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CIAO DATE: 6/99
Popes, Kings and Endogenous Institutions: The Concordat of Worms and the Origins of Sovereignty *
Hoover Institution
May 10, 1999
International Studies Association
40th Annual Convention
Washington, D.C.
February 16–20, 1999
Very rough preliminary and incomplete draft
The modern state-centric international system is generally thought to have its origins in the Treaty of Westphalia. From that perspective, the modern sovereign state owes its origins to the resolution of the Thirty Years War. Prior to 1648, international politics are thought to have been less territorially focused, with feudal ties taking precedence over considerations of state. Here I set out a modest theory of competition between the Catholic church and European kings, especially the Holy Roman Emperor and the kings of France and England, during the years from 1122 onward. That theory suggests that the modern territorial state has its origins in the Concordat of Worms, 500 years earlier than is generally thought. It also suggests that the development of important institutions of the modern sovereign state are an endogenous product of strategic maneuvering between the Catholic Church and European kings over political control within their domains. Naturally, other factors, including competition between kings and barons, and aristocrats and merchants also play an important part in the evolution of political institutions. Those other considerations, however, are not examined here so that what I propose is a partial, incomplete account of the early developments that culminated in the modern territorial, sovereign state. Specifically, the theory maintains that the development of “modern” political institutions and the history of economic growth in Europe are to a significant degree the consequence of competition between monarchs and the Catholic church. This views stands in contrast to the general accounts of economic growth or of institution building found in the sociological literature beginning with Weber or in the historical and much of the political economy literature. 1
I begin by reviewing the essential features of Westphalia that posit fundamental elements of sovereignty. Then I investigate how these elements are tied to Church-king competition following from the investiture struggle over the appointment of bishops. I show that the resolution of that struggle established a property right that adhered to sovereign territory, placed the king in a fiduciary role regarding that territory, and that this property right fostered competition which influenced economic growth in Europe for centuries and was an important element moving kings and popes to erect new political institutions.
A Brief Review of Westphalia
The Treaty of Westphalia contains more than one hundred specific articles laying out the terms and conditions under which the Thirty Years War ended. Most of these articles deal with matters of allocating valuable resources among aristocrats or restoring valuables lost by some aristocrats to others during the war. A few articles, however, pertain directly to the establishment of territorial sovereignty, with the attendant rights to legislate and enforce rules within the territorial boundaries and to maintain a monopoly over the use of force in dealing with entities beyond the territorial borders. Some central examples of relevant articles from the treaty highlight this important feature of Westphalia:
Article LXIV.
And to prevent for the future any Differences arising in the Politick
State, all and every one of the Electors, Princes and States of the Roman
Empire, are so establish’d and confirm’d in their antient Rights,
Prerogatives, Libertys, Privileges, free exercise of Territorial Right,
as well Ecclesiastick, as Politick Lordships, Regales, by virtue of this
present Transaction: that they never can or ought to be molested therein
by any whomsoever upon any manner of pretence.
Article LXV.
They shall enjoy without contradiction, the Right of Suffrage in all
Deliberations touching the Affairs of the Empire; but above all, when the
Business in hand shall be the making or interpreting of Laws, the
declaring of Wars, imposing of Taxes, levying or quartering of Soldiers,
erecting new Fortifications in the Territorys of the States, or
reinforcing the old Garisons; as also when a Peace of Alliance is to be
concluded, and treated about, or the like, none of these, or the like
things shall be acted for the future, without the Suffrage and Consent of
the Free Assembly of all the States of the Empire: Above all, it shall be
free perpetually to each of the States of the Empire, to make Alliances
with Strangers for their Preservation and Safety; provided, nevertheless,
such Alliances be not against the Emperor, and the Empire, nor against
the Publick Peace, and this Treaty, and without prejudice to the Oath by
which every one is bound to the Emperor and the Empire.
Article LXVII.
That as well as general as particular Diets, the free Towns, and other
States of the Empire, shall have decisive Votes; they shall, without
molestation, keep their Regales, Customs, annual Revenues, Libertys,
Privileges to confiscate, to raise Taxes, and other Rights, lawfully
obtain’d from the Emperor and Empire, or enjoy’d long before these
Commotions, with a full Jurisdiction within the inclosure of their Walls,
and their Territorys: making void at the same time, annulling and for the
future prohibiting all Things, which by Reprisals, Arrests, stopping of
Passages, and other prejudicial Acts, either during the War, under what
pretext soever they have been done and attempted hitherto by private
Authority, or may hereafter without any preceding formality of Right be
enterpris’d. As for the rest, all laudable Customs of the sacred Roman
Empire, the fundamental Constitutions and Laws, shall for the future be
strictly observ’d, all the Confusions which time of War have, or could
introduce, being remov’d and laid aside.
Article 64 establishes territoriality and the right of the state to choose its own religion, as well as the right to non-interference by other states in any of these matters. Under article 65 sovereign authority is further spelled out, especially with regard to foreign policy. This article, for instance, establishes that no super-national authority (i.e., the Catholic Church or the Holy Roman Empire) can make or negate alliances made between sovereigns for the purpose of protecting their respective nation’s security. In a similar manner, article 67 establishes that sovereign states can determine their own domestic policies, free from external pressures and “with full Jurisdiction within the inclosure of their Walls and their Territorys.”
There can be little doubt, reading these passages, that the Westphalian system codifies the key defining features of the modern sovereign state. Westphalia defines the modern international system, indicating what are legitimate ways for states to interact with one another and what are illegitimate ways. The system or modes of interaction between states are, then, explicitly laid out for the first time in the Treaty of Westphalia. However, it is a mistake to think that the modern state sprung up suddenly, fully conceived and matured, with the signing of this treaty. The modern state was a work in progress in 1648 and, of course, it is still a work in progress. I contend, in fact, that the modern state is best understood as a set of evolving institutions, with the evolutionary process set in motion by the Concordat of Worms in 1122 (if not earlier) and with the process reflecting the strategic actions and reactions by the Catholic church and kings to one another’s maneuvers and their mutual desire to enhance their political influence over each other.
