Once the object of consensus, every aspect of the traditional account of early modern Europe as an anarchic system of sovereign states is now debated—from the existence of sovereign states to the notion of anarchy, and even the European limits of that system. In the context of these disagreements, I develop a new account of international order in early modern Europe grounded in the perceptions of historical actors. I first argue that this can be achieved by studying the tools that practitioners relied on to describe and organize political authority in the world. I subsequently delve into a common, though seldom-studied, tool developed by a group of practitioners known as masters of ceremonies: courtly ceremonial (or ius praecedentiae). I make three substantive claims. First, the political authorities identified in manuals on courtly ceremonial were primarily crowns and republics, but in the later eighteenth century, all eventually came to be described as “states.” Second, all political authorities stood in a hierarchy determined by a specific set of criteria I identify, but new criteria—power and sovereignty—emerged over the course of the eighteenth century. Third, the scope of international order was not self-evident, and it certainly did not have clear “European” limits in the eyes of masters of ceremonies; non-European political authorities could easily be integrated into their orders of precedence. Ultimately, I suggest that IR scholars should reconsider why they study early modern Europe and how they study international orders.

早期现代欧洲作为主权国家无政府体系的传统描述曾经是共识的对象，现在，从主权国家的存在到无政府状态的概念，甚至该体系在欧洲的局限性，各个方面都受到了争论。在这些分歧的背景下，我根据历史参与者的看法，对近代早期欧洲的国际秩序提出了新的解释。我首先认为，这可以通过研究实践者用来描述和组织世界政治权威的工具来实现。随后，我深入研究了由一群被称为仪式大师的从业者开发的常见但很少研究的工具：宫廷仪式（或ius praecedentiae）。我提出三项实质性主张。首先，宫廷礼仪手册中所确定的政治权威主要是王室和共和国，但在十八世纪后期，所有这些最终都被描述为“国家”。其次，所有政治权威都处于由我确定的一套特定标准决定的等级制度中，但新的标准——权力和主权——在十八世纪的过程中出现了。第三，国际秩序的范围并不是不言而喻的，在主持人眼中当然没有明确的“欧洲”界限；非欧洲政治当局可以很容易地纳入其优先顺序。最终，我建议国际关系学者应该重新考虑为什么他们研究早期现代欧洲以及如何研究国际秩序。