Chapter 13

Chapter 13

• New forces challenged the working of seventeenth-century Western society, where social, political, and family life was organized in a hierarchy of ranks.

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Stresses in Traditional Society

• Mounting Demands on Rural Life– The Family

• Functioned as both a social an economic unit

• Married for practical as well as sentimental reasons

• Marriages lasted until death

• Parents often sent children away to work as apprentices, domestics, or laborers.

– Population Changes• Population decreases occurred during the first half of the

seventeenth century.

• Poverty, famine, and disease grew through these decades

• The severe winters of the “little ice age” froze rivers and fields, and wet summers destroyed crops.

• The staple dish consisted of mice in 1651.


– Tax Revolts• Peasants avoided tax collectors and hid what assets they

could, and attacked the hated tax collectors.• In the 1630’s, French peasants rose against tax increases, &

in 1647, women demanding more bread led riots.

• Pressures on the Upper Orders– Competing Centers of Power

• Nobles often challenged royal policies and decried royal “tyranny” as a violation of divine law.

• Women became entwined in struggles between monarchs and aristocrats, and many women became important friends and unofficial advisors to the leaders.


– Royal Absolution• -System of elevated royal authority• Kings of the day commanded more loyalty, control,

and resources that their predecessors had, and they justified their right to rule as absolute.

Chapter 13

• As king of the most powerful nation in Europe, Louis XIV of France increased the authority of the monarchy; his reign exemplified the development of royal absolutism.

Royal Absolutism in France

• Henry IV Secures the Monarchy• Richelieu Elevates Royal Authority• Mazarin Overcomes the Opposition

– The Fronde• Mazarin, Anne, and Louis XIV faced uncoordinated revolts

that forced them to flee to Paris.• The Fronde – the name of a child’s slingshot game• Revolts stemmed primarily from French subjects’ objections

to high taxes and increasing royal power.


• The Sun King Rises– Versailles

• Louis XIV initiated massive public works projects that glorified him, his government, and his reign.

• His greatest architectural project was a new palace.

– Versailles’ Critics• The monument to royal absolutism had its critics• Countess de Lafayette & Pierre Jurieu


– “Classical” Literature• Louis XIV attracted to Versailles leading French artists and

literary figures, and it became the “classical” period in French culture

• Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Jean-Baptiste Moliere, Madeleine de Scudery, Madame de Sevigne, and The Duke of Saint-Simon.

– Visual Arts• The visual arts of the period glorified monarchs, and kings

and aristocrats still favored the baroque style.• Claude Lorraine and Nicolas Poussin


– Colbert• Louis assigned Jean-Baptiste Colbert to manage his

finances.• He founded the Royal Academy of Sciences, promoted

mercantilistic economic policies, built a large navy, and subjected manufacturing to the most minute regulation and supervision.

• His family shared in his success, becoming ministers, gaining high offices in the church, marrying well, and securing top positions in the military.

– Revocation of the Edict of Nantes• The king’s demands for religious conformity and his military

ambitions were the most destructive of his policies.


– Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (cont.)• In 1685, Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes, which in 1598

had granted tolerance to the Protestant minority.• He outlawed Protestantism and ordered Protestant churches

demolished.• Huguenots emigrated, taking their wealth and skills with them

to Protestant-friendly areas in Europe and America.

– Wars of Aggression• During the last four decades of his 72-year reign, Louis

fought four wars of aggression.• He wanted more territory, more glory, and more wealth, and

he went for the Spanish and Austrian Habsburg lands and on the Dutch.


– Wars of Aggression (cont.)• Louis XIV was forced to accept the Peace of Utricht.• In the end, he possessed little more than what he had started

with some 50 years earlier.

– Assessing Louis XIV• For many monarchs, France under Louis XIV became the

model of absolutism.• His expenditures and wars created misery for commoners.

Chapter 13

• In the states east of the Elbe, central government was weaker, peasants lost more of their freedom, and the urban middle class declined, although the tendency toward absolutism intensified during the seventeenth century.

The Struggle for Sovereignty in Eastern Europe

• Centralizing the State in Brandenburg-Prussia

• Austria Confronts the Ottomans and Expands Its Control


• Russia and Its Tsars Gain Prominence– The Romanovs

• A period known as the “Time of Troubles” followed Ivan IV’s death.

• To end the political chaos, a group of leading nobles in 1613 chose the 17-year-old Michael Romanov to rule as tsar.

– Russian Expansion• Lured by wealth from access to Siberian furs, Russians went

eastward into Asia, establishing fortified settlements.• Russia’s commercial and cultural contacts with the West

expanded


– Peter the Great• Standing nearly seven feet tall he was always an imposing

figure• At the age of 17, he took the rule of government from his

elder sister.• He traveled to western Europe and learned as much as he

could about Western politics, customs, and technology.• In 1698 he crushed a revolt of his bodyguards and silenced

critics with a ruthlessness that cowed all potential troublemakers.

– Russia’s Military Establishment• Peter devoted attention to his military establishment.• He built a navy and modernized the army, and recruits were

drafted for life and branded with a cross on their left hand.


