War:
- Armies in the early medieval period tended to be drawn up ad-hoc (when necessary) and tended to be unpaid or paid in kind
- All of the things needed for battlefields (weaponry, horses, or provisions) were the responsibility of individual chieftains, lords, and knights (leaders of men)
- State didn’t necessarily get involved in the early period but by the time we come to the 14th century the state starts to get involved across Europe
- This is because the development of knightly class that owes military service to a leader/ruler in exchange for lands, jurisdictional rights and political power
- But by the 14th century it becomes increasingly difficult for rulers to actually enforce their obligations – Edward III of England, Alfonso of Castile, Casmir III of Poland all insisted on their knights serving them in person but becomes difficult for monarch to demand as these demands set up unnecessary political confrontations that destabilise a kingdom
- Easier to pay people to fight so armies are raised through paid contracts, aristocracy is still the fighting class but want direct wealth in return
- This might seem like this is a loss of power as royalty are giving up a little bit of their power but nobles are now able to control and wield their own armies through obligation
- Growing use of pay also meant that armies became difficult to raise without large amount of revenue which could only be collected by large political organisations so it became very difficult for anybody except a ruler to fight a war which was a key step towards the consolidation of states and kingdoms in this period
Taxation:
- Existed long before the medieval period but there are new forms of taxation that are made possible by new kinds of claims from the government so in early 14th century, governments are able to raise taxation every so often through levies or aids that are designed to meet a specific need
- Meant to be just ‘one offs’ but every now and then kingdoms tend to make it more than that so this is a hard sell, especially in times of hardship, to ask people to pay more tax – doesn’t go well so rebellions form that respond or are provoked by tax
- As people became directly taxed, they also became directly more involved in the functioning of the states
Representation:
- In this period, we see the development of representative assemblies where kings could hear counsel, encounter popular opinion, settle matters of legitimacy, tax is discussed
- As we go through this period these councils hold the king responsible for his actions so assemblies become more common as the state and governments try to do more but there are limits to the power of these assemblies
- Not just a governmental thing, they exist in other formats as well e.g. Hansa traders of the North Sea - they are an economic organisation but they are controlled and governed through a representative assembly
Bureaucracy:
- Existed before 1300 and takes a myriad of different forms but there’s 2 things developing in the 14th century: people, key holders of office who makes decisions (e.g. chancellors who are responsible for the organisation of documents, letters, commands, accounts); and distinctive bureaucracies in finance and accounts in England called the Exchequer
- These bureaucracies are able to become complex because there are developments in record keeping – printing revolution – things are still being written down and copied by hand but once printing takes off in Europe, these bureaucracies have the capacity to grow and become even more complex
- This proliferation of documents allows the expansion of state power, institutional memories develop, institutional memories then become established, traditions become established over a longer period of time, and communication of commands, of decisions become possible across time