2.6 Natural State Dynamics: Fragile to Basic Natural States

2.6 Natural State Dynamics: Fragile to Basic Natural States

How do fragile natural states move toward basic natural states? How does a society whose major accomplishment is holding the dominant coalition together become transformed into one where the state establishes durable institutions and under the spreading umbrella of state support develops economic, educational, and religious organizations that sustain the integration of the society into a larger geographic and cultural entity?

Two historical examples illustrate how a basic natural state forms out of a fragile natural state: the Mesoamerican Aztec Empire (1428–1519) and the European Carolingian Empire (751–840). Each empire was founded in a society living in the shadow of historical greatness, where disintegration and decline had occurred over several centuries. Each empire experienced a quick rise to power, yet lasted a relatively short time. Their key similarities relate to the way in which the dominant coalitions structured their internal relationships and how they used military, economic, political, religious, and educational institutions and organizations. Each empire built on existing social materials, and each borrowed extensively from preexisting institutions, making small modifications in them that dramatically changed the way the social order performed. Finally, in each empire the state was the only framework within which organizations could be supported. These were truly basic natural states.

The Aztec Empire. Mesoamerica had seen three large civilizations rise and fall: the coastal Olmec from about 1500 to 300 b.c.e.; Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico from about 100 to 750 c.e.; and the loosely organized Toltec society from roughly 900 to 1200 c.e. Each empire was followed by a period of disintegration. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Valley of Mexico was composed of competing city-states and fragile alliances.26 One of many migrant ethnic bands, the Mexica, settled on the island of Tenochtitlan in Lake Texcoco. The lands around the lake were fertile, and the area was a center of military and political conflict over control of the region. In the late fourteenth century, the most powerful local alliance was headed by the Tepanecs, which included the Mexicas in their alliance.

26The large literature on Aztec society is continually growing and changing. We have drawn on Smith (2001, 2003), Smith and Montiel (2001), Lockhart (1992) Carrasco (1999), Conrad and Demarest (1984), Berdan (1982), Berdan et al. (1996), Blanton (1996), and Brumfiel (1987), Hassig (1988), among others.

The basic units of Mexica society were the altepetl and the calpulli. The altepetl were ethnic states that were primarily organizations of people controlling a given territory. The calpulli were the constituent parts of the altepetl, whose land was owned by nobles who granted use of the land to calpulli members. The calpulli served as the unit of organization for schools, temples, and military units.27 The Mexica aristocracies, the pipiltin, were the first families of the calpulli, and higher political leaders, the tlatoani (ruler) were drawn from the calpulli leadership. Integration into the Tepanec alliance gave the Mexicas an opportunity to develop their own elites, to serve in military campaigns, and to acquire administrative and military skills. The Mexicas petitioned the city of Culhauacan and the Tepanec alliance to provide them with a prince of Toltec blood. The first tlatoani, Acamapichtli, came to Tenochtitlan around 1370. Whether he came because of a request or was imposed on the Mexicas by the Tepanecs is not clear.

The death of a powerful Tepanec leader in 1426 was followed by a period of confusion. In the power void, a coalition of three city-states – the Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tacuba – defeated the Tepanecs in 1428. The Triple Alliance became the Aztec Empire (Smith, 2001). The Triple Alliance was always a coalition. Despite the relative ascendance of the Mexica Aztecs within the coalition, it remained an alliance until the Spanish arrived in 1521. The southern valley was divided into three regional states, each governed by one part of the coalition. The alliance turned its military forces to the conquest of other city-states in the southern part of the valley by the 1430s.

The Aztec leaders immediately began distributing land from conquered areas to leading elites, particularly military leaders.28 The land went to the tlatoani, the military warriors, and the principal members of the pipiltin aristocracy. A new leadership group was formed called the Council of Four, which consisted of all members of the Imperial family, who exercised executive power within the state and determined succession upon the death of the emperor. Religious and government offices were restructured to reflect the new order. A tight relationship among wealth, conquest, and land developed in which a small dominant coalition mobilized the economic resources of the society to provide both social order and the wherewithal to continue a program of conquest.

