Mr.
Dunbar
AP
European History
Chapter
12: The Age of Religious Wars
Section One: Renewed Religious Struggle
·
Section
Overview
o
First half of the sixteenth century saw
religious conflict confined to central Europe as Lutherans and Zwinglians attempted to secure freedoms and rights for
themselves.
o
Religious conflict shifted in the second half of
the fifteenth century as Calvinists struggled for recoginition in the western
European nations of France, the Netherlands, England and Scotland.
o
The Peace of Augsburg (1555) made Lutheranism
“legal” in the Holy Roman Empire but it did nothing for other Protestant groups
like Calvinists and Anabaptists.
o
Following the conclusion of the Council of
Trent, the Catholic church’s Jesuits launched a global counter-offensive
against Protestantism.
o
Calvinism was attractive to proponents of
political decentralization who opposed hierarchical rule, in principle, whereas
the Roman Catholic Church—an institution devoted to one head—found absolute
monarchy congenial.
o
The Catholic Church Counter Reformation found
the baroque style of art appealing as it presented like in a grandiose,
three-dimensional display of raw energy.
§
great baroque artists
·
Peter Paul Rubens
·
Gianlorenzo Bernini
o
Protestant artists were restrained as can be seen
in the gentle portraits of the Dutch Mennonite, Rembrandt van Rijn.
o
When the religious wars erupted in the sixteenth
century, the intellectuals moved to preach tolerance more quickly than the
politicians.
§
Sebastian Castellio comments on the killing of
Michael Servetus ordered by John Calvin
·
“To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but
to kill a man.”
§
Michel de Montaigne asked, “What do I know?”
which reflects a sense of skepticism.
§
The Lutheran Valentin Weigel advised people to
search within themselves for religious truth
o
Rulers—like Elizabeth I—who tended to
subordinate theological doctrine to political unity, urging tolerance,
moderation, and compromise became known as politiques.
o
During this period of religious wars, Catholic
and Protestant subjects struggled against one another for control of the crown of France, the
Netherlands, and England.
Section Two: The French Wars of Religion (1562-1598)
·
Section
Overview
o French
Protestants are known as Huguenots, a term derived from Besancon Hugues, the
leader of Geneva’s political revolt in the 1520s.
o Trouble
for Protestants in France
§
The capture of the king of France, Francis I, by
the forces of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Battle of Pavia ion 1525
provided a basis for the first wave of Protestant persecutions in France.
§
In 1534Protestants plastered Paris and other
cities with anti-Catholic placards which led to the mass arrest of the
Protestants found responsible.
§
In 1540, the Edict of Fontainebleau subjected
French Protestants to the Inquisition.
o
The French monarchy remained a staunch opponent
of Protestants until the ascension to the throne of Henry IV of Navarre in
1589.
o
France experienced a period of weakness when
King Henry II was mortally wounded when he was accidentally pierced by a lance
during a tournament.
§
Three
powerful families in France saw the chance to control France and plotted to
take the throne
·
The Bourbons were powerful in the south and west
of France; the Montmorency-Chatillons controlled the center of France; the
strongest family, the Guises, were dominant in eastern France.
o
The Guise family was closely linked to the
French monarchy and were associated with militant, reactionary Catholicism.
o
The Bourbon and Montmorency-Chatillon families
developed strong Huguenot sympathies
§
Conspiracy of Amboise—these two families
planned—but never carried out—the kidnapping of Francis II of France from his
Guise advisors.
·
Appeal of
Calvinism
o
Although Huguenots made up only one-fifteenth of
the population, Huguenots held important geographic areas and were heavily
represented among the more powerful segments of French society.
o
Decentralization
§
Many Huguenots wanted a principle of territorial
sovereignty like that extended by the Peace of Augsburg to the German princes
in the Holy Roman Empire.
§
Calvinism justified and inspired political
resistance in France.
o
Spirituality was neither the only, nor always
the main, reason for becoming a Calvinist in France during the second half of
the sixteenth century.
·
Catherine
de Medicis and the Guises
o
Following the death of Francis II, the queen
mother, Catherine de Medicis, became regent for her younger son, Charles IX.
o
At a meeting in Poissy, Catherine unsuccessfully
attempted to reconcile Protestant and Catholic factions.
