ABSTRACT
Historians pay increasing attention to the spatial dimensions of political life. Much recent research has focused on specific sites (e.g. princely courts and town halls) or ways in which rituals like coronations and processions turned churches and city streets into distinct political spaces. In the course of state formation, territorial capitals and royal palaces absorbed growing shares of political exchange, involving both face-to-face encounters and, in ever-greater measure, written correspondence with an army of officials. The prestige and attraction of such ‘centres’ was further enhanced through their expanding cultural, educational and scientific infrastructure. Even in the age of ‘absolutism’, however, localities retained their own political sites and significance. Growing state interference in many walks of life required enforcement in parishes, towns and villages, where traditional forms of self-government were often adapted or instrumentalized rather than suppressed. Centre and periphery, furthermore, interacted through patRonage relations, regional parliaments, provincial bodies and various other means of contact, turning early modern politics into an ongoing process of dialogue and negotiation. The following two chapters examine the locales and channels of political exchange from princely courts down to village assemblies.
