Power and Persuasion: Essays on the Art of State Building in Honour of W. P. Blockmans

The transformation of the myriad of medieval kingdoms, principalities, local lordships, city-'states' and peasant 'republics' into 'modern' states, claiming some measure of sovereignty, remains one of the core themes of European history, because it gets down to the very root of the (idea on the) Europe we live in. Some 20 leading experts cast new light on various aspects of this process, such as political communication, foreign diplomacy, dynastic self-representation, political economy, national identities, and military resources. The articles are a tribute to the prominent medieval historian, Wim Blockmans, on the occasion of his retirement as professor of medieval history at Leiden University and rector of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS) at Wassenaar. Peter Hoppenbrouwers holds the chair of medieval history at Leiden University. Antheun Janse and Robert Stein are both senior lecturers in the Department of Medieval History at Leiden University. All three have written extensively on the political, social, and intellectual history of the Northern Netherlands in the Late Middle Ages. Introduction -- Antheun Janse and Robert Stein Wim Blockmans at 65 : interim report on an eminent historical entrepreneur -- Peter Hoppenbrouwers Entre 1250 et 1350 : système des états et ordre dynastique -- Jean-Marie Moeglin Mon souverain seigneur -- Werner Paravicini État bourguignon ou états bourguignons? : De la singularité d'un pluriel -- Jean-Marie Cauchies The art of persuasion : Charles V and his governors -- M.J. Rodríguez-Salgado Three models of monarchy in fifteenth-century Castile -- José Manuel Nieto Soria Le premier procès de Jean II, Duc d'Alençon (1456-1458) : quels enjeux, quels enseignements politiques? -- Philippe Contamine Parliament, political economy and state formation in later medieval England -- W. Mark Ormrod Meeting the king in late medieval Denmark -- Bjørn Poulsen The military resources of the kings of Castile around 1500 -- Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada The two faces of pardon jurisdiction in the Burgundian Netherlands : a royal road to social cohesion and an effectual instrument of princely clientelism -- Walter Prevenier La Hollande, source de capital social pour un Flamand ambitieux? : Les intérèts et les aventures de Pierre Lanchals, grand commis de l'État Burgundo-Habsbourgeois, vers 1441/42-1488 -- Marc Boone Urban population, urban territories, small towns : some problems of the history of urbanization in central and northern Italy, 13th-16th centuries -- Giorgio Chittolini Joan Fogassot and "los fets de Fflandres" : a forgotten episode of the Catalan mercantile connections with Flanders in 1460-1461 -- Dick E.H. de Boer Image représentation et communication politique -- Jean-Philipe Genet Crusading and state-building in the Middle Ages -- Norman Housley Die Gesetzgebung der kirchlichen Synoden in Polen im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert -- Wacław Uruszczak The coming of the gypsies : cities, princes and nomads -- David Abulafia Konvergenz und Divergenz von Machtgeschichte und Rechtsgeschichte im Aufstieg und Niedergang des modernen Staates -- Wolfgang Reinhard. The transformation of the myriad of medieval kingdoms, principalities, local lordships, city-'states' and peasant 'republics' into 'modern' states, claiming some measure of sovereignty, remains one of the core themes of European history, because it goes to the very heart of how we see Europe in our own time. Some 20 leading experts cast new light on various aspects of this process, such as political communication, foreign diplomacy, dynastic self-representation, political economy, national identities, and military resources. The articles are a tribute to the prominent medieval historian, Wim Blockmans, on the occasion of his retirement as professor of medieval history at Leiden University and rector of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences ( nias) at Wassenaar