• :•

War and the Passing of

the Medieval Age
i :•

Aprince, therefore, should have no other object, nor any other

thought, nor take ashis own special artany other concern than war,
itsinstitutions anddiscipline; for that isthe only artwhich belongs
properly to onewho holds ruling power.
Tun Military Mode iik P(
Niccol6 Machiavelli, The Prince
10
0\

/N

A: * v' 7
>•

Tr^l

In 1337, adynastic feud between Philip VI of France and Edward III of

England precipitated thelong series of conflicts thatcame to beknown
as the Hundred Years' War. This was an unfortunate choice of names,
for the issuesat stakewere asold as the Norman conquest of England,
and combat over them had occurred many times before 1337.Nor was
THE FREE PRESS the contest settled in 1453,the date historians traditionallygive for the
A Division ofMacmillan, Inc. endof the war. It dragged on until 1559, when England ceded to France
NEW YORK
Maxwell Macmillan Canada
Calais,its last domain on the continent. It should have been called the
TORONTO Two Hundred Years' War or even the Four Hundred Years' War. Its sig
Maxwell Macmillan International nificance layless in shifting tidesof territorial dominion than in the
NEW YORK OXFORD SINGAPORE SYDNEY
new methods of warfare and political administration introduced in the

bW-w«»~«H ~V*»*-JI Ul-wJ •" l-, M l_F~t~iH I j^.„.-JI |.» Tl-Jj t— Jl *->—=^*JI I ... ~jl I Jl ~^-JI
 2-r i 1 u
"ar aim The Rise ofxhe State
long Anglo-French struggle effectively marked the beginning ofthe
end ofthe medieval era inEuropean history.
In the course ofthis interminable conflict, the kings ofFrance and
ofEngland began to discover what Hugh Trevor-Roper has called "the
secret ofState." Without either realizing or intending it, they began
erecting a"new apparatus ofpower," the political and military institu-
| tions that formed the basis of"the Renaissance State."' This new form
oforganization promised political and military power beyond any
thing attainable in the medieval era. For the real secret ofthe state,
both then and for the next five hundred years, was its superior capaci
ty for marshaling the resources ofwar. Itwas not ase"cret"easily kept,
however, tied as it was to universal imperatives ofmilitary technology
•and organization. By the mid-sixteenth century, both England and
France had been eclipsed in might and prestige by an unlikely rival,
Habsburg Spain, whose power also derived in part from the engine of
the Renaissance state.
This chapter will examine how new military technologies and vio
lent interaction between the larger medieval states contributed to the
passing ofthe medieval age and the dawn ofmodern politics.2 What
follows is not an attempt, however, to posit asingle cause for the origin
ofthe Renaissance states. Amultitude offactors contributed to their
emergence: rising population; the growth ofdties; expanding commer
cial links between key European centers; the growth ofsurplus capital
and the development ofearly capital markets; evolving legal institu
tions, induding therevival ofRoman law; andtheintroduction ofnew
technologies, with the invention ofthe printing press playing an espe-
|dally important role. But war and military rivalry played acatalytic
Irole in the overall process ofstate formation, accelerating other mod-
:ernizing forces and providing both the opportunity and the incentive
1for strong leaders, "state-makers," to concentrate power in central gov
ernments. The passage from medieval tomodern politics was the most
important transformation in the nature ofpolitical power since the fall
ofthe Roman Empire, and it bears close examination.
THE SHAPE OF POLITICS IN LATE
MEDIEVAL EUROPE
The medieval or feudal period ofEuropean history spanned the years
from the dissolution ofthe Carolingian Empire in the ninth century to
War and the Passing ofthe MedievalAge 25
the rise of the first centralized states some six centuries later. It was an
eramarked bythe absence ofcohesive central authority—a time when
hundreds of smallterritories, cities, principalities, and estates func
tioned in relative independence and with little direction from any
higher political authority. In themedieval world, asJoseph Strayer has
observed, "the state did not exist The values of this kind of a soci
etywere different from ours; the supreme sacrifices of property and
lifewere made for family, lord, community, or religion, not for the
state."3 Though somescholars applythe word state to medieval forms
of government, theyare misusing the term, adapting a modern con
cept to premodern forms.4
Centralized territorially based empires had existed in earlier mil
lennia, but these too had disappeared from the political map of
Europe after the dissolution of the Roman Empire. Catholicism pro
vided a unifying ideology forWestern Europe, but formed no cohesive
political empire. Concepts integral to modern politics—such assover
eignty, bureaucraticadministration, the public domain, and the secu
lar state—were utterly foreign to a world in which power was
fragmented, jurisdictions vague and overlapping, and structures of
control weak. Political relationships were personal and highly local
ized, defined largely by ownership and tenancy of land. Taxation was
rudimentary or nonexistent; income from private domains made up
the vastmajority of revenues. Modern diplomacy, with itsembassies,
ambassadors, and professional diplomatic corps had not been devel
oped. Even the notion of a capital city did not exist. The lightly
administered empires andkingdoms oftheday hadonly minimal rela
tions with each other and minimal controlover their own territory
and inhabitants. Thus in medieval Europe, in a sense far more literal
thanisthecase today, the aphorism applied: allpolitics was local.5
The means of waging war were alsohighly localized in medieval'
Europe. Monarchs andprinces did not enjoy a monopoly on military
power, or anythingremotelyapproachingone, even in their own terri
tories. The militaryresources of the daywere held in private hands,
wieldedby landed nobles, military orders, even ecclesiastical institu
tions. Large kingdomswere divided into patchworkenclaves of mili
tary power: into private armies, city walls, locally maintained
fortresses, and powerful personal estates. Asin all traditional societies,
the aristocracy styled itself a warrior class, and war was the central
purpose of its existence.6 Being a landed class, the aristocracy saw ter
ritoryas the source of allwealth and the natural object of theiravarice;
war for land was a profit-making venture. Sovereigns raisedtransient
armies byrelying on the fealty and supportofthiswarrior class, espe
cially those who maintained privatestockpiles of weapons. Yet the
 26 War and the Rise of the State
aristocracy was aflimsy reed on which to base effective military power,
for though theoretically obligated to fight for their sovereign, nobles
j often fought against him instead. The absence ofstanding armies left
j sovereigns vulnerable tosuch challenges, butensured that violent con-
| flict, though pervasive, was usually confined in space and waged on a
, smaller scale than would occur from the time of the Renaissance
Vonward.7
The larger medieval kingdoms such as England and France pos
sessed rudimentary administrations that assisted in the management
ofthe royal household and lands. These were not organized like mod
ern bureaucracies, and they had little formal hierarchy orclear divi
sion of labor. Virtually no distinction was made between the
administration ofthe private "estate" or demesne ofthe king and what
we would today call "affairs ofstate." Decision making centered in the
Court, and officeholders did not constitute aseparate professional
class ofany kin3.8 In short, the limited power that sovereigns had was
based neither on military nor on bureaucratic power, but rested on
tradition and prestige, the cultivation ofseignorial fealty, and personal
leadership.
From the twelfth tothe fourteenth century, representative assem
blies, or Estates, arose in virtually every country ofLatin Christendom,
usually as anoutgrowth ofmedieval courts ofjustice. These institu
tions consisted of representatives from the various medieval
"estates"—in this case, the term denotes the formally named interest
groups ofthe Middle Ages such as the clergy, the nobility (magnates or
lords), the gentry, and the towns. InEngland the Estates evolved into
Parliament; in France, they formed the Estates-General; in Spain, the
Cortes; in the Germanic lands, the Landstande, inthe Netherlands, the
States-General; in Sweden, the riksdag; in various parts of Italy, the
^councils. There were often several such assemblies in any one country,
some regionally based, others more national in jurisdiction. The
Estates were acritical element in the political and social organization
of late medieval Europe, and the type of political system they
formed—the Standestaat, in the terminology ofGerman historians-
was an intermediate stage between feudalism and the early modern
state. Their rise was closely linked with the rise oftowns, which stood
outside the traditional networks oflord-vassal relations and repre
sented a source ofindependent power that required new forms of
