Abstract
Medieval monarchs in Western Europe responded to financial and military pressures by instituting representative assemblies. Three estates (classes; orders) were represented in these assemblies: clergy, nobility, and burghers. In the late medieval and early modern periods, some states tended towards absolutism (e.g., France); others towards constitutional monarchy (e.g., England). The German historian Otto Hintze conjectured that two-chamber assemblies were more likely to resist monarchical encroachments on their political authority than three-chamber assemblies. We argue that the two- versus three-chamber distinction is coincidental to what was truly relevant: whether chambers were estate-based or had mixed representation from multiple estates. We provide a comparative institutional analysis that emphasizes political bargaining and the costs of expressing special versus common interests. This analysis suggests that mixed representation assemblies, all else equal, provided a stronger check on absolutism than their estate-based counterparts. We also provide historical case studies of France and England that lend insights into why an estate-based Estates General arose in the former, while a mixed representation Parliament arose in the latter.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Charles Tilly (1990) linked the growth in medieval and early-modern European state capacity to monarchs’ needs to finance military spending, something which Besley and Persson (2009, p. 1218) characterize as “an archetypal public good representing broadly common interests for citizens.” (Alternatively, Gennaioli and Voth (2015) note that war was often the “sport of kings” and more aptly characterized as a private good.) Ertman (1997) emphasizes the relative ability of different early-modern European nation states to develop merit-based bureaucracies; Charron et al. (2012) subsequently argue the early development of such bureaucracies is more fundamental to accounting for variation in modern-day governance quality in OECD countries than are countries’ legal origins (La Porta et al. 2008). Regarding recent history, Johnson (1982), Amsden (1989), Wade (1990), and Evans (1995) attribute the economic growth successes in East Asia to governments with high state capacity; Herbst (2000) and Centeno (2002) argue that low state capacity is a source of development failure in Africa and Latin America, respectively.
Admitting this is not to deny that investments in fiscal and legal capacity can be complementary. For example, a state that provides rule of law and opportunities for wealth creation to its citizens (high legal capacity) will likely face less resistance to/avoidance of its efforts to collect taxes; hence higher returns to its existing fiscal capacity.
We also take as a historical given that, more general, representative assemblies uniquely arose in Europe. Stasavage (2016) provides an excellent review of the large literature exploring why this may have been the case.
Stasavage (2010) and Van Zanden et al. (2012) construct these original datasets on assembly activity. Abramson and Boix (2014) study employs data from both of those datasets. Bologna Pavlik and Young (2017) report evidence, based on the Stasavage (2010) data, that medieval/early-modern representative assembly experiences robustly correlate with present-day income levels and measures of the rule of law.
Young (2016) illustrates those collective action problems with the historical example of the roving Visigothic confederacy in the fourth and fifth centuries as it transitioned towards the stationary Visigothic Kingdom. Young (2017a) explores the constitutional political economy of the Visigothic and other barbarian settlements in the twilight of the Western Roman Empire.
E.g., a noble lorded over a realm constituted by his own demesnes and benefices bestowed upon his vassals. The lord was a governance provider for his vassals. Those vassals, in return, owed military service and a share of the produce from their benefices. Providing security and justice to the overall realm, then, generated returns for the lord and vassals alike.
The feudal hierarchy emanated down from monarchs in a cascade of overlapping jurisdictions. A monarch was lord over a realm that included benefices bestowed upon his vassals; his vassals were principle nobles who bestowed benefices upon their own vassals; etc.
For example, if a lord attempted to expropriate resources from a vassal above and beyond his feudal obligations, the vassal could appeal to the lord’s lord (e.g., a principle noble or monarch) who was an overarching governance provider. Serfs were limited by being legally tied to their lords' lands and their ability to "vote with their feet" may have been quite limited until the Black Death (mid-1300 s) decreased the labor-to-land ratio and increased their de facto bargaining power. However, North and Thomas (1971, 1973) argue that Western European serfs had meaningful opportunities to "illegally steal away to seek asylum on another manor or, somewhat later, in one of the growing number of medieval towns" throughout the High Middle Ages (1971, p. 788). Note also that the legal maxim, city air makes you free, developed prior to the Black Death; a serf that managed to reside within a chartered city for a year and a day became a free individual (Young 2017b).
