User:Munkchester/Sandbox/Monkchester

Lord President of the Burchwittenmoot of the Monkcestrian Republic

(or should the official name have something to do with the Haliwerfolc instead? will sleep on it) — Used to; not anymore. Changed over the centuries.

• Burchwittenmoot
• Burchersmoot
• Burchwit

Head of state is St !Cuthbert; traditionally the Archbishop of Monkchester acted as his ‘viceroy’. With the growth of the city the archbishop was forced to establish a burchersmoot, consisting of all the burchers (citizens), who elected twelve burchwits (titled lords?) from their number to form the burchwittenmoot (archaic plural kept in the institution’s name). Eventually the primus inter pares of this body, the Lord President, sidelines the archbishop and we get the Monkchester we all know and love.

In addition the Burchersmoot is reformed to have the electorate vote for representatives as population growth and extension of the franchise makes anything else infeasible. One MB is elected from each constituency (name?); Lord President George Fenwick, for instance, sits for Ousemouth St Edward’s. Two parties are represented in the Burchersmoot: the opposition Social Democratic Workers’ Party and the governing Progressive Party.

The SDWP draws its support from the working-class suburbs constructed as part of slum clearance in the 1950s and 60s, the pit villages and mining towns, and left-liberal public-sector workers. The Progressives are the default party of power and the ‘normal’ choice; you vote for them unless you have a reason to vote for the SDWP. They are strongest in affluent, middle-class areas and the wealthy inner city. The SDWP is very rarely in power and politics is generally conducted through internal Progressive disputes.

In-universe Monkchester speaks a Geordie-inspired, Northumbrian-derived English language with continental Germanic influence. This is represented by Anglish, though one that uses Latinate words where other Germanic languages do.