Eve here. Voxeu regularly posts my historical data, and here the study of the meaning of history long ago. Draw today’s lesson or at first glance indicate that the “So-oc-how-can-it-still-matter” event is still overshadowed. This analysis is a transition to more representations of the medieval era, as is commonly considered by the aristocrats. We see that an increase in war leads to an increase in representation in local councils. This means the acceleration of medieval constitutionalism trends over a longer time frame.
So, at this time of distiring news, there may be a small silver lining. The fierce drive into European remilitaries may require a significant reduction in the democratic deficit to succeed…or at least the owners are less accomplished at all about the need for a vote to vote in favor of summer votes.
Sascha O. Becker, Chair of Xiaokai Yang Business and Economics Monash University and full-time professor at Warwick University of Economics. Andreas Ferrara, assistant professor at the University of Economics at Pittsburgh. Assistant Professor Eric Melander at Birmingham University of Economics. Luigi Pascari, Associate Professor, Associate Professor, Kennen Fellow, Pompeu Fabra University and Faculty of Economics. Originally published on Voxeu
In a grand sweep of history over the past millennium, political differences between world civilizations at the same time as Europe preceded economic divergence. This column describes the development of medieval constitutionalism institutional frameworks in which European towns and cities are characterized substantially in substantially by representative assembly, rule of law, fiscal and spending capacity. In today’s international environment, where democratic institutions increasingly appeal to the hind legs, history offers a hyper perspective on the fierce battle moves for greater expression.
Medieval Europe was a place that was damaged by almost meaningless conflicts between countless weak rulers, particularly through German lands, to northern Italy. Figure 1 depicts the boundaries of European territories from 1290 to 1710, showing the density of borders in this region of Central Europe. However, in this same region, an institutional package of medieval constitutionalism emerged, where towns and cisies hampered the rue of the law, acknowledging political representation of citizens, and aging increasingly sophisticated fiscal machinery.
Figure 1 of the de facto boundaries of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, 1290-1710
Note: The de facto boundaries of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, 1290-1710. The virtually 100-year historic atlas (2018 clockwork mapping) of boundary territory overlaps at 10-year intervals in the period 1290-1710 (light gray). The boundaries of modern states are also shown (black).
You have long been assumed to be forced to this “almost lasting vortex of war… [rulers] But to make deals that mean sharing political power” (Hoffman and Norberg 1994). However, so far, it has been difficult to empirically tease the direction of causality. “Our recent paper (Becker et al. 2025) is the first in this context to present systematic evidence in favour of one direction of causality, from war to expression.
New data and new evidence on war and expression
Our work is supported by extensive efforts to mobilize detailed data on German towns and cities over more than five centuries, spanning medieval constitutionalists. It utilizes Deutschesstädtebuch (Keyser 1939-1974), a multivolume encyclopedia of German cities, to be created through a panel dataset documenting the conflicts in which CISIE is involved, the characteristics of concuncils, and their refinements.
With these data in hand, we first document that exposure to the conflict appears to be related to the expansion of the city council (more members show a broader representation of the population). Continuing in conflict, these kushills are more likely to be elected by citizens without the interference of the local master. Figure 2 illustrates this result using the first conflict where the territory of the sample was published and tracking the evolution of council elections and scale before and after the “event.”
Figure 2. Territory-level event survey
Note: The evolution of the political outcomes of the territorial before and after the first conflict they are exposed. If a citizen can hold such elections without the interference of a local ruler, the probability that a citizen will elect a local city council is equal to one. The size of the council is the number of city council members.
Successive conflicts for the causes of random fluctuations in conflicts
Introduce data-sea sets to construct conflict exposure variations that mimic randomisation experiments. Using data on the noble European families compiled by the ambitious Peerage project, we reconstruct the aristocratic network at each point in time to identify the centre of individuals within this network. These nobles are the key to war and peace during this period, and we are in particular one aspect: continuous.
In the German context, numerous conflicts were the war of succession, fighting over the rights of women to inherit as rulers. By identifying the gender of the eldest son of an important nobleman, we will build your tools for conflict. The logic is: With the first child, the nobles enter the lottery. There, Eisher’s perception (male or female children) is likely similarly. However, the eldest girl opens up the possibilities of succession and the challenge to the war of succession. This will randomize sub-observations within the dataset to higher competitive pronunciations than others. It is this exogenous conflict variability that we use to identify the causal effect of conflicts on political and prosecutor Instad.
The Landshut’s Serial Wars (1503-1505) shows how the war of succession led to the rise of medieval constitutionalism and the spad. Since the Duke of George of Bavaria Rondscht had no male heir, he named his eldest son, Elizabeth, his successor. This violated an agreement with the Wittelsbach family, according to the legal successor of Duke Albert of Baibaria Minich Urd. Albert refused permission and rejected his dream of destructive war.
Figure 3 plans the evolution of political and prosecutors’ Instad regarding the outbreak of the war of succession, comparing the results of Bavarian Munich with those of Bavarian and other German regions. The Bavarian Munich city saw a match in the possibility that its citizens had elected the city council on its size. Decades after the conflict, these cities developed increasingly sophisticated tax systems, and the consistency with temporary war taxes evolved into a more Fisau-based financial expansion capacity based on income and wealth taxes.
Figure 3 Territory case studies: The Bibaria Minic and the Landsut War of Succession
Note: Evolution of political and taxable outcomes of cities in Bavaria-Mnich’s territory, other cities in Bavaria, and other cities in Germany’s land in the centuries before and after the Landsutt Succession War (shown by vertical dashed lines). If a citizen can hold such elections without the interference of a local ruler, the probability that a citizen will elect a local city council is equal to one. The size of the council is the number of city council members. Complex taxes replenish these taxes that require registered or managed infrastructure because tax items including income, wealth, or business taxes are not easily complied with.
We review the findings from this single example with a complete sample of cities and periods. In Revenge, after the birth of the female First Stickborn causes war, the city confirms that the council has increased by 2-3 percentage points in the chances that the council will be elected by citizens and the council will be expanded by about two members. This will continue in the next decades to a more refined form of taxation.
The long-term implications of medieval constitutionalism
The final section of the paper examines the long shadow that representatives and high prosecutors’ agency packages developed in the context of medieval constitutionalism have since been at the rise of modern states. Previous studies have shown the importance of high tax capacity in the formation of states (Tilly 1975, Gennaioli and Voth 2015) and Cantoni et al. highlights a recent paper by. (2024) empirically document the importance of the central territorial finance system in the early modern period. Our exercise here complements our findings by highlighting the parallel importance of urban-level tax systems until at least 1700.
We show that the samples of cities and territories that developed high prosecutor capabilities in the context of medieval constitutionalism are more likely to eat at the top in the process of territorial integration from the 17th century. Specifically, consider a case where a city switches its hands from one area to another and calculates the difference in tax capacity between territory acquisition and losing. Since 1600, the tax advantage of conquered conquerors has increased significantly.
Conclusion
Our findings highlight the role that war plays in emergencies of key elements of modern state blueprints. In particular, we reorganize the equipment with systematic causal evidence conclusions from previous qualitative and historical literature that the development of representative Institts is not a forgotten conclusion, but rather a silver lining of bargains forced to attack their subjects.
See original bibliographic submission
