When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 588 Constitutional Convention (Part )
Definition of a resident, what are his duties and rights? Perpetual lease?
Venise and Abaz beside him looked at each other and saw surprise in each other's eyes.

Within the empire, there has always been only a vague concept of "what is a citizen" and "what are their rights and obligations."

This is the prominent manifestation of the unwritten law criticized by the Al scholars. If nothing else, it facilitates the small operations of notaries, judges and lawyers.

This is even the civilized world west of the Longmian Mountains!
The Norn Lords in the east treated their subjects as livestock, and would often send knights to forcibly capture a group of subjects and sell them to arms dealers and slave traders.

This resulted in the Norns accounting for nearly half of the empire's mercenary market and demon hunter group.

And this tiny Qianhe Valley actually tried to define the identity of its citizens through laws?
Rufair blinked, with a look of surprise in her eyes.

After hearing what Venise said just now, she was really a little afraid that the constitutional convention would discuss some cheap topics or quarrel over a beehive, but she didn't expect that they would come up with such high-level laws right from the start.

She immediately took out a pen and paper and prepared to start taking notes.

“According to Article 1 of the Sacred Constitution, the power of a lord comes from the dual recognition of his subjects and the Holy Father, so we must determine who the subjects are, and from this, what the subjects possess and what they bear.

Yesterday, we passed the definition of citizens, that is, residents who were born or have lived in Qianhe Valley for a long time, are loyal to the country, and abide by the constitution and national laws.

The most basic rights of the subjects are life and freedom, the rights granted to them by the Holy Father as believers, which must not be illegally infringed.

The form of public book farming obviously violated this standard, but directly abolishing public book farming infringed the rights and interests of the lords who were also believers, so the two princes proposed the "Bill to Grant Perpetual Lease Rights to Public Book Farmers."

The human rights of the people and the permanent lease rights of the public landowners are thus bound together, and we are now entering into today’s topic.”

The master of ceremonies read aloud today's agenda and opening remarks.

"Your Highnesses are both confused about this, so I hope that the representatives can answer them and provide reasonable suggestions to your two honorable highnesses."

For the three young men from Ayr, although the term "perpetual lease" is a niche term, it is not something they have never heard of.

In the southern part of France, this model has already been implemented in the estates of some great nobles.

The so-called perpetual lease right is to divide the land into ownership and use rights.

Once the two parties sign a perpetual lease treaty, the lord is not allowed to deprive the public farmer of his land or increase the rent at will unless the public farmer gives it up himself.

However, local lords, including mountain knights who had made great contributions in the war and were eager to obtain the manors in Plain County, could not accept the abolition of the public farming system.

Because public farming is a certain degree of personal dependence and fixed assets.

Some public farmers worked as laborers in the city, and the lords forced their shares of land to be cultivated by other public farmers.

The public farmers who farmed the land in their hometown had to pay more rent because they planted more land. The public farmers who worked as laborers in the city still had to pay rent for their land to the lord.

Scrape the ground twice.

Otherwise, the lord could use the Fugitive Slave Act to forcibly deprive the public farmers of all their property, or even their lives.

Depriving the nobles and lords of this benefit would mean a sharp drop in income, and the representatives on the right all lowered their heads to discuss countermeasures.

In this newly formed Council of State, their goal was not to convince the people in the other two seats, but to convince the person sitting on the throne.

Whoever can convince the two princes on the throne will win. This is the unanimous opinion they have reached these days.

The victory or defeat of the three representatives in the debate does not necessarily translate into victory or defeat in the bill. The two "million-vote masters" are the ones who make the laws.

So they had to consider the interests and goals of both Wanpiaoye at the same time and compromise for this.

With a cough, a noble representative from the right seat stood up and said, "Your Highnesses, I agree that the lives of the people in the territory cannot be taken away at will, but haven't they already used up their freedom?
Your Excellency, the Despot, Your Excellency, the Patriarch, the land is mine. Without it, they would starve to death. They have no extra freedom because they have exchanged their freedom for their lives!"

"exactly."

"well said."

The nobles immediately began to flatter him. To admit that Gongbunong's life could not be taken away at will was already a big concession in the eyes of the nobles.

