The state is the most powerful and contested of political ideas, loved for its promise of order but hated for its threat of coercion. In this broad-ranging new study, Alan Harding challenges the orthodoxy that there was no state in the Middle Ages, arguing instead that it was precisely then that the concept acquired its force. He explores how the word 'state' was used by medieval rulers and their ministers and connects the growth of the idea of the state with the development of systems for the administration of justice and the enforcement of peace. He shows how these systems provided new models for government from the centre, successfully in France and England but less so in Germany. The courts and legislation of French and English kings are described establishing public order, defining rights to property and liberty, and structuring commonwealths by 'estates'. In the final chapters the author reveals how the concept of the state was taken up by political commentators in the wars of the later Middle Ages and the Reformation Period, and how the law-based 'state of the king and the kingdom' was transformed into the politically dynamic 'modern state'
Abbreviations
1 Introduction. State: Word and Concept 1
State as regime 2
State as commonwealth 5
2 Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Justice 10
The first courts 10
Grants of property and protection 13
Pleas before the king 16
Keeping the peace 22
Legal order 31
'The state of the realm' 38
3 The Courts of Lords and Townsmen 43
The growth of feudal society 43
Seignorial jurisdiction 48
Justice in the towns 55
Competitions for jurisdiction and power 61
The place of the king 64
4 The Spread of the Organized Peace 69
The peace of God 69
The peace of the land 79
German Landfrieden 88
The territorial states of Germany 99
5 The Judicial Systems of France and England 109
Justice on complaint to the king of France 109
Stabilimenta 123
Justice by royal writ in England 128
'Our state and our kingdom's' 139
6 New High Courts and Reform of the Regime 147
Complaints against officials 147
Plaints and reform of the status regni 155
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