Literary references to a tripartite system of estates can be found dating back to at least the eleventh century (Duby 1980[1978]).
Medieval cities were important sources of wealth and administrative human capital to both monarchs and the nobility. As such, they had political bargaining power to play alternative lords off one another.
The credible commitment story appears consistent with the weakness of European monarchs (relative to those of China and the Middle East) and their lack of effective, centralized bureaucracies (e.g, Wickham 2009; North 1990; Brennan and Buchanan 2006). Tridmas (2016) moves beyond the constitutional exchange theories of the rise of representative government to explore the reasons that monarchs may eventually withdraw from active governance.
Quoted and translated by Ertman (1997, p. 21).
Hintze employed the somewhat confusing terminology of estate-based and territorially based to refer to, respectively, three-chamber and two-chamber assemblies. This terminology incorrectly suggests that representation in three-chamber assemblies was not at all territorially based. In truth, both types of assemblies drew representation from the various territories of a monarch’s realm. For a stylized example, both a three-chamber and two-chamber assembly might have drawn one noble, one clergyman, and one burgher from each territory. However, in the case of the three-chamber (estate-based) assembly, all nobles, clergymen, and burghers would have met in their respective chambers.
Buchanan and Tullock (1962, ch. 16) is an early analysis of how assembly structure relates to coalitions of representatives being able to exert control of chambers, logroll across them, and rent seek.
While aggressive military campaigning could generate benefits in the form of plunder and new lands it is unlikely that those benefits would be enjoyed broadly. Members of the second estate would have captured most of the benefits, expecting to keep much of what they plundered as compensation for their military services.
In this case, powers were granted to the effective monarch. As Mayor of the Palace, Charles ruled for puppet Merovingian monarchs until, after the death of King Theuderic IV, he continued his rule with an empty throne. His son, Pippin III, subsequently assumed the Frankish throne. See Sect. 5 below.
Decision-making rules were sometimes different for the different chambers of a single assembly. For example, in Catalonia the chambers of the clergy and cities each operated based on majority rule while the nobility required unanimity (Lord 1930, p. 37; Myers 1975, p. 64). Alternatively, in Aragon each of the four estates operated based on a unanimity rule (Myers 1975, p. 32); this was also the case, at least while considering taxes, for the assembly of Castile, the Holy Roman Empire’s Reichstag, the Dutch Republic, and the Swiss Riksdag (Lord 1930, p. 37).
Though political scientists and political economists have long recognized the phenomenon of logrolling, Tullock (1959) and Buchanan and Tullock’s (1962) are the seminal works that spawned the modern literature on the subject. Important theoretical and empirical that followed include Tullock (1970), Riker and Brams (1973), Ferejohn (1986), Stratmann (1992, 1995), and Carrubba and Volden (2000) For reviews of that subsequent literature see Miller (1977) and Mueller (2003, ch. 5).
Askoy provides evidence based on European Union legislative proposals that is consistent with this argument.
When not referenced otherwise specifically, many factual details regarding the Carolingians are drawn from Riché (1993 [1983]).
In 747 Carloman decided (whether voluntarily or not we will never know) to withdraw from secular politics and join the clergy in Rome.
The Great Schism between the Western and Eastern Churches would not occur until 1054. However, even in the early medieval period the competition between the Roman papacy and patriarchy of Constantinople for spiritual authority was an important one. On the relationships between early Carolingians and the Church see Riché (1993 [1983], pp. 293–295), Pirenne (2001 [1937], pp. 221–224), and Wickham (2009, pp. 376–377).
References
Abramson, S., & Boix, C. (2014). The roots of the Industrial Revolution: Political institutions or (historically embedded) know-how? Princeton University Working Paper.
Acemoglu, D., Garcia-Jimeno, C., & Robinson, J. A. (2015). State capacity and economic development: A network approach. American Economic Review, 105, 2364–2409.
Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., & Robinson, J. A. (2005). Institutions as a fundamental cause of long-run growth. In E. Duflo, A. Banerjee (Eds.), Handbook of economic growth (Vol. 1A, pp. 385–472)
Acemoglu, D., Moscona, J., & Robinson, J. A. (2016). State capacity and American technology: Evidence from the 19th century. American Economic Review (forthcoming).
