How did checks and balances work in medieval monarchy?
>>1070713
The king needed the troops of the nobles for war, and the nobles needed the king to give them titles and shit.
The king needed the commoners and the Church for money, and those two needed the king for him to approve laws that they wanted.
>>1070713
The king only directly controlled a very small amount of land (and thus, manpower and money) directly. Everything else, he would ask/demand support from his vassals.
If he treated them too badly, his vassals would have all sorts of interesting excuses as to why they couldn't make this year's campaign, but they wished him all the best.
If he ran things REALLY badly, this year's campaign would be against a large number of his vassals who are taking up arms against him.
>>1070713
communications were notoriously bad
>>1070883
Is that a good or bad thing?
>>1070713
Depends on the monarchy and the timeframe.
Considering a pre-bureaucratic deudal monarchy, the kingly figure was the face of the state, it represented law and legitimacy, and from it all privileges of nobility emanated. However, its actual power depended on the laws of the realm and the political strength he as an individual wielded through alliances and military might.
Lacking a monopoly on violence, the king needs to secure aristocratic support, so that's his check.
Lacking legitimacy, the nobility needs the law to keep its position, so that's their check.
Strength is the balance.
I don't really feel I've explained it well. Ask something more specific.
>>1070713
Its called an absolute monarchy that US civ class shit doesn't apply, the only counter action is a revolt
>>1070713
You had nobles with dudes loyal directly to them. You had the Catholic Church. You had other monarchs.
>>1070959
How did it work in different kingdoms, such as France vs England? I'd also ask about Italy and Germany but they were so decentralized in the Middle Ages.
>>1070987
It started pretty much the same everywhere, but you can start to see sizeable differences by the 16th century:
- France went absolutist, with the king taking direct control of their military power and establishing a bureaucracy where power was in the position rather than the individual (so the king could take away power as easily as he conferred it).
- Germany went full retard, with the nobles getting more and more privileges until the HREmperor was basically only as powerful as his other titles.
- England chose the middle way: the Magna Carta happened and it created a nice constitution that regulated relationships between nobles and kings. The balance of power changed through the centuries, but both parties stayed relevant until Cromwell and friends came around and bureaucratized the state. From then on kingly power started to wane, basically into nothingness by the regency period.
- (northern) Italy was simply not monarchic. The communes had their own republican government that worked more or less based on the separation of powers concept, only for a variety of reasons most systems failed and dictatorships ensued, which in time took on monarchic aspects. Refer to France for how they worked.
- You didn't ask, but Spain: same as France.
Powerful local nobles and the church were a check on the monarch's powers. Shit logistics and almost no reliable way to organize a realm did the rest.
>>1070987
England had a long tradition of monarchism, dating to before the Norman invasions, so the institution of the monarchy was deeply inter-twined with the development of the Common Law, and it's powers more-or-less greatly limited by convention and by law from an early period. By contrast, France spent much longer divided into petty states, so it's traditions varied from region to region and the idea of the monarch was more of an abstraction. For long periods of the middles ages there were two "kings of France", so French dukes had even greater power and independence because they could play off of the two kings competing demands. In England, dukes had much less power and it was the barons who ultimately held the king accountable, as with Magna Carta.
Absolutism was a much later invention, and peculiar to France and later Russia.
>>1070713
Well, there were just powers that the king didn't have. He only really settled military and property disputes in his courts of law and enforced the law. He was a subject to the laws of Christendom and the Church, and people would get mad if he were excommunicated or had the kingdom put under interdict (think of a priest strike: no marriages, funerals, or baptisms, all very important)
Other matters of law would be decided in courts among merchants or by local elders which is how places like England got the Common Law.
The most important thing to understand is that for much of the middle ages the sovereign sort of modern state that we know now did not exist. It was sort of present under the King, but he only represented certain legal aspects and military protection, while generally it would be a church or a local wealthy dude that handled other things. Society had tons more layers around it separating the individual from the arm of the state in terms of the customs of now, though political actions had a greater affect on them. I'd reckon that in the modern age we're in there are a lot less legal barriers separating individuals from the state but more actual physical and technological barriers protecting individuals.
>>1071099
>full retard
>implying that one man should ever be that powerful
Real life isn't EUIV, and besides it was always the custom that the elected German King was more of a first among equals since Henry the Fowler.