– Conflict with Sweden• Peter tried to seize lands bordering the Black Sea that the

Ottoman Turks held.• Peter’s armies could not dislodge the Turks, so Peter turned

toward Sweden, the Baltic Sea.• Sweden held large areas east and it ranked second only to

Russia in size.• Peter initially lost battle after battle to Charles XII, and in the

Battle of Poltava (1709), the Russians destroyed the Swedish army and managed to wound Charles.

• The Treaty of Nystad in 1721 let Russia receive the Swedish Baltic provinces and some Polish territories.

• Peter built a modern capital, St. Petersburg, that faced the west.

Chapter 13

• The Victory of the Nobility in Poland

• Because of a history of cooperation in parliament by nobles and land-owning commoners, the struggle for sovereignty in England produced a government with ultimate authority resting in the constitution, not the king.

The Triumph of Constitutionalism

• The Nobility Loses Respect– New Wealth

• Merchants and other enterprising individuals• Education became the key to upward mobility• Knowledge and service, rather than birth, seemed the

measure of a man.

– Sumptuary Laws• Europe had traditions in keeping the social classes separate,

and regulate what kinds of clothing were appropriate for each social class.

• Game laws giving the nobility the exclusive right to hunt on their own lands even allowed them to set lethal traps for poachers


• Protestantism Revitalized

• James I Invokes the Divine Right of Kings– Religious Problems

• King James I was unable to mollify the varying religious beliefs of his people.

– Divine Right• James had written two treatises in which he asserted the

divine right of kings.• “Kings have power of…life and death; they are judges over

all their subjects and in all causes, and yet accountable to none but God.”


– Colonies• During James’s rule, the English colonies in North America

grew• James hoped to generate new income from the Virginia

colonies

• Charles I Alienates Parliament– Concessions to Catholics

• James’s son, Charles I married a sister of the Catholic king Louis XIII of France

• Charles granted concessions to English Catholics, and English Protestants were horrified.


– Parliament Gains Power • To raise the army and funds he needed to fight the Scots,

Charles called Parliament.• Parliament forced him to agree that he could not disband

them without their consent. C. 1645 GEORGES DE LA TOUR THE NEW BORN CHILD

• “God Made Men and the Devil Made Kings”: Civil War 1642-1649– Charles Captured

• Charles surrendered to the Scots and was moved from prison to prison


– Women in War• Women from all social groups participated in the English civil

war.• Noble women defended their fortified castles and working

women disguised as men passed themselves off as Roundhead soldiers.

• Women were well suited as spies, because people didn’t expect it.

– Levellers• Groups of radical Protestants, known as Levellers, insisted

that social justice become part of Parliament’s agenda.


• The King Laid Low• Charles was accused of claiming to rule by divine right.

– Charles Executed• January 30, 1649, the condemned king was led to a scaffold,

and publicly executed.


• A Puritan Republic is Born: The Commonwealth, 1649-1660– Domestic Distress

• Disorder had torn at England since the civil war began

– Lord Protector• Cromwell disbanded Parliament named himself “Lord Protector” of the Commonwealth of England,Scotland, and Ireland, and Established a military dictatorship.

C. 1656 DIEGO VELASQUEZ LAS MENINAS


• Who Has the Power to Rule?– Thomas Hobbes

• The English philosopher Thomas Hobbs wrote a political treatise, The Levitation.

• He harbored a pessimistic view of human nature.• Everyone was driven by a quest for power and would try to

exercise their power at the expense of their neighbors.

• The Monarchy Restored, 1660-1688– John Bunyan

• Was imprisoned in 1660 for preaching against the Restoration

• He wrote Pilgrim’s Progress in 1678.


– Fiscal Problems• Members of Parliament had severely curtailed royal power

over taxation.• Charles II tried to exert more control over the colonies in

North America.

– Plague and Fire• In 1665, England experienced a plague, and 70,000 people

died in London alone.• The following year, fire broke out in London, destroying

13,000 dwellings and 87 churches.


• The Glorious Revolution– William and Mary

• William’s politics and his religion suited the English protestants.

• James decided to flee France

– England’s Bill of Rights• Parliament decided that James’s flight from

England constituted an abduction of the throne.• Parliament passed a Bill of Rights firmly stating

that kings were subject to the laws of the land.


• Royalism Reconsidered: John Locke– Hanover Dynasty

• Parliament then passed the crown to George I who ruled the German principality of Hanover.

• The Netherlands: The Sovereignty of Local Authority– The United Provinces

• The Spanish Netherlands formed a buffer between the United Provinces and the divine right monarchy of France.


– Dutch Prosperity• The seventeenth century has been called the “golden age” of

the United Provinces.• Amsterdam became the commercial and financial center of

Europe.• The Dutch grew rich from their activities as major slave

traders in the New World.

– Religious Toleration• The Dutch exhibited an unusual degree of religious toleration

for their time.• They allowed Catholics and Jews to practice their religions.

Chapter 13

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