[Wonder Warthog]

Representative government in Britain and the US owes far more to the Vikings than to Greece.

[Skywalk]

I don't doubt that the specific forms of local governance and custom were greatly influenced by a variety of Northern European tribes, esp. Norse and Anglo-Saxon. However, the Greek democracy and the law as enshrined in the time of the Roman Republic/early Empire are the strongest threads we can locate. And the idea of the citizen definitely comes from those two sources, NOT N. European.

IN fact, much of our civic tradition's roots can be found in Greece and Rome. Something that tends to annoy the "Judeo-Christian" screamers on this forum, though I respect the debt the West owes to that intellectual tradition as well.

[ccmay]

Representative government in Britain and the US owes far more to the Vikings than to Greece.

I would go further and suggest that we can thank our Saxon forefathers for our form of government. The Shiremoot and Witan were republican -- not democratic -- assemblies of the best men, selected by the inhabitants of the various marks and hundreds.

-ccm

[Tin-Legions]

The pit gets deeper: when did representative govt. come in Viking form? Representative govt. did not exist at all until the Magna Carta (embyronic of course), several hundred years after the last Viking invasions. Even before, during, and after the Viking King Canute's reign several decades before Hastings, no representative govt. ever existed in Anglo Saxon England. If you are thinking of the "Thing" councils or the Witan councils of AS England-we are far closer to the Greek model than to the Viking.

I'm still not convinced. Keep it coming