13 - The Latin West

Summary

Possession of land, noble lineage and martial prowess was, in theory, a sine qua non for participating in the Latin west’s politics. Yet forms of political organisation diversified: by the late middle ages, urban leaders and the ‘commons’ had forced their way into many political communities, with access to commercial wealth playing an ever more important role. Monarchies, principalities, ecclesiastical polities and city states alike relied on written procedures underpinned by elaborate laws. Legal knowledge and access to the ruler’s court became foundations of elite hegemony – alongside military power which was itself changing, as war taxation and the means of raising armies grew more complex. Education allowed some to rise through administrative service or the law. Despite the attempts of aristocratic military elites to shore up their hegemony, the political culture of most of Latin Christendom was flexible enough to let merchants, lawyers and scholars join or partner those elites in ways that would have been unimaginable in the early middle ages.