A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

The Emergence of Early Modern Europe 29

Developing State Structures

The growth in the number of royal officials helped rulers consolidate more
effective power. Rulers had always had some kind of advisory council, but
the importance of their advisers grew in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen­
turies. Chanceries, treasuries, and courts of law represented an early stage
of bureaucratization. Serving as royal officials, some humble men of talent
began to reach positions of influence within states.
Rulers still earned revenue from their own lands. But in order to meet the
expenses of their states, they drew income from taxation, the sale of offices
(posts in the service of the monarch that were often both prestigious and
lucrative) and government bonds, and the confiscation of land from recalci­
trant nobles. Like other rulers, popes also centralized administration and
finances, selling posts. Rulers imposed taxes on salt, wine, and other goods,
impositions from which nobles and clergy were generally exempt. States in
the sixteenth century became the great collectors and distributors of rev­
enue. Moreover, the gradual growth of public debt was another sign of the
increased authority of monarchical states. Royal dependency on the loans of
merchant-bankers enriched the latter, providing more capital for their ven­
tures. Rulers, surrounded by courtiers and councils, lived in a grander fash­
ion. As they worked to consolidate their authority and territories, thrones
became increasingly hereditary. As even wealthy people were apt to die
young, such succession arrangements, which varied throughout Europe,
mattered considerably.
With the strengthening of sovereign states in the fifteenth century, which
entailed the loss of the right to have armies of retainers, nobles depended
more on monarchies for the sanction of their power and honor. More of
them came to court and served as royal officials. The sale of royal offices,
especially in France and Spain, encouraged loyalty to the throne. Royal
courts now adjudicated property disputes, gradually eroding noble jurisdic­
tion over the king’s subjects, although in France and many of the German
states nobles retained rights of justice over peasants.
In the fifteenth century, regular channels for diplomacy emerged among
the states of Europe. The Italian city-states were the first to exchange
permanent resident ambassadors. By the middle of the century, Florence,
Milan, Venice, and the kingdom of Naples all routinely exchanged ambas­
sadors, who provided news and other information, while representing the
interests of their states.

Limits to State Authority

Significant constraints, however, still limited the authority of rulers. We

have seen that the privileges of towns, established through the purchase of

royal charters of financial immunity, tempered royal power. Some regions (for

example, Navarre in Spain), nominally incorporated into realms, maintained