Governments have long capped assembly sizes to suppress collective action

Evidence

In the early Greek period, there were legal provisions according to which ship crews could not consist of more than five men, in order to prevent them from engaging in piracy. In 1436, the Rhenish cities, fearing the rise of associations among apprentices, prescribed that no more than three apprentices should go about in the same dress. In fact, political prohibitions are most common in this category generally. In 1305, Philip the Fair forbade all meetings of more than five persons, regardless of their rank or the form of the meetings. Under the Ancien Regime, twenty noblemen were not allowed without special concession from the King to assemble even for a conference. Napoleon III prohibited all organizations of more than twenty persons that were not specifically authorized. In England, the Conventicle Act under Charles II made all religious home assemblies of more than five persons subject to punishment. — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 4870

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s familiarity with sumptuary/assembly laws (Lex Oppia precedents) and to the broader theme of how state power regulates group formation. Also offers a concrete historical pattern parallel to Shapiro’s ‘guardian’ institutions monitoring collective risk. — connects to: High regime capacity and democracy suppress revolutionary situations by raising organizing costs. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 979
• SEED: A comparative-historical essay angle: every regime’s chosen cap number (5, 8, 20, 50) reveals its implicit theory of when a gathering becomes dangerous — a history of state paranoia mapped by group-size thresholds.