BICOL UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND

PHILOSOPHY
DARAGA, ALBAY

Members: (POLSCI 3B)

ABELLANO, JOHN REY
BARRA, NICOLE S.
LEJANO, VERONICA
SIATRIZ, MA. KRISTINE BERNADETTE
VILLAFLOR, FRANCE RIZZI

THE ORIGIN OF MODERN STATES

This paper discusses how the state people know today came into being. In doing

so, we look back the premodern European times and analyze the era, its situations, and

the evolution of political organization as well as its governing political system that led to

the conception of modern states.

This paper outlines chronologically the historical flow from Feudal States to

Capitalist States, Absolutist States, to the Treaty of Westphalia until finally to the

conception of modern states.

I. Feudal States.

Prior to 1500, Europe was consisted of numerous states which were run by

Feudal lords. Feudal system was in great dominance during this era with feudal

lords entrusting vassals to rule over a piece of land where serfs are laboring to

pay for their living. Feudal states involved multiple layers of overlapping

sovereignties. At the of it was the relationship between feudal lords and the
 vassal. Lords give vassals the power to rule as a fief and the power to tax the

people living in his fiefdom. This is in exchange of political and military loyalty.

Lord and vassal: 8th - 12th century the feudal system comes into focus during

the 8th century, when the Carolingian dynasty is expanding its territory. Charles

Martel grants his nobles rights over tracts of land, to yield the income with which

they can provide fighting men for his army. This act of generosity, ultimately for

his own benefit, requires an oath of loyalty in return. Thus, there develops the

relationship between lord and vassal which is at the heart of feudalism. The lord

gives the vassal an income-yielding fief (fehu-od in Frankish, the basis of the

word 'feudal'). The vassal does homage to the lord, formalizing the relationship.

The largest fiefs are those given directly by monarchs to noblemen or barons,

who then subcontract parts of these fiefs to vassals of their own. Only in this way,

sharing out both the benefit and the obligation, can the king's vassals be sure of

bringing their promised contingent of armed men into the field. A pyramid of

loyalty is thus created, in which each man - except at the very top and bottom - is

a vassal to one lord and a lord to several vassals. At the very peak of European

feudal society is the pope. By the end of the 12th century the papacy has more

feudal vassals than any temporal ruler.

II. Capitalist States

Feudalism came to a point when it declined because the bourgeoisie middle

class rose. This is the crusaders began to return to the west, bringing with them

stories of the wealth in the east and bringing some of that wealth with them. This

desire for wealth led to the development of improved trade routes between the
 east and west. As a result of the increased trade, towns began to develop as

centers of commerce. Over time, some of these towns demanded independence

(or at least semi-independence) from their feudal masters. Sometimes the

leaders of the towns would revolt against their feudal overlords; at other times,

they might buy their independence from their lord who was always in need of

money.

During this time, feudal lords were still the ones in power however the influence

of the bourgeoisie was eating them. Capitalist state only become a transitional

period before absolutism took over.

What is capitalism? A basic explanation would say that it is an economic

system where those things that make money, like land, factories,

communications, and transportation systems, are owned by private businesses

and corporations which trade in a ‘free market’ of competition. This system uses

the investment of money, or ‘capital’, to produce profits. It leads to a small upper

class of people having the most wealth and the growth of large corporations. This

leads to economic inequality between rich and poor, which governments try to

reduce by various social schemes, regulations, and activities.

III. Absolutist States

Absolute monarchy or absolutism meant that the sovereign power or ultimate

authority in the state rested in the hands of a king who claimed to rule by divine

right. The absolute monarch exercises ultimate authority over the state and his
 subjects, as both head of state and head of government. The Age of Absolutism

is usually thought to begin with the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715) and ends with

the French Revolution (1789). European Religious Conflicts of the 16th and 17th

Centuries. Absolutism was primarily motivated by the crises of the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries. The Protestant Reformation (1517–1648) had led to a

series of violent and bloody wars of religion, in the course of which thousands of

innocents met their deaths. In this context, absolute monarchies were regarded

as the solution to these violent disorders, and Europeans were more than willing

to have local autonomy or political rights taken away in exchange for peace and

safety. The modern age was characterized by a rise of the king’s power in some

parts of Europe. These kings were soon to become absolute monarchs with a

much greater power over the nobles and the common people.

IV. Treaty of Westphalia

On 24 October 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, marking the end of

the Thirty Years' War.

The Westphalia area of north-western Germany gave its name to the treaty that

ended the Thirty Years' War, one of the most destructive conflicts in the history of

Europe. The war or series of connected wars began in 1618, when the Austrian

Habsburgs tried to impose Roman Catholicism on their Protestant subjects in

Bohemia. It pitted Protestant against Catholic, the Holy Roman Empire against

France, the German princes and princelings against the emperor and each other,
and France against the Habsburgs of Spain. The Swedes, the Danes, the Poles,

the Russians, the Dutch and the Swiss were all dragged in or dived in.

