Secession in the Formal-Legalist

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Kenneth E. Bauzon
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Secession in the
Formal-Legalist Paradigm
Implications for
Contemporary
Revolutionary and Popular
Movements in the Age of
Neoliberal Globalization
Secession in the Formal-Legalist Paradigm
 Kenneth E. Bauzon

Secession
in the Formal-Legalist
Paradigm
Implications for Contemporary Revolutionary
and Popular Movements in the Age of Neoliberal
Globalization
Kenneth E. Bauzon
Saint Joseph’s College—New York
Brooklyn, NY, USA

ISBN 978-981-15-7500-6 ISBN 978-981-15-7501-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7501-3

The print edition is not for sale in the Philippines. Customers from the Philippines please
order the print book from: De La Salle University Publishing House.
ISBN of the Philippines edition: 978-971-555-683-5

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In loving and fond memory of
Manang Evelyn
and
Kuya Marvin
 Preface

This work has gone through decades-long period of gestation. The core
ideas developed herein have evolved through various stages contained
initially in a paper for a comparative civilizations conference. But this
paper itself follows at least half a decade of research and ruminations
while in graduate school on Islamic nationalism and separatism in the
Philippines and elsewhere leading to a doctoral dissertation, several other
conference papers, and an article on the Bengali secession from Pakistan
in 1971, in Asia Quarterly published by a Brussels-based institute.
The core subject of secessionism, along with the cognate terms of
separatism and irredentism, became fashionable as the Cold War was
nearing its end during the late 1980s and the mainstream media as well as
academic journals in the United States (US) and the West began focusing
their attention to what they termed “ethnic conflicts” around the world.
The concern, in part, was the perceived fragility of the state system,
much of which was born out of colonialism throughout much of Asia,
Africa, and Latin America, whose boundaries were artificially drawn by
the departing colonial powers either out of haste, expediency, or compro-
mise with another colonial power in control of a neighboring territory.
The borderlines drawn, it was feared, either excluded or highly favored
certain ethnic groups and this, it was argued, was a recipe for ethnic-
based political conflict and instability potentially undermining the security
of the new state. To self-described analysts and observers at that time, the
fact that, with the impending end of the Cold War and the communist

vii
viii PREFACE

boogeyman was soon to disappear, the idea that a new enemy—ethnic-

or religious-based nationalism—had to be found to justify post-Cold War
military budget did not seem to attract much critical inquiry at that time.
The realization that a “new enemy” had to be found in the wake of
the end of the Cold War alludes to constructivism which suggests that
the “enemy” is a mental construct conceived at a moment in time conve-
nient and expedient to the constructor in possession of or in close asso-
ciation with power. It also helps explain an early raison d’etre for this
work. Early on, as a novice scholar, I was directed to matters involving
discrepancies between formal rules and actual behavior, between profes-
sions of objectivity and manifestations of political and ideological beliefs,
and between claims of the state and interests of society. My exposure as a
graduate student to Thomas S. Kuhn’s paradigmatic approach seemed to
provide me with a tool, enduring to this day, with which to organize the
information, categorize events, identify actors, and make sense of events
both historical and contemporary. Indeed, part of my reason for invoking
this approach here is to inspire graduate students and budding scholars to
be inventive, resourceful but always critical in their research and writing
endeavors.
Today, while many states continue to be riled by ethnic animosities
threatening these states’ cohesion and long-term viability, we are witness
to a trend different from if not opposite to what we have been warned
against during the final decade or so of the Cold War: the rise of ethnic or
racial extremism in which certain groups, in close association with power,
assert their supremacy over others which they have sought to legitimize
by or codify into law. These are exemplified by the Zionist State of Israel’s
recent passage (in July 2018) of the nation-state law which defines citi-
zenship in terms of one’s Jewishness, automatically redefining Israelis of
Arab or, for that matter, other nationalities, as second-class citizens, while
helping accomplish one of the goals of Zionism which is the retaking of
the whole of Palestine, regardless of consequences to Palestinians, not on
the basis of international law but, rather, on Biblical grounds. Another
example is the Citizenship Amendment Bill passed by the Indian Parlia-
ment in December 2019. Under the guise of protecting Indians who have
fled into other countries on grounds of religious persecution, the new law
welcomes these refugees back into India, but not if they are Muslims.
Given that India is overwhelmingly Hindu, the new law also emboldens
Hindu nationalists (known as adherents of the ideology called Hindutva,
promoting Hindu supremacy) to assert the Hindu way of life at the
 PREFACE ix

expense of Muslims and other minority religious group, who are turned
into second-class citizens. A consequence of this is the virtual takeover
of Kashmir by the Modi-led government of India, ignoring its protected
status under international law pending international settlement. In other
parts of the world, while not as extreme as the two aforementioned exam-
ples, we see nonetheless the rise in influence of extreme nationalist or
racialist orientation exemplified by the ascendancy of the Trump presi-
dency in the US with the support of white supremacist groups; nativist
or white nationalist support for Brexit in Great Britain from the Euro-
pean Union; US-encouraged, neo-Nazi-stoked russophobia in the former
Soviet Eastern Europe, e.g., the Baltic states, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria
as well as the former Soviet states of Ukraine, and Georgia. In South
America, we have seen the resurgence of right-wing authoritarianism
exemplified by the Jair Bolsonaro government in Brazil, and the post-
coup military-backed government in Bolivia that overthrew the popular
government of Evo Morales, and the populist authoritarian presidency of
Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines.
Many subsequent commentators have variously described Kuhn’s
paradigmatic contribution, adopted in this work, as being postbehav-
ioralist or postmodernist, or both. I take the position that either one is apt
because, either way, it provided a sensible explanation as to why science,
much less social science, is not what many of its practitioners used to
boast it is, i.e., dispassionate, value-free, and objective and that, in fact, it
is value-laden from the moment it conceives of a problem to the moment
the knowledge is produced. Postbehavioralism, of which Kuhn was among
its articulate and intelligent spokespersons, brought humility to the prac-
titioners of the preceding period pervaded by behavioralism in that values
are an inherent, unavoidable component of the knowledge production
endeavor. Postmodernism, on the other hand, was—and is—the reshaping
of attitudes, again giving humility to the otherwise conceited idea that
human civilization had reached its zenith with modernity, forgetting that
it came with costs in the form of, among others, industrialization that
degraded the environment; urbanization that left cities unable to cope
with services; accumulation of wealth at the disposal of a few households
leaving a vast number with little; privatization and commodification of the
global commons under a regime that turned the state into an accessory;
rampant corruption and criminality in high places; and, moral depravity of
the wealthy and the powerful, living in gated communities, who have lost
the meaning of empathy and, along with it, their capacity to be human.
x PREFACE

The Kuhnian paradigmatic approach also allowed me to place in proper

perspective the nature, history, and consequences of formal-legalism, a
central concept in this essay that is more than a term in the index. With
its origins in the Enlightenment as a tool with which to order society
and subdue nature, it also provides secular principles that have inevitably
come to pervade modern social, political, cultural, and economic life. It
orders human interaction in all these facets with the promise of reward
for conformity and sanctions for disobedience, and provides for formal
institutions for enforcement. This is where the phenomenon of “seces-
sion” becomes salient because practitioners of the formal-legal paradigm
have grappled with it in various ways, not as an object of exceptional
obsession but as a matter of course. Only in certain circumstances did
the subject receive more than an ordinary degree of attention. Yet to
understand how various practitioners have dealt with this phenomenon, it
was not just a matter of searching for their respective definition per se of
the term. It was a matter of reconstructing their worldview in relation to
those of their fellow practitioners (or colleagues) either contemporarily or
those that preceded them or currently. Thus, if readers are looking for a
straight-out definition of the term, and have no patience to plod through
my explanation of the paradigm’s own explanation, i.e., my reconstruc-
tion of the manner in which its practitioners have tried to make sense of
their world, they are warned that this work may not be for them. The
invitation is, nonetheless, open to them to take time and understand the
concept underlying the approach taken in this work with the caveat that,
in all humility, its implementation is far from perfect.
A further way in which the Kuhnian paradigmatic approach has proved
fortuitous has been in helping me make sense of my personal encounters
with some of the leading personalities in contemporary Philippine polit-
ical life. During different stages of my professional career, and in relation
to my pursuit of my research agenda, I have had the good fortune of
meeting and interviewing Ka Luis Taruc, co-founder and reputed Supremo
(Supreme Leader) of the Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon (People’s
Anti-Japanese Army, with the acronym Hukbalahap or, simply, Huk), a
largely peasant guerrilla outfit that resisted the Japanese during their inva-
sion and brief occupation of the Philippines; Datu Nurulhadji Misuari, co-
founder and Chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF),
the leading Muslim organization that sought, invariably, an independent
statehood and autonomy for Muslim Mindanao and Sulu and fought
nearly a decade-long war in the Southern Philippines during the period
 PREFACE xi

of the Marcos dictatorship; and, Professor Jose Maria Sison, founder of

the re-established Communist Party of the Philippines which continues,
to this day, to wage what has been referred to in the popular media as the
longest Marxist-oriented insurgency in Asia.
Coming away from my conversation with each of them, I have formed
the impression that the lives they led and, in the case of Misuari and Sison,
continue to lead, were motivated by ethical and moral considerations born
out of what they recognized as the injustices in society, the unfairness with
which their fellow human beings were being treated, and the inability
of government to address their genuine grievances and those of their
followers. That revolutionary force has been a component of their struggle
is easily justified by the counterrevolutionary and reactionary use of force
by the state, more lethal and sustained than the combined force of the
revolutionary forces represented by Taruc, Misuari, and Sison during any
moment in history. To dismiss these personalities as violent or terrorists,
a charge coming usually from well-meaninged but ill-informed liberals,
would be to ignore if not excuse the violence of the Philippine State
and the US empire that created it to begin with. In this context, Frantz
Fanon’s insights on revolutionary force contained in his The Wretched of
the Earth remain relevant as essential source of advice and inspiration to
action.
Given the analytic framework discussed in this work, the way the state
has labeled them at various stages as terrorists, outlaws, bandits, and then
as mainstream politicians, diplomats, or negotiating partners attests to
the variability of meaning that could be tuned in or out depending on
prevailing conditions. The nature of the state itself is mutable contrary to
its claim as representation of absolute truth and virtue. After all, it repre-
sents the interests of the dominant class that controls it, and its motives
are those by these interests. And, in the hierarchy of international rela-
tions, the Philippine State, as a client state of the US empire that initially
created it as a tool of colonial control, it fulfills an important support
function for the maintenance of US hegemony under conditions of the
prevailing neoliberal globalization.
The movement led by Taruc, although it emerged out of nation-
alism in response to the Japanese invasion and occupation of the Philip-
pines commencing in 1941, evolved into a peasant insurgency against the
semi-feudal conditions of land tenancy maintained by landlord-politicians
restored to power by General Douglas MacArthur after the war, acting in
his capacity as the commanding general of the US Armed Forces in the Far
xii PREFACE

East (USAFFE) and as the power behind the fledgling post-war govern-
ment in its early stages. The arrest and incarceration of Taruc, following
a betrayal in May 1954, put the Huk Movement at the hands of a lead-
ership led by the Lava brothers ripe with corruption, rivalry fueled by
personality differences, and misguided revolutionary tactics and strategies.
It was under these conditions that Sison’s revitalization of the Commu-
nist Party of the Philippines, complemented by a small but committed
armed force christened the New People’s Army, in late 1968, was fortu-
itous. That Sison’s movement has now lasted over half a century not only
makes it the longest insurgency in Asia, as mentioned earlier, it also attests
to the tenacity of its fighters whose number has grown to several thou-
sands scattered throughout the archipelago; and, the persistent failure
of the state, successor to the colonial state set up by the US empire
following its conquest and occupation of the country at the turn of the last
century, to bring about a just and an equitable society. With the interces-
sion of pacific-oriented Nordic countries, particularly Norway, the Philip-
pine government has entered into an intermittent series of peace negotia-
tions with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), as a
negotiating arm, in which both sides agreed, in 1998, to the terms of what
is known as the Comprehensive Agreement for the Respect of Human
Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), providing
mechanism for the monitoring and reporting of violations by either party.
Finally, Misuari’s movement articulated the long-standing grievance of the
Muslim community, betrayed and used during the US colonial adminis-
tration, and ignored, discriminated against, and treated as second-class
citizens during the post-independence era. Finding common cause with
the National Democratic Front (NDF), an alliance of progressive nation-
alist and anti-dictatorship forces of which Sison’s movement was a vital
part, Misuari’s movement commenced a separatist war in 1972 soon after
then President-turned-dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos declared martial law
just as the end of his second four-year term in office was nearing its end.
Misuari’s separatist forces tied down the Philippine military during the
war’s most active phase between 1972 and 1976. In 1976, the Tripoli
Agreement was announced; this was a peace agreement that attempted to
provide a road map toward autonomy for Muslims in the southern Philip-
pines, negotiated with the intercession of the Organization of Islamic
Conference with the Government of Libya under President Muammar
Gaddafi hosting the meetings and lending its good offices.
 PREFACE xiii