The Power of the Pope
The power and authority of the pope was at its highpoint roughly from the papacy of Innocent III (1198-1216) to that of Boniface VIII (1295-1303). During the preceding three centuries the pope’s influence was gradually and dramatically transformed. Where once he was no more than the bishop of Rome, by the period discussed here he had expanded the authority associated with his title as the Vicar of Christ, the presumptive living embodiment of Christ’s will. Having once been subservient to secular rulers, serving largely at their pleasure, the pope had become essential to the coronation and legitimation of the Catholic kings of Europe. 2 The pope and church were elevated to such a degree that the bishop of Rome now claimed the authority to excommunicate or depose kings. 3 Indeed, some, like the king of England, explicitly owed fealty to the pope. The infallibility doctrine which had originally constrained pope’s to follow precedence was, sometime between 1316 and 1334, converted into something closer to its modern interpretation in which the pope can overturn precedence by invoking infallibility. It was a time when the pope was arguably the most powerful leader in the world and when the church was arguably the hegemon in Europe. After the early thirteen hundreds, the pope’s influence went into a slow, gradual decline as the authority of sovereign kings rose to replace the church as the dominant political factor in Europe. The Thirty Years War marked the culmination of that process. After the war, Catholicism no longer was even able to claim successfully to be the one true faith among European monarchs. I believe that even this consequence, though not its specific timing, is explicable in terms of the forces set in motion at Worms in 1122.
My central contention is that the institutional arrangements that elevated the pope and church to such an exalted position during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries also planted the seeds of the church’s slow demise as a secular European or world power and created the nascent modern, territorial state, gradually shifting political control from the pope to heads of state. Here I focus on one small part of this thesis. In particular, I examine the appointment of bishops in France during the reign of Philip Augustus (1179-1223). I do so to understand the nascent stage of nationalism and sovereignty. In the course of my analysis I hope to establish that the modern international system based on sovereign states has its origins at least in the investiture struggle and its resolution in the Concordat of Worms (1122) as well as in earlier, similar agreements with the kings of France and England. This stands in contrast to the conventional view among students of international affairs. 4 Furthermore, I hope to lay the foundation for an argument that shows that the survival of the Catholic church’s secular power depended, in part, on its adopting policies designed to retard economic growth outside areas that were under its direct control. And I hope to establish that growth-oriented economic, social and political policies were critical for secular rulers to elevate themselves above the authority of the papacy.
To summarize, the standard view is that
This standard perspective is clearly reflected in the following statements by distinguished historians examining these very questions:
John Gilchrist, for instance, writes, “During the vital period of growth the church did not impede but fostered economic progress.” 5
Ernst Kantorowicz, observing the emergence of new institutions, claims, “When in the twelfth century the church, including the clerical bureaucracy, established itself as the ‘mystical body of Christ,’ the secular world sector proclaimed itself as the ‘holy Empire.’ This does not imply causation, either in the one way or the other. It merely indicates the activity of indeed interrelated impulses and ambitions . . . [that] happened to emerge simultaneously — around the middle of the twelfth century.” 6
John Baldwin maintains that “Louis VII’s policy of uncoerced cooperation [with the pope] worked still more advantageously for his son.” 7
I shall argue that each of these claims is mistaken. The church did try to impede growth. It erected institutions designed to foster a slow-down in growth in the secular sector as a strategic maneuver to sustain the pope’s political power. Kings developed new administrative and judicial institutions as a strategic response designed to increase the power of kings at the expense of the church and they did so to counteract the efforts by the church to enhance the authority of the pope. One consequence of these strategic efforts was that where monarchs were successful in the promotion of economic growth, they were able to compel the pope to appoint bishops that satisfied their interests above the church’s, thereby enhancing their political power.
I begin by setting out a simple model for the appointment of bishops. Through comparative static analysis, I use the model to examine the appointment process in the light of different levels of economic development. I show that the pope, as leader of the church, had incentives to retard those aspects of economic growth that disproportionately advantaged secular rulers relative to the advantages conferred on the church. I contend that the pope promoted new institutions designed to thwart growth and that kings, responding to the shifting strategic environment, invented new political institutions to promote their authority over the Catholic church. Having laid out the theoretical argument, I offer empirical evidence for the thesis proposed here and indicate how the evidence contradicts previous historical accounts. The evidence is presented in two forms. First, I offer a brief narrative discussion of some of the important institutions that emerged within the church and in France and England after the Concordat of Worms and show how they were associated with the concessions each side made at Worms. Then I offer statistical evidence drawn from data on the appointment of bishops in France between 1179 and 1223. The statistical evidence, in conjunction with the narrative account, points consistently to a shift in influence between the pope and kings in a manner consistent with the notion that Worms undermined the feudal order and set the sovereign, territorial state into motion.
Brief Historical Review
From approximately the tenth century until about the time of the black death in the fourteenth century, the economies of Europe experienced remarkable expansion. Though agricultural pursuits remained dominant, still an extraordinary commercial and technological revolution took place. 8 During this period a money economy once again began to flourish and the foundations were laid for modern banking practices. Contracts became more sophisticated and more standardized, setting the stage for the ascent of merchants and lawyers as influential community leaders. Indeed, by the latter half of these centuries, even popes became increasingly likely to have been trained in law, rising to the papacy through the church’s “law offices.”
Technology was harnessed to improve productivity to a degree perhaps unprecedented in the preceding millennium. Mills powered by water and wind became commonplace, mining on a large scale occurred in much of Europe as this period’s industrial awakening called for new sources of metal, fuel and other industrial materials. The technology of textile production, Europe’s most important industry, made great leaps forward as did international trade in textiles. Fuels for industrial production were diversified as coal and coke assumed an increasing role alongside the burning of wood. There is, in short, consensus that the high middle ages provided a first renaissance, an explosion of economic activity and rising standards of living.
The growth in wealth did not bypass the Catholic church. As the owner of about one third of the land in Europe, and as a voracious source of demand for new construction, the church was an intimate beneficiary of and agent for the economic expansion during the high middle ages. Indeed, many technological innovations were first applied on church lands, especially the lands of the newer monastic orders, most notably the Cistercians and the Crusading Orders, like the Hospitalers and the Knights Templar. These new orders, unlike their predecessors who eschewed money-making labor (e.g., the Benedictines), became wealthy through leadership in industry and banking. It is worth noting that these entrepreneurial orders, who refused to engage in such churchly activities as performing burials or hearing confession, came into existence beginning around 1100, and grew to great influence, wealth, and prominence over the next two centuries. I will return to these new monastic orders later as they are an instance of the new institutions promoted by the papacy to advance its influence over kings or, at least, to prevent the erosion of church influence by kings.
