Plymouth Colony did not have a royal charter authorizing it to form a government, yet some means of governance was needed. The Mayflower Compact was the colony's first governing document, signed by the 41 Puritan men aboard the "Mayflower" upon their arrival in Provincetown Harbor on November 21, 1620. Formal laws were not codified until 1636. The colony's laws were based on a hybrid of English common law and religious law as laid out in the Bible. The colonial authorities were deeply influenced by Calvinist theology, and were convinced that democracy was the form of government mandated by God.