Does anyone have any good sources to recommend on the governmental and economic structure of the pre-roman Celtic societies in Gaul, Britain, etc?
From what little I’ve read, they clearly had a much more decentralized governmental system than their roman contemporaries. They also apparently had diversified economies with extensive trading relations.
But I am not sure what type of explicit form of government these societies had or if they embraced an actual market system for distributing resources.
Do you have a fairly recent (like 15 years recent) Roman 101 college book, or access to a cheap one at a used bookstore? Those can be kind of decent for what you are looking for. You may also get nuggets of out of primary Roman sources such as Julius Ceaser’s Gallic Wars or Tacitus*’ Germania,* if you want to go that rout*.*
Some libertarians keep bringing up the German custom law system, but I have no idea where they are getting their sources from and have always kind of wondered where that came from.
I’ll give you more direct sources tommorow if you want. If I get thinking about this stuff my brain won’t shut up, and I’m trying to go to bed.
Right I get that, I was really just looking at why libertarians concern themselves with it. Also, Just about all, if not all the law codes listed on that wikipedia page are post- “fall” of the Western empire and are just a hybrid of everything.
Moreover I don’t see what the older, pre Roman “compensation” style of customary law offers to libertarians other than pointing out that it existed. I could also point out they used a lot more “trial of ordeals” and were poorer as a whole than the Romans were, and their general irrelevancy as a whole until they conquered / assimilated Roman culture - so what’s the point?
I am really curious as to where the connection started with libertarians and their interest in this, and how they think they can construct a reliable narrative with very scant information on ancient German tribal society. I’m not disagreeing with anything, I have just been really curious as to where these concerns and statements come from.
Anyway, I don’t want to hijack the thread, so that’s all I’ll say about that.
Dunno if this is the kind of thing you’re looking for but it might help.
Also look into Brehon Law. There is so much stuff on it in history books but not as much on the internet I don’t think. I’m from Ireland and did research on it a year or two ago. [cos most texts are in the old Irish language that a few people can understand, also the brits burned a lot of them]
As a matter of fact, I just stumbled upon the article “Stateless Societies: Ancient Ireland” in a 1971 edition of The Libertarian Forum; check it out here: http://mises.org/journals/lf/1971/1971_04.pdf. You’ll find enough historian name-dropping that can lead you elsewhere, too.
Tell us what you find. I’m still looking (now I’m interested!), and I’m shocked by how little research there is.
I don’t think there is that much info out there. Which is my basic problem with libertarian historical revisionism. But yeah, if you find good sources I’d be interested to know.
Tell us what you find. I’m still looking (now I’m interested!), and I’m shocked by how little research there is.
I don’t think there is that much info out there. Which is my basic problem with libertarian historical revisionism. But yeah, if you find good sources I’d be interested to know.
Seconded! And please consider putting your findings on the Mises Wiki. Sorry for the plug.
I got a good chunk of references for Gaul, but all in french unfortunetely. However, im working on a major historical audio book/podcast of France, and will defenitely go over topics like those!
In english, all i have is this really old book that might cover some of your questions.
