Constitution of Urcea: Difference between revisions

Many of the constitutional institutions of Urcea find their origins in the government of [[Great Levantia]], a classical republic based on executive Consuls, an aristocratic Senate, and a democratic tribal assembly. Many scholars have noted that [[Urcea]] is characterized by such an embrasure of semi-democratic institutions while eschewing total democracy, either classical or modern, and scholars have posited that this impulse is a cultural tradition handed down from the days of [[Great Levantia]]. The tribal assemblies were the only institution to survive the collapse of [[Great Levantia]], and in their Urceopolitan form they elected [[Saint Julius I]] and his predecessors as ''Dux'' of [[Urceopolis (City)|Urceopolis]], and formed the backbone of political life in Urceopolis until the elevation of the Duchy into the hereditary [[Urceopolis (Archduchy)|Archduchy of Urceopolis]], when the Assemblies began to lose their authority vis-a-vis the Archduke. Meeting regularly until 852, they continued to meet intermittently up through 917 in some form or other as the Archduke began to consolidate authority over the affairs of state. For a century, the Archduke sat alone, though far from ruling with anything resembling the later impulse of absolutism. The tribes continued to exist even as they did not meet, the authority of the Archduke was largely checked by powerful landowners and [[Social class in Urcea|optimates]] throughout the Archduchy.

==Constitutional theory==

The fundamental underlying of the Constitution of Urcea is the concept of shared sovereignty, by which sovereignty originates from the King but is fully shared in by the people. Although the institutions of democratic governance predate even the establishment of the kingdom with the [[Golden Bull of 1098]], the philosophical basis of the rights and public participation are that of a free grant of the [[Apostolic King of Urcea]]. This model comes to its summit in the [[Great Bull of 1814]]. This grant, viewed by scholars and lawyers as irrevocable, is not, in the words of [[P. G. W. Gelema]], "a one time dispensation of Royal rights but a continued generation of access to participation of popular will in the machinery of government". Consequently, some scholars have gone as far as to say that the Apostolic King in his person ''is'' the Constitution, although this formula is not widely used. Despite the centrality of the King within the Constitution, the [[Culture_of_Urcea#Politics_and_statecraft|self-conception of government]] has developed as a result of the shared sovereignty model. Despite the origins of the Julian Throne as one of an innumerable amount of monarchies based on feudal estate rights within the [[Holy Levantine Empire]], it evolved into a model absorbing earlier concepts of both [[Great Levantia]] and the [[Gaelic people]]. The King is viewed as the father of the nation in the sense of actual kinship, best displayed by his role at the head of the [[Estates of Urcea]], which is the evolution of both Gaelic and [[Latinic people|Latinic]] views on tribal relationships. While sovereign in himself, the King's responsibilities to the Kingdom are modeled on the responsibility of magistrates of Great Levantia, placing the King in the role of an office holder.