The development of early constitutional thought

早期宪政思想的发展

• 批准号: AH/V006711/1
• 负责人: Alexandre Loktionov
• 金额: $ 24.31万
• 依托单位: University of Cambridge
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FV006711%2F1
• 关键词: development; early; constitutional; thought

The idea of a 'constitution', written or unwritten, has long been central to academic discourse in political, legal and intellectual history, as well as dominating current affairs. Despite this, studies in this area have so far not meaningfully extended to ancient history and archaeology predating Greece and Rome, and it remains a common view that societies from earlier periods lacked meaningful 'constitutions' worthy of study. This may be true in a very narrow sense, as such ancient societies did not have clearly defined, written provisions about the procedural aspects of government which we frequently associate with the constitutions of many modern states. However, this does not mean that these societies could not have core principles of government which can be deemed early forms of 'constitutional' thought, and study of which can be of profound significance in deepening our understanding of the evolution of socio-political ordering principles across the millennia. The proposed project will make a fundamental contribution to the above research need by shedding light on the development of the very earliest intellectual precepts which may be associated with a 'constitutional' approach to running a polity (i.e. a set of well-formulated expectations tied to a sustained notion of good government, alongside an indication of the rights and obligations incumbent on those governing). The societies to be studied are Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, both of which produced sophisticated textual accounts describing how people should order and govern themselves in the second millennium BCE. For Egypt, these include royal decrees (e.g. Nauri Decree, Horemheb Decree) didactical compositions discussing the right way to behave in society (e.g. Instruction of Ptahhotep, Instruction of a Man for his Son), works of narrative jurisprudence (e.g. Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, Contendings of Horus and Seth) and detailed descriptions of criminal trials prosecuted by the State (e.g. Tomb Robbery Papyri, Turin Judicial Papyrus). For Mesopotamia, these include compendia of royal judicial verdicts (e.g. Codex Hammurabi, Codex Eshnunna), a hymn addressing the topic of imprisonment (Hymn to Nungal), wisdom literature about good conduct (e.g. Instruction of Shupe-Ameli, Sumero-Akkadian proverbs) and various legal teaching tools designed to illustrate to trainees how justice operated, such as the widely-published Old Babylonian model contracts. Through close reading of these texts, the project will construct a new holistic understanding of how these varied aspects of law and its implementation intermeshed to form an overarching legal landscape which in modern scholarship might be termed an incipient 'constitution'. Particular attention will be drawn to the balance of power between the King - nominally absolute in both Egypt and Mesopotamia - and other sources of authority such as provincial officials, local priests, or individuals designated specifically as judges. By comparing Egypt (a unitary state with only occasional periods of fragmentation) to Mesopotamia (a system aspiring to unitary statehood, but where fragmentation was the norm), the project will throw into relief how different political realities could affect the emergence of constitutional models in the earliest literate societies.Alongside determining the principles along which these incipient 'constitutions' operated, the research will also explore the intellectual underpinning of these principles. Analysis of didactical and wisdom texts will be of primary importance here, painting a picture of what was deemed 'right order' and how notions of it were ingrained in trainee scribes and officials. The wisdom texts, designed to offer practical advice in day-to-day situations, can also be used to provide insights into possible discrepancies between the de jure legal landscape and the de facto reality of lived experience, giving an indication of how uncodified conventions could develop.

“宪法”的概念，无论是成文的还是不成文的，长期以来一直是政治、法律和思想史上学术话语的核心，并且主导着时事。尽管如此，迄今为止，这一领域的研究尚未有意义地扩展到希腊和罗马之前的古代历史和考古学，并且人们仍然普遍认为早期社会缺乏值得研究的有意义的“宪法”。从非常狭义的意义上来说，这可能是正确的，因为这些古代社会没有关于政府程序方面的明确定义的书面规定，而我们经常将这些规定与许多现代国家的宪法联系起来。然而，这并不意味着这些社会不能拥有政府的核心原则，这些原则可以被视为“宪政”思想的早期形式，对其进行研究对于加深我们对社会政治秩序原则演变的理解具有深远的意义。跨越千年。拟议的项目将为上述研究需求做出根本性的贡献，通过阐明最早的知识戒律的发展，这些戒律可能与治理政体的“宪法”方法相关（即一组与政治相关的精心制定的期望）。良好政府的持续概念，以及治理者所承担的权利和义务的指示）。要研究的社会是古埃及和美索不达米亚，这两个社会都产生了复杂的文本描述，描述了公元前第二个千年人们应该如何秩序和治理自己。对于埃及来说，这些包括皇家法令（例如《Nauri Decree》、《Horemheb Decree》）、讨论社会正确行为方式的教义文章（例如《Instruction of Ptahhotep》、《Instruction of a Man for his Son》）、叙事法学著作（例如《雄辩故事》）农民，荷鲁斯和赛斯的争论）以及国家起诉的刑事审判的详细描述（例如《盗墓笔记》、《都灵司法纸莎草》）。对于美索不达米亚，这些内容包括皇家司法判决概要（例如《汉谟拉比法典》、《埃什努纳法典》）、一首关于监禁主题的赞美诗（《努加尔赞美诗》）、关于良好行为的智慧文献（例如《舒佩-阿梅利指令》、苏美罗-阿卡德谚语）以及旨在向学员说明正义如何运作的各种法律教学工具，例如广泛出版的古巴比伦模型合同。通过仔细阅读这些文本，该项目将对法律的这些不同方面及其实施如何相互交织以形成一个总体的法律景观（在现代学术中可能被称为早期的“宪法”）建立一个新的整体理解。人们将特别关注国王（在埃及和美索不达米亚名义上是绝对的）与其他权力来源（例如省级官员、当地牧师或专门指定为法官的个人）之间的权力平衡。通过比较埃及（一个只有偶尔分裂时期的统一国家）和美索不达米亚（一个渴望统一国家，但分裂是常态的体系），该项目将揭示不同的政治现实如何影响埃及宪政模式的出现。除了确定这些早期“宪法”运作的原则外，该研究还将探索这些原则的智力基础。在这里，对说教和智慧文本的分析将是最重要的，它描绘了一幅被认为是“正确秩序”的图景，以及它的概念如何在见习抄写员和官员中根深蒂固。这些智慧文本旨在为日常情况提供实用建议，也可用于深入了解法律上的法律格局与生活经验的事实现实之间可能存在的差异，从而表明未编纂的公约如何能够发挥作用。发展。

项目成果

Regulating Labour through Foreign Punishment? Codification and Sanction at Work in New Kingdom Egypt

通过外国惩罚来规范劳工？

• DOI: 10.1017/s0020859022000852
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: International Review of Social History
• 影响因子: 0.8
• 作者: Loktionov A