Territorial state

The term territorial state is used to refer to a state, typical of the High Middle Ages, since around 1000 AD, and "other large-scale complex organizations that attained size, stability, capacity, efficiency, and territorial reach not seen since antiquity."^[1] The term territorial state is also understood as “coercion-wielding organizations that are distinct from households and kinship groups and exercise clear priority in some respects over all other organizations within substantial territories.”^[2] Organizations such as city-states, empires, and theocracies along with many a number of other governmental organizations are considered territorial states, yet does not include tribes, lineages, firms, or churches alike.^[3]

Unlike the old lordships organised as a personal union, the sovereignty of a territorial state was based on its land or territory and not on membership of a dynastic family or other personally-related rights. Juridical sovereignty is not necessarily required as the main characteristic of statehood. The modern understanding of sovereignty, which was introduced in the 16th century, did not exist until the 19th century and so did not yet apply.^[4] Rather, a territorial state reflects the exclusive use of physical force within some type of geographic territory.^[5]

The territorial state shares many characteristics with the institutional, geographically defined state typical of the modern era.