Legal Centralization and the Birth of the Secular State

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 orthodox 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.

Jewish Persecutions and Weather Shocks: 1100–1800

“…The increases in state capacity that occurred from 1600 onwards, documented by Dincecco (); Karaman and Pamuk () and Johnson and Koyama (), led to the formation of polities that were less vulnerable to political unrest and better at reducing interfaith violence, all factors that led to fewer persecutions and expulsions . This is consistent with the findings that stronger states were responsible for ending the European witch‐hunts in the late seventeenth century (Levack, ; Johnson and Koyama, ) and with the argument that the rise of larger and more centralised states led to a gradual increase in bounds of religious toleration in the early modern period (Johnson and Koyama, )…”

Unified China and Divided Europe

“…By developing a new framework to help explain why Europe was persistently fragmented, we complement the literature that emphasizes the positive economic consequences of European political fragmentation, which include promoting economic and political freedom (Montesquieu, ; Pirenne, ; Hicks, ; Jones, ); encouraging experiments in political structures and investments in state capacity (Baechler, ; Cowen, ; Tilly, ; Hoffman, , ; Gennaioli and Voth, ); intensifying interstate conflicts and thereby promoting urbanization (Voigtländer and Voth, ); and fostering innovation and scientific development (Diamond, ; Mokyr, ; Lagerlof, ) . Our analysis is also related to the rise of state capacity in Europe and the weakening of the Chinese state after 1750 (Dincecco, ; Johnson and Koyama, , , ; Sng, ; Sng and Moriguchi, ; Dincecco and Katz, ) and to recent research that emphasizes other aspects of Europe's possible advantages in the Great Divergence such as the higher age at first marriage than the rest of the world (Voigtländer and Voth, ); public provision of poor relief versus reliance on clans as was the case in China (Greif et al., ); institutions that were less reliant on religion (Rubin, ); greater human capital (Kelly et al., ); and higher social status for entrepreneurs and inventors (McCloskey, ).…”