§
Catherine believed this attempt would upset the
Guises so she began talks with Theodore Beza and Coligny, two Protestant
leaders
§
In 1562, the crown issued the January Edict
which granted Protestants freedom to worship publicly outside towns—although
only privately within them.
o
Royal toleration ended in 1562 when the duke of
Guise surprised a Protestant congregation at Vassy in Champagne and massacred
many worshipers. This event marked the
beginning of the French wars of religion.
o
The crown, wary of the power of the Guise
family, supported the Catholic side of the conflict.
o
The Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye
§
First French war of religion (1562-1563)
·
Duke of Guise was assassinated
·
Troops from Hesse and the Palatinate in the Holy
Roman Empire fought with the Huguenots
·
Huguenot leader Conde was killed and leadership
passed to Coligny
§
The Peace of Saint Germain-en-Laye ended the
third phase of the war in which the power of the Protestant nobility was
acknowledged and Huguenots were granted religious freedoms within their
territories and the right to fortify their cities.
§
Following the peace, Charles IX became closer to
the Bourbon family and the Huguenots, and Coligny became one of his most
trusted advisors.
§
Catherine began to plot with the Guise family
because she feared the threat that the growing power of Protestants posed to
the crown.
o
The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
§
On August 24, 1572 Coligny and 3,000 fellow
Huguenots were butchered in Paris.
Within three days, coordinated attacks killed an estimated 20,000
Huguenots throughout France
·
The Huguenot Henry of Navarre had just married
the king’s sister four days before this event.
·
Coligny had been shot by an assassin but only
wounded after the wedding.
·
Catherine convinced King Charles IX that a
Huguenot coup was at hand and that the crown must align with the Guises to
prevent it.
o
Protestant Resistance Theory
§
Initially, Protestants practiced obedient
subservience to worldly authority as encouraged in the Bible.
§
In 1550, Lutherans in Magdeburg published an
influential defense of the right of lower authorities to oppose the emperor’s
order that all Lutherans return to the Catholic fold.
§
Calvin also condemned willful disobedience and
rebellion against lawfully sanctioned governments but also taught lower
magistrates that they had the right to oppose tyrannical higher authority.
§
John Knox
·
Scottish reformer who wrote First Blast of the Trumpet against the Terrible Regiment of Women
(1558) which declared that removal of a tyrant was a Christian duty.
§
Three major works of resistance theory
·
Franco-Gallia
by Francis Hotman
·
On the
Right of Magistrates over their Subjects by Theodore Beza
·
Defense of
Liberty Against Tyrants by Philippe du Plessis Mornay
·
The Rise
to Power of Henry of Navarre
o
Henry III was the last of Henry II’s sons to
rule France
§
Henry III attempted to institute moderate
religious reforms on France
·
He received support from a growing body of
neutral Catholics and Huguenots, who put the political survival of France above
its religious unity.
§
The Peace of Beaulieu in May 1576 granted
Huguenots almost complete religious and civil freedom.
·
Within seven months the Catholic League forced
Henry to agree to attempt to impose absolute religious unity in France
§
Protestant and Catholic fighting in France
resumes
·
Henry of Navarre—a legal heir to the French
throne by virtue of his descent in a direct male line from Louis IX—led the
Protestants.
·
The Catholic League was led by the Guise family
and was supported by the Spanish.
·
Day of the Barricades
o
Henry III attempted to rout the Catholic League
with a surprise attack in 1588 but failed and was forced to flee Paris.
o
Henry III had both the duke and cardinal of
Guise assassinated.
o
As a result, Henry III was forced to strike an
alliance with the Protestant Henry of Navarre.
§
A Dominican friar killed King Henry III as he
and Henry of Navarre plotted to attack the Guise stronghold of Paris
§
Consequently, the Bourbon Huguenot Henry of
Navarre succeeded the childless Valois king to the French throne as Henry IV
o
King Henry IV
§
When a Protestant rose to the throne in France,
the Spanish King Philip II sent Spanish troops into France.
§
The Spanish invasion actually helped Henry IV
take hold of France because the majority of people in France saw his rightful
ascent to the throne as more important than his Protestant views.
§
Henry IV was a politique
·
He believed a royal policy of tolerant
Catholicism would be the best way to achieve peace.
·
He publicly abandoned his Protestant beliefs and
embraced Catholicism, the traditional and majority religion of his country.
§
Edict of Nantes (April 13, 1598)
·
Recognized minority religious rights
·
Gave Huguenots the freedom of public worship,
the right of assembly, admission to public offices and universities, and
permission to maintain fortified towns.
§
A Catholic fanatic assassinated Henry IV in May
1610
·
Henry IV’s legacy is that he laid the
foundations for the transformation of France into the absolute state it would
become under Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV.
Section Three: Imperial Spain and Philip II
·
Pillars
of Spanish Power
o
Until England defeated the Spanish Armada in
1588, Philip II was the most powerful monarch in Europe.
o
Philip was heir to the intensely Catholic and
militarily supreme western Habsburg kingdom.
