Английският конституционализъм и пуританството
English Constitutionalism and the Puritans

Summary/Abstract: The article explores the interaction between English mediaeval constitutionalism and the political ideas of the Puritans. It was this interaction, as Alexis de Tocqueville famously argued in De la démocratie en Amérique, that produced the principles of limited government, brought by the Pilgrims on board the Mayflower to the New World, and destined to become the foundation of American democratic institutions. The first part of the article analyses the rights and liberties enshrined in Magna Carta (1215), the beginnings and the development of the English parliamentary and judiciary system, as well as the role of the doctrine of the ‘Ancient Constitution’ in the political struggles of the seventeenth century. The second part demonstrates how the then existing constitutional principles and traditions fused with (or were, as the author argues, to a great extend replaced by) the ‘political theology’ of English Presbyterians and Independents before these ideas were planted on the fertile soil of New England.

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