The significance of the above-encounters with Taruc, Sison, and

Misuari and of the respective movements they led may be gleaned through
some important lessons learned that have had a direct bearing on the
conception and direction of the present work. These lessons manifest and
bare themselves out throughout the work. First, the realization that the
“enemy” is a political construction whose meaning changes just as inter-
ests and conditions change also. Thus, it does not matter what the law
says in that the law itself is changeable subject to enforcement, non-
enforcement, modification, or outright contravention. Similarly, the act
of the supposed enemy may, at various times, be condoned, endorsed, or
criminalized. Second, formal-legalism as an approach to social and polit-
ical organization is far from being dispassionate or scientific; its principles
are rooted in society which are, in turn, impacted by society. Its emer-
gence was coincidental to the emergence of the bourgeoisie in Europe
needing formal-legal tools to legitimize their ascendancy. Today, that tool
is essentially at the disposal of the US empire as inheritor by default of
European—particularly Anglo-Saxon—civilization as it internationalizes
its domestic law and chooses, at will, to obey or ignore international law.
The US imperial state, as the foremost contemporary example of a formal-
legal state, although it is dependent on society for sustenance through
taxes and a compliant population, behaves as though it exists autonomous
from society; its interests are different from those of society itself. And,
third, following the logic of the two aforementioned lessons, the vari-
ance if not contradiction between the principles of formal-legalism, on the
one hand, and the actual behavior of states, on the other, often based on
realism which gives primacy to considerations of power and interests. In
view of this, formal-legalism becomes instrumental to power in terms of
its content, procedures, and intentions or purposes. Laws, rules, and the
institutions that enforce them become meaningful to the extent that they
serve the interests of power. Hence, they have no universal applicability,
only a particular one, particular to that state, unless that state attempts to
internationalize its domestic laws as what the US is attempting to do right
now.
The implications of the above-lessons may be more significant than
one realizes. Collectively, they help make sense of why a state may label
a group in one context as terrorist and, in another context, as an ally. In
terms of the central theme of this work, they help make sense of why some
instances of secession are endorsed and others, not, even having nothing
to do with the law. They help make sense of why some political and/or
xiv PREFACE

revolutionary movements, including what would evidently be regarded as

terrorist groups, are opposed while others are encouraged, funded, and
even armed. They help make sense too of how an entrenched class may
couch its rhetoric in terms of the common good when it serves only its
own narrow interests, and how this class has access to and control of the
instrumentalities of state power. And, they also make comprehensible how
the state, or any of its agencies, may engage in behavior that would other-
wise be considered as criminal, inappropriate, or unconstitutional, e.g.,
assassinations, blackmail, collusion with the underworld, regime change,
among many others, invoking state immunity or, as the case may be,
the claim to the monopoly of the use of force, or truth, giving it the
excuse to persecute truthtellers, all telltale signs of the unraveling of a
state, constitutionally, that is.
Parallel observations by anyone of the traits identified herein of the
political process—either domestic or international—that are made more
comprehensible by the analytic framework offered herein shall be consid-
ered a measure of success. Would I have been able to compose work
such as this without my personal encounter with the above-mentioned
personalities? The answer would be in the affirmative. However, it would
decidedly be less meaningful without this personal experience that has
brought me that close to some of the leading personalities that have
truly helped shape contemporary Philippine history, adding richness to
its interpretation.

New York, NY, USA Kenneth E. Bauzon

March 2020
 Acknowledgments

While the composition of this manuscript is a solitary undertaking, the

initial inspiration was derived long ago from my professors, classmates,
and friends in graduate school at Duke University who provided a deep
well of support and intellectual stimulation that continue to inspire to this
day. In particular, the late Professors Harold T. Parker and Ralph Braibanti
have engaged me in numerous conversations about the history of ideas
and comparative ethnic and religious nationalism, respectively, that their
respective thoughts have found their way interwoven in the pages that
follow. To them goes my eternal gratitude.
My sincere appreciation goes to Dr. Nassef Manabilang Adiong, Asso-
ciate Professor at the Institute of Islamic Studies, University of the Philip-
pines in Quezon City, Philippines, and founder of International Relations
and Islamic Studies Research Cohort at the University of the Philippines,
and Chief Editor of the International Journal of Islam in Asia, among
others. It was through his kind introduction that this manuscript came
to the attention of the Commissioning Editor of Palgrave Macmillan
and the Director of the La Salle University Publishing House in Manila,
Philippines, respectively, for consideration, review, and acceptance toward
a joint publication.
For their lifelong support and encouragement, I am grateful more than
words could express to Drs, Leslie E. Bauzon and Aurora F. Bauzon,
themselves acknowledged leaders in their own fields for their pioneering

xv
xvi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

work in Philippine prehistoric chronology and culture, and as award-

winning pediatrician and accreditor in behalf of the Philippine Accred-
iting Association of Schools, Colleges, and Universities, respectively. Their
success has served not only as a source of pride but, more importantly,
truly as inspiration in my own professional endeavors.
Quietly working behind the scenes providing support and companion-
ship on a daily basis has been Rosaida, who also reminds me when I tend
to forget that good health and well-being are prerequisites to performing
well professionally, including writing a book. Thus, to her goes my affec-
tionate “Thank you” with the hope that someday she does not get tired
doing these things that I have been very appreciative about.
Finally, one may ask “What would a book look like without an
index, a fine index at that?” I have been fortunate to have enlisted Ms.
Meridith Murray to provide the fine, professional index contained herein.
Ms. Murray has my sincere gratitude for her prompt, courteous, and
professional service performed with an appreciation of the subject matter.
It goes without saying that none of the above-mentioned individ-
uals are responsible for the faults, errors, omissions, interpretations, and
conclusions contained herein.

New York, NY Kenneth E. Bauzon

March 2020
 Contents

1 Introduction 1
1.1 The Paradigmatic Approach 1
1.2 The Behavioralist Mode of Explanation 7
1.3 The Post-behavioral Critique 8
References 10

2 The Formal-Legalist Explanation 11

2.1 The Enlightenment Origins of Formal-Legalism 11
2.2 Scope and Method of Inquiry 12
2.3 The Postulates 14
2.4 Between Autonomy and Independence:
Self-determination Since World War I 28
2.5 Self-determination and Secessionism from
World War II to the “War on Terror” 31
References 45

3 Critique of Formal-Legalism 51
3.1 Predilection for Order, Suppression of Dissent 51
3.2 Affinity with Market Liberalism 55
3.3 Appropriation of the Global Commons 59
3.4 The Eclipse of Western Formal-Legalism and the Rise
of Rogue US Imperial Legalism 64

xvii
xviii CONTENTS

3.5 The Case of Ukraine: Political Subversion Through

Coup, Economic Subordination Through Trade Treaty,
and Suppression of Self-Determination 75
References 87

4 The Return of Historical Materialism 93

4.1 The Ideological Emasculation of Mainstream Social
Science Disciplines 93
4.2 Mainstream Scholarship’s Failure to Critique
Capitalism 95
4.3 The Value of Historical Materialist Analysis 101
References 102

5 Epilogue 105
5.1 Recapitulation of the Paradigmatic Approach,
with Historical Illustrations 106
5.2 Enlightenment at the Service of Colonialism
and Imperialism 109
5.3 Insurgent Enlightenment 111
5.4 The Ideologization of Knowledge Production
from Modernity to Postmodernity 118
References 122

Index 125
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Abstract This chapter explains the elements, assumptions, process

behind the paradigmatic approach. It illustrates how the presuppositions
of practitioners sharing a worldview that constitutes a paradigm condition
how they define a problem to be investigated, how they go about solving
it, and how they choose their tools and methods with which to solve it.
It explains why these presuppositions inevitably ideologize the process of
inquiry, and how the knowledge produced has political consequences. It
takes the example of the behavioral movement in the social sciences and
how this became a dominant mode while it lasted, and how it influenced
the formal-legalist approach in constituting a state in relation to society
and its constituent parts.

Keywords Paradigm · Insurgent paradigm · Enlightenment ·

Behavioralism · Post-behavioralism

1.1 The Paradigmatic Approach

What follows is in large part an explanation on explanation. More specif-
ically, it seeks to explain how a dominant perspective or paradigm of
explanation has sought to define and describe the phenomenon of seces-
sionism. Secessionism is here understood as the tendency on the part
of members of a certain group within a larger society sharing common

© The Author(s) 2021 1

K. E. Bauzon, Secession in the Formal-Legalist Paradigm,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7501-3_1
2 K. E. BAUZON

history, religion, culture, aspirations, or nationality—based on any or all

of the above including shared ethnicity or race and language—to come
together and maintain an identity separate from that of others within the
same constitutional-legal framework.
This tendency is expressed politically when this group removes—or
attempts to remove—itself from the exercise of sovereignty by a central
authority and, correspondingly, when it succeeds in establishing a sepa-
rate authority that asserts a claim to sovereignty over its members. At
the first instance, the seceding group frees itself from any obligation
to obey or, otherwise, conform with the laws and restrictions of the
authority—represented by the constitutional order, including the coer-
cive mechanisms—of the state from which the group is seceding. This
secession presumes dissonance in the worldview—or paradigm as the
case may be—of those in state authority representing the established
constitutional legal order. In Kuhnian terms, secession here represents
an anomaly to the “normality” that the formal-legal order represents
but which it is failing to account for in its explanation. In the second
instance, the seceding group, representing an insurgency to the dominant
constitutional order and as a political movement, attempts to assert its
own distinct identity no longer submerged within or subordinate to the
previous order, and thus forges its own destiny and establishes its own
order based on categories that recognize the new normality. (Kuhn).
As a means of understanding the political process, I submit that the
paradigmatic approach offers promise, and this essay is a modest albeit
novel attempt at application. Thomas S. Kuhn, admittedly, was concerned
mainly with the growth of scientific—rather than political—knowledge,
e.g., the nature of the Copernican Revolution as a challenge to the then-
dominant religion-friendly Ptolemaic view of the universe that put the
earth at its center, justifying the power and the claims of the Chris-
tian Church but not for much longer. Once these claims were debunked
consequent to this (Copernican) Revolution, according to Kuhn, a whole
new orientation set in which not only contributed to the decline of
universal ecclesiastical authority but also provided the conditions for the
emergence of the secular state.
This essay does not pretend to explain the growth scientific knowl-
edge as Kuhn has done in a pioneering way; rather, it suggests that
parallel events happen in the growth of political knowledge which could
not be assumed to be unaffected by, or unrelated to, controversies
that characterize the growth of scientific knowledge. In explaining the
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

growth of political knowledge, it is suggested here that a parallel if not

complementary set of processes and outcomes may be found. Employing
Kuhn’s original formulation about the growth of a dominant scientific
paradigm, the role of practitioners sharing basic assumptions about how
a problem is defined, the tools and methods used, and the solution
eventually propounded, and the rise of what Kuhn described as an insur-
gent paradigm attesting to the dominant paradigm’s failure to explain an
anomalous condition, leading to an accommodation of the insurgency if
not altogether obsolescence or demise of the paradigm paving the way
for a competing paradigm to hold sway over the production of knowl-
edge with its apparently more coherent worldview and explanatory tools,
all of these have been—and are—commonplace in the processes entailed
in observing the birth and demise of paradigms that purport to explain
the growth of political knowledge. In relating these processes, Kuhn’s
conclusion is that the relationship between, within, and among paradigms
and sub-paradigms, as means by which the growth of knowledge may be
apprehended, is a revolutionary—rather than a cumulative—one.
As a conscious and deliberate means of understanding the contem-
porary world as the one being attempted in this essay, the Kuhnian
paradigmatic approach is anticipated to function as a potent explana-
tory tool. Notwithstanding criticisms that have been leveled against it, it
is contended here that the fundamental underpinnings of the approach
have remained sound and steadfast as Kuhn has endeavored to clarify
himself in response to the initial criticisms and has incorporated much of
the relevant ideas in subsequent editions of his book. The paradigmatic
approach, in other words, properly understood and applied within its own
terms, has much to offer not just to experts, including aspirant graduate
students, but also to lay but critical observers of events to the extent that
these terms are understood and applied with a degree of discipline and
rigor. One does not have to agree with the assumptions or worldview
of the practitioners of the paradigm(s) being examined; one just has to
be able to apply Kuhnian categories in comprehending the rise, demise,
or, otherwise, persistence of a paradigm and its underlying presupposi-
tions with regard to a problem and the solutions thereto as articulated by
its practitioners in their journals, textbooks, and professional conferences.
In this context, it is easier to comprehend, for instance, the mutations
and permutations of neoliberalism, capitalism, and classical liberalism; or,
in another instance, those of neo-Marxism, evolutionary Marxism, and
historical materialism, within their own respective terms. With that having
4 K. E. BAUZON

