Political structures and institutions in the Western Middle Ages

The form of political organisation with which we are most familiar today is the state. For the period that followed the official disappearance of the Western Roman Empire, historians have had to question its very existence. Didn't Guy Fourquin write some thirty years ago: "The State disappeared completely in the 5th century"? Assuming that to be true, did that mean anarchy? Starting with a reflection on the nature of state organisation, the course will consider its avatars in the West from the 5th to the 15th century, from empires with a universal vocation (the Carolingian Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, etc.) to nation states, from the Germanic kingdoms to the birth of the modern state, via the feudal principality, the common lordship and the city-state. It will analyse the main bodies or mechanisms embodying political authority, from the king to the commune, and their ideological legitimisation, the way the State functioned (army, legislation, justice, taxation, etc.) and its relationship with the Church. Geographically, the presentation will focus on the Franco-German area.