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We thank David Abernathy, Phillipe Aghion, Thomas Bisson, Carles Boix, Gary Cox, Scott Gehlbach, Avner Greif, Justin Grimmer, Allen Hicken, Timur Kuran, David Laitin, Jonathan Liebowitz, Anne McCants, Larry Neal, Nathan Nunn, Jim Robinson, Norman Schofield, Andrei Shleifer, David Stasavage, Peter Temin, Mike Tomz, Jan Luiten van Zanden, Barry Weingast, Ali Yaycioglu and seminar participants at University of California Berkeley, Harvard University, Hebrew University, Iowa State University, Juan March Institute, University of Michigan, Ohio State University, Princeton University, Sabanci University, Stanford University, Utrecht University, Washington University in St. Louis, and Yale University for helpful conversations and comments. Irteza Binte-Farid, Steve Monroe, and Andrew Stein provided outstanding research assistance. Any remaining errors are our own.
"The kingdoms known to history have been governed in two ways: either by a prince and his servants, who, as ministers by his grade and permission, assist in governing the realm; or by a prince and by barons. . . .Examples of these two kinds of government in our own time are the Turk and the King of France" (Machiavelli [1532] 1903, 14-15).
An influential literature sees the roots of the Industrial Revolution in Europe's unique institutional framework.1While it seems increasingly clear that growth-friendly, sovereign-constraining institutions--including respect for property rights and the rule of law--were key to the emergence of sustained economic development in Europe, scholars struggle to explain both how such institutions emerged and why they were initially limited to Western Europe. Recent studies focusing on the evolution of European institutions generally begin their analysis after the year 1500 CE, while noting the peculiarity of Europe's "initial" institutional framework.2For example, in the conclusion of their seminal study of the evolution of English institutions following the Glorious Revolution, North and Weingast (1989) acknowledge that English institutions provided abnormal checks on the sovereign from an early (e.g., medieval) date. Similarly, Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2005) note that European political institutions established prior to 1500 CE already placed "significant checks" on the monarch.
A distinguished line of scholars has stressed the feudal origins of European institutional exceptionalism. Montesquieu ([1748] 1989, 619) was an early proponent of the argument that feudalism "diminished the whole weight of lordship." Previous scholarship suggests that feudalism...