Contents Acknowledgements VI vo vu PART ONE Feudalization and State Formation Introduction Survey of Courtly Society A Prospective Glance at the Sociogenesis of Absolutism Chapter One Dynamics of Feudalization Introduction. Centralizing and Decentralizing Forces in the Medieval Power Figuration ‘The Inctease in Population after the Migration of Peoples Some Observations on the Sociogenesis of the Crusades ‘The Internal Expansion of Society: The Formation of New Social Organs and Instruments Some New Elements in the Structure of Medieval Society as Compared with Antiquity On the Sociogenesis of Feudalism On the Sociogenesis of Minnesang and Courtly Forms of Conduct Chapter Two ‘On the Sociogenesis of the State The First Stage of the Rising Monarchy: Competition and Monopolization within a ‘Territorial Framework viii 13 15 38 32 37 66 OL0 m Vv vol 1 m Vv VI vu vu Notes Index vi Excursus on some Differences in the Paths of Development of England, France and Germany On the Monopoly Mechanism Early Struggles within the Framework of the Kingdom ‘The Resurgence of Centrifugal Tendencies: The Figuration of the Competing Princes ‘The Last Stages of the Free Competitive Struggle and the Final Monopoly Position of the Victor ‘The Distribution of Power Ratios within the Unit of Rule: Their Significance for the Central Authority: ‘The Formation of the “Royal Mechanism” On the Sociogenesis of the Monopoly of Taxation PART TWO: SYNOPSIS Towards a Theory of Civilizing Processes ‘The Social Constraint toward Self-Constraint Spread of the Pressure for Foresight and Self- Constraint Diminishing Contrasts, Increasing Varieties ‘The Courtization of Warriors The Muting of Drives: Psychol6gization and Rationalization Shame and Repugnance Increasing Constraints on the Upper Class: Increasing Pressure from Below Conclusion 96 104 47 131 149) 161 201 229 247 251 258 270 292 300 319 337 369)Dedicated to the memory of my parents Hermann Elias, d. Breslau 1940 Sophie Elias, d. Auschwitz 1941 (2)Acknowledgements ‘This translation could not have been produced without the aid of my friends. In particular, Professor Johan Goudsblom has spent a great deal of time and effort in comparing the English and Ger- man texts to ensure that the exact meaning has been interpreted. Eric Dunning has also throughout made a number of very useful suggestions, The exercise of checking the translation was in itself a most useful one for me as it enabled me to revise the text in minor, but important ways and to add notes which set the work in the context of my later thinking. None of this should be taken as any reflection on the translator, Edmund Jephcott, to whom T owe the greatest debt. My thanks are also due to Johan and Maria Goudsblom for reading the proofs and compiling the index. Publisher’s Note Volume 1 of The Civilizing Process is entitled The Hisiory of Manners and consists of two Chapters. Volume 2, now published in English for the first time, originally consisted of Chapter Three (in two Parts) and the Synopsis. These divisions are here called Part One (divided into two Chapters) and Part Two: Synopsis. The italic in the quotations in both volumes indicates the author's emphasis. viiiPART ONE Feudalization and State FormationIntroduction 1 Survey of Courtly Society 1. The struggles between the nobility, the Church and the princes for their shares in the control and the produce of the land run through the entire Middle Ages. In the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries @ further group emerges as a partner in this play of forces: the privileged town-dwellers, the “bourgeoisie”. ‘The actual course of this constant struggle, and the power relations among the contestants, vary widely between countries, But the outcome of the conflicts is, in its structure, nearly ‘always the same: in all the larger Continental countries, and at times in England’ too, the princes or their representatives finally accumulate a concentration of power to which the estates are not equal. The autarky of the majority, and the estates’ share of power, are curtailed step by step, while the dictatorial or “absolute” power of a single supreme figure is slowly established, for a greater or lesser period. In France, England and the Habsburg countries this figure is the king, in the German and Italian regions it is the territorial ruler. 2. Numerous studies describe, for example, how the French kings from Philip Augustus to Francis I and Henry TV increase 3their power, or how the Elector Frederick William pashes aside the regional estates in Brandenburg, and the Medici the patri- cians and senate in Florence, or how the Tudors do the same to the nobility and parliament in England. Everywhere it is the individual agents and their various actions that we see, their personal weaknesses and gifts that are described. And it is no doubt fruitful and even indispensable to see history in this way, as a mosaic of individual actions of individual people. Nevertheless, something else is obviously at work here besides the fortuitous emergence of a series of great princes and the for- tuitous victories of numerous individual territorial rulers or kings over numerous individual estates at approximately the same time, It is not without reason that we speak of an age of absolutism. What finds expression in this change in the form of Political rule is a structural change in Western scciety as a whole, Not only did individual kings increase their power but, clearly, the social institution of the monarchy or princedom took on new weight in the course of a gradual transformation of the whole of society, a new weight which at the same time gave new power chances to the central rulers. ‘On the one hand we might enquire how this or that man gained power and how he or his heirs increased or lost this power in the context of “absolutism”. On the other, we may ask on the basis of what social changes the medieval institution of the king or prince took on, in certain centuries, the character and power referred to by concepts such as “absolutism” or “despotism”, and which social structure, which development in human relations, made it possible for the institution to sustain itself in this form for a greater or lesser period of time. Both approaches work with more or less the same material. But only the second attains to the plane of historical reality on which the civilizing process takes place. tis by more than a coincidence that in the same centuries in which the king or prince acquires absolutist status, the restraint and moderation of the affects discussed in the previous volume, the “civilizing” of behaviour, is noticeably increased. In the quotations assembled earlier to demonstrate this change in behaviour, it emerged quite clearly how closely this change is linked to the formation of the hierarchical social order with the absolute ruler and, more broadly, his court at its head. 43. For the court, too, the residence of the ruler, took on a new aspect and a new significance in Western society, in a movement that flowed slowly across Europe, to ebb away again, earlier here and later there, at about the time we call the “Renaissance” In the movements of this period the courts gradually become the actual model and style-setting centres. In the preceding phase they had had to share or even wholly relinquish this func tion to other centres, according to the prevailing balance of power, now to the Church, now to the towns, now to the courts Of the great vassals and knights scattered across the country. From this time on, in German and particularly in Protestant regions, the courts of the central authorities still share their function with the universities turning out the princely bureau- cracy, whereas in Romanic and perhaps in all Catholic countries— this latter point remains to be established—the importance of the courts as a social authority, a source of models of behaviour, far exceeds that of the university and all the other social formations of the epoch. The early Renaissance in Florence, characterized by men like Masaceio, Ghiberti, Brunelleschi and Donatello, is not yet an unequivocally courtly style; but the Italian High Renaissance, and more clearly still the Baroque and Rocco, the style of Louis XV and XVI, are courtly, as finally is the “Empire”, though in a more transitional way, being already permeated with industrialbourgeois features. At the courts a form of society is evolving for which no very specific and unequivocal term exists in German, for the obvious reason that in Germany this type of human bonding never attained central and decisive importance, except at most only in the final, transitional form it had at Weimar. The German con- cept of “good society”, or more simply, of “society” in the sense of monde, like the social formation corresponding to it, lacks the sharp definition of the French and English terms. The — French speak of la société polie. And the French terms bonne compagnie or gens de la Cour and the English “Society” have _/ imilar connotations. 4. The most influential courtly society was formed, as we know, in France. From Paris the same codes of conduct, man- ners, taste and language spread, for varying periods, to all the other European courts. This happened not only because France was the most powerful country at the time. It was oly now 5made possible because, in a pervasive transformation of Euro- pean society, similar social formations, characterized by analog- ous forms of human relations came into being everywhere. The absolutist-courtly aristocracy of other lands adopted from the richest, most powerful and most centralized country of the time the things which fitted their own social needs: refined manners and a language which distinguished them from those of inferior rank. In France they saw, most fruitfully developed, something born of a similar social situation and which matched their own ideals: people who could parade their status, while also observ- ing the subtleties of social intercourse, marking their exact rela- tion to everyone above and below them by their manner of greeting and their choice of words—people of “distinction” and “civility”. In taking over French etiquette and Parisian cere- mony, the various rulers obtained the desired instruments to express their dignity, to make visible the hierarchy of society, and to make all others, first and foremost the courtly nobility themselves, aware of their dependence. 5. Here, too, it is not enough to see and describe the particu- lar events in different countries in isolation. A new picture emerges, and a new understanding is made possible, if the many individual courts of the West, with their relatively uniform man- ners, are seen together as communicating organs in European socicty at large. What slowly begins to form at the end of the Middle Ages is not just one courtly society here and another there, It is a courtly aristocracy embracing Western Europe with its centre in Paris, its dependencies in all the other courts, and offshoots in all the other circles which claimed to belong to “Society”, notably the upper stratum of the bourgeoisie and to some extent even broader layers of the middle class. ‘The members of this multiform society speak the same lan- guage throughout the whole of Europe, first Italian, then French; they read he same books, they have the same raste, the same manners and—with differences of degree—the seme style of living. Notwithstanding their many political differences and even the many wars they wage against each other, they orien- tate themselves fairly unanimously, over greater or lesser periods, towards the centre at Paris. And social