accommodation by the rulers.9
The Standestaat was neither democratic nor broadly representative.
The Estates excluded the peasant masses, and membership was usually
based onstatus, appointment, and wealth rather than onelection. But
Jl J i • in ." t-^-t*~iJl 1_*_&-JII w—~-il i,,-;—JJ
War and the Passing of the Medieval Age 27
nor were the Estatesweak,politicallymarginal, or transient, as they
are sometimes portrayed. Theywererepresentative of the elite, politi
cally active strata thatcomposed them; they operated on the principle
of majorityvoting; and they imposed significant limitations on the
autocratictendencies of their sovereigns, whowere compelled to seek
their consentto the levying of taxes, the promulgation of laws, and
even the conductof foreign affairs. Thisgave the Standestaat a dualis-
tic structure of power, with governing authoritysharedbetween the
sovereign and the Estates. To the extentthat the "medieval constitu
tionalism" embodiedin this arrangementsurvived the strains of war
it provided a foundation for the later emergence of representative;
democratic governmentin European states. However, wherewar was
prolonged andintense it rarely survived, andautocracy resulted.10
The rise of the national state in both France and Spain was inte
grally linked with a withering of the privileges and power of these
Estates. Over a period of two centuries, from approximately 1450 tc
1650, the power-sharing orfreTPfthemedieval era yielded to monar-
chicanbsolutism as the pressures of war, anfffhe "concomitantrise o
standing armies and central bureaucracies, diminished royal depen-
denceori the Estates. In England and Sweden (and for a timein subna
tioiialprovinces suchasAragon and certain provinces of France) th«
Estates retained a measure of their traditional privileges, their tenacity
providinga foundation for constitutional monarchy. But eventhere
the Crown had to restrict the power of the interest-group estate
(especially the clergy and nobility) before modern state structure
could emerge. Thus, while the riseof the nationalstatebrought certaii
benefits with it, we should not forget that in virtually all cases its ris
was connected with the diminution of other independent sources o
power. Potentialseeds of authoritarian rule wereplanted at the ver
birth of the modern state.
THE CONTINENTAL PATH OF
STATE FORMATION
The first rudiments of modern government originated in the course c
the fifteenth century in a littoral triangle of the North Atlantic encom
passing contemporary France, Spain, and England. A series of wai
both within and among the three countries provided the catalyst fc
•• I fl -.—I
 f—n
28 ar and the Rise ofthe State
the emergence ofthe earliest state structures. InFrance, the centraliz
ing effect of the Hundred Years' War favored the monarchy over
regional power centers; italso gave rise to the first standing army in
Europe, which subsequently enabled Louis XI to triumph over his
aristocratic rivals. In England, the Wars of the Roses reduced the
authority and depleted the resources ofthe nobility, enabling Henry
VII to fill the resulting power vacuum to his advantage. In Spain, civil
wars devastated Castile and Aragon prior to the joint accession ofFer
dinand ofAragon and Isabella ofCastile; the resultant anarchy facili
tated centralization by the strong-willed couple. The subsequent
conquest ofMoorish-ruled Grenada then became the decisive event in
the emergence of the Renaissance state in Castile. Acentury later,
Francis Bacon eulogized Henry VII, Louis XI, and Ferdinand of
Aragon as the "three Magi ofkings" oftheir age. Later historians
would refer to them as the New Monarchs. By building up military
force and asserting royal authority, they reversed along-term trend
toward political decentralization across Western Europe.
With important variations from country to country, the process by
£ which war stimulated state formation inthe Renaissance consisted of
*> five interrelated steps:
Than internalpowersrrugg/ebetween the center and the periph
ery of a givenstate;
2. ashift in favor ofthe center due to developments in military
technology and organization that increased the cost and
administrative complexity ofwaging warfare;
,-ii 3. a revolution in taxation, as the rising fiscal demands ofwar
MV
fare, both internal and external, caused governments to make
L intensified efforts at revenue extraction;
4. the rise ofcentral bureaucracies inresponse to the fiscal and
administrative challenges ofwarfare;
5. afeedback cycle inwhich the increasing fiscal and bureaucratic
power ofstates enabled them to field larger and more power
ful armies, which meant larger and more destructive wars,
i\. I which drove the whole process in acircular spiral upward.
We shall call this sequence ofsteps the continentalpath ofstateforma-
,£ Hon, since it was most characteristic ofthe large states on the Euro-
r pean mainland. One critical point to note about the above sequence is
that internal conflicts—civil wars, revolts, etc.—were as central to the
process ofstate formation asexternal or international wars. State for-
^/mation was as much ameans for the resolution ofinternal conflict as
for the wagingof external war.
•^n r—f u ^1 ™1
War and the Passingofthe Medieval Age 29
In Europe, state formation began as early as the Hundred Years'
War, particularly in France, but its course was gradual and uneven,
requiring overtwo centuries before the firstgenuinely sovereign states
emerged on the continent. AndEngland, asweshall see, diverged from
the continental path in important ways. In order to understand the
role that war and military rivalry played in this formative period of
state development, we will examine to what extent thefive steps^Qujt-
lined above operated in the three Atlantickingdoms prior tcn4944-
the year France invaded Italy and triggered the series of cSfiHicts
known as the Italian Wars. This was the first post-medieval war, and
the first general (i.e., firstmultiple axis) warin European history.
THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN CENTER AND PERIPHERY
The main axis of internal conflict in the Atlantic monarchies was
between the monarchy (the center) and the landed aristocracy who
were regionally based (the periphery). Because the monarchs were
themselves of the aristocracy, this conflict was complex, oftensub rosa,
and tempered by bonds of fealty, religious faith, and the practical
necessityof compromise. There was also a secondary axis of conflict
between the monarchs and the large towns, whose growing size,
wealth, and independence madethem a factor of growing importance
in the changingbalanceof power. But the nobility presentedthe main
obstacle to central authority. The wealthier and more privileged nobles
had private armies and large landed estates that operated as almost
autonomous fiefdoms; their loyalty to the Crown was often tenuous.
The rivalry between Crown and aristocracy gave monarchs incentive
to acquire military resources both independent of and clearly superior
to that of their noble peers. Only then would it be feasible to curb the
nobles' traditional privileges and assert authority over the whole of
national territory.
Each of the "New Monarchs" secured his or her preeminent status
only after fighting bitter wars against aristocratic rivals. Louis XI's f
reign was marked by almost constant warfare with feudal lords, the **
foremost ofwhom was Charles the Bold, who waged a decade-long I
war (1467-77) aimed at carving out an independent Burgundian king
dom between a reduced France to the west and the Swiss Confedera
tion to the east. In Spain, the marriage of Isabella of Castile to
Ferdinand of Aragon provoked a struggle over the Castilian throne
that lasted for a decade, with open civilwar raging between 1475and
1479. In England, Henry VII's victory at Bosworth Field ended the
thirty-year-long struggle among the leading noble families known as
 30 War and the Rise of the State
the Wars of the Roses (1455-85). In all three countries, war-weariness
facilitated the assertion ofcentral authority as exhausted populations
welcomed the advent of monarchs strong enough to enforce civil
peace."
The victory of the center in these civil wars was avital first step
toward the modern condition in which central authority enforces
internal order. Without this assertion of royal prerogatives, the emer
gence oftrue state sovereignty would not have been possible. In France
and Spain, the civil wars were also an important step in the consolida
tion ofnational territory that was integral to the formation ofthe
modern state. (England by contrast was aunified territory long before
.the Tudor victory.) Louis XI's victories restored royal authority over
the existing kingdom and added large tracts ofterritory; by his death
in 1483, the boundaries ofthe realm approximated those ofmodern-
day France. In Spain, the victory ofFerdinand and Isabella brought
Castile and the provinces ofAragon together under one dynasty for
me first time. '
The civil wars weakened aristocratic opponents ofcentral rule at a
critical moment, when the organization and technology of warfare
had already begun to favor centralized rule. The modernization ofthe
