Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes? (Who guards the Guardians?)
It is always disconcerting for us to look at the culture of others, and frequently the closer the resemblance to our own the greater the differences jar us. Much of what we believe, we unthinkingly take for granted. Much of our culture we inhale with the air of childhood, and it seems that our way of doing things is therefore not only right and proper, but best.
Government, in the forms and practices of that government, is a critical component of culture. No-one raised in the Parliamentary, limited monarchy of Great Britain is truly comfortable when contemplating the absolute tyranny of Russia, for example – the more so when that examination is made up close and in person.
Let us then consider the peculiar governmental structures of Bremen and how those shaped and were shaped by the city’s transition to state and empire.
In the beginning, all the coalescing nation-states were absolute monarchies, and the more absolute the monarch were the faster the state achieved nation-hood and the more tightly-bound were the individual parts. Thus, our early proto-states in Western Europe - France, Spain, England, Austria, Poland and Bremen – can be sorted by the degree of ‘absoluteness’ with which they were ruled and the relative cohesion of their national parts.
France had the advantage of many excellent monarchs, and those kings had at their service a powerful army with which to impose their will. The armies – and their devoted, professional commanders – made it possible to rapidly assemble the various Duchies into some semblance of the modern French state.
Unfortunately, this reliance on military power meant that France was almost continuously at war, and the stresses thus generated led to the repeated centrifugal fracturing of the state. The armies made it possible to assemble the state – repeatedly – but the least relaxation of vigilance led to mass defections and revolts. France, therefore, was a kingdom of Sisyphus, forever compelled to roll the stone of unification up the slope of war, only to see that stone roll back down in pieces.
Austria came into being through a process of slow, steady growth. The individual pieces were thoroughly pacified and integrated into the imperial framework, but cultural and linguistic differences meant the various peoples of the Osterreich never felt any deep sense of attachment to it. The extensive, expensive bureaucracy made it possible to maintain control of a vast number of people who had nothing in common, but the bureaucracy was stifling – and it engendered obedience without loyalty. Hence where France was forever in a dynamic state of reconstruction, the Empire of the Hapsburgs was tightly focused on internal stability to the exclusion of all else. Also, the explosive growth of Bremen denied the richer parts of north and western Germany to the Hapsburgs, forcing them to be content with the poorer Hungarian and Balkan territories.
Old Castile became Espana without ever managing to absorb any of the other kingdoms of the peninsula – Portugal, Aragon and Granada. Absolute in power, secure in the linguistic and cultural unanimity of the homeland, her rulers looked far abroad to a foreign empire of vast scope and wealth. Their government changed little, which explains both the rapid rise and inglorious fall of that overseas empire. Spain was expansionist, but too rigid to adapt to changing circumstances; rather than bend, she broke.
Poland can scarcely be said to have had a government at all. With the nobles grimly determined to hold onto their rights at any hazard, the Polish ‘kings’ and nation paid over and over the price for disunion and disorganization. Hobbled by their own procedures, the Polish nobles produced a government that prevented a monarch from attaining any power whatsoever. Unfortunately, this system left them completely at the mercy of states that did develop strong central governments, and Poland repeatedly came to ruin between the Scylla of her nobles’ pride and the Charybdis of foreign power.
England began as an absolute monarchy, tempered it with a Parliament of men of every station in the kingdom and finally settled into an efficient limited monarchy run by practical, professional ministers. Many an English king (and queen) came to see that what was given up in terms of absolute power was doubly regained in the loyalty and enthusiasm of subjects who felt they had a voice and a stake in the kingdom. As with Spain, England’s primary growth was overseas. And like Spain, extended wars cost her almost all of her territories outside Europe, but her more flexible representative government enabled her to keep Canada and large holdings in France.
Bremen, of course, had no tradition of authoritarian rule. The political power of the Archbishops began dwindling with the riots of the early 1400’s and never approached the absolute authority of a king of France or an Emperor of Austria. The town council – heavily dominated by the master merchants of the Hanse – was capable of running the city-state itself but seemingly ill-suited to the task of pacification and rule in the surrounding territories. Thus, any government for Bremen must take into account the twin forces of rapid territorial growth and domestic political vacuum.
Doktor Gropius spent several chapters in political discussions, all of an introductory style and content. The meat of these discourses compares favorably with Machiavelli, although where the Italian is circuitous and judicious the German tends to brutal abbreviation. In any event, the Doktor’s extended use of Roman examples led to the outright adoption of Roman forms and offices by the men who studied under him.
Thus, when Hanover was first taken, the town council nominated three men for the office of military governor. From those three, the Archbishop selected Heinrich Gustloff and sent him off to rule Hanover as military governor, or Proconsul.
As the years went on, the power and influence of the Archbishops declined further and further. The town council proved itself incapable of managing what was, by that time, a considerable collection of German states. And so, beginning with the Munster Reforms that followed the Religious War of 1521, Bremen’s government mutated into something quite unlike the other European states.
