Political Science Of The State

48 POLITICAL SCIENCE.
which their assent begins to be nominal; something as it
was in the election of bishops a few centuries after the
Christian church was founded. We will consider first the
constitution, as it related to the election of the doge, his
power and the limitations placed upon it, then the great
"council and then the smaller councils of various kinds,
I. The doge. There can be little doubt, I think, that at
the first all the people cast their vote for this
°ge' officer, and that only afterward the great coun-
cil began to exercise an important control over elections.
The subsequent custom of calling the people together to an-
nounce to them the election, as well as the stormy scenes at
theT election of early doges, shows this. As late as when old
Henry Dandolo was made doge (1192), and another manner
of election was in use, the newly appointed council sum-
moned the inhabitants of the territory from " capnt Aggcris"
(Cavarzere) to the island of Grddo, pro election* dncis so-
lemniter celebrando. The council being assembled after the
usual fashion, forty electors were appointed by them, who,
having chosen the doge on the first day of January, announced
him to the people. Here all the people had to do was to
hear the result of the election.
When the people ceased to have any effective voice, and
when the council became in fact the electing body, I cannot
ascertain. Domenicus Sylvus, or Sylvius, in 1071 was crea-
ted duke, according to Andrea Dandolo, by all the people
(cuncto populo) \ Domenico Michele is said by him to have
been created and nothing further is added (ill?). Pietro
Polano (1180) is appointed by the great council. Scbastiano
Ziani was chosen (1173) by eleven sworn men whose names, as
given by Dandolo, show them to have belonged to well-
known noble families. This doge had feeble health, and
during his lifetime, the same chronicler tells us, a law was
passed to the effect that four men should choose forty, by the
majority of whom the next doge (who was Orio Mastropetro)
should be elected. In 1229 the electors were divided into
two equal parts, and the lot was used to decide between the