been stated, it does not necessarily mean that the comprehension of the
contemporary world is restricted to the worldview or presuppositions of
the respective paradigms. To the contrary, the course of contemporary
events is pretty much subject to the vicissitudes attending the competi-
tion among today’s dominant competing paradigms, e.g., neoliberalism
with its fundamentalist adherence to the primacy of the market subordi-
nating politics, on the one hand, and historical materialism with its ardent
critique of capitalism and its emphasis on value accumulation for private
profit rather than for public good, on the other.
Caveat. This monograph will not so much delve directly into the
empirical conditions that come to play in the process of secession. Since
the advent of the modern state system, there had been numerous exam-
ples of attempts at secession, for the most part generated by endogenous
factors but, in several significant cases, induced by exogenous elements
or foreign actors. It is well to keep in mind that the modern state
system was a product of the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648. More signifi-
cantly, however, it emerged in the wake of the European Enlightenment
which provided an altogether new set of categories in defining the
nature of society and progress along with the role of politics and the
economy, now premised on the requirements of science and rationality.
What emerged was a new paradigm which saw the modern state as
the epitome of progress symbolizing the capacity for human organiza-
tion and the predictability of social and political behavior guaranteed by
the formal-legal laws. Further, this new paradigm rejected the scholasti-
cism of the Middle Ages, represented by the doctrines of St. Augustine,
which endeavored to reconcile faith and reason and confer upon Chris-
tian dogmas an air of scientificity all the while that the Christian Church
played a dominant role in laying down the rules for social and political
organization based on religious precepts. The rise of the modern state—
secular in its orientation, formal-legal in its procedures, and popular in its
pretensions—put to rest any idea that the scholastic Church would ever
be a serious contender to political power again.
As a further caveat, this monograph will deal with how the practitioners
of the formalist paradigm describe, at the state level, these conditions,
how they define secession itself as a problem in terms of it being seen
not merely as a challenge to state authority but also as a threat to the
legitimacy of the established constitutional order; and, how they (i.e.,
the practitioners) propose to solve it, all within the logic and context of
their paradigm. In the process, this essay will attempt to reconstruct the
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

formalist worldview largely in the Western intellectual and philosophical

tradition with the end in mind of laying bare the practitioners’ funda-
mental presuppositions. Certain permutations of this worldview in the
non-Western world, largely consequent to colonialism but also to the
emergent United States (US) imperial hegemony after World War II,
would also be examined and assessed. The emergence of the US as a
hegemon after World War II but especially since the end of the Cold
War has been accompanied by the establishment of trappings of legalism
represented by the Charter of the United Nations (UN), the Geneva
Conventions, the Charter of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and
various other legally binding agreements—both bilateral and multilateral
in nature—all suggesting the establishment of a global socioeconomic
order but providing the foundation for a US-led and -dominated neolib-
eral globalization. It is in this context that analysis would necessarily
extend beyond the problem of secessionism and into rise of revolutionary
and popular movements in response to a variety of factors including
persistent poverty and inequality, neocolonial rule, and ethnic strife. In
these instances, practitioners of the formalist paradigm with a presumed
concern for the viability and legitimacy of the international legal order,
would necessarily view, in a general way, revolutionary and popular move-
ments quite similarly to how secessionism is viewed, i.e., as potential
threat to the international legal order. This is not to say that responses
to these movements, as discussed below with appropriate examples, have
been inflexible or uncompromising on the part of the guardians of the
formal-legalist order. On the contrary, formal-legalist practitioners have
shown a capacity to adapt and evolve—a manifestation of what Kuhn
would regard as an emergent sub- or insurgent paradigm—as exemplified
by the 1977 Protocols I and II of the Geneva Convention which offers
de facto recognition to revolutionary organizations on the ground of
their adherence to humanitarian rules in situations of civil conflicts; ordi-
narily, revolutionary organizations have been, and still are in many cases,
regarded as bandit, outlaw, or subversive groups operating outside the
bounds of law that should be eradicated. (Protocols I and II) Yet another
manifestation of this flexibility is UN General Assembly Declaration of the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations [2007]), overwhelmingly
adopted in September 2007 and rejected only by four Western-oriented
member states led by the US, including Australia, Canada, and New
Zealand, all of which, needless to say, share very common settler-colonial
histories. In objecting to this Declaration, Erin Hanson explains: “Each
6 K. E. BAUZON

nation argued that the level of autonomy recognized for indigenous

peoples in the [Declaration] was problematic and would undermine
the sovereignty of their own states, particularly in the context of land
disputes and natural resource extraction. Some governments claimed that
the [Declaration] might override existing human rights obligations, even
though the document itself explicitly gives precedence to international
human rights (see Article 46). The [Declaration] may, however, provide
guiding principles that national courts could use to judge a government’s
actions in cases involving indigenous rights” (Hanson). While this Decla-
ration admittedly is not a legally binding instrument of international law,
the UN Press Office at the time issued a statement recognizing the Decla-
ration’s significance in the evolution of norms and standards marking, in
the words of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, “a historic moment
when UN Member States and indigenous peoples reconciled with their
painful histories and resolved to move forward together on the path of
human rights, justice, and development for all” (United Nations Press
Release [September 13, 2007]).
An assumption taken here is that it is only in the context of these
presuppositions could the practitioners render comprehensible and mean-
ingful the occurrence of concrete events, like secession. This attempt at
comprehension will take the reader on an intellectual and philosoph-
ical journey visiting with some of the major political thinkers largely in
the Western tradition from the early modern times to the contemporary
period who have made meaningful contribution to: (a) the elaboration
of the state as a unified, self-perpetuating formal-legal entity with its
corresponding judicial and coercive mechanisms of enforcement; and,
(b) the elaboration of the international legal order that has come to be
governed, over time, by norms and principles of international behavior,
likewise with its corresponding degree of judicial, and coercive mecha-
nisms of enforcement, albeit often constrained by realities of power, which
nonetheless govern state responses not just to secessionist movements but
also to other types of movements, e.g., anti-colonial, revolutionary, or
civil society, wherein segments of population manifest a myriad of desires
ranging from overthrow of an existing political system, autonomy, self-
determination, or expansion of political rights within the same political
framework. In both of these endeavors, what is of special concern here
is to see how the respective practitioners of the formal-legal paradigm in
each of the two levels have defined the problem to be resolved, the tools
employed by them, and the solution that they have ultimately arrived
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

at to resolve the situation with which they were confronted. We will

also see how the respective practitioners’ worldview—encompassing how
the problem is defined as well as the tools and solution thereto—have,
over a period of time, come to be bound with the interest of the state
either through pretense of indifference or active partisanship in its behalf.
As borne out by the discussion that follows, this has been true in the
case of the formal-legalists of the behavioralist persuasion who have cast
aside, at least until the advent of the post-behavioralist revolution, the
role of values in their vain attempt to truncate reality between facts and
values with the former deemed relevant to the extent that it lent itself to
observation while the latter, deemed irrelevant precisely because it eluded
observation. Consequently, matters of justice or fairness were deemed
subordinate; what mattered was that the state was assumed to be legiti-
mate and its existence was not to be questioned regardless of the processes
with which its agents exercised authority, or who was being served or dis-
served. It was deemed as a functioning entity with an unquestioned claim
to the allegiance and loyalty of its subjects. Several centuries following
the Treaty of Westphalia establishing the state system, and after nearly two
centuries of ascendancy of the positivist mode of analysis that provided the
conditions for formal-legalism—with its promise of progress—to flourish,
it would seem that time is long overdue for humanity to take stock and
ask: Is humanity any closer to this progress? Has progress accrued only
to a small segment of humanity and denied to the rest? Has the state
become an instrument largely for the benefit of a tiny segment of society?
How have the producers of knowledge, i.e., the practitioners of dominant
paradigms in particular, contributed to a critical public understanding of
these events? Or, may they be implicated in the deteriorating condition
in which humanity finds itself in economically, politically, and militarily?
Various commentators have offered their thoughts on these questions but
up to now, none seems to have made a difference in altering the course
of events. At the concluding section of this monograph, this author will
explore possible reasons why, and an alternate approach would be offered.

1.2 The Behavioralist Mode of Explanation

A look at how some behavioral proponents regard explanation in social
science may shed a better understanding of the above assumptions. One
of these proponents describes explanation as entailing “a patterning of
8 K. E. BAUZON

variables and their logical relationships, such that given the stated inter-
actional rules, the phenomenon to be explained would logically result
when the variables were given assigned values” (Meehan 1968, 68). In
another place, another behavioralist belonging to the rationalist sub-
group, proceeds to elaborate on the criteria of a “good explanation”
(Gurr 1970, 16–21). Foremost of these is the explanation’s presumed
amenability to empirical assessment. This, in turn, rests on the fulfillment
of a host of criteria including “falsifiability, definitional clarity, identifica-
tion of relevant variables at various levels of analysis, and applicability to
a large universe of events for analysis” (Gurr 1970, 17).
The thrust of these conceptions about the nature of explanation is
decidedly the search for a device in ascertaining causality, i.e., the rela-
tionship between two verifiable facts. It is precisely in this emphasis on
causality (with its concomitant presumption of order in the universe)
that critics have found a major flaw in behavioralism. By gazing at bare
facts while ignoring the role of values in the interpretation of these facts,
behavioralists, critics contend, have missed out on the essential meaning
that underlies their (i.e., these facts’) existence. Moreover, by upholding
the paramountcy of method, the same critics assert that behavioralists
have lost sight of the purpose as well as the consequences of research
on society. In other words, knowledge, in whichever way it is discovered,
fulfills a definite social function and that the researchers who discover and
promote it can no more claim to be objective than they can deny their
membership in a human collectivity.

1.3 The Post-behavioral Critique

Among critics of behavioralism stands out Kuhn who, with his notion
of paradigm laid out originally in his 1970 book, sought to demonstrate
that knowledge consists of no more than the consensus of a community
of practitioners. These practitioners share fundamental beliefs about the
nature of a problem to be researched on as well as the solution to it. Their
consensus becomes the “normal science” by virtue of the strength of their
argument and the degree of sophistication of their tools of research. This
is until an “anomaly” develops occasioned by the emergence of a problem
insolvable by conventional methods, and by the rise of a rival explanation
promoted by another community of practitioners using different methods
and possessing competing if not alternative views of reality. The impact of
the rise of this rival explanation could vary from setting to setting but it
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

may be just as revolutionary as the impact of the Copernican Revolution

in undermining the medieval ecclesiastical cosmology, and undermining
its claim to universality.
Another critic, Alvin W. Gouldner (1970), formulates a somewhat
similar idea about how knowledge in society is produced and what
it consists of. Essentially, Gouldner postulates that society is held by
different theories and ideologies that maintain hegemony over the mind.
These theories and ideologies may either be explicitly stated or implicitly
held. Those that are implicitly held, which rest at the back of the theorist’s
mind, are of two kinds: (a) world hypotheses, and, (b) domain assump-
tions. The former are “beliefs about the world that are so general that
they may, in principle, be applied to any subject matter without restric-
tion.” Additionally, Gouldner explains, “they serve to provide the most
general of orientations, which enable unfamiliar experiences to be made
meaningful. They provide the terms of reference by which the less general
assumptions… are themselves limited and influenced” (Gouldner 1970,
30–31). The latter, on the other hand, are “the background assump-
tions applied only to members of a single domain; they are, in effect,
the metaphysics of a domain” (Gouldner 1970). In other words, they
form part of the culture at large and serve to link the theorist with the
society. The implications of these to social science are quite clear, asserts
Gouldner: they influence inevitably the social scientist’s research, particu-
larly his/her theories, techniques, choice of a problem, and the solution
to it. To understand, thus, the nature of social science, Gouldner explains
that “we have to understand the background assumptions with which
it works. These may be inferred from the stipulated social theories with
which it operates” (Gouldner 1970, 33).
But it is not enough to understand the background assumptions and
how they shape the nature of social science. It is likewise important to
understand their function in society and, by extension, the social scien-
tist’s role. Gouldner explains that these assumptions are ingrained in the
social scientist’s private mood which influences his/her public and polit-
ical conduct. Domain assumptions in particular have “implications about
what is possible to do, to change in the world; the values they entail indi-
cate what courses of action are desirable and thus shape the conduct.
In this sense, every theory and every theorist ideologizes social reality.”
(Gouldner 1970, 47–48) (Italics added).
10 K. E. BAUZON

References
Gouldner, Alvin W. (1970). The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. New York,
NY: Equinox Books.
Gurr, Ted Robert. (1970). Why Men Rebel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Hanson, Erin. (n.d.). “UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples”, Indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca., in: https://indigenousfoundati
ons.arts.ubc.ca/un_declaration_on_the_rights_of_indigenous_peoples/.
Kuhn, Thomas S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press.
Meehan, Eugene J. (1968). Explanation in Social Science. Homewood, Ill: The
Dorsey Press.
United Nations. (2007). “Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”, in:
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf.
United Nations Press Release. (2007, September 13). “Historic Milestone
for Indigenous Peoples Worldwide as UN Adopts Rights Declaration”,
in: https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/Declaration_ip_pre
ssrelease.pdf.
 CHAPTER 2

The Formal-Legalist Explanation

Abstract This chapter discusses the basic tenets and assumptions of the
Enlightenment and how these conditioned the emergence and evolu-
tion of formal-legalism as an approach to the problem of state-building.
Selected practitioners are highlighted, their assumptions expounded, and
the growth and development of the knowledge they produced within
interrelated disciplines with regard to the said problem are also traced.
Here, the ideologization of knowledge production is highlighted as the
practitioners’ political and ideological predispositions and attitudes are
examined.

