The Catholic Church and European State Formation, AD 1000-1500

The Catholic Church played a significant role in shaping European state formation and regime change during the period AD 1000-1500. The crisis of church and state that began in the second half of the eleventh century reshaped European patterns of state formation and regime change by consolidating the two great balancing acts of European state builders: against strong social groups and against each other. This church reform movement was crucial for the development and spread of self-government and the weakening of the Holy Roman Empire.

Format: Hardback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 08 July 2022
Publisher: Oxford University Press

Social scientists and historians have long debated that the process of escaping empire and the subsequent division of power within and between polities was a crucial factor in the development of the modern territorial state, modern representative democracy, and modern levels of prosperity in Europe. The Catholic Church and European State Formation, AD 1000-1500, inserts the Catholic Church as the primary driver of this enduring international and domestic power pluralism, which has shaped European state-formation for nearly a millennium.

The crisis of church and state that began in the second half of the eleventh century is argued here as having fundamentally reshaped European patterns of state formation and regime change. It did so by doing away with the norm in historical societies, the sacral monarchy, and by consolidating the two great balancing acts that European state builders have been engaged in since the eleventh century: against strong social groups and against each other.

The book traces the roots of this crisis to a large-scale breakdown of public authority in the Latin West, which began in the ninth century, and which simultaneously incentivized and permitted a religious reform movement to radically transform the Catholic Church in the period from the late tenth century onwards. Drawing on a unique dataset of towns, parliaments, and ecclesiastical institutions such as bishoprics and monasteries, the book documents how this church reform movement was crucial for the development and spread of self-government (the internal balancing act) and the weakening of the Holy Roman Empire (the external balancing act) in the period AD 1000-1500.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780192857118