communication between court and court, i.e. within courtly-aristocratic society, remains for a long time closer than between courtly society and other strata in the same country; one expression of this is their 6common language. Then, from about the middle of the eight- eenth century, earlier in one country and somewhat later in another, but always in conjunction with the rise of the middle classes and the gradual displacement of the social and political centre of gravity from the court to the various national bourgeois societies, the ties between the courtly-aristocratic societies of different nations are slowly loosened even if they are never entirely broken. The French language gives way, not without violent struggles, to the bourgeois, national languages even in the upper class. And courtly society itself becomes increasingly differentiated in the same way as bourgeois societies, particularly when the old aristocratic society loses its centre once and for all in the French Revolution, The national form of integration displaces that based on social estate. 6. In seeking the social traditions which provide the common basis and deeper unity of the various national traditions in the West, we should think not only of the Christian Church, the common Roman-Latin heritage, but also of this last great pre~ national social formation which, already partly in the shadow of the national divergences within Western society, rose above the lower and middle strata in different linguistic areas. Here were created the models of more pacified social intercourse which more or less all classes needed, following the transformation of European society at the end of the Middle Ages; here the coarser habits, the wilder, more uninhibited customs of medieval society with its warrior upper class, the corollaries of an uncer- tain, constantly threatened life, were “softened”, “polished” and “civilized”. The pressure of court life, the vying for the favour of the prince or the “great”; then, more generally, the necessity to distinguish oneself from others and to fight for opportunities with relatively peaceful means, through intrigue and diplomacy, enforced a constraint on the affects, a self- discipline and sclf-control, a peculiarly courtly rationality, which at first made the courtier appear to the opposing bourgeoisie of the eighteenth century, above all in Germany but also in Eng- land, as the epitome of the man of reason. ‘And here, in this pre-national, courtly-aristocratic society, @ part of those commands and prohibitions were fashioned or at least prepared that are perceptible even today, national differences notwithstanding, as something common to the West. Partly from them the Western peoples, despite all their 7differences, have taken the common stamp of a specific civili- zation ‘That the gradual formation of this absolutist-courtly society was accompanied by a transformation of the drive-economy and conduct of the upper class in the direction of “civilization”, has been shown by a series of examples. It has also been indicated how closely this increased restraint and regulation of elementary urges is bound up with increased social constraint, the growing dependence of the nobility on the central lord, the king or prince. How did this increased constraint and dependence come about? How was an upper class of relatively independent war- rs or knights supplanted by a more or less pacified upper class of courtiers? Why was the influence of the estates progres- sively reduced in the course of the Middle Ages and the early modem period, and why, sooner or later, was the dictatorial “absolute” rule of a single figure, and with it the compulsion of courtly etiquette, the pacification of larger or smaller territories from a single centre, established for a greater or lesser period of time in all the countries of Europe? The sociogenesis of absolut- ism indeed occupies a key position in the overall process of civi- lization. The civilizing of conduct and the corresponding trans- formation of human consciousness and libidinal make-up cannot be understood without tracing the process of state-formation, and within it the advancing centralization of society which first ~ finds particularly visible expression in the absolutist form of rule. 1 ‘A Prospective Glance at the Sociogenesis of Absolutism 1. A few of the most important mechanisms which, towards the end of the Middle Ages, gradually gave increasing power chances to the central authority of a territory, can be quite briefly described at this preliminary stage. They are broadly similar in all the larger countries of the West and are particu- larly clearly seen in the development of the French monarchy. The gradual increase of the money sector of the economy at the expense of the barter sector in a given region in the Middle 8Ages had very different consequences for the majority of the warrior nobility on the one hand, and for the king or prince on the other. The more money that came into circulation in a region, the greater the increase in prices. All classes whose revenue did not increase at the same rate, all those on a fixed income, were thus placed at a disadvantage, above all the feudal lords who received fixed rents from their estates. The social functions whose income increased with these new ‘opportunities were placed at an advantage. They included cer- tain sections of the bourgeoisie, but above all the king, the cen- tral ruler. For the taxation apparatus gave him a share of the increasing wealth; a part of all the earnings in his area of rule came to him, and his income consequently increaseé to an extraordinary degree with the growing circulation of money. ‘As is always the case, this functional mechanism was only very gradually and, so to speak, retrospectively exploited con- sciously by the interested parties, being adopted at a relatively late stage by rulers as a principle of domestic politics. Its first result was a more of less automatic and constant increase in the income of the central lord. This is one of the preconditions on the basis of which the institution of kingship gradually geined its absolute or uncircumscribed character. 