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What Can Be Meant By The Later Medieval `state`?

Vellacott Prize-Winning Essay 2019

Date : 22/12/2020

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Thomas

Uploaded by : Thomas
Uploaded on : 22/12/2020
Subject : History

The Late Medieval period in Europe was a time of great upheaval and change. England was torn apart by the Wars of the Roses, France saw increasing consolidation after the turmoil of the Hundred Years War, the Black Death altered the face of society, and the Eastern Roman Empire finally collapsed. Amidst this tumult, the first beginnings of the Renaissance and the Early Modern period began to emerge, and with it, more modern ideas of the state, of the role of the sovereign, of the church, even of the people. Prior to this period, medieval society had not so much seen states as a loose personal network of armed landowners, all gathered nominally (and to an extent, effectively) into a series of realms scattered across Europe, each of variable unity and cohesion. It must be remembered that if we are to draw any conclusions as to the nature of the later medieval state , we must first come to terms with what me mean when talking about the modern state. To take the simplest approach, the Cambridge Dictionary defines a state as a country or its government taking this view of statehood, one can frame the question as How was later medieval society governed? With this view, in this essay, it shall, by the examination of the parallel developments of two of these several realms (namely England and the Holy Roman Empire), be argued that the Late Medieval state was an increasingly cohesive body politic that saw the development of effective legal systems and bureaucracies and new ideals of sovereignty, and a shift away from the Early and High Medieval system of aristocratic fealty networks.

Although not the most developed state in later medieval Europe, England is perhaps one of the easiest to recognise as a state. England in this period had a unified legal system, consolidated territory and the beginnings of institutionalised administration. In 1215, Magna Carta had established that the king should be subject to a certain set of laws, setting the stage for the growth of a rule-of-law based state, and further seemed to set the foundation for many of the English laws to come. Although many of the specifics of Magna Carta were outdated by the later medieval period, Magna Carta remained symbolic of the supremacy of the law in the English state (Carpenter 1983). In practice however, the degree of fidelity to the rule of law in England was variable. It was seen as acceptable for the king to bend the rules in a landowner s favour, or to waive certain laws when they seemed inexpedient. Furthermore, the effectiveness of laws was limited along with royal power uniform judgment was unlikely to be exacted in areas far away from the king himself, and powerful landowners could easily resist a warrant-holding royal official. The above-mentioned bending of the rules was accepted largely within the context of the state of the law at the time almost all law came from consensus-based ideas of natural law, along with precedents set in common law thus, it was sensible for a certain level of extra-legal consideration equity to take a place in decision-making (Carpenter 1983). The Fourteenth Century saw a tightening of the English legal system. The old manorial system of private law began to shrink away at a local level, replaced by an ever-increasing role for the King s Justice. Justices of the Peace began to replace the now-overloaded Justices in Eyre, and, while this change did mean a certain transfer of power from Westminster to local landowners, who now took the majority of these local offices, it also marked a greater degree of standardisation and efficacy in the legal system (Carpenter 1983). As well as having an increasingly standardised system of local justice, late medieval England also saw the consolidation of the authority of its central law courts the Court of Common Pleas and the Court of King s Bench (the two of which dealt with common law), and the Court of Exchequer and the Court of Chancery (the two of which dealt with equity law). These institutions had developed out of the Norman curia regis (royal court), and had been formalised largely by the Magna Carta, which established that they were to always sit in Westminster Hall (Baker 2005). By the time of the later medieval period, the role of these courts was well established and institutionalised. England had also seen key developments in its administration prior to the later medieval period. By the mid-Fourteenth Century, the Chancery, Privy Seal and Signet were writing between thirty and forty thousand letters a year (Harriss 1993), a stark contrast to the 313 annual average in the Empire in that period (Wilson 2016). Such writing, which was often part of formal processes of documentation, reflect an increasingly institutionalised administration. The Exchequer in particular was revolutionised in the later medieval period. The vast new amounts of money that needed raising to fund the Hundred Years War necessitated the creation of an elaborate system of tax collectors and assessors to oversee the raising of taxes, while a similar system of distributors was necessary to see this money spent, as the Exchequer rose from an accounting system for the royal household to be the financial backbone of the administration of the English state. The sophistication of the English taxation system was such that between 1336 and 1453, three-quarters of all revenue could be raised by taxation (Harriss 1993). Later medieval England also saw the growth of a political society. The formal inclusion of the Commons and the Lords in government through Parliament, combined with the formalisation of agencies such as the courts and the various administrative departments, allowed for increasing involvement of the peers and the gentry of the towns, country and parishes, all at different levels of governance. This political society was a driving factor behind the development of governance structures in later medieval England, perhaps more so than the will of the beleaguered monarchy (Harriss 1993). However, the governance of England was severely limited in its efficacy. Successive years of warfare and social upheaval (the latter largely as a result of the famine and pestilence of the Fourteenth Century) weakened the legalism that had been developed under the Angevins, transitioning England from the law state to the war state (Harriss 1993) it is hardly possible to maintain a legal and equitable state of affairs amidst rebellion and civil war. The legal system was limited in efficacy by a lack of real oversight corruption could easily go unpunished, particularly in juries while the rulings of courts were undermined by a lack of effective means with which to enforce them. The efficacy of administration was undermined by the personal interests of officials, who were usually part of large patronage networks, and who were also often corrupt, and by the technological limitations of the time communication was difficult, as was documentation (Harriss 1993). The role of the king in the English state must obviously not be ignored. Although the monarchy was, as mentioned, weakened by war, bankruptcy (largely due to war and in spite of the developments in taxation) and poor monarchs such as Richard II and Henry VI, the crown did not suffer a major loss of authority in this period. Parliament was still very much reliant on royal authority, and did not make any real gains in its ability to influence who held the crown Henry IV, Edward IV and Henry VII all gained the crown through their own military success, not through the approval of parliament (McKenna 1979). Furthermore, these reforms served to strengthen the crown, particularly in times of peace, such as under Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII, as increased tax revenues of and more effective bureaucracy eased their ability to reign effectively. The later medieval English state was little less of a state than the state we live in today. England enjoyed a formalised and standardised judiciary, an increasingly effective bureaucracy, and an active political culture. It did however, suffer from limitations of technology, from corruption, and from near-constant war.

