Astral Codex Ten

English parliament

4 min read

English parliament

Article

English parliament is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between June 10, 2021 and August 01, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “in 1808, English parliament authorized every county to build it’s own asylum”; “the English Parliament”. It most often appears alongside England, English, Europe.

Metadata

  • Category: Organizations
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: June 10, 2021
  • Last seen: August 01, 2025

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Your Book Review: Down And Out In Paris And London
June 10, 2021 · Original source
No other drugs are even mentioned. But that isn’t even the most shocking absence from Orwell’s picture of poverty. What struck me first about Orwell’s companions is that despite all of them being unemployed, half-starving wanderers without any social ties…none of them seem to be (extremely)mentally ill. Orwell never once suggests that these men are homeless because of any mental deficiency or disorder. He always maintains that they are just like people he knew in his ‘respectable life’, but poorer. Some are eccentric in the extreme, but nothing like many of the homeless one now sees on the streets of American cities. This is likely because in 1808, English parliament authorized every county to build it’s own asylum, and in 1845 it became compulsory for the counties to do so. And “by the end of the century there were as many as 120 new asylums in England and Wales, housing more than 100,000 people.”2 Now as to the conditions within these asylums, please consult someone who knows more about the history of mental illness than I do. Maybe you could start with Scott’s review of Madness and Civilization. But it at least seems a likely explanation for the utter and complete absence of the (extremely) mentally ill from Orwell’s Paris and London. Orwell never even mentions the problem. Likely it was a given to him that ‘tramps’ were mostly sane, able-bodied men, and that anyone that was truly insane would’ve been immediately locked up. I can’t be sure, because he never mentions mental illness or the asylum system at all. It’s as if it’s not even worth mentioning.
Inline links: 2, Madness and Civilization.
Your Review: Joan of Arc
August 01, 2025 · Original source
In England, however, the practice of scutage (nobles paying money to get out of raising troops) had arisen, and also in England there existed that fantastically useful tool of kings for raising money, the English Parliament.11 With the combination of carrot - redress of grievances - and stick - pay or I'll impose costs on you perfectly legally - augmented by the patriotic pride of Englishmen who might not want to kill Frenchmen themselves but really wanted the Frenchmen dead, Edward collected money and used it to pay professionals drawn from England and Wales, and these professionals fought.
Inline links: 11