SSRN Id4212397

The Creative Destruction of Feudalism: Plague
and the Transition to Direct Rule

Christoffer Cappelen*
September 7, 2022
Abstract
What explains the transition from indirect to direct rule? In medieval
and early modern Europe, the feudal nobility posed a significant obstacle
to state centralization. Only by weakening the economic and political
power of the landed elite were sovereign rulers in a position to impose
more direct forms of rule. Using the Black Death as an exogenous popu-
lation shock, I examine how changes in the relative bargaining powers of
social groups affected central rulers’ ability and willingness to establish
more direct forms of rule. I show that areas with higher mortality rates
during the pandemic are associated with a long-term increase in the extent
of direct rule as measured by the share of castles owned by the crown.
1. Introduction
The formation of the modern state system is typically traced to political de-
velopments in medieval and early modern Europe. It emerged from a feudal
system that stands as almost the antipode to the sovereign state with frag-
mented authority, overlapping jurisdictions, and political loyalty defined by
personal relations rather than residence (Strayer 1970; Tilly 1990; Finer 1975;
Spruyt 1994). Over time, state-making rulers eliminated internal as well as
external rivals and succeeded in establishing a monopoly over the means of
coercion. Understanding the factors driving this shift from decentralized, in-
direct rule to centralized, direct rule has for long been the subject of study in
the social science literature. In this paper, I focus on how the ruling coalition
* Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen (email: cpc@ifs.ku.dk). I am
grateful to David Stasavage, Jacob Gerner Hariri, Anders Wieland, Jonathan Doucette, Frederik
Hjorth, Johannes Lindvall as well as participants at the SPSA Annual Meeting 2022 and the
Danish Historical Political Economy workshop 2022 for invaluable comments. For research
assistance, I would like to thank Anders Wieland, Mikko Sørensen, Christian Larsen, Samer
Shaker, Astrid Liljegren, Laura Larsen, Søren Bøgh Sørensen, Julie Storm Jørgensen, Kasper
Hansen, Eskild Jacobsen, Maria Lok. All errors are my own.
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4212397

Cappelen (2022) Creative Destruction of Feudalism
of the feudal nobility posed a significant obstacle to state centralization. Us-

ing the Black Death as an exogenous population shock, I show that areas hit
harder by the pandemic exhibit more direct rule than areas that went relatively
unharmed by the pandemic. I argue that the population decline and resulting
labor scarcity caused by the plague shifted the relative bargaining power of the
landed elite towards the peasantry (Gingerich and Vogler 2021; Epstein 1999;
Peters 2018). This significantly weakened the nobility and provided both the
opportunity for sovereign rulers to establish more direct forms of rule as well
as the incentive to centralize political authority.
I rely on data on mortality rates during the Black Death for European
cities and towns compiled by Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama (2019a) and an
original geo-coded data set on castle ownership. I match these two data sets
to a recently compiled data set on city populations from Buringh (2021). For
each city, I calculate the share of castles owned by a sovereign ruler within a
100 kilometer radius. The results indicate that, in the long run, cities and the
surrounding areas that were hit harder by the pandemic are associated with a
higher share of castles owned by the crown. Specifically, for a 10 percentage
point increase in mortality rates, the change in the share of castles owned
by the crown from pre-plague levels increases by about 3 percentage points.
These results are robust to the inclusion of a number of covariates as well
as alternative specifications of the outcome variable and more restrictive sub-
samples.
I further test the plausibility of the hypothesized mechanism by examining
how the marginal effect of mortality is moderated by factors such as urban
density and geographical conditions favoring economic recovery. In line with
expectations, the effect of mortality is strongest in areas of high urban density.
It is also stronger in areas close to medieval trade routes, major rivers, and
in areas of greater land suitability for agriculture. While these results are not
definitive, they do support the two proposed mechanisms: that the long-term
effect of the negative population shock reduced the costs and increased the
benefits of establishing and maintaining direct rule.
This paper makes a number of important contributions. First, it adds to our
understanding of the factors driving European state formation. Conventional
theories often emphasize war and the preparation for war as one of the main
drivers of increased state centralization (e.g. Tilly 1990; Gennaioli and Voth
2015). Others have attributed the rise of the modern state to economic devel-
opments (Spruyt 1994; Abramson 2017) or technological progress (Cederman
and Girardin 2010). I focus instead on the domestic politics of state formation,
more specifically on the interaction between rulers and elites.
In short, the argument goes like this (see also Figure 1): The ruling coali-

FIGURE 1. From the Black Death to Direct Rule
tion composed of a feudal, landed elite had a vested interest in the status quo
and posed a significant obstacle to state-building. As long as local elites were
politically, economically, and militarily strong, central rulers had little choice
but to rely on a system of indirect rule. The costs of establishing direct rule
were too high because local lords could (and would) mobilize against attempts
of centralization. Likewise, since rulers relied primarily on revenue and man-
power from the local elites, the benefits from direct rule were low. The negative
population shock caused by the Black Death fundamentally altered the payoffs
from establishing direct rule. Because of labor scarcity, it weakened this ruling
coalition of a landed elite, enabling rulers to bypass the nobility’s claim to local
rule, and facilitated the transition to a more free, commercialized peasantry
who could be taxed through direct rule.
This paper is therefore also closely related to Saylor and Wheeler (2017)
who argue that the interests of the ruling elite determines institution-building.
Being net debtors in the general credit market, the landed elite had a vested
interest in keeping central state institutions weak; only where (or when) rulers
had access to alternative sources of finance were they able to build stronger
state institutions. It is also related to Blaydes and Paik (2016) who argue that
a weakening of the feudal system—caused by departure of a large number
of elites for the Holy Land crusades—favored stronger, more centralized state
institutoins.
This paper also adds to a burgeoning literature examining the social, eco-
nomic, and political consequences of the Black Death. The 14th century pan-
demic has been argued to have led Europe on a higher growth path by in-
creasing real wages and GDP per capita (Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama 2020b;
Pamuk 2007; Voigtländer and Voth 2013). It also facilitated the demographic
transition (Siuda and Sunde 2021), and it led to increased persecution of minori-
ties (Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama 2019a). The impact of political institutions
has received less attention. One exception is a recent paper by Gingerich and
Vogler (2021) who argue that the reduction in serfdom caused by labor scarcity
led to more inclusive, self-governing institutions at the local level. I add to this
literature by focusing specifically on state institutions. While the narrative in

the (economic) history literature supports the idea that the Black Death facili-
tated the rise of the sovereign state (e.g. Epstein 2000; North and Thomas 1973),
there is little quantitative evidence of this, especially at the micro-level.
Relatedly, a final contribution of the paper is a novel measure of statehood
based on an original data set on castle ownership. This paper taps directly
into the monopolization of violence—arguably, “the signal characteristic of
the modern state” (Herbst 2000, 21). Castles represent physical structures of
coercive potential (Bartlett 1993; Creighton 2012; Etting 2010) and were an
intricate part of the political landscape of early modern Europe. Using crown
ownership as a proxy for direct rule, this measure enables us to measure the
development of sovereignty over time at a spatially disaggregated level.
The paper proceeds as follows. In the next section, I review the literature
on indirect and direct rule. In Section 3, I discuss the consequences of the Black
Death and outline the argument for why the population decline caused by the
pandemic should eventually lead to more direct rule. In Section 4, I present
the data and empirical strategy, and in Section 5 I present the results. Section 6
concludes and discusses areas of further inquiry on the relationship between
Black Death mortality and state institutions.
2. The transition from indirect to direct rule

Throughout history, rulers have often relied on local intermediaries to exert
control and collect taxes. Be it ancient empires, European colonies, or contem-
porary weak states, logistical and resource constraints prevented central rulers
from establishing direct forms of rule, especially where they could rely on
existing institutions (Gerring et al. 2011). The transition from indirect to direct
rule is, in many ways, the story of state formation. Tilly (1985), for instance,
summarized state-building as the elimination of internal and external rivals (in
addition to protection and extraction). The question then becomes when and
how ambitious rulers succeed in bypassing local intermediaries and centralize
administrative and coercive authority.
The transition from indirect to direct rule is a costly and risky enterprise
and, as several recent works have shown, is likely to be undertaken only when
circumstances favor such a development (Garfias and Sellars 2021b, 2021a;
Garfias 2018a; Chen, Wang, and Zhang 2021). Indirect rule is a system in which
the central authority delegates political authority to local power holders who,
in exchange, provide political control and collect taxes. In systems of direct
rule, the administrative and military power is concentrated in a central state
administration. Locally, the state exercises power and collects taxes through
agents directly accountable to the state and who do not hold independent

coercive authority (Gerring et al. 2011; Garfias and Sellars 2021b).