Keywords Formal-legalism · Constitutionalism · Civil society ·

Institutional economics · Secession

2.1 The Enlightenment

Origins of Formal-Legalism
The formalist explanation may be traced directly to the intellectual mood
which flourished during the Enlightenment in the seventeenth-century
Europe. This period saw the birth of national consciousness in reaction to
authority—both monarchial and ecclesiastical—as well as the emergence
of the idea of the primacy of secular law. In England, this was symbol-
ized by the Glorious Revolution which upheld “the supremacy of law

© The Author(s) 2021 11

K. E. Bauzon, Secession in the Formal-Legalist Paradigm,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7501-3_2
12 K. E. BAUZON

over the king, the impartiality of justice, the security of individual rights,
the freedom of thought and press, and religious tolerance” (Kohn 1955,
17). Throughout the rest of Europe and North America, the same ideas
were restated and upheld. The “first new nation” in North America, for
instance, was born based on presumed truths held to be self-evident that
“all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights, that among these truths are life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness” (Declaration by the Second Continental Congress
1776). The French Revolution of 1789, in another instance, stressed the
point that “the duty and dignity of the citizen lay in political activity and
his fulfillment in complete union with his nation-state” (Kohn 1955, 23).
The rise of the modern nation-state was coincident not merely to
the prevailing political and economic circumstances but also to a newly-
emergent intellectual attitude about the world. This attitude, which is still
pervasive among contemporary scholars in the guise of positivism and,
later, behavioralism, essentially regards the universe as orderly, and this
order could be apprehended through the use of human reason. Implic-
itly, this attitude disregarded or, at least, pretended to disregard, those
aspects of reality which are not accessible to human reason, or the use of
scientific techniques, and referred to them as either irrelevant or illusory
(Voegelin 1948, 462).
While not all who acquired the formalist orientation subscribed to
this positivist attitude, they all shared the common belief that human
progress depended not on some metaphysical being but, rather, on man’s
conscious efforts to control and manage his perceptible environment as
reflected through the formal laws and institutions that he has established
in society. The phenomenal aspect of nature was commonly regarded by
them as the prime object of inquiry and, by implication, control.

2.2 Scope and Method of Inquiry

The birth of sociology as well as of the social sciences in general served
to affirm the above-belief. In the discipline of political science, the
formalist orientation was particularly evident. During its formative years,
for instance, it was suggested, as some writers did in 1883, that political
science was composed of two branches: (1) analytical politics, concerned
with “the developmental structure of the state as ‘an organism for
the concentration and distribution of political power of the nation’;
and, (2) practical politics, concerned with “political motives and aims,
 2 THE FORMAL-LEGALIST EXPLANATION 13

i.e., the determination of what the state should do” (Crane and Moses
1883). Another scholar, one reputed to be the father of American polit-
ical science, listed in 1890 a tripartite division of political science, namely:
(1) political science proper, which dealt with “political community”; (2)
constitutional law, which dealt with “the regime and rules of the game”;
and (3) public law, which dealt with “legislation and policies of particular
administrations” (Burgess 1890).
This formalist orientation—with its predilection for formal laws, formal
power, and formal structure of the state—persisted through the middle
and later years of the discipline to become a tradition or, as it was,
the orthodoxy. In its middle years, ca. the first quarter of the twen-
tieth century, this orientation was articulated by a committee of the then
recently-established American Political Science Association, founded in
1903, when it declared that politics was not limited to “printed account
of documents of past history” but, instead, it included “political facts
themselves -- the fact of voting, of courts, of juries, of police, of various
municipal services, of official action, etc.” (Report of the Committee of
Five, in Somit and Tanenhaus 1987, 64–65). This set of views reiterated,
in effect, the sentiment of the association’s first president, Frank Johnson
Goodnow, Professor of Administrative Law at Columbia University, who,
in his presidential address, claimed as the area of concern of his associa-
tion the “realization of State will…” (Report of the Committee of Five, in
Somit and Tanenhaus 1987, 65).
In more recent years, the entrenchment of behavioralism signified an
apparent rejection or, more accurately, reorientation of the essentially
“institutional” focus of previous scholars. The preoccupation with insti-
tutions, behavioralists contend, prevented the researcher from discerning
the proper scope of the discipline. Behavioralists assert that, to amend this
situation, focus must shift to the behavior of individuals and of groups in
terms of which the behavior of institutions could be understood. Neces-
sarily, this focus also had to shift to informal manifestations of behavior so
long as they were observable and verifiable. Nevertheless, the shift did not
altogether reject formal institutions per se, only the manner in which their
behavior was interpreted. The behavioralists were, after all, interested in
establishing a science of politics that could be more effective in grappling
with the practical needs of formal institutions as of those in a presumed
democracy, especially in the American setting. Typical of behavioralists
were such scholars as Charles S. Hyneman who wrote Bureaucracy in a
Democracy (1950), and Harold D. Lasswell and Abraham Kaplan who
14 K. E. BAUZON

co-wrote Power and Society; A Framework for Political Inquiry (1950);

these scholars believed that their contributions offered a realistic view of
the processes of government as well as a theoretical framework with which
to study political life. Hyneman’s behavioralist predilection, as discussed
by Melvin G. Dakin in his review of this book, is revealed in his (Hyne-
man’s) optimistic argument—but failing to anticipate the US Supreme
Court’s conferral of personhood to corporations and the flooding of
“Dark Money” contributions of the political landscape—that “govern-
mental organization can be made more responsive to what the American
people want and that the key to such responsiveness is a greater voice
in administration by elected officials” (Dakin). Lasswell’s and Kaplan’s
book, on the other hand, sought to advance the rigor with which power in
society may be studied, a need which they (i.e., Lasswell and Kaplan) real-
ized, as participant in the World War II-era Rockefeller-funded Research
Project on Wartime Communications whose tasks included “research and
analysis focused on information, propaganda, and intelligence, requiring
a review of the state of knowledge on the subjects,” that such tasks were
“handicapped by the relatively unsystematic and fragmentary nature of the
literature in all pertinent fields.” To address this handicap, Lasswell and
Kaplan offered their book as a contribution to “the task of developing
a framework for inquiry contemporaneous with the state of research”
(Brunner). Consequently, as Ronald D. Brunner describes in his “Intro-
duction” to the Transaction Edition of Lasswell’s and Kaplan’s book,
Lasswell and Kaplan assess that the social sciences, including political
science, play a role in this endeavor—as policy sciences—in which their
function “is to provide intelligence pertinent to the integration of values
realized by and embodied in interpersonal relations” (Brunner). With
regard to the particular discipline of political science, Brunner captures
Lasswell’s and Kaplan’s view and, in the process, reveals the discipline’s
enduring pro-state predisposition, in form and in substance, that the disci-
pline is relevant only to the extent that it serves the policy needs of the
state, whose unquestioned legitimacy is given as follows: “Reconceived
as a policy science, mainstream political science could satisfy demands for
relevance to the intelligence needs of society” (Brunner).

2.3 The Postulates

From the foregoing introduction, it can be surmised—in fact, estab-
lished—that the formalists, whether of the traditional or behavioral
orientation, were not free from any ideological bias or political preferences
 2 THE FORMAL-LEGALIST EXPLANATION 15

and, hence, were inevitably a part of ongoing political and ideological

struggles of their respective times, affirming Gouldner’s assertion as cited
above. Thus, for the behavioralists in particular, the claim of objectivity
can only be understood in the context of the preferences, which may either
be explicitly or implicitly stated, i.e., through policy recommendations
from the social sciences; it may further be understood in the context in
which knowledge is designed to serve, the interests that it serves, and the
motives that led to its emergence and which are shared among those that
control the helm of the state.
Also, from the foregoing, it can be stated with confidence that the
political and ideological preferences manifest among the formal-legalists,
i.e., those emergent in the West with putative link to the Enlighten-
ment, may be summed in two words: liberal democratic. It is needless
to remind the reader that the formal-legalist orientation emerged as part
of a comprehensive transformation that took place in the Western world
and that this transformation took on specific political as well as economic
manifestations, e.g., traditional constitutionalism and historic capitalism
and, now, neoliberalism. The formalists may not have been conscious of
every development at all times, but the atmosphere of liberal freedom
which allowed them to engage in their intellectual activities was sustained
precisely by these structures, while their intellectual activities, in turn,
served either to tolerate, endorse, or legitimize these structures. In one
of the most prescient interpretations ever written about the eighteenth
century, Karl Polanyi, in his 1944 opus, The Great Transformation, asserts
that the fusion between liberalism and capitalism in the latter two-thirds
of that century up until the beginning of World War I was not accidental
but, rather, a result of a conscious and deliberate effort—through the
establishment of formal laws and institutions compatible with the liberal
conception of constitutionalism—to institutionalize market economy—at
least in England where capitalism had a distinctly auspicious beginning.
The market conditioned the sociopolitical order and the laws emanating
from it, including its use of force over territories it had caused to be
colonized. The rising middle class—in particular, the business-minded
bankers, members of who in Marxian terms are referred to as the bour-
geois class and, further, who constituted what Polanyi referred to as haute
finance—initiated this transformation as it “foisted [constitutions] upon
turbulent despots” and sought political power to ensure the predomi-
nance of the laws and logic of a presumed self-regulating market. In
Polanyi’s words: “The motive of haute finance was gain; to attain it, it
16 K. E. BAUZON

was necessary to keep in with the governments whose end was power
and conquest” (Polanyi 1944, 11). In explaining the apparent paradox
that a self-regulated market is independent of regulation by government,
Polanyi explains, further, that:

[t]he government of the Crown gave place to government by class – the

class which led in industrial and commercial progress. The principle of
constitutionalism became wedded to the political revolution and dispos-
sessed the Crown, which by that time had shed almost all its creative
faculties, while its protective function was no longer vital to the country
that had weathered the storm of transition. (Polanyi 1944, 38)

Nonetheless, with the ascendancy of the merchant class, the total trans-
formation of civilization must be pursued to its logical end. As Polanyi
explains again:

The transformation implies a change in the motive of action on the part

of the members of society: for the motive of subsistence that of gain must
be substituted. All transactions are turned into money transactions, and
these in turn require that a medium of exchange be introduced into every
articulation of industrial life. All incomes must derive from the sale of
something or other, and whatever the actual source of a person’s income,
it must be regarded as resulting from sale. No less is implied in the simple
term “market system,” by which we designate that institutional pattern
described. But the most startling peculiarity of the system lies in the fact
that, once it is established, it must be allowed to function without outside
interference. (Polanyi 1944, 41)

