Overview

Generations of social scientists and historians have argued that the escape from empire and consequent fragmentation of power - across and within polities - was a necessary condition for the European development of the modern territorial state, modern representative democracy, and modern levels of prosperity. The Catholic Church and European State Formation, AD 1000-1500 inserts the Catholic Church as the main engine of this persistent international and domestic power pluralism, which has moulded European state-formation for almost 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 - sacral monarchy - and by consolidating the two great balancing acts 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 at one and the same time incentivised 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.

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9780192857118

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Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty. * Choice *

Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty. * Choice * This is an interesting and original book authored by two political scientists. Its terminology and modes of argumentation are not those familiar to historians but the work's basic thesis is at least plausible and perhaps even persuasive. * Thomas F.X. Noble, Journal of Ecclesiastical History *

Author Information

Jørgen Møller is Professor at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark, where he teaches Comparative Politics and International Relations. He has a PhD from the European University Institute, Italy. His research interests include conceptualization of democracy and the rule of law, dynamics of democratization, conflict and democratic stability, patterns of state formation, regime change and international order, and comparative methodology. Most of his recent work revolves around the medieval origins of the modern state and modern democracy. His work has been published in journals such as International Studies Quarterly, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Politics, International Organization, and Sociological Methods & Research and in books with Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, and Oxford University Press. Since 2015, he has been a member of The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. Jonathan Stavnskær Doucette is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark, where he teaches Comparative Politics. He has a PhD from Aarhus University, which was awarded in 2020 and concerned the roots of medieval urban self-government. His research interests include democratization, the influence of religion on regime change, and the consequences of state building. His work has been published in journals such as International Organization, British Journal of Political Science, and Perspectives on Politics. It examines the religious causes of urban regime change, and the role of the state in determining democratic success.

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