Legal Centralization and the Birth of the Secular State
35 Pages Posted: 22 Aug 2012 Last revised: 2 Aug 2013
Date Written: July 26, 2013
Abstract
This paper investigates the relationship between the historical process of legal centralization and increased religious toleration by the state. We develop a model in which legal centralization leads to the criminalization of the religious beliefs of a large proportion of the population. This process initially leads to increased persecution, but, because these persecutions are costly, it eventually causes the state to broaden the standards of ortho- dox belief and move toward religious toleration. We compare the results of the model with historical evidence drawn from two important cases in which religious diversity and state centralization collided in France: the Albigensian crusades of the thirteenth century and the rise of Protestant belief in the sixteenth century. Both instances support our central claim that the secularization of western European state institutions during the early-modern period was driven by the costs of imposing a common set of legal standards on religiously diverse populations.
Keywords: State Capacity, Religion, Secularization, Heresy, Legal Capacity, France
JEL Classification: H10, N43, Z12, K42, P48
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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