27Lockhart (1992), pp. 14–20; Conrad and Demarest (1984), p. 23, Zorita (1963), pp. 105–11 on land tenure and pp. 135–51 on schools; Carrasco (1999), pp. 16–21 on calpulli.

28Hodge (1996) describes the Aztec methods of governance.

Three features of the Aztec system are of interest. The first is the use of religion. Aztec religious beliefs were rooted in the larger Mesoamerican religious tradition. Aztecs held that the sun god daily battled his way across the sky against his brothers the stars and his sister the moon. In order to triumph in this battle, the sun needed to be strong and vigorous, for which he required the chalchihuatl, the precious liquid, the blood of man (Caso, 1958, pp. 12–13). Failure to nourish the sun would result in the destruction of the earth. The expanding use of human sacrifice fueled the expansionary military goals of the Aztecs, and it provided an ideological framework that justified the labor of the masses even if they did not participate fully in the gains (the earth would be destroyed): the religious structure permeated the way in which the dominant coalition defined itself. The last feature is critical. Because changes in status within the Aztec society were associated with ritual sacrifices, the religious structure identified who was powerful. The religious structure held the same position for the pipiltin aristocracy and for the merchant class (which we discuss in a moment).

The second feature is that access to the political-religious structure required access to education. The Aztec calpulli traditionally included a temple and a school, the telpochcalli, where male youths were taught the skills that would make them warriors. A parallel system of schools for the elites, the calmecac, instilled the same warrior skills and values, but also taught the students how to read “sacred books, the arts of painting, of counting the days and years, of placing the festivals of the gods, of chanting the hymns, and of understanding the demands made by the supernaturals” (Leon-Portilla, 1963, pp. 134–52). Education in a calmecac was an essential prerequisite for admission to the higher reaches of elite status. The combination of religion, education, and politics created a dominant coalition with a strong identity, clear shared beliefs with strong educational roots, and limited access.

The third feature is that the Aztecs limited access to economic activity by empowering a specific group of merchants, the pochteca. The pochteca possessed exclusive privileges to trade in long-distance and luxury goods, organized in guilds, with their own elaborate social ranks signified by special privileges in dress and behavior.29 The Aztec Empire’s fiscal system ran on a

29Conrad and Demarest (1984), pp, 50–1; Hodge (1996), pp. 43–4; Brumfiel (1987); and Blanton (1996), pp. 47–84. Blanton’s conclusions, pp. 83–4, are particularly relevant to our argument. For the role of pochteca in the outlying provinces of the empire see Berdan (1996), pp. 115–35 and more generally Berdan’s analysis of the role of trade in the Aztec system in Berdan (1982, 1985, 1987) and Smith (2003).

combination of tribute and market taxation. Local markets for agricultural products were under the control of local elites, but control of long-distance movement of goods was either directly under the control of the state in the form of tribute payments or indirectly under the control of the state through pochteca networks and formal regulation of markets for longdistance and luxury goods (Hodge, 1996). The Aztec Empire possessed a market economy, but the state harnessed the market economy to the needs of the political system.

The Aztec Empire created sophisticated organizational structures in politics, trade, religion, education, and the military. Reflecting the essence of a basic natural state, none of these organizations existed outside of the state.

The Carolingian Empire. Carolingian history, institutions, organizations, and culture differed from that of the Mexica. Nonetheless, striking similarities exist between the two cases. Both the Carolingians and the Aztecs harnessed the productive power of organizations. As with the Aztecs, the Carolingians built organizations only within the framework of the state. Both were basic natural states.