^ French army that occurred near the end ofthe Hundred Years' War
g gave Louis XI the tool he needed to crush his aristocratic rivals; they
regained some ground after his death, but not enough to reverse the
trend toward stronger central rule. In Castile, the Catholic monarchs
restored royal authority by revitalizing the hermandades, (brother
hoods) amilitia force ofmedieval origin. The new Santa Hermandad
became the backbone of royal power, "the most imposing military
machine yet seen in the peninsula."11 Municipally based and hence
independent ofthe landed magnates, the Hermandad enforced aban
on private armies and even claimed the right ofentry into the previ
ously sacrosanct fortresses of the nobility, several of which it
destroyed. In England, the restoration ofroyal authority by Henry VII
did not entail the use ofnew or modernized military forces, but it was
facilitated by the fact that the aristocracy had suffered serious econom
ic losses as adirect result ofthe Wars ofthe Roses, and therefore its
influence was severely reduced."
The civil wars did not permanently end the friction between Crown
and aristocracy. The aristocracy, with their private armies and finan
cial resources, remained militarily indispensable—allies as often as
rivals ofthe monarchs—but the wars shifted the internal balance of
power toward the center. In Spain and France, the Crown began to
govern with minimal reference to the Estates. Charles VII declined to
summon the Estates-General for thp l^t ?i warc nf K,c •.«,;„„
. J 1 !->-<•• ill I i
War and the Passingof the MedievalAge 31
(1440-61), setting a pattern that Louis XI and future French kinj
would try to follow. Ferdinand and Isabella governed Castile withoi
summoning the Cortes from 1483 to 1497. English kings, howeve
took a different approach, seeking to curb the power of the gres
barons by forming a tacit alliance with the lowerestatesin Common
The Wars oftheRoses strongly reinforced this royal-bourgeois allianc
when Henry Tudor received support from numerous middle-cla;
professionals whose economic interests were threatened bythe wars (
thenobility." This alliance gave the monarchy a broader revenue bas
and a counterweight to the landed interests, but onlyat a price: b
relying on bourgeois support, rather thanbuilding up military fora
of their own, English kings reared the constitutional edifice that cor
strained them. This was an important way in which England diverge
from the continental path of stateformation.
THE INCREASING COST AND COMPLEXITY
OF WARFARE
Changes in military technology andtactics from 1350 to 1500 greatl
increasedthe cost of fielding effective armies. Risingcosts,in tun
favored largercountries and more centralized governments, whic
alone could afford andmanage thenew warfare. Theprincipal revolt
tion was in the increasingly successful use of gunpowder in siege an
field artillery.The crux of the matter as far as state formation was cor
cerned was this: artillery was generally tooexpensive for the nobility t
purchase, andhence tended to become a monopoly ofthe Crown. Tb
superior military technology of the day both gravitated to and rein
forced thepolitical center. Already in the fourteenth century Franc
hadestablished a king's office for artillery; itsbudget increased tenfol
between 1375 and 1410." Under Charles VII, the brothers Jean an
Gaspard Bureau engineered critical technical advances in Frenc
artillery, which played a crucial role in France's securing ofNormand
from 1449 to 1453, particularly in the lastengagement at Castillor
The budget for artillery nearly quintupled again under Louis X!
enabling further acquisitions and technical breakthroughs that con
tributed to thedefeat ofCharles theBold in the Burgundian War.'61:
Spain,the Catholic monarchsused artilleryto great effect in the con
quest ofGranada, while in England cannon were used in the majo
battles oftheWars of theRoses. One ofHenry VII's first official acts a
King was to appoint a new royal master ofordnance andexpand th
staff under him.17
L_^jl —, j l
 -j i 3 r&m^- i J . 1
32 War and the Rise of the State
as the arquebus, also shifted poweraway from the nobility by acceler
ating the trendtoward usinglarge numbers of infantryasthe mainstay
of land armies. Foot soldiers had been important in high-medieval
warfare, but from the mid-fourteenth to the mid-fifteenth century
infantry had lostground to mountedcavalry, a seignorial monopoly.18
The handgun once again made the common foot soldier asvaluablein
battle asthe self-equipped noblecavalryman—the cabattero, the cheva
lier, the Landesknecht—-whose deeds untilthen hadbeenthe verystuff
of lore. The handgun eroded the militarymonopoly of the nobility
and hencethreatened their social status; many of them instinctively
recognized this and regarded the new weapon asan invention ofSatan.
Man for man, infantry also costless than cavalry, and the handgun
made it practical to deploylarge numbers ofthem in battle.
The Gunpowder Revolution in both artillery and handguns thus
dramatically shifted the internal balance of power in late medieval pol
itics: 4 was to become the preeminent military force of Europe in the six
Byroyalizing warfare, on the one hand, and by proletarianizing it, on
£ the other, the gun helped to tip the balance of power within each
*-* Europeanstate away from the nobility and in favor of the crown. The
process was gradualand complex, and its rate varied in the different
\ parts of Europe. Butthe long-range effectwas everywhere the same:
i gunpowder technology curbed, and finally extinguishedthe freedom
•; of landed magnates to exercise significant independent, organized mil
itary and political power.1'
As the new technologies advanced, chivalric warfare became obsolete.
War lost its gloryin the eyesof the nobility asthe importance of indi
vidualwarriors diminished. War wasno longer a contestof personal
y skill and valor; now it was a test of political organization and fiscal
4 strength.20 „.—.—«-. •—«--...
'The mostimportant military innovation of all was not technological
atall, however, bu^t organizational. Ir-was the rise of permanent profes
sional armiesin France and-Spaih," the first such formations since the
Romanlegions. As in many facets of statedevelopment, France led the
way. In 1439, an Ordonnance (edict) ofCharles VII reserved the rightof
levying troops to the Crown alone, establishing in principle a royal
monopoly on armed violence—though in practice numerous fortifica
tions and large stocks ofweaponryremained in noble hands. An ordon
nance of 1445 created what hasbeen calledthe first standing army in
Europe, companies of 500 horsemen stationed in various provincesof
France. Thoughthese companies were recruited from the nobility, they
1 1 _ 1 ' 1 • I '
War and the Passing of the Medieval Age 33
became a standing professional force far superior in ability to the caval
ry raised by traditional feudal levies." The last stages of the Hundred
Years' War saw this modernized French army, equipped with the finest
artilleryof the day, defeat English forces that remained largely medieval
in their structure and equipment.
Though the Spanish Hermandad might be regarded as a kind of
standing domestic army, it was neither suited nor intended for service
abroad. The modern Spanish infantry originated later in connection
with the campaigns against Granada.To defeat the Moors, Ferdinand
and Isabella assembled a peninsula-wide army with both medieval and
modern components: royal troops under direct command of the
Crown, forces from the Church and Military Orders, the private
armies of the nobility, and the Hermandad itself. This army grew to
over 50,000 troops, an almost unprecedented size for the era, and its
royal component becamethe nucleus of the Spanish infantry, which
teenth century.22
The rising military power of the French and Spanish monarchs
enabled them to enforce internal order more effectively, quell rebel
lion, and to assume something resembling sovereignty over large tracts
of territory. As the size and importance of their infantry forces grew
over the next fifty years, the nobility's role in warfarebecame increas
ingly subordinate to the direction of the monarchs.23 This marked the
beginning of a long process of co-optation by which the aristocracy of
continental Europe gradually relinquished their own mihtary fiefdoms
in exchange for service in the officer corps of the standingarmiesof
the monarchs. England, as usual, remained the exception. Henry VII
in 1489 did attempt to raise an open-ended subsidy for a standing
force of 10,000 archers, but failed dismally.24 The English Crown
remained dependent on the nobility for effective land power and did
not field a standing army until over 150 yearslater. It was a lacuna of
profound significance for the constitutional development of the Eng
lish state.
THE REVOLUTION IN TAXATION
In medieval kingdoms, revenue from the royal domain was usually far
more important than taxation per se, while the feudal levies paid by
peasants to manorial lords were part of an economic system that was
largely independent of any national administration. The rising cost of
warfare in the late medieval period was the foundation of the modern
 war and tne massing ot tne meoievai Age jo i