Central rulers may prefer to delegate if their ability to exert and enforce
authority is limited by, e.g., logistical and resource constraints. Local magnates
are better positioned to maintain order because of their proximity and access
to information (and, hence, their ability to assess and extract revenue). Central
rulers may thus be willing to delegate authority because it allows them to ex-
tend political control without having to invest in the coercive means necessary
to rule directly.
However, indirect rule can also be costly to the ruler. Delegates, the local
intermediaries, get to retain a share of the revenue that would otherwise have
fallen to the central ruler. The ruler may also have little ability to monitor the
behavior of agents and, thus, whether they keep too large a share for them-
selves. There are, in other words, opportunity costs associated with indirect
rule to the extent that direct rule would produce higher revenue.
Establishing direct rule holds the potential of higher future revenues (and
improved political control). Even so, it may not be possible or attractive for the
ruler to attempt centralization. The bargain with local intermediaries allowed
them to keep a share of the revenues collected. They thus have a strong vested
interest in maintaining the status quo that provides them with a steady source
of income. In addition, in order to carry out their delegated tasks (e.g. collect
taxes and maintain order), local elites typically maintain independent coercive
power and jurisdictional autonomy; hence, they can mobilize the local popu-
lation in resistance against the ruler. The local intermediaries therefore gain
considerable bargaining power and present a significant obstacle to central-
ization. Conversely, rulers face initial costly investments to ensure successful
centralization.
The ruler faces a trade-off between higher future revenues and improved
political control on one side and the costs of bypassing local magnates and
maintain centralized control. The decision to establish direct rule thus depends
on the potential gains (i.e. opportunity costs of indirect rule) relative to the
bargaining power and interests of local elites. There are several ways of altering
this trade-off. Rulers can soften resistance by compensating elites through
recruitment into the bureaucracy, i.e. incentive realignment (Chen, Wang, and
Zhang 2021), or they can allow elite groups to organize and coordinate through
institutions of limited government, i.e. credible commitments (Garfias 2018b).
However, strategic interactions between ruler and elite groups may not
always be possible. Chen, Wang, and Zhang (2021), for instance, note that elite
compensation is optimal only when the state is neither too weak nor too strong.
Exogenous developments can also alter the costs and benefits of indirect and
direct rule. Garfias and Sellars (2021a) show that an increase in fiscal legibility—

i.e. the ability to observe, measure, and assess economic activity—enabled the
Spanish Crown to establish direct rule in colonial Mexico (see also Mayshar,
Moav, and Neeman 2017; Mayshar, Moav, and Pascali 2022). Cederman and
Girardin (2010) explicitly model the transition to direct rule as a function of
technological progress, which reduces logistical constraints (the distance-decay
function).
It stands to reason, however, that even if the ability to collect taxes and
exert control from the center improves, the coalition of local intermediaries
still present a strong opposition to centralization, because they have a vested
interest in the status quo. Unless they are either incentivized, compensated,
or significantly weakened, the feasibility of direct rule may not be sufficiently
high to favor a transition. An exogenous shock to the bargaining power (and
interests) of local elites may provide such a change. Garfias and Sellars (2021b)
study the demographic collapse in sixteenth- and seventeenth century Mexico
caused by a series of virulent epidemics and find that state centralization oc-
curred faster in areas experiencing a more dramatic decline in population. The
population decline weakened the bargaining position of local elites reducing
the threat of rebellion from below. As I elaborate below, the drastic population
decline caused by the Black Death in fourteenth century Europe altered both
the costs of establishing direct rule (by weakening local magnates) and the
opportunity costs of indirect rule (by promoting a commercialized and free
peasant economy).
3. The Black Death and its consequences

In the late Middle Ages, Europe suffered from one of the most deadly (if
not the deadliest) pandemics in world history: the Black Death. It arrived in
Messina on the island of Sicily in the fall of 1347 and over the next few years it
spread across the continent killing between 30 and 50 percent of the population
(Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama 2019a). While Europe continued to suffer
from recurrent (more localized) plague outbreaks over the next centuries, none
was as deadly and transformative as the initial outbreak. The impacts of this
pandemic has been discussed heavily over the years in the (economic) history
literature. Killing up to half the population will inevitably transform society,
economics, and politics drastically. But exactly how society was transformed
and what the economic, social, and political consequences were are still subject
of debate, and it has received renewed attention in the economics and political
science literatures in recent years.
In the immediate aftermath, the pandemic caused a breakdown in economic
activity. Agricultural lands went unharvested, construction projects halted, and

real wages plummeted while prices on goods skyrocketed. In short, it led to

social disorder. In the longer run, however, the demographic shock caused by
the pandemic fundamentally altered economic, social, and political institutions;
it led Europe on a new higher growth path (likely contributing to the great
divergence) by increasing real wages and GDP per capita (Jedwab, Johnson,
and Koyama 2020b; Pamuk 2007; Voigtländer and Voth 2013) and facilitating
the onset of the demographic transition (Siuda and Sunde 2021). Politically, the
pandemic also had profound consequences. In the short run, the negative shock
of the pandemic increased persecutions of minorities Jedwab, Johnson, and
Koyama (2019a). In the long run, the population decline led to institutions of
local urban self-government and, down the line, to electoral behavior indicating
independence from the landed elite (Gingerich and Vogler 2021).
The narrative in the economic history literature also suggests that state
institutions were strengthened in the post-Black Death era as indicated by in-
creased and more aggressive, direct taxation (Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama
2020b, 37). Epstein (2000) suggests that the strengthened peasant and urban
elite contributed to increased jurisdictional integration of aspiring rulers, and
North and Thomas (1973) similarly argue that the decline in land rents and rise
of government expenditures following the Black Death facilitated the rise of
nation-states at the expense of the feudal, manorial economy. There is, however,
relatively little empirical evidence to support this claim, in particular whether
institutions were strengthened because of the Black Death or because of other
factors unrelated to the pandemic. Nonetheless, the population decline and
resulting shift in the relative bargaining power of landed elites and peasants
is likely to have created opportunities for increased state centralization as pre-
dicted in the historical literature. To see why, it is important to first understand
the historical context leading up to the Black Death.
3.1. Feudalism and the Institution of Serfdom

The political organization of medieval Europe is almost the antipode to the
modern state. Fragmented authority, overlapping jurisdictions, and political
loyalty defined by personal relations rather than residence dominated the polit-
ical landscape for centuries after the collapse of the Carolingian Empire in the
late ninth century (Finer 1975; Spruyt 1994). Geographical distance made it dif-
ficult to project power and to monitor the behavior of agents (Stasavage 2010),
and the kingdoms and principalities that emerged struggled to successfully
claim a monopoly over the means of physical force—the defining attribute of
modern states (Weber 1991). Importantly, the political and economic system
was dominated by a feudal structure of landed elites controlling the means of
violence.

Now, the landed elite also controlled the means of agricultural production
through a system of serfdom. Peasants were tied to the lord’s land, forced
to pay rents, and were kept close to subsistence levels. The nobility held the
political and legal rights over the peasantry (rather than the central ruler), in-
cluding having police and legal jurisdictional over serfs (Peters 2018; Epstein
2000). Having serfs tied to their lands, lords had little incentive to invest in
innovation and productivity (because labor could be squeezed). At the same
time, living at subsistence levels made peasants unable to invest in innovation.
These dynamics likely contributed to the low-income equilibrium character-
izing the feudal economy; and, as elaborated below, the massive population
shock caused by the Black Death marked a watershed transition to a more
capitalist economy.
The institutions of serfdom was, in many ways, an obstacle to building
stronger, more centralized state institutions. Serfdom gave the nobility an
independent source of income that depended directly on their ability to restrict
and coerce peasants. Central rulers relied on the landed elite for financing wars,
either through indirect taxation or directly by providing manpower. In other
words, they had both the economic and military power to resist centralization
by would-be state-builders, and they furthermore had a strong vested interest
in limiting centralized rule (Peters 2018; Aberth 2000).
As Tilly (1985, 1990) pointed out, state-making required the elimination of
internal (and external) rivals, e.g. the landed elite who often benefited from
weak state institutions. As emphasized by historical institutionalism, institu-
tions are sticky and unlikely to change fundamentally as long as the coalition
in power has a vested interest in the status quo. The nobility represented such
a coalition, as Saylor and Wheeler (2017) pointed out. Being net debtors in the
overall debt market, the landed elite had a strong vested interest in opposing
stronger state institutions (especially tax institutions). Rulers relying on the no-
bility would thus face significant obstacles to any centralizing endeavor. Unless
the landed elite, for one reason or another, either acquired economic incentives
for stronger state institutions or lost their ability to resist, rulers were in a weak
position to engage in state centralization. Similarly, Blaydes and Paik (2016)
argue that Holy Land crusades reduced the number of feudal elites who might
serve as challengers to the king and, thus, strengthened nascent states.
3.2. The Black Death and the Creative Destruction of Feu-

dalism
The population shock caused by the Black Death represents such a window
of opportunity that fundamentally altered the political and economic institu-
tions of feudal Europe. In essence, the argument follows from the literature

emphasizing labor scarcity and the resulting reduction in serfdom. As outlined

above, labor scarcity following the pandemic altered relative factor prices of
land and labor and, in return, the relative bargaining power of the landed elite
and peasant workers. Rates of return to land dropped by almost 50 percent,
while real wages rose by as much as 100 percent (Jordà, Singh, and Taylor 2020;
Pamuk 2007). As Acemoglu and Wolitzky (2011) show, labor scarcity increases
the shadow price of coerced labor and increases the outside option.1 The result
was a significant reduction in serfdom across most of Europe which weakened
the economic power of the landed elite, not only relative to the peasant workers,
but also in relation to sovereign rulers.
The nobility, who relied on serfdom for their income, fiercely opposed peas-
ant demands for higher wages and improved conditions. Being in a weaker
bargaining position, they turned to the monarch to protect their interests and
institute new labor laws regulating wages and limiting labor mobility (Aberth
2000). A commons’ petition of 1376 demanding stricter enforcement of la-
bor wars in England neatly illustrates the desperation of the nobility in the
aftermath of the Black Death:
. . . although various ordinances and statutes have been made in

several parliaments to punish laborers, artificers and other servants,
yet these have continued subtly and by great malice aforethought,
to escape the penalty of the said ordinances and statutes. As soon
as their masters accuse them of bad service, or wish to pay them for
their labor according to the form of the statutes, they take flight and
suddenly leave their employment and district . . . for they are taken
into service immediately in new places, at such dear wages that
example and encouragement is afforded to all servants to depart
into fresh places, and go from master to master as soon as they are
displeased about any matter. For fear of such flights, the commons
now dare not challenge or offend their servants, but give them
whatever they wish to ask, in spite of the statutes and ordinances
to the contrary. (Aberth 2000, 204)
Initially, the nobility partially succeeded in their demands. In Italy, Spain,

