Alexander William Salter is Georgie G. Snyder Associate Professor of Economics in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University.Andrew T. Young is Professor of Economics in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University.

“The Medieval Constitution of Liberty is a superb book. It begins with a short tour through the Maddison data. From 1 AD to 1600, income per capita was virtually flat. But starting in the late 18th century forward, the west grew by a factor between 30 and 45. Known variously as the ‘European Miracle,’ the Great Enrichment, or the hockey stick of economic growth, the ‘disparity between the West and the rest is the salient social fact of modernity.’ Salter and Young argue that the West’s political and economic liberty which began in the early Middle Ages, but especially the High Middle Ages, helps explain this fundamental fact of modernity. Liberty, in turn, requires a ‘polycentric’ approach to governance, that is, multiple sources of power, constitutions, and other political institutions. Medieval assemblies, for example, that in some Western European countries much later would become a source of representative institutions, often began as creatures of the monarch for purposes of addressing collective action problems, credible commitment problems, and coordination problems."

• List of IllustrationsList of TablesAcknowledgments1. IntroductionPart 1: The Historical Backdrop2. The Fall of Rome and the Rise of the Barbarian West3. The Carolingian Project4. The Peace of GodPart 2: The Medieval Constitution: Theory and History5. Political Property Rights and Constitutional Bargaining6. Sovereignty and Self-Enforcing Political Property Rights7. Polycentric Sovereignty8. Why Western Europe? Why Not Elsewhere?Part 3: The Medieval Institutions of Liberty9. Representative Assemblies10. The Self-Governing Medieval CityPart 4: The Rise of the Nation-State11. The Tragedy of the Medieval Anticommons?12. What State Capacity Cannot Do13. Postscript: The Road Away from Polycentric Sovereignty14. Appendix: Historiographical Notes

Alexander William Salter is Georgie G. Snyder Associate Professor of Economics in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University.Andrew T. Young is Professor of Economics in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University.

“The Medieval Constitution of Liberty is a superb book. It begins with a short tour through the Maddison data. From 1 AD to 1600, income per capita was virtually flat. But starting in the late 18th century forward, the west grew by a factor between 30 and 45. Known variously as the ‘European Miracle,’ the Great Enrichment, or the hockey stick of economic growth, the ‘disparity between the West and the rest is the salient social fact of modernity.’ Salter and Young argue that the West’s political and economic liberty which began in the early Middle Ages, but especially the High Middle Ages, helps explain this fundamental fact of modernity. Liberty, in turn, requires a ‘polycentric’ approach to governance, that is, multiple sources of power, constitutions, and other political institutions. Medieval assemblies, for example, that in some Western European countries much later would become a source of representative institutions, often began as creatures of the monarch for purposes of addressing collective action problems, credible commitment problems, and coordination problems."

• List of IllustrationsList of TablesAcknowledgments1. IntroductionPart 1: The Historical Backdrop2. The Fall of Rome and the Rise of the Barbarian West3. The Carolingian Project4. The Peace of GodPart 2: The Medieval Constitution: Theory and History5. Political Property Rights and Constitutional Bargaining6. Sovereignty and Self-Enforcing Political Property Rights7. Polycentric Sovereignty8. Why Western Europe? Why Not Elsewhere?Part 3: The Medieval Institutions of Liberty9. Representative Assemblies10. The Self-Governing Medieval CityPart 4: The Rise of the Nation-State11. The Tragedy of the Medieval Anticommons?12. What State Capacity Cannot Do13. Postscript: The Road Away from Polycentric Sovereignty14. Appendix: Historiographical Notes