The period after 1815 is often described as a time of European reaction and restoration, an approach lately modified by, among others, Paul Schroeder.
1 P. W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics 1763‒1848 (Oxford, 1994). See also M. Broers and A. A. Caiani (eds), A History of the European Restorations, 2 vols (London, 2020). The interest in translating, publishing and reading constitutional texts suggests a current liberal orientation among the population. One of these early constitutions, read and discussed after 1815 and to a certain degree being a point of reference, was the Eidsvold constitution of 1814. The wide transnational circulation of the Norwegian constitution is hence to be understood in the context of the modern constitutional movement, following the American and French revolutions. Evolving as a textual tradition since 1776, modern constitutional writing became a global practice.
2 D. Michalsen, ‘The Many Textual Identities of Constitutions’, Writing Democracy, pp. 60‒2. Around 1814 Europe found itself, in Markus Prutsch’s words, ‘swept along by a wave of constitutionalisation’.
3 M. J. Prutsch, Making Sense of Constitutional Monarchism in Post-Napoleonic France and Germany (London, 2012), p. 44. The Norwegian constitution was typical of its time, it was only one of many in this wave of modern written constitutions seen as the constitutive and normative foundation of the state’s political organisation.
4 E. Holmøyvik, ‘The Changing Meaning of ‘Constitution’ in Norwegian Constitutional History’, Writing Democracy, p. 46.Prescribing a political vision, the constitutions were not only national documents, the fundamental law governing a specific state, they were also connected with ‘literally hundreds of similar constitutional texts across states’, as Dag Michalsen points out.
5 D. Michalsen, ‘The Many Textual’, p. 62. A shared transnational genre, ‘a category of texts similar in form, style, content, and the social actions they represent‘, guided the constitutional writings.
6 K. Gammelgaard, ‘Constitutions as a Transnational Genre’, p. 92. The new written and published constitutions were thus interconnected as parts of an intellectual exchange, an entangled transnational political discourse across borders. They served as transmitters of new ideas, as models and inspiration when drafting new constitutions and as arguments in political discourse. For the middle-class liberal movement in post-revolutionary Europe, the creation of a constitution became by far the most important concern, Fabian Rausch underlines; ‘few subjects dominated political discourse as much […] as the constitutions of the traditional and newly emerging states or political bodies’.
7 F. Rausch, ‘“Constitutional Fever”? Constitutional Integration in Post-Revolutionary France, Great Britain and Germany, 1814‒c.1835’, Journal of Modern European History 15:2 (2017), p. 221.This broad pan-European liberal discourse makes constitutional texts distinguished examples of a transnational print circuit across linguistic and national borders. Most of these new constitutions were short-lived, however. A central dimension making the Norwegian constitution of particular interest internationally as a possible point of reference was therefore not only its revolutionary, liberal and democratic character, but also its longevity.
This new constitutional discourse and the role of the public sphere are underlined in one of the first annotated collections of this kind, presented as a ‘Handbook for present and future representatives’, by Sebald Brendel, published in Bamberg and Leipzig in 1817. In the two-volume work the new political conditions and new modes of discussions among broader parts of the population, including demands for national parliaments, are clearly emphasised in the preface.
8 ‘Vorrede’, Sebald Brendel, Die Geschichte, das Wesen und der Werth der National-Repräsentation oder vergleichende historisch-pragmatische Darstellung der Staaten der alten und neuen Welt, 2 vols (Bamberg, Leipzig, 1817), p. [i]. Brendel’s work was one of two parallel publications of this kind, both containing a translation of the Norwegian constitution, Brendel’s in an abridged version.
Die Constitutionen der europäischen Staaten zeit den letzten 25 Jahren was published by Brockhaus in Leipzig and Altenburg from 1817 to 1825 and in an enlarged edition in 1832‒3, naming Karl Heinrich Ludwig Pölitz as the editor.
9 K. H. L. Pölitz, Die europäischen Verfassungen seit dem Jahre 1789 bis auf die neueste Zeit: mit geschichtlichen Erläuterungen und Einleitungen, 2nd edn (Leipzig, 1832‒3). The Norwegian constitution was published in the second volume. In the preface the importance of knowledge about all the ‘neueuropäischen Constitutionen’ is underlined. The work, presented as new of its kind, was intended not only for ‘Staatsmänner und Diplomaten’ but for ‘ein gröβeres Publicum’ ‒ anyone wanting historical knowledge of these constitutions, which were translated therefore into German and presented through historical introductions.
10 Ibid., p. ix.Similar collections of constitutions became a popular publication form, with several mainly German and French collections during the nineteenth century and beyond, a couple of Spanish collections in the 1880s and 1890s and British and Irish publications in the early twentieth century and later.
11 For references, see <www.nb.no/bibliografi/1814>.