Providing a new narrative of how local authority and social structures adapted in response to the decline of lordship and the process of state formation, Spike

Shows how lordship and state formation affected local authority in the transition between medieval and early modern England.

What use is it to be given authority over men and lands if others do not know about it? Furthermore, what use is that authority if those who know about it do no

This book presents a new theory of statebuilding in medieval and early modern Europe. Ertman argues that two factors - the organization of local government at t