Transcript Chapter 16 The Transformation of Europe

Transformations of Europe, 15001750
Chapter 16
Early Modern Europe
• How did traditional Christian beliefs and revolutionary
ideas of the Enlightenment shape Europe?
• How did there come to people of great wealth and
great poverty during this period?
• How did differing policies in the areas of religion,
foreign relations, and economics determine the very
different experiences of early modern European
states?
• Most importantly, how did the competition between
states and ideas create a Europe able to take control of
the whole world by the end of this period?
Culture and Ideas
• The Reformation breaks the religious unity of
Europe and contributes to long and violent wars
• In 1500 the papacy finished a period where rival
popes vied for power and began a massively
expensive program of building churches to
showcase Renaissance art and highlight the
power of the church
• To pay for these items they aggressively raised
funds, including through the sale of indulgencesthe forgiveness of past sins
Martin Luther
• A young professor of sacred scripture (1483-1546)
• Believed salvation only came through faith, not actions,
he wrote the pope
• Who condemned him for his disagreement
• And Luther began the movement called the Protestant
Reformation
• He declared Christian belief should be based on the
word of God in the Bible, not the authority of the pope
• Luther used the printing press to get his ideas out and
he won over many fellow Germans who objected to an
Italian pope’s use of German funds to beautify Rome
More Protests
• John Calvin (1509-1564) also called for a return to
authentic Christian practices and beliefs
• He believed like Luther in faith over works, and he
believed in curtailing the power of the clerical
hierarchy and in simplifying church rituals
• Unlike Luther, he also believed in predestination
• Also he wished to see regional synods to decide
doctrinal issues
• Calvin himself lived simply
• The success of both reformers did depend on the local
political and economic conditions
The Counter-Reformation
• The Catholic Church held a 20 year conference in the city of
Trent to decide how to respond
• One reform were the Jesuits, known for being well
educated and establishing overseas missions
• Bitter wars of religion raged, including the 30 years war
1618-1648
• The Kings of France and Spain actively supported the
papacy
• England initially, until Henry VIII was unable to obtain an
annulment to marry a mistress
• Henry VIII confiscated church lands, monasteries and
convents, and gave lands to his supporters or sold them to
buy a navy
Local Religions, Traditional Culture and
Witch-Hunts
• Religion in the European countryside remained a
little unorthodox, with pre-Christian practices,
local folk customs, love magic and spells
• Which was of course blended with Christianity
• During the early modern period occasional
outbreaks of hysteria about the presence of
witches in communities broke out
• Thought to reflect rising anxieties in the
countryside about poverty, social tensions and
ambitious new religious and political institutions
The Scientific Revolution
• Aristotle wielded great influence on Science through Middle Ages and well
into the Renaissance, and a variety of his ideas were accepted by the
church as true
• But in the 16th century careful observations and mathematical calculations
began to challenge various Aristotelian views
• Condemned by Luther, the RC Church was slower to condemn Copernicus,
who had dedicted his book to the pope, and Galileo
• Pope Gregory XIII used the latest astronomical findings to issue a more
accurate calendar, still in use today
• But the church finally condemned Galileo and forbade him from
continuing to publish his findings, perhaps because of his sarcastic
treatment of his enemies
• Printed books spread these and other ideas across Europe
• Newton’s work beautifully set out the math of these discoveries, and in
Protestant England he was the most important man of his era
The Early Enlightenment
• The application of the scientific method to everything from
agricultural practices to laws, to religion and to social hierarchies
• Enlightenment thinkers often faced bitter opposition for their views
• Other influences besides the Scientific Revolution affected this
movement, including the horrific wars of religion and intolerance
that swept Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries
• Voltaire, “no opinion is worth burning your neighbor for”
• Europe in 1750, with the help of the printing press, was a place of
sharp political and religious divisions and controversy
• Up against ancient and powerful institutions
Social and Economic Life
• A small number of noble families with access to
high offices in the church, government and the
military, and were exempt from taxes
