The State: The Tyranny of a Concept?

Susan Reynolds defines medieval state as an organization of human society within a more or less fixed area in which the ruler or governing body more or less successfully controls the legitimate use of physical force. It is opined that the English state is not problematic historically or historiographically; taken as a given and a norm. There is a powerful tradition of constitutional and administrative history of central power, underpinned by abundance of state records. There is in no way one can deny the remarkable precociousness of "the English state;" indeed that precociousness might appear even more stunning in a comparative context. But even in England, one would do well to bring the study of the "state" into a broader arena of the discussion of power generally, in a social, economic, ideological and cultural as well as governmental context. It is deliberated whether the indiscriminate usage of the term "state" might side-step the issue of where power really lies in a decentralized society.