IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jinsec/v14y2018i04p715-737_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Hospitalitas: Barbarian settlements and constitutional foundations of medieval Europe

Author

Listed:
  • YOUNG, ANDREW T.

Abstract

A rough balance of political power between monarchs and a militarized landed aristocracy characterized medieval Western Europe. Scholars have argued that this balance of power contributed to a tradition of limited government and constitutional bargaining. I argue that 5th- and 6th-century barbarian settlements created a foundation for this balance of power. The settlements provided barbarians with allotments of lands or taxes due from the lands. The allotments served to align the incentives of barbarian warriors and Roman landowners, and realign the incentives of barbarian warriors and their leadership elite. Barbarian military forces became decentralized and the warriors became political powerful shareholders of the realm.

Suggested Citation

  • Young, Andrew T., 2018. "Hospitalitas: Barbarian settlements and constitutional foundations of medieval Europe," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 715-737, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jinsec:v:14:y:2018:i:04:p:715-737_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S174413741700039X/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Congleton, Roger D., 2007. "From royal to parliamentary rule without revolution: The economics of constitutional exchange within divided governments," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 261-284, June.
    2. Alexander W. Salter & Abigail R. Hall, 2015. "Calculating Bandits: Quasi-Corporate Governance and Institutional Selection in Autocracies," Advances in Austrian Economics, in: New Thinking in Austrian Political Economy, volume 19, pages 193-213, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    3. Greif, Avner & Laitin, David D., 2004. "A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 98(4), pages 633-652, November.
    4. Heather, Peter, 2009. "Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199735600.
    5. Robert Bates & Avner Greif & Smita Singh, 2002. "Organizing Violence," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 46(5), pages 599-628, October.
    6. Matthew Baker & Erwin Bulte, 2010. "Kings and Vikings: on the dynamics of competitive agglomeration," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 207-227, June.
    7. Greif,Avner, 2006. "Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521480444, September.
    8. Todd Sandler & John Tschirhart, 1997. "Club theory: Thirty years later," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 93(3), pages 335-355, December.
    9. Blaydes, Lisa & Chaney, Eric, 2013. "The Feudal Revolution and Europe's Rise: Political Divergence of the Christian West and the Muslim World before 1500 CE," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 107(1), pages 16-34, February.
    10. Williams, Stephen F., 2016. "Words, words, words: The remarkable perseverance of Magna Carta," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(S), pages 67-71.
    11. Salter, Alexander William, 2015. "Rights to the Realm: Reconsidering Western Political Development," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 109(4), pages 725-734, November.
    12. Alexander Salter, 2015. "Sovereignty as exchange of political property rights," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 79-96, October.
    13. Alexander Libman & Vladimir Kozlov & André Schultz, 2012. "Roving Bandits in Action: Outside Option and Governmental Predation in Autocracies," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(4), pages 526-562, November.
    14. Brennan,Geoffrey & Buchanan,James M., 2006. "The Power to Tax," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521027922, September.
    15. Stasavage, David, 2010. "When Distance Mattered: Geographic Scale and the Development of European Representative Assemblies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(4), pages 625-643, November.
    16. North,Douglass C. & Wallis,John Joseph & Weingast,Barry R., 2013. "Violence and Social Orders," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107646995.
    17. Leeson Peter T. & Williamson Claudia R., 2009. "Anarchy and Development: An Application of the Theory of Second Best," The Law and Development Review, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 77-96, July.
    18. Demsetz, Harold, 2002. "Toward a Theory of Property Rights II: The Competition between Private and Collective Ownership," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(2), pages 653-672, June.
    19. Leeson, Peter T. & Suarez, Paola A., 2016. "An economic analysis of Magna Carta," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(S), pages 40-46.
    20. Weingast, Barry R., 1997. "The Political Foundations of Democracy and the Rule of the Law," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(2), pages 245-263, June.
    21. Buchanan,James M. & Congleton,Roger D., 2006. "Politics by Principle, Not Interest," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521031325, September.
    22. Andrew Young, 2015. "From Caesar to Tacitus: changes in early Germanic governance circa 50 BC-50 AD," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 357-378, September.
    23. Yadira Gonzalez de Lara & Avner Greif & Saumitra Jha, 2008. "The Administrative Foundations of Self-Enforcing Constitutions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 105-109, May.
    24. North, Douglass C. & Weingast, Barry R., 1989. "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 803-832, December.
