The Shield Of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History by Philip Bobbitt

Author:Philip Bobbitt
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Political Science
Publisher: ePenguin
Published: 2003-03-26T15:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Treaty of Augsburg

Medieval treatises on government dealt with what kings should do in order to be good. Commynes in his Memoires (finished by 1498, first published 1524) and Machiavelli in his Prince (written in 1513, published 1532) tried to deal with something different, what kings found it most advantageous to do in order to be effective rulers. 1

THIS CHANGE in attitude on the part of monarchs and their counselors reflected the constitutional changes underway at the end of the fifteenth century.

The Hundred Years' War with the Lancastrian kings of England had required reforms in the Valois administration of France that greatly strengthened the French state. In particular, changes in finance and the organization of the army that had been introduced by Charles VII2 to compete militarily with England had prepared the dynasty to make the transition from princes to princely state. Such reforms enabled France to organize the invasion of Italy in order to vindicate French claims to Naples and Milan. These dynastic claims assumed a greater importance under Charles VIII, when the imposition of permanent taxes in areas without provincial estates and the establishment of something like a standing army provided the foundation for the French attack at the end of the century. It is estimated that by 1494 the king of France had the largest army and the greatest annual revenue of any European monarch.3 Moreover, political stability achieved through the strengthening of the apparatus of provincial government provided the conditions for civil peace necessary for agricultural improvement, the engine of economic prosperity. A generation of civil peace thus made possible the armed intervention in Italy, beginning the struggle that ended with the Peace of Augsburg.

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