Bergeron Post 3: Stephenson and Strayer's Approaches to Formations of Medieval Government

[Cara Bergeron]

Hello all! I'm either really late to post or a few days early. I'm sorry if I'm late. We received our household goods this past Saturday, left the mess to get some dinner, and came home to a partially flooded house. A washing machine hose blew while we were out and we're now trying to deal with the cleanup and flooring replacement on top of the mass chaos of the move itself.

Without further ado, here's my post on Stephenson and Strayer.

In his Medieval Origins of the Modern State, Strayer admits that feudalism was the 12^th-15^th century “basis for state building.” However, he is quite insistent that fiefs and their vassal-lords begin by “working against state building” (Strayer, 15) and that the line of demarcation between feudalism and state-building is loyalty to a person rather than loyalty to ideals and goals. This is far too tenuous a foundation for enduring politics, according to Strayer. There must be ruthlessly pragmatic political expediencies for all parties involved in order for any arrangement to endure long enough to qualify as a state. By his definition, for instance, Christendom is no state. Rather, it’s a kingdom and the following characteristics might be considered its marks: Christians claim allegiance to a person—the Triune God—rather than allegiance to an impersonal cause. Christendom, unlike the state, cannot be pinned down to a certain period in time or a definite location in space. According to Strayer’s parameters, Christianity lacks yet another quality of the state: impersonal and enduring political institutions such as a treasury department or a high court (he is definitely enamored by the political motives which ensured the success of a king’s courts and exchequers, and he does acknowledge that, in some regards, the medieval Roman Catholic Church had a few such state-like institutions). Although Christendom does exhibit Strayer’s last three marks of a state—an authority with power, an interest in justice, and intense loyalty—based on its failure in his first categories, Strayer would probably argue that it is no state.

Carl Stephenson’s Medieval Feudalism, with its heavier emphasis on the demographic and cultural factors of kingdom development (with a bit of military technology discussion thrown in for good measure) adds a needed dimension of what I will call “rumination on an era” to Strayer’s almost exclusively political approach to medieval government. Although both Strayer and Stephenson primarily discuss the evolution of England and France in the 11^th-15^th centuries, their “conversations” almost seem to talk past one another. Medieval Feudalism emphasizes the interrelationships between an agrarian “economy” marked by little cash and ample lands, the ambitious lord’s demand for highly trained warriors, and the importance of personal relationships (lord to vassal and vice versa), loyalties (homage, fealty, and fief holding), and prestige to seal the arrangements. Stephenson does concede at several points that the aim of feudalism was essentially political: “Feudalism became the basis of a new political organization—one that naturally emerged as an older system fell into ruins,” (Stephenson, 14). He also discusses its relationship to the state in ch. 5. However, unlike Strayer, his goal is not to demonstrate where the system came from or where it eventually led, but to describe the peculiarities—cultural and sociological--of the institution itself. With that in mind, he cannot help describing the genius of Norman fief-holding in England and in Sicily , marked by the integration of some native institutions with Norman innovations. For the Normans imposed castles as centers of both agricultural production and as centers for justice and monetary collection—all cemented by a mutually bonded, mutually advantageous, painstakingly hierarchical vassal-lord relationships. Stephenson revels in ruminating on the positions themselves, the traditions, the codes of honor, and the benefits of feudalism; whereas Strayer, given his greater interest in the development of the state, practically dismisses feudalism as a disintegrating institution. He sees it merely as a means to an end—the formation of the modern state. Stephenson is a historian who seems to enjoy the past and its peculiarities for its own sake; his approach is more “man on the ground.” But Strayer, with his state department background and perhaps due to the political tenor and needs of his era, cannot help imposing a “top down” political inevitability to the medieval era, in the hope that his findings might mean salvation to fledgling third-world states. In this regard, he is extremely honest: “There is no salvation on earth outside the framework of an organized state” (Strayer, 3).

[George Harrell]

Are they really talking past one another, or just writing on different topics?

-George

[Laura King]

I agree with George (wait, did I just say that, really?).  I got the feeling that they were looking at different aspects of same topic.  Maybe I'm totally off, though.

Laura

[Brian & Cara Bergeron]

Different topics--feudalism and statism--but the time periods overlap somewhat. The discussion of state formation is primarily 11th-18th centuries, but feudalism overlaps significantly in that it is 9th through 14th centuries (correct me if I am wrong on these centuries). but each author is so focused on his area of research that he sees all influences feeding into his expertise. Strayer sees feudalism as a force against state development--a splintering tendency. Stephenson titles his last chapter Feudalism and the State (or something like that) but then he goes on to talk about cultural factors and noble relationships, not development of impersonal institutions and transfer of loyalty to those institutions--Strayer's marks of a healthy state. There just isn't enough discussioin about the relationships between feudalism and the development of the state, but I believe that the state would never have existed without the fief. strayer says as much in several places but never elaborates. That why I say they talk past one another.

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[George Harrell]

Okay, I'd buy that. You're pretty much saying that the one doesn't feed into the other, in which case, I'd agree.

-George

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[Brian & Cara Bergeron]

Hmmm... I think I was saying that feudalism definitely led to the formation of the state. But Strayer makes it seem as though state formation was nearly a 180 degree departure from feudalism. In his mind, the state was a weird contingency, born out of a strange brew of political expediencies and personal necessities. He acknowledges the necessity of the lord becoming the later state sovereign, but that is about all he cedes to the cultural factors and relationships which led to the rise of the state. In contrast, from my perspective, although I do not see the formation of the state as the inevitable result of feudalism, there are far too many similarities between feudalism and the state (namely some version of sovereignty and submission, loyalty, and judicial provisions) to say that the two are not related simply because statism is more "political" (to use Strayer's more narrow sense of the word) and feudalism is more personal.

Cara

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