The decline of the Roman Empire in the west was associated with a series of barbarian migrations beginning with the Goths in 376 and continuing through 476 when the last emperor fell. Relatively small barbarian populations, in comparison with the Roman population, moved into and eventually controlled strategic areas of the empire (Heather, 2006). By the eighth century, barbarian kingdoms occupied most of Western Europe, with a few vestiges of Roman authority in Italy in the Papal States and in the Exarch at Ravenna.30 The Catholic church remained an important influence, both in Italy and throughout the parts of Western Europe that had converted to Christianity.

The chaotic and ever-changing political map of Europe from 476 to 750 tracked kingdoms of Visigoths, Vandals, Franks, Lombards, Saxons, and Frisians; the invasions of Moslems; and the political machinations of the eastern Roman Empire (Geary, 1988). The Kingdom of the Franks was just one of several kingdoms when Charles Martel, then Mayor of the Palace, subdued his competitors for power within the Franks, conquered Frisia, and repulsed the Saracen invasion of Provence at Tours in 732. Charles died in 741, leaving the state between his two sons Carloman and Pippin. When Carloman retired to a monastery in 747, Pippin III took unified command of the Kingdom of the Franks.

30See Hodges and Whitehouse (1983), Hodges (1989), McCormick (2001), Heather (1996, 2006), and Geary (1988) for a review of the evidence.

In the meantime, the pope had his hands full in Italy. The Lombards had occupied much of northern and eastern Italy, and the Lombard king was attempting to deal with rebellious Lombard dukes in Benevento and Spoleto. The Byzantine Empire was fighting the Moslem expansion throughout the eastern Mediterranean and trying to maintain a foothold in Italy in the form of the Exarch at Ravenna. The pope still nominally acknowledged the Byzantine emperor, and the emperor still nominally acknowledged the pope as the first personage in the church, but East and West continued to be split by doctrinal disputes. The pope faced (at least) a four-cornered struggle for power within Italy.

As with the Aztecs, the beginnings of the Carolingian rise to power lay in an alliance. Charles Martel had cooperated with the pope in the face of the Saracen invasions. Despite an existing Merovingian king, the pope agreed to recognize Pippin as King of the Franks in 751. Pippin cemented the alliance by coming to the aid of the pope in Italy, sending an army to deal with the Lombards who had taken an army to the walls of Rome. In 754, “the Pope solemnly renewed the consecration which Boniface had bestowed upon Pippin, and, on penalty of excommunication, forbade the Franks ever to choose a king who was not descended from Pippin” (Pirenne, 2001[1954], p. 225).

By recognizing Charlemagne (Pippin’s son) as emperor in 800, the pope decisively broke with the Eastern Empire and the Eastern emperor. By pledging themselves as protectors of the Catholic church everywhere in the world, the Carolingians gained entry to all of Christian Europe, an entry that Charlemagne made masterful use of. Through diplomacy and war, Charlemagne built a political coalition based on control of land and personal obligations. Military service and land tenure became closely linked, forming the origins of the feudal system.

Carolingian integration utilized natural state mechanisms. A coalition of military specialists was tied economically to the land through vassalage. Charlemagne granted land to powerful individuals in return for personal service and obligation (Bloch, 1961; Ganshof, 1968, pp. 50–2). Another coalition of traders was built up by promotion of long-distance trade under the protection and direction of the emperor.31 Trading emporia were established at Quentovic and Dorestad. Contentious relations between Charlemagne and the Danes, for example, arose in part by Charlemagne’s desire

31This was nothing new. Long-distance trade was always subject to political control; indeed, given the dangers of long-distance trade it was not feasible to trade without explicit political guarantees of protection and passage. See the discussion of “Emporia” in Hodges (1989), pp. 47–65.

to control and maintain the trade with the Eastern Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate (Hodges and Whitehouse, 1983, pp. 111–22, 171).