§
New World Riches
·
regular arrival in Seville of bullion from the
Spanish colonies in the New World
o
great silver mines had been opened in present
day Bolivia and Mexico in the 1540s
o
these funds were used to pay the king’s bankers
and mercenaries
§
Increased Population
·
As Europe became richer from New World exploits,
the population increased rapidly
·
Combination of increased wealth and population
triggered inflation.
o
There were more people and more coinage in
circulation than before, but less food and fewer jobs
o
Wages stagnated while prices doubled and tripled
throughout much of Europe.
·
The peasantry of Spain suffered most as they
were taxed more heavily than any other group of people in Europe.
§
Efficient Bureaucracy and Military
·
Philip II ruled by the pen rather than by personal
presence.
·
He organized the lesser nobility into a complex
bureaucracy that helped him carry out governmental duties.
·
Philip’s son Don Carlos died under suspicious
circumstances and it was suspected that Philip had him quietly executed.
§
Supremacy in the Mediterranean
·
During the first half of Philip’s reign, he
focused his attention on the Turkish threat.
·
In the 1560s, the Turks had advanced deep into
Austria and their fleets dominated the Mediterranean.
·
Philip’s half brother, Don John of Austria suppressed
and dispersed the Moors in Granada.
·
In May 1571, a Holy League of Spain, Venice,
Genoa, and the pope, under Don John’s command, formed to check the Turkish
threat.
o
In the largest naval battle of the sixteenth
century, Don John’s fleet engaged the Turks and sunk or captured over one third
of their fleet and nearly 30,000 Turks had died.
·
The
Revolt in the Netherlands
o
Although Philip II enjoyed military success in
southern Europe, he was defeated when he attempted to impose his will on the
Netherlands, England, and France.
o
The resistance in Netherlands was pivotal in
ending Philip II’s dream of world domination.
o
The Netherlands was the richest area in all of
Europe in mid-sixteenth century and Philip II slowly gained control over the
region.
o
Cardinal Granvelle
§
When Philip II left the Netherlands for Spain in
1559, he appointed his half-sister Margaret of Parma regent in his place and
appointed a council of state to prevent the spread of Protestantism and help
break down the traditional autonomy in the region
§
Cardinal Granvelle, also known as Antoine
Perrenot, was the head of this council and he attempted to subdue the seventeen
Netherlands provinces and place them under the centralized imperial government
that operated from Madrid.
§
Many of these provinces, like Antwerp, were
Calvinist strongholds and there was a tremendous amount of hostility towards
the Spanish overlords.
§
The Count of Egmont and William of Nassau, the
prince Orange, led the opposition both of whom were considered politiques. They were able to get Granvelle removed from
his position in 1564.
§
Many urban artisans grew hostile towards the
Spanish and many joined the congregations of radical Calvinist preachers.
o
The Compromise
§
In 1564, the Netherlands saw the first fusion of
political and religious opposition to Regent Margaret’s government.
§
When Philip II instructed Margaret to enforce
the decrees of the Council of Trent on the Netherlands, William of Orange’s
younger brother, Louis of Nassau, led the opposition with the support of the
Calvinist-minded lesser nobility and townspeople.
§
The opposition drafted the Compromise in which they
vowed to resist the decrees of the Council of Trent and the Inquisition.
§
When Regent Margaret’s government called the
protesters “beggars” in 1566, Calvinists rioted throughout the country. Louis
called for aid from French Huguenots and German Lutherans.
o
The Duke of Alba
§
A full scale rebellion against Spain’s influence
in the Netherlands never erupted because the higher nobility of the Netherlands
would not support it.
§
Philip II sent the duke of Alba—who was
accompanied by his army of 10,000 men—journeyed from Milan to the Netherlands
where they assembled a special tribunal, known to the Spanish as the Council of
Troubles and among the Netherlands as the Council of Blood, which launched a
campaign of terror during which the counts of Egmont and Horn, along with
several thousand heretics were publicly executed.
§
Alba spent six years in the Netherlands and
during this time he levied new taxes and continually persecuted Protestants.
o
Resistance and Unification
§
William of Orange emerged from exile as the
leader of the movement for the independence of the Netherlands from Spain.
§
He led his operation from the provinces of
Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht, of which William was governor.
§
A group of pirates which consisted of
anti-Spanish exiles and criminals, known as the “Sea Beggars”, captured port
cities and incited rebellions against the Spanish in coastal towns of the
Netherlands.
§
Alba had by this time ceded power to Don Luis de
Requesens, who replaced him as commander of the Spanish forces in the
Netherlands.
o
The Pacification of Ghent
§
Spanish Fury
·
After the death of Requesens, Spanish mercenaries
who were leaderless and unpaid, ran amok in Antwerp on November 4, 1576,
leaving 7,000 people dead.
