Type 7 Meanings of medieval society

Premature 'states' in the age of individualised social rank..

The literature on the European societies of the middle ages is permeated with the notion of something struggling to become something else. Until recently this end point has usually been described as the ‘modern state’. Historians are now more sceptical and less inclined to claim that ‘states’ did indeed emerge in medieval Europe. And obviously all claim…