!id
jand f"e',K
gave them"con,Pelled mo™**needed
the moral imperative to seek tonewdemolish
sources ofrevenue
the feudal er indication of growing central power was the numerous obligations
imposed on the towns of France—including forced loans and requisi
tions of foodstuffs and supplies, most of which went to support the
mthe natare ofgovernment revenue. Income from the royal domains
dechned mnnportance as taxation, both direct and inS.tca^e army. The revenue extracted under Louis XI reached between .41 and
rt.edom.nantsource ofcentral revenues. «Emaordinanr»tve^s .48 livres tournois per capita, a figure not exceeded until after the
French Wars of Religion.30 This remarkable statistic belies the notion
btcoteZn 'y/.°UWandb/ permanent.
Become both regular ^ ^ dUringAnd in™'^STo
France and Snain of the earlyRenaissance state in Franceas having onlyweakextractive
power,while showing that civilwar can promote centralization and
Mr 'u EngIand' *e roIe ofthe **><« »approWn/ra^es' fiscal expansion as much as, or more than, internationalconflict.
sSllthem0na^SSU^^V™Posed
seeking then- consent. The culmination ofthesecertainSrt£S
developments wa7a The Spanishconquest of Granada cost as much as 80 million mar-
avedis, a sum that would have been impossible to raise without new
. 7t.TT!nr^ reVenUeS'
in the late fifteenth century nearly"»*
200 *e'^
percentper
forcTprtacreTse
Vno\^A j sources of revenue.31 The Catholic monarchs reorganized the tradi
France,andashighas X.000.LentJrmore^ain!" *"" "*. tional financial departments of Castile earlyin their reign and againin
the early 1490s,when the fiscal demands of the Reconquista became
The focal expansion ofthe French state advanced in waves each onerous. Revenue grew spectacularly—by a factor of over 28 in the
war. The right ofFrench monarchs to raise permanent national t,™ thirty yearsfrom 1474to 1504."The monarchs even attempted to tax
the nobility, and while this as yet proved impossible (medieval stric
tures still remained in force), they did develop or revitalize numerous
sources of revenue that did not require Cortes approval, such as the
alcabala, a kind of sales tax.