France, and England, fixed wages were imposed in the immediate aftermath
(Aberth 2000). Eventually, however, peasant demands—and uprisings—grew
too strong, and monarchs gave in to the rising peasant elite who not only
proved to be a considerable political voice, but also provided an alternative
means of finance. For instance, Aragon lost between 20 and 70 percent of its
1. Acemoglu and Wolitzky (2011) further argue that the effect of labor scarcity is ambiguous
and depends on the strength of the labor demand effect and the outside option effect.

population during the Black Death. The decline in labor supply led the nobility
to impose stricter labor laws regulating wages and labor mobility. In response,
peasants organized and developed syndicates to raise money for redemptions
(fees for leaving the lord’s land) and lobbied the monarchy to secure more
freedoms. The monarchy used these syndicates against the nobility to further
its own ends of centralizing the state (at the expense of the landed elite), and
in 1448 the monarch formally allowed peasant to form syndicates. The Cortes
(representing the nobility) strongly opposed this development and, in responce,
King Alfonso dissolved the assembly. He could do so because of a weakened
landed elite and because the peasant syndicates provided alternative means of
financing his military campaigns (Peters 2018, 20–21).
3.3. Mortality and the Transition to Direct Rule

Now, the demographic collapse caused by the pandemic enabled central rulers
to eventually circumvent the landed elite for a number of reasons. Remember
that, as discussed in Section 2, the decision to centralize depends on (1) the
bargaining (and coercive) power and the incentives of the local intermediaries
and (2) the opportunity costs of indirect rule. The exogenous shock of the Black
Death affected both factors.
First, the weakened position of the landed elite, due to labor scarcity and
falling land rents, directly made it easier for rulers to eliminate those nobles
who opposed centralization. In the feudal system of medieval Europe, rulers
relied heavily on the nobility for military services and financing. In return, they
retained the rights to extract resources and exercise legal jurisdiction within
their fiefs. The landed elite gained from this system and, thus, had a vested
interest in maintaining weak state institutions. By significantly weakening this
coalition and empowering other societal groups, the pandemic fundamentally
altered the bargaining power of the landed elite, thus lowering the initial costs
of establishing direct rule. In addition, the internal competition over scarce
labor and the reliance on the central ruler for imposing labor restrictions likely
also impeded the ability of the nobility to coordinate against a centralizing
state and increased the bargaining power of the crown.
The falling land rents available to local magnates, due to higher labor
costs and lower supply, also affected the incentives to maintain the status quo.
When rents fall, intermediaries have less to lose under direct rule. This will
also reduce their incentives and willingness to resist centralization since the
potential cost of resistance may be higher than the potential loss of rents. Rulers’
ability and incentive to establish direct rule is thus improved both because
intermediaries are weakened militarily and financially, but also because they
have less incentive to oppose this transition.
10

The Black Death not only put local elites in a weakened position; it also
affected the ruler’s opportunity costs of indirect rule, i.e. the future potential
gains of centralization. It did so for several reasons. First, while total revenues
declined, surplus income per capita increased substantially. The reduction in
serfdom and, hence, the ability of free peasants to pursue their own agricultural
production also meant that revenue shifted away from the manorial system
and was more widely shared amongst the population. In other words, a higher
share of total revenues were to be found outside the estates of local elites, thus
reducing the benefits of delegating authority to these intermediaries.
Second, as the manorial system broke down—giving way to a more mar-
ket based, commercialized system—central rulers were better able to monitor
and assess income, especially trade. Epstein (2000) outlines how town fairs
increasingly became the centers of trade and commerce after the Black Death.
Most states established a monopoly over marketing rights and required towns
to apply for grants to establish fairs as part of a larger strategy to assert their
legal, fiscal, and political power. Trade is relatively easy to tax and we can think
of this commercialization and marketization as an increase in legibility which
also favors direct rule (Garfias and Sellars 2021a; Mayshar, Moav, and Neeman
2017; Mayshar, Moav, and Pascali 2022).
This system likely benefited both monarch and peasants (and merchants).
For the monarch, it was financially appealing because grants were sold and
trade was taxed. As stationary bandits (Olson 1993), rulers also had an interest
in providing protection in return to incentivize investments. Peasants engaging
in regional and inter-regional trade would likewise benefit from the judicial
and military support that states could offer in exchange for a formal license.
Thus, while the nobility gained from a lack of state presence, the free peasantry
likely favored stronger, centralized state institutions to protect property and
trade (see also North and Thomas 1973). The central ruler thus had ample
incentive (and opportunity) to invest in more direct rule to enable taxation of
the increased surplus and trade in return for providing protection.
In sum, the population decline caused by the Black Death should have
caused a shift towards more direct forms of rule by weakening the landed
elite and by increasing the opportunity costs of maintaining indirect rule. As
such, the pandemic represents an exogenous shock, a window of opportunity,
that facilitated the eventual transition to more centralized, direct forms of rule.
In other words, it was a moment of ’creative destruction’ paving the way to
a concentration of the coercive means in the hands of central rulers to the
detriment of the landed aristocracy.
Now, while the exogenous shock of the pandemic should—as discussed
above—foster direct rule in areas hit harder by the plague, there are reasons
11

to expect this effect to manifest primarily in the long run. In the immediate
aftermath of the pandemic, economic activity broke down. In an effort to
protect elite interests, labor laws, fixed wages, and restrictions on labor mobility
were imposed initially. Only in the longer run did peasants manage to secure
higher wages and better conditions. Efforts by central rulers to centralize
taxation also manifested only over time. The first direct tax in France, the Taille,
was implemented by Charles V in 1370, but only by the mid-fifteenth century
were this and other taxes made permanent (North and Thomas 1973, 82).
Importantly, since the transition to direct rule depends not only on the
bargaining power of the landed elite, but also the potential revenue gains
from direct rule, it is likely that rulers would prefer centralization only once
economic activity had recovered enough to make investments in direct rule
attractive. If direct rule was established merely as a consequence of the imme-
diate economic and social breakdown, e.g. a power vacuum, we should expect
to see an immediate effect on centralization. However, if the transition to direct
rule depends on both the breakdown of feudalism and the transition to a more
market based economy, we should expect the impact on state centralization to
take place only once economic activity had returned to a level that rendered
the opportunity costs of indirect rule too large. Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama
(2020a) estimate that cities, on average, recovered pre-Plague population levels
only within two centuries. Thus, we can expect a similar time frame for the
downstream effects of the plague.
One might reasonably ask why the population shock did not weaken the
central ruler, as it did the feudal nobility. After all, rulers ultimately belonged
to the same landed elite; they held their own demesne from which they ex-
tracted rents to finance their courts. They would therefore also suffer from the
labor scarcity causes by the pandemic, at least in the short term. We might
even hypothesize that the extent of direct rule would initially decrease. How-
ever, there are several reasons why local elites were affected worse than the
crown and, further, that the central ruler would benefit from the weakening of
intermediaries in the long run.
To see this, it is important to recognize the dual status of territorial rulers.
In one sense, they were part of the landed, feudal elite, albeit with a special
hierarchical status as first among equals. In this role, they would undoubtedly
also suffer from the labor scarcity caused by the Black Death. The typically
larger demesne held by central rulers may have provided some resilience to the
initial shock and allowed them to absorb the short-term costs. It is, however, in
the second sense that they primarily gained relative to local elites. Territorial
rulers were not only first among equals; as monarchs they also held a privileged
position as heads of their realm—they were the personification of what, at least
12

eventually, came to be modern states. This more institutionalized position

granted them several advantages in the aftermath of the pandemic; advantages
that lesser nobles did not possess.
First, as already noted, local elites relied on central rulers’ imposition and
enforcement of labor regulations. Thus, as demand for tighter regulations
increased, rulers gained bargaining power vis-à-vis the nobility. Second, as
central rulers, they had access to alternative sources of revenue through, e.g.,
taxation, which allowed them to compensate, at least to some extent, for the
loss of rents from their own demesne. Third, as provider of protection (of
property and trade), the emerging free peasantry likely favored centralized
rule (which lowered the costs of establishing direct rule). Rulers were thus in
a position to form new alliances (as was the case in Aragon, see above) and
be less dependent on the feudal elites—potentially they would even be in a
position to play these groups off against each other.
In sum, central rulers were better able to absorb the initial shock and gained
in relative bargaining power because of their position as legitimate heads of
their realms. And the emerging free peasantry favored centralized rule which
reduced the costs of establishing direct rule. As first among equals, it is possible
that they would initially be weakened as a result of the breakdown of economic
activity. However, in the long run—as the commercial economic recovered—
the permanent shift away from manorial production meant that rulers would
be in a stronger position to wrest control of local magnates. We should thus
expect the extent of direct rule to increase in areas hit harder by the plague,
but primarily in the long run.
4. Data and empirical design

To empirically assess the impact of plague mortality on state centralization, I
rely on a geo-coded data set of European cities from Buringh (2021). I match
these cities to data on local plague mortality compiled by Jedwab, Johnson, and
Koyama (2019a) and an original data set on castle ownership. The resulting
data set takes the form of an unbalanced panel of 1817 European cities between
1300 and 1600. The distribution of cities is shown in Figure A1 in the appendix.
4.1. Using castles to measure direct rule

