Ertman, Thomas.

Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and

INTRODUCTION

tem I ( sem ttulo) :

Consenso. A broad consensus now exists among those active in this field on a number
of points concerning the European case. In the first instance, further support has been
provided for Weber's contention that what set the early modern West apart from other
great civilizations was the combination of a distinctive kind of polity - the exceptionally
penetrative sovereign, territorial state8 - and a dynamic market economy which
permitted a breakthrough to self sustaining growth and hence escape from periodic
Malthusian crises. Wide agreement can also be found on the factors which led to this
unique Western outcome: a favorable geographic and ecological setting, a multiplicity
of competing political units, and the unifying and restraining force of Christianity.9
Various models have been proposed which detail how these factors interacted to
produce a set of features shared by all medieval and early modern polities.10
Furthermore, it is now generally accepted that the territorial state triumphed over other
possible political forms (empire, city-state, lordship) because of the superior fighting
ability which it derived from access to both urban capital and coercive authority over
peasant taxpayers and army recruits [3-4].

Teorias sobre formao dos Estados. These authors have argued convincingly that war,
sometimes in combination with other factors, was the principal force behind attempts by
rulers both to alter political systems and to expand and rationalize state apparatuses in
the interest of military competitiveness. [4].

Falhas nessas teorias. Yet the theories proposed to explain variations in outcome have
remained unsatisfactory for a number of reasons. First, this literature has paid too little
attention to the role played by different kinds of representative institutions in the failure
or triumph of royal plans to introduce absolutism and in the subsequent development of
state infrastructures. Second, these theories have proved too willing to link one kind of
political regime with only one kind of state apparatus - absolutism with "bureaucracy"
and constitutionalism/parliamentarism with the absence thereof - when in fact, as will
be shown below, constitutionalism could just as well be associated with bureaucracy
and absolutism with nonbureaucratic forms of administration. Finally, such theories
have underplayed the prevalence of dysfunctional, "patrimonial" institutional
arrangements like the sale and traffic in offices within the apparatuses of many early
states, and have thus underestimated the substantial difficulties involved in constructing
proto-modern bureaucracies in response to geomilitary pressures. One of the principal
reasons for these shortcomings has been that case selection has often proved to be too
narrow to encompass the full range of early modern outcomes in both the political and
the administrative sphere [4]

Ertmans Theory. This book proposes a new general theory of statebuilding in

tem II (Early Modern States: Four Types) : Form of regime; states

Form of regime (government): absolutist x constitutional.

States aparatus (infrastructure, organizational forms): burocratic x non burocratic.

Caractersticas. In an absolutist regime, the ruler unites both executive and legislative
powers in his or her own person; whereas in a constitutional regime14 the legislative
prerogative is shared by the ruler and a representative assembly. [6].

States aparatus: burocratic x patrimonialistic.

Discusso sobre o patrimonialismo em Weber, p. 7-8.

Discusso sobre o absolutismo em Weber, p. 8-

tem III (Competing explanations) :

Otto Hintze

Hintze's argument can be reduced to the following proposition: the greater the degree
of geographic exposure to which a given medieval or early modern state was subjected,
the greater the threat of land warfare; and the greater the threat of land warfare, the
greater the likelihood that the ruler of the state in question would successfully
undermine representative institutions and local self-government and create an absolutist
state backed by a standing army and a professional bureaucracy in order to meet that
land threat. [11-2].
Dvidas

- Representative institutions; local self-government; justices of the peace.

Captulo I : The origins of patrimonial absolutism in Latim Europe

Objetivo: Explicar um ideal-tipo existente na vespera da Revoluo Francesa em Latim

This chapter will argue that such an outcome can be explained by two factors: [a] an
administrative, nonparticipatory pattern of local government among the new generation
of states (Capetian/Valois France, reconquista Castile, Aragon and Portugal,
Hohenstaufen/Angevin Naples, and Sicily) formed in Latin Europe around the year
1000, which was itself the lasting legacy of failed, dark age attempts at statebuilding
within this region; [b] and early geopolitical competition, or the precocious onset of
sustained rivalries involving large-scale warfare between these states and the polities
surrounding them. [35].

[a] Explicao resumida

While none of the dark age states of Latin Europe - the most notable of which were the
Visigothic kingdom and the Umayyad caliphate in Iberia, the Lombard kingdom in Italy,
and the Merovingian and Carolingian realms in Gaul - survived unaltered into the
central middle ages, I argue that their prior existence left an indelible mark, in the form
of a predisposition towards absolutism, on the polities which came to replace them. This
was so because failed, dark age states burdened those successors with a fragmented
political landscape which favored the creation first of a top-down, nonparticipatory
pattern of local government and then of structurally weak, corporately organized
representative assemblies which proved unable to stand up to attempts of ambitious
rulers to maximize their own power. [36].
[b] Explicao resumida

While the legacy of previous, unsuccessful attempts at statebuilding may have pushed
the postmillennial kingdoms of Latin Europe in the direction of absolutism, it was their
early exposure to sustained geopolitical pressure which helped determine the precise
form which that absolutism would take. Europe's sudden transformation into a
multistate world after the year 1000 brought with it intense geopolitical competition
among its constituent countries. However, the onset of such competition, and the large-
scale warfare that regularly accompanied it during this period, was "nonsimultaneous":
it did not occur at the same time in all parts of the continent. Such competition came
first to Latin Europe and England, western Christendom's most culturally and
economically developed areas, and in so doing set off intense statebuilding efforts there
as rulers sought to cope with the demands of war and preparations for war [36].

Estrutura do captulo

In this chapter, I first discuss [i] the origins, nature, and decline of the large-scale dark age
kingdoms which arose across Latin Europe in the wake of the dissolution of Roman power. I
pay special attention to the greatest of these polities, the Carolingian Empire of the Franks. I
then examine [ii] how the decline of Carolingian power unleashed forces of economic and
ecclesiastical renewal which laid the basis for a new wave of state formation around the turn of
the millennium, a development which soon turned Europe into a competitive, multistate world.
Finally, I show [iii] how the early onset of geopolitical competition, when combined with a top-
down, administrative pattern of local government that was the legacy of failed dark age state
formation, helped place the polities of Latin Europe on the path toward patrimonial absolutism
well before the close of the middle ages. [37].

Subdiviso I [i]

{Resumo}

[Instituies do Imprio Romano]. The late Empire was a highly institutionalized polity
headed by an emperor who, in addition to possessing sole powers of legislation, taxation, and
military command, exercised tight control over both the (Christian) state church and a
nondynamic economy little affected by competitive markets. The foundation upon which this
imposing edifice was constructed was the civitas, a unit of local government consisting of a city
and its often sizable rural hinterland which was at once a political, social, and economic
community [37].

[1] A considerable portion of the surviving Roman sociopolitical infrastructure was taken over
by the new Germanic rulers; indeed, it was only this inheritance which allowed them to
construct such large and durable successor states so rapidly. [2] However, the exhaustion of the
western Empire's financial and manpower resources, the decline of city life, and the devastation
wrought by civil wars and invasions had damaged much of that infrastructure. [3] This fact
forced barbarian kings to introduce new institutions and methods of governance to raise the
capacities of their states within a world slowly moving away from the social and economic
conditions that had obtained during antiquity. [4] Yet these new institutions and methods, while
effective in the medium term, tended ultimately to weaken the central authority of the Germanic
kingdoms. [5] This development in turn increased the difficulty of containing the power of a
wealthy landed aristocracy of mixed Roman and barbarian origin and channeling their
ambitions, as the Empire had always done, into forms of competition not threatening to the state
itself [37-8].