It is often said that the 1400s were
the twilight years of the Medieval era, when the feudal kingdoms of the middle ages
began the long process of evolving into the centralized realms of the early-modern age, the
precursor of the modern nation state, which is the model upon which nearly every country is run
today. While this is an oversimplified narrative not agreed upon by all historians, the fact
remains that, during the Fifteenth century, the Kingdoms of Western Europe did undergo large
scale projects of stabilization and concentration, both in administration and
territory. In this video, we will take a broad look at how various European
monarchies transitioned out of the middle ages, and examine the changes in politics, government
and society that emerged from this metamorphosis. Maybe things will be different in your kingdom:
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reforms of the 1400s were not the beginning of a new process, but a continuation of other reforms
and attempts that had been made in the previous centuries. Nor did the evolution of European
statehood reach its final form in this era, as resistance, crises and changes in policies
often thwart our attempts to understand the progression of society as a linear forward
path. With all that said, let us now take a look at how the monarchies of 15th century
Western Europe, such as France, England, and the newly-forming Spain, took concrete steps
to centralize their administration and militaries. In the 1450s and 60s, a period of economic
decline swept across Europe. The resulting recession saw civil war become a grimly
common occurrence for various Kingdoms, such as the War of the Roses in England,
the noble rebellions in France, and enduring contests in both Aragon and Castille during the
1460s and 70s. These wars were caused by deep dissatisfaction fermented in the towns and amongst
the common folk, who amidst the economic decay, found their rights and privileges eroding while
taxation increased and disorder became widespread. This ultimately broke the fragile relationship
between the royal governments of Europe and the powerful notables they ruled, such as nobles
and the leading citizens of influential towns. These magnates were often compelled to act
against their Kings either out of their own personal interest, or under pressure
of their own disillusioned subjects, and thus would often take up arms against their
monarchs while claiming to act for the people, as a political community. All this was a
direct blow to Europes’ monarchies, who while dealing both with financial decline and internal
instability, found their power weaker than ever. As a result of their woes, the royal courts of
Europe came to the conclusion that there was a need for royal governments to establish some
form of central coordination over their vassals and procure a stream of income
independent from the taxes they provided. As such, fiscal and jurisdictional assets that
had been dispersed among their vassals had to be recuperated, a process which was accomplished
through the confiscation of the nobles’ property, tampering with their inheritances, negotiations,
and sometimes, outright war against them. By the end of the Fifteenth century, Europes’
monarchs had regained much of their previously lost assets and in some cases, had increased
the amount of land they controlled directly, as opposed to through a feudal landholder. This
was helped by the death or disappearance of many of the great magnates and princes in their realms,
either through luck as families’ lines died off without heirs, or through the direct confiscation
of their lands and titles by their monarchs. For example, the Kings of France absorbed the duchy of
Alencon as a crown-controlled territory following a trial of its duke for treason. In 1477 they also
inherited Burgundy and Picardy following the death of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, at the
Battle of Nancy, which was later repeated in 1481 as the Anjevine house went extinct which brought
their lands in Provence, Bar and Anjou under royal control. Finally, in 1491 the autonomous duchy
of Brittany came under French influence when Anne of Brittany married Charles VII, which would
ultimately lead to the integration of the region. In England the War of the Roses thinned the lines
of the great magnates that had dominated London’s politics during the Hundred Years Wars, allowing
the Tudor monarchy to recuperate estates and privileges as many of these had been confiscated
by the different claimants during the civil war. Still on the British Isles, King James II of
Scotland took control of the great holdings of the Douglas family in the 1450s and later the Scottish
crown took over the Lordship of the Isles. Meanwhile, consolidation and alliance
were other methods by which monarchies increased their power, such as was
the case in the Iberian peninsula, where the two biggest states in Iberia,
Castile and Aragon entered into a union through the marital joining of their
respective rulers, Isabella and Ferdinand, creating a strong powerhouse that would be an
important factor in the following centuries. Another outcome of the civil wars was
the strengthening of the realm itself over individual vassal holdings as the main
political centre of a Kingdom, and the increase of importance of the “public good” or “res
publica” as the most important political goal. In essence, this meant that while monarchs
and their subjects might have their problems, it was important for them to try resolving
them. This evolving relationship between the ruler and the ruled resulted in domestic and
foreign policy becoming more clearly separated, a division which we take for granted now, but
did not exist during the earlier middle ages, such as during the Hundred Year Wars, when nobles
in France often swore allegiance to either the Valois Kings of France or the Plantagenet Dynasty
of England depending on how the war was going. Throughout the 15th century, an effort was made
to make jurisdiction clearer, more coordinated and hierarchical. The rediscovery and distribution
of the codified law of the Ancient Romans helped establish various legal norms across
European realms. In addition, new courtly institutions were established across Kingdoms
to administer direct royal justice, taking away influence from local municipalities or noble
officers who previously had been acting mostly independently of royal guidance. Consequently,
central courts became more accessible to people who lived outside of royal capitals, as
high courts were established in provinces. In France, these courts were called “parlements”,
while in Castille they were called “Audiencias”. The message in establishing these houses of
justice was clear: Kings, not their vassals, were the ones who would guarantee public
order and justice for all in their Kingdoms. Over times, these royal courts became increasingly
sophisticated, as the number of those employed by them increased, and their processes became more
organized. In England, Henry VII retained the much-expanded estates of the crown in his own
hands and used them to sustain an extensive network of gentry servants, while the Parliament