To measure direct rule by the sovereign ruler, I rely on an original data set on
castle ownership covering most of Europe from AD 1000 to AD 1700. Castles
are fortified residences or buildings and were an intricate part of medieval and
early modern Europe (Coulson 1994; De Meulemeester and O’Connor 2007).
The distinctive medieval castle—as opposed to the communal fortifications of
13

earlier centuries—can be traced back to the ninth and tenth centuries in the
western part of the Carolingian Empire from which they spread across Europe
(Olsen 2014).
Castles could serve both defensive and offensive purposes; they were able
to withstand attacks from minor armies and they provided a strong point
from which the surrounding countryside could be dominated (Bartlett 1993;
Creighton 2012, 27; Etting 2010, 13). They were physical structures with co-
ercive potential and, as such, served as essential nodes in the military and
administrative network of the nascent state. However, just as royal castles facil-
itated the monarch’s attempt to centralize control of the territory they claimed
to rule, so did private castles impede it. Monarchs therefore attempted to
limit the private construction of castles from early on—often with little success,
nonetheless. As early as the second half of the ninth century, “attempts were
made by French kings to call a halt to the building of fortifications of [castles],
but with no success. They did not have the necessary power” (Olsen 2014,
16). They also tried to establish royal prerogatives to license castle building
(Coulson 1994, 94).
Rarely were they respected, however, and monarchs, thus, had to conquer
or raze castles of the nobility:
In England, the Tudors . . . , contained aristocratic violence, and elim-

inated the fortresses that once announced the power and autonomy
of the great English Magnates. [In France,] Louis XIII probably tore
down more fortresses than he constructed. But he built at the fron-
tiers, and destroyed in the interior. In subduing magnates and cities
that resisted his rule, he commonly demolished their fortifications
. . . and thereby decreased the odds of any serious future rebellion
(Tilly 1990, 69).
When central authority was weak, private castles flourished. An illustrative

example is the period in England known as the Anarchy (1135-1154) which
was marked by large numbers of unlicensed, ”adulterine”, castles. The private
castles were the “instruments and durable symptoms of the violence” (Coulson
1994, 67–8).
The general pattern was this: Royal castles were the administrative and
military strongholds of the state, whereas private castles posed a threat to the
ruler’s efforts to centralize power. State-making rulers therefore prohibited
private castle construction, conquered private castles, or demolished them.
This power struggle went on for centuries. As late as 1668, the French lawyer
and historical, Denis de Salvaing, found that “the nobles’ castles were the
gall-stones in the bowels of the state” (Coulson 2003, 32).
14

With this in mind, I propose to use castle ownership to measure local state
presence. In other words, castles owned by the crown are indicative of local
state presence, i.e. direct rule. Conversely, the lack of crown castles indicates
the absence of the sovereign ruler. To match the castles data to European cities,
I consider a 100 km radius from each city and calculate the share of castles (Cit )
owned by the crown within that area:
N
1
Cit =
n ∑ I (owner jt = crown), (1)
j =1
where Cit is the share of castles within 100 km of city i in year t, owner jit
is the ownership status of castle j within 100 km of city i in year t, and I is an
indicator function equal to one when the owner is a sovereign ruler. The 100
km radius is a reasonable distance to consider as the surrounding area of a city.
Reyerson (1999) estimates that this distance could be traveled by horseback
in a little less than two days. Thus, within this, more castles owned by a
crown should be indicative of higher direct state presence and, as elaborated
below, we can reasonably expect plague mortality to have the theorized effect
of reducing population, attracting urban migration, and thus, weakening the
landed elite.
The data on castle ownership is based on a geo-coded sample of European
castles drawn from national cultural heritage registries or similar, privately
collected, databases. For each castle, a team of research assistants coded the
year of construction (and destruction) as well as whether the castle in a given
year was owned by a crown (i.e. sovereign ruler), by the church, or by private
actors (i.e. the nobility). The resulting data set is an unbalanced panel of annual
castle observations containing 5502 unique castles across Europe. Figure A2
shows the distribution of the castles data. These are subsequently matched to
the city data set as described above.
4.2. Plague data

Data on black death mortality comes from a data set compiled by Jedwab,
Johnson, and Koyama (2019a). It is based primarily on a meticulous data
collection on cumulative mortality rates for 264 European cities by Christakos
et al. (2005). They compiled information on mortality rates based on a wide
array of historical sources and carefully examined each data point to determine
the best available information.2 Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama (2019a) further
checked and validates the data against other sources (p. 349). In the majority of
2. The historical sources include ecclesiastical records, parish records, testaments, tax records,
court rolls, chroniclers’ reports, donations to the church, financial transactions, passing away of
famous people, letters, edicts, guild records, hospital records, cemeteries, and tombstones.
15

cases, the data from Christakos et al. (2005) contains percentage estimates. In
other cases, the information is more qualitative. Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama
(2019a) ranked these literary descriptions based on the implied magnitude to
assign a numeric mortality rate.3 Figure A3 shows the distribution of mortality
rates for the 264 cities for which data exist.
To match the mortality data to the cities from Buringh (2021), I rely on an
inverse distance weighted interpolation. This takes the form of the sum of
mortality rates for each city weighted by the inverse distance raised to a power
k divided by the sum of the inverse distance raised to the power k:
Inverse distance weighted interpolation:
∑N
j=1 M j wij
Mi = , (2)
∑N
j=1 wij
where M j is the mortality rate of city j and wij is the inverse of the distance
raised to the power k ( 1 k ) between city i and city j (the latter being cities
d(i,j)
in the mortality data set).4 Figure A4 shows the spatial distribution of the
interpolated values.
4.3. Estimation strategy

To distinguish between short and long-term effects, I estimate a series of cross-
sectional models using aggregated data in 50 year intervals between 1350 and
1600. The main outcome variable, the share of crown castles, is the 50 year
average of the annual share. I use the difference from pre-plague levels (1300–
1350) to 50-year windows in the centuries following the Black Death. This
ensures that I estimate only the within-city variation in the extent of direct rule,
comparing this change to variation in mortality rates:
C̄it − C̄i,1300−1350 = α + βMi + Xδ + ei , (3)
where C̄it is the average annual crown share around city i in the half century
t (e.g. 1400–1450), and Mi is the mortality rate in city i. While local mortality
rates appear to be largely random, I also include a set of covariates, X, to
control for possible confounders between mortality and local state presence
3. For 19 and 29 towns, respectively, only the mortality rate of the clergy and the desertion
rate is known. Based on knowledge on the over-mortality of the clergy and the rate of desertion
relative to mortality, they adjust these estimates to render them comparable with the other data
points (Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama 2019a, p. 349).
4. The weight k has been set to 1.74 based on leave-one-out cross-validation to minimize
root mean squared error. Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama (2019a) report this result, and I found
the same in the cross-validation. For both cross-validation and interpolation, I rely on the idw
function in the gstat package in R.
16

capturing demographic and geographic characteristics. First, I include a mea-

sure of the general urban density of the region in 1300. More urbanized areas
may allow for easier spread of the disease as well as affect the incentives and
costs of strengthening direct rule by the sovereign. Specifically, this measure,
also known as urban potential (Ui ), is the inverse distance weighted sum of
populations of all cities in the data set from Buringh (2021) except the city in
pop j
question: Ui = ∑ N j=1 dist(i,j) , for i 6 = j. I also include measures of city popula-
tion in 1300 (Buringh 2021), as well as agricultural suitability, elevation, and
distance to medieval trade routes, rivers, and the coast (all except agricultural
suitability are logged).5
4.4. Exogeneity of Black Death mortality

The identifying assumption in Equation 5 is, of course, that there are no un-
observed factors affecting both local mortality rates and the change in direct
rule over time. In other words, we should expect parallel trends in the extent
of direct rule. The disease arrived in Europe in the Sicilian town of Messina.
From there, it quickly spread across the continent due to Sicily’s extensive
commercial trade. The bubonic plague was spread by flea bites (rather than
human-to-human transmission as is common for pneumonic diseases like the
Spanish Flu or the Covid-19 pandemic). Infected rats traveled via trade, and it
is therefore likely that trade and population density contributed to the spread
of the disease across Europe (see for example Yue, Lee, and Wu 2017).
Importantly, however, local mortality rates were not necessarily determined
by trade and population density. Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama (2022) doc-
ument that virulence was greater in cities affected earlier in the pandemic as
well as in cities hit in the Spring and Summer. Cities located closer to Messina,
the initial entry point, were, on average, more likely to be hit earlier in the
pandemic and Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama (2022) also find that distance to
Messina is a strong predictor of overall mortality. Locally, however, it is likely
that random factors compensated for non-random factors.
First, the actual entry point—Messina—could easily have been a number
of other European cities, e.g., Genoa, Vienna, Prague, Leipzig, or Visny (p.
135). Second, cities hit earlier were not necessarily more populous, nor were
they major trade centers. Infec ted rats did not choose destination according
to population density; it was more or less random where specific traders who
happened to carry infected rats were going at the specific time the plague
arrived. Even cities located close to each other could experience vastly different
5. Distance to rivers and the coast are calculated in R using the sf package and shapefiles
from Natural Earth. Elevation data is from Danielson and Gesch (2011), agricultural suitability
from Ramankutty et al. (2002).
17

