Premodern monarchies

During the Middle Ages, European monarchies underwent a process of evolution and transformation. Traditions of theocratic kingship, which were based on Roman and Christian precedents, emerged in the early centuries of the period, leading kings to assume their status as God’s representatives on earth. Early medieval monarchs functioned as rulers of their people (rather than as territorial lords), and each was responsible for their people’s protection. In the 11th century, however, the Gregorian Reform, and the Investiture Controversy associated with it, undermined the claims of theocratic kingship, and monarchs—most notably the emperors—looked to Roman law for new justification of their right to rule. Throughout the Middle Ages, kings had come to power through conquest, acclamation, election, or inheritance. Medieval monarchs ruled through their courts, which were at first private households but from the 12th century developed into more formal and institutional bureaucratic structures. It was during the 12th century as well that kings evolved into rulers of people and of territories with defined borders. By the end of the Middle Ages, the development of the territorial monarchies had laid the foundation for the idea of the modern nation-state.

Unlike in Europe, the Islamic monarchy, the caliphate, remained unified and theocratic, combining religious and lay functions. In Japan, the monarchy conceded real power to the shogunate, which was technically controlled by the emperor but in practice dominated by the shogun, a supreme warlord. Attempts to attain this position often resulted in inter-dynastic conflict. In China, the monarchy evolved as a centralized bureaucratic body, held by a succession of various dynasties.

The Renaissance and early modern period led to a newly adapted type of monarchy in Europe, with monarchs initiating voyages of discovery to other continents, developing new forms of mercantile trade, and, most of all, building mass armies and large government bureaucracies that represented innovative forms of political administration. Compared to their predecessors, the monarchs of this era were better able to monitor and manage their own societies, to exact more taxes, and to decide on interstate war and conquest. The Renaissance monarchs, such as Charles V (reigned 1519–56), Francis I (1515–47), and Elizabeth I (1558–1603), unified their realms and strengthened their bureaucracies. However, later monarchs, such as Catherine the Great of Russia (reigned 1762–96), Louis XIV of France (1643–1715), and Frederick the Great of Prussia (1740–86), symbolized “absolutist” rule, as exemplified by Louis XIV’s declaration, “L’état, c’est moi” (“I am the state”). Possessing complete administrative and military power, an absolute monarch could bypass the feudal lords or subjugate independent city-states.

Yet in most cases absolute monarchy was absolutist only in appearance. In practice, most monarchs remained dependent upon chosen administrators to whom they had delegated the authority to govern their states, as was the case in France. These officials were checked by institutions such as Great Britain’s Parliament, or balanced by factions of the landed aristocracy, as in Russia and Poland. Monarchs were thus able to exploit their power, adding onto their traditional legitimacies while allowing for certain checks on their regimes, all of which seemed to portend continuous stability, had changes in the prevailing social and economic order not challenged the future of absolutist monarchies. One force of change, the Reformation (and the factionalism associated with it), triggered protracted religious conflicts, while the Industrial Revolution unleashed social unrest and class conflict—all of which occurred amid ongoing developments in international trade, investments, and other complex financial transactions that provoked economic problems such as inflation.

Most importantly, new perceptions emerged, first in Europe and then in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, that reduced the monarchs’ authority. The concept of “divine right” was often eroded by the spread of secularism. Emerging ideas of the individual’s natural rights (as espoused by the philosophers John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau and further evidenced by the Declaration of Independence of the United States) and those of nations’ rights (particularly regarding independence and self-determination) gained prominence. Moreover, the monarchs’ traditional supremacy, anchored in their lineage as descendants of war heroes and of leading notables, gradually weakened in favour of what the German-born American sociologist Reinhard Bendix called “a mandate of the people.” Thus, a society’s “sovereignty,” or its principles of independence, cohesion, and leadership, rested with its people as a whole and not with an individual and his or her dynasty.

Monarchies were challenged by various opposition movements. Although the British monarchy was able to cope with religious strife as well as social unrest among the rural and urban lower classes, the monarchies in France (beginning in 1789), Russia (1917), and China (1911) were swept away by popular social revolutions. The Austrian, German, and Ottoman monarchies collapsed after World War I, having been defeated militarily and replaced by indigenous nationalist movements. It then became evident that monarchies could survive only if they were built upon a foundation of broad nationalist-popular support. (See nationalism.)