§
The Pacification of Ghent marks the agreement
that came between the largely Catholic provinces of the south (modern-day
Belgium) and the largely Protestant northern provinces (modern-day
Netherlands)in which the merged in opposition to Spain.
§
Perpetual Edict
·
the united forces of the Netherlands were able
to defeat the Spanish and force Don John—who had taken control of Spanish
forces in the Netherlands—to sign the edict which required the removal of all
Spanish forces from the Netherlands within the next twenty days.
o
The Union of Arras and the Union of Utrecht
§
Don John and Alexander Farnese of Parma, the
Regent Margaret’s son, revived Spanish power in southern provinces, where fear
of Calvinist extremism caused some of the southern provinces to drop out of the
union.
§
In 1579, the southern provinces formed the Union
of Arras and made peace with Spain and the northern provinces responded by
forming the union of Utrecht.
o
Netherlands Independence
§
Persistent in his goal to subdue the
Netherlands, Philip II declared William of Orange an outlawa and placed a
bounty of 25,000 crowns on his head.
§
In a famous speech to the Estates General of
Holland in December of 1580, known as the Apology, Orange publicly denounced
Philip as a heathen tyrant whom the Netherlands need no longer obey.
§
The member provinces of the Union of Utrecht met
in the Hague and formally declared Philip no longer their ruler.
§
The leaders of the Union of Utrecht offered the
crown of the Netherlands to the French duke of Alencon, the youngest son of
Catherine de Medicis. He was accepted as
ruler but was expected to act as a “titular” ruler. When he attempted to take actual control of
the provinces in 1583, he was deposed and returned to France.
§
William of Orange was assassinated in 1584 and
was succeeded by his son Maurice who continued the Dutch resistance.
§
Philip II got involved in conflicts in France
and England which allowed the Netherlands to strengthen and prosper
economically.
Section Four: England and Spain
·
Section
Overview
o
Edward VI made an agreement that made Lady Jane
Grey—the teenage daughter of a powerful Protestant nobleman and the
granddaughter (on her mother’s side)of Henry VIII’s younger sister Mary—his
successor in place of his half-sister and Catholic Mary Tudor.
o
Within days of taking the throne, uprisings in
London, due to popular support for the principle of hereditary monarchy,
removed Lady Jane Grey from the throne and Mary was crowned queen.
·
Mary I
(1553-1558)
o
In 1554, Mary entered a marriage to Philip of
Spain (later Philip II), which symbolized the militant Catholic policies she
would pursue throughout her reign.
o
Mary passed legislation through Parliament that reverted
to Catholicism and she ordered the executions of the Protestant leaders of the
Edwardian Age including John Hooper, Hugh Latimer, and Thomas Cranmer.
o
287 Protestants were burned at the stake during
Mary’s reign, while many others—known as “Marian exiles”—fled to the Continent
and settled in Germany and Switzerland.
·
Elizabethan
England (1558-1603)
o
Elizabeth--the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne
Boleyn passed a series of legislation through Parliament that guided a
religious settlement that ended religious civil strife in England.
o
She was assisted by Sir William Cecil who was
her chief advisor.
o
Religious Legislation
§
Act of Supremacy (1559) repealed all the
anti-Protestant legislation of Mary Tudor.
§
Act of Uniformity (1559) issued a revised
edition of the second Book of Common
Prayer.
§
In 1563, the Thirty
Nine Articles was issued that made a moderate Protestantism the official
religion within the Church of England
o
Catholic and Protestant Extremists
§
Catholic extremists hoped to replace Elizabeth
with Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots who had a claim to the throne since her grandmother,
Margaret, was the sister of Henry VIII.
§
Elizabeth showed little mercy for Catholics who
attempted to destroy the unity of England; however, she executed far fewer
Catholics during her 45 years on the throne than Mary had Protestants in just
five years.
§
The Puritans emerged during her reign who wanted
to purify the Church of England of “every vestige of popery” and they were led
by Thomas Cartwright.
§
Congregationalists were the more extreme
Puritans who wanted every congregation to be autonomous.
·
Conventicle Act of 1593
o
Elizabeth had little tolerance for the
independence-minded Congregationalists and gave them the option to conform or
face exile or death.
o
Deterioration of Relations with Spain
§
Although Philip II and Elizabeth both intended
to avoid conflict, their conflicting ideologies brought them into conflict
first when the Spanish invaded the Netherlands and Elizabeth signed the Treaty
of Nonsuch, which sent English soldiers and cavalry to support the Netherlands.
