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Hospitalitas: Barbarian settlements and constitutional foundations of medieval Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2017

ANDREW T. YOUNG
ANDREW T. YOUNG*
Affiliation:
Rawls College of Business, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409
*
*Email: a.t.young@ttu.edu
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Abstract

A rough balance of political power between monarchs and a militarized landed aristocracy characterized medieval Western Europe. Scholars have argued that this balance of power contributed to a tradition of limited government and constitutional bargaining. I argue that 5th- and 6th-century barbarian settlements created a foundation for this balance of power. The settlements provided barbarians with allotments of lands or taxes due from the lands. The allotments served to align the incentives of barbarian warriors and Roman landowners, and realign the incentives of barbarian warriors and their leadership elite. Barbarian military forces became decentralized and the warriors became political powerful shareholders of the realm.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , August 2018 , pp. 715 - 737
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2017 

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