The Royal Court in the Institutional History of Western European Medieval Statehood (on the Issue of Continuity in the Development Process)

Abstract

The role of the Royal Court is considered in the context of contemporary problems regarding the institutionalization of medieval statehood. The analysis of the topic is applied in a theoretical context, the material presented is divided into three main sections. 1. A historiographical analysis of the issue exposed the contradictory fate of the institute, seeing the politicized attitude towards it, while also underestimating its role. A turnabout in the history of the issue was predetermined by a new approach to historical knowledge of the twentieth century and the progress of the course of historical and cultural anthropology developing in the direction of medieval consciousness, as well as ritualized forms of life. Evaluation of the rituals associated with the monarchy, as a means of rule of the king, allowed, in particular, to take a fresh look at the Royal Court as the supreme organ of political power of the monarch in the state. 2. A distinctive mark of the patrimonial history of Medieval statehood is the poly-centrism in forms of legal rule. Historical analysis allows us evaluate the socio-economic and political organization of large land possession (the senioria banale) as a matrix of institutionalization of the public-legal state with the special role of the Royal Court in this process. 3. In the final part of the article is an assessment of the factors that determined the formation of the public-legal form of medieval statehood in conditions when the public structure was able to expand its role in society. The context of the continuity phenomenon in the sections of the article is justified by the quality of innovations undertaken.