§
Spain’s dominance on the high seas was
challenged by the English sailor Francis Drake when he circumnavigated the
globe between 1577 and 1580.
o
Mary, Queen of Scots
§
Early Life
·
Daughter of King James V of Scotland and Mary of
Guise
·
She lived in France throughout her childhood and
married the French king Francis II
·
When Francis II died, she moved back to Scotland
and took the throne
§
Mary rules Scotland
·
As a Catholic, she faced resistance from
religious reformers like John Knox because Catholicism was illegal in Scotland;
Queen Elizabeth supported the close eye these Protestants kept on Mary.
§
Mary fled Scotland for England in 1568
·
Mary was forced to flee from Scotland to England
and abdicated the throne in 1568 and the hereditary right to the throne of
Scotland became her one-year old son, James VI who later succeeded Elizabeth as
King James I of England.
·
Mary’s presence in England alarmed Mary as she
was a legitimate heir to the throne in England and many fervent Catholics plotted
against Elizabeth in attempt to put Mary on the throne; due to this concern,
Mary was placed under house arrest for nineteen years.
§
Plots Against Elizabeth
·
Elizabeth’s secretary—Sir Francis
Walsingham—uncovered a plot against the queen that was planned by the
ambassador of Spain Bernardino de Mendoza.
·
Babington Plot
o
A man named Anthony Babington was caught seeking
Spanish support for an attempt on the queen’s life.
o
Mary, Queen of Scots, was involved in the plot
§
Elizabeth ordered the execution of Mary, Queen
of Scots which took place on February 18, 1587.
·
Since Elizabeth ordered the execution of a
Catholic queen, Pope Sixtus V publicly announced his support for Catholic
Spain’s invasion of Protestant England.
·
With this nod of approval, Philip II mobilized
his Armada for an attack on England.
o
The Armada
§
As the Spanish prepared for attack in the spring
of 1587, Sir Francis Drake shelled the port of Cadiz which severely interrupted
Spain’s mobilization efforts.
§
On May 30, 1588 the Armada set sail for England
with 130 ships and 25,000 in which they lost in devastating fashion.
§
Smaller and faster ships enabled the English and
Netherlands’ ships disperse the Spanish fleet.
§
A storm, which became known as the English Wind
or Protestant Wind, assisted the English by blowing the Spanish ships off
course.
o
Section conclusion
§
By the time of Philip’s death in 1598 his forces
had been stifled on all sides and its overseas empire in the New World was
pecked away at by the English and the Dutch.
§
France succeeded Spain as the dominant nation on
the Continent.
§
When Elizabeth died on March 23, 1603, she left
behind a strong nation ready to expand into a global empire.
Section Five: The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648)
·
Section
Overview
o
This war—which took place in the Holy Roman Empire—was
the last and most destructive of the wars of religion.
o
Bitter hatreds between Catholics, Protestants,
Calvinists, and Lutherans set the stage for a long struggle.
o
The peace that was established in 1648 at the
conclusion of the war shaped the map of northern Europe much as we know it
today.
·
Preconditions
For War
o
Fragmented Germany
§
Germany consisted of about 360 autonomous
political entities and each was granted independence in political ideologue by
the Peace of Augsburg.
§
There had been longstanding feuds between the
Catholic Habsburg emperors and the territorial princes with the empire
o
Religious Division
§
The population of the Holy Roman Empire was
equally divided between Protestants and Catholics.
§
Following the Peace of Augsburg, some Lutherans
had gained and kept political control in some Catholic areas just as some
Catholics had gained control in some Lutheran areas.
§
Lutheran had been more successful in securing
the right to worship in Catholic areas than the Catholics had been in securing
such rights in Lutheran lands.
§
Catholic rulers demanded that every
ecclesiastical prince, electors, archbishops, bishops, and abbots who had
deserted the Catholic for the Protestant side be deprived of their religious
office and that their land holdings be returned to Catholic control.
·
The Lutherans and Calvinists in the Palatinate
ignored this stipulation.
§
There was internal feuding within Protestantism
as there were liberal and conservative Lutherans and infighting between
Calvinists and Lutherans.
o
Calvinism and the Palatinate
§
Unrecognized by the Peace of Augsburg, Calvinism
found a stronghold in the Holy Roman when Frederick III, a devout convert to
Calvinism, became the ruler of the Palatinate and made it the official
religion.
§
Palatinate Calvinists established defensive
alliances with powerful anti-Spanish (or Habsburg) nations like England,
France, and the Netherlands.
