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1 results

  • 14 - Crossing the False Divide

  • Jonathan R. Lyon, University of Chicago
  • Book:
    Corruption, Protection and Justice in Medieval Europe
    Published online:
    12 October 2022
    Print publication:
    24 November 2022, pp 303-324

  • Summary

    This chapter pushes the book’s argument beyond the traditional medieval/modern dividing line around the year 1500 by examining advocates’ corrupt practices of justice and protection in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While acknowledging that the volume of administrative evidence grows exponentially in this period and regional administrations became better developed, it nevertheless shows that various abuses that had been happening for centuries continued into this period. These abuses included local acts of violence that provide clear evidence for the ongoing difficulties that met attempts by imperial and princely authorities to govern effectively on the ground in their territories. This chapter, therefore, calls attention to the flaws in traditional historical narratives about a sharp dividing line between a medieval period of feudalism and lordship and a modern period of government, bureaucracy and strong states.