In contrast to the continent, England did not undergo a revolution in

taxation. The principle of taxation by consent had been established as
the
tne Enffli.h rwi simply
unglisn, Charles • 1 imposed
.CjeneraI- the
As France
new taxwon territory
sv^m ™ from
a u early as the Model Parliament in 1295, when the Crown was desperate
for money to wage wars in Scotland and France, while the representa
tion of the Commons had become permanent by 1337.33 War was
almost the sole rationale that would persuade Parliament to grant new
monies to the Crown, and virtually all preambles to parliamentary
grants justified them solelyon military grounds.34 This constitutional
tax aPpor,10„ed according to the number ofsoldiers eachTovtace constraini.jnadejt.difficult .foiiKenry^
and urban^upporLagainst his-noble-rivals, but who faced no serious
threatsjfrom abroad—to introduce new forms oftaxation.
The Tudor king concentrated instead on coercivemeans of revenue
extraction designed to weaken his aristocratic rivals: forced loans;
bonds of recognizance mandating good behavior or forfeiture; the
prosecution and fining of nobles who retained private armies; acts of
revolts Dy tne French aristocracy and towns aaaiW rh*^*>~>~ attainder and forfeiture. Of the sixty-two peerage families that flour
ished during Henry VII's reign, three fourths were either under attain
der, bound by recognizance bonds, or otherwise at the mercy of the
Crown.35 Henry also reorganized the Exchequer, restoring financial
order to the royal administration, which had fallen badly into disarray
during the Wars of the Roses.36 Byefficient management, he more than

