In the high Middle Ages both elite kinship groups and polities became formalized, conceptually as well as legally. Since interdependence continued, there is a connection between the formalization and stabilization of elite families and the growth of more stable and durable polities. As the ruling strata of society became public, visible and relatively transparent, more durable political institutions could be formed. This chapter supports the link between formalized elite families and formalized polities. Kings and queens devoted considerable energies to ruling their realms through the nobility, for example by approving and arranging marriages. The realm depended upon magnate dynasties and their economic, military and political resources. Successful rulers collaborated with nobles. Attempts to forcibly subdue them often resulted in civil war, deposition of the monarch and even more rights for the nobility. This teaches us that collaboration, rather than coercion, is a key to polity formation.

This chapter demonstrates how old the idea that families do not belong to political orders is in Western thinking. This idea has dominated anthropology, political science and sociology. Despite its popularity, the idea of an opposition between kinship and states is built on problematic notions about the state and kinship and it ignores empirical evidence. The ambition to describe kinship-based groups as obstacles to political development began with early modern thinkers like Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes but it was reinforced in the nineteenth century by sociologists as well as anthropologists. Understanding how the expulsion of kinship from our ideas of political order was essentially a political project, not the result of academic analysis, helps us to view European and Middle Eastern history with fresh eyes.

Political scientists and historians generally consider the early modern period as the era when sovereign states appeared. Older scholarship has associated state growth with the obsolescence and defeat of the aristocracy. However, the nobility remained fundamental to the political system despite the establishment of bureaucracies and standing armies. Although the period saw a number of rebellions by nobles, kings and nobles continued to depend on each other. Far from being opposed to royal order the nobility complemented the rule of kings. Although the nobility adapted to growing state structures, this period strengthens the connection between formalization of elite families and the formalization of political institutions. This chapter shows how international politics was also dynastic politics. The internal wars of succession of the Middle Ages became international wars of succession. The chapter maps different forms of succession and their corresponding wars.