§
Calvinists launched strong missionary efforts
throughout the Holy Roman Empire and became a threat not only to Catholics but
also to the Lutherans.
o
Maximilian of Bavaria and the Catholic League
§
Bavaria became the center of the Counter
Reformation led by the Jesuits who were successful in winning major cities such
as Strasbourg and Osnabruck back to Catholicism.
§
Maximilian I, duke of Bavaria, organized a
Catholic League to counter the Protestant system of alliances.
§
The Catholic League fielded a great army under
the command of Count Johann von Tilly and the stage was set for the Thirty
Years’ War.
·
Four
Periods of War
o
The Bohemian Period
§
When the Habsburg Ferdinand of Styria came to
the throne of Bohemia in 1618, he was determined to restore this Protestant
region to Catholicism and immediately revoked the religious freedoms of
Bohemian Protestants.
§
The Protestant nobility in Prague responded by throwing
Ferdinand’s regents out the window of a royal palace, an event that became
known as the “defenestration of prague.”
·
none of the officials died from the fall
§
Ferdinand was named Holy Roman Emperor,
Ferdinand II, unanimously by the seven electors; in response, the Bohemians
declared the Calvinist leader of the Palatinate , Frederick V, their king.
§
Ferdinand’s army under Tilly routed Frederick
V’s troops at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620.
§
Ferdinand II was able to subdue and
re-Catholicize Bohemia as well as the Palatinate.
o
The Danish Period
§
The Lutheran King Christian IV—with the
encouragement of England, France, and the Netherlands—marched his army into
Germany and was quickly humiliated by Maximilian and forced to retreat.
§
Ferdinand was assisted in his re-Catholicization
by Albrecht of Wallenstein who led an army of 100,000 men into Denmark which
completely crushed the Protestant resistance.
§
Edict of Restitution in 1629
·
reaffirmed the illegality of Calvinism
·
ordered the return of all church lands the
Lutherans had acquired since 1552
o
The Swedish Period
§
Gustavus Adolphus II of Sweden, a pious king of
a unified Lutheran nation, became the new leader of Protestant forces,
·
He was supported by the French minister Cardinal
Richelieu and the Dutch, who both had interested in seeing the weakening of the
Habsburgs.
·
The Swedish king led a Protestant alliance to a
decisive victory at Breitenfeld in 1630 which changed the momentum of the war.
·
Key to the Swedish success was the masterful
planning of Gustavus Adolphus who brought new mobility to warfare by having
both his infantry and cavalry employ fire-and-charge tactics
·
Gustavus Adolphus was killed by Wallenstein’s
forces at the Battle of Lutzen.
·
Emperor Ferdinand II, who had been aligned with
Wallenstein, ordered his assassination in 1634 because he feared his growing
independence.
§
Peace of Prague in 1635
·
This was a compromise between Emperor Ferdinand
II and the German Protestant states.
·
Sweden—supported by France and the Netherlands—refused
to join the agreement.
o
The Swedish-Franco Phase
§
The French openly joined the war in 1635 and the
war dragged on for thirteen years, as French, Swedish, and Spanish soldiers
fought and looted throughout Germany.
§
The war completely devastated Germany and
experts estimate that nearly a third of Germany’s population perished in the
conflict.
·
The
Treaty of Westphalia
o
This document was written in French—rather than
Latin—which became the international diplomatic language and symbolized the
dominance of France in Europe.
o
It nullified the Edict of Restitution and
asserted the legality of the Peace of Augsburg that had been instituted
ninety-three years earlier.
o
The Independence of the Swiss Confederacy and
the United Provinces of the Netherlands were now legally recognized as independent.
o
The Pope opposed the treaty—but had no power to
interfere—because it broadened the legal status of Protestants.
o
Warfare continued between France and Spain,
outside the Holy Roman Empire—until the French forced the Spanish to sign the
Treaty of the Pyrenees.
o
The Treaty of Westphalia kept Germany
fragmented.
o
Two German states, Austria and Prussia, would
gain international status during the seventeenth century.
o
As a result of the Treaty of Westphalia,
distinctive nation-states, each with their own
political, cultural, and religious identity, reached full maturity and
firmly established the competitive nationalism of the modern world.
Mr.
Dunbar
AP
European History
Chapter
13: European State Consolidation in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Chapter Overview
·
From the early seventeenth century through World
War II, no region so dominated the world politically, militarily, and economically
as Europe.
·
During this period, power shifted from the
Mediterranean area—where Spain and Portugal had taken a lead in the conquest
and early exploitation of the New World—to the states of northwest and later
north-central Europe.
·
Five major states, Great Britain, France,
Austria, Prussia, and Russia were the leading powers in Europe.
