Anna Grzymala-Busse | Sacred Foundations: How the Medieval Church Shaped the State
The medieval church was a fundamental force in European state formation.
Existing accounts focus on early modern warfare or contracts between the rulers and the ruled. Yet the Catholic church both competed with medieval monarchs and provided critical templates for governing institutions, the rule of law, and parliaments. The Catholic Church was the most powerful, wealthiest, and best-organized political actor in the Middle Ages. Starting in the 11th century, the papacy fought for the autonomy of the church, challenging European rulers and then claiming authority over people, territory, and monarchs alike. Conflicts with the papacy fragmented territorial authority in Europe for centuries to come, propagating urban autonomy and ideas of sovereignty. Thanks to its organizational advantages and human capital, the church also developed the institutional precedents adopted by rulers across Europe—from chanceries and taxation to courts and councils. Church innovations made possible both the rule of law and parliamentary representation.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Anna Grzymala-Busse is a professor in the Department of Political Science, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the director of The Europe Center. Her research interests include political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics.
This seminar is co-sponsored by The Europe Center.
Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to E008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.
Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to E008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.
Anna Grzymała-Busse
Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305
Anna Grzymała-Busse is a professor in the Department of Political Science, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the director of The Europe Center. Her research interests include political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics.
In her first book, Redeeming the Communist Past, she examined the paradox of the communist successor parties in East Central Europe: incompetent as authoritarian rulers of the communist party-state, several then succeeded as democratic competitors after the collapse of these communist regimes in 1989.
Rebuilding Leviathan, her second book project, investigated the role of political parties and party competition in the reconstruction of the post-communist state. Unless checked by a robust competition, democratic governing parties simultaneously rebuilt the state and ensured their own survival by building in enormous discretion into new state institutions.
Anna's third book, Nations Under God, examines why some churches have been able to wield enormous policy influence. Others have failed to do so, even in very religious countries. Where religious and national identities have historically fused, churches gained great moral authority, and subsequently covert and direct access to state institutions. It was this institutional access, rather than either partisan coalitions or electoral mobilization, that allowed some churches to become so powerful.
Anna's most recent book, Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State argues that the medieval church was a fundamental force in European state formation.
Other areas of interest include informal institutions, the impact of European Union membership on politics in newer member countries, and the role of temporality and causal mechanisms in social science explanations.
