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Western Civilizations, 3rd Brief Edition: A W. W. Norton StudySpace
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In This Chapter
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Chapter 15
Absolutism And Empire, 1660-1789
Chapter Study Outline
Introduction
Absolutism defined
A political theory that encouraged rulers to claim complete sovereignty within their territories
Sometimes defined by "divine right"
Age of absolutism as an age of empire
Colonial rivalries
The rise of limited monarchies and republics
Russian autocracy
The Appeal and Justification of Absolutism
Absolutism promised stability, prosperity, and order
Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715)
Squabbles among the nobility meant he had to rule assertively
Absolutist control
Command of the state's army
Control over the legal system
Right to collect and spend the state's financial resources
The need to create an efficient centralized bureaucracy
Weakening privileged "special interests"
Obstacles
Legally privileged estates of the nobility and clergy
The political authority of semiautonomous regions
Interference of parliaments, diets, and estates general
Religion
France, Spain, and Austria: attempts to "nationalize" the Church and clergy
Consolidating authority over the Church into the hands of the monarchy
The nobility
Important opponents of royal absolutism
Louis XIV: deprived the nobility of power but increased their social prestige (Versailles)
Peter the Great (r. 1689-1725): forced his nobles into lifelong government service . Catherine II (r. 1762-1796): nobility surrendered administrative and political power into the empress's hands
Prussia: the army was staffed by nobles
Joseph II (r. 1765-1790): denied the nobility tax exemption and blurred the distinction between noble and commoner
The Absolutism of Louis XIV
The façade that was Louis
Performing royalty at Versailles
A stage on which Louis mesmerized the nobility into obedience
Daily rituals and demonstrations of royalty
Royal "choreography"
Nobles were required to live at Versailles for part of the year
Raised their prestige
Louis could keep an eye on them
Louis was hard-working and conscientious
Took personal responsibility for the well-being of all his subjects
Administration and centralization
For Louis, royal power meant domestic tranquility
Conciliated the upper bourgeoisie by making them royal administrators
Intendants: administered the thirty-six generalités into which France was divided
Unconnected with local elites
Held office at the king's pleasure (his men)
Taxation
Collection of taxes necessary to maintain a large standing army (very expensive)
The taille (land tax), capitation (head tax), and the gabelle (salt tax)
Other indirect taxes on wine, tobacco, and other goods
Regional opposition
Reduced but not curtailed
Members of any parlement (law court) who did not enforce his laws were exiled
Never called the Estates-General (last convoked in 1614)
Louis XIV's religious policies
Louis was determined to impose religious unity on France (God would favor him)
Outside Roman Catholicism
QuietistsCatholics who preached personal mysticism
Dispensed with the Church as intermediary
Suspect in the eyes of Louis
Jansenistsheld to the Augustinian notion of predestination
Persecuted by Louis
Jesuitsearned the support of Louis
HuguenotsFrench Calvinists
Hated by Louis
Protestant churches were destroyed
Protestants banned from many professions (medicine and printing)
1685: Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes
Protestant clerics were exiled
Laymen were sent to the galleys as slaves
Children were forcibly baptized as Catholics
Two hundred thousand Protestants fled to England, Holland, Germany, and America
Jean Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683) and royal finance
Colbert as finance minister, 1664-1683
Tightened the process of tax collection
Eliminated tax farming
166425 percent of taxes collected ended up in the treasury; by 1683, 80 percent
Sold public offices
Allowed guilds to purchase the right to enforce trade regulations
Controlled and regulated foreign trade
Imposed tariffs on foreign goods imported to France
Used state money to promote domestic manufactures
Improved France's roads, bridges, and waterways
His policies foundered because of Louis XIV's wars
Alternatives to Absolutism
Limited monarchy: the case of England
Parliament as longest surviving representative institution
The reign of Charles II (r. 1660-1685)
General observations
Initially welcomed by most English men and women
Declared limited toleration for Protestant dissenters
Promised to observe Magna Carta and the Petition of Right
Admired all things French
1670s: open admiration of the kingship of Louis XIV
New party labels
ToriesCharles's supporters
WhigsCharles's opponents
Both parties feared a return to the Civil War of 1640 as well as royal absolutism
Religion
Charles was sympathetic to Roman Catholicism
Suspended civil penalties against Catholics and Dissenters
Ignored Parliament
Led to a series of Whig electoral victories (1679-1681)
The Exclusion Crisis: Whigs attempted to keep Charles's brother, James, from obtaining the throne
Charles governed without relying on Parliament for money
Executed several Whigs
King James II (r. 1685-1688)
A zealous Catholic convert
Alienated his Tory supporters
June 1688: ordered the clergy to read his decree of religious toleration
The trial of the bishops
Crisis of succession and the birth of the "warming-pan baby"
Whigs and Tories invited Mary Stuart and her husband, William of Orange, to invade England and preserve Protestantism
The Glorious Revolution of 1688
A bloodless coup
James fled the country, William and Mary claimed the throne
The Bill of Rights (1689)
Passed by Parliament
Reaffirmed trial by jury, habeas corpus, and the right to petition Parliament
Act of Toleration (1689)
Granted dissenters the right to worship freely, but they could not hold political office
The Act of Succession (1701)
Ordained that every future English monarch must be a member of the Church of England
Act of Union (1707) between England and Scotland
Why "glorious"?
