Legitimization:

Lowi is correct that modern, Western governments become legitimized when their values and their procedures are documented. This was not the case before the Enlightenment. Illiterate populations could not rely on documents. Governments did not rely on them. They relied on personal oaths. When a squire received his spurs to become a knight he recited an oath to his king. Now when a citizen becomes an officer and a gentleman he signs an agreement. Any subsequent oath is incidental to that agreement. The Pope ordained the invasion of England when Harold breached his oath of allegiance to William.⁽⁴⁵⁾ The Magna Charta of 1215 was incidental to the papal oath which King John was compelled to recite. The Pope released the King from his pledge, and the Magna Charta fell into irrelevance until the Stuarts in the 17th century.⁽⁴⁶⁾ The use of written statutes was neglected until Edward I in 1272.⁽⁴⁷⁾ The 1526 Treaty of Madrid and the 1529 Treaty of Cambrai between Charles V and Francis I were incidental to the oaths each took before the Pope.⁽⁴⁸⁾

An illiterate society with an internal, Augustinian, epistemology could rely on personal oaths. The welfare of the kingdom could depend on the character of the king. This is not the case in a literate society with an objective, Aquinian, epistemology.

As the Renaissance gave way to the Enlightenment, both populations and governments came to rely upon written documents. The values which were articulated in the Declaration of Independence were continued in the mechanics of the Articles of Confederation. The mechanics of the Constitution were continued in the values set forth in the Bill of Rights.⁽⁴⁹⁾ The American government was based on documents rather than personalities and pledges. Shortly after the American government came to rely on written documents the French articulated their values in the Declaration of the Rights of Man.⁽⁵⁰⁾ Beginning with the Stuarts in 1702, the British looked back to the 1215 Magna Charta, the 1628 Petition of Right, and the 1689 Bill of Rights to form "the Bible of the English Constitution".⁽⁵¹⁾ These fundamental English documents were immediately amended by the 1707 Treaty of Union with Scotland. The welfare of the kingdom could no longer depend on the character of the king. The legitimacy of the government now rested on its basic documents. Governments had changed from the traditional to the legal-rational model.

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