The Medieval Origins of the Electoral College

February 06, 2001

The institutions of government involved in the recent election, including judicial authority and representative legislatures, have their origins in the Middle Ages. Questia's Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Stanley Chodorow, lead a discussion of the origins and the development of our current political practices, values, and systems.

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Questia: Thank you for joining us, our guest this evening is Dr. Stanley Chodorow. Dr. Chodorow is Vice President for Academic Affairs at Questia Media Inc. and Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of California, San Diego. He is a specialist on the history of law and constitutional ideas in the Middle Ages and has written scholarly books and articles on these subjects.

Dr. Chodorow: Hello. This evening we'll talk about the origins of our governmental institutions, the ones that recently produced a new president, when the electoral process faltered. We'll consider where we got our ideas about the powers of the legislature, the limits on executive power, the rights of individuals vis-a-vis the state, and the independence of the judiciary. You'll be surprised to learn all of these ideas arose in Europe in the medieval period, long before political power was transferred by elections

Burrito Brat: Where and when did the Electoral College first begin?

Dr. Chodorow: The Electoral College was created in 1059. It was created in order to elect a Pope for the first time. Prior to that, Popes were selected by political powers like emperors or aristocratic leaders in or around Rome. The church created the Electoral College in order to escape the influence of secular power.

Bob: Can you explain to us what the purpose of the Electoral College is and how it works?

Dr. Chodorow: The Electoral College was a college of cardinals. Let me explain what a cardinal is. In the early church a cardinal was a person who's a priest who had the right to say mass in the church in the diocese of Rome. Gradually the number of cardinals became fixed. When the church was looking for a way to escape secular political power, it seized on this group of priests in the Roman Diocese and made them into an Electoral College at any time that a Pope had to be elected. One problem in the first legislation of 1059 was that the person who received the votes of the greater and wiser party won the election. That's the way the legislation read. The problem, of course, is that greater and wiser are not quantitative measures. So, a party of one could claim to be the greater and wiser party. This problem led to many double elections, and was finally corrected with legislation passed in 1179 when the principal or majority rule was first enunciated.

Why Not: How do people become involved with the Electoral College and what roles do each have?

Dr. Chodorow: The people who were in the Electoral College were the people who were the cardinals - the priests who had the right to say mass only in churches. You were automatically in the college if you were a cardinal. The college existed only in times of election, but over time Popes began to rely on the men who had elected them to do governmental jobs. They used them as ambassadors and political agents of various kinds. When Papal governments began to become elaborate and bureaucratic, it was the cardinals who managed the governmental departments.

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