The article was greatly inspired by @essobecker.bsky.social r.bsky.social Yuan Hsiao, Steven Pfaff and @jaredcrubin.com's article on Luther journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

We use Gregory's letters to capture his influence network. Next, we demonstrate that letter-receiving towns introduced self-government earlier and to a larger extent than towns outside of Gregory's network

We argue that Gregory, as part of his papal revolution, built alliances with pious townsmen across Italy, Germany, France and the Low Countries to push his reform program. To impose reforms on unreformed lord-bishops, townsmen had to take political power and institute self-government.

The family became afflicted with the disease of dynasties: inheritance by babies and buffoon, or both
That would normally be the death nail for a noble House, but not this time. The Estates of Württemberg stepped in to protect the state, deposed buffoons and ruledon behalf of the babies. (2/3)

That might be more of a feature of city-states (in a relative stateless environment) than democracy per say. Warfare was also frequent in medieval communes (see, e.g., Epstein 2000 "The rise and fall of Italien city-states")

Stort tillykke!

Dont know that current events aren't similarly negative with regards to democracy

Based on similar "laws", no democratic breakdown can happen after 60 years of competitive elections or at the level of economic development attained by the US..

Cool paper!