Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of the Church

by William T. Cavanaugh

The agent of this change is war. Strayer says that the increased intensity of war in the fourteenth century and following was necessary to distinguish inside and outside, and he regards the process of state-building after Boo as inevitable (pp. 57-58). However, Charles Tilly argues against Strayer that there was nothing natural or inevitable about the rise of the state. In 130o, Tilly says, there were still five possible outcomes open: (I) the form of national state which actually emerged; (2) a political federation or empire controlled, if only loosely, from a single center; (3) a theocratic federation - a commonwealth - held together by the structure of the Catholic Church; (4) an intensive trading network without large-scale, central political organization; (5) the persistence of the "feudal" structure which prevailed in the thirteenth century.16 Tilly also faults Strayer for too little emphasis on the coercive aspects of state-building (p. 43). Tilly's larger contention is that there was nothing natural or inevitable about the rise of the state; it triumphed in Europe because of its superior ability to extract resources from the local population.