The growing wealth of the Catholic church undoubtedly contributed to the rising stature and influence of the pope. By the twelfth century, it is widely agreed that the pope had diligently pursued elevation to the status of first among equals. He had risen above all other bishops, especially after the break with the eastern orthodox church, and now strove also to rise above the kings of Europe and even above the Holy Roman Emperor. This can be seen in the adoption of the purple robe for the pope as of 1075 and by the secondary position accorded the Holy Roman Emperor at papal coronations after the resolution of the investiture controversy. 9 The pope succeeded over a span of a few generations to rise to such a level that the kings of Catholic Europe were subservient to him. English kings, from the Conqueror on, including Henry II, Richard the Lion Hearted and John during the period of interest here, pledged fealty to the pope. King John used his pledge of fealty to insuring papal support in his struggle against the barons revolt. In France, Philip Augustus is said to have “promised royal bishoprics and abbeys freedom to elect their leaders as long as the canons and monks chose men who were both ‘pleasing to God’ and ‘useful to the kingdom.’ Cooperation, with both parties respecting mutual interests, was Philip’s guiding principle.” 10 That is, Philip Augustus ostensibly would not interfere in the pope’s prerogative under the Concordat of Worms and the specific agreements with France, when it came to selecting nominees as bishops. The sentiment that called for supporting the interests of the church, even when they opposed those of the king, are cogently stated by Louis IX (Saint Louis) in his letter of advice to his son, who became King Philip III (Philip the Bold, 1270-1285) of France:
Honor and love all the people of Holy Church, and be careful that no violence be done to them, and that their gifts and alms, which your predecessors have bestowed upon them, be not taken away or diminished. And I wish here to tell you what is related concerning King Philip [Augustus], my ancestor, as one of his council, who said he heard it, told it to me. The king, one day, was with his privy council, and he was there who told me these words. And one of the king’s councillors said to him how much wrong and loss he suffered from those of Holy Church, in that they took away his rights and lessened the jurisdiction of his court; and they marveled greatly how he endured it. And the good king answered: ‘I am quite certain that they do me much wrong, but when I consider the goodness and kindness which God has done me, I had rather that my rights should go, than have a contention or awaken a quarrel with Holy Church.’ And this I tell to you that you may not lightly believe anything against the people of Holy Church; so love them and honor them and watch over them that they may in peace do the service of our Lord.” 11
The facts I just recited naturally encourage the conclusion that the pope was the emerging hegemon in Europe and that, therefore, the economic expansion probably occurred with the church’s active participation and blessings. Indeed, as we saw in the quotation from John Gilchrist, historians who specialize in this period argue that the church favored growth. Yet, I hope to demonstrate that the pope did what he could to retard economic growth in the secular domain so that the expected growth rate in Europe during these centuries would have been higher had the church not pursued the policies it did. I further hope to show that in important areas of common interest the pope remained or became subservient to kings.
Although I cannot prove that the church intended to slow secular growth, I will offer circumstantial evidence that points in that direction. What is more, I will show that the pope had strong incentives, rooted in his personal power and in that of the Catholic church, to retard secular growth. In doing so, I argue that the pope erected new institutions to protect his power against the threat of secular rulers, a threat partially fostered by the contents of the Concordat of Worms. I also argue that as a strategic response, monarchs created new institutions of their own to enhance their power relative to the pope and that, in doing so, they launched the creation of the modern state system. A common, and quite different, perspective can be found among historians of this period. Thus, I set out a perspective that appears to be the antithesis of the predominant interpretation of church-king relations, especially in twelfth and thirteenth century France, which is the focus in this study.
The Model
I assume that the king of France, like all other Catholic kings, found papal opposition costly and, likewise, that the king’s opposition to church views was costly for the pope. That is why it was customary for nominees for high church office to be individuals both pleasing to God and useful to the kingdom ( qui Deo placeat et utilis sit regno). One important arena in which the pope and kings hoped to coordinate their behavior was in the appointment of bishops. Naturally, the pope and each king had his own preferences among prospective candidates to become bishops.
Bishops were major emissaries between the pope and secular rulers. They were agents with specialized information who might, depending on personal factors, more faithfully reflect the interests of the king or the pope. They also were major collectors of revenues that could be used to help advance royal or papal interests. Bishops owed allegiance to both pope and king and, as part of the Concordat of Worms, routinely swore fealty to the king to guarantee the king’s right to call upon them for military service. The swearing of fealty to the king was done in exchange for the return of the bishop’s regalia to the new bishop. In this way, the king transferred back to the church and the bishop as its agent the right to the tax revenues from regalian Sees. During the vacancy between the death of the old bishop and the consecration of the new bishop, the revenue from regalian Sees went to the king under the terms of the Concordat of Worms and associated treaties. This regalian revenue, which as we will see, was substantial, represented a property right that adhered to the king as sovereign over the territory of the see and not to the king as an individual. The king could not sell the future right to control the regalia, nor could it be inherited except by ascent to the throne. The right belonged to the king’s successor, who might be his child or might be from an entirely new line. The king held the right to this income, then, as a fiduciary for the kingdom and not as his personal, private property. This is a significant departure from more typical feudal practice.
There was, then, competition between each Catholic king and the pope to ensure that a newly appointed bishop was likely to view the pope or the king respectively as his principal. The king could use delay in accepting the pope’s nominee as a lever to encourage the pope to select a candidate to the king’s liking. The pope could use the threat of excommunication or interdiction (and both were used) to encourage the king to accept the church’s candidate. Excommunication and interdiction both served two functions. Excommunication, for believers, placed their souls at eternal risk of damnation. Interdiction, which prevented residents in the interdicted area from receiving the sacraments, placed their souls at risk because of actions taken by the pope against the king. Excommunication and interdiction called for people to shun the excommunicated or interdicted king. This had the effect, even among non-believers, of making normal activities difficult and costly. Furthermore, interdiction raised the specter of civic unrest against the interdicted king. These were powerful weapons in the hands of the pope.
Because of the privileged access to revenue and information enjoyed by bishops, they could tilt important policy choices and negotiations in favor of the pope or a king. Consequently, their loyalty was a valuable resource. Indeed, if this were not so there would have been no basis for the investiture struggle that began in the eleventh century and culminated in the Concordat of Worms. The agreement between the church and king of France a couple of years earlier presaged the Concordat of Worms. In this agreement, as at Worms, there was provision for the election of bishops with the consent of the king, thereby doing away with the practice of simony; that is, the sale of ecclesiastical offices and their associated benefices. There was also agreement that during the interregnum in a bishopric, the king had rights to the income generated by the land and movable property of the see. Thus, the so-called regalian sees represented bishoprics whose occupant was chosen by the pope and whose income flowed to the church except during vacancies, when revenues flowed to the king. Under the terms of the agreement, the pope nominated bishops whose election required the king’s consent. There was a general understanding, though certainly not a binding commitment, that the king would approve the pope’s nominee. Indeed, with a few exceptions French kings routinely accepted the pope’s nominee for bishop. In the early years of his reign, Louis VII contested three elections, but did not intervene again directly in the election of bishops from 1149 until his death in 1179. Philip Augustus appears to have followed his father’s lead by rarely intervening though he too contested some elections.