2. As the financial opportunities open to the central function grew, 50 too did its military potential. The man who had at his disposal the taxes of an entire country was in a position to hire more warriors than any other; by the same token he grew less dependent on the war services which the feudal vassal was obliged to render in exchange for the land with which he was invested. This too is a process which, like all the others, begins very early but only gradually leads to the formation of definite institutions. Even William the Conqueror went to England with ‘an army consisting only partly of vassals, the rest being paid knights. Between that time and the establishment of standing armies by the central lords, centuries intervened. A prerequisite for such armies, apart from the growing revenue from taxes, was surplus manpower—the discrepancy between the number of people and the number and profitability of jobs available in a particular society which we know today as “unemployment”. ‘Areas suffering from surpluses of this kind, e.g. Switzerland and parts of Germany, supplied mercenaries to anyone who could 9afford them. Much later, Frederick the Great's recruiting tacties show the solutions open to a prince when the manpower avail- able in his territory is not sufficient for his military purposes. The military supremacy that went hand in hand with financial superiority was, therefore, the second decisive prerequisite enabling the central power of a region to take on “absolute” character. ‘A transformation of military techniques followed and rein- forced this development. Through the slow development of firearms the mass of common foot-soldiers became militarily superior to the numerically limited nobles fighting on horseback. ‘This too was to the advantage of the central authority. ‘The king, who in the France of the early Capetian period, for example, was not much more than a baron, one territorial lord among others of equal power, and sometimes even less powerful than others, gained from his increasing revenues the possibility of military supremacy over all the forces in his country. Which noble family managed in particular cases to win the crown and thus gain access to these power chances depended on a wide range of factors including the personal talents of individuals and often chance. The growth of the financial and military power chances that gradually attached themselves to the monarchy was independent of the will or talents of individuals; it followed a strict regularity that is encountered wherever social processes are observed. ‘And this increase in the power chances of the central function ‘was therefore the precondition for the pacification of a given territory, greater or smaller as the case may be, from a single centre. 3, The two series of developments which acted to the advan- tage of a strong central authority were in all ways detrimental to the old medieval warrior estate. They had no direct connection with the growing money sectur of the economy. They could scarcely derive any direct profit from the new opportunities of income that offered themselves. They felt only the devaluation, the rise in prices. It has been calculated that a fortune of 22,000 francs in the year 1200 was worth 16,000 francs in 1300, 7,500 francs in 1400, and 6,500 in 1500. In the sixteenth century this move- ment accelerated; the value of the sum fell to 2,500 francs, and the case was similar in the whole of Europe.' 10‘A movement originating far back in the Middle Ages under- went an extraordinary acceleration in the sixteenth century. From the reign of Francis I up to the year 1610 alone, the French pound was devalued in approximately the ratic 5 to 1. ‘The importance of this developmental curve for the transforma- tion of society was greater than can be stated in a few words. While money circulation grew and commercial activity developed, while bourgeois classes and the revenue of the cen- tral authority rose, the income of the entire remaining nobility fell. Some of the knights were reduced to a wretched existence, others took by robbery and violence what was no longer avail- able by peaceful means, others again kept themselves above water for as long as possible by slowly selling off their estates; and finally a good part of the nobility, forced by these circum- stances and attracted by the new opportunities, entered the service of the kings or princes who could pay. These were the economic options open to a warrior class that was not connected to the growth in money circulation and the trade network. 4. How the development of war technology operated to the nobility’s disadvantage has already been mentioned: the infan- try, the despised foot-soldiers, became more important in battle than the cavalry. Not only the military superiority of the medieval warrior estate was thereby broken, but also its mono- poly over weapons. A situation where the nobles alone were warriors or, conversely, all warriors were nobles, began to turn into one where the noble was at best an officer of plebeian troops who had to be paid. The monopoly control of weapons and military power passed from the whole noble estate into the hands of a single member, the prince or king who, supported by the tax income of the whole region, could afford the largest army. Thereby the majority of the nobility were changed from relatively free warriors or knights into paid warriors or officers in the service of the central lord. These are a few of the most important