The alliance with the church was an integral part of the Carolingian economic structure. Long-distance trade was centered in a few cities and in a number of monasteries. By mobilizing wealth through the coinage of silver and the movement of interregional goods within the empire along rivers to approved trading centers, the Carolingians generated an economic surplus at the service of the Carolingian coalition (Hodges and Whitehouse, 1983, p. 171). The evidence that trade did grow in Europe during the eighth and ninth centuries now appears overwhelming, and it was a trade controlled by the state (McCormick, 2001).

Finally, Charlemagne encouraged the development of an elite educational system, again in alliance with the church. The Carolingian literary renaissance was ecclesiastic (Ullmann, 1969). The expansion of literacy, the dissemination of books, and the development of a literary elite were concentrated almost exclusively within the church and its ecclesiastical structure. The emphasis on Latin as the written language of the empire at a time when it had ceased to be the spoken language of most of the population highlights the elite nature of the educational system: because only elites learned Latin, elites alone had access to the state or ecclesiastical administration, courts, and business.

The Carolingian Empire was a basic natural state. From our modern perspective, the alliance of church and state may appear strange and forced, and our attention is drawn first to the political, military, and economic arrangements of the Carolingians. The defining characteristic of a basic natural state, however, is an inability to support organizations outside of the state.

The Carolingian natural state coalition combined many social elements – political, military, religious, economic, and educational – into a coalition of interlocking interests that for a short time existed in one large geographic entity, the Carolingian Empire. However, even after the political entity broke into smaller pieces, this structure helped order most of Europe for the next six centuries. Despite being composed of many organizations and actors, a key distinction made in most histories of Europe is between the church and the state. As we have emphasized, in basic natural states, organizations all exist within the framework of the state, so disentangling the connections between church and state in medieval Europe illuminates how a basic natural state can be structured and opens a window into understanding how Europe eventually developed the institutions and organizations characteristic of a mature natural state.

Figgis described the key to understanding medieval society:

In the Middle Ages the Church was not a State, it was the State; the State or rather the civil authority (for a separate society was not recognised) was merely the police department of the Church. The latter took over from the Roman Empire its theory of the absolute and universal jurisdiction of the supreme authority, and developed it into the doctrine of the plenitudo potestatis of the Pope, who was the supreme dispenser of law, the fountain of honour, including regal honour, and the sole legitimate earthly source of power, the legal if not the actual founder of religious orders, university degrees, the supreme “judge and divider” among nations, the guardian of international right, the avenger of Christian blood. All these functions have passed elsewhere, and the theory of omnipotence, which the Popes held on the plea that any action might come under their cognizance so far as it concerned morality, has now been assumed by the State on the analogous theory that any action, religious or otherwise, so far as it becomes a matter of money, or contract, must be matter for the courts (Figgis, 1923, p. 4).

What did Figgis mean when he said that the church was the state? On one level, the actual provisions of public services that we associate with states were undertaken both by the church and by secular political organizations. The church was primarily responsible for education and social welfare (of a variety of types including poor relief, hospitals, disaster relief, and food storage). The church shared responsibility for the provision of justice with secular authorities. The ownership and management of land, both in land’s generalized legal characteristics defined through courts and in the day-to- day operation of operating political units, were also shared by the church and secular authorities. After the tenth century, the church ceded police and military power to the secular princes.

On another level, the church occupied critical nodes in the organization of political power, just as secular lords occupied critical nodes in the organization of religious authority. The Electors of the Holy Roman Emperor, for example, included the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne. The archbishops and bishops of England were members of the House of Lords. The church constituted the first estate in France and, down to the revolution, maintained an interdependent fiscal relationship with state finance. Symmetrically, Charlemagne encouraged his feudal retainers to organize, support, and defend religious institutions. Proprietary churches under the control and support of a secular donor were sufficiently common that attempts to reform the system led to clashes between church and secular leaders, the most spectacular of which was the Investiture Crisis that we consider in detail in the next section. Archbishops and bishops were appointed by kings and lesser lords. Just as the archbishops and bishops exerted significant fiscal and political influence on the secular powers, so