It is interesting to note that the events observed by Polanyi are a culmi-

nation of a long series of interrelated developments that punctuated the
rise of capitalism and the ubiquitous role played by the state that enabled
it particularly in the five centuries or so prior to the twentieth century.
As described by legal historians Michael E. Tigar and Madeleine R. Levy,
some of these developments may include those during the early phases
of the feudal period wherein feudal law was either silent or hostile in
which case the ordinary merchant or trader, nonetheless, “sought to come
to terms” with this condition so he or she could still make profit; or,
as commercial activities expanded and conflicts with the feudal masters
increased in frequency, “the merchant class chafed continually against laws
and customs” that were designed to protect feudal power; or, further,
 2 THE FORMAL-LEGALIST EXPLANATION 17

that the merchants themselves fashioned their own legal system through
tribunals and procedures for the enforcement of contract and resolu-
tion of conflict. As Tigar and Levy explain, “The men and women who
fought for legal rules consistent with freer commerce did not claim to
have invented the principles they sought to have applied…. Rather, the
bourgeois sought old legal forms and principles, chiefly Roman, and
invested them with a new commercial content” (Tigar and Levy, 20–
21). Because of the consistency with which mercantile law was observed
among merchants across national boundaries, it soon became part of
international law enforceable, according to Tigar and Levy, by “royal
courts, the ecclesiastical courts, and even the feudal seigneurial courts”
and, as such, became part of national law (Tigar and Levy, 55–56).
“In 1622,” Tigar and Levy write, “the English courts were willing to
summon merchants to testify about their customs and help the court
resolve a dispute. By late in the eighteenth century, Lord Mansfield said
for the Court of King’s Bench that the traders’ law was not a special,
unusual customary law, but was known to and would be applied by all
His Majesty’s judges: ‘The law merchant in the law of the land’” (Tigar
and Levy, 56).
The implications of Polanyi’s reflections as well as of Tigar’s and Levy’s
historical account, on contemporary neoliberal globalization, would be
explored and elucidated more in the concluding section of this essay. For
now, it suffices to assert that the marriage between capital and the state
has a long history and it is not a modern or contemporary phenomenon.
This belies the claim of modern-day market fundamentalists about the
autonomy of the market from the state.
Further, and more significantly, while not all formalists were united
in matters of detail, a fair amount of consensus existed regarding their
conceptions of the universe, society, state, individual, and last but not
least, secession. Earlier, an allusion was made that the period of the
Enlightenment was characterized by the ascendancy of the idea that
law reigned supreme. This, of course, referred to positive, man-made
law. Adherence to this idea entailed necessarily a rejection of a notion
dominant during the medieval period that man’s destiny rested on
some metaphysical omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient force. In
its stead, the notion was introduced that man was, after all, responsible
for his fate and that, through law and reason, he could achieve progress
if not perfection. The notion became the basis for the evolution of
modern international law and the concomitant international organization.
18 K. E. BAUZON

Thus, instead of a cosmological principle which postulated a hierarchy

at the top of which was some metaphysical being, the Enlightenment
promoted a similar cosmology based on man’s superiority and control
over nature through the instrumentality of the state and its various
institutions.
In the realm of international law, a classic expression of this formalist
attitude was made by Hugo Grotius. Writing in the first quarter of the
seventeenth century, Grotius explained that the relations among nations
were on the basis of jus gentium, i.e., laws established with the consent of
the community for the good of this community (Brierly 1963, 30). This
consent, in turn, served as the basis of state sovereignty understood by
Jean Bodin, a leading proponent of the formalist orientation writing in
the last quarter of the sixteenth century, as an important component of
political order in that the sovereign, while in the act of preserving unity
within and stability of the state, derived its power from a law which in
itself was superior (Brierly, 9). The law of nations that could be derived
from this, therefore, could only be that in which nations recognize their
being members of a “society,” i.e., a civilized world community.
While ideas about how a world community could be established
have been expressed much earlier, serious study of it began only in the
latter part of the nineteenth century. This study, for the most part, was
historical, descriptive, and normative in nature. Its focus was on “cer-
tain objective factors, e.g., nations, international intercourse and certain
elements of felt need or purpose – national and international interests and
policies – as the foundations thereof” (Potter 1948, 2–3). It was based on
the assumptions that: (a) Separate and sovereign states existed; (b) these
states were equal in international law; (c) a “moderate amount of homo-
geneity” among them was necessary as basis for this law; and (d) these
states maintained a secular character (Potter 1948, 9). As to an interna-
tional organization, a consensus among the early scholars pointed to the
following: (a) the prevention of aggression by one state against another;
(b) the establishment of some standard norms of conduct to secure justice
among states; and (c) the establishment of institutions of cooperation for
mutual needs and common protection (Potter 1948, 14).
The order in the international realm was to be replicated in the national
realm. Thus, formalist writers have time and again elaborated on how
political order in society could be achieved. Thomas Hobbes (1958, xi–
xii), for instance, in his classic work, Leviathan, laid out what he referred
to as “the science of natural justice” as a means to this end. This science
 2 THE FORMAL-LEGALIST EXPLANATION 19

of justice contained three components, namely: (a) a rational construc-

tion of law in which law would be regarded as authoritative; (b) a theory
of representative authority in which the authority serves as an agent of
another person; and (c) a moral bond which serves as a basis for the
enforcement of contractual obligation.
A similar formulation was made by John Locke (1952, vii) who has
been regarded as, perhaps, “the most representative thinker in the whole
Anglo-American tradition.” In his Second Treatise of Government (1690),
Locke underscored the necessity for a civil society based on the consent
of its members. This civil society fulfilled, according to him, certain wants
that were not fulfilled in the state of nature. These were: (a) an established
law that served as a measure for right and wrong; (b) a judicial authority
that interpreted this law; and, (c) an executive power that enforced this
law (Locke 1952, 71).
The founding of a civil society corresponded to the formation of a
state. A state, in this sense, is a juridical body which consists of population,
territory, government, and sovereignty and which claims—as Machiavelli
insisted—monopoly to the use of legitimate force within a society (Gerth
and Mills 1946, 78). The state maintains a bureaucracy for the purpose
of bringing precision, speed, and consistency in the administration of
society. Its introduction signaled the supremacy of impersonal and general
ends over those that are personal and particular. Max Weber, prominent
for his advocacy of a presumably objective social science, among others,
explained that an ideal-type bureaucracy possessed the following charac-
teristics: (a) the presence of fixed jurisdictional areas corresponding with
official duties; (b) adherence to a hierarchy representing a gradation of
authority and responsibilities; (c) use of written documents; (d) reliance
on expertise for office management; (e) the presence of full-time and
active officialdom; and, (f) the existence of stable and exhaustive general
rules as basis for official conduct (Gerth and Mills 1946, 198).
In the above context, politics is introduced as the process in which
various interests in society interact to influence the manner in which
power is maintained, distributed, or transferred. The primary vehicle
through which this could be achieved is political parties, described by a
contemporary scholar as the “basic institutions for the translation of mass
preferences into public policy” (Key Jr. 1967, 432).
Under the rules of the democratic game, political parties compete in
open elections. Whichever garners majority votes wins and shall be vested
with the legitimacy to represent this majority. For, as one author explains,
20 K. E. BAUZON

“it is impossible for all the people to rule all the time – taken singly. The
rule of the people can only mean the rule of a majority” (Leacock 1921,
328). As to the minority, liberal democratic writers are of the consensus
that it is essential to and must exist in a democratic regime. One author
articulates this view when he writes that “[w]hile minorities are not free, a
true majority cannot be formed” (Stapleton 1944, 109). Another author
goes so far as to give to the majority the competence to secure the welfare
and interests of the minority. He writes:

It may be laid down as a proposition… that whenever a majority is compe-

tent to take care of its own interests, it will also be competent to take care
of those of the minority. This results from two circumstances, first, that
all the prominent and substantial interests of the lesser will be included in
those of the larger body; and, secondly, that parties in a republic… do not
occupy the fixed position which they have in monarchy and aristocracy;
on the contrary, the individuals composing them are constantly shifting
places…. (Grimke 1968, 82)

It is fairly well-recognized, therefore, that a multiplicity of opinions

representing diverse interests, be it in the majority or minority posi-
tion, must be allowed to exist in a liberal democratic regime. It seems
contradictory that this regime could survive in an atmosphere of apparent
diversity and competitiveness. It has been believed that democracy presup-
poses a consensus of values and that in the midst of factionalism, or
cleavages between and among segments of the society, the democratic
system cannot survive even with the utilitarian invention of majority rule
and minority rights as explained by John Stuart Mill in his 1859 essay, On
Liberty.
Formalist writers have not been oblivious to this problem. Perhaps the
most popular and enduring solution that formalists have introduced is the
concept of pluralism particularly in the early part of the twentieth century
when the United States (US) was gaining its reputation as a “melting pot”
among various immigrant groups (Bauzon 2011). The presumptions of
this idea were articulated by the leading exponent of democratic theory
in the US in the following manner:

Instead of a single center of sovereign power there must be multiple centers

of power, none of which is or can be wholly sovereign. Although the only
legitimate sovereign is the people, in the perspective of American pluralism
even the people ought never to be an absolute sovereign; consequently, no
 2 THE FORMAL-LEGALIST EXPLANATION 21

part of the people, such as a majority, ought to be absolutely sovereign.

(Dahl 1967, 24)

This logically leads the discussion to the position of the individual

vis-à-vis the group and the state. An initial postulate states that just
as a diversity of groups is allowed in a democratic regime, so is the
preservation of individual identity and liberties. By this, it is implied that
groups afford individuals alternatives through which they may realize their
political beliefs and objectives. It further implies that the principle of indi-
vidualism sits at the core of any democratic system; that is, the individual
is endowed with presumed inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property.
With these rights, however, the individual stands in a reciprocal relation-
ship with the state. This is explained by the belief that the enjoyment
of these rights necessitated an authority that would secure them from
interferences by others.

[S]ince the freedom from interference can only be enjoyed by the forcible
prevention of interference,“ explains one author, ”liberty is seen to be
dependent upon the existence of authority. It is the state which guarantees
this immunity to its citizens, whose ‘rights’ are thus brought into legal
existence by being clothed with the ‘sanction’ or compelling force of the
power of the state. (Leacock 1921, 72)

One can, thus, discern a principle of presumed reciprocity between the

individual, on one hand, and the state or society at large, on the other.
Formalist writers acknowledge that this principle may be traced to an
organic conception of the state especially popular among European polit-
ical philosophers in the mid-nineteenth century particularly among those
following the biological works of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer,
later to emerge into a complementary school of thought known as func-
tionalism, flourishing in social science departments in such big-name US
institutions as the University of Chicago and Columbia University. This
organic, holistic conception, along with its conservative predisposition for
the deterministic unity of the organic whole, states simply that the indi-
vidual and the state are components of the same social organism. “As is
the relation of the hand to the body, or the leaf to the tree,” explains an
author, “so is the relation of man to society. He exists in it, and it in him”
(Leacock 1921, 77–78).
22 K. E. BAUZON

It is interesting to note that while the works of Darwin and Spencer

inspired the foregoing organismic or biological conception of the body
politic, a conception which became dominant for the rest of the nine-
teenth through the first half of the twentieth centuries in such disciplines
as economics, sociology, and political science, and, further, a conception
that lent itself amenable to a hierarchical structure demanded in a well-
ordered society anchored on value accumulation, there have been critics
to such a system and, by extension, to the prevailing paradigms that legit-
imized it, refusing to conform to these disciplines’ rather compartmen-
talized if not flawed worldviews exemplified by the orthodox economic
concept of equilibrium which postulated “free or perfect competition,”
discounting the distorting role of monopolies. One of these was Thorstein
Veblen, son of Swedish immigrant parents, raised in the plains of the
Midwest (Wisconsin and Minnesota) as well as in the rugged terrains
of California, and educated at Carleton College, Cornell University, and
Johns Hopkins University. In 1892, Veblen was invited by his mentor J.
Laurence Laughlin as a fellow in economics at the University of Chicago
where he later earned the title of instructor. In 1911, he found another
teaching position at the University of Missouri where he remained until
1918. After that, he took up various positions for various lengths of time,
including at the Food Administration in Washington, D.C., at The Dial,
a literary magazine, and at the New School for Social Research. In 1926,
he returned to California where he spent the rest of his life living in a
cabin overlooking the Pacific until his death in August 1929 (Pierce).
Known as the “founder of institutional economics” and best known
for his work Theory of the Leisure Class; An Economic Study of Institu-
tions (1899), Veblen sought to explain through this book, along with
subsequent writings, his critique of capitalism and the political order that
sustained it as creating an industrial system whose wealthy leaders, which
he termed the “leisure class,” displayed “modern survivals of prowess”
by indulging in “the amusements, fashions, sports, religion, and aesthetic
tastes,” leading him to coin the phrase “conspicuous display of wealth”
(Pierce).
In elaborating on his critique of the dominant social science paradigms
of his time that tended to justify and foster racial supremacy, gender
and economic inequality, and even imperialism, Veblen transcended the
boundaries of economics and ventured into such fields as biology and
sociology and, in so doing, embraced Darwinism but not in the way it has
been ideologized to justify the notion of “survival of the fittest” the way it
 2 THE FORMAL-LEGALIST EXPLANATION 23

has been understood in the popular imagination to justify aristocratic rule

or colonialism. Veblen’s Darwinism was analytical, holding the key to a
causal explanation of matters or of outcomes in terms of their observable
and verifiable causal sequences that lend themselves to explanation other
than attribution to “Divine intervention.” This is particularly significant
when explaining not only the biological process of selection—not the
same as that propagated among genetic reductionists—but also human
intentionality leading to variations in economic and social well-being
across societies. Thus, as a astute reader of Darwin, Veblen postulated
that the Darwinian methodological framework—particularly the principle
of causality—may be used to study how social and cultural institutions
have evolved. Veblen said as much when he acknowledged that “the
scope and method given to scientific enquiry by Darwin and the gener-
ation whose spokesman he is has substantially not been questioned…”
(as quoted in Hodgson, 345–346). In rejecting the static, equilibrium-
oriented relationship between the individual and society (or the state) as
postulated by mainstream economics and social science disciplines of his
time, Veblen asserted that the individual’s willful and purposive agency,
one that is subject to and not independent from the evolutionary process,
inevitably undermined these (mainstream disciplines’) postulates. Explains
Hodgson: “A causal account of the interaction between the individual and
social structure had to be provided. This causal account should not stop
with the individual, but it should also attempt to explain the origin of
psychological purposes and preferences” (Hodgson, 347). Veblen elabo-
rated on this thought in an essay he wrote the year prior to the publication
of his The Theory of the Leisure Class, cited earlier, writing:

