If our modern notion of freedom of speech, worship, and of the press had been carried on the back of some other belief system — in a parallel universe maybe Hindu Indian expatriates in England demanding freedom of worship — it wouldn’t have mattered. All that mattered is that the free exchange of ideas became understood as one of the defining characteristics of the Anglosphere.

Science could be practiced in freedom and safety because Martin Luther printed a Bible in German, but that had nothing to do with what was actually printed in the Bible.

And in support of your comment, I do note that judges sometimes stamped out some older practices, such as trial by ordeal, that perhaps no longer made sense.

It is smaller than “the West”, as I mentioned here. Of course the Anglosphere’s worldwide career means that it is probably bigger than “the rest of the West” put together at this point. The Anglosphere is also smaller than “Christendom”, a word that may have utility in the future as we see Christianity spreading widely in areas where it never was before (Africa, China) or where people were very lightly evangelized (much of Latin America). The extent to which the Anglosphere continues its deep historic ties with Christianity, abandons them, or experiences a revival, will have an impact on its dealings with the newly-Christianizing parts of the world in the decades ahead. Vast forces are in play. How these transformations will play out is a question which we cannot even begin to answer.

Bruce, while I am in general agreement, I take issue with this: “law was largely left in the hands of local judges with respect to the development of new rules.” Not “local”. The key thing about English Common Law under the Normans and after was that the circuit-riding judges imposed a law that was “common” to the whole kingdom, it was national not local law. This promoted uniformity of law throughout the realm. England, very early, became a place with orderly and uniform law, since the Normans ruled with a firm hand but in a lawful and predictable fashion. Economically optimal, as it happens.

Ditto on Jim’s response to the Doge. The actual connection between Greco-Roman institutions and Anglospheric developments is remote compared to other later forces.

So the Anglosphere is certainly “bigger” than Protestantism. But what is it “smaller” than, I wonder?

So British open institutions capturing the “wisdom of crowds” were collateral descendants, as it were, of the early Greek and Roman institutions, and direct descendants of the Germanic tribal institutions. Because they shared ultimately common roots, it was possible for the English to see parallels in Cato’s orations and the deliberations of the Greek city assemblies — it’s not coincidental that Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death” was taken from Addison’s play on Cato, popular at the time. (People then would have understood it as a reference to popular culture, as if somebody were to quote “make my day” in a political speech today.)

So, while it was true that all of tthese good things had parallels in greek and roman antiquity, and these parallels were not coincidental, that fact is not useful in solving the real riddle, which is why they died out everywhere else, but evolved into modern institutions only in Britian and its daughter societies.

I do wish to address the doge’s believe that the English system derives from the Roman and Greek heritages. I don’t think, in fact, that the exceptionalist character of the English common law, which supports the Anglosphere in general, is derived from the Roman or Greek systems at all. Recall that the Greek system was a pure democracy (not a representative one as the modern term would connote). The Roman system on the other hand was code-based: It was derived from similar traditions that gave rise to Hammurabi’s code, and it in turn inspired the Code Napoleon.

Rather, the peculiar character of English law stems laregly from the consequences of minority Norman rule over a majority Saxon population. Where Continental experiences drove censi (such as the Domesday Book), law was largely left in the hands of local judges with respect to the development of new rules. Older law was systematically collected and standardized, strengthening stare decisis.

In fact, the libertarian strand which flows under much Anglospheric thought probably most derives from the absenteeism of the Normans, and their successors the Plantagenets. While France often flagged when ruled by incompetents (such as the House of Valois), resulting in invasions (from the Burgundians and, ironically, the English), England’s island location and the absenteeism that came of it fostered a generally milder series of transitions of power.

“English law is an ‘open’ system: it has a method that can assure the resolution of any kind of question that may arise, not substantive principles which must, in all circumstances, be applied.”

This is a critical point. Common law adjudication can be responsive to change by generating new law on an incremental basis by analogy. This is a huge advantage over the Continental, Roman-derived, Code system. It allows a new rule to arise by induction as a new category of disputes gives rise to a new body of case law. This is barely understood. I had one — count ‘em, one –law professor who got it.

As to rotten music in Catholic Churches, I quite literally pray to God that we have bottomed out on the post-Conciliar ugliness and get the Church back into the main channel of two millenia of artistic greatness. There is no excuse whatsoever for what has happened in the last 40 years. Benedict XVI is concerned with such issues. How far his writ will run is an open question with any Pope, whatever his theoretical powers. Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

That continues to this day. European work ethic is the same everywhere but the UK, whether it’s spain or holland, it’s all about pensions and holidays.

In any case, the larger point remains. Both England and Holland had many of the characteristics which led to political freedom and economic growth before the Reformation, and kept them through the Reformation. What exactly the Reformation may have added is a worthy question, but not one which has a simple or obvious answer.

It seems that proximity to the Vatican did little to stifle their mercantile instincts.