No bloodshed
Established England as a mixed monarchy governed by "the King in Parliament"
Protestants saw 1688 as another sign of God's special favor to England
The reality
1688 consolidated the position of large property-holders
A restoration of the status quo on behalf of wealth
John Locke (1632-1704) and the contract theory of government
Two Treatises of Government (1690)
The state of nature
Absolute freedom and equality
No government
The only law is the law of nature
The individual enforces his own natural right to life, liberty, and property
Civil society
The inconveniences of nature outweigh its advantages
Humans establish a civil society based on absolute equality
Humans also establish a government to arbitrate all disputes
All powers not surrendered to the government are reserved for the people themselves
Governmental authority is contractual and conditional
Absolutism
Condemned by Locke
Government is instituted to protect life, liberty, and property
Influence
American and French Revolutions
Supporters of William and Mary saw Locke as defender of their "conservative" revolution
War and the Balance of Power, 1661-1715
The wars of Louis XIV to 1697
For Louis, glory at home was to be achieved by military victories abroad
Objectives
Lessen any threat to France by the Habsburg powers (Spain, Spanish Netherlands, and the Holy Roman Empire)
Promote the dynastic interests of his own family
1667-1668: attacked the Spanish Netherlands
1672: attacked Holland and William of Orange
Treaty of Nijmegen (1678-1679)
Captured Strasbourg (1681), Luxembourg (1684), and Cologne (1688)
Pushed across the Rhine and burned the middle Rhineland
William of Orange organized the League of Augsburg
Holland, England, Spain, Sweden, Bavaria, Saxony, the Rhine Palatinate, and Austrian Habsburgs
The Nine Years'War (1689-1697)
Fought mostly in the Low Countries
1697: Peace of Ryswick
Louis returned most territory except Strasbourg and parts of Alsace
Treaty recognized William of Orange as king of England
The War of the Spanish Succession
Preserving a "balance of power"
Designed to prevent any one country from assuming too much power
An operative principle of foreign policy until 1914
England, United Provinces, Prussia, and Austria as the main proponents
Louis sought a French claim to the throne of Spain
Controlling the Spanish empire in the New World, Italy, the Netherlands, and the Philippines
Who would succeed to the Spanish throne?