By far the most challenging of the three states being examined is the Holy Roman Empire it is telling that, unlike France and England, which developed into consolidated, centralised states, the Holy Roman Empire essentially withered away until its final death-knell in 1806. This was not however, a constant process of degradation over the whole thousand-year period. Nor was the Empire an anarchy filled with a herd of lawless nobles under an impotent Emperor, as the confusion of its government might suggest. The medieval Empire was no less a state than France or England or any other medieval realm. The key issue that creates confusion for the modern observer is that, unlike our modern, institutional governments, Imperial governance was very much personal, based around the personal actions of the itinerant Emperor. The first real governing institution in the Empire was the German Arch-Chancellery based in Mainz, under the city s Archbishop. While the itinerant nature of the Imperial court inhibited the establishment of any real imperial administration until well into the late medieval period, the fixed nature of the Mainz Arch-Chancellery allowed it to develop as a functioning administrative institution (Wilson 2016). The imperial court was, however, able to develop the important distinct bodies of the curia minor and the curia major, which would form the basis, as in England, for more developed judicial courts and legislative bodies (Wilson 2016). These institutions more or less formed the full extent of institutional governance in the Empire at the start of the late medieval period, which at that time was still very limited. Real reform, in the direction of recognisable institutional government, in the Empire would come in the fifteenth century, under Maximilian I[1], largely as a result of a compromise between pro-reform nobles and Maximilian s anti-reform father, Frederick III. 1495 saw an assembly of the electors gather in Worms, calling itself the Reichstag the Imperial Diet[2]. The use of Imperial Diet signified a shift from royal assemblies to a new institution, formalising the right of the electors to form a part of the Empire s decision-making. The 1495 Worms Reichstag essentially struck a compromise between the Emperor, who desired a more viable system of fiscal and military aid, and the Electors who desired effective judicial reform. The Reichstag declared a new imperial public peace, which crucially charged all holders of immediate fiefs to forswear violence as a means of conflict resolution, and to combine instead against those who breached the peace. The principal judicial body established to arbitrate in the place of feuding was the Reichskammergericht, a new supreme court for the Empire (Wilson 2016). The Reichskammergericht reforms facilitated the fulfilment of wider administrative changes. In 1500, the smaller fiefs were grouped into six Kreise (Circles), while 1516 saw the larger fiefdoms also grouped into four new Kreise. These Kreise were established as collective bodies without a single leading prince, responsible for implementing imperial decisions, selecting Reichskammergericht judges, enforcing that court s rulings, organising military contingents and regulating exchange rates. These Kreise developed in cooperation, establishing their own assemblies and conventions, guided by general Reichstag legislation (Wilson 2016). The development of Kreis assemblies a level of governance beneath the Emperor, a devolved administration if you will, is a mark of the extent to which the Empire was seen as a state, and not just a collection of nobles owing nominal allegiance to the Emperor. The other key result of the 1495 Reichstag was the agreement of the Common Penny tax, to be collected by the immediate fief-holders and magistrates of the imperial cities. The initial levy of this Common Penny raised 136,000 florins between 1495 and 1499 (Wilson 2016). The Common Penny was limited in efficacy by the lack of adequate existing taxation structures in the Empire, however, that it was successful at all is testament to the ability of the later medieval Empire to act effectively as a state. The reforms made by the 1495 Reichstag must not be overstated in their significance. Although the Reichstag marked a milestone in the development of Imperial governmental institutions, the formalisation of how the Reichstag operated would not come until well into the 16th Century, by which time we cease to be able to talk of the later medieval Empire. While an institutionalised administration in the Empire came to exist by the end of the Fifteenth Century, the development of an Imperial legal system was slower to materialise, or at least more complex in its materialisation. As in most of Europe, general laws were considered fixed moral and religious absolutes unalterable for mortal man. This attitude was combined with an attitude favouring nuance and fairness (in view of humanity s ultimate imperfection and God s role as the final judge) or billigkeit over a more formalised system of abstract laws and justice gerechtigkeit. Together (although billigkeit could be seen as fairer, it was informal and ad hoc) they impeded the development of a formal legal system in the Empire. The sources of law in the Empire varied, as Roman law, emerging common law, local customs and specific charters and decrees of both the Emperor and his vassals were all used. The first formal law codes did not begin to appear in the Empire until the early Fifteenth Century, such as in Tirol, where the 1404 Landrecht established a code of laws in response to the abuses and inconsistencies of the territory s legal proceedings (Wilson 2016). Territorial law became increasingly important in the Empire over this period, unlike in more consolidated later medieval states, where the central law became more prominent. However, although formal law codes were late in developing in the territories, a judicial hierarchy was more firmly established by 1300, with two tiers the lower local courts meeting quarterly, chaired by mayors, and higher district-circuit courts, consisting of representatives of the Prince (Wilson 2016). What is important to note is that, although a similar Imperial judicial system would develop, particularly after the 1495 Reichstag, there was never a common Imperial legal system to match that of other states in the later medieval period, reflecting a key flaw in the Empire. While the Empire saw increasingly formalised governance at a central level in this period, it also saw increasing territorialisation. The Emperor was, ideally, responsible for protecting and maintaining the integrity of the Empire, the various princes beneath him were responsible for most aspects of what we would consider governance. As such, the territories of the princes beneath the Emperor became increasingly coherent and consolidated, albeit patchwork. These territories, being now more clearly separate from each other, and politically self-sufficient, were able to become increasingly powerful, which is largely why it was they who were mostly responsible for the development of consistent legal systems in the later medieval Empire[3]. The Late Medieval Empire, was, in terms of statehood, neither here nor there. It did have an effective central authority, with an emerging institutional administration, but it lacked any real body of laws to administer, and, while the central authority in states like England came to be the font of law, justice and all forms of governance, the central authority in the Empire often seemed to exist solely as a means of arbitration and co-operation between the subordinate princes. Being unique in its own time, the Empire can hardly be taken as a standard model of what the later medieval state was, but it does show the limitations of state-building in this period.