Section One: The Netherlands: Golden Age to Decline
·
Section
Overview
o
The United Provinces of the Netherland gained
independence from Spain in 1572 but continued to battle other European powers
like England and France throughout the second half of the 17th
century.
o
Prince William III of Orange (1650-1702), the
chief executive, or stadtholder, of
Holland which was the most important of the provinces, led the Dutch to victory
against France.
o
The Netherlands maintained a republican system
of government in which each of the provinces maintained a certain degree of
autonomy. The central government in the
Netherlands was known as the States General and met in the Hague but the Dutch
distrusted monarchy and honored the freedoms of the provinces.
o
Although the official religion of the
Netherlands was the Reformed Calvinist Church, the Dutch tolerated people of
all faiths including Roman Catholics and Jews.
·
Urban
Prosperity
o
The prosperous Dutch economy stemmed from high
urban consolidation, transformed agriculture, extensive trade and finance, and
an overseas commercial empire.
o
The Dutch drained and reclaimed land from the
sea which became very fertile and highly profitable soil for farming.
§
The Dutch imported grain which allowed farmers
to produce dairy products and beef and cultivate products like tulip bulbs.
o
Dutch fishermen caught and sold herring and
dominated the dried fish market in Europe.
o
Dutch manufacturers supplied textiles to the
people throughout Europe
o
Overseas trade and shipbuilding were the
foundations of the Dutch economy.
§
The Dutch East India Company (chartered in 1602)
sailed to areas of East Asia—like Java, Moluccas, and Sri Lanka—to participate
in the profitable trade of spices.
§
Although the Dutch initially only had commercial
interests in this region, they came to dominate the production of the spices
themselves which led them to colonize many of the islands that now form
Indonesia of which they maintained possession until after World War II.
·
Economic
Decline
o
When William III died in 1702, the provinces
resisted the rise of a strong stadtholder
and consequently unified political leadership vanished.
o
The Dutch lost naval supremacy which was passed
to Great Britain.
o
Countries between which the Dutch once carried
goods began trading directly with each other as other states developed
sophisticated shipbuilding technology.
o
The Dutch banks, however, maintained an
important position in the financing trade and the Amsterdam stock exchange
remained an important financial institution.
Section Two: Two Models of European
Political Development
·
Section
Overview
o
The United Provinces, like Venice and the Swiss
Confederacy, was a republic governed without a monarchy.
o
Elsewhere in Europe, monarchs ruled with varying
degrees of power.
·
Political Absolutism--France
o
Due to changes in warfare and increased expenses
of commercial centralized states, only monarchies that succeeded in building a
secure financial base that was not dependent on the support of nobles or
assemblies achieved absolute rule.
o
As we saw with the French Wars of religion,
noble families in France like the Bourbon, Valois, and Montmorency-Chatillons,
had significant military forces at their disposal but that drastically changed
when Louis XIII took power.
·
Parliamentary
Monarchy—England
o
Queen Elizabeth had established a strong central
monarchy in England and the Stuart monarchs who followed her sought to
establish the autocracy achieved by Louis XIV in France.
o
However, through the course of several events
like the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution, Parliament gained tremendous
power in England by the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Section Three: Constitutional Crisis and
Settlement in Stuart England
·
James I
o
King James IV of Scotland—the son of Mary, Queen
of Scots, succeeded the childless Elizabeth to the throne of England in 1602.
o
He strongly believed in the divine right of
kings and expected to rule with little consultation beyond his own royal court.
o
In place of parliamentary approved revenues,
James gained a new source of income when he levied new custom duties known as
impositions which Parliament felt violated their power of the purse.
o
Puritans wanted to destroy the hierarchical
organization of the Anglican Church and do away with the Episcopal system of
church governance under bishops appointed by the king with a more
representative Presbyterian form, but James refused to consider their ideas and
sought to enhance the Anglican episcopacy.
o
Many religious dissenters left England during
James’s reign and founded Plymouth Colony in North America where they could
freely practice.
o
The court of James had a scandalous reputation
due to the authority wielded by the duke of Buckingham who was not only rumored
to be James’s homosexual lover but also sold positions of rank to the highest
bidder which annoyed the nobles who believed this undermined their rank.
o
Many believed that James sought to
re-Catholicize England due to the peace he established with Spain, the fact
that he relaxed penal laws against Catholics, he did not rush to send troops to
defend the German Protestants at the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, and he
arranged the marriage of his son, Charles, to Henrietta Maria, the Catholic daughter
of Henry IV of France.
o
In 1624, shortly before James’s death, England
again went to war with Spain largely in response to parliamentary pressures
·
Charles I
o
Although pressure from Parliament plunged Europe
into war with Spain, its members refused to allow Charles to raise taxes that
were needed to finance the war.