continued to retain its functions. Meanwhile, in Spain, the local assemblies, the Cortes,
retained influence and important functions, while in France instead power was taken from
local assemblies. An important element emerging in this period was the establishment of permanent
ambassadors among the greater countries of Europe, with Ferdinand of Aragon, the Italian states and
the Papacy being especially prolific with this. Another means by which Kings sought to consolidate
power within their realms was by establishing greater control over the Church. As the power
of the Papacy declined in the wake of the schism between the competing Popes of Rome and Avignon,
royal governments also tried to bare down upon the clergy in their countries. In 1438, Charles
VII decreed the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges that diminished the power from the Pope in France
regarding the appointment of bishops and the collection of taxes. The intermittent revoking and
re-establishing of this bill over the following years was often used to make the Popes dance to
the French Kings’ tune. Meanwhile, the emergence of the Protestant movements allowed some states
to remove the influence the Pope had on their country entirely, such as Henry VIII famously
did with the creation of the Church of England. Thus far, we have covered the legal, social, and
religious consolidation of monarchical power, but another pillar of revolution during
this period lay in the royal army. During the 15th century, European armies experienced a
significant evolution. Before, Kings had relied on feudal armies, where nobles brought their own
retinue to fight for the king. After, the Kingdoms of Europe were capable of fielding a standing
army under the direct control of the monarchs. In France, Charles VII attempted to pass
a series of military reforms in 1439 with the goal of creating a permanent army drafted
from roaming bands of unemployed mercenaries, with commanders chosen by the king himself,
thereby ensuring no one else could raise an army without royal consent. While this attempt
failed as the following year when the princes of the kingdom rebelled against him, in 1445 Charles
managed to create the embryo that would become the French standing army. Fifteen ‘compangies
d’ordinance’ were created, each composed of one hundred lances, which were a unit consisting
of five to six men, one of them being men at arms, two mounted archers, a page and a coutilier,
and a lightly armoured mounted soldier. Each company was led by a commander chosen by
the king, often drawn from the lower nobility, and stationed in different regions, with groups
of lances being placed in different villages that were charged with feeding and housing them during
peacetime in exchange for tax exemptions. To the surprise of their contemporaries, these companies
were not disbanded at the end of the Hundred Year War as was expected but they remained in the
service of the king and would grow in numbers in the following centuries. In the 1480s, these
companies would be bolstered by Swiss mercenaries after they had impressed the French court after
their victory over Charles of Burgundy in 1477. By the end of the century, the French monarchs
could raise an army of 20.000 - 25.000 men. Outside of France, the Republic of Venice and
the Kingdom of Hungary under Mathias Corvinus had also managed to create professional armies,
while the Spanish Union began to create a national army in the 1490s, drawing from their experience
obtained in the last phase of the Reconquista, when they had conquered the last
remnants of Muslim Iberia in 1492. A year later in 1493, Spanish heavy cavalry was
organized in companies of one hundred men at arms, each under the direct control of the Crown, and
during the Italian Wars, the same would be done with the infantry. In the following century,
this would evolve into the famous Tercio system. With these reformations came the opportunity for
innovation in military technology. Armies, cannons and gunpowder units, which had become prominent in
sieges during the thirteen hundreds, started being deployed on the battlefield in greater numbers.
Another innovation was the evolution of pike infantry spearheaded by the Swiss, resulting in
professional infantrymen increasing substantially, whereas before, infantry soldiers had
primarily been drawn from peasant levies. Cavalry still remained important for the armies
of the time and their total numbers did not change in the 1500s, but the large increase of
infantry meant that their percentage decreased. With all this covered, it should be noted
that the creation of standing armies was not universal across Europe,
for example, during this era, England’s military was still composed
of levies drawn from the aristocracy. Of course, professional soldiers need to be paid
in wages, and thus, the means by which Kingdoms’ paid their standing armies became more centralised
as a result. Soldiers received their money through the administration of royal officials instead
of local fief holders, as the feudal levies of old had been.. To finance the administration and
the army the states needed resources and funds. The evolution in taxation varied quite
a lot between the different countries, but generally, taxes began to be collected with
greater consistency instead of being one-time exception granted by local councils and the
reformation of the fiscal administration: particularly in France the King managed
to levy the ‘taille’, a direct tax on the non-noble population, without needing the
consent of the General Estates from 1439, but this is an exception. Generally,
representative bodies managed to keep their influence in most European kingdoms and sometimes
even managed to keep their power in avoiding greater taxation, with only France, Castille
and Denmark showing a decline of the assemblies. Also, the amount of taxes levied did not
increase, and in fact, in some places like Castille, England and France the total tax
revenue at the end of the fourteenth century decreased when compared to a century before
during wartime, as there was a general relaxation of fiscal pressure following the Hundred Years
War and the unrest in the ’50s and 60s. In fact, the Crown would continue to borrow heavily
as it was impossible for the king to support its wars with only tax revenue, and it would
continue to do so for the following centuries. In the past, this era, often calling the
kingdoms adopting these reforms “new monarchies”, was seen as the birth of the modern nation-states
and the period in which this trajectory began, which would lead to the absolute
monarchies of the seventeenth century. More modern historians have criticised this view,
like John Morrill who call these states ‘dynastic agglomerates’ that had to deal with the local
elites of the newly integrated territories who remained important for the running of the state,
and these countries would remain fragile for the following centuries, thus not securing some of
the reforms implemented in the fifteenth century. More videos on social and
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