Castles are an iconic element of how we view medieval Europe. Many of these castles were private – the possession of feudal barons, rather than of a central state. From the conventional perspective, the prevalence of private castles prevented the monopolization of violence and is thus a sign of state weakness. Drawing on the insights of James C. (Scott, 1999), we challenge this state-centric perspective. We model the role of castles in the feudal world, in which political order was not maintained by a state but, rather, a coalition of king and barons who each had their own economic and military resources.
The most important resource of the baron was the castle, which rendered his holdings less legible to the king and harder to appropriate, thereby increased his bargaining power relative to the king. This, then, served as a primary check to the king’s abuses and rendered his promises more credible. Castles, then, did not weaken, but rather strengthened, the feudal king’s rule.
