Georges Duby on the Guardian Angels
Today's reading is George Duby's "The evolution of judicial institutions" from The Chivalrous Society. Interestingly enough, his description of how barons and warlords in tenth and eleventh century Burgundy took control of the courts away from the king kind of explains why the Guardian Angels' attempts to start a Toronto chapter are not going over very well with the mayor and the police chief.

One of the great many ways to define feudalism* is as a system in which public justice is exercised by private individuals. And that's where the Angels are running into problems. While they may have been a grassroots community organization when they were founded in New York, it's not clear that the Toronto chapter is particularly representative of the communities it wants to patrol. The public doesn't seem to have any input into the Angels' training and the Angels don't seem to be accountable to anyone if the public has complaints about them. For some reason, the mayor and the chief of police seem to be attached to the quaint notion that officials with public power should be democratically elected. I can't imagine why.

*...if indeed the term feudalism should be used or defined at all, but that's another academic bunfight for another day.