What was a state?
As we have seen, most of the political units that participated in the inter-European competition in the period 1500—1800 had their origins in the Middle Ages. In an elementary sense, the European state system can therefore be traced back to around 1200.
Nevertheless, the resemblance between these units and their descendants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is open to discussion. Traditionally, the main criteria for a state have been sovereignty and institutionalization. The state has no superior; externally, it exists in a situation of anarchy, whereas internally, all its inhabitants owe obedience to its government, which has a monopoly of violence and the right to legislate. In principle, all inhabitants are directly subject to the state; there are no separate parts with their own rules or their own demands of loyalty and obedience, except as the result of delegation from the government of the state. Moreover, loyalty and obedience are owed to an institution, not to individual persons. In modern democracies, the government of the state in principle gets its power from all the inhabitants in the country; it is supposed to take care of their interests and is accountable to them for its actions. Thus, the politicians and bureaucrats governing the state do not act as individual persons but on behalf of the community. They are only entitled to act in this way as long as they hold office and there is a sharp distinction between what they can do as public officers and as private individuals.Concerning the first criterion, the situation is less clear in practice than in principle, even today. Most modern European states are not sovereign,3 because they belong to the European Union and are subject to rules laid down by its central institutions, which, however, they are also able to influence. ‘Conglomerate states’, which are said to be characteristic, particularly of the early modern period, still exist today.
The clearest examples are Belgium and Switzerland, which are actually coalitions of largely independent parts. Great Britain is a union between four countries with various degrees of independence, which has increased recently. In addition, there are also other units with a special status, like the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Similar conditions apply in Spain. This does not mean that there are no differences in this respect between the contemporary state and its earlier predecessors, but it does mean that we should be cautious about dismissing earlier versions, which differ from the strict model of the sovereign state.There was of course no international organization deciding which units might be regarded as states in the Middle Ages and the early modern period. It is therefore difficult to specify the exact number of states at various periods between the thirteenth and the eighteenth century. In principle, it was an important criterion that the ruler had the title of king; as we have seen, only two rulers succeeded in obtaining the title between the thirteenth century and 1806. Nevertheless, many of the German principalities, like Saxony, Bavaria and Prussia, must be considered states according to most definitions of the term. Their princes controlled their territory in the same way as kings in other countries and, despite their formal subordination to the emperor, they were free to conduct their internal and external policy and might even wage war against the emperor. By contrast, smaller territories were less independent and in practice largely subordinated to stronger neighbours, either the emperor or the rulers of larger principalities.
Nor did the fact that two countries had the same king mean that they were merged into one political unit. In principle, the union king was supposed to rule in the same way as his predecessors before the union. Thus, Scotland, Aragon, Bohemia and Hungary should be listed as independent kingdoms in 1648, as should Portugal during the union with Spain, 1580—1640.
By contrast, Norway was clearly subordinated to Denmark after 1536. In practice, however, unions mostly resulted in some superiority of the stronger country where the king had his main residence. Aragon became subordinated to Castile after the War of the Spanish Succession, Scotland joined a closer union with England in 1707 in which the two parliaments were merged, and both Bohemia and Hungary had their independence reduced. Nevertheless, there are many intermediate stages between full sovereignty and dependence on another kingdom which once more makes it difficult to specify an exact number of states.Concerning the second criterion, institutionalization, until the thirteenth century and even longer, European states seem to have been less developed than their counterparts in many other areas, such as Byzantium, the Arab kingdoms and, above all, China. The kings were far from having a monopoly of violence; they had no taxes, no standing armies and no professional bureaucracy. Locally, they mostly had to share their power with various other princes and the Church. However, they had some advantages that might be developed further. The leading men in the kingdom were linked to them with ties of loyalty. There was a doctrine of monarchy, including rules of dynastic succession, and based on Christianity, Roman law and ancient philosophy, and there was the Church, whose organization was more bureaucratic than that of the king and which had a developed doctrine of public power delegated from God. Both the doctrine and the organization might serve as models for the king, in addition to the fact that the ecclesiastical organization, in particular, the division into parishes, might be used directly by the royal administration. On the other hand, the Church might be a competitor, limiting the king’s power.
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