The Rise of the Territorial State

• In Event: The Deep History of States

Abstract

• The modern state is intimately and definitionally linked to the notion of territory. Anyone who wishes to understand the origins of the modern state must also confront the origin of the borders, which delimit the territory that defines it. This paper uses an original data set on medieval castles, and who controls them, to document how political power was gradually projected into the borderlands. We show that the process of fortifying the frontier was originally driven by nobles and non-state actors until the Crown eventually took over the nobles' castles in the borderlands. We use this to time to origin of the territorial state and explore variation in the timing in medieval Europe. We also explore the factors that explain why the territorial state arose.

Authors

• Jacob Gerner Hariri, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen

• Christoffer Cappelen, University of Copenhagen