The State and the Monopolization of Violence: Castles in Europe, 1000–1700

Abstract

The defining characteristic of the modern state is its monopoly on violence. Yet, despite broad scholarly agreement on the definition, there are no empirical measures of the monopolization of violence. We introduce the first such measure: the share of castles controlled by the Crown. Taking the canonical definition as its point of departure, the measure allows us to trace the origins of the modern state in the power struggle between monarchs and societal actors when, where, and as it actually happened. The Castles Data are based on random samples from 17 modern European countries and record the ownership of more than 5,400 unique castles across most of Europe from 1000 to 1700. To validate the measure, we show that it tracks historiographical accounts of state formation and correlates strongly with independent coding by historians. We illustrate its use in applications at both the polity and micro levels.