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DIET

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Originally appearing in Volume V08, Page 212 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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DIET , a See also:

term used in two senses, (1) See also:food or the regulation of feeding (see See also:DIETARY and See also:DIETETICS), (2) an See also:assembly or See also:council (Fr. date; It. dieta; See also:Low See also:Lat. diaeta; Ger. Tag). We are here concerned only with this second sense. In See also:modern usage, though in See also:Scotland the term is still sometimes applied to any assembly or session, it is practically confined to the sense of an assembly of estates or of See also:national or federal representatives. The origin of the word in this See also:connotation is somewhat complicated. It is undoubtedly ultimately derived from the See also:Greek Siaura (Lat. diaeta), which meant " mode of See also:life " and thence " prescribed mode of life," the See also:English " diet " or " regimen." This was connected with the verb &aarav, in the sense of " to See also:rule," " to regulate " ; compare the See also:office of &aLrriris at See also:Athens, and dieteta, " See also:umpire," in See also:Late Latin. In both Greek and Latin, too, the word meant " a See also:room," from which the transition to " a See also:place of assembly " and so to " an assembly " would be easy. In the latter sense the word, however, actually occurs only in Low Latin, Du Cange (Glossarium,s.v.) deriving it from the late sense of "See also:meal" or "feast," the Germans being accustomed to combine their See also:political assemblies with feasting. It is clear, too, that the word diaeta See also:early became confused with Lat. See also:dies, " See also:day " (Ger. Tag), " especially a set day, a day appointed for public business; whence, by See also:extension, See also:meeting for business, an assembly " (See also:Skeat). Instances of this confusion are given by Du Cange, e.g. diaeta for dieta, " a day's See also:journey " (also an obsolete sense of " diet " in English), and dieta for " the See also:ordinary course of the See also:church," i.e. " the daily office," which suggests the See also:original sense of diaeta as " a pre-scribed mode of life." The word " diet " is now used in English for the Reichstag; " imperial diet " of the old See also:Holy See also:Roman See also:Empire; for the Bundestag," federal diet," of the former Germanic See also:confederation; sometimes for the Reichstag of the modern See also:German empire; for the Landtage, " territorial diets " of the constituent states of the German and See also:Austrian empires; as well as for the former or existing federal or national assemblies of See also:Switzerland, See also:Hungary, See also:Poland, &c.

Although, however, the word is still sometimes used of all the above, the tendency is to confine it, so far as See also:

con-temporary assemblies are concerned, to those of subordinate importance. Thus " See also:parliament " is often used of the German Reichstag or of the See also:Russian Landtag, while the Landtag, e.g. of See also:Styria, would always be rendered " diet." In what follows we confine ourselves to, the diet of the Holy Roman Empire and its relation to its successors in modern See also:Germany. The origin of the diet, or deliberative assembly, of the Holy Roman Empire must be sought in the placitum of the Frankish empire. This represented the tribal assembly of the See also:Franks, meeting (originally in See also:March, but after 755 in May, whence it is called the Campus Maii) partly for a military See also:review on the See also:eve of the summer See also:campaign, partly for deliberation on important matters of politics and See also:justice. By the See also:side of this larger assembly, however, which contained in theory, if not in practice, the whole See also:body of Franks available for See also:war, there had See also:developed, even before Carolingian times, a smaller body composed of the magnates of the Empire, both See also:lay and ecclesiastical. The germ of this smaller body is to be found in the episcopal synods, which, afforced by the attendance of lay magnates, came to be used by the See also:king for the See also:settlement of national affairs. Under the See also:Carolingians it was usual to combine the assembly of magnates with the generalis conventus of the " See also:field of May," and it was in this inner assembly, rather than in the See also:general body (whose approval was merely formal, and confined to matters momentous enough to be referred to a general See also:vote), that the centre of See also:power really lay. It is from the assembly of magnates that the diet of See also:medieval Germany springs. The general assembly became meaningless and unnecessary, as the feudal See also:array gradually superseded the old See also:levy en masse, in which each See also:freeman had been liable to service; and after the See also:close of the loth See also:century it no longer existed. The imperial diet (Reichstag) of the See also:middle ages might some-times contain representatives of See also:Italy, the regnum Italicum; but it was practically always confined to the magnates of Germany, the regnum Teutonicum. Upon occasion a See also:summons to the diet might be sent even to the knights, but the See also:regular members were the princes ( Fiirsten), both lay and ecclesiastical. In the 13th century the seven See also:electors began to disengage themselves from The See also:emperor was represented by two commissarii; the electors, the See also:prince as a See also:separate See also:element, and the See also:Golden See also:Bull (1356) princes and towns were similarly represented by their accredited made their separation See also:complete; from. the 14th century onwards agents.

Some legislation was occasionally done by this body; a the nobles (both See also:

counts and other lords) are regarded as regular conclusum imperii (so called in distinction from the old recessus imperii of the See also:period before 1663) might slowly (very slowly—for the agents, imperfectly instructed, had constantly to refer matters back to their principals) be achieved; but it rested with the various princes to promulgate and enforce the conclusum in their territories, and they were sufficiently occupied in issuing and enforcing their own decrees. In practice the diet had nothing to do; and its members occupied themselves in " wrangling about chairs "—that is to say, in unending disputes about degrees and precedences. In the Germanic Confederation, which occupies the See also:interval between the See also:death of the Holy Roman Empire and the formation of the See also:North German Confederation (1815–1866), a diet (Bundestag) existed, which was modelled on the old diet of the 18th century. It was a See also:standing See also:congress of envoys at See also:Frankfort-on-See also:Main. See also:Austria presided in the diet, which, in the earlier years of its See also:history, served, under the See also:influence of Metternich, as an See also:organ for the suppression of Liberal See also:opinion. In the North German Confederation (1867–1870) a new departure was made, which has been followed in the constitution of the See also:present German empire. Two bodies were instituted—a Bundesrat, which resembles the old diet in being a congress of envoys sent by the sovereigns of the different states of the confederation, and a Reichstag, which bears the name of the old diet, but differs entirely in See also:composition. The new Reichstag is a popular representative assembly, based on wide See also:suffrage and elected by See also:ballot; and, above all, it is an assembly representing, not the several states, but the whole Empire, which is divided for this purpose into electoral districts. Both as a popular assembly, and as an assembly which represents the whole of a See also:united Germany, the new Reichstag goes back, one may almost say, beyond the diet even of the middle ages, to the days of the old See also:Teutonic folk-See also:moot. See R. See also:Schroder, Lehrbuch der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte (1902), pP. 149, 508, 820, 880.

Schroder gives a bibliography of monographs bearing on the history of the medieval diet. (E.

End of Article: DIET

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