I _J I 1 —Si i:" l -;U • •• •••^iff • •-• iVf -i*| • .--••— " ..-^^ jl ^~^^H . •••••^fl , •••„ •••„,J| W>-~-Jj ,!.-• iffl i,**M-*M
 u '=*% ^^1
36 War and the Rise of the State
doubled hisannual income. It was £113,000 by the end of his reign,
though this remained less than Edward III and Richard II had received
a century earlier and far less than the incomes of his counterparts on
thecontinent. Theearly Tudor regime was regaining lostground, not
breaking new.37 Its fiscal structure remained more medieval, hence
/more constitutional and consensual, than its continental counterparts.
ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM AND
BUREAUCRATIZATION
Demand forwar-fighting revenue was the primary impetus behind the
^ creation of early state institutions. Administrative bodies grew up
j devoted to managing the ever-more-complex financial, military, and
'. legal affairs of the monarchs. Though minuscule bycontemporary
standards, these began to assume the form of permanentbureaucra
cies. Inevitably a porfiolfoftHe revenues raised bythese bodies went
not to the army but backto the bureaucracy, whose organizational
prowess was then applied both to raise additional money and to build
up military forces. In the classic formulation of Max Weber: "At the
beginning of the modern period, allthe prerogatives of the continental
states accumulated in thehands ofthose princes who most relentlessly
. took thecourse ofadministrative bureaucratization."38 The loyalty of
j these early bureaucracies remained entirely personal, dedicated to the
| King rather than to the still vaguely defined "state" or the public inter-
' est perse.39
The historian Bernard Guen6e sees the growth of the French
bureaucracy as the most distinctive feature in the development ofthe
French state in thelate medieval andearly Renaissance period.*0 In
addition to noble offtciers, who typically purchased theirposts as a
patrimony, the bureaucracy included increasing numbers of profes
sional administrators or commissaires, many ofwhom were notofhigh
birth. Asimilar process took place in Castile, where thefiscal require
ments ofthe Catholic monarchs led them to overhaul their antiquated
financial administration andreorganize theCouncil ofCastile. Signifi
cantly, the nobility received no voting rights in the newCouncil.41 The
Castilian administration increasingly recruited professional lawyers or
letrados, often from classes below the nobility. Theyformed the core of
a permanent bureaucracy outside the royal household, a powerful tool
againstthe magnates and a force for political centralization in its own
right. (The need to train a steadystream of new recruits for the Castil
ianbureaucracy also gave impetus to educational reform—by the time
H r^-f r—j) r-^n r^^j r^g
War and the Passing of the MedievalAge 37
of Philip II, the percentage of Spanish males attending universities was
the highest in Europe.42)
Again by contrast with the continent, early Tudor England did not X
develop a bureaucratic administration. HenryVII's reorganization of
the Exchequer washardly "bureaucratization," for his administration
remained entirelyhousehold in nature and medieval in style,and he
showedno interest in rationalizingit. Henry's reign did seethe cen
tralization of royal revenues under the Chamber, a more efficient
organ than the Exchequer, but the Chamber was decidedly nonbu-
reaucratic. England's isolation from the winds of continental warfare
simply made a well-administeredbut medievalform of government
feasible for longer than it was inFrance orSpain. While France and j
Spain built up large standing armies and appointed salaried royal offi-'
cialsin their provinces, Henry created in Englandneither a salaried
civil service nor a standingmilitaryforce to backit up.43
THE FEEDBACK CYCLE: LARGER ARMIES, LARGER
WARS, STRONGER STATES
When historians speak of the "Military Revolution" of the Renais
sance, they generallyhave in mind the exponential increase in the size
and firepower of armies that occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. But already before 1500 the Gunpowder Revolution had
brought about a smaller but no less significant quantum leap, at least
on the continent. The sizeof the Frencharmy under LouisXI reached
as high as 80,000 in wartime, while Spanish forces fielded against
Granada grew from around 10,000 men in the early campaigns to over
50,000 men by the end. Paradoxically, the existence of such concen
trated military power made the Valois and Spanish monarchs both
more secure and lesssecure. They were more secure against internal
rivals, for though their newmilitary power did not prevent challenges
to their authority—and rising taxes mayhave actually stimulated such
challenges—the same power made them less likelyto succeed. The
buildupof centralized military power was thus an important step on
the long path toward establishment of internal state sovereignty. Atthe
sametime, the largearmy of one state onlythreatened the securityof
the other,thus giving both monarchs further incentive to expand their
military forces—which in turn enhanced their internal power,
enabling them to extract the resources required for further military
expansion. What Joseph Schumpetersaid of a later era applied here as
 38 War and the Kise ot the State
well: "created by the wars that required it, the machine now created
the wars it required."44 The Sisyphean cycle of modernity was already
beginning to turn in the fifteenth century.
The events of this early period reveal an interesting pattern that
^ecurs throughout much of modern history: major foreign wars were
* almost invariably followed by rising internaltension and oftenby civil
I war. This is because war starkly reveals the internal problems ofastate
I (the "inspection effect" noted inChapter 1), butsimultaneously exert
! a unifying effect that masks those internal cleavages until the war ends.
After the Hundred Years' War, internal strife broke out almost imme
diately in both England (the Wars of the Roses) and in France (the
Burgundian War, and other struggles between Louis XI and regional
lords). Since power accrues to the center most strongly during
wartime, the periphery often sees in the cessation of hostilities an
opportunity to reassert its autonomy. But since there was never a clear
division between military power and police power—between the
means for waging external war and those for crushing internal rebel
lion—revolts against states lately steeled in war usually failed; the
state's armed forces crushed them.
v The wars of this early period also saw some of the earliest manifes-
' tations of a national feeling that transcended provincial and feudal
loyalties. Inevitably this protonationalism came to center on the mon
archs, whose power and capacity to rally the nobility constituted the
bulwarkof communal security and strength. In the course of the Hun
dred Years' War, particularly in its later stages, large segments of the
-fc. French population came to identify the triumph of the Valois mon
archs as the triumph of France itself. The royal army became their own
army; the king was now seen as responsiblefor their protection. (The
war apparently did not have the same effect on the enemy English
population, whichwaslessattached to the disputed territory, regard
ing it primarily as a dynasticpossession, not a national one.)
In Spain, the decade-long conquest of Grenada also stimulated early
manifestationsof Spanish national feeling.43 Castileled the campaign
and providedthe bulk of military forces, but Aragon, Catalonia, and
Valencia also contributed troops, money, and equipment.The warthus
welded together the Christian population of Iberiain a highly evocative
military campaign that was "the crucible of the monarchy."46 TheRecon-
quista also brought two-thirds of the Iberian peninsula and four-fifths
of its population under Ferdinand and Isabella, whilesimultaneously
strengtheningtheir hand vis-a-visthe nobility. Though the latter con
tributed forces to the war, the success of the royal army in the Granadan
^-_J w—I i" * «i~.>—^H u—.—*J] L_^
campaigns, and the role of the Crown in orchestrating the entire cam
paign,demonstrated the superiorityof centralized governmentin mobi
lizing militarypower.47 The risingnationalfeeling in Spain, coupledwith
its burgeoning army,bureaucracy, and treasury—all paralleledby simi
lar developments in France—setthe stage for a Habsburg-Valoisshow
down and the firstgeneral war in Europeanhistory.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PATH OF STATE FORMATION
From the above, it should be clear that England diverged in several
criticalpoints from the continental path of state formation. It pursued
instead what we will calLtfte constitutional pathyinwhich the bureau
cratic and centralizing effects ofwaTwererniited, and no revolution in
taxation occurred. One reason for this was the existence of a well-
established middle class with which English monarchs could ally in
their efforts to counter the landed power of the nobility. Middle-class
representation in the Commons meant that the constitutional
arrangement of the medieval era actually facilitated monarchical
efforts to counter this landed power—hence the Crown had no incen
tive to crush the Estates. Eventually, the Commons would wax so
strong as to directly rival the monarchy and provoke the greatest civil
war in English history, but in the early Tudor period that day was still
far off. The second factor that preserved constitutional government in
England was its insular isolation. Secure behind the Channel, England
had no engine of constant war to drive the process of centralization
and state formation.
THE DAWN OF MODERNITY: THE
ITALIAN WARS
The modern ajgepfsBurppean politics can be said to have commenced
inJtep^mbfer 1494^.when ^France invaded the kingdom of Naples,
touching off die first of the Italian Wars. Ostensibly CharlesVIII want
ed only to enforce a dynastic claim, but his September invasion
marked the crossingof a Rubicon between the medievaland the mod
ern age, as the Europe-wide contest that followed surpassed in scope
and significance any previous medieval conflict. Historians may dis-
^1 M -_—^U i,j- ,^M ' • •; ••• " ^-~-—tH .———Jj i t<~j>-.iJ| ' V-- ••-•••tfH •• •:|1 1, •^|
.—u •=1 r==^f =1 r=^| n u
War andnthe Passing ofthe mldieva. ^1
40 War and the Rise of the State