Acemoglu, D., Ticchi, D., & Vindigni, A. (2011). Emergence and persistence of inefficient states. Journal of the European Economic Association, 9, 177–208.
Aksoy, D. (2012). Institutional arrangements and logrolling: Evidence from the European Union. American Political Science Review, 56, 538–552.
Aligica, P. D., & Tarko, V. (2014). Institutional resilience and economic systems: lessons from Elinor Ostrom’s work. Comparative Economic Studies, 56, 52–76.
Anderson, J. L. (1991). Explaining long-term economic change. London: Macmillian.
Asbridge, T. (2004). The first crusade: A new history. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Baechler, J. (1975). The origins of capitalism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Benson, B. L. (1989). The spontaneous evolution of commercial law. Southern Economic Journal, 55, 644–661.
Berman, H. J. (1983). Law and revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Besley, T., & Persson, T. (2009). The origins of state capacity: Property rights, taxation, and politics. American Economic Review, 99, 1218–1244.
Besley, T., & Persson, T. (2010). State capacity, conflict, and development. Econometrica, 78, 1–34.
Besley, T., & Persson, T. (2011). Pillars of prosperity: The political economics of development clusters. New Haven, CT: Princeton University Press.
Bisson, T. N. (2009). The crisis of the twelfth century: Power, lordship, and the origins of European government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Bloch, M. (1968a [1939]). Feudal society: Volume 1—the growth of ties of dependence. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Bloch, M. (1968b [1940]). Feudal society: Volume 2—social classes and political organization. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Bologna Pavlik, J., & Young, A. T. (2017). The legacy of representation in medieval Europe for incomes and institutions today. SSRN Working Paper. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3032584.
Brennan, G., & Buchanan, J. M. (2006). The power to tax: Analytical foundations of fiscal constitution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, A. L. (1989). The governance of late medieval England (pp. 1272–1461). London: Edward Arnold.
Buchanan, J. M. (1975). The limits of liberty: Between anarchy and leviathan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Buchanan, J. M., & Congleton, R. D. (2003 [1998]). Politics by principle, not interest: Towards nondiscriminatory democracy. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Buchanan, J. M., & Tullock, G. (1962). The calculus of consent: Logical foundations of constitutional democracy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Cam, H. M. (1953). The theory and practice of representation in medieval England. History, 38, 11–26.
Campbell, J. (1986a). Observations on English government from the tenth to the twelfth centuries. In Essays in Anglo-Saxon history. London: Hambledon Press.
Campbell, J. (1986b). The significance of the Anglo-Norma state in the administrative history of Western Europe. In Essays in Anglo-Saxon history. London: Hambledon Press.
Carrubba, C. J., & Volden, C. (2000). Coalitional politics and logrolling in legislative institutions. Journal of Politics, 59, 469–496.
Coll, S. (2008). The origins and evolution of democracy: An exercise in history from a constitutional economic approach. Constitutional Political Economy, 19(4), 313–355.
Congleton, R. D. (2001). On the durability of king and council: The continuum between dictatorship and democracy. Constitutional Political Economy, 12(3), 193–215.
Congleton, R. D. (2007). From royal to parliamentary rule without revolution: The economics of constitutional exchange within divided governments. European Journal of Political Economy, 23, 261–284.
Congleton, R. D. (2011). Perfecting Parliament: Constitutional Reform, Liberalism, and the Rise of Western Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Congleton, R. D. (2013). On the inevitability of divided government and a complete separation of powers. Constitutional Political Economy, 24(3), 177–198.
de Figueiredo, R. J. P., Jr., & Weingast, B. R. (2005). Self-enforcing federalism. Journal of Law Economics and Organization, 21, 103–135.
de Jong, M. (2005). Charlemagne’s church. In J. Story (Ed.), Charlemagne: Empire and society (pp. 103–135). New York, NY: Manchester University Press.
Downing, B. M. (1988). Constitutionalism, warfare, and political change in early modern Europe. Theory and Society, 17, 7–56.
