It is not too far-fetched to think that the Anglo-Saxon law system originally throve in England because it was not too different from the native Celtic system. Post-Roman Britain would have been too fragmented for the Roman system to survive.

Useful references on this are James Campbell’s Anglo-Saxon State, Macfarlane (of course)especially his chapters on Ernest Gellner in making of the Modern World, W.J.F. Jenner in Tyranny of History (especially his discussion of bureaucratic gridlock and collapse in China vs. Europe) Downing on the early-Renaissance collapse of medieval constitutionalism. All of these are referenced and discussed at http://www.anglospherechallenge.com/biblio.html.

The Anglo-Saxons were culturally closer to the Scandinavians than their cousins on the Rhine and central Europe, and like the Nordic peoples remained both pagan, and outside of the mass-army environment of the post-collapse western empire for centuries. During this time, though, they retained the same weakness at large-scale organization. The gradual reintroduction of Christianity in the 6th through 9th centuries brought greater ties to the continent, but the fractious nature of English politics continued until the Danish invasion of the 9th century nearly wiped out Saxon power. Alfred the Great, in the process of saving England against the Danish scourge, unified English resistance along more continental lines.

The extra time England had away from the main European cultural and political conflicts of the early Middle Ages allowed time for the development of the small scale innovations and institutions which are still so important to us today. However, without the reintroduction of continental (roman derived) political institutions, such as a centralized and powerful monarchy and church, none of the unique attributes of Anglo civilization would have survived the ages of struggle which followed.

The end result of all this was that by the time the Normans invaded, they found a highly productive kingdom running under an economic and cultural system that they saw no reason to drastically change. As much as I hate to defend the Norman invasion, they laid the defense and governance framework that kept England from ever being violently invaded again.

I guess the gist of what I’m trying to say is that without the slow infusion of post-Empire continental despotism to protect without overwhelming, the Anglo traditions of liberty would have died just like those traditions did on the continent.

Even more to the point here is that I believe (and I think I’ve got Edward Gibbon on my side) is that Anglosphere exceptionalism is primarily the result of the slow merging of Germanic individualism with the efficiency of Roman governmental traditions.

I get the impression that among the Anglosphereists we’ve heard from here that the Germanic direct descent line of thought is more popular than my hybrid view. Am I misunderstanding your position?

Ginny, I think that was an unrelated phenomenon. The Germans in the late 18th and 19th Centuries, and up to the Nazi period, developed an incredibly high quality of higher education and scholarship. This was in large part due to the emancipation of the Jews. Germanophone Jews made a massively disproportionate contribution, e.g. Einstein, to pick probably the most spectacular example. But ethnic Germans were the majority and did extraordinary things in all academic and scientific fields. Look at the early Nobel prize winners, heavily German. This German intellectual preeminence was derived from more recent developments and did not derive from ancient political practices, I am sure.

This is quite relevant to the converation that is going on here and over at Albion’s Seedling, because it backs up the point that many Anglosphere practices and attitudes are survivals or further evolutions of customs that used to prevail all over Northwestern Europe. They also survived in Switzerland because it was poor operational terrain for the big Continental armies, and because the Swiss always fought like hell. But mostly they were wiped out by militarization and bureaucracy on the Continent and only survived and flourished offshore in England and her daughter lands.

That is the true Ur-text.

After seeing your post, I revisited Tacitus and the Germanic tribes, looking him up in several books and confirming my recollection. I plan to do a meaty post on the subject of the fluctuating fortunes of this quote and the application of Tacitus’ quote to Anglo-American self-understanding.

Bottom line from me — Tacitus was describing real phenomena, the ancient Germans really were like that, and the English developed their political liberties in a direct line of development from their Germanic forefathers who brought these kinds of practices into their island after the collapse of Roman power. The freedom we enjoy today in the USA is in a direct, unbroken, documented and documentable line of succession from the practices of those Germanic warrior bands. This was once considered to obvious to disagree with. Then, this view came into disrepute, in the second half of the 20th century. The better view is that the old-timers were right all along. Details to follow, at some point.