Like other animals, man is an agent that acts in response to stimuli afforded
by the environment in which he lives. Like other species, he is a creature
of habit and propensity. But in a higher degree than other species, man
mentally digests the content of habits under whose guidance he acts, and
appreciates the trend of these habits and propensities… By selective neces-
sity he is endowed with a proclivity for purposeful action… He acts under
the guidance of propensities which have been imposed on him by the
process of selection to which he owes from other species. (as quoted in
Hodgson, 348)

When he finally got around to writing his The Theory of the Leisure Class
the following year, Veblen underscored the same thought when he wrote:
24 K. E. BAUZON

As a matter of selective necessity, man is an agent. He is, in his own appre-

hension, a centre of unfolding impulsive activity – “teleological” activity.
He is an agent seeking in every act the accomplishment of some concrete,
objective, impersonal end. (as quoted in Hodgson, 348)

Needless to say, discussion of Veblen’s contributions to institutional

economics and to pragmatism, or even some of his limitations, is much
more than could be accommodated in these pages. Suffice it to say that,
while others may not easily discern the implications of Veblen’s thoughts
pertinent to the subject at hand, to this writer, at least, these implications
are palpable. Implicitly, his discussion of the evolutionary process along
with his recognition of human agency undermines the formal-legalistic
as well as the organismic models of society and politics, both of which
confine the individual to a predetermined position that disallows human
agency. Veblen’s formulation allows for human action—including polit-
ical action—independent of the will of the state or of society at large.
Consequently, Veblen offers a framework with which revolutionary and
secessionist movements may be understood, wherein groups may assert
their interests and identity distinct and apart from the rest of society or,
for that matter, from those that see themselves as guardians of the political
order.
Complementary to Veblen’s insurgent ideas are those by Charles A.
Beard who saw the supposed organic unity of the state as, in fact, merely
the manifestation of prevailing class interests or, at the very least, as
dominated by economic interests. This complementariness was recog-
nized and immortalized in Morton White’s classic book, Social Thought
in America: The Revolt Against Formalism (1949) in which Veblen and
Beard, along with such other notable social thinkers as John Dewey,
Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Harvey Robinson, were noted for
their “collective opposition to formalist and deductive approaches to the
study of philosophy, economics, law, politics and history” (White).
In 1913, Beard’s pioneering work, An Economic Interpretation of the
Constitution of the United States, elaborated on this theme. Maligned as
crude in its economic analysis in the immediate years following its publica-
tion, this book is now hailed as a classic in reorienting the basic postulates
or presuppositions about society and the political process but, more
importantly, about how to analyze these subjects. Wittingly or unwit-
tingly, Beard challenged the positivist-oriented behavioralist approach
common among the mainstream scholars of the formal-legalist tradition.
 2 THE FORMAL-LEGALIST EXPLANATION 25

His astute quotation of a passage from James Madison’s essay in Feder-

alist Papers No. 10 blunted any potential charge that he was an academic
heretic peddling the kind of economic determinism that many Marxist
writers have been accused of, and deviating from the conventional habit
of viewing things. Madison’s passage is as follows:

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property
originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests.
The protection of these faculties in the first object of government. From
the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the
possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results;
and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respec-
tive proprietors, ensues a division of society into different interests and
parties… The most common and durable source of factions has been the
various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those
who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.
Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like
discrimination, A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile
interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of neces-
sity in civilized nations and divide them into different classes, actuated by
different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and inter-
fering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves
the spirit and party of faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of
the government. (Madison)

Here, Beard noted what he referred to as Madison’s “masterly statement

of the theory of economic determinism,” tossing the ball back at his self-
righteous critics for reflexively ignoring what he thought was obvious. He
emphasizes his point with the following lines:

Different degrees and kinds of property inevitably exist in modern society;

party doctrines and “principles” originate in the sentiments and views
which the possession of various kinds of property creates in the minds of
the possessors; class and group divisions based on property lie at the basis
of modern government; and politics and constitutional law are inevitably a
reflex of these contending interests. (Beard)

He further chastises his US-based colleagues who have been adamant at

clinging on to their conventional wisdom for even European scholars, he
noted, had already began to revise theirs “on learning that one of the
earliest, and certainly one of the clearest, statements of it came from a
26 K. E. BAUZON

profound student of politics who sat in the Convention that framed our
fundamental law” (Beard). Protection of the new political system, there-
fore, would be paramount among these early leaders as they would seek to
protect, by law, their economic, financial, and material interests and safe-
guard their sociopolitical position from any threats—including revolution,
rebellion, secession, or any form of political unrest—that may undermine
these interests. This echoes Veblen’s notion of self-agency except that, in
this case, self-agency refers to that by the wealthy—singly or as a collec-
tive—securing their economic, material, and political interest through
their effort to codify their interest into the Constitution in contrast, say,
to secessionist and popular movements whose members, as agents to their
own interests, feel a sense of disaffection toward a totalizing political
order.
It is to be expected, therefore, that when the issue of secession arises,
the formalist orientation, especially its functionalist subgroup, generally
regards it with a dim view along with the interests associated with the
state’s preservation. Secession is seen as a challenge to the legitimacy
of the legal order, or as an event undermining the unity of the organic
whole. In any case, it questions the credibility and the legitimacy of the
guardians of this legal order and seeks ultimately to challenge them. This
is not to say that all formalists have shared the same negative feeling
toward the idea of secession, but those who may not be readily predis-
posed to reject it may be said to share a minority view. Nonetheless, those
who argue for secession also often frame it within the formalist frame-
work. One of them was Frederick Grimke, who in his classic study of the
theory and institutions of American democracy first published in 1848
argued that, in the case of the secessionist bid of the southern confederate:

[i]n a consolidated republic the united wills of individuals make the consti-
tution,… and in a confederate republic the joint will, not the will of
any one member, makes the government… [A]ll effective power over the
subject matter within its jurisdiction resides in the association not in the
government set up by it nor in the agents appointed to administer it….
(Grimke 1968, 510)

A logical argument deducible from this is that if one of the states in the
Union chose to secede, that state was merely exercising a prerogative right
of withdrawing from the exercise of sovereignty by the association over
it. “It is precisely like the emigration of individuals from a country whose
 2 THE FORMAL-LEGALIST EXPLANATION 27

government is a consolidated one, who become discontented with the

condition in which they are placed or with the institutions under which
they live….” writes Grimke (1968, 511).
The overwhelming and persistent attitude, however, has been against
secession. Not only that it is perceived as a threat to the political cohesion
of a society, it is also perceived as undermining the very foundation of
the democratic system. Abraham Lincoln, in his first inaugural address as
President of the US, struck at the heart of the idea of secession when he
declared:

Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy, A majority

held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always
changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and senti-
ments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does,
of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the
rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so
that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form
is all that is left. (Sandburg 1939, 132)

But perhaps the most popular sentiment, articulated by Locke in support

of a consolidated middle-class-dominated modern state and not as one
advocating rebellion against a tyrannical monarchy, is that any opposition
using force against a duly constituted authority is illegal and must be
branded as such. He explains, in Chapter 19 of his essay, cited earlier,
on the subject of dissolution of government:

[F]or rebellion being an opposition, not to persons, but authority which

is founded only in the constitutions and laws of the government, those,
whoever they be, who by force break through, and by force justify their
violation of them, are truly and properly rebels; for when men, by entering
into society and civil government, have excluded force and introduced laws
for the preservation of property, peace, and unity amongst themselves,
those who set up force again in opposition to the laws do rebellare, i.e.,
bring back again the state of war and are properly rebels…. (Locke 1952,
126–127)
28 K. E. BAUZON

2.4 Between Autonomy and Independence:

Self-determination Since World War I
Thus, with such arguments, among others, the state has been able to
assert the claim to monopoly to the legitimate use of force; it has also
been able to secure the notion of the indivisibility of sovereignty and
the eventual preservation of the state. However, throughout much of the
last century to the present day, these claims have evidently been under
constant challenge from groups whose view of the world regards society
not as a continuous link of secular legal rights and obligations but, rather,
as composed of those with whom one shares ties of kinship or ethnic
identity and cultural and/or religious affinity. These have been particu-
larly evident in areas of the globe where European colonialism has left its
imprint with the state—along with its attendant claim to territoriality—as
its most evident and perhaps most important legacy. These groups have
been variously referred to as “survivals” from pre-modern times, “poly-
communal,” and “primordial.” Regardless of how they are called, their
worldview has served to reinforce a conception of society which inculcates
reverence for one’s cultural identity and historical traditions—requisites
which the existing state system has been unable to fulfill. Post-World War
II attempts, both successful and unsuccessful, at secession by such groups
as the Bengalis in what is now known as Bangladesh (Bauzon 1977), aided
in part by India to weaken an enemy under humanitarian cover; the lbos
of Nigeria, defeated by an overwhelming military of the central govern-
ment as well as near-absence of diplomatic support; and the Kosovars,
despite lack of legal grounds, not even a referendum, successful largely
as a courtesy of the US/NATO intrusion into post-Cold War Eastern
Europe, support to weaken Serbia, a Cold War enemy’s ally, Russia, all
remind us not only of the fragility but also of the susceptibility of this
system for instrumental use depending on the configuration of forces and
their respective political and ideological motives.
In dealing with this problem, formalist writers have produced a whole
body of literature exploring its various dimensions and ramifications.
This literature may be subdivided into works which (a) treat it as a
problem belonging to the realm of international law and (b) regard it
as subject to the actual practices of states. This subdivision proceeds
from the assumption that, insofar as formalists are concerned, any claim
to a “natural right” to secession is untenable. As will be explained in
the following discussion, the state’s prerogative to self-preservation as a
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 CHAPTER VI.
REPTON’S MERRY BELLS.

“Barrow’s big boulders, Repton’s merry bells,

Foremark’s cracked pancheons, and Newton’s egg shells.”

Thus does a local poet compare Repton bells with those of

neighbouring parishes. It is not intended to defend the comparison,
for as Dogberry says, “Comparisons are odorous”! but to write an
account of the bells, derived from all sources, ancient and modern.
Llewellynn Jewitt, in Vol. XIII. of the Reliquary, describing the bells
of Repton, writes, “at the church in the time of Edward VI. there were
iij great bells & ij small.” Unfortunately “the Churchwardens’ and
Constables’ accounts of the Parish of Repton” only extend from the
year 1582 to 1635. I have copied out most of the references to our
bells entered in them, which will, I hope, be interesting to my
readers.
Extracts from “the Churchwardens’ and Constables’ accounts of the
Parish of Repton.”