mortality rates. For instance, Trento and Verona are located less than 100 km
apart; yet, they experienced a mortality rate of 80 and 45 percent, respectively
(Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama 2022, 140).
Third, there are also no plausible institutional factors than can explain
differences in mortality. Neither authorities nor the medical profession had
the knowledge to prevent or mitigate outbreaks (preventive measures such as
quarantining were not introduced until 1377). Finally, diffusion of the disease
depended on the local population of black rats. Since they are territorial, their
numbers were not correlated with population density (unlike today’s brown
rats that prefer to love in urban areas). This fact also explains why cities and
surrounding rural areas had similar mortality rates (Jedwab, Johnson, and
Koyama 2019b, 11).
Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama (2022) further show that local moratlity rates
are unrelated to city population, population density, and market access, as well
as other city characteristics, and they therefore conclude that random factors
must have compensated for non-random ones. Figure A5 in the appendix
documents similar results using the data described above. Some factors such
as distance to trade routes, elevation, and urban potential do show statistically
significant correlations. However, the coefficients are economically small. For
instance, a ten percent increase in a city’s distance to trade routes translates
to a mere 0.2 percentage point increase in mortality. Importantly, the change
in the share of crown castles from 1300 to 1350 is uncorrelated with mortality
rates, mitigating concerns of non-parallel trends.
5. Results
To get a first glance of the evidence, Figure 2 shows a simple time series of the
average share of crown castles for cities above and below median mortality rate.
The figure shows that cities with higher than median mortality experienced
increasing state centralization in the long run, starting about a century after the
pandemic. For the low mortality group, the average crown share appears to be
more or less constant throughout the period. The same trend can be seen for
the high mortality group until the mid-fifteenth century. After this, it begins
to increase from a share of about 17 percent in 1450 to about 22 percent in
1600. This is in line with the expectation that the effect of Black Death mortality
manifests only in the long run.6
6. Figure A6 in the appendix documents a similar trend using 1 × 1 degree grid cells instead
of cities as the unit of analysis. For each grid cell with above and below median mortality rates,
respectively, I calculate the share of all castles in those cells owned by the crown. The figure
shows very similar trends for the two groups. If anything, the increase in the crown share for
high mortality cells appear even more pronounced.
18

FIGURE 2. Average crown share 1300-1600 for high and low mortality cities
0.25
0.20
Crown share
0.15 Low mortality

High mortality
0.10
0.05
0.00
1300 1350 1400 1450 1500 1550 1600
Year
Note: Median mortality is used as the cut-off between high and low mortality.
The figure also shows that the low mortality group experienced a slight in-
crease in crown share in the 50 years preceding the onset of the pandemic; the
high mortality group, on the other hand, appears to be more or less constant.
This may indicate a violation of the parallel trends assumption. However, it
is worth noting that the hypothetical extension of the pre-treatment differen-
tial trends would support the opposite story of centralization amongst those
affected less by the pandemic. I explore the pre-treatment trends further in a
dynamic difference-in-differences specification below.
Table 1 shows the results of the estimation of Equation 5 regressing the
change in average crown share from pre-plague levels to consecutive 50 year
intervals after the Black Death. Column (1) shows the short-run change in
crown share. Interestingly, the negative coefficient for mortality indicates that
areas hit harder by the plague experienced a reduction in direct rule in the
immediate aftermath of the pandemic. This is likely due to the economic
breakdown and political and social disorder that followed in the first few
decades. While statistically significant, the effect is, however, substantively
small. A 10 percentage point increase in mortality rates translates to a 0.4
percentage point decrease in the share of crown castles.
As we move into the first half of the fifteenth century, Column (2), the
coefficient turns positive. Now, a 10 percentage point increase in mortality is
associated with a 1.4 percentage point increase in direct rule. The next two 50
year periods show similar, albeit slightly higher, effects of mortality. Then, for
the latter half of the 16th century, the coefficient almost doubles to 0.306. This
corresponds to a 3.1 percentage point increase in the share of crown castles
for every ten percentage point increase in local mortality rates. In line with
19

TABLE 1. Mortality and direct rule, long difference from 1350

Dep. var. ∆ Crown share
1350–1400 1400–1450 1450–1500 1500–1550 1550-1600
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Mortality -0.042∗∗ 0.138∗∗∗ 0.163∗∗∗ 0.184∗∗∗ 0.301∗∗∗
(0.018) (0.046) (0.058) (0.064) (0.066)
Urban 0.0008 0.010∗∗∗ 0.011∗∗∗ 0.005∗∗∗ 0.001

(0.0008) (0.001) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002)
Population -0.002 0.003 0.010 0.004 -0.004

(0.003) (0.006) (0.008) (0.006) (0.007)
Agri 0.031∗∗∗ 0.026 0.010 0.018 0.038∗

(0.010) (0.021) (0.024) (0.021) (0.022)
Trade -0.002 -0.004∗ -0.006∗ -0.009∗∗ -0.016∗∗∗

(0.002) (0.003) (0.003) (0.004) (0.004)
River -0.002 -0.003 -0.005∗∗ -0.005∗ -0.006∗∗

(0.001) (0.002) (0.003) (0.003) (0.003)
Coast 0.001 0.002 −4.98 × 10−5 0.003 0.007∗

(0.002) (0.003) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004)
Elevation -0.0002 -0.006∗ -0.001 -0.001 -0.010∗∗

(0.002) (0.003) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004)
(Intercept) 0.005 -0.155∗∗∗ -0.192∗∗∗ -0.108∗∗ -0.047

(0.021) (0.036) (0.045) (0.049) (0.052)
Observations 1,213 820 820 1,095 1,127

Adjusted R2 0.02597 0.10846 0.09434 0.03045 0.04661
Note: ∗ p < .1, ∗∗ p < .05, ∗∗∗ p < .01. Robust standard errors in parentheses.
Distance variables (Trade, River, Coast), Elevation, and Population are all logged.
expectations, this indicates that the population decline caused by the Black
Death facilitated a substantial rise in direct rule following the pandemic, but
primarily in the long run.
Is this a strong effect? In terms of the difference to pre-plague levels, yes.
Consider again Figure 2. The low mortality group exhibits no clear positive
trend over time (neither does the high mortality group until the latter centuries).
In fact, the average change in the crown share from pre-plague levels to the
latter half of the sixteenth century is about 3 percentage points. As such, the
3.1 percentage point increase associated with a ten percentage point increase
in mortality (about the magnitude of a standard deviation) is a doubling of the
difference. In terms of absolute crown shares, the effect appears more modest.
20

The average crown share over the entire period is 15 percent and the change of
3.1 percentage points thus translated to a crown share of roughly 18 percent.
However, it is important to remember that the estimation strategy relies on
the indirect effect of mortality through a weakened landed elite and a more
commercialized peasantry. We can thus expect the direct effect of transition
and opportunity costs to be stronger if these were directly observable.
As an alternative to the main specification documented in Table 1, I also
employ an event-study design in which I regress the ten-year average crown
share on city and decade fixed effects along with interactions between mortality
and the period dummies:
Cit = αi + δt + ∑ βτ Mi + eit , (4)

τ ∈Γ
αi and δt are the city and decade fixed effects, and β τ are the coefficients
of interest. The set Γ includes all mortality–decade interactions from 1200 to
1600, leaving 1340, the decade before the pandemic, as the reference category.
This also allows us to test for pre-treatment parallel trends. I also include the
full set of controls as above interacted with the decade dummies (not shown in
the equation). Figure 3 shows results very similar to the ones obtained in Table
1. First, the pre-treatment coefficients are generally slightly negative, which is
in line with the pre-treatment trends in Figure 2. However, they are also in
most cases statistically indistinguishable from zero and trends towards zero
the closer we get to the reference period immediately before the Black Death.
I therefore do not consider these estimates as indicative of violations of the
parallel trends assumption (remember also that this would favor the opposite
story). Second, the post-treatment coefficients confirm the dynamic trend in the
effect of mortality. While initially, mortality seems to reduce crown control, the
coefficients eventually turn positive and statistically significant. From around
1550, the coefficients hover around 0.24 indicating that a ten percentage point
increase in mortality is associated with a 2.4 percentage point increase in the
share of castles owned by the crown. The initial negative effect support the idea
that central rulers also suffered from the initial population shock. However,
unlike the local magnates, the crown would eventually be in a position to
bypass those intermediaries that were weakened by the pandemic.
5.1. Robustness and further evidence

To further check the robustness of the above results, I estimate a number of
additional models varying the specification of the outcome variable and using
a more restrictive sample of cities. First, I use an alternative measure of the
crown share that includes castles owned by nobles who are part of the crown’s
21

FIGURE 3. Event study estimates
0.3
0.2
Effect of mortality
0.1
0.0
−0.1
−0.2
1200 1250 1300 1350 1400 1450 1500 1550 1600

