7 - The state

Summary

Can we, in this period, detect the emergence of ‘the modern state’? There has been some dispute about whether we can properly speak of ‘the state’ itself before 1450 or even 1600. The answers to such questions depend upon how one defines the terms. Here we are concerned with the idea of the state. For our purposes the following definitions are relevant: (1) an order of power distinct from other orders (military, religious, economic and so on), which we call political; (2) authority exercised over a defined territory and all its inhabitants; (3) the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical coercion (as Weber put it); (4) legitimacy derived from inside the political community, not delegated by an external authority; (5) a body or authority with some moral (as opposed to merely repressive) functions, such as the imposition of law and order, the defence of justice and rights, promotion of a common welfare; (6) ‘an apparatus of power whose existence remains independent of those who may happen to have control of it at any given time’, which Skinner calls ‘a recognisably modern conception of the state’.

We have seen that the idea of the state in most of these senses was present or developing in this period. Words specifically referring to political sovereignty included principatus, auctoritas or potestas supretna, maiestas, superioritas, plenitudo potestatis (or plena potestas). Regarding (1), the authority to make and enforce laws was conceptually distinct from military and economic power; and during this period the distinction between secular and ecclesiastical authority was fully worked out (chapter 2).