It must be remembered that all of the states that have been assessed existed, at the time, with a very different concept of sovereignty. Our modern concept of sovereignty although modern trends have brought it into question was established largely by the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, where the idea of dominium mundi universal rule for the Emperor, justified in the Medieval period largely by Justinian s Corpus Iuris Civilis was finally destroyed, replaced by an acceptance of a plurality of sovereign bodies. The principle of the Emperor as dominus mundi had, however, been withered away throughout the period we are studying. The legal Commentators of the 12th and 13th Centuries, particularly those of Naples[4], such as Marinus da Caramanico, who denied dominium mundi, arguing that the with the contraction of the Roman Empire, a de facto empire like any other, independent kingdoms regained sovereign rights under ius gentium (the Law of Nations), as ius gentium predated the Roman Empire. This argument, that the Empire was but one state among many, was not at all universally accepted. The mainstream of French and Italian Commentators upheld the de jure authority of the Emperor, and thus developed a far more convoluted theory of sovereignty, with a particular focus on the unique de jure status of France[5], as argued by Johannes de Blanosco and Guilelmus de Cuneo. However, scholars such as Jacobus de Ravenna and Petrus de Bellapertica maintained that French independence was merely de facto. The defence of dominium mundi was furthered by Bartolus and Baldus, who argued that the dominium mundi was the fundamental backbone of Christendom, as confirmed by Christ himself. Bartolus went as far as to argue that denial of dominium mundi was heretical. It was the same Bartolus and Baldus, however, who went on to make a key development in the medieval theory of statehood, that de facto power, as well as de jure power, enjoyed legitimacy, and that, while the Emperor s de jure dominion was universal, it was legitimate for de facto independence to exist elsewhere. Their conclusion, more simply put, was that there are territorially de facto sovereign states that obtain their independence merely from this-worldly political reality, and then there is the Empire, which gains its de jure sovereignty from divine confirmation. This may be compared to our modern understanding of de facto and de jure independence, where de facto independence is derived from political fact, and de jure independence from a more elevated form of international recognition a modern, secular, form of divine confirmation. The most important development of this debate, however, was most likely the establishment of the formula rex in regno suo est imperator regni sui, an explanation of the power of all sovereign kings that the king in his own kingdom is emperor, or in other words, these kingdoms which had hitherto been de facto independent, justified only by political reality, were now legitimate, independent states. This formula was formalised largely by the 1313 Papal Bull Pastoralis Cura, issued by Pope Clement V to settle the struggle between Emperor Henry VII and King Robert of Naples (Ullmann 1949). It is thanks to these developments that we can talk of an independent territorial state in the Late Medieval period. The independent territorial state of this period did have a concept of sovereignty, one that recognised the legal independence of rulers from the Emperor, however, it was a relatively new concept of sovereignty that was still questioned, and undermined largely by the fragile authority of kings, and the interstate entanglements of the ruling classes. (Canning 1983)