Commercial interests and rivalries played a part, as did religion and power

politics. Among famous commanders involved were Marshal Turenne and the

Prince de Condé for France, Wallenstein for the Empire and Tilly for the Catholic

League, and there was an able Bavarian general curiously named Franz von

Mercy. Others to play a part ranged from the Winter King of Bohemia to the

emperors Ferdinand II and Ferdinand III, Bethlen Gabor of Transylvania,

Christian IV of Denmark, Gustavus II Adolphus and Queen Christina of Sweden,

the Great Elector of Brandenburg, Philip IV of Spain and his brother the Cardinal-

Infante, Louis XIII of France, Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin and several popes.

Gustavus Adolphus was shot in the head and killed at the battle of Lutzen in

1632. The increasingly crazed Wallenstein, who grew so sensitive to noise that

he had all the dogs, cats and cockerels killed in every town he came to, was

murdered by an English captain in 1634. Still the fighting went on.

The war was largely fought on German soil and reduced the country to

desolation as hordes of mercenaries, left unpaid by their masters, lived off the

land. Rapine, pillage and famine stalked the countryside as armies marched

about, plundering towns, villages and farms as they went. ‘We live like animals,

eating bark and grass,’ says a pitiful entry in a family Bible from a Swabian

village. ‘No one could have imagined that anything like this would happen to us.

Many people say that there is no God...’ Wenceslas Hollar recorded devastation

in the war zone in engravings of the 1630s and starvation reached such a point in
the Rhineland that there were cases of cannibalism. The horror became a way of

life and when the war finally ended, the mercenaries and their womenfolk

complained that their livelihood was gone.

The peace conference to end the war opened in Münster and Osnabrück in

December 1644. It involved no fewer than 194 states, from the biggest to the

smallest, represented by 179 plenipotentiaries. There were thousands of ancillary

diplomats and support staff, who had to be given housing, fed and watered, and

they did themselves well for close to four years, despite famine in the country

around. Presiding over the conference were the Papal Nuncio, Fabio Chigi (the

future Pope Alexander VII), and the Venetian ambassador. The first six months

were spent arguing about who was to sit where and who was to go into a room

ahead of whom. The principal French and Spanish envoys never managed to

meet at all because the correct protocol could not be agreed.

A special postal system handled reams of letters between the envoys and their

principals at a time when it took ten days or more to send a communication from

Münster to Paris or Vienna and twenty days or more to Stockholm or Madrid.

Slowly deals were hammered out. Even then it took almost three weeks just to

organise the signing ceremony, which commenced at 2pm on the afternoon of

Saturday, 24 October 1648. The treaty gave the Swiss independence of Austria

and the Netherlands independence of Spain. The German principalities secured

their autonomy. Sweden gained territory and a payment in cash, Brandenburg

and Bavaria made gains too, and France acquired most of Alsace-Lorraine.
 The prospect of a Roman Catholic reconquest of Europe vanished forever.

Protestantism was in the world to stay.

V. Modern states

In the pursuit to understand the origin of modern states, this paper draws back

the lens in the age of Feudalism and the political developments thereafter

especially with the evolution of political organizations and authorities since feudal

lords in the 1500s to the kings until the establishments of modern states.

Following is a summarization of the key points regarding the topic. In the 1500s,

Feudalism reigned in Europe with feudal lords having the authority and influence

among serfs. Feudal rule had no clear distinction of sovereignty as it features

multiple and overlapping sovereignty that ultimately contradicts to the modern

concept of sovereignty in modern states. Regardless, it commenced the

development of modern states. During the Feudal rulership, there came a point

when the aforementioned weakened because of the emergence of the

bourgeoisie class that changed the game. Under the noses of the feudal lords

who are in power, the bourgies are in control especially in the economic aspect

that commenced capitalistic regime in the continent. State formation and

capitalist development went hand-in-hand at this point. Capitalist states,

thereafter, became a transitional period from feudalism to absolutism. The

decline of feudalism gave way to another form of rulership – monarchy.

Monarchial, or absolutist states is said to have laid the concept of external

sovereignty that is essential in the day-to-day function of modern states. The type

of society in this epoch made them externally sovereign. There is a constant war.
One of those is the Thirty Years War which was ended through the Treaty of

Westphalia. The said treaty signaled the beginning of state sovereignty that each

of these kings would be the sole sovereign in his domain. Sovereignty is that

power of which there is no higher appeal. The same treaty established territorial

sovereignty and set a fixation regarding the territories which is believed to have

been in permanence since the promulgation of the treaty.

References:

Feudal States: https://www.britannica.com/topic/feudalism

Capitalism: http://revealinghistories.org.uk/how-did-money-from-slavery-help-

develop-greater-manchester/articles/the-rise-of-capitalism-and-the-development-

of-europe.html

Absolutist States: https://www.scribd.com/document/472373439/The-Age-of-

Absolutism-01-pdf

Treat of Westphalia: https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/treaty-

westphalia

Modern States: https://owll.massey.ac.nz/referencing/referencing-journals-in-

apa.php#journal-online