Decade
Note: Event study estimates of the effect of mortality on crown share. Dependent variable is
the ten year average of crown shares for each each city. Reference point is 1340 (the decade
before the pandemic). Model includes full set of decade-interacted controls.
military and administrative apparatus. In addition to coding whether a castle

is owned by the crown or by private nobles, the data also include an additional
indicator of whether the owner of private castles function as a representative of
the crown by being part of their military and administrative network. These po-
sitions include, inter alia, generals and similar high ranking military positions;
exchequer, members of court, and other high-ranking office holders; as well
as other titles and positions indicating a close alliance with the crown. They
do not include members of legislative assemblies, unless the individual also
holds other offices or titles indicating alliance, as they cannot be assumed to be
aligned with the monarch. The ability to record these representatives depends
on available information which is likely to be missing in some cases. Thus, the
primary coding of crown castles may include cases of such more indirect crown
possessions. If elite compensation via bureaucratic or military appointment
is driving the results, we should expect a stronger effect of mortality when
including known cases of indirect crown ownership.
I therefore run the same model specification as in Table 1, except the out-
come variable, crown share, now includes castles owned by crown representa-
tives. Table A2 in Appendix B shows the results. The results show a similar
trend. In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, the effect of mortality is
22

negative, but substantively small and inly boderline significant. In the succeed-
ing periods, the coefficient turns positive. Importantly, across periods, they are
significantly smaller than in the main specification. In Column (5), showing the
coefficient for the late sixteenth century, the coefficient is reduced by almost
one-third. It is also the only interval in which it is statistically significant at the
0.05 level. Had the main results been driven by indirect crown ownership, we
should have seen stronger results in the alternative specification of the outcome
variable. Since this is not the case, this lends further credibility to the proposed
mechanism that direct rule was established in areas where the landed elite
was weakened by the negative population shock (and not because they were
compensated via military and administrative positions).
Another source of uncertainty related to the outcome variable concerns
potential measurement error. While the 100 km radius is chosen to ensure the
presence of castles in the city’s surrounding area, some observations are still
based on very few castles. The lower the denominator, the more noise can
be expected. In itself, such classical measurement error should only lead to
attenuation bias. However, if areas of less castle presence (either as historical
fact or because of sampling) are systematically related to mortality rates, the
results may be biased in unknown directions. In Table A3, I address this
issue by running the main specification on a smaller sample, including only
observations for which at least 5 castles are present (regardless of ownership).
Again, the results appear robust. While the short-run effect is now positive, it
is still substantively small and only borderline significant. For later periods,
coefficients are generally similar to the preferred specification, indicating a
long-term trend of stronger associations between mortality and direct rule for
later periods. In fact, for the latter two periods, the coefficients for mortality
are now considerably stronger. For the late sixteenth century, the coefficient
now indicate a 5 percentage point increase in the crown share for every ten
percentage point increase in mortality.
The results are also robust to an alternative specification of the outcome
variable. Instead of calculating the share of crown castles within 100 km, I
consider only the three castles closest to the city and count the number of
castles controlled by the crown. This is likely to be weaker than the preferred
outcome specification; only considering the three castles closest to the city
(rather than all castles within some radius) will induce more noise and, hence,
uncertainty in the estimates. Reassuringly, while standard errors are somewhat
higher, the coefficients still indicate a positive effect of mortality, and it remains
statistically significant in long term.
Another source of measurement error is the interpolated mortality data.
While the predictive power if the inverse distance weighted interpolation is
23

relatively high, it is still possible that cities located far from the original data
to have larger measurement errors. I check for this possibility by estimating
Equation 5 on a reduced sample including only cities located within 100 km
of at least one city with original mortality data. This should alleviate concerns
that results are driven by those observations located far from the training data.
Table A5 shows the results using this reduced sample. Reassuringly, results
are almost identical (if anything slightly stronger) to the preferred specification
and remain statistically significant at the .01-level.
Finally, I also consider an alternative to using cities as the unit of analysis.
Instead, I use a 1 × 1 degree grid to which I interpolate mortality rates (using
the same procedure as described above) and again calculate the share of castles
controlled by the crown. Table A6 shows the results of this specification. Again,
mortality appear to be positively (and significantly) related to changes in direct
rule, and this effect is only increasing over time. Overall, the results in Table
1 thus appear to be robust to a number of different specifications of outcome
variable, unit of analysis, and restricted samples, lending credibility to the
hypothesis that the population shock caused by the Black Death fostered a
long-term transition to more direct rule in areas with higher mortality rates.
5.2. Heterogeneous effects of mortality

We can also test further whether the proposed mechanisms are indeed plau-
sible. To do so, I run a series of alternative models that sequentially interacts
local mortality rates with factors that should moderate the association between
mortality and direct rule. I thus estimate the following equation:
C̄it − C̄i,1300−1350 = α + βMi + λFi × Mi + ηFi + Xδ + ei , (5)
where Fi is the factors moderating the effect of mortality as elaborated

below. The coefficient of interest is therefore λ indicating whether the effect of
mortality is conditional on Fi .
First, I consider the link between labor scarcity and the relative bargaining
powers of land versus labor. The increased bargaining power of peasants stems
from the ability to find free employment elsewhere, the ’outside option’. In
their model of labor scarcity, Acemoglu and Wolitzky (2011) show that the effect
of labor scarcity depends on the strength of the outside option. Where workers
have more opportunity for alternative employment, their bargaining powers
are relatively stronger. In the historical case of the Black Death and the reduc-
tion in serfdom, scholars typically attribute the link mostly to Western Europe
where urban density and, hence, the outside option, was higher, whereas in
Eastern Europe, the population decline actually resulted in the (re)imposition
24

TABLE 2. Heterogeneous effects of mortality, 1550–1600

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Mortality 0.115 0.109 0.094 0.068 0.285∗∗∗ -0.271
(0.129) (0.080) (0.058) (0.065) (0.082) (0.221)
Urban (2nd) -0.037

(0.157)
Urban (3rd) 0.333∗∗

(0.151)
Population (2nd) 0.117

(0.098)
Population (3rd) 0.193∗∗

(0.094)
Trade 0.356∗∗∗
(0.106)
River 0.310∗∗∗
(0.099)
Coast -0.071
(0.095)
Agri 0.764∗∗
(0.302)
Observations 1,210 1,210 1,210 1,210 1,210 1,210

Adjusted R2 0.05205 0.04192 0.05212 0.04851 0.04081 0.05150
The table shows only the coefficients for the interactions terms (in addition to the constitute
term for mortality). Constitutive terms are included as controls but not shown. Distance
variables (trade, river, coast) have been dichotomized by a 50 km cutoff. Urban potential and
population are split into tertiles, with 2nd and 3rd indicating the respective tertiles (and the
first as reference category).
of serfdom (e.g. Pamuk 2007). If the proposed mechanism is valid, we should

therefore expect the effect of mortality to be stronger in more urbanized re-
gions. The first moderating factor, I consider, is therefore the measure of urban
potential in 1300 as described above. I also consider the city population (also
in 1300) as an alternative measure, although I except this to be weaker since
it does not capture the general level of urbanization of the region, but only
the size of the specific city. To ease interpretation, I use ordinal versions of
the measures, splitting the observations into three equal sized groups of low,
medium, and high urban potential or population (i.e. tertiles).
25

Next, I consider the potential for economic recovery as a way to gauge the
opportunity costs of indirect rule. Areas recovering more (or faster) in the
centuries after the Black Death are likely to be more appealing for establishing
direct rule because the increased per capita income and trade likely are higher
in these areas. Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama (2020a) demonstrate considerable
spatial heterogeneity in recovery times. More specifically, they show that rural
and urban fixed factors affected recovery. Building on their results, I consider
the moderating effects of proximity to trade, major rivers, and the coast as well
suitability for agriculture—all factors likely to affect economic recovery. Again,
for ease of interpretation, I dichotomize the proximity factors using a 50 km
cutoff. They are thus equal to one, when the city is located within 50 km of a
trade route, a major river, or the coast.
Table 2 shows the results of these interaction models. I focus on the long-run
effect of mortality (i.e. the late sixteenth century) as this is when the impact
on direct rule appears strongest. The table shows the different interactions
sequentially (to not oversaturate the model) along with the constitutive term for
mortality. All models include the full set of (dichotomized) controls, including
the constitutive terms of the interaction, but are not shown in the table. Column
(1) shows the moderating effect of urban potential. For areas of low urban
potential, the coefficient for mortality is positive, indicating more direct rule
for higher mortality rates, yet not statistically significant. For medium levels
of urban potential, the marginal effect of mortality is actually slightly lower,
but the difference is not statistically significant. However, the marginal effect
for high urban potential indicates a significantly higher association between
mortality and direct rule. The additive effect is 0.447, indicating an increase
in the crown share of almost 4.5 percentage points for each ten percentage
point increase in mortality. This is stronger than the average effect estimated
in the main specification and suggest that the mechanism linking population
decline and a weakened landed elite is indeed plausible. In Column (2), the
moderating effect of city population show similar trends. Only the top third
group appear to be significantly different from the other groups, albeit the
difference is less pronounced than was the case for urban potential.
I Column (3)–(6), I turn to the fixed factors likely to affect economic recovery.
Again, the results are generally in line with expectations. The marginal effect
of mortality is 0.36 points higher in areas in proximity to medieval trade routes.
For areas near major rivers the difference is similar, 0.31. There is, however, no
statistically significant difference for areas located in coastal regions. Finally,
the marginal effect of mortality is also increasing in the suitability for agri-
culture. A one standard deviation increase in suitability translates to almost
0.2 point increase in the marginal effect. In summary, the results indicate that
26

the effect of mortality depends on the area’s ability to recover in the centuries
following the population decline. Since the decision to bypass local interme-
diaries depends not only on the strength of these local elites, but also on the
(economic) incentive to invest in direct rule, this lends further credibility to the
hypothesized mechanisms.
6. Conclusion
Throughout history, central rulers have struggled to establish centralized, direct
rule within their territory. Empires was designed around the very principle
of indirect rule (Hall 2011; Nexon and Wright 2007; Tilly 1997; Mann 1986),
and the European colonial empires would often rely on local intermediaries to
enforce order and collect taxes, typically to the detriment of the local population
(Lange 2004; Mamdani 1996; Herbst 2000; Hariri 2012). Even today, weak states
struggle to bypass local elites. Understanding when and how the transition to
direct rule is feasible (and preferable) for central rulers is therefore paramount.
In this paper, I argued that a negative population shock may facilitate the
necessary shift in the costs and benefits of indirect rule. In medieval Europe,
the landed elite posed a significant obstacle to the formation of the sovereign
state. Because their income relied on the system of indirect rule, providing the
necessary military resources in exchange for legal and political rights within
their fiefs, they had a vested interest in the status quo. The population decline
and resulting labor scarcity caused by the Black Death, however, fundamentally
altered the bargaining power of the landed elite and, hence, put them in a
weaker position to defend the institutions of feudalism. At the same time, the
stronger, and eventually free, peasantry saw significant increases in surplus
income per capita. The emerging capitalist market provided incentives for
the central ruler to directly control taxation of income and trade in return for
protection.
Using data on mortality and castle ownership, I showed that cities and
the surrounding areas experiencing higher mortality rates would see more
state centralization in subsequent centuries as proxied by the share of castles
owned by the crown. The results furthermore indicate that this is mostly a
long-term effect that took decades and centuries to manifest. I further showed
that the marginal effect of mortality depends on urban density as well as
fixed factors favoring economic recovery. In sum, the empirical results suggest
that a massive negative population shock can alter the payoffs associated with
the transition to indirect rule. And it is furthermore likely that this effect
can be attributed to the combination of a weakened landed elite and a more
commercialized peasantry.
27