Louis married eldest daughter of Philip IV of Spain
Philip's youngest daughter married Leopold I of Austria
Charles II left his possessions to Louis XIV's grandson, Philip of Anjou (the will was secret)
Philip was to renounce his claim to the French throne
Keeping the Spanish empire intact
Charles II dies, Philip V (r. 1700-1746) proclaimed the king of Spain
Louis XIV rushed his troops into the Spanish Netherlands
War
England, the United Provinces, Austria, and Prussia against France, Bavaria, and Spain
French defeat at Blenheim (1704)
English navy captured Gibraltar and Minorca
1709: France on the verge of defeat
The Treaty of Utrecht
Terms were reasonably fair to all sides
Philip V remained on the throne of Spain and retained his colonial empire
Louis agreed that France and Spain would never unite under the same ruler
Austria gained territories in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy
The Dutch were guaranteed protection of their borders from French invasion
Great Britain as greatest winner
Kept Gibraltar and Minorca
Obtained large chunks of French territory in the New World
Extracted from Spain the right to transport and sell African slaves in Spanish America
Reshaping the balance of power
By 1713, Spain's collapse was complete
Gradual decline of Dutch power
Balance gradually shifted to Britain's favor
The British navy would rule the imperial and commercial world of the eighteenth century
The Remaking of Central and Eastern Europe
The Habsburg empire
1683: Ottoman Turks assaulted Vienna, then their power in southeastern Europe declined
Austria reconquered most of Hungary from the Ottomans (1699)
Controlled all of Hungary, Transylvania, and Serbia (1718)
Acquired Silesia from Poland (1722)
Hungary as buffer state
Vienna emerged as cultural capital of Europe
Austrian Habsburgs retained title as Holy Roman emperors
Real power lay in Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, and Hungary
Geographically contiguous but divided by ethnicity, religion, and language
Bohemia and Moravia
Habsburgs forced peasants to provide labor service for their lords
Reduced political independence of traditional legislative estates
Administered Hungary through the army and imposed Catholic religious uniformity
Maria Theresa (r. 1740-1780) and Joseph II (r. 1765-1790)
Pioneered "enlightened absolutism"
Centralized administration in Vienna
Increased taxation to create a large standing army
Tightened control over the Church
Statewide system of education, relaxed censorship, abolished serfdom, liberal criminal code
The rise of Brandenburg-Prussia
Prussia a composite state
Two main holdings: Brandenburg and duchy of East Prussia
Dominant military power in central Europe
Foundations
Frederick William, the "Great Elector" (r. 1640-1688)
Diplomatic triumphs
Built a huge standing army
Granted Junkers (powerful nobles) the right to enserf peasants
Junkers staffed the army, immune from taxation
Junkers surrendered management of the state to a centralized bureaucracy
Frederick I (r. 1688-1713)
Developed the cultural life of Berlin
Frederick William I (r. 1713-1740)
Returned to policies of the "Great Elector"
Built a first-rate army ("the sergeant king")
The Potsdam Giants
Increased taxes and shunned expensive luxuries of the court
Frederick the Great (r. 1740-1786)
Prussia as a major power
Mobilized the army and occupied Silesia
Gained the support of the Junkers for his policies
An enlightened absolutist
Social reforms
Prohibited torture and bribing of judges
System of elementary education
Encouraged toleration of Christians
Fostered scientific forestry and cultivation of new crops
Autocracy in Russia
Peter the Great (1672-1725)
Mercurial personality
Policies were decisive in making Russia a great European power
The early years of Peter's reign
The Romanov dynasty
The time of troubles
Stenka Razin rebellion (1667-1671)
Supported by oppressed serfs and non-Russian tribes in the lower Volga
Tsar Alexis I (r. 1654-1676)
Peter comes to the throne as a young boy
Political dissension and court intrigue
Overthrew regency of Sophia (1689)
Traveled to Holland and England to study shipbuilding and recruit skilled workers
The streltsy rebellion
Peter crushed the rebellion with savagery
The transformation of the tsarist state
Western influences
Peter published a book of manners
Encouraged polite conversation between the sexes
Russian nobility sent their children to European schools
Peter's goal
Make Russia a real military power
New taxation system (1724)
Table of Ranks (1722)
Insisted that all nobles work themselves up from lower landlord class to highest military class
Reversed the traditional hierarchy of Russian nobility
Peter as absolute master of his empire
Russian peasants legally the property of their masters (1649)
By 1750, half were serfs; the other half lived on lands owned by Peter
State peasants could be conscripted, work in factories, or be forced to work on public projects
The Duma was replaced by nine administrators
Religion
Peter took direct control over the Russian Orthodox Church
Noble status depended on service to the government
Peter's foreign policy
Goal was to secure warm-water ports on the Black and Baltic seas
Began a war with Sweden (1700-1721)
Secured the Gulf of Finland
Began building Saint Petersburg
Peace of Nystad (1721)
Realignment of power in eastern Europe
Gulf of Finland, Livonia, and Estonia passed to Russia
The cost of war
Direct taxation increased 500 percent
Aroused resentment among the Russian nobility
Peter dies (1725) with no heir to the throne
