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.
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Before we start, we have to specify that the 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.
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