pute thenewness ofthe New Monarchies,48 but thefact remains that he acquired the Austrian Habsburg realms and the throne ofthe Holy
the first majorwarbetween them was a wholly new phenomenon,as
Roman Empire. Determined toblock the hegemonic aspirations ofan
theircontemporaries realized. Themodern features of the Italian Wars
empire stretching from Vienna to Peru, France fought Spain across the /
didnot emerge from nowhere but were the logical result of the devel face ofItaly for sixty-five years, their interaction profoundly affecting
opmental trends thathadtaken place over thepreceding halfcentury, the evolution ofthe international system in Europe and the internal j
development of every Europeanstate.
as we have just seen.
France entered Italy with an armyof over 25,000 troops, including
The Habsburg-Valois conflict was played out in many parts of
regular French infantry andcrossbowmen andlarge numbers ofSwiss
Europe—Navarre, Burgundy, the Germanic lands—but the Italian
mercenary pikemen. It broughtwithit the best artillery ever made:
peninsula was the main battleground throughout. The violence
140 superbly crafted bronze 50-pound cannon on wheeled carriages
wreaked on Italy devastated its countryside and destabilized its city-
and 200 smaller bombards, the technical fruit of the Hundred Years'
states, which became hapless pawns in a vast chess game beyond
War and of subsequent innovations during the warwith Burgundy.
their playing abilities. Resisting feebly, shifting alliances opportunis
This field artillery required hundreds of soldiers and techniciansto
tically between the invading powers, they gradually lost their inde
support it, as well as some 8,000 horses to transport the guns and
pendence, political stability, and military self-respect. Hostilities
supply wagons. The Italians had some cannon of their own, but they
ended in 1559 with the signing oftheTreaty ofCateau-Cambr^sis,
had neverseensuch technically advanced artillery, nor anykind of
not because one side had gained a decisive advantage, butbecause
cannon deployed in such large quantities and with such smoothly bothsides were exhausted and financially drained bywars thathad
orchestrated mobility. The organizational complexity of fielding, sup
spanned alifetime. Spain had demonstrated its military superiority
plying, and feeding an army ofthat size equipped withsuch heavy on many occasions and emerged from the wars as the hegemon of
weaponry could not have been mastered by any wholly medieval Italy and the strongest military power in Europe. But France had also
state. It was a first demonstration of what could be accompUshed with
won its share of battles and demonstrated that complete Habsburg
bureaucratic organization. Thecity-states that faced it were overawed:
ascendancy was impossible. Artillery, meanwhile, continued torevo
Florence and the Papal States yielded after token resistance; the
lutionize warfare: at Ravenna in 1512, a single cannon ball felled
Neapolitan fortress of Monte San Giovanni was devastated by the 33 men; in Novara in 1513, cannon fire killed 700 men in three
Frenchcannon in only eight hours, though it had once withstood a minutes.30
The Italian Wars drove vigorous processes of centralization andL
siegeof sevenyears.49
France's inexorable southward march alarmed its neighbors and
state formation in both France and Spain. The wars also generated
precipitated theformation inVenice ofthefirst multipower alignment
new currents ofdistinctively modern political thought. Indeed, Don
in European history. Fearing they would becut off, the French with ald Begot argues that modern pohtical consciousness was first born in
drew, fighting their way out ofItaly in the Battle of Fornovo; by 1498,
the early stages of the Italian Wars, beginning with the invasion of
Spanish forces under Gonzalo ofC6rdoba had taken Naples for Ferdi 1494.51 In 1513, the year ofthe Batde ofNovara and the high point of
nand. But France had only just begun. Over the next six decades,
the Holy League's efforts to expel France from Italy, Niccol6 Machi-
/ under three kings, it invaded Italy sixtimes. In.the medieval era, wars
avelli published The Prince, the first ofseveral classic works of political
were usually fought between contiguous domains; nowthe geographic thought published across Europe over the next six years: Claude de
scope ofconflict expanded. For the first time, multiple power centers Seyssel's Monarchy of France, Erasmus's Education of a Christian
joined in the same contest. Venice, the smaller Italian city-states, cer
Prince, Thomas More's Utopia, Guillaume Bud6's Institution ofthe
Prince. These "menof 1494," as theyhave beencalled, were preoccu
tain oTthe Germanic states, and England all became involved at one
timebYanbtheri though France and Spain remained the central axis of
pied with statecraft, diplomacy, and war; all ofthem reflected anewly
conflict. The accession 4j Charles V to the Spanish throne in 1516
modem oudook on the nature ofpolitics.SJIn this sense, the intellectu- '
/ greatly magnified the geopoliticalimport ofthe conflict, as Charles al foundations ofmodern politics, and its institutional origins, derived
became simultaneously king of Castile, Aragon, Naples, Sicily, Sar in partfrom the tumult ofthenew warfare.
dinia, and of the Spanish territories in the New World; threeyears later
 :>»
War and the Rise ofthe State
War and the Passingofthe MedievalAge 59

