The School of Salamanca. A case of global knowledge production

Abstract

employ. Boucoyannis’ case studies are drawn from England, France, Castile, Catalonia, Hungary, Flanders, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia. She offers brief consideration of ‘additional cases’ drawn from Holland, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Swiss Cantons, and the Holy Roman Empire (25). Boucoyannis notes that organic arrangements in these cases frequently reflect opportunism at work. In the author’s words: ‘bargaining on taxes was equally common across regions’ (7). What matters–in her final assessment–is ‘power properly deployed’, that is, power deployed to justify the power to deploy power (318). This suggests that, over time, kings learned a great deal as judges. A national court system is a suitable place to acquire and refine the statecraft needed to innovate the state and extend its useful life. It is not a lesson confined to Westminster Hall.