• A large class of prosperous commoners that
included many clergy, bureaucrats, professionals,
military officers, merchants, craftspeople, and
rural landowners
• And the vast majority of population—poor
laborers who struggled to avoid starvation
• Some social mobility, especially in the cities
The Bourgeoisie
• In 1500 the only northern European city with a
population over 100,000 was Paris
• By 1700 both Paris and London had populations
over 500,000 and 20 European cities had cities of
over 60,000
• Urban wealth came from manufacturing and
trade both within Europe and overseas
• The French called the urban class that dominated
these trades the bourgeoisie, who lived simply
but comfortably, some with servants
The Netherlands
• Provided a good example of the bourgeois enterprise
• Turned out a variety of goods in factories and workshops—finishing and
printing of textiles woven elsewhere, refining sugar, brewing beer from
grain imported from the Balkans, imitated Chinese ceramics, printed
books in many language (the Dutch did not censor books)
• In 1700 Amsterdam had a population of 200,000 and was Europe’s major
port
• Great ship designers and builders, they created a sturdy high capacity
cargo ship that required only a small crew
• Dutch mapmakers supported distant travel
• Amsterdam was known for its safe and stable banking system—so
Amsterdam always had capital available for various enterprises
• Religious freedom made it a haven for Jewish merchants, as well
• The Dutch government aided business by investing in infrastructure,
canals and draining lowlands for agriculture
Joint-Stock
• The Dutch government pioneered chartering joint-stock
companies
• They sold stock to individuals to raise the large sums
necessary to finance overseas ventures
• Share the wealth, share the risk
• Investors could buy and sell their shares at a specialized
financial market, called a stock exchange—the largest of
the 17th and 18th centuries was in Amsterdam
• Major insurance companies emerge at this time as well
• After 1650, the English took on Dutch domination of
overseas trade by doubling their fleet and taking on the
Dutch in a series of wars
The Very Successful Bourgeoisie
• Use their wealth to buy estates or buy their way
into a landed family
• They could retire from their business and become
members of the gentry
• They loaned money to the poor and to members
of the nobility who needed cash
• Important for the governments to support the
contracts written between the nobility and the
bourgeoisie for these interactions to take place
Peasants and Laborers
• Serfdom had declined after the Great Plague of the 1340’s
• But not so much in Eastern Europe, where large
landowners continued to use serf labor
• Brief expansion of African slave labor in Southern Europe
around 1500, that declined as the market for slaves
increased in the New World
• Generally, poor living conditions, frequent famines a
feature of rural poverty
• By 1700 though, the introduction of New World crops did
help—potatoes in the NW, corn meal in Italy
• Major wheat producing regions, but the peasants could not
afford to eat it
• Serious deforestation throughout Europe
Poverty and Violence
• Even in prosperous Holland half the
population lived in acute poverty
• And an extreme disparity existed between the
comfortable bourgeoisie and the nobility, and
starving poor
• Periodic violent rebellions over food shortabes
and tax increases
• Which were dealt with violently and severely
Women and the Family
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Tied closely to the status of the husband
In some places, though not all, women could inherit in the absence of male heir
A woman could be the head of a convent
Generally unmarried women were controlled by their fathers, married women by
their husbands, widows might have some control
In contrast to most parts of the world men and women often chose their own
spouses
Although royal and noble families negotiated their marriages based on needs for
alliances
Typically Europeans also married later than in other parts of the world, which
limited family size
1/10 of births in urban areas were to unmarried woman, and many were left at
churches, or at the homes of the nobility
Bourgeois parents insisted on municipal schools for their sons
And although barred from public schools it is thought that the women of Europe
had the highest literacy rates of the world
Political Innovations
• Great diversity in the arrangement of states in
Early modern Europe
• The relationships between the nobility and the
king (Holy Roman Empire vs. France, for example)
• In some places, the relationship between
commercial classes and the king (England, the
Netherlands)
• How limited the King was in the exercise of his
powers
• What kind of relationship existed between the
Church and States?