Even the name changed. Too large and diverse to be the city or state of Bremen – and never having been a kingdom or duchy, grand or otherwise – one of the first acts of the new government was to style itself as the North German Customs Union. Later known as the Greater Bremen Customs Union, the very name emphasized that this government was concerned more with security and trade than with any monarchial pomp or imperial splendor,
Each province was to elect a council, whether noble (like Erz) or some mix that might include nobles, ecclesiastics and laity. The size of the local council, and the methods of election, was typically left to local law and custom. The Senate (composed at first of only the European Proconsuls) and the Archbishop appointed Proconsuls to rule in conjunction with the provincial councils. The Proconsuls were reassigned to different provinces, spending on average some five to eight years in a given state. Once recruited and appointed, they typically served until retirement or death with occasional periods of vacation or simple unemployment. The local councils had wide latitude in local affairs but were required to defer to the Proconsul if he insisted. In addition, the Proconsuls met more or less annually, with the Archbishop presiding and functioning as chief minister, and this Proconsular Senate handled all ‘national’ affairs. Powerful nobles in conquered territories (those who survived the annexation) were typically brought into the local council or made Proconsul and shuffled off to another province.
There were abuses, of course, and corruption and scandal and treason and revolt. And no-one can convincingly argue that the system was efficient or fair, but it did have several great strengths to offset its convoluted complexity. Firstly, because their time in one place was so strictly limited, it was difficult for a Proconsul to build a local power base from which to topple the whole. Secondly, great latitude was allowed to local interests in many matters, which gave those people a stake in the government as a whole. Thirdly, the Proconsular Senate was small enough to make meaningful discourse and rapid action possible at need.
This form lasted some sixty years, collapsing in the chaos of Wilhelm Roon’s attempted coup and assassination in 1584. In its later evolution, the government settled into a more familiar form. Each province elected two Proconsuls, one to be available to serve as executive in another province and the other to attend and vote in the national Senate, over which the Archbishop or (after 1648) the Chancellor presided.
Through it all, the central government retained real power, local interests kept a voice in local matters, and Bremen stayed together. And in the background there were the officers of the Hand, the Eye and the Heart.
Arguably the greatest collection of twaddle in the western world is the heap of waste-paper dealing with the adventures of these agents. Whether perusing the railings of Thomas Paine or the romantic frothing of Dumas, this author keeps a large quantity of skepticism handy and applies it liberally at need.
In the very beginning, the office was the creation of Archbishop Gerhard II, Count Schwarzburg. The men he chose were all young, mostly literate and mainly recruited from the merchant classes and petty nobility. They were charged with the inspection of property, empowered to sit as judges in some cases, and strictly enjoined to root out corruption and financial impropriety.
They were never a monastic order, nor were they particularly secret. Their powers varied considerably over the centuries, waxing and waning according to their political friends and foes, and eventually they divided into three separate agencies. All three were soon detached from the Archbishop’s authority, although they continued to report to him as the head of government. All three agencies received funding from the national treasury as well as fines and banking fees. Selection for membership was a rigorous process, and widely sought after.
An Officer of the Eye might be settled or on a roving commission. Either way, he was empowered and required to collect information and forbidden to act upon it save by report to the Proconsul, Senate and Archbishop. In the main, these agents were concerned with political impropriety and corruption, although they certainly played their part in espionage both foreign and domestic.
The Officers of the Heart were limited to financial matters. Their rigorous standardization of weights and measures made Bremen the standard of Europe, and their enforcement of the laws against usury made banking safe, dependable and international. All investigations into taxes, duties, fees, banking and the mint were handled here.
It is with the Officers of the Hand that most authors concern themselves. They have been called spies and assassins and compared to the Musketeers of France. In truth, they partook of some of all of these qualities, and more.
The Left Hand concerned itself completely with espionage. They investigated friends and allies as intensely as enemies and neutrals, and kept the vigil against the spies of other nations. An Officer of the Right Hand might live all his life in one spot, typically serving as judge and justice of the peace, or might work on a roving commission. Sometimes paired with an Officer of the Eye, the Hand was the embodiment of the power of the state and carried absolute authority. Any state functionary – even rarely but famously, Proconsuls and Senators - could be overruled, fined, imprisoned, removed or executed. The only requirement was that any use of the power of the Hand caused the agent to be tried by a panel of Proconsuls (or Senators), Eyes and Hearts. More like a military court martial than a civil trial, these panels were a sure check to an aggressive agent of the Hand.
The most famous panel was the one that sat in the case of Franz Nagel in 1548. Present in Brandenburg when Proconsul Wilhelm Roon proclaimed himself King of Germany, the agent pulled a pistol and shot him dead. The panel determined that Agent Nagel should have first attempted less lethal means. They sentenced him therefore likewise to die, but magnanimously allowed him to take his own life in expiation.
A final power of these agencies was their Masters charge to present the List of Appointment for Proconsuls. Although the Senate could – and often did – overrule these recommendations, the endorsement of the Eye, Hand and Heart – or the lack thereof – was a powerful political weapon.
“Every government derives its power from the consent of the governed. No matter how absolute a king may be, if enough of the nobles and ecclesiastics and people rise up, the king must yield. Always remember: the best attainment of your aim is through leading wolves, not by driving sheep.” ‘Gedanken auf Kriege’, Johannes Gropius