It is evident that the king stood to benefit financially from vacancies in regalian sees just as the pope stood to benefit from minimizing the length of interregna. The significance of vacant regalian sees can be inferred from their duration, which the king could manipulate, and by the income they generated. The pope had, at least from 1139 onwards, called for vacancies to last no more than three months. Of the eighteen vacancies during Philip’s reign that can be measured in months, thirteen lasted more than three months with only five falling within the time sought by the pope. Of Philip’s total income in 1202/1203, for instance, five percent came from regalia. This was about seventeen percent of his discretionary income. 12
The period of vacancy could be extended by a failure of the king to accept the church’s nominee. The failure to reject nominees, then, calls for an explanation since it was costly. Of course, we must keep in mind that repeated rejection of the pope’s nominees would also have been costly. It would have been tantamount to rejection of agreements like the Concordat of Worms, leaving the struggle over investiture to loom over church-king relations and to jeopardize the eternal soul of the king, not to mention his ability to conduct business as usual within his realm and between his realm and the church. The pope, after all, had powerful means to retaliate against recalcitrant kings, including the threat of interdiction or excommunication. These were not mere idle threats, but were measures invoked by the pope to have his way not only on theological questions, but also on decidedly secular matters. Henry II of England was threatened with excommunication over the murder of Thomas a Becket, for instance. Pope Alexander III used the threat of an unfavorable ruling in this matter as the instrument to extract payment of Peter’s pence from Henry. 13 Philip Augustus in France was interdicted by Pope Innocent III, ostensibly over Philip’s unsanctioned marriage, but perhaps the interdiction was also a means for the pope to try to force Philip to support Otto IV, Innocent’s preferred choice as Holy Roman Emperor. 14 Clearly, the pope had means to induce support from kings and kings had financial and political incentives to indicate disagreements with the pope.
The competition between the church and the French king over the appointment of bishops was indicative of a broader issue of sovereignty. Control over bishoprics was a central theme of the reform movement in the church since before the revolutionary papacy of Gregory VII. The practice of simony not only harmed the religious mission of the church, but also represented a potential threat to church revenues and the church’s political discretion. By putting bishoprics up for bids, secular authorities deprived the church of important control over the flow of tax revenues and alms given to the church through bishops and their underlings. The church also lost control over a key source of information and a key agent for policy implementation. As John Gilchrist has aptly noted, “although some of the opposition to church reform may have been genuinely religious, a large part derived from concern over the implied threat to lay, and individual clerical, control of church property and income.” 15 Thus, it is evident that a delicate balance existed in which kings and the church had mutual incentives to reach agreement on the selection of bishops, but each also had private incentives to shift the selection toward a candidate of their own choosing. It is also evident that the Concordat of Worms and the associated agreements established a property right that adhered to the king as head of state rather than adhering to the monarch as an individual. Thus, this revenue source represented an early element in the establishment of modern state sovereignty, including the right to tax within a well-defined territory, one of the central sources of sovereignty pointed to later in the Treaty of Westphalia. From the resolution of the investiture struggle, then, there emerged a bargain between church and state.
The state, as the territorial entity controlling the well-defined area of regalian sees, gained a property right that the church had claimed for itself and the church seemingly gained greater control over its officers and emissaries, taking that control away from whoever occupied the seats of kingship at any given time. The church, then, also gained a property right of sorts, the right to control its own institutions, thereby escaping subservience and dependence on the Holy Roman emperor.
The decision over nominations and election of bishops can be characterized as a simple game. The game in figure 1 is a close approximation of the nomination and election procedure established by the Concordat of Worms and the payoffs fairly reflect the terms established at Worms.
Assume a two-player game consisting of the pope and a king. Each is charged with joint responsibility for selecting bishops in accordance with the agreements that resolved the investiture controversy. The pope, moving first, nominates a candidate. He prefers candidates who are expected to be loyal to him, while the king prefers candidates, such as relatives or members of his court, expected to be loyal to the royal family. The pope’s first nominee is designated as P1 or K1, with the pope preferring candidates who are identified in the game as P1 or P2 to any candidates designated with the letter K. The king prefers candidates designated as K1 or K2 to any candidate identified with the letter P. After the pope nominates a candidate, the king decides to accept the candidate or reject the candidate. If the king accepts the candidate, the pope receives the payoff associated with that candidate (a1 if P1 is chosen and b1 if K1 was nominated and approved) plus 2t, where t represents the income from the regalian see. The add-on to the payoff is 2t to denote that in this two-stage game, the pope gets this income during both periods. The kings payoff is b1 if P1 was approved and is a1 if K1 was approved. For both the king and the pope, a1 > b1. All of the king’s utilities are prefaced with the letter K in figure 1 and all of the pope’s are prefaced with the letter P.
If the king rejects the pope’s nominee, then the pope offers a new candidate. If P1 was offered first, the pope nominates either P2 or K1. If K1 was nominated originally by the pope, then the pope nominates P1 or K2. If the king approves one of these nominees, the pope receives a2 (if the approved nominee is P2), b1 (if the nominee is K1), a1 if the nominee is P1 and b2 if the nominee is K2. With approval, the pope also receives the income from the regalian see for the one remaining period and so gets an additional payoff of t. The king is rewarded comparably and also receives t because, by rejecting the first nominee, he received the regalian income for one period. Finally, if the king again rejects the pope’s nominee, the pope receives a payoff of 0 and the king receives 2t.
Of course, in reality the king could reject the pope’s nominee and indefinite number of times. Two stages, however, are sufficient to elaborate on the central themes I will explore. Adding further stages would not materially alter the implications of interest.
Let us explore the different cases of interest that point to alternative outcomes of the game n figure 1. The first case of interest arises when t, the regalian revenue, is sufficiently small that the king in the final round strictly prefers to approve the pope’s nominee rather than take the income. In this case the pope will never give the king either of the two prospective candidates (K1 or K2) most desired by the king. On the left side of the tree, the king’s choice reduces to approving P1 immediately or collecting some of the regalian income and approving P2 later. The pope presumably can find a candidate P1 whom the king likes sufficiently more than P2 that the king will forego the regalian income by making the interregnum as short as possible. Alternatively, if the pope strongly prefers to have P2, meaning that the pope likes P2 better than P1 as bishop sufficiently that he is willing to forego some regalian income to get P2, and the pope anticipates that the king will reject P2 if he is not compensated with some regalian revenue, then the can nominate as P1 someone sufficiently unattractive to the king that the king will prolong the interregnum a bit and let the pope have his more preferred bishop in the end. On the right side of the tree, assuming t is small enough, the king would choose to accept K1 in the first instance because he is better for the king than P1 who is the choice by the pope if the king rejects K1. Naturally, facing a choice between K1 or either P1 or P2, the pope nominates P1 and not K1 at the outset, ensuring that a candidate more desirable for the pope is elected.