Downing, B. M. (1989). Medieval origins of constitutional government in the West. Theory and Society, 18, 213–247.
Downing, B. M. (1992). the military revolution and political change: Origins of democracy and autocracy in early modern Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Duby, G. (1980 [1978]). The three orders: feudal society imagined. (tr: Goldhammer, A.). Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
Ertman, T. (1997). Birth of the Leviathan. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Ferejohn, J. (1986). Logrolling in an institutional context: A case study of food stamps legislation. In G. Wright, L. Rieselbach, & L. Dodd (Eds.), European community decision making: Models, applications, and comparisons (pp. 223–253). New York, NY: Agathon Press.
Finer, S. (1997). The history of government, Vol. I–III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fukuyama, F. (2011). The origins of political order: From prehuman times to the French revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Gennaioli, N., & Voth, H.-J. (2015). State capacity and military conflict. Review of Economic Studies, 82, 1409–1448.
Glaeser, E., & Shleifer, A. (2002). Legal origins. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117, 1193–1229.
González de Lara, Y. G., Greif, A., & Jha, S. (2008). The administrative foundation of self- enforcing constitutions. American Political Science Review, 98, 105–109.
Greif, A. (2006). Institutions and the path to the modern economy: Lessons from medieval trade. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Heather, P. (2009). Empires and barbarians: The fall of Rome and the birth of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hintze, O. (1970 [1930]). Typologie der standischen verfassungen des abendlandes. In, Staat und Verfassung: Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur Allgemeinen Verfassungsgeschichte. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Hintze, O. (1975 [1931]). The preconditions of representative government in the context of world history. In Gilbert, P. (Ed.). The historical essays of otto hintze. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hollister, C. W., & Baldwin, J. (1978). The rise of administrative kingship: Henry I and Philip Augustus. American Historical Review, 83, 867–905.
La Porta, R., Lopez-De-Silanes, F., & Shleifer, A. (2008). The economic consequences of legal origins. Journal of Economic Literature, 46, 285–332.
La Porta, R., Lopez-De-Silanes, F., Shleifer, A., & Vishny, R. (1997). Legal determinants of external finance. The Journal of Finance, 52, 1131–1150.
Leeson, P. T. (2011). Government, clubs, and constitutions. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 80, 301–308.
Lord, R. H. (1930). The parliaments of the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Catholic Historical Review, 16, 125–144.
Loyn, H. R. (1984). The governance of Anglo Saxon England, 500–1087. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Mathisen, R. (1993). Roman aristocrats in barbarian Gaul: Strategies for survival in an age of transition. Austin: University of Texas Press.
McCloskey, D. (2016). Bourgeois equality: How ideas, not capital or institutions, enriched the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Miller, N. R. (1977). Logrolling, vote-trading, and the paradox of voting: A game-theoretic overview. Public Choice, 30, 51–75.
Mittal, S., & Weingast, B. R. (2011). Self-enforcing constitutions: with an application to democratic stability in America’s first century. Journal of Law Economics and Organization, 29, 278–302.
Mueller, D. C. (2003). Public Choice III. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Mundy, J. H., & Riesenberg, P. (1958). The medieval town. Malabar, FL: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Company.
Myers, A. R. (1975). Parliaments and estates in Europe to 1789. London: Thames & Hudson.
North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, institutional change, and economic performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
North, D. C., & Thomas, R. P. (1971). The rise and fall of the manorial system: A theoretical model. Journal of Economic History, 31(4), 777–803.
North, D. C., & Thomas, R. P. (1973). The rise of the western world: A new economic history. London: Cambridge University Press.
North, D., Wallis, J. J., & Weingast, B. R. (2009). Violence and social orders: A conceptual framework for interpreting recorded human history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
North, D. C., & Weingast, B. R. (1989). Constitutions and commitment: The evolution of institutions governing public choice in seventeenth-century England. Journal of Economic History, 49, 803–832.
Ostrom, E. (2010). Beyond markets and states: Polycentric governance of complex economic systems. American Economic Review, 100, 641–672.
Ostrom, V., Tiebout, C. M., & Warren, R. (1961). The organization of government in metropolitan areas: A theoretical inquiry. American Political Science Review, 55, 831–842.
