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Sunday, April 29, 2012

Feudal Society -- Foundations of Political Thought -- Blog Post #9

Text: Bloch, Mark "Feudal Society" (excerpts)
Required Readings: pages 109-120, 145-152, 155-168
Blog Statred: Sunday, April 29, 2012 at 7:20 p.m.

In this excerpt, Mark Bloch discusses education and Roman Law in coordination with the feudal era. Perhaps the most interesting point made was that "the knowledge of Latin-the language in which all the old continental legal documents were written-was virtually the monopoly of the clergy." (Page 112) Many of the people of the era became woefully illiterate. Mark Bloch continues to elaborate on the severity and depth of this dilemma by stating that "knowledge of the old law-books would not have been completely lost if a legal profession had existed. But the procedure did not call for advocates, and every chief was a judge. This meant in practice that the majority of judges were unable to read a state of affairs unfavourable to the maintenance of a written law."(Page 112)

Typically, this goes without say, but for all intensive purposes, I'm going to say it here and now. Knowledge is power and with great power comes great responsibility. It's the burden of a government or society to be literate (or capable of reading and writing well) enough to the point that they can uphold and maintain the laws. If they fail to do so, they become outdated and unenforceable. This holds true even to this day as technological prowess has become so prominent that the laws must protect the privacy and rights of the individual as well as the rest of the public.

1 comment:

  1. David,

    You're right about the prevalence of illiteracy and the importance of knowledge of the law. However, Bloch emphasizes the transmission of the law orally, even if it had its problems.

    3

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