When you mention "a medieval state" these days, it kindles some interest only in very few people. It is considered a self-evident fact a state was a completely normal part of our human history since time immemorial. The main reason why the term state is now commonly used also for the Early Middle Ages is the idea that today's modern states simply evolved from the ancient times. Historians, too, refer to a medieval political formation as State. They rarely, however, ask what is actually State when writing about political formations from the past.