Suppose now that t is not so small that the king will always prefer to approve a papal nominee rather than take the regalian income at the end of the game. If t, the regalian income is large enough that the king prefers to take the income rather than cooperate with the pope by approving either P1 or P2, but is not large enough for the king to prefer the income to K1 or K2 then the pope’s hands are tied. The pope can avoid losing any of the regalian income by nominating as K1 someone the king prefers to K2 by enough that the king will approve K1 right away, foregoing any regalian income. If the pope prefers K2 over K1 enough to give up some income to get him and if the king prefers K2 + t to K1 without an interregnum, then the pope can ensure his third most preferred candidate is selected over his least preferred candidate. But, in any event, the pope must give the king one of his two preferred candidates.
Should the value of the regalian income rise still further, it becomes easier for the pope to avoid his least preferred candidate and it becomes harder for the pope to keep the interregnum short. Indeed, if the income becomes sufficiently valuable, the pope loses all ability to obtain the king’s approval, the agreement at Worms breaks down and the king monopolizes the taxes raised from the regalian see. This, in essence, marks the end of the pope’s prospects of being a European hegemon and is, essentially, what happened by the end of the Thirty Years War.
Implications for Pope and King
The game leads to several hypotheses about relations between popes and kings as well as about the incentives the pope and monarchs had regarding the creation of wealth in the secular domain. So long as regalian sees remained poor enough, the pope could ensure that the elected bishops would be men loyal to the church rather than the monarch and, therefore, the pope would have greater political control. In sufficiently wealthy regalian sees, political control shifts away from the pope and to the king. In sufficiently wealthy sees, the king values the income from a vacant see more than the value he derived from cooperating with the pope. In such a circumstance, the pope had no choice but to nominate as bishop a man expected to be more loyal to the king than to the pope, thereby yielding significant political influence to the king. If the wealth became really large, the king would prefer, in essence, a perpetual vacancy so that he gained the tax benefits in perpetuity. Under such a circumstance, the church could no longer vie with the monarch for political control and so would be reduced to the role of the modern church as a major religious body, but not as a major political-military entity. Because in wealthy sees the pope would choose candidates especially pleasing to the king, it is evident that we cannot properly infer whether the king was obedient and deferential to the pope ro whether the pope was deferential to the king without examining the wealth of the see and the anticipated loyalties of the bishop-nominee. In other words, the observation by historians that Philip Augustus accepted all papal nominations for bishop after the beginning of his reign cannot, by itself, be taken as evidence for his cooperation with or subservience to the pope.
Before examining the propensity for the nominee to be type P or type K, let us examine the central issue of concern: what could the pope or the king do to influence whether the game results in the selection of bishops preferred by the pope or preferred by the king? The value of t can be taken as endogenous. The value of the income from a vacant (or filled) regalian see depended on the wealth of the area. Since the revenues extracted from the sees were generally proportionate to the wealth, the pope had incentives to keep the wealth accessible to secular authorities at a low enough level that the king would accept a candidate preferred by the pope. The pope could facilitate the prospects of getting bishops loyal to him by retarding economic growth in the secular portion of the economy. Naturally, the king had incentives to promote growth for many reasons, one of which was that it gave him a general advantage vis-a-vis his perhaps most powerful rival for authority, the Catholic church. In a period already experiencing marked economic expansion the pope’s recently acquired hegemony was certainly at risk. In fact, the conflict between the pope and the French king erupted in virtually open warfare by the time of Philip IV (the Fair, 1285-1314 )and Boniface VIII (1294-1303). The essence of the dispute is elegantly summarized and argued (from the king’s perspective) in the remarkable document De Potestate Regia et Papali ( The Power of the Pope and the King) written by John of Paris around 1302. Although the contemporary debate, as reflected in the writings of John of Paris, Boniface VIII’s famed Clericos Leicos and Unam Sanctum, and others, focused on questions of the powers given to the king and the powers given to the church as described in scriptures, here I focus on the power taken by each as a function of economic growth.
Narrative Account of Evidence
The church’s hegemony could be preserved and bolstered by the adoption of policies that hindered economic expansion, prolonging the time before the game shifted from one that yielded bishops loyal to the pope to one that yielded bishops loyal to the king or, in the extreme case, made bishops irrelevant appointees from the perspective of the king. By retarding the value of t, the pope could ensure that more bishops would be of type P and fewer of type K. Unfettered economic expansion in the secular realm certainly meant that the expected value of t would continue to rise, making it increasingly likely that the revenues earned by the king during interregna exceeded the value the king attached to agreement with the pope. Such a shift would have marked the decline of papal influence, at least in those regalian sees with sufficient wealth.
The popes of this period, whether consciously or not I cannot say, introduced a series of policies whose consequences include retarding secular economic growth relative to what one would have expected growth to be in the absence of the new policies. In the first Lateran Council (1123), at which hundreds of bishops confirmed the agreement at Worms, celibacy was elevated and reinforced by prohibiting the clergy from marriage or having concubines. This insured that the property of the clergy would devolve to the church rather than to heirs. At the second Lateran Council, held in 1139, seventeen years after the Concordat of Worms, more serious changes were instituted that could only have diminished secular economic growth. The council dealt with a number of issues including the question of inheritance and usury. On the inheritance of the private property of deceased bishops, now more fully elaborating on the consequences of the celibacy arguments at Lateran I, the Church raised the stakes and insured that they, and not any secular venue, would be the beneficiary:
the goods of deceased bishops are not to be seized by anyone at all, but are to remain freely at the disposal of the treasurer and the clergy for the needs of the church and the succeeding incumbent. . . . Furthermore, if anyone dares to attempt this behaviour henceforth, he is to be excommunicated. And those who despoil the goods of dying priests or clerics are to be subject to the same sentence.
By imposing excommunication on violators, the church raised the risks families or monarchs ran in trying to seize the “personal” property of deceased clerics.
The Council ruled regarding usury that:
we condemn that practice accounted despicable and blameworthy by divine and human laws, denounced by Scripture in the old and new Testaments, namely the ferocious greed of usurers; and we sever them from every comfort of the church, forbidding any archbishop or bishop, or an abbot of any order whatever or anyone in clerical orders, to dare to receive usurers, unless they do so with extreme caution; but let them be held infamous throughout their whole lives and, unless they repent, be deprived of a Christian burial.
