i'm not sure about the agc + eep merger & whether there shd be a new forum for that or if i shd post ideas/commentary re: the papal states in both fora, so, until enlightened, i am posting here.
some commentary/thoughts:
i like malodini’s events very much – especially the fantasy ones, but am uncomfortable w/ event-forced slider changes meant to model the inability of the papacy to rule as the secular states did.
this is b/c i strongly disagree w/ malodini re: the strength of the papacy. for one, if you look at a map of europe in 1492, you will see huge tracts of land that are ecclesiastical territories – governed directly by ecclesiastic authorities. one example is the the archdiocese of magdeburg, which in eu2 is either a part of brandenberg or a separate state altogether when, iiuc, it was really a part of the papacy in the sense that the pope was the final arbiter of whatever decisions were made there & that the civil authorities were ecclesiastical authorities. moreover, a considerable proportion of land in civil catholic christendom were owned by the church – the revenues from those lands went to the church, either to the papacy itself or by dispensation to the ecclesiastical body in question. there were various agreements which governed the taxability of those estates, but, on the whole they were not taxed by the civil authorities. (they aren’t even taxed today in the united states.)
also, every catholic state in europe had a church tax -- which amounted to 10% of nearly every kind of income on nearly everybody (that’s
TEN PERCENT of GDP) -- & several states were themselves subject to church taxes, like peter's pence in england. this was important: throughout the 15th century one central economic problem that the european states experienced was deflation. the major sources of deflation were the church taxes being a constant drain on specie & that the only commodities that the orient accepted in return for their goods were gold, silver & copper. that meant that each state had to mine & coin enough specie each year to make up for the outflow of specie as well as for the natural erosion of their metal currencies. the conquest of the new world got rid of the problem of deflation for europe, but did not change the fact that in terms of any given catholic state the trade balance was very adversely affected by the church.
until the reformation, every state in europe minus russia had canon courts existing in parallel w/ the civil courts. there were jurisdictional conflicts, but, one the whole, the church courts had jurisdiction over almost all commercial activity --
not the civil authorities. anti-monopoly or cornering the market legislation was originally in the purview of the church – and one wd be prosecuted for such behavior in the church courts. the church was also responsible for regulating banking – a corporation wd have to get a special dispensation from the church to offer consumer loans. one primary tool that the church used to prosecute offenders of their turpe lucrum provisions was to excommunicate the offender, whether that be a person or a corporate body (business, guild, municipality or state). this is more important than you might think at first -- excommunication meant the same thing as invalidating all the contracts that you might have entered into. (no christian was any longer legally obliged to keep their word to you – one swore to uphold any agreement in the eyes of god, after all.) it also meant that in a dispute you, as one who had been excommunicated, were not eligible to be a witness in a canonical court in a trial against you or anyone else. it was the same as stripping someone of their legal status … no small thing.
officials of the church were nowhere subject to the jurisdiction of the civil courts – even if they committed a crime like murder, they were subject to the jurisdiction of the canonical courts. although in regions governed by civil authorities the church counted on them to enforce their rulings, what i find interesting is that they
cd, in most instances, do so.
moreover, in all cases except for where inquisitional procedure was called for the standards of proof in canonical courts were much more “modern” than in the civil courts. therefore, disputants who cd afford it wd often try to get a canon court to consider an issue if their legal advisers thought it advantageous & civil courts if the reverse was true. the fees that the canon courts took in were also a considerable source of income for the church.
to say that the church was not a state b/c it had a hard time governing the marche, seems to me to miss the point. there was no state in the time-period covered by eu2 that was capable of governing any territory in a way that wd be recognizable to us today. all states faced the problem of an ungovernable aristocracy which is why versailles was such a brilliant idea – there is no reason the papal states shd suffer from this in eu2 more than any other state org. in fact, there are good reasons it ought to face them less, to whit:
the catholic church had a political structure very different from most of the states of europe in the sense that the position of the pope is an elective position, not hereditary. although many positions in the church’s hierarchy were nominally the prerogative of the pope, politicking was the typical way by which most appointments were made. no hereditary issue legitimized the assumption of any position among “the princes of the church” although it did in fact happen that some positions were passed down from father to son or by families, whereas it was the primary legitimization for most secular positions of power
sometimes even w/i state bureaucracies themselves. therefore, the prerogatives of the aristocracy were not as legitimate in the eyes of the church as they were in the eyes of the monarchs. the princes of the church were not subject to the jurisdiction of the monarchs, but, at least nominally, the monarchs were subject to rulings of the church (although the princes of the church were definitely subject to force majeur.)
however, the catholic church had far more concerns to deal w/ than the various territories which it governed, many more than any ordinary state of the time. it maintained an international legal body. it owned lands it did not govern and governed lands it did not own as well as govern lands it owned. it farmed out tax collections over the whole of europe. given the non-contiguity of the territories that were under its sway & the number of jurisdictional overlaps, the issue of defensibility & policing was much more complex for the papacy than for any traditional state, but i wdn’t say that it did a worse job of it or that there’s any meaningful distinction b/tw the papal states as a theological institution & as a secular institution.
finally, one small point re the text of malodini’s events -- the pope is
not infallible in the eyes of catholics. there is a procedure by which the pope can proclaim something infallible. however, iiuc, this procedure has never been used.
in terms of solutions for expressing the papacy’s immense political influence & wealth in the eu2 model, i’m not sure if there is a way to do it. in terms of mp under the current beta, one possible solution wd be to make rome a very rich gold province, have it start w/ considerable inflation & give it regular random events that give it ready cash. having played many hyper-inflated states in mp under the beta, i’ve come to see how money for an inflated state is often best spent on giving it to states w/o serious inflation. that money means much more buying power to the non-inflated state & a hyper-inflated state can often get its will done simply by spreading the cash around. since the new army & navy support rules make the maintenance of large armies extraordinarily expensive for small states, even a player who wishes to be a virtual warrior pope will find life difficult esp. given that he will be at a serious disadvantage in the tech race even given his latin status & all his extra rdy cash. perhaps, in order to ensure that this disadvantage remains, there shd also be regular events reducing his trade tech. in terms of an ai pope in sp or mp, however, this probably won’t work since the ai states vigorously cheat in terms of inflation – the best i can think of in terms of that problem is to make the events human-player only.
