The Feudal Revolution and Europe’s Rise: Political Divergence of the Christian and Muslim Worlds before 1500 CE

This paper documents a divergence in the duration of rule for monarchs in Western Europe and the Islamic world beginning in the medieval period. While leadership tenures in the two regions were similar in 700 CE, Christian kings became increasingly long-lived compared to Muslim sultans. To better understand the roots of this divergence, we investigate the empirical relevance of an historical literature stressing Carolingian feudalism as critical for the emergence of European institutional exceptionalism. We argue that forms of executive constraint that emerged under feudal institutions were associated with increased political stability and find empirical support for this argument. While feudal institutions served as the basis for military recruitment by European monarchs, Muslim sultans relied on mamlukism – or the use of military slaves imported from non-Muslim lands. Dependence on mamluk armies limited the bargaining strength of local notables vis-à-vis the sultan, hindering the development of a productively adversarial relationship between ruler and local elites. We argue that Muslim societies’reliance on mamluks, rather than local elites, as the basis for military leadership, may explain why the Glorious Revolution occurred in England, not Egypt. ∗Department of Political Science, Stanford University †Department of Economics, Harvard University. We thank David Abernathy, Phillipe Aghion, Thomas Bisson, Carles Boix, Gary Cox, Scott Gehlbach, Avner Greif, Justin Grimmer, Allen Hicken, David Laitin, Jonathan Leibowitz, Anne McCants, Larry Neal, Nathan Nunn, Jim Robinson, Norman Schofield, Andrei Shleifer, David Stasavage, Peter Temin, Mike Tomz, Barry Weingast, Ali Yaycioglu and seminar participants at Harvard University, Iowa State University, University of Michigan, Ohio State University, Sabanci University, Stanford University and Washington University in St. Louis for helpful conversations and comments. Any remaining errors are our own.