In Lateran II the church also erected other barriers to lay or secular authority that might jeopardize church interests in making itself wealthy while limiting economic opportunity in the secular domain. For instance, the church forbade lay people to receive tithes from churches, even if given by the bishop or the king, and subjected any who took such financial benefits to excommunication. It further decreed that “lay people, no matter how devout they may be, have no power of disposal over ecclesiastical property.”
Prior to 1139, usury was forbidden the clergy, but was not elevated to a mortal sin for lay people, nor was a ban on usury by lay people long discussed and debated at the highest levels in the church. The effect of banning usury was to raise the price of money and to create a potential shortage of would-be lenders. Just as modern day central banks increase interests rates to slow growth (and attendant inflation), so the twelfth century church raised interest rates by denying heaven to those who leant money for profit. Intentionally selling time — which is what was sinful about selling the use of money — was judged a mortal sin. Though the church used scripture to justify its action, there was a widely held view among canonists of the church that there was no doctrinal ban on usury in early Catholic teachings or scripture. And, of course, the church had not used scripture to ban such usury in its preceding thousand years.
Enforcement was understood to be a problem. The church recognized the difficulty inherent in determining whether a lender intended to commit usury; that is, to derive any profit from allowing the use of one’s money. To deal with this difficult problem of intent, the church wisely shifted enforcement from the canonists to the theologians. That is, while human law might fail to recognize a usurious loan, God knew what was in each person’s heart. So, God would know whether a lender intended to make a profit no matter what subterfuge was used to mask the return. Therefore, anyone having made such a profit and failing to make restitution or to show sufficient contrition before death was condemned eternally. This was the consequence of being denied a Christian burial.
To facilitate the making of restitution for usury and to heighten the threat of damnation associated with lending, the church established new institutions. The fourth Lateran Council, for instance, made mandatory annual oral confession as of 1215. This period also saw the spread of confessors manuals, available not only to priests but to any literate person, with specific instructions for dealing with merchants and others likely to have engaged in what the church viewed as usury. 16 Through the confessional the church provided a means by which those otherwise damned for usury could save their souls. The path to forgiveness, however, generally was strewn with a combination of making financial restitution to the church and cessation of the sinful behavior. While the threat of eternal damnation was powerful indeed in the twelfth century, still, money lending continued. Merchants and others devised clever schemes of their own (including misleading contracts, exchange rate manipulation and false stock companies) to hide their true financial arrangements, but the risks (including eternal damnation) had been raised and so, naturally, the expected rate of return had to rise commensurately. The upshot was to make loans costlier than they otherwise would have been and, thereby, to diminish growth relative to what it presumably otherwise would have been.
During the twelfth century the church’s rhetoric also shifted in ways that may have dampened economic growth. At the same time that the Cistercians built and operated mills and other labor-saving devices to improve efficiency, the church began to promote the view that idle hands are the work of the devil. The church discouraged the spread of machines and other technology in the secular realm, ostensibly fearing that labor-saving devices would lead to idleness and that idleness, in turn would lead to sin. Certainly by discouraging the spread of labor-saving technology, the church was reducing productivity and, therefore, economic growth in the lay sector [document these claims]. By the thirteenth century, with the rising wealth and influence of merchants, the church gradually abandoned its arguments against improvements in technology, but then this shift coincides with the diminution in authority hypothesized to be associated with growth in secular wealth.
The church erected or strengthened other institutions as well in this period to bolster the pope’s political position vis-a-vis secular monarchs. The election of the pope had previously been the responsibility of the electors of the Holy Roman empire. The College of Cardinals, introduced in the eleventh century, grew steadily in importance after Worms. Before the twelfth century, the College did not have authority to elect the pope. Beginning in that century, a two-thirds vote in the College became a necessary condition for election as pope, though approval by secular authority, especially the Holy Roman Emperor, also remained necessary. By the beginning of the thirteenth century, the College of Cardinals really emerged as the dominant body for selecting the pope, thereby wresting control over that fundamental process from the secular realm.
As noted, usury laws helped dampen investment and economic growth in the lay portion of the population. Obligatory confession raised significantly the price for continuing to engage in usury, thereby further stifling growth. It is also noteworthy that entrepreneurial monastic orders, like the Cistercians, Templars and Hospitalers, came into existence at the end of the twelfth century. This is the exact time when the pope was driven out of Rome and when the Holy Roman Emperor had created a schism by selecting an anti-pope. By being driven out of the papal states, the real pope was cut off from his sources of financial support. That the new, entrepreneurial orders were organized and recognized by the exiled pope in this period seems hardly coincidental. Quite the contrary. Pope Paschal II (1099-1118) and Innocent II (1130-1143), for instance, exempted monks from tithes. The Cistercians, founded in 1098, took advantage of this exemption to obtain a virtual monopoly on the highly valuable wool trade. Not until the late thirteenth century, as kings rose in prominence relative to the pope, were the Cistercians subjugated to the interests of the king. By the end of the thirteenth century they were driven into bankruptcy by the heavy taxes of the French crown. 17
In the late eleventh and early twelfth century, these new monastic orders looked to the pope for protection from taxation by kings and their local bishops. Earlier monastic orders sought protection from the secular domain. It is also important that in this period of new monastic movements, the new orders were freed from all secular authority and put directly under the supervision of the pope. That is, the pope made an arrangement in which the king could no longer control, de jure, the revenues from the monastic orders. In exchange for his protection, the pope derived a significant portion of his income from the new entrepreneurial orders during the long periods he was driven out of the papal states by the anti-pope and the Holy Roman Emperor. So, the new orders served to finance the pope against the secular authorities and, in exchange, were given a free hand to generate great wealth for themselves (and the papacy), an activity that had been anathema for earlier monastic orders. Indeed, the Cistercians, Templars and Hospitalers became wealthy and powerful during this period. Later they declined when their rise in power became a threat to pope and king alike.
Kings were no less innovative than the pope in erecting institutions to wrest political control and to increase their wealth and enhance their competition with the pope. The decades immediately after the Concordat of Worms saw a dramatic flowering of political institutions in England and France. Whether intentionally or not, many of these had the effect of weakening the pope’s influence and securing a higher growth rate for the king’s subjects and, therefore, higher tax revenues for the king. Consider, for instance, the series of legal reforms introduced by Henry II in England during the mid-twelfth century. These reforms became the foundation of English common law. Most noteworthy for the issues raised here are the writs of novel disseisin, mort d’ancestor, utrum, and darrein presentment.