Example 1: The Holy Roman Empire
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Neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire (Voltaire)
A Federation (Confederation?) of city-states and principalities bound loosely
together
Present day Germany, mostly
Representatives of these city-states, called electors, elected their emperor
In 1519 they elected Charles V, a Hapsburg (an Austrian noble family with vast
holdings). Charles also had inherited Spain and all of its New World possessions
Charles hoped to use all of his power and wealth to stop Protestantism and an
Ottoman advance from the east
The Ottomans made it to Vienna in 1529, and continued to cause trouble
periodically until 1697
Catholic France worried about all that Hapsburg power and actually backed the
Turks against them
Charles split up his holdings and retired to a monastery, ending the idea of a
unified Central European state for 3 centuries
He also agreed to allow the princes of the various political units to decide on the
religion of their state
Example 2: England
• Over time the tradition of getting the consent of Parliament about raising
taxes had been established
• And the Magna Carta had placed limits on the kings power to imprison
and punish his nobles without a charge (a writ) and a trial
• Charles I attempted to push back against these limits, and was executed in
1648, after a military defeat and trial in Parliament—this was the English
Civil War
• For 10 years, a Puritan commoner, Oliver Cromwell ruled instead of a king,
after his death the Stuart line were restored
• Trouble emerged again when a Stuart had his son baptized a Catholic—
Parliament forced his exile and in 1689 created a Bill of Rights laying out
the limits on an English king—he had to call a meeting or Parliament
frequently, and consult them about changes in laws and raising an army in
peacetime
• It gave special status to the Church of England, but granted religious
tolerance to Puritans
Example 3: France
• They had a Parliament, too, called the Estates General
which was made up representatives of the Clergy, the
Nobility and the Bourgeoisie
• But the kings of France argued their power was given
by God and absolute
• They raised money by collecting taxes more efficiently,
and by selling offices to the wealthy for cash
• Louis XIV moved his court to Versailles in 1682, which
could house 10,000 people
• Conflict between nobles and plotting virtually ceased
as the diversions and rivalries at court took the place of
armed conflict
Warfare
• These various states were in almost constant
conflict during the Early Modern period
• Which meant they were constantly innovating to
create the most efficient war technologies
• Land wars slow and often ended in stalemates
• Naval battles created more decisive results, which
England usually won
• The “Balance of Power” emerged as the guiding
principle—coalitions and alliances switched
around to keep one nation from dominating the
continent
How to Pay for Constant War
• The commercial class was willing to pay taxes
to support overseas trade and if the crown
would support the enforcement of contracts
without corruption
• But not so many taxes that they were
impoverished
Example 4: Spain
• All that New World wealth frittered away on aggressive
warfare in Europe
• And their Medieval social ideas meant they looked down on
commercial development and the taxes they could have
provided
• High sales taxes encouraged smuggling and discouraged
local manufacturing
• 3% of the population controlled 97% of the land and they
were exempt from taxes
• Religiously intolerant of diversity, the Spanish Inquisition
continued for centuries and enforced not just religious
conformity, but restricted political reforms as well
Example 5: The Netherlands
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Very different policies from Spain
Charles V, the Hapsburg ruler of Spain and central Europe also inherited the
Netherlands
Who revolted in 1566 and again in 1572 to avoid Catholicism and repressive
business policies
The Dutch raised funds, built an army and navy and fought the Spanish effectively
Granted autonomy in 1609, and independence in 1648
Out of those wars the Dutch emerged as the leading commercial state in Europe,
while Spain was ruined
Because they pursued policies that advanced the commercial interests of
individuals
England will take careful note of the success of their rival, and set about favoring
their commercial interests and using the taxation to fund the navy that will lessen
the power of the Dutch, and prepare them to take on the French in the 18th
century
The Brits will also tax the estates of their landowners and create a central bank to
house the cash (loan it out) to be ready to finance wars
But in France
• They also take advance commercial interests
through promoting French manufacturing, taxing
foreign goods, improving transportation within
France
• But in France the power of the nobility kept the
French from taxing the vast wealth of their
nobility
• They were unable to manage their debts as
efficiently as the Brits, which will lead to their
military defeats in the 18th century, and its
catastrophic revolution at the end of that century
Commercial Interests