Catherine the Great (r. 1762-1796) and the partition of Poland
Came to the throne after Tsar Peter III was deposed and executed in a palace coup
The image of the enlightened Catherine
Determined not to lose the support of the nobility
Summoned a commission to codify Russian law (1767)
The Pugachev Rebellion (1773-1775)
Forced Catherine to centralize her government
Tightened aristocratic control over the peasantry
War and diplomacy
War with the Ottoman Turks
Russia won the northern Black Sea and secured the independence of Crimea
Russian gains alarmed Austria
The Partition of Poland (1772)
The Partition of Poland (1795)
Commerce and Consumption
Economic growth in eighteenth-century Europe
Balance of power was shifting to the West (Britain and France)
New intensive agriculture in Britain and Holland
Produced more food per acre
New crops (maize and potatoes)
Urbanization
By 1800, two hundred cities with a population over ten thousand
Most of these cities were concentrated in northern and western Europe
Extraordinary growth of the very largest cities
Developments in trade and industry
Entrepreneurs and the "putting-out" system (protoindustrialization)
Employment during slack agricultural season
Avoided expensive guild restrictions
Reduced levels of capital investment
Cities as manufacturing centers
The growth of workshops
New inventions and the role of technological innovation
Machines and labor-saving devices
Obstacles to innovation
Machines put people out of work
Governments blocked widespread use of machines
Mercantilist protection of commercial and financial backers
Europe's insatiable appetite for goods
A world of goods
A mass market for consumer goods (especially northwestern Europe)
Houses of ordinary people filled with luxuries (sugar, teas, books, toys, china, razors)
Demand outstripped supply
Encouraged the provision of services
Golden age of the small shopkeeper
Colonization and Trade in the Seventeenth Century
The age of empires
Spanish colonialism
Established colonial governments in Peru and Mexico
Government allowed only Spanish merchants to trade with American colonies
All colonial exports had to pass through Seville (later Cadiz)
Dominated by mining (silver)
Promoted farming in Central and South America
Spanish success prompted other countries to grab a share of the treasure
French Colonialism
Colbert regarded overseas expansion as part of state economic policy
Encouraged sugar trade in the West Indies
French fur traders occupied the interior of North America
Preached Christianity to Native Americans
English colonialism
American colonies offered no significant mineral wealth
Profits obtained through agricultural settlements
Jamestown, Virginia (1607)
Plymouth, Massachusetts (1620)
Escaping religious persecution
No attempts made to Christianize Native Americans
English settlements were privately organized
Navigation acts (1651 and 1660)
All exports from English colonies to England must be carried by English ships
Sugar and tobacco
Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618)
Dutch colonialism
By the 1670s, the Dutch maintained the most prosperous commercial empire
Followed the "fort and factory" model of the Portuguese
Dutch East India Company (founded 1602)
Controlled spice trade in Sumatra, Borneo, and the Moluccas
Secured an exclusive right to trade with Japan
Maintained military and trading outposts in China and India
The Dutch as the primary financiers of seventeenth-century Europe
The joint-stock company
Raised cash by selling shares in their enterprise to investors
Colonial rivalries
Spain and Portugal declined in importance
Eighteenth-century British merchants dominated world trade routes
Colonialism and Empire
The triangular trade in sugar and slaves
Sugar and slaves dominated eighteenth-century colonial trade
British naval superiority
British ship sails from New England to Africa to exchange rum for slaves
African slaves sent to sugar colonies and are traded for molasses
Molasses brought to New England where it was made into rum
Seventy-five to ninety thousand African slaves brought to the New World yearly
Eighteenth-century slave trade was open to private entrepreneurs
The middle passage
The commercial rivalry between Britain and France
Value of colonial commerce increased in the eighteenth century
Tied together the interests of governments and merchants
British dominance in commerce and finance
War and empire in the eighteenth-century world
War of the Austrian Succession spread beyond the frontiers of Europe
Continued colonial conflicts
The Seven Years'War (1756-1763)
Ended in stalemate
Indian mercenaries employed by the East India Company eliminated French competitors
The British captured Louisbourg and Quebec
The Treaty of Paris (1763)
France surrendered Canada and India to the British
The American Revolution
To pay for the cost of war, Britain increased taxes in the American colonies
Colonists complained they had no representatives in Parliamenttaxation without consent
George IIIvacillation and force
The Boston Tea Party (1773)
The Continental Congress at Philadelphia (1774)
Lexington and Concord (April 1775)
Independence (July 4, 1776)
France sides with the colonists (1778)
British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia (1781)
Conclusion
American War of Independence as final military conflict between Britain and France
Britain remained most important trading partner with American colonies
European population increased
European prosperity unevenly distributed
Gradual political changes