The first protects property rights and the second rights of inheritance. These two, then, provide an important improvement in a person’s ability to predict whether he will maintain access to and the benefits from the land he worked. These writs greatly shortened the judicial process for determining rights of access to the land and enhanced a smoother operating agricultural system. They proved highly popular and effective in securing the property rights that are essential to economic growth and they enhanced the king’s credibility as the person to turn to who would insure order and justice in matters of property. 18 The third and fourth writs deal with restrictions on ecclesiastical rights. Utrum established the king’s primary position in determining whether a dispute belonged in his secular courts or in the church’s ecclesiastical courts. Prior to Henry there was a presumption in favor of the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts. Utrum reversed this presumption among litigants in England, and the period of which I write was a litigious age. Darrein presentment addressed Henry’s interest in protecting the tradition of patronage that gave landowners the benefit of presenting or selecting clerics for appointment in their proprietary churches. This ran directly counter to the efforts of the church to take all such influence away from the secular domain, as is evident from the rulings in Lateran II (1139) and III (1179), some of which are quoted above. In darrein presentment, as in utrum, Henry challenged church authority and, as in the first two writs, he sought to protect a property right that, in this case, the church was trying to usurp for itself. 19
The four major writs of Henry II were also accompanied by the introduction and spread of the jury system to replace trial by ordeal. Henry sought to insure “victory of a reasoned, rational mode of proof over the old irrational appeals to God or the obscure forces of nature.” This effort is also found at the same time in France and elsewhere on the continent. 20 Probably not coincidentally, the shift to a jury system from trial by ordeal also weakened church institutions and income. Trials by ordeal were supervised by the clergy who were well compensated for their participation. For instance, two priests are known to have been paid 10s for blessing the ordeal pits near St Edmund’s Bury in 1166. At the time, a worker’s daily wage was about one penny and a villein and his entire family could be purchased for 22s. 21
The administrative structure of the modern state likewise began to emerge in the twelfth and thirteenth century. The king’s right to levy taxes for reasons other than necessity gradually developed in exchange for political concessions to his subjects. These tax revenues gave the king the ability to muster an army without having to rely on the intricate rights and restrictions implied by the feudal order. While the pope continued to rely on feudal commitments to raise an army, kings now had an alternative, more reliable and less disputatious means of mustering an army. King’s courts at a fixed location in England and in France replaced the itinerant justice of an earlier time, thereby centralizing judicial control in the hands of the king and further diminishing the role of the church as an adjudicator of disputes. In the jockeying back and forth for control, both kings and church evolved new institutions and methods to foster or stymie economic growth and wrest political control.
The Selection of Bishops: An Empirical Assessment
The narrative account of events suggests a period rife with institutional innovation, much of which influenced the relative autonomy of the pope and of monarchs. Whether these institutional changes and the level of political influence shifted with growth, as suggested by the game, can now be examined with available statistical evidence.
The reign of Philip Augustus was a period of economic expansion in France. This implies that later in Philip's reign more bishoprics would have had large enough revenues to tie the pope’s hands in nominating bishops than was true earlier in his reign. In fact, we can make a pretty good estimate of the time when economic growth would have pushed many regalian sees over the threshold to insure that the king would get the bishops he wanted. Philip renounced his regalian rights in 1203; that is, he ostensibly gave up his right to the income when a bishopric was vacant. While some interpret this gesture by Philip as an act of contrition toward the church (Baldwin, 1986), it might be that Philip knew that he now had a dominant strategy in most diocese that would lead to the selection of his preferred candidates for bishop. In that case, Philip could afford to appear magnanimous by renouncing the rights hard-earned in the resolution of the investiture controversy. After all, Philip’s declaration itself was not binding — in fact, Philip later reneged in some regalian sees — and the pope should have recognized the increased need to select bishop candidates who were acceptable to the king. The game had changed from one of domination by the pope to one of domination by Philip.
If the game structure proposed here is correct, we should observe an increase in the proportion of new bishops who were Philip's candidates after 1203 than we observe before. If the standard historical account is right, that Philip learned to cooperate with the church, then we should observe a decrease in the nomination (and selection) of candidates believed to be preferred by the king. That is, I hypothesize that we will observe that the pope more often gives in to Philip after 1203 than he did before.
Table 1 shows the distribution of bishops appointed during Philip’s reign based on whether Philip was likely to have anticipated that the nominees would be loyal to him or to the pope. 22 As is evident from the evidence, there was a significant shift in the likelihood that new bishops would support the pope after 1203 and the change is consistent with the explanation associated with my argument. After 1203 Philip increasingly got his way.
| Bishop | Before 1203 | After 1203 |
| Pro-King | 11 | 17 |
| Pro-Pope | 36 | 18 |
2 = 5.65 P < .01 One-tailed Less than one fourth of all new appointees in Philip’s first twenty-four years in office were expected to be favorable to the king rather than the pope. In the second half of his reign, after he renounced his regalian rights to income and said he would not interfere in the selection of bishops, fifty percent of those appointed were people known, ex ante, to be his supporters. If, as the standard historical accounts suggest, Philip had learned to comply with the wishes of the church, then we must wonder why the pope switched to appointing the king’s relatives late in his term rather than earlier when Philip was seemingly less contrite toward the church?
Other, independent measures of the relationship between economic growth and the appointment of bishops is available for Philip Augustus’s France. Since the general thesis is that where there was sufficient wealth, the pope would nominate, and Philip would approve, bishops loyal to the king rather than the pope, we can test the proposition spatially as well as temporally. Maps of twelfth and thirteenth century France identify towns with significant textile industries, in touch with the Champagne fairs, or located on major water or land-based trade routes. 23 The regalian sees in these areas presumably generated more wealth than the regalian sees not on any of these trade routes or involved in the merchant and export markets. These wealthier communities can be matched against the locations of the regalian sees to ascertain whether a pattern exists between the expected loyalties of newly appointed bishops and the wealth of the relevant see.
Tables 2 shows the relationship between papal nominees and whether the regalian see is located on a major trade route or not. Table 3 shows the same relationship, but this time the independent variable is an index categorized as 1 if any of the three wealth criteria (trade route, cloth manufacturing, or in touch with the Champagne fairs) is satisfied. Neither cloth manufacturing nor being in touch with the Champagne fairs, by themselves are statistically significantly associated with the bishop-nominee’s type, though each is in the predicted direction. Unfortunately, the wealth data other than with regard to location on a major trade route are spotty, with missing information for many regalian sees. Finally, table 4 shows the interaction effect of both wealth and being post-1203 on the likelihood that the nominee was expected to be loyal to Philip or to the pope.
