Monarchy

Charlemagne, a feudal monarch, being received by the pope. Monarchical states have often employed religious rhetoric to justify their rule.

Monarchy is a hereditary form of government in which supreme state power is formally concentrated, either completely or partially, in the hands of an individual head of state, the monarch. The monarchical form of government, which existed in slave-holding and feudal societies, has been preserved in a number of capitalist states (e.g. the United Kingdom).

In slave-holding states the monarchy was usually an unlimited despotism with theocratic elements. Monarchy, however, is most typical of feudalism. The early feudal monarchy, which sometimes ruled over vast feudal empires, gave way to the monarchy of the period of feudal fragmentation which was characterized by weak central power. Later feudal forms include the limited estate monarchy and the unlimited, or absolute, monarchy. As a rule, bourgeois monarchical states have limited, constitutional monarchies that developed out of a compromise between the bourgeoisie and the nobility. In the contemporary bourgeois monarchy, the monarch’s power is limited by a constitution—that is, legislative functions are transferred to a parliament, and executive functions to the government.

See also

• Autocracy
• Feudalism
• Aristocracy