A.D. 1583. The levy for the bell vjˡⁱ ixˢ 0

It’ spent at takying downe the bell xvjᵈ
It’ payd to the Bellfounder xxxiijˢ iijᵈ
It’ bestowed on the s’vants at casting
of ye bell xvjᵈ
It’ expensys drawing up the bell vijᵈ
It’ to the ryngers the xviiᵗʰ day of
november xijᵈ
A.D. 1584. Recevyd of the levy for the bell vjˡⁱ xˢ vijᵈ
It’ of Bretby towards the bell vjˢ viijᵈ
It’ spent at taking downe ye bell viijᵈ
 It’ bestowed on the bell founder ijᵈ
It’ Payd to Bellfounder for weight, i.e.,
iiij score & ij pounds iijˡⁱ xiˢ viijᵈ
A.D. 1585. It’ for a bell rope for the great bell ijˢ
It’ to John Pratt for makinge iiij newe
bellropes vˢ
It’ the day before Saynt Hew’s day for
mendyng the bels, & for nayles viijᵈ
A.D. 1586. It’ of our ladie’s even, given to the
ringers for the preservation of
our Queene xijᵈ
Our ladie’s even, eve of the
Annunciation of the Blessed
Virgin Mary (March 25th).
Preservation of our Queene Elizabeth
from the Babington Conspiracy.
A.D. 1587. It’ given unto the ringers uppon
coronation daye iijᵈ
A.D. 1589. It’ for a bell rope ijˢ viijᵈ
A.D. 1590. It’ payde to francis Eaton for
mendynge the irons aboutt the
bells ijˢ iijᵈ
A.D. 1592. It’ payde to Ralphe Weanwryghte for
trussynge the bells agyne the
Coronacyon daye iijˢ
A.D. 1600. It’ spent in takinge downe ye beell xijᵈ
It’ payd to John Welsh fordowne
takinge hitt donne vjᵈ
It’ spent in lodinge hitt iiijᵈ
It’ spent in charges going with the
beell to Nottingham, being towe
days and one night vjˢ viijᵈ
It’ payd to ye bellfounder for castinge
ye beell iiijˡⁱ xviijˢ
It’ spent with him ijᵈ
It’ payd for yookeinge ye Beell and ijˢ viijᵈ
 for greysse
It’ spent uppon them that holpe with
the beell xᵈ
A.D. 1603. It’ given to the ringers uppon New
yeares daye morninge vjᵈ
It’ given to ye ringers upon St. James
daye (July 25th) xijᵈ
It’ given to ye ringers the v daye of
August xijᵈ
A.D. 1605. It’ payd at hanginge up ye greatte bell vjᵈ
It’ bestowed of ye Ringers at ye first
Ringinge of ye bells vijᵈ
It’ payd for greese for ye bells viijᵈ
A.D. 1607. It’ given to ye Ringers uppon
Christmas daye morning iiijᵈ
A.D. 1614. It’ towe bellclappers
A.D. 1615. The names of them that gave money
to bye the newe beell 80
(Repton, 62. Milton, 18.)
Sum gathered xijˡⁱ viijˢ viijᵈ
A.D. 1623. First paide for castinge the bell vˡⁱ
It’ given to the Ringers at the time of
Prince Charlles his comminge
forth of spaine. (Oct. 1623). xijᵈ

Extract from the diary of Mr. George Gilbert.

“A.D. 1772, Oct. 7th. The third bell was cracked, upon ringing
at Mr. John Thorpe’s wedding. The bell upon being taken
down, weighed 7 cwt. 2 qr. 18lb., clapper, 24lb. It was
sold at 10d. per lb., £35. 18s. Re-hung the third bell, Nov.
21st, 1774. Weight 8 cwt. 3 qr. 24lb., at 13d. per lb., £54.
7s. 8d., clapper, 1 r. 22 lb., at 22d., £1. 2s. 10d. £55. 9s
6½d.”
 This is all the information I can gather about “Repton’s merry bells”
from ancient sources.
For some time our ring of six bells had only been “chimed,” owing
to the state of the beams which supported them, it was considered
dangerous to “ring” them.
During the month of January, 1896, Messrs. John Taylor and Co.,
of Loughborough, (descendants of a long line of bell-founders),
lowered the bells down, and conveyed them to Loughborough,
where they were thoroughly cleansed and examined. Four of them
were sound, but two, the 5th and 6th, were found to be cracked, the
6th (the Tenor bell) worse than the 5th. The crack started in both
bells from the “crown staple,” from which the “clapper” hangs; it (the
staple) is made of iron and cast into the crown of the bell. This has
been the cause of many cracked bells. The two metals, bell-metal
and iron, not yielding equally, one has to give way, and this is
generally the bell metal. The “Canons,” as the projecting pieces of
metal forming the handle, and cast with the bell, are called, and by
which they are fastened to the “headstocks,” or axle tree, were found
to be much worn with age. All the “Canons” have been removed,
holes have been drilled through the crown, the staples removed, and
new ones have been made which pass through the centre hole, and
upwards through a square hole in the headstocks, made of iron, to
replace the old wooden ones. New bell-frames of iron, made in the
shape of the letter H, fixed into oak beams above and below, support
the bells, which are now raised about three feet above the bell
chamber floor, and thus they can be examined more easily.
During the restoration of the Church in 1886, the opening of the
west arch necessitated the removal of the ringers’ chamber floor,
which had been made, at some period or other, between the ground
floor and the groined roof, so the ringers had to mount above the
groined ceiling when they had to ring or chime the bells. There,
owing to want of distance between them and the bells, the labour
and inconvenience of ringing was doubled, the want of sufficient
leverage was much felt: now the ringers stand on the ground floor,
and with new ropes and new “sally-guides” their labour is lessened,
and the ringing improved.
 When the bells were brought back from Loughboro’ I made careful
“rubbings” of the inscriptions, legends, bell-marks, &c., before they
were raised and fixed in the belfry. The information thus obtained,
together with that in Vol. XIII. of the Reliquary, has enabled me to
publish the following details about the bells.
The “rubbings” and “squeezes” for the article in the Reliquary were
obtained by W. M. Conway (now Sir Martin Conway) when he was a
boy at Repton School.
 Plate 6.

REPTON BELL MARKS AND ORNAMENTS.

The 1st (treble) Bell.

On the haunch, between three lines, one above, two below,
 FRAVNCIS THACKER OF LINCOLNS INN ESQᴿ, 1721.

a border: fleurs-de-lis (fig. 7): Bell-mark of Abraham Rudhall, (a

famous bell-founder of Gloucester): border (fig. 7).
A catalogue of Rings of Bells cast by A. R. and others, from 1684-
1830, is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford: this bell is mentioned as the
gift of Francis Thacker.
At the east end of the north aisle of our Church there is a mural
monument to his memory.
The 2nd Bell.
On the crown a border of fleurs-de-lis (fig. 9). Round the haunch,

Is sweetly toling men do call to taste on meats that feed the soule

between two lines above and below, then below the same border
(fig. 9) inverted.

1622 Godfrey Thacker Iane Thacker

This bell is referred to in the Churchwardens’ accounts under

dates 1615 and 1623.
The 3rd Bell.
Round the haunch, between two lines,
THOˢ. GILBERT & IOHN TETLEY CHVRCH WARDENS 1774 PACK & CHAPMAN
OF LONDON FECIT

Below, a border, semicircles intertwined.

This is the bell referred to in the extract quoted above from George
Gilbert’s diary.
The 4th Bell.
Round the haunch, between six lines (3 above and 3 below),

✠ Melodie Nomen Tenet Magdelene

a shield: three bells (two and one), with a crown between them (fig.
1), (Bell mark of Richard Brasyer, a celebrated Norwich Bell founder,
who died in 1513) a lion’s head on a square (fig. 2): a crown on a
square (fig. 3); and a cross (fig. 5).
The 5th Bell.
Round the haunch, between two lines, one above, one below,

✠ Vox du̅ i̅ ihū x̅ r̅ i̅ vox exultarionis

same marks (except the crown) as No. 4 Bell: a king’s head crowned
(fig. 4): and a cross (fig. 6). Below this, round the haunch, a beautiful
border composed of a bunch of grapes and a vine leaf (fig. 8),
alternately arranged.
 Below, the Bell mark of John Taylor and Co. within a double circle,
a triangle interlaced with a trefoil, and a bell in the centre. Above the
circle the sacred emblem of S. John Baptist, the lamb, cross, and
flag. The name of the firm within the circle.
RECAST 1896.
The 6th Bell (the tenor Bell).
Round the haunch, between four lines, two above, and two below,

Hec Campana Sacra Fiat Trinitate Beata GILB THACKAR ESQ IC MW CH

WARDENS 1677

(no bell marks).

Below, a border like that on the fifth Bell.

RECAST 1896.

G. WOODYATT, VICAR.
J. ASTLE, }
CHURCHWARDENS.
T. E. AUDEN, }

Bell mark of J. Taylor and Co. on the opposite side.

(Owing to the difference of the type of the inscription, and names,
it is supposed that this bell was recast in 1677, so it may have been
one of the “three great bells” in Edward VI.’s time.)
The following particulars of the bells have been supplied by
Messrs. John Taylor & Co.

Diameter. Height. Note. Weight.

ft. in. ft. in. cwt. qr. lbs.
No. I. 2 9½ 2 3 C♯ 7 3 19
 ” II. 2 10¾ 2 4½ B 7 2 27
” III. 3 0½ 2 4½ A 8 1 18
” IV. 3 2 2 6½ G♯ 9 2 21
” V. 3 6 2 10 F♯ 12 2 26
” VI. 3 11 3 1 E 17 3 0

Total 3 tons 4 cwts. 0 qrs. 27 lbs.

Key-note E major.
To complete the octave, two more bells are required, D ♯ and E,
then indeed Repton will have a “ring” second to none.
 CHAPTER VII.
THE PRIORY.

THE PRIORY FOUNDED, &c.

Before we write an account of the next most important event in the
history of Repton, viz., the founding of Repton Priory, we must go
back to the year 1059, when Calke Abbey is supposed to have been
founded by Algar, Earl of Mercia. Dr. Cox is of opinion that it was
founded later, at the end of the reign of William (Rufus), or at the
beginning of that of Henry I. circa 1100. About that date a Priory of
Canons regular of St. Augustine, dedicated to St. Giles, was
founded. Many benefactors made grants of churches, lands, &c., a
list of all these will be found in Cox’s Derbyshire Churches, vol. iii., p.
346. There is a curious old Chronicle, written in Latin, by one
T(h)omas de Musca, Canon of Dale Abbey. Each section of the
Chronicle begins with a letter which, together, form the Author’s
name, a monkish custom not uncommon. The section beginning with
an E. (Eo tempore) records the arrival, at Deepdale, of the Black
Canons, as they were called, from Kalc (Calke). Serlo de Grendon,
Lord of Badeley or Bradeley, near Ashbourne, “called together the
Canons of Kalc, and gave them the place of Deepdale.” Here, about
1160, the Canons “built for themselves a church, a costly labour, and
other offices,” which became known as Dale Abbey, in which they
lived for a time, “apart from the social intercourse of men,” but “they
began too remissly to hold themselves in the service of God; they
began to frequent the forest more than the church; more to hunting
than to prayer or meditation, so the King ordered them to return to
the place whence they came,” viz., Calke. During the reign of Henry
II., Matilda, widow of Randulf, 4th Earl of Chester, who died 1153,
granted to God, St. Mary, the Holy Trinity, and to the Canons of
Calke, the working of a quarry at Repton, (Repton Rocks), together
with the advowson of the church of St. Wystan at Repton, &c., &c.,
on condition that as soon as a suitable opportunity should occur, the
Canons of Calke should remove to Repton, which was to be their
chief house, and Calke Abbey was to become subject to it. “A
suitable opportunity occurred” during the episcopate of Walter
Durdent, Bishop of Coventry only, at first, afterwards of Lichfield. He
died at Rome, Dec. 7th, 1159. The usual date given for the founding
of Repton Priory is a.d. 1172, but this must be wrong for the simple
reason that Matilda addresses the Charter of Foundation to Bishop
Walter Durdent, who died, as we saw, in 1159: moreover, the
“remains” of the Priory belong to an earlier date; probably the date
1172 refers to the coming of the Canons from Calke to Repton, as
Dugdale writes, “About the year 1172, Maud, widow of Randulf,
removed the greater part of them here (Repton), having prepared a
church and conventual buildings for their reception.” To those
interested in Charters, copies of the original, and many others, can
be read in Bigsby’s “History of Repton,” Dugdale’s “Monasticon,” and
Stebbing-Shaw’s Article in Vol. II. of “the Topographer,” in which he
has copied several “original Charters, not printed in the Monasticon,”
which were in the possession of Sir Robert Burdett, Bart., of
Foremark, and others.
 Plate 7.

Repton Priory.

The Charters, containing grants, extend from Stephen’s reign,

(1135-1154), to the reign of Henry V., (1413-1422), and include the
church of St. Wystan, Repton, with its chapels of Newton Solney,
Bretby, Milton, Foremark, Ingleby, Tickenhall, Smisby, and Measham,
the church at Badow, in Essex, estates at Willington, including its
church, and Croxall.
In 1278 a dispute arose between the Prior of Repton and the
inhabitants of the Chapelry of Measham, which had been granted to
the Priory about 1271. The chancel of Measham Church was “out of
repair,” and the question was, who should repair it? After
considerable debate, it was settled that the inhabitants would re-
build the chancel provided that the Priory should find a priest to
officiate in the church, and should keep the chancel in repair for ever
after, both of which they did till the dissolution of the Priory.
 In the year 1364 Robert de Stretton, Bishop of Lichfield (1360-
1386), was holding a visitation at Repton in the Chapter House of the
Priory. For some reason or other, not known, the villagers, armed
with bows and arrows, swords and cudgels, with much tumult, made
an assault on the Priory gate-house. The Bishop sent for Sir Alured
de Solney, and Sir Robert Francis, Lords of the Manors of Newton
Solney and Foremark, who came, and quickly quelled this early
“town and gown” row, without any actual breach of the peace. The
monument in the crypt of Repton Church, where it was placed during
the “restoration” of 1792, is supposed to be an effigy of Sir Robert
Frances. “The Bishop proceeded on his journey, and, on reaching
Alfreton, issued a sentence of interdict on the town and Parish
Church of Repton, with a command to the clergy, in the neighbouring
churches, to publish the same under pain of greater
excommunication.” See Lichfield Diocesan Registers.
On October 26th, 1503, during the reign of Henry VII., an
inquisition was held at Newark. A complaint was heard against the
Prior of Repton for not providing a priest “to sing” the service in a
chapel on Swarkeston Bridge, “nor had one been provided for the
space of twenty years, although a piece of land between the bridge
and Ingleby, of the annual value of six marks, had been given to the
Prior for that purpose.”