Tables 2, 3 and 4 point to a substantial proclivity for the pope to nominate bishop candidates who were relatives or close associates of Philip’s in those regalian sees that were wealthy and to nominate papal loyalists more often in poorer sees. This is consistent with the expectations from the game.
| Bishop | Trade Route | Not a Trade Route |
| Pro-King | 20 | 8 |
| Pro-Pope | 27 | 27 |
2 = 3.46 P < .03 One-tailed
| Bishop | Wealthy | Not Wealthy |
| Pro-King | 22 | 6 |
| Pro-Pope | 30 | 24 |
2 = 4.21 P < .02 One-tailed The tables tell a story that further reinforces the view that the struggle over growth was also a struggle over political control and that, gradually, the king was winning against the efforts of the church. The French king was 2.5 times more likely to have a relative or close associate nominated as bishop by the pope in regalian sees on important trade routes than he was elsewhere. In wealthy diocese, as measured by satisfying any one of the three economic indicators, the king was more than three times more likely to get a loyal bishop than in less wealthy diocese. After 1203 — when according to standard historical accounts Philip conceded control to the pope — 61 percent of new appointments in wealthy regalian sees went to Philip loyalists, whereas elsewhere and before, only 24 percent of appointees were expected to be loyal to Philip.
| Bishop | Wealthy and Year > 1203 | Not Wealthy |
| Pro-King | 14 | 14 |
| Pro-Pope | 9 | 45 |
2 = 10.15 P < .01 One-tailed
Conclusion
The Concordat of Worms created a property right that adhered to the sovereign over territory rather than to any individual as an individual. This property right created competition between kings and the pope over political control. The contest for control manifested itself, in part, through the erection of new political institutions. Some of these institutions on the side of the church appear to have been designed to slow economic growth, thereby prolonging the ascendancy of the papacy. The institutions erected by monarchs appear to have stimulated growth and hastened the day when they would be politically ascendant over the church. The struggle for political control gave advantage to the church in the first century or two after the investiture struggle, produced a fairly balanced distribution of power between pope and kings in by the thirteenth or fourteenth century, and a decline in papal authority after that, culminating in the rise of Protestantism and the modern state at the end of the Thirty Years War. Throughout, the competition that was institutionalized at Worms fomented the construction of new executive, judicial and legislative apparatus that eventually emerged as the state as we know it. Worms codified the evolution of many of those institutions, but did not create them as new inventions in 1648.
Endnotes
*: Prepared for presentation at the 40th annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C., February 16–20, 1999. Back.
Note 1: A small sample of that literature includes Max Weber, Economy and Society, edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Trans by Ephraim Fischoff. New York: Bedminster Press, 1968; Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit of Capitalism, Trans. by Talcott Parsons. New York : Scribner 1958; Nathan Rosenberg and L. E. Birdzell, Jr. How the West Grew Rich : the Economic Transformation of the Industrial World. New York : Basic Books, 1986; Robert Wesson, State Systems. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978; Avner Greif, “Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society,” in Mary C. Brinton and Victor Nee, eds. The New Institutionalism in Sociology. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1998; Ernst Kantorowicz, The King's Two Bodies. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957; John W. Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986; and Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984. Back.
Note 2: See, for instance, Bernhard Schimmelpfennig, The Papacy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992, especially pp. 170-197. See also Kantorowicz, 1957, op. cit. Back.
Note 3: See the epistle, Unam Sanctum issued by Boniface VIII and the commentary by John of Paris, De Potestate Regia et Papali published in 1302 and translated by J. A. Watt as On Royal and Papal Power. Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1971. Back.
Note 4: See, for instance, Kenneth Waltz, 1979. Theory of International Politics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Back.
Note 5: Gilchrist, John. 1969. The Church and Economic Activity in the Middle Ages. New York: Macmillan, p. 38. Back.
Note 6: Kantorowicz 1957, p. 197. Back.
Note 7: Baldwin, op cit., p. 68. Back.
Note 8: See Edward Miller and John Hatcher, 1995. Medieval England: Towns, Commerce and Crafts, 1086-1348. London: Longman; Frances Gies and Joseph Gies, 1994. Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages. New York: Harper Collins; Georges Duby, 1991. France in the Middle Ages: 987-1460, Juliet Vale, translator. Oxford: Blackwell; Emanuel Le Roy Ladurie, 1971. Times of Feast, Times of Famine, Barbara Bray, translator. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; and Robert S. Lopez, 1976. The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages, 950-1350. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Back.
Note 9: I. S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073-1198: Continuity and Innovation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Back.
Note 10: John W. Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986, pp. 176-77. Back.
Note 11: King Louis’s letter of advice is available from the Medieval Sourcebook at www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/stlouis1.html. Back.
Note 12: Baldwin, op cit., p. 156. Back.
Note 13: I. S. Robinson, The Papacy, 1073-1198: Continuity and Innovation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Back.
Note 14: John W. Baldwin, 1986. The Government of Philip Augustus. Berkeley, CA.: University of California Press; Bernhard Schimmelpfennig, 1992. The Papacy. New York: Columbia University Press. Back.
Note 15: John Gilchrist, 1969. The Church and Economic Activity in the Middle Ages. New York: Macmillan, p. 22. Back.
Note 16: Le Goff, Jacques. 1980. Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages. Arthur Goldhammer, trans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. Back.
Note 17: John Gilchrist. 1969. The Church and Economic Activity in the Middle Ages. New York: Macmillan. Back.
Note 18: See, for instance, Barzel, Yoram. 1989. The Economic Analysis of Property Rights. New York: Cambridge University Press; North, Douglass C., and Barry R. Weingast. 1989. “Constitutions and Commitment: the Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth Century England.” J. of Economic History. (Dec.) 44: 803-32; Eggertsson, Thrainn. 1990. Economic Behavior and Institutions. New York: Cambridge University Press; and Przeworski, Adam. 1991. Democracy and the Market. New York: Cambridge University Press. Back.
Note 19: Van Caenegem, R. C. 1988. The Birth of the English Common Law, 2nd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Back.
Note 20: Van Caenegem. Op. Cit., p. 63. Back.
Note 21: Van Caenegem. Op. Cit., p. 64. Back.
Note 22: Judgments about ex ante expectations are drawn from the appendix of regalian sees in Baldwin, op. cit. Newly appointed bishops are identified in terms of whether they were blood relatives of Philip or known at the time to be under his influence or whether they were relatives of the pope or within his circle. The judgments are all Baldwin’s who, recall, contends that Philip learned contrition toward the pope. Back.
Note 23: These data are drawn from Robert S. Lopez. 1966. The Birth of Europe. J. M. Dent and Sons. Back.
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