The Central European States

Abstract

This chapter presents examples of political community in Central Europe and its legitimization during the High Medieval period as kingdoms or early-modern Ständenstaat. During the High and Late Middle Ages, Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary were politically organized into monarchies. The process of state formation went hand in hand with a dynamic development of political ideas and thought. While at first the king was regarded as the main legitimate source and representative of political rule, a slow shift to the principle of elective monarchy opened the path to consensual politics. The growing influence of the “political community” (later institutionalized as the Stände) was accompanied by definitions of legitimate modes of power representation and the codification of common law. During recent decades, scholarly debates about political history in the Middle Ages in general, and especially in Central Europe, have undergone essential changes. These “turns” had much to do with influence from neighboring disciplines like social and economic history, studies on symbolic communication and rituals, the history of religion and cults, and, of course, the history of orality/literacy and historiography.