Bureaucratization of Polities in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

Abstract

Building on Max Weber’s definition of bureaucracy, this chapter questions the extent to which bureaucratization was a shared feature of European polities during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries and, if so, whether bureaucratization took place in different regions at the same time because of parallel developments or rather owing to mutual influences. The chapter primarily reviews relevant secondary literature in order to outline the historiographical debate, which lies behind my original contribution, and specifically engages with the creation of chanceries and financial offices in England and also at the papal curia between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries.