How Liberal Democracy Was Born

In the medieval world, nations did not exist in Europe in the modern, post-Westphalian understanding. Countries were the personal possession of kings. Given that Europe's royal families were inter-related, dispute over territory was often about which member of the family should govern which territory. Kings had absolute authority. They could, in theory, declare war whenever they wanted to. However, they had to rely on local barons to provide most of the troops, which meant that the barons had to be kept content. While ordinary subjects hardly featured in any form of governance, some sort of baronial assembly developed at an early stage. Effectively, the barons started to share in governance. Later, some commoners were included in these assemblies as they started to evolve into modern Parliaments. However, the one person one vote system of democracy did not materialize until the early twentieth century. It was not until 1971 that Swiss women gained the franchise. Barons, however, knew that their vassals had to be kept content, else local rebellion would erupt. Kings knew that they had to keep their barons content, else national revolt could occur. Slowly, the concept that the king had obligations towards his subjects, that he could not simply do what he wanted, replaced the notion of the absolute power of kings. As Parliaments developed, powers of taxation were used to curb a king's military plans.