of the Constitution of Urcea. The Landsmeet only required the optimate heads of Estates to convene as opposed to the earlier tribal assembly, making it a much more flexible institution to convene. In 1146, the Landsmeet was augmented with a Common Council, today's Conshilía Daoni, which was intended to allow members of other social classes to provide arbitration between the Landsmeet and the King. Due to the declining power of the estates, the growing power of the privilegiata, and fact that the Daoni could meet with any number of local representatives rather than the specific nobles of the Landsmeet, the Daoni was increasingly invested with authorities previously reserved to the Landsmeet. It took its full legal authority in the early 13th century, further precipitating the decline of noble authority. The Landsmeet would meet for the last time in 1243, though it would not be formally dissolved until the 15th century.

A meeting of all the estates of Urcea was convened in 1858 by Aedanicus VIII and was referred to contemporaneously as the "Great Landsmeet of 1858". This Landsmeet, which met to approve the implementation of the tria nomina system, is not largely considered to be the same institution as the original Landsmeets by most legal scholars.

History

Main article: Constitutional history of Urcea

Early Great Levantia employed a mixed governmental system of executive Consuls, an aristocratic Senate, and a democratic tribal assembly. In the tribal assembly, citizens were organized on the basis of 25 tribes: five urban tribes of the citizens in the city of Urceopolis, and twenty rural tribes of citizens in the area roughly corresponding to the Archduchy of Urceopolis. Each tribe voted separately and one after the other. In each tribe, decisions were made by majority vote and its decision counted as one vote regardless of how many electors each tribe held. Once a majority of tribes voted in the same way on a given measure, the voting ended and the matter was decided. Though the institutions of Senate and Consul were extinct by the time of the 600s, the tribal assembly persisted and held real power; it was responsible for the election of the Dux of Urceopolis. Much of the early reign of Gaius Julius Cicurinus was devoted to integrating Gaels and Latino Gaels into the assembly, which he successfully did, adding 25 "Gaelic" tribes. The tribes of the assembly formed the basis for the modern Estates of Urcea.

Following the formation of the Levantine Empire, the elective Duchy of Urceopolis was transformed into the hereditary Archduchy of Urceopolis, and the tribal assembly lost a considerable deal of power. Successive Archdukes still delegated some responsibilities to the assembly, but it ceased to regularly meet in 852. As the nascent Urceopolitan state continued to grow - and with the growth of manorialism - it became much more difficult for the leading families of the Estates to return to Urceopolis due to their various obligations on their feudal holdings. The tribal assembly met for the final time in 917, just prior to the unification of the Archduchy of Urceopolis and the Grand Duchy of Yustona.

During its time in existence, the Great Landsmeet primarily considered the issue of tax raises, disputes within Estates, and tried to assert its right to resolve succession crises, but never successfully claimed the power to do so. Most notably, an effort by the Great Landsmeet to mediate the Interregnum of 1153 failed, a failure that lead Urcea down the road of the Saint's War. The decline of the institution coincided with a decline in the power of the Estates, as privilegiata and freemen in distant Urceopolis were given something of a "short leash", as it were, and were not inclined towards strengthening the prerogatives of the Estates. The heads of the Estates retained the power to directly appoint the privilegiata and freemen that represented the Estates on the Conshilía Daoni, a last remnant of the ancient tribal assembly. This power was formally revoked by King Leo II after the Great Confessional War, striking a critical blow against the political relevancy of the Estates.

King Aedanicus VIII briefly revived the institution in 1858, when he called a Great Landsmeet to consider the issue of the Tria nomina movement. The Great Landsmeet reported back favorably and the heads of estates adopted the naming convention proposed.

Structure and Procedure

The Great Landsmeet was comprised of the fifty Custóirs of the Estates of Urcea, all of whom were of the high optimate rank within Urcean society. The Custóirs could not designate delegates or proxy votes, and meetings of the Landsmeet often required months of advanced notice to have a majority of members in attendance. The fifty Custóirs were organized into Latinic and Gaelic benches in no particular order, and served as long as they lived and were head of their Estate. Given that some individuals became Custóirs under the age of reason, some attempts to allow regents to sit in the Landsmeet failed. Many meetings often featured less than half of the members of the Landsmeet; the equivalent of a "quorum" was reached based on whether or not the Archduke or, later, King, were in attendance.

The Great Landsmeet had no standard system of what is today understood as parliamentary procedure, and most meetings over the course of its two hundred year existence took slightly different forms each time. Primarily, the meetings of the Landsmeet were a dialogue between the King and an individual member; there were no debates between Custóirs, only a question-and-answer between members and the King. No member could speak without having been spoken to by the Archduke or King, and this established the later parliamentary precedent of addressing comments through the chair, used in the modern Conshilía Daoni and other deliberative assembles in Urcea and beyond.

See also

• Estates of Urcea
• Social class in Urcea