The figure of the sovereign was central to the constitution of the modern state in Europe between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. The elements that defined it were:
- the centralized power in the figure of the sovereign, who stemmed the power of the Church by limiting the function of investiture of the bishops;
- the territoriality for which the exercise of sovereignty was localized in a specific geographical border;
- the state was conceived as a private patrimony of the sovereign who disposed of it and transmitted it by inheritance.
In this period the court was born, the place from which the sovereign ruled and where he lived with his collaborators; a standing army was formed made up of professional soldiers, which depended on the king, a bureaucracy was organized with the king's trusted personnel.
France and the "maid of Orleans"
In France in the fourteenth century an anomalous situation had arisen because the presence on French soil of fiefs belonging to the English king prevented the formation of a national state. Philip VI (1328-1350) in 1337, belonging to the Valois family, tried to appropriate the English fiefdoms causing the reaction of Edward III (1327-1377). The Hundred Years War began, which lasted from 1337 to 1453 not continuously. In the first phase of the conflict, about 12,000 British soldiers in Crécy managed to overcome an army consisting of 30,000 French men also thanks to the use of a new weapon, the long bow or "long bow". Skilled English archers aimed at the horse's flanks, unsaddling the knights forced to fight in uncomfortable conditions also due to the weight of their heavy armor. This battle brought about the end of the era of cavalry. With Charles VI, the French king who showed signs of mental imbalance, a long conflict arose between the two factions competing for power:the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. France was defeated in the battle of Azincourt, in 1415, and the French lost the entire northern region and even Paris.
With the Treaty of Troyes , in 1420 , forced the sovereign to recognize the King of England as heir .
Things changed with the accession to the throne of Charles VII (1429-1461) who again began to demand the unification of the state, trying to reorganize the resistance against English rule. A very young illiterate peasant woman from a small town in Champagne arrived on the scene who reported hearing "strange voices", attributed by her to the Archangel Michael, who asked her to free France from the foreign yoke and to lead Charles to the affirmation of his sovereignty. Wearing men's clothes, she went to meet the king who subjected her to examination by theologians to see if she was lying. Joan revealed her deep faith and from that moment she became the "Maid".
At the head of an army she excited the soldiers who conquered Orleans and her enthusiasm favored new victories.
The king was crowned in Reims but Giovanna's fame had grown so much that the king did not lift a finger when she was captured by the English for fear that her prestige would be tarnished by the young woman.
Subjected to trial for heresy, at only nineteen she was burned at the stake in the square of Rouen. The French reconquered all the territories except that of Calais on the Channel. The Hundred Years War allowed the constitution of the French national state which was strengthened thanks to Louis XI.
The king first came to terms with a league of feudal lords who had rebelled and then annexed the territories to impose the its sovereignty over all of France. He recruited a standing army to complement the old cavalry, new artillery units and corps of mercenaries. An articulated administrative apparatus was set up with regional parliaments which, in addition to the judicial function, had the right of complaint, that is to veto the decisions of the king.
The control of ecclesiastical power was carried out with the Pragmatic Sanction that limited the church's power of investiture of bishops. Religion was also to become an instrument of consensus.
England and the War of the Roses
The Hundred Years War had limited the English territories and this triggered instability in England where a civil war broke out in which the Lancastrian house, whose emblem was a red rose, opposed the York house, symbolized by a white rose.
The conflict called the War of the Roses was the scene of unprecedented violence and ended with the accession to the throne of Henry VII Tudor (1485-1509) with which the stability of the English monarchy began. The sovereign managed to centralize power by removing it from feudalism, which was not very strong in England. He allied himself with the bourgeoisie and the productive social strata and limited his foreign policy, implementing an isolationist orientation that allowed him to focus on the growth of his own state. A new system of production in agriculture was favored, the manufacturing activities concerning the production of wool developed which, thanks to the development of the country as a colonial power, would have been exported and would have created large assets.
