During the Middle Ages, the political figure of the king was far from what we usually imagine. The local power of feudal lords did not submit to a set of laws imposed by royal authority. At the most, a king could have political influence over the nobles who received part of the land from their properties. However, the resurgence of commercial activities in the Low Middle Ages transformed the political importance of the kings.
The monarchic authority extended throughout a territory defined by limits, cultural and linguistic traits that profiled the formation of a National State. To do so, it was necessary to overcome the obstacles imposed by particularism and political universalism that marked the entire Middle Ages. Universalism was manifested in the Church's broad authority, constituting the possession of large tracts of land and the imposition of its own laws and taxes. Particularism, on the other hand, developed in local political customs rooted in fiefs and commercial cities.
The bourgeois merchants emerged as a social class interested in the formation of a centralized political regime. Local laws, instituted in each of the manors, made commercial activities more expensive by charging taxes and tolls that inflated the costs of a commercial trip. Furthermore, the lack of a standard currency created an enormous difficulty in calculating profits and quoting commodity prices.
Furthermore, the crisis in servile relations caused another type of situation favorable to the formation of a centralized government. Threatened by constant revolts - especially in the Low Middle Ages - and the fall in agricultural production, you feudals resorted to royal authority in order to form armies sufficiently prepared to contain revolts. peasant women. In this way, from the 11th century onwards, we observed a gradual increase in the king's political attributions.
To converge greater powers into hands, the monarchic state sought control over fiscal, legal and military matters. In other words, the king should have sufficient authority and legitimacy to make laws, form armies, and enact taxes. With these three mechanisms of action, monarchies were established through joint actions that had the support of both the merchant bourgeoisie and the feudal nobility.
With the support of merchants, the kings created mercenary armies that were essentially temporary in character. Over the years, financial help from merchants helped to form urban militias and the first infantry. This measure weakened the performance of the knights who limited their military action to the interests of their suzerain. The formation of armies was an important step towards establishing territorial limits and making it possible to impose an authority of national order.
From then on, the king accumulated powers to institute taxes that would support the State and, at the same time, regulate the taxes to be collected in his territory. Concomitantly, the coins would gain a standard of value, weight and measure capable of calculating in advance the gains obtained from trade and tax collection. The fixation of such changes personalized the political supremacy of European states in the individual figure of a king.
In addition to relying on the patronage of the bourgeois class, the formation of absolutist monarchies also had intellectual and philosophical support. Renaissance political thinkers created important works that reflected on the role to be played by the king. In the religious field, the approval of the religious authorities was important for the former serfs to now become subjects to the authority of a king.
By Rainer Sousa
Graduated in History
See more:
Spanish National Monarchy
Portuguese National Monarchy
French National Monarchy
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiag/estados-nacionais.htm