The crude dictates of survival in the Renaissance era meant that only
CONCLUSION: THEMILITARY ROOTS the larger, wealthier states could ride high on the tide of military
OF MODERN POLITICS
advancement.
Douglass North has offered an analogy from economic theory to
^ iron triangle ofarms, capital, and bureaucracy was forged at the explain the transition from medieval politics, with its multiplicity of
very birth ofthe modern state. Ithas been with us ever since. In aself- smallstates, to the modem era of largecentralized states. He compares
perpetuating cycle, the need towage war impelled rulers toaccumu this transition to what occurs in an industry with numerous small
late capital in order to fund bureaucracies; these in turn extracted firms when a technological change is introduced that makes the opti
more capital, which bought armies, which made possible greater wars mal size of a competitive firm much larger than before.89 The small
Each war in turn pushed the cycle to anew level ofdestruction, as well firms must increase in size or go bankrupt. Asthe weaker ones go out
as to higher levels of power accumulation (see Figure 2-1). In this of business, the industry becomes an unstable oligopoly, where a
reduced number of larger firms engage in cutthroat competition for
manner, war undermined the feudal structure of medieval Europe. market share. In many respects, medievalprincipalities were indeed
The French historian Bernard GuenSe observes the following ofthis like small business firms, each of them the private domain of one
formative period:
ruler. The increasing cost and complexity of warfare created a new
War had thus forced States to resolve financial, administrative and economy of scale that favored larger states and made control of large
political difficulties. Their structure had been profoundly altered by tracts of territory more feasible. The structure of Europe accordingly
it.... For only the richest and most powerful States could afford to becamethat of an unstableoligopoly—one reasonperhaps whycon
levy, pay, equip, and supply an army, and this army then enabled them flictwasso intensein the century after 1559.
to crush all internal resistance and to threaten their neighbors. Italy's The debacle of the Italian city-states shows the difficulty of such
misfortunes at the end ofthe fifteen centurystemmed solely from [her small "firms" surviving unbridled war, whereas the case of the Swiss
division] into States which were each too small to maintain an effec Confederation indicates that economy of scale was not an absolute
tivearmy." condition of survival: a small state could survive if its territory was
defensible and its population highly cohesive. The Swiss case also
demonstrates that Max Weber was wrong in his assertion that the
BUREAUCRACY modem state is absolutelydependent upon bureaucratic administra
tion.90 Centralized bureaucracy, with its inevitable dysfunctions and
tendency to enhance state power, is not the inevitable destiny of states
Fundingof in the modern age, nor an inexorable outcome of state formation.
Increasing
Bureaucratic Capacityto
Geography, human agency, leadership, and national character are cru
Machinery Extract Revenue cial, if elusive, variables that can influence the manner in which war
shapesthe political course-ofa given people.
Withrespect to humanfreedon\ the threepathsof stateformation
Administrative and
led to widely divergent outcomes. The cojnXineirtaJjjath led toward
Management and absolutist rule, the crushing of local privileges, and the withering of
Financial Reforms
Funding of Complex War
once sacrosanct liberties. The constitutionalpath led to a lesser degree
of centralization and left intact a medieval structure of traditional
CAPITAL-
freedoms and consent byassemblies. TheCQalkiomdjgath produced
-Demand for Revenue- •Changing Technologies • -ARMS hardly any central state and forgedthe most freesystem of all; it was
To Wage War OfWarfare
the sole path that led to early republican government. In short, the
Figure 2-1. The cycle ofwar andstate formation degree of stateformation was inversely proportional to the degree of
human liberty that prevailed. But the Italian case shows that where no

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 '™':f) wp«g f |j rm*£ rmrn^ 1 ' 1

60 War and the Rise of the State War and the Passing ofthe Medieval Age 61

cohesive center develops and the polity is disunited as well, anarchy capital centers. Immanuel Wallerstein andPerry Anderson, writing
and state dissolution result—hardly a propitious outcome either. The froma Marxist perspective, emphasize the primacy of economic fac
delicate balance between despotism and anarchy rests on the precari tors.94 Yet while identifying a wide range offactors allof these scholars
ous fulcrum of state organization for war. affirm the importance (and many affirm the centrality) ofwarfare in
By1559, of course, the processes of state formation and modern the origin ofthemodern state.95 Certainly therise ofthestate was not
ization had barely commenced Though certain features of modernity a unicausal phenomenon, but war was a catalyst thatintensified the
had begunto materialize in Europe—territorial sovereignty, geograph- effect of other factors. A validalternate theory would haveto postulate
^* ically fixed government, bureaucratic administration, and a growing causal factors that wouldbe fully operative even in the absence ofwar.
distinction between public and private domains—no state could as yet And itsproponents would need to find actual examples in theRenais
be described as truly modern, evenin the basic senseof nonmedieval. sance era of centralization, bureaucratization, and the breakdown of
None was fully sovereignwithin its territory; the basis of every state medieval institutions occurring in the absence ofwaror in ways clear
remained dynastic and partly religious in nature; governmental lyunrelated towar. They will search for along time.
administrations retained much that was medieval in character; a feu
dal societyremained entrenched in most countries. The Valois and
Habsburg monarchs may have risen above their medieval status as
primus inter pares, but they were as yet a long wayfrom ruling as rex
imperator. Nevertheless, the passing of the medieval agewas proceed
ing inexorably, and its demise was in largemeasure a consequence of
advancing militarytechnology and the upheaval of war. The roots of
political modernityweremilitaryin their nature and origin.
The thesis that war gavebirth to the modern state is accepted by
manyhistorians, but not byall. One prominent scholar of Renaissance
military history,J.R. Hale, has argued that war was only marginally a
politicalissuein early modern Europe. But Haleweakens his caseby
narrowing the term warto include only international conflicts—not
military rivalry, internal strife, or civil war. He argues instead that
defensive preparations, not actual war, led to the rise of state institu
tions—an untenable distinction in an era filled with constant strife. At
one point,Haleargues that Spain's recordof continuous warfare was
not as important as the struggles over the consolidation of the tradi
tionally divided Iberian peninsula, the adventure of trans-Atlantic
empire, and "thestrainof religious-racial conflicts," asif allthese did
not involve some measure of war. He argues that artillery did not cen
tralizepower, but admits that "the emphasis on cannon and gunpow
der in the records of state intervention is striking." If there is a case
against theprimacy of warin state formation, thisis not it91
Most scholars of the early modern state acknowledge the role of
war and state rivalriesin its emergence,but offer other explanations as
well. J.H. Shennan emphasizes the evolution of political and judicial
philosophy.92 Gianfranco Poggi points to the rise of towns, of city-
based production, and the general commercialization of the econo
my." Charles Tilly stresses the role of urbanization and emerging

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