The judicial function and that tax was delegated to sheriffs and justices of the peace. The king was joined by a Crown Council made up of aristocrats and the Star Chamber was established, a special court that punished the crimes of the feudal lords. The powers of the church and ecclesiastical privileges were limited.
Spain and the Reconquest
The history of the formation of national identity and the state in Spain it coincides with the long war, against the Muslims, called the Reconquest .
In 1212 after the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa the Iberian peninsula was made up of five kingdoms: Aragon and Castile , the largest, the Kingdom of Navarre , on the border with France , the Kingdom of Granada , dominated by Muslims .
Portugal became an autonomous kingdom from the 13th century.
The marriage between Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile in 1479 marks the beginning of the formal unification of the two Kingdoms .
Castile and Aragon they differed because the first, overlooking the Atlantic , had ambitions of conquest in that direction while the expansionist aims of Aragon were aimed at the Mediterranean , where he owned the Balearic Islands , Sicily and Sardinia and later the Kingdom of Naples .
In Aragon the main economic interests were agricultural and commercial while the main Castilian activity was livestock. The language was also different. Despite these differences, the king obtained a wide consensus and managed to build a strong bureaucratic apparatus and a standing army.
The common basis was certainly the religious climate that spread on the occasion of the " crusade ”Against the kingdom of the Moors in Granada .
Also the Inquisition , established for the first time in Castile in 1478 , had the effect of unifying the feeling of intolerance against infidels.
Pope Alexander VI gave Ferdinand the title of Catholic King .
This exacerbated the climate of intolerance towards the Moriscos , the Muslims converts and the conversos , the Jews converts and urged the adoption of laws that resulted in their exclusion from all public office.
This policy of intolerance had the downside of a notable decrease in the country's production capacity because the moriscos and the conversos expelled, they brought their craft and production skills abroad and determined an ever greater dependence on Spain from product imports.
The eastern frontier
Maximilian I of Habsburg (1459-1519) was elected Emperor in 1493 on a very large territory divided into three areas:
- the Germanic Holy Roman Empire,
- the ancient possession of the Habsburgs (Austria, Tyrol, Styria, Corinthia and Carniola),
- the Netherlands and Franche-Comté, territories acquired thanks to the marriage union with Mary of Burgundy.
Despite the vastness of the territories, the emperor did not have an army nor could he make use of an adequate bureaucratic apparatus and his accession to the throne took place by election, not dynastic. The poly-national character of the empire did not allow for a centralization of power; for this Massimiliano proceeded to a marriage policy, seeking alliances through marriages.
The most feared danger was the Ottomans so called from the name of Othman (1299-1326) , the sultan who founded this dynasty.
The backbone of the Turkish army was made up of the Janissaries , originally set up as the sultan's personal guard.
Among the peasant families, children aged between six and nine were selected, converted to Islam and subjected to forced and harsh discipline.
They could not contract marriage like this would have no qualms in war clashes.
Their typical weapon was the saber with a curved blade. The Turks continued their expansion and in 1453 occupied Constantinople decreeing the fall of the Byzantine Empire .
The great Byzantine capital changed its name to Istanbul and the great church of Santa Sofia it was transformed into a mosque.
The Turks also occupied the Balkan peninsula, undermining the Hapsburg Empire and establishing itself as a power with which the European rulers had to confront for a long time.
Eastern Europe
The huge Russian territory was made up of Principalities which depended on the Mongols with whom they had close commercial ties.
Among all the Principality of Moscow emerged for power and strength which had a strategic position and cultivated a privileged relationship with the Mongolian Khans .
Also the Orthodox Church , despite the Mongol invasion, it had maintained its structure becoming a reference point for Orthodox Christianity that looked to Moscow as in the third Rome , after Constantinople and the Italian seat of the pontiff.
The Russian state originated with Ivan III the Great who centralized power, transformed his principality into a strong and unitary state, also recognized by the Orthodox Church, and imposed the construction of a splendid royal residence, the Kremlin .