Meaning of composite monarchy | Babel Free

Definitions

A type of monarchy, common in Europe during the early modern period, in which a single ruler governed several territories as if they were separate kingdoms, each with its own local traditions and legal structures.

historical

Examples

“1995 [Routledge], Conrad Russell, Chapter 8: Composite monarchies in early modern Europe, Alexander Grant, Keith Stringer, Uniting the Kingdom?, 2003, Taylor & Francis e-library, page 133, All multiple kingdoms are composite monarchies, but not all composite monarchies are multiple kingdoms.”

“These historians have rediscovered what J. R. Seeley realised a century ago: that England, just like France, was a composite monarchy, just as Britain, just like the Spanish Monarchy, was a multiple kingdom.⁷⁰ In the former, a diversity of territories, peoples, institutions and legal jurisdictions is cemented under a single, recognised sovereign authority; in the latter, various kingdoms were ruled by a single sovereign, while they maintained varying degrees of autonomy.”

“Composite monarchy offered Machiavelli a vision of polity that did not enslave its territory, as Florence, operating the dictates of empire, invariably did. Contra empire, early modern monarchy offers a vision of cities and territories coexisting on equal footing. is there a way to combine composite monarchy and republic to build a new kind of state?”

CEFR level