THE PRIORY DISSOLVED AND DESTROYED.

The Priory of Repton was dissolved in the year 1538. By the
advice of Thomas Cromwell—malleus monachorum—the hammer of
the monks—Henry VIII. issued a commission of inquiry into the
condition, &c., of the monasteries in England. A visitation was made
in 1535, the results were laid before the House of Commons, in a
report commonly known as the “Black Book.” In 1536 an Act was
passed for the suppression of all monasteries possessing an income
of less than £200. a year. By this Act 376 monasteries were
dissolved, and their revenues, £32,000. per annum, were granted to
the King, by Divine permission Head of the Church! Repton Priory
was among them. In the Valor Ecclesiasticus (27 Henry VIII.) the
gross annual value of the temporalities and spiritualities is given as
£167. 18s. 2½d. In 1535, Dr. Thomas Leigh and Dr. Richard Layton,
visited Repton and gave the amount as £180. Also they reported, as
they were expected, that the Canons were not living up to their vows,
&c., &c., and “Thomas Thacker was put in possession of the scite of
the seid priory and all the demaynes to yᵗ apperteynying to oʳ
sov’aigne lorde the Kynges use the xxvj day of October in the xxx
yere of oʳ seid sov’aigne lorde Kyng henry the viijᵗʰ.” There is a very
full inventory of the goods and possessions in the Public Record
Office, Augmentation Office Book, 172. A transcript of this inventory
is given by Bigsby in his History of Repton, also by W. H. St. John
Hope, in Vol. VI. of the Derbyshire Archæological Journal. From this
inventory, and Mr. St. John Hope’s articles in the journal, a very good
account and description can be given of the Priory as it was at the
time of its dissolution.
The dissolved Priory was granted to Thomas Thacker in 1539, he
died in 1548, leaving his property to his son Gilbert. He, according to
Fuller (Church History, bk. vi., p. 358), “being alarmed with the news
that Queen Mary had set up abbeys again (and fearing how large a
reach such a precedent might have), upon a Sunday (belike the
better day, the better deed) called together the carpenters and
masons of that county, and plucked down in one day (churchwork is
a cripple in going up, but rides post in coming down) a most beautiful
church belonging thereto, saying “he would destroy the nest, for fear
the birds should build therein again”.” The destruction took place in
the year 1553. How well he accomplished the work is proved by the
ruins uncovered during the years 1883-4.
This Gilbert died in 1563, as set forth on the mural tablet in the
south aisle of Repton Church, a copy of which I have made, so that
my readers may see what sort of a person he was who “wrought
such a deed of shame.” Gilbert sold the remains of the Priory to the
executors of Sir John Port in 1557, he and his descendants lived at
the Hall till the year 1728, when Mary Thacker, heiress of the Manor
of Repton Priory, left it, and other estates, to Sir Robert Burdett, of
Foremark, Bart. Since that time the Hall has been occupied by the
Headmasters of Repton School.
 REPTON PRIORY DESCRIBED.
The Priory followed the usual plan of monastic buildings, differing
chiefly in having the cloister on the north of its church, instead of the
south. This alteration was necessary owing to the river Trent being
on the north. In choosing a site for monasteries the water supply was
of the first consideration, as everything, domestic and sanitary,
depended on that. The Conventual buildings consisted of Gate-
house, Cloister, with Church on its south side, Refectory or Fratry on
its north. The Chapter Rouse, Calefactorium, with Dormitory above
them, on its east side. Kitchens, buttery, cellars, with Guest Hall over
them, on its west side. The Infirmary, now Repton Hall, “beside the
still waters” of the Trent, on the north of the Priory. The Priory
precincts, (now the Cricket ground), were surrounded by the existing
wall on the west, south, and east sides; on the north flowed, what is
now called, “the Old Trent,” and formed a boundary in that direction.

Plate 8.
 Sir John Porte Knt. The Founder of Repton School. (F. C. H.) (Page 62.)

Gilbert Thacker. (Page 54.)

On the east side of the Priory was the Mill. The wall, with arch-
way, through which the water made its way across the grounds in a
north-westerly direction, is still in situ in the south-east corner of the
Cricket ground. The Priory, and well-stocked fish ponds, were thus
supplied with water for domestic, sanitary, and other purposes.
The bed of the stream was diverted to its present course, outside
the eastern boundary wall, by Sir John Harpur, in the year 1606.
The Gate-house (now represented by the School Arch, which was
its outer arch, and wall) consisted of a square building with an upper
chamber, and other rooms on the ground floor for the use of the
porter. Two “greate gates,” with a wicket door let into one of them, for
use when the gates were closed, or only pedestrians sought for
admission, provided an entrance to the Priory. Proceeding through
the arch-way of the Gate-house, we find ourselves in the precincts.
In the distance, on our left hand, was the Parish Church of St.
Wystan, on our right the Priory Church and conventual buildings.
The Priory Church consisted of nave, with north and south aisles,
central tower, north and south transepts, choir, with aisles, and a
south chapel, and a presbytery to the east of the choir. The Nave (95
ft. 6 in. long, and, with aisles, 51 ft. 8 in. wide) “was separated from
the aisles by an arcade of six arches, supported by clustered pillars
of good design, and must have been one of the most beautiful in this
part of the country, all of exceptionally good character and design,
and pertained to the transitional period of architecture which
prevailed during the reign of Edward I., (1272-1307), when the
severe simplicity of the Early English was merging into the more
flowing lines of the Decorated.” In the north aisle the foundations of
an older church, perhaps the original one, were discovered in 1883-
4.
There were several Chapels in the Nave, two of which are named,
viz., “Oʳ lady of petys Chapell” and the “Chapell of Saint Thomas,”
with images, “reredoses, of wood gylte, and alebaster,” “and a
partition of tymber seled ouerin seint Thom’s Chapell.” “vij. peces of
tymber and lytell oulde house of tymber,” probably the remains of a
shrine, and “xij. Apostells,” i.e. images of them. “j sacrying bell,”
sanctus bell, used during the celebration of the mass. In the floor, in
front of the central tower arch, a slab was discovered, (6 ft. 4 in. by 3
ft. 2 in.), bearing a rudely cut cross, with two steps, and an
inscription, in Old English letters, partly obliterated, round the margin
“(Orate pro) anima magistri edmundi duttoni quondam canonici huius
ecclisie qui obiit ... januarii anno diu mcccclᵒ cui’ ppic (deus Amen).”
This slab is now lying among the ruins at the east end of the Pears
School.
Central Tower (25 ft. by 21 ft. 6 in.) supported by four large piers.
Between the two eastern piers there was a pulpitum, a solid stone
screen (5 ft. 4½ in. deep), with a door in the centre (4 ft. 4½ in.
wide). In the northern half was a straight stone stair leading to the
organ loft above, where was “j ould pair of Organs,” a phrase often
met with in old inventories, and church accounts, in describing that
instrument of music. Through the passage under the screen we
enter the Choir. The step leading down to the choir floor, much worn
by the feet of the canons and pilgrims, is still in situ. The Choir (26 ft.
wide, 31 ft. long) was separated from the south Choir aisle, by an
arcade of five arches, from the north choir aisle, by an arcade of
three arches. All traces of the Canons’ stalls have gone, but there
was room for about thirty-four, thirteen on each side, and four
returned at the west end of the Choir. In the Choir was the High Altar
with “v. great Images” at the back of which was a retable, or ledge of
alabaster, with little images, (on a reredos with elaborate canopies
above them). “iiij lytle candlestyks” and “a laumpe of latten,” i.e., a
metal chiefly composed of copper, much used in church vessels,
also “j rode” or cross.
On the south of the choir was a chapel dedicated to St. John, with
his image, and alabaster table, similar to that in the choir. To the
south of St. John’s Chapel was the “Chapel our Lady” similarly
ornamented, these two chapels were separated from the south
transept by “partitions of tymber,” or screens, the holes in which the
screens were fixed are still to be seen in the bases of the pillars. On
the east of the choir was the Presbytery. In the South Transept was
the Chapel of St. Nicholas with images of St. John and St. Syth, (St.
Osyth, daughter of Frithwald, over-lord of the kingdom of Surrey, and
Wilterberga daughter of King Penda). Of the North Choir Aisle
nothing remains: it is supposed that in it was the shrine of St.
Guthlac, whose sanctus bell is thus referred to by the visitors in their
report “superstitio—Huc fit peregrinatio ad Sanctum Guthlacum et ad
eius campanam quam solent capitibus imponere ad restinguendum
dolorem capitis.” “Superstition. Hither a pilgrimage is made to (the
shrine of) St. Guthlac and his (sanctus) bell, which they were
accustomed to place to their heads for the cure of headache.” The
North Transept was separated from the north choir aisle by an
arcade of three arches, immediately to the east of which the
foundations of a wall, about six feet wide, were discovered, which,
like those in the north nave aisle, belonged to an older building.
Many beautiful, painted canopies, tabernacle work, &c., were found
among the débris of the north transept and aisle, which no doubt
adorned the shrines, and other similar erections, which, before the
suppression of the monasteries, had been destroyed, and their relics
taken away—that is, probably, the reason why we find no mention of
the shrines of St. Guthlac, or St. Wystan in the Inventory.
In the western wall of the North Transept there was a curious
recess (13 ft. 10 in. by 4 ft. 10 in.) which may have been the
armarium, or cupboard of the Vestry, to hold the various ornaments,
and vestments used by the Canons, “j Crosse of Coper, too tynacles,
(tunicles), ij albes, ij copes of velvet, j cope of Reysed Velvet, iiij
towels & iiij alter clothes, ij payented Alterclothes,” &c., &c.
Leaving the Church, we enter the Cloister, through the door at the
east end of the Nave, it opened into the south side of the Cloister (97
ft. 9 in. long by 95 ft. wide). Here were “seats,” and “a lavatory of
lead,” but, owing to alterations, very little indeed is left except the
outside walls. Passing along the eastern side we come to the
Chapter House, the base of its entrance, divided by a stone mullion
into two parts, was discovered, adjoining it on the north side was a
slype, or passage, through which the bodies of the Canons were
carried for interment in the cemetery outside. The slype (11¾ ft. wide
by 25½ ft. long) still retains its roof, “a plain barrel vault without ribs,
springing from a chamfered string course.” Next to the slype was the
Calefactorium or warming room. Over the Chapter House, Slype,
and Calefactorium was the Dormitory or Dorter, which was
composed of cells or cubicles.
The Fratry or Refectory occupied the north side of the Cloister,
here the Canons met for meals, which were eaten in silence,
excepting the voice of the reader. A pulpit was generally built on one
of the side walls, from which legends, &c., were read. Underneath
the Fratry was a passage, leading to the Infirmary, and rooms, used
for various purposes, Scriptorium, &c. At the east end of the Fratry
was the Necessarium, well built, well ventilated, and well flushed by
the water from the Mill race.
At the west end of the Fratry was the Buttery. The west side of the
Cloister was occupied by the Prior’s Chamber, and five others called,
in the Inventory, “the Inner,” “Gardyn,” “Next,” “Halle,” and “Hygh
Chambers.” All were furnished with “fether bedds, &c., &c.,” for the
use of guests, who were received and entertained in this part of the
Priory. Underneath these rooms were “the Kychenn,” “Larder,”
“Bruhouse,” &c., called the Cellarium, over which the Cellarer had
supreme authority. Originally the Cellarium was divided into three
parts, Kitchen, Cellar, and Slype or passage into the south side of
the Cloister. The part assigned to the Kitchen was sub-divided into
three rooms, one on the east side, two on the west. One of these two
(the south) has a vaulted roof, with plain square ribs, the boss where
they meet has been carved, and a part of one of the ribs has been
ornamented with the dog tooth moulding, for about 18 inches, there it
stopped unfinished, in the walls are many recesses for the reception
of “plate,” &c.
The Cellar was a long room (89 ft. by 26 ft.), divided into two
“alleys” by a row of six massive Norman columns, four of which
remain, one has a scollopped capital, the others are plain. The floor
above was divided in a similar manner, with the Prior’s Chamber at
the north end, the Guest Hall, divided into the various rooms
mentioned above, and a chamber over the slype, which was
probably used as a parlour by the guests.