Before the State: Systemic Political Change in the West from the Greeks to the French Revolution

587 Pages·2008·4.77 MB·English

by  Andreas Osiander

BEFORE THE STATE
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Before the State: Systemic Political
Change in the West from the Greeks
to the French Revolution
Andreas Osiander
1
3
GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp
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ISBN 978–0–19–829451–1
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ÙBÚ IÎÁËεfl·Ú Í·dεöd ÙaεúÙÔEÏ· ÏAÎÎÔÌ ÙÒ´εÔÌÙ·È.
Tamenounpalaia´toiau´tahˆeu´ron,chalepa´o´ntapant´ıhex´eˆstekmˆer´ıoˆ pisteu´sai.hoi
i
gar a´nthroˆpoi tas akoa´s toˆn progegenˆem´enˆon, kai ˆen epich´oˆria sph´ısin ˆe , homo´ıoˆs
i
abasan´ıstoˆs par’all´eˆlˆon d´echontai....hou´toˆs atala´ıpoˆros tois pollo´ıs hˆe z´eˆtesis tˆes
alˆethe´ıas kai ep´ı ta heto´ıma ma´llon tr´epontai.
So this is what I found the past to have been like, it being ill-advised simply
to trust whatever testimony one comes across. For men accept from one another
hearsay about history, without examining it even where their own country is
concerned....That is how indifferent most people are to finding out the truth,
preferring as they do to turn to what is ready-made.
Thukyd´ıdˆes (1.20)
[Man muß] die Geschichte lassen, wie sie ist, sich nicht...ein gewißes historisches
Lehrgeb¨aude in den Kopf sezen und die Historie darnach drehen.
[One must] leave the past as it is, not...get into one’s head some doctrinal edifice
about history and twist history to fit it.
Johann Jacob Moser (1766: 538)
Ifthereisindeedahiddenrealityofpoliticalpower,afirststeptowardsdiscovering
it might be a resolute refusal to accept the legitimating account of it that political
theoristsandpoliticalactorssoinvitinglyandubiquitouslyholdouttous—thatis,
theideathatitis‘thestate’....Thestateisnottherealitywhichstandsbehindthe
mask of political practice. It is itself the mask which prevents our seeing political
practice as it is.
Philip Abrams (1988: 63–4, 82)
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Contents
Acknowledgements xi
Greek transliteration table xiii
Comments on Greek transliteration xv
The treatment of Greek proper names xvii
Other points regarding spelling and nomenclature xix
Abbreviations xxi
1 Basics 1
1.1 History as popular myth in IR and elsewhere 1
1.2 The ‘state’ a timeless marker of civilization? ‘State’ and language 4
1.3 ‘State’ and discourse of eternity in historiography and social science.
The notion of ‘bounded entities’ 10
1.4 The method of this study 17
1.5 Key concepts 25
2 Greeks and Romans 33
2.1 The material base of society and the threats facing it 33
2.1.1 Agriculture 33
2.1.2 Craftsmen, traders, and bankers 35
2.1.3 Limited economic role of warfare: the case of Corinth 39
2.2 Rule and society 42
2.2.1 The Greek world until the conquest of the Persian empire 42
2.2.2 The Greek world in the post-Persian era 84
2.2.3 Imperium Romanum 94
2.3 Political community and supralocal rule in the pre-christian
Graeco-Roman world 110
2.3.1 The absence of domestic sovereignty in the p´olis and in the
Roman citizenry 110
2.3.2 Supralocal rule 114
2.3.3 Community and ideology in the Greek and Roman empires 118
2.3.4 Roma aeterna 123
vii
viii Contents
2.4 The relations between autonomous actors and communities in Greek and
Roman political thought 127
2.5 Thukyd´ıdˆes 139
3 The universal community of christendom 165
3.1 The Roman empire transformed 165
3.1.1 The crisis of the Roman empire after 235 165
3.1.2 The dissolution of the western empire 171
3.1.3 Constantinople and the Germanic world 175
3.1.4 The Roman empire of Constantinople: shrinkage
and stabilization 188
3.1.5 The restoration of the imperial dignity in the west 191
3.2 Rule and society in pre-Reformation christendom 200
3.2.1 De-urbanization 200
3.2.2 Particularism and universalism in the west 221
3.3 Discourse of eternity and collective identities in christendom 228
3.3.1 The empire of Constantinople 229
3.3.2 Latin christendom 236
3.4 Political thinking of the respublica christiana 268
3.4.1 The Roman empire lives on, ‘albeit as a fiction’ 268
3.4.2 The empire in christian theology and eschatology 270
3.4.3 The political organization of christendom in the thinking of the
scholastics 282
3.4.4 Henry VII 285
3.4.5 Engelbert of Admont 296
3.4.6 Dante Alighieri 312
3.4.7 Pierre Dubois 324
4 Pre-industrial Europe 341
4.1 A new, more dynamic era 341
4.1.1 Economic renewal: the millennium of mills 342
4.1.2 Monetization 359
4.2 Kingship in Latin christendom 368
4.2.1 The foil: first-millennium warrior kingship 369
4.2.2 The lord’s anointed 371
4.2.3 Kingship as a structural factor in the politics of ancien r´egime
Europe: the case of Plantagenet expansionism 378
4.2.4 The fiction of the efficient ruler: Thomas Aquinas and Giles
of Rome 394
4.2.5 The imperial office as an archetype of monarchical rule: Nicholas
of Kues and Enea Silvio Piccolomini 403
4.2.6 The crown as an imagined central power 419
4.3 Crown and ‘state’ in the ancien r´egime 421
4.3.1 The nature of the period, and what to call it 421
4.3.2 The heightened profile of princely governance in post-Reformation
Europe 422
4.3.3 Post-Reformation theorists of princely power: Bodin, Althusius,
and Hobbes 431
Contents ix
4.4 The reality of late ancien r´egime society 450
4.4.1 Germany in the ancien r´egime 451
4.4.2 France in the ancien r´egime 467
4.4.3 Ancien r´egime kingdoms and comparable political units as
precursors not prototypes of the modern state 479
4.4.4 Autonomous political actors in the ancien r´egime 485
5 Conclusion 495
References 511
Index 541