On the surface, these results seem to contrast with the conventional idea
that population density seems to favor state-building (Herbst 2000; Carneiro
1970). However, it is important to keep in mind that the dynamic pursued in
this paper concerns a drastic shock to population density, while the argument by,
e.g., Herbst (2000) relates to the more permanent, structural level of population
density. The two ideas are therefore not mutually exclusive. It is also possible
that a similar population shock in regions of the world with a lower potential
for population growth (and abundant land) may not facilitate similar central-
izing efforts. However, in the context of medieval and early modern Europe,
the population decline proved beneficial for centralizing rulers (and disadvan-
tageous to the local, landed elite). An interesting avenue for further research
would be to examine how similar population shocks affected state-building
in other regions and time-periods. For instance, an equivalent (if not even
more drastic) population decline amongst indigenous populations followed
the violent European colonization of North America. Given the abundance of
land and lower initial population density, should we expect similar or opposite
effects on state institutions?
28

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Online Appendix
The Creative Destruction of

Feudalism
Christoffer Cappelen

Cappelen ONLINE APPENDIX: Plague mortality and direct rule
A. Additional figures
FIGURE A1. Distribution of cities in Buringh (2021)

FIGURE A2. Distribution of castles

FIGURE A3. Mortality rates for cities in Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama (2019a)
Mortality
0
20
40
60
80
100

FIGURE A4. Interpolated mortality rates
Mortality
20
40
60
80

FIGURE A5. Balance of mortality covariates: Bivariate correlation coefficients be-

tween geographic and demographic covariates and mortality rates. Robust standard
errors.
Urban
Trade
River
Population
Elevation
Crown share 1300−1350
Coast
Agri
−0.08 −0.06 −0.04 −0.02 0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08

Estimate
FIGURE A6. Share of castles controlled by the crown in high and low mortality grid
cells, 1300–1600
0.24
0.21
0.18
Crown share
0.15
Low mortality
0.12 High mortality
0.09
0.06
0.03
0.00
1300 1350 1400 1450 1500 1550 1600
Year

B. Additional tables
TABLE A1. Summary statistics

Mean Min Median Max SD Obs.
Mortality 0.43 0.00 0.43 0.99 0.09 680862
Crown share 0.16 0.00 0.10 1.00 0.17 551581
Urban potential 12.50 1.88 11.56 76.85 5.31 401983
City population 3.62 0.00 2.00 680.00 10.73 680862
Distance to river 91.83 0.02 42.37 1478.52 156.30 680862
Distance to coast 181.76 0.01 91.64 1552.65 227.60 680862
Distance to trade route 187.37 0.01 89.80 1883.03 264.80 680862
Agriculture suitability 0.70 0.00 0.75 1.00 0.25 664909
Elevation 205.39 −24.00 123.00 1854.00 229.63 680561
# Battles 0.14 0.00 0.00 13.00 0.55 680862
Urban potential 1300 11.63 2.68 11.56 25.79 3.68 429527
City population 1300 3.46 0.00 2.00 100.00 7.46 680862

TABLE A2. Mortality and direct rule (incl. representatives)

Dep. var. ∆ Crown share (incl. representatives)
1350–1400 1400–1450 1450–1500 1500–1550 1550-1600
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Mortality -0.042∗ 0.096∗ 0.113∗ 0.111 0.209∗∗∗
(0.022) (0.053) (0.064) (0.069) (0.075)
Urban -0.0007 0.009∗∗∗ 0.010∗∗∗ 0.005∗∗∗ 0.002

(0.0009) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002)
Population -0.002 0.004 0.010 -0.002 -0.007

(0.003) (0.007) (0.009) (0.007) (0.007)
Agri 0.035∗∗∗ 0.026 0.022 0.030 0.052∗∗

(0.011) (0.021) (0.025) (0.021) (0.024)
Trade -0.002 -0.006∗ -0.005 -0.009∗∗∗ -0.013∗∗∗

(0.002) (0.003) (0.004) (0.003) (0.004)
River -0.003∗∗ -0.004∗ -0.007∗∗ -0.004 -0.004

(0.001) (0.002) (0.003) (0.003) (0.003)
Coast 0.002 0.001 0.004 0.006 0.011∗∗

(0.002) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.005)
Elevation 0.0003 -0.006∗ -0.009∗∗ -0.009∗∗ -0.020∗∗∗

(0.002) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.005)
(Intercept) 0.029 -0.097∗∗ -0.141∗∗∗ -0.054 -0.007

(0.023) (0.039) (0.046) (0.048) (0.053)
Observations 1,213 820 820 1,095 1,127

Adjusted R2 0.02460 0.07815 0.08306 0.03883 0.04158

TABLE A3. Mortality and direct rule, only cities with at least 5 castles in vicinity
1350–1400 1400–1450 1450–1500 1500–1550 1550-1600
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Mortality 0.028∗ 0.109∗∗∗ 0.182∗∗∗ 0.240∗∗∗ 0.511∗∗∗
(0.016) (0.031) (0.049) (0.054) (0.064)
Urban 0.005∗∗∗ 0.011∗∗∗ 0.012∗∗∗ 0.011∗∗∗ 0.011∗∗∗

(0.0006) (0.001) (0.002) (0.002) (0.003)
Population 0.006∗∗∗ 0.008∗ 0.009 -0.002 -0.002

(0.002) (0.005) (0.007) (0.007) (0.009)
Agri 0.025∗∗∗ -0.023 0.002 0.026 0.048∗

(0.009) (0.021) (0.028) (0.025) (0.028)
Trade -0.006∗∗∗ -0.006∗∗ 0.002 0.004 0.003

(0.001) (0.003) (0.004) (0.006) (0.007)
River 0.001 -0.001 0.002 0.005 0.006

(0.001) (0.003) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004)
Coast -0.003 -0.002 0.001 0.007 0.013∗∗

(0.002) (0.004) (0.004) (0.005) (0.006)
Elevation 0.006∗∗∗ 0.0008 0.003 -0.005 -0.002

(0.002) (0.004) (0.006) (0.006) (0.007)
(Intercept) -0.091∗∗∗ -0.156∗∗∗ -0.278∗∗∗ -0.275∗∗∗ -0.413∗∗∗

(0.014) (0.030) (0.053) (0.063) (0.076)
Observations 428 288 252 324 307

Adjusted R2 0.31206 0.30059 0.19208 0.12515 0.20091

TABLE A4. Mortality and direct rule, no. of crown castles of three closest
Dep. var. ∆ Crown sum
1350–1400 1400–1450 1450–1500 1500–1550 1550-1600
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Mortality 0.029 0.362 0.359 0.330 0.660∗∗
(0.115) (0.272) (0.321) (0.291) (0.298)
Urban 0.005 0.037∗∗∗ 0.034∗∗∗ 0.016∗ 0.003

(0.004) (0.009) (0.011) (0.009) (0.009)
Population 0.002 -0.002 0.014 0.023 -0.041

(0.014) (0.031) (0.036) (0.033) (0.036)
Agri 0.047 0.046 -0.068 -0.007 0.009

(0.048) (0.095) (0.116) (0.099) (0.105)
Trade -0.004 -0.017 -0.010 -0.012 -0.034∗

(0.009) (0.014) (0.017) (0.018) (0.019)
River -0.011 -0.032∗∗ -0.041∗∗ -0.025 -0.024

(0.008) (0.013) (0.016) (0.016) (0.017)
Coast 0.001 -0.021 -0.016 0.013 0.028

(0.009) (0.015) (0.018) (0.018) (0.021)
Elevation -0.008 -0.007 0.010 -0.003 -0.038

(0.009) (0.017) (0.021) (0.021) (0.024)
(Intercept) -0.026 -0.351∗ -0.393 -0.272 0.050

(0.103) (0.200) (0.246) (0.234) (0.243)
Observations 1,213 820 820 1,095 1,127

Adjusted R2 0.00321 0.04883 0.02817 0.00706 0.00842
10

TABLE A5. Mortality and direct rule, only cities within 100 km of original
mortality data
1350–1400 1400–1450 1450–1500 1500–1550 1550-1600
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Mortality -0.013 0.166∗∗∗ 0.199∗∗∗ 0.240∗∗∗ 0.346∗∗∗
(0.014) (0.045) (0.058) (0.064) (0.066)
Urban 0.003∗∗∗ 0.011∗∗∗ 0.011∗∗∗ 0.005∗∗∗ 0.003∗