Unfortunately, the representatives from the left seat did not think so, and Armand was soon elected.

Rufelle, who was in the audience, blinked her eyes. Where did this child come from? But her puzzled and amused expression soon disappeared because Armand spoke.

"Life is given to believers by the Holy Father. They work for you, so you must protect the lives of believers. This is not an extra gift, but what believers deserve. How can freedom be exchanged for life?"

The noble's face froze, and he thought for a long time without being able to respond. He just lowered his head and sat down amid the boos from the left seat.

The first two debates and counterattacks made Rufelle very surprised. She looked at Venise with a smug look, as if to say, "How is it? Still vulgar?"

From a logical point of view, this debate is quite rigorous and reasonable.

There was no such thing as the "Pete was killed by a man, and Pete is a man, so Pete was killed by Pete, sentence Pete to death, case closed" common in country courts of this era.

The feather pen moved quickly, and Rufair quickly wrote down and summarized the conversation and logic of both parties on the paper.

At this time, the second round of confrontation has begun.

Seeing that they could not win the debate on basic rights, the right-wing representatives began to try to make trouble on the right of perpetual lease.

"So what if we give them perpetual leases? Do they know how to farm? Public farmers just need to focus on their work, but we nobles have a lot to think about!"

Armand then stood up and retorted: "Do you grow more land, or do they grow more land? The free armed farmers can farm well, why can't the public farmers do it?"

"The armed peasants are a branch of the nobility, a minority. Even if there is chaos, they cannot affect the overall situation." Clowen jumped up and refuted, "Originally, we could adjust according to the income of the land, collect less in bad years and more in good years, but now it has become a fixed share every year, which is too rigid."

"Bullshit!" Legion Commander Rudilo jumped onto the table, pointed at Klowin's nose and cursed, "I am a public farmer from your territory, and you said 'harvest less in bad years and more in good years'. You harvest more in good years, but I never see you harvest less in bad years."

Count Sampoli sat there and complained: "The public farmer has ruined the land, and I have to bear the consequences. Who will make up for the lack of land income for me?"

"Then you can charge a fixed rent."

As the topic became more and more in-depth, the representatives rolled up their sleeves, banged on the table, sweated profusely, and even unbuttoned their collars to fan themselves with constitutional documents.

In this chaotic scene, Rufair actually saw that the dwarves in the left and right seats were drowsy, and the representatives in the middle seat were even secretly eating breakfast with their heads down.

Listening to the noisy shouting, she stopped writing in embarrassment. It was impossible to record anything in such a chaotic scene.

She didn't even want to look at Venise's face, which was trying to hold back a smile. It was quite intimidating at first, but it suddenly changed in the middle.

"Order! Order!" Meliati pounded the table with her iron fist, and Horn snapped his fingers to the side.

The guards and executioners holding axes and spears immediately grasped their axes and spears and kept pounding the ground with the spear barrels. Amid the uniform vibrations, the quarrels among the many representatives gradually subsided.

"Ding--" a crisp bell sounded, and Horn put down the small wooden hammer. "Armand, the representative of the left seat, requests to question and answer with the representatives of the right seat. Do you accept it?"

The nobles and landlords on the right were all stunned, then overjoyed, and raised their hands one after another: "Accept it, why not?"

The so-called questioning and answering is to send one person as the representative of all to persuade the other side, which is equivalent to one person challenging all the opposing representatives.

Of course, the advantage is that no one else is allowed to talk, and only two people are allowed to talk at a time, so there won’t be the noisy situation that occurred before.

If it was Dean Martin who applied, they might have considered it carefully, but why wouldn't they accept this sixteen or seventeen-year-old kid?

The voices of the delegates whispering came into Rufaire's ears, and she gradually understood the meaning.

Turning his gaze to Armand who was walking to the center of the venue with a smile on his face, Rufiel couldn't help but worry. Could this boy who was three years younger than himself convince these nobles?
"My dear right hon., it seems to me that perpetual leasehold is good news for most of you."

Armand's first words made the nobles burst into laughter.

(End of this chapter)