Western Civilization I / Unit 14 WC1 1319 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Classifying a New Monarchy's Tool: Army, Tax, Official, Court, Church
The idea
The exam describes a royal policy and asks what kind of instrument it was. The method is one question: what did the king gain control of. A standing army: force independent of vassals. A territory-wide tax: revenue independent of estates. A salaried official: administration independent of nobles. A royal court: justice independent of lords. Church appointments: religion independent of Rome.
In practice
Five cases. Companies of paid soldiers kept in peacetime and loyal to the crown, funded by a salt tax: army and tax together, Charles VII's France. Judges from the king's council trying nobles who kept private armies: court, Henry VII's England. Townsmen trained in rhetoric filling the treasury and dismissed at will: officials, the new men everywhere. A king naming his own bishops over the pope's objection: Church, France. Castles razed and nobles made to do homage at court: force applied to the nobility, Ferdinand and Isabella's Spain.
Where people slip
The tools arrived together because each paid for the next: guns needed taxes, taxes needed officials, officials needed courts. And the Empire is the counter-case where none of them took hold, which is why the exam contrasts it with the three kingdoms.
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