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A Spatial Approach to Structural Change: The Making of the French Hexagon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Ulrich Blum  and
Leonard Dudley
Ulrich Blum
Affiliation:
Professor of Political Economy, Universität Bamberg, Postfach 1549, D-8600, Bamberg, German Federal Republic
Leonard Dudley
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3C 3J7.
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Abstract

Previous studies explain the extension of royal power in fifteenth-century France by the professionalization of military combat or by the commercialization of economic activity. Neither approach can account for the turnaround in Charles VII's fortunes between 1435 and 1445. Using Lösch's model of spatial competition to examine the determinants of state borders, we suggest that the key factor in the formation of the French hexagon was an innovation in artillery projectiles that increased military scale economies. A reduction in state economic intervention apparently accompanied this development rather than the increase suggested elsewhere.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , September 1989 , pp. 657 - 675
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1989

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References

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