March 18th, 2019 
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It is an article of faith that democracies represent the will of the populace and therefore must be cognizant of public opinion. But this was not always the case. Before the Enlightenment (18th century) sovereigns believed that they ruled by divine will not popular will. The signing of Magna Carta in 1215 had confirmed the principle that royalty were subject to some constraint (the opinion of other landed aristocrats). However the next step the idea that nations must operate according to asocial contractbetween the governed and the government would take another 500 years to take hold.
Attending theaters living in urban areas going to coffee houses and reading newspapers all helped to give people the sense that they were part of a public. Wealth and education provided the public with more opportunity to congregate and more ideas to talk about. As Europe gained a middle class who participated in discussion of current affairs governments began to listen to them more. At first this involved domestic affairs then foreign affairs. The article below goes into more detail about the way public opinion emerged and became one of the cornerstones of modernity.
Read the information in the following article:
Speier H. (1950).Historical Development of Public OpinionAmerican Journal of Sociology 55 4. 376-388
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2772299?&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
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