(0.0006) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002)
Population 0.002 0.004 0.013 0.009 0.004

(0.002) (0.006) (0.008) (0.007) (0.007)
Agri 0.016∗∗ -0.005 -0.026 -0.015 -0.015

(0.007) (0.020) (0.024) (0.021) (0.021)
Trade -0.002 -0.005∗ -0.009∗∗∗ -0.012∗∗∗ -0.019∗∗∗

(0.001) (0.003) (0.003) (0.004) (0.004)
River -0.001 -0.0010 -0.005∗ -0.005 -0.007∗∗

(0.0010) (0.002) (0.003) (0.003) (0.003)
Coast -0.0007 0.003 0.001 0.010∗∗ 0.009∗∗

(0.001) (0.003) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004)
Elevation 0.0008 -0.010∗∗∗ -0.005 -0.007 -0.013∗∗∗

(0.002) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.005)
(Intercept) -0.032∗∗ -0.145∗∗∗ -0.154∗∗∗ -0.095∗∗ -0.049

(0.015) (0.033) (0.044) (0.045) (0.049)
Observations 968 647 647 875 898

Adjusted R2 0.06737 0.14232 0.10773 0.06103 0.08384
11

TABLE A6. Mortality and direct rule, 1 degree grid cells

1350–1400 1400–1450 1450–1500 1500–1550 1550–1600
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Mortality -0.042 0.230∗ 0.233 0.543∗∗ 0.862∗∗∗
(0.057) (0.120) (0.168) (0.269) (0.260)
Urban potential 0.004 0.019∗∗∗ 0.014∗∗ 0.012 0.013

(0.005) (0.006) (0.006) (0.008) (0.009)
Population (log) -0.021 -0.015 0.008 0.007 -0.024

(0.015) (0.015) (0.016) (0.020) (0.024)
Agri 0.040 -0.096∗ -0.190∗∗∗ -0.219∗∗∗ -0.092

(0.044) (0.053) (0.060) (0.080) (0.100)
Trade dist (log) -0.011 -0.007 -0.0004 -0.009 -0.016

(0.009) (0.009) (0.011) (0.014) (0.015)
River dist (log) 0.015∗∗ 0.007 0.001 0.009 0.013

(0.007) (0.010) (0.011) (0.013) (0.015)
Coast dist (log) 0.003 0.006 0.011 0.026∗ 0.050∗∗∗

(0.006) (0.011) (0.013) (0.015) (0.017)
Elevation (log) 0.006 -0.012 -0.009 -0.031∗ -0.066∗∗∗

(0.008) (0.011) (0.014) (0.018) (0.021)
(Intercept) -0.047 -0.170∗ -0.178 -0.187 -0.208

(0.056) (0.089) (0.135) (0.201) (0.212)
Observations 263 261 262 259 259

Adjusted R2 0.01190 0.04054 0.03209 0.02020 0.03722
12

C. Castle ownership: Data collection and coding

The data on castle ownership is based on a geo-coded sample of European
castles drawn mostly from national cultural heritage registries. For each con-
temporary country, we attempted to identify an official cultural heritage reg-
istry digitized with geo-coded data on historical buildings. To isolate medieval
castles, we identified relevant categories in the registry specifying medieval
castles. These categories vary between registries, along with the amount of doc-
umentation describing them. The general principle was to look for keywords
such as ”castle”, ”fortification”, ”tower”, and similar terms. When in doubt,
we furthermore validated the appropriateness of categories by looking up a
small sample of entries in each category.
In addition, while the entries in the specified categories are generally as-
sumed to be castles, research assistants coding the castles were instructed to
indicate if there were evidence that a given structure clearly i not meet minimal
requirements for being classified as a castle. In a few cases, it was not possible
to identify an official digitized (and geo-coded) registry. In these cases, I relied
instead on privately collected databases, typically by amateur historians, or, for
lack of better sources, national lists of castles from Wikipedia. The sources for
each national sample is listed in Table XX.
After identifying the national ”population” of castles, we subsequently
drew a random sample for further coding. While we generally rely on sim-
ply random sampling, we also relied on a more purposeful sampling strategy,
taking into account the size and number of historical territories within contem-
porary borders to which we would want to aggregate. For instance, within
contemporary Germany, the fragmentation of principalities of the Holy Ro-
man Empire means that we, for some periods, need to aggregate to relatively
smaller territories and therefore need more castles to increase the precision of
aggregated statistics. The sampling size for all countries and territories are
detailed in Table XX.
Finally, for each national sample of castles, a team of research assistants
coded each castle for the year of construction (and potentially destruction)
along with information on historical owners. For this, they relied mostly on
readily available online sources, including entries on the specific castle on
Wikipedia. For every year in which the castle existed, we coded whether the
castle was controlled by a crown, the church, or by private actors. Castles are
coded as crown-controlled in years in which it was owned by the monarch
directly, when it was part of the state’s administrative network, or controlled
by caretakers on behalf of the king (e.g., controlled by a sheriff, castellan, vogt,
or other titles indicating caretakers in different regions).
13

Castles are not coded as royal if the owner is a member of the royal fam-
ily unless we also find evidence that they are actively part of the monarch’s
administrative network), since family members in many cases were also rivals
to the monarch and, thus, cannot be assumed a priori to represent the crown.
Importantly, in the case of crown-controlled castles, we also code the identity
of the dynasty or territory of the crown. When matched with historical borders,
this enables us to identify whether a royal castle is owned by the monarch of
the territory in which it is located, or if it is owned by a monarch other than
the one ruling the territory. In the latter case, these are recoded as externally
owned castles (external referring only to external rulers and not private for-
eigners). The full coding manual with detailed instructions can be found in
Appendix ??.
14

D. Variable descriptions and sources
Mortality. Cumulative local mortality rates during the Black Death (1347-1352).
Source: Jedwab, Johnson, and Koyama (2019a)
Crown share. The share of castles owned by the crown within 100 kilometers of
the city. Calculated as the 50-year average to mitigate noise in annual estimates.
The main outcome variable is the difference in the 50 year averages from pre-
plague levels to consecutive half-century intervals.
Population. City population in 1300 (logged).

Source: Buringh (2021)
Urban. Urban potential; Inverse distance weighted sum of city populations in

popi
1300 (see above), excluding the city in question. Ui = ∑ N
j=1 dist(i,j , for i 6 = j.
River. Logged distance to major rivers, calculated in R using the sf package.

In the interaction specifications in Table 2, the continuous measure is replaced
with a dummy for proximity to rivers (within 50 km).
Source: Natural Earth Data
Trade. Logged distance to medieval trade routes, calculated in R using the sf

package. In the interaction specifications in Table 2, the continuous measure is
replaced with a dummy for proximity to trade routes (within 50 km).
Source: Harvard WorldMap (link)
Coast. Logged distance to coast, calculated in R using the sf package. In the

interaction specifications in Table 2, the continuous measure is replaced with a
dummy for proximity to coast (within 50 km).
Source: Natural Earth Data
Agri. Land suitability for agriculture.

Source: Ramankutty et al. (2002)
Elevation. Global Multi-resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010 (GMTED2010)

at a resolution of 30 arc-seconds (about 1 kilometer) (logged).
Source: Danielson and Gesch (2011)
15

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The Creative Destruction of Feudalism: Plague

and the Transition to Direct Rule

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of the feudal nobility posed a significant obstacle to state centralization. Us-

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FIGURE 1. From the Black Death to Direct Rule

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2. The transition from indirect to direct rule

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coercive authority (Gerring et al. 2011; Garfias and Sellars 2021b).

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3. The Black Death and its consequences

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real wages plummeted while prices on goods skyrocketed. In short, it led to

3.1. Feudalism and the Institution of Serfdom

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3.2. The Black Death and the Creative Destruction of Feu-

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emphasizing labor scarcity and the resulting reduction in serfdom. As outlined

. . . although various ordinances and statutes have been made in

Initially, the nobility partially succeeded in their demands. In Italy, Spain,

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3.3. Mortality and the Transition to Direct Rule

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eventually, came to be modern states. This more institutionalized position

4. Data and empirical design

4.1. Using castles to measure direct rule

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In England, the Tudors . . . , contained aristocratic violence, and elim-

When central authority was weak, private castles flourished. An illustrative

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4.2. Plague data

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4.3. Estimation strategy

C̄it − C̄i,1300−1350 = α + βMi + Xδ + ei , (3)

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capturing demographic and geographic characteristics. First, I include a mea-

4.4. Exogeneity of Black Death mortality

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0.15 Low mortality

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TABLE 1. Mortality and direct rule, long difference from 1350

Urban 0.0008 0.010∗∗∗ 0.011∗∗∗ 0.005∗∗∗ 0.001

Population -0.002 0.003 0.010 0.004 -0.004

Agri 0.031∗∗∗ 0.026 0.010 0.018 0.038∗

Trade -0.002 -0.004∗ -0.006∗ -0.009∗∗ -0.016∗∗∗

River -0.002 -0.003 -0.005∗∗ -0.005∗ -0.006∗∗

Coast 0.001 0.002 −4.98 × 10−5 0.003 0.007∗

Elevation -0.0002 -0.006∗ -0.001 -0.001 -0.010∗∗

(Intercept) 0.005 -0.155∗∗∗ -0.192∗∗∗ -0.108∗∗ -0.047

Observations 1,213 820 820 1,095 1,127

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Cit = αi + δt + ∑ βτ Mi + eit , (4)

5.1. Robustness and further evidence

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FIGURE 3. Event study estimates

1200 1250 1300 1350 1400 1450 1500 1550 1600

military and administrative apparatus. In addition to coding whether a castle

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