lines of this structural transformation, 5. There was another as well. The nobility lost social power with the increase in the money sector of the economy, while bourgeois classes gained it. But in general neither of the two estates proved strong enough to gain the upper hand over the other for a prolonged period. Constant tensions everywhere erupted in periodic struggles. The battle fronts were complicated nand varied widely from case to case. There were occasional alliances between groups within the nobility and groups within the bourgeoisie; there were transitional forms and ever: fusions between sub-groups from the two estates. But however that may be, both the rise and the absolute power of the central institu. tion always depended on the continued existence of this tension between the nobility and the bourgeoisie. One of the structural preconditions for the absolute monarchy or princedom was that neither of the estates nor any group within them should gain the upper hand. The representatives of the absolute central author- ity therefore had to be constantly on the alert to ensure that this unstable equilibrium was maintained within their territory. Where the balance was lost, where one group or class became too strong, or where aristocratic and upper bourgeois groups even temporarily allied, the supremacy of the central power was seriously threatened or—as in England—doomed. Thus we often observe among rulers that while one protects end pro- motes the bourgeoisie because the nobility seems too powerful and therefore dangerous, the next inclines towards the nobility, this having grown too weak or the bourgeoisic too refractory, without the other side being ever quite neglected. The absolute rulers were obliged, whether they were entirely conscious of it or not, to manipulate this social mechanism that they had not created. Their social existence depended on its survival and functioning. They too were bound to the social regularity with which they had to live. This regularity and the social structure corresponding to it emerged sooner or later with numerous modifications in almost every country of the West. But it takes on clear delineation only if observed in the process of emergence through a concrete example. The development in France, the country in which this process, from a particular moment on, takes place in the most direct form, will serve here as an example. 12Chapter One Dynamics of Feudalization I Introduction 1. If we compare France, England and the German Empire at the middle of the seventeenth century in terms of the power of their central authorities, the king of France appears particularly strong beside the English king and even more so beside the German emperor. This constellation is the outcome of a very long development. ‘At the end of the Carolingian and the beginning of the Cape- tian period the situation is almost the reverse. At that time the central power of the German emperors was strong as compared to the French kings. And England had yet to undergo its deci- sive unification and reorganization by the Normans. In the German empire the power of the central authority ‘crumbles persistently—though with occasional interruptions— from this time on, In England, from Norman times on, periods of strong royal power alternate with the preponderance of the estates or par- iament. In France, from about the beginning of the twelfth century, Bthe king’s power grows—again with interruptions—fairly stead- ily. A continuous line leads from the Capetians through the Valois to the Bourbons. Nothing entitles us to presuppose that these differences follow any kind of compulsion. Very slowly the different regions of the three countries merge into national units. At first, as long as the integration of those areas which are later to become “France”, “Germany”, “Italy” and “England” is relatively slight, they do not weigh very heavily as social organisms in the balance of his- torical forces. And the main developmental curves in the history of these nations are in this phase incomparably more strongly influenced by the fortunes and misfortunes of individuals, by personal qualities, by sympathies and antipathies or “accidents”, than later when “England”, “Germany” ot “France” have become social formations with a quite specific structure and a momentum and regularity of their own. At first the historical lines of development are co-determined very strongly by factors which, from the viewpoint of the later unit, have no inherent necessity.’ Then, gradually, with the increasing interdependence of larger areas and populations, a pattern slowly emerges which, according to circumstance, either limits or opens opportunities to the whims and interests of powerful individuals or even of particular groups. Then, but only then, do the inherent developmental dynamics of these social units override chance or at least mark it with their stamp. 2. Nothing entitles us to presuppose any compelling necessity determining that it was the duchy of Francia, the “Isle de France”, about which a nation would crystallize. Culterally, and also politically, the southern regions of France had much stronger ties with those of northern Spain and the bordering Italian regions than with the area around Paris. There was always a very considerable difference between the old, more Celto-Romanic regions ot Provence, the langue d’oc, and the langue d’oil parts, that is, regions with a stronger Frankish influ- ence, above all those to the north of the Loire, together with Poitou, Berry, Bourgogne, Saintonge and Franche-Comté,> Moreover, the eastern frontiers established by the Treaty of ‘Verdun (843) and then by the Treaty of Meerssen (870) for the western Frankish empire, were very different from the borders between what gradually emerged as “France” and “Germany” or “Italy”, 14