Resumen de Early Germanic experience and the origins of representation

Allen M. Bass

• In this article, Allen Bass offers a reinterpretation of an account of an assembly of the Saxon tribes, contained in the ninth-century Vita Lebuini antigua. It is argued that the evidence of this text, taken together with the corroborative evidence of other texts from Tacitus onwards, suggests that the concept of a central, representative assembly, incorporating a tripartite composition based on social class, with wide decision-making powers and chosen at periodic elections was already well established among the Saxons at this early date. This in turn suggests new perspectives on the origins of representative institutions in medieval Europe.