Pirenne, H. (2001 [1937]). Mohammed and charlemagne. Mineola, NY: Dover Books.
Qian, Y., & Weingast, B. R. (1997). Federalism as a commitment to preserving market incentives. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 11, 83–92.
Raico, R. (1994). The theory of economic development and the ‘European miracle’. In Boettke (Ed.), The collapse of development planning. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Riché, P. (1993 [1983]). The Carolingians: A Family who Forged Europe. (Allen, M. I., tr.) Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Riker, W., & Brams, S. (1973). Paradox of vote trading. American Political Science Review, 67, 1235–1247.
Russell, C. S. R. (1982). Monarchies, wars, and states in England, France, and Spain, c. 1580-1640. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 7, 205–220.
Salter, A. W. (2015a). Rights to the realm: reconsidering western political development. American Political Science Review, 109, 725–734.
Salter, A. W. (2015b). Sovereignty as exchange of political property rights. Public Choice, 165, 79–96.
Salter, A. W., Young, A. T. (2017). Polycentric sovereignty: The medieval constitution, governance quality, and the wealth of nations. SSRN Working Paper. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2735963.
Southern, R. W. (1992 [1953]). The making of the middle ages. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Stark, R. (2011). The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement became the World’s Largest Religion. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Stasavage, D. (2010). When distance mattered: Geographic scale and the development of European representative assemblies. American Political Science Review, 104, 625–643.
Stasavage, D. (2016). Representation and consent: Why they arose in Europe and not elsewhere. American Review of Political Science, 19, 145–162.
Stratmann, T. (1992). The effects of logrolling on congressional voting. American Economic Review, 82, 1162–1176.
Stratmann, T. (1995). Logrolling in the U.S. Congress. Economic Inquiry, 33, 441–456.
Tiebout, C. M. (1956). A pure theory of local expenditures. Journal of Political Economy, 64, 416–424.
Tilly, C. (1990). Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990. Oxford: Blackwell.
Tridmas, G. (2016). On the overthrow or endurance of kings. Constitutional Political Economy, 27(1), 41–65.
Tullock, G. (1959). Problems of majority voting. Journal of Political Economy, 67, 571–579.
Tullock, G. (1970). A simple algebraic logrolling model. American Economic Review, 60, 419–426.
van Zanden, J., Buringh, E., & Bosker, M. (2012). The rise and decline of European parliaments, 1188-1789. Economic History Review, 65, 835–861.
Vinogradoff, P. (1968 [1922]). Feudalism. Ch. 18 in (Gwatkin, Whitney, Tanner, Previté-Orton, eds.), The Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 3: Germany and the Western Empire. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Wasson, E. A. (1998). The penetration of new wealth into the English governing class from the Middle Ages to the first world war. Economic History Review, 51, 25–48.
Weber, M. (1978 [1922]). Economy and Society (G. Roth, C. Wittich, eds.). New York, NY: Bedminster Press.
Weingast, B. R. (1993). Constitutions as governance structures: The political foundations of secure markets. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 1, 286–311.
Weingast, B. R. (1995). The economic role of political institutions: Market-preserving federalism and economic development. Journal of Law Economics and Organization, 11, 1–31.
Wickham, C. (2009). The inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the dark ages 400–1000. London: Penguin Books.
Wickham, C. (2016). Medieval Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Young, A. T. (2016). What does it take for a roving bandit to settle down? Theory and an illustrative history of the Visigoths. Public Choice, 168, 75–102.
Young, A. T. (2017a). Hospitalitas: Barbarian settlements and constitutional foundations of medieval Europe. Journal of Institutional Economics (forthcoming). https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2674270.
Young, A. T. (2017b). How city air made us free: The self-governing medieval city and the bourgeoisie reevaluation. Journal of Private Enterprise (forthcoming). https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2860469.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Salter, A.W., Young, A.T. Medieval representative assemblies: collective action and antecedents of limited government. Const Polit Econ 29, 171–192 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-018-9258-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-018-9258-1
Keywords
- Medieval economic history
- Comparative economic development
- Medieval constitution
- Polycentric governance
- Political property rights
- Representative assemblies