Utopia, you are standing in it!

Administration

After 1066, William did not attempt to integrate his separate domains into one unified realm or Kingdom with one set of laws. His seal from after 1066, of which six impressions still survive, was made for him after he conquered England and stressed his role as king, while separately mentioning his role as Duke. When in Normandy, William acknowledged that he owed fealty to the King of the Franks, but in England no such acknowledgment was made – further evidence that the various parts of William’s lands were considered separate.

The administrative machinery of Normandy, England, and Maine continued to exist separate from the other lands, with each one retaining its own forms. For example, England continued the use of writs, which were not known on the continent. Also, the charters and documents produced for the government in Normandy differed in formulas from those produced in England.

In common…

At the conclusion of the first round of voting for the French National Assembly, with projections showing a majority for newly elected President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP ranging from nearly two thirds to more than three fourth of the seats, I posed the question of whether France needed a new electoral system. With the party system fragmented, yet now dominated by two large and relatively moderate parties, the old majority-plurality two-round system no longer seemed to be serving the country well. When the electoral system was adopted in 1958 (and used for every election since then, except for 1986), there were no real “giants” in the fragmented party system and not even two clear blocs. One of the largest parties was a doctrinaire Communist party. In that context, a system that very quickly realigned the parties into two major blocs and led to the under-representation of the Communists was a…

Chen Yeh in this Richmond Fed economic brief:

Recent research has emphasized the importance of a few large firms in driving overall economic fluctuations, a view known as the “granular hypothesis.” I find that the granular hypothesis can explain about 15 percent of aggregate U.S. fluctuations, a smaller share than found in other research. Thus, the granular hypothesis plays a meaningful role for the U.S. economy, but there is still plenty of room for aggregate factors to be relevant.

15% is quite large.

Starting next year, Golden State residents are going to have a lot less pork options to eat resulting from a ballot initiative passed in 2018. According to the Associated Press, 2022 is when rules for a ballot proposition requiring more space for pigs, chickens who lay eggs, and veal calves.

While nationally-based pork food producers can meet the new requirements,the AP states only a fraction of hog operators are in compliance. Consequently, California not only stands to lose almost its entire pork supply most of which is shipped in from Iowa in which pork meat production costs stand to go very high. One farmer interviewed by the AP stated he would have to raise his pig selling prices an additional $20 in order to cover the costs.

With pork no longer available in California, it not only will hurt local restaurants and state supermarkets very hard, but porn prices…

In today’s blog Dr Simon Payling from our Commons 1461-1504 project continues our ongoing look into the marriages of Parliamentarians, both happy and unhappy. Divorce in medieval England was infrequent and difficult to secure, but this did not stop individuals from making an attempt…

Medieval England knew two forms of divorce. The first, and overwhelmingly the most important, was divorce a vinculo matrimonii (from the bond of marriage), a ruling by the Church that a marriage had never been valid. This turned on some default in the couple’s consent to it, either that consent had been coerced or they themselves were canonically incapable of giving it (because, for example, they were underage or too closely related to make a valid marriage). The second, what might be termed a separation, was divorce a mensa et thoro (from bed and board), a ruling that the couple need no longer live together on…