What form of government did medieval societies have?

Answer 1

There were many forms of government used in the Middle Ages. The ones we know best were monarchies of Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire. We have good records of various republics, especially in Italy, Switzerland, and some of the Slavic countries. Germanic tribes had a strong democratic tradition, which was represented in a variety of forms and in widely spread places, including Anglo-Saxon England and Iceland.

We think of feudal monarchies, such as existed in medieval France and England. While they were important, they were not the most common form of government in Europe of the Middle Ages. Their importance to us (English speaking people) is perhaps exaggerated because of our cultural heritage being derived from France and England.

Elsewhere, even where there were monarchies, there were also very different kinds of government. In Scotland, for example, the kings were elected by clan leaders from among a list of qualified people, and the first king to become king on the basis of simple heredity was King James V, who came to the throne after the Middle Ages ended. During the Middle Ages, the clan leaders were much more important to most people than the central government.

The Holy Roman Empire was a monarchy, but the emperor was elected by a college of seven electors, some of whom were kings, princes or counts, and some of whom were bishops. Within the empire, there were kingdoms, counties of various kinds, free cities with republican governments.

Italian republics tended to be independent. Of the Italian republics, possibly the best known is the Republic of Venice. But there were a large number of other city-states called communes, which were run with a wide range of republican systems. Some of these approached democracy. Others were actually dictatorships. Some towns and cities were run by guilds, groups of guilds, or councils made up of guild leaders.

Another form of government was run by Church organizations. The Teutonic Knights, for example, constituted a monastic organization that controlled areas of Prussia.

There were organizations that acted like governments but were technically not governments. The Hanseatic League was one of these. It was a coalition of cities, mostly republican in nature, that were in a number of countries in northern Europe. The Hanseatic League controlled trade and transportation, and had its own military forces, with which it could wage its own wars, independent of the emperor or the kings who technically ruled over its member cities.