    25. Rajagopalan, Shruti, 2016. "Magna Carta revisited: parchment, guns, and constitutional order," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(S), pages 53-59.
    26. Olson, Mancur, 1993. "Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(3), pages 567-576, September.
    27. Alexander Fink, 2012. "The Hanseatic League and the Concept of Functional Overlapping Competing Jurisdictions," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(2), pages 194-217, May.
    28. Leeson, Peter T., 2011. "Government, clubs, and constitutions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 301-308.
    29. Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter & Svendsen, Gert Tinggaard, 2003. "Rational Bandits: Plunder, Public Goods, and the Vikings," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 117(3-4), pages 255-272, December.
    30. Andrew T. Young, 2016. "What does it take for a roving bandit settle down? Theory and an illustrative history of the Visigoths," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 168(1), pages 75-102, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Salter, Alexander William & Young, Andrew T., 2018. "A theory of self-enforcing monetary constitutions with reference to the Suffolk System, 1825–1858," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 13-22.
    2. Andrew T. Young, 2021. "The political economy of feudalism in medieval Europe," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 127-143, March.
    3. Harris,Colin & Cai,Meina & Murtazashvili,Ilia & Murtazashvili,Jennifer Brick, 2020. "The Origins and Consequences of Property Rights," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108969055, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrew T. Young, 2016. "What does it take for a roving bandit settle down? Theory and an illustrative history of the Visigoths," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 168(1), pages 75-102, July.
    2. Andrew T. Young, 2015. "Hospitalitas," Working Papers 15-41, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    3. Alexander William Salter & Andrew T. Young, 2018. "Medieval representative assemblies: collective action and antecedents of limited government," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 171-192, June.
    4. Andrew T. Young, 2021. "The political economy of feudalism in medieval Europe," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 127-143, March.
    5. Ennio E. Piano, 2019. "State capacity and public choice: a critical survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 289-309, January.
    6. Young, Andrew T., 2022. "Consent or coordination? assemblies in early medieval Europe," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    7. Alexander William Salter & Andrew T. Young, 2019. "Polycentric Sovereignty: The Medieval Constitution, Governance Quality, and the Wealth of Nations," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1241-1253, June.
    8. Peter J. Boettke & Rosolino A. Candela, 2020. "Productive specialization, peaceful cooperation and the problem of the predatory state: lessons from comparative historical political economy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 331-352, March.
    9. Harris,Colin & Cai,Meina & Murtazashvili,Ilia & Murtazashvili,Jennifer Brick, 2020. "The Origins and Consequences of Property Rights," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108969055, September.
    10. Jamie Bologna Pavlik & Andrew T. Young, 2020. "Medieval European traditions in representation and state capacity today," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 133-186, June.
    11. Andrew Young, 2015. "From Caesar to Tacitus: changes in early Germanic governance circa 50 BC-50 AD," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 357-378, September.
    12. Alexander William Salter, 2016. "Political Property Rights and Governance Outcomes: A Theory of the Corporate Polity," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 31(Winter 20), pages 1-20.
    13. Andrew T. Young, 2019. "How Austrians can contribute to constitutional political economy (and why they should)," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 32(4), pages 281-293, December.
    14. Andrew T. Young, 2015. "Visigothic Retinues: Roving Bandits that Succeeded Rome," Working Papers 15-09, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    15. Daniel J. Smith & George R. Crowley & J. Sebastian Leguizamon, 2021. "Long live the doge? Death as a term limit on Venetian chief executives," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(3), pages 333-359, September.
    16. Candela, Rosolino A., 2020. "The political economy of insecure property rights: insights from the Kingdom of Sicily," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 233-249, April.
    17. Salter, Alexander William & Young, Andrew T., 2018. "A theory of self-enforcing monetary constitutions with reference to the Suffolk System, 1825–1858," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 13-22.
    18. Jamie Bologna Pavlik & Andrew T. Young, 2021. "The legacy of representation in medieval Europe for incomes and institutions today," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 88(1), pages 414-448, July.
    19. Alexander Salter, 2015. "Sovereignty as exchange of political property rights," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 79-96, October.
    20. Andrew Young, 2022. "The Peace of God," Rationality and Society, , vol. 34(1), pages 28-55, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jinsec:v:14:y:2018:i:04:p:715-737_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/joi .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.