One cannot discuss medieval governance without discussing the Church. The church would seem, in the medieval period, to be subversive to the development of statehood, due to its transcendence of any form of border, and its unique, exempt status. Clergy usually enjoyed freedoms from taxation and litigation, while the Church itself enjoyed power more or less equal to that of any state. However, the church would prove vital in medieval states abilities to develop. The literate clergy usually provided key functions of administration prior to the late medieval period, while canon law provided an influence for the development of civil law. The clergy s role in administration was particularly strong in the Empire, where senior clergy fulfilled many of the top administrative roles by default most notably the three Arch-Chancelleries, each under an Archbishop[6] (Wilson 2016). Furthermore, religious doctrine was key to the development of both the Empire and England. The Empire owed much of its identity to the idea of the Two Swords the Emperor as holder of universal temporal authority and the Pope holder of universal spiritual authority (Wilson 2016). However, in practice, the dysfunctional nature of the Papal-Imperial relationship limited the importance of this doctrine. In England, the later move towards limited monarchy owed much to the Fourteenth Century theological argument of the king s two bodies that the divine-ordained crown was separate to the frail, physical body of the king himself, allowing for a separation of the power of the king from that of the crown , or the body politic as a whole (Kantorowicz 1957). The role of the church must be judged to be mixed. Although the Church s extraterritoriality may have stunted the consolidation of states, the Church was at the same time vital in allowing states to consolidate at all.

This essay has examined the differences between the development of statehood in England and in the Holy Roman Empire, as well as the influence of the Church, and the concept of sovereignty. Both England the Empire have been shown to have made considerable developments in their cohesiveness as states in this period, developing more effective legal systems and bureaucracies, amidst increasingly modern concepts of sovereignty and an ever-powerful Church. The later medieval state that they exemplify was a sovereign, territorially cohesive, administrated and judicated realm under an effective, powerful ruler, and was certainly not the mesh of interconnected armed landowners that had existed earlier in the Medieval period.

[1] King of the Romans 1486-1519, Emperor-Elect 1508-1519

[2] This was not the first meeting of an assembly of the electors. Aside from elections, the electors had met eighteen times between 1273 and 1409. Emperor Sigismund had been willing to co-operate with the electors, however the largely absentee reign of Frederick III undermined their legitimacy, as his presence was seen as a key factor in legitimising their assemblies. Pressures for reform did eventually force his presence, and that of Maximilian, after 1471. The growing urgency of need for reform saw nine meetings between 1486 and 1498. (Wilson 2016)

[3] This is dissimilar to England, where, by this period, the armigerous class was more fragmented leading gentry enjoyed just as much, if not more, wealth than the peerage, while the leading magnates such as the Earl of Warwick were severely weakened by overextension, to an extent not suffered by the leading princes of the Empire. (Harriss 1993)

[4] The high concentration of scholars formulating anti-dominium mundi theories in Naples is thanks largely to the King of Naples contest with the Emperor, in which he successfully asserted his independence from Imperial authority.

[5] France was yet another example of a King asserting his independence from Imperial authority.

[6] The Arch-Chancellery of Germany under the Archbishop of Mainz, Italy under Cologne and Burgundy under Trier

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