o
Charles decided to levy new tariffs and duties
and added a tax on property owners—which was called a forced loan which the
monarchy was theoretically supposed to repay—and imprisoned those who refused
to pay.
o
People in England were outraged when troops were
quartered in private homes.
o
Parliament met in 1623 and agreed to grant new
funds to Charles if he agreed to sign the Petition of Right that required no
forced loans or taxes without Parliament’s consent, that no freeman should be
imprisoned without due cause, and troops should not be quartered in private
homes.
o
Charles agreed to it but then dissolved
Parliament the next year in 1624 and did not recall it until 1640.
o
Years of Personal Rule
§
Charles ended his wars with France and Spain in
order to conserve money
§
His chief advisor, Thomas Wentworth, worked to
centralize the power of the monarchy and exploited every means possible to
impose new taxes.
§
In 1637, Charles—with the help of Archbishop
William Laud--attempted to impose the English episcopate system and prayer book
on Scotland in order to establish religious uniformity.
·
The Scots rebelled and Charles was forced to
call Parliament into session in 1640 in order to raise revenue to suppress the
rebellion.
·
Parliament refused to allocate more funds to
Charles and he immediately dissolved Parliament.
·
When the Scots defeated the English at the
Battle of Newburn, Charles reconvened Parliament for a long duration.
·
The Long
Parliament and Civil War
o
Enemies of Charles in Parliament
§
Landowners and merchants did not agree with his
financial measures and paternalistic rule.
§
Puritans in Parliament resented his religious
policies and distrusted his Catholic wife.
o
Parliament forces Charles to meet with them
continuously from 1640-1660
§
During this session the House of Commons
impeached Strafford and Laud and both were executed.
§
Parliament abolished the royal courts used to
enforce royal policy and prohibited the levying of new taxes without its
consent.
§
Religious issues divided Parliament
·
Both moderate Puritans (the Presbyterians) and
more extreme Puritans (the Independents) wanted to abolish bishops and the Book
of Common Prayer.
·
Religious conservatives, however, wanted to
preserve the Church of England in its current form.
§
Civil War Erupts
·
In 1641, Parliament was asked to raise revenue
in order to suppress the Scottish rebellion.
·
Parliament feared what the king would do if he
had an army at his disposal so they discussed making Parliament commander –in
–chief of the armed forces.
·
In January 1642, Charles invaded a meeting of
Parliament intent on arresting certain members who opposed his policies. Charles then left London to raise an army to
suppress the rebellious members of Parliament.
·
The House of Commons passed the Militia
Ordinance which gave Parliament the authority to raise an army of its own.
·
Fighting between the Roundheads (those who
supported Parliament) and the Cavaliers (those who supported the king) waged
war from 1642-1646.
·
Oliver
Cromwell and the Puritan Republic
o
Two factors led to Parliament’s victory over the
king
§
Parliament established an alliance with Scotland
in 1643 that committed Parliament to a Presbyterian system of church
government.
§
Oliver Cromwell, a country squire known for
discipline and his devout Puritan beliefs, took charge of the Roundhead army.
o
The Cavaliers were defeated militarily by June
of 1645, members of Parliament known to be sympathizers of Charles were
expelled from Parliament in December 1648, then on January 30—after a “special”
trial—Charles was executed.
o
Parliament abolished the monarchy, the House of
Lords, and the Anglican Church.
o
Cromwell rules England
§
From 1649 to 1660, England was a Puritan
republic although Cromwell dominated it.
§
Cromwell’s army brutally conquered Scotland and
Ireland where they carried out atrocities against Irish Catholics.
§
When the House of Commons suggested that
Cromwell disband his army of 50,000 men because it was expensive to maintain,
he disbanded Parliament and named himself Lord Protector of England which he
ruled by means of a military dictatorship.
§
The English people hated the strict Puritan
regulations against drunkenness, theatergoing, and dancing as political liberty
vanished for the sake of religious conformity.
§
When Cromwell died in 1658, the people of
England were ready to restore Anglicanism and the monarchy.
·
Charles
II and the Restoration of Monarchy
o
Charles II—the son of the beheaded Charles—was
asked by the leaders of England’s armed forces to return and take the throne.
o
Charles II took the throne in 1660 and
immediately restored England to the normalcy of 1642 with a hereditary monarch,
a Parliament of Lords and Commons that met only when summoned by the king, and
the Anglican Church.
o
Charles advocated religious toleration but
Parliament passed the Clarendon Code between 1661 and 1665 that excluded Roman
Catholics, Presbyterians, and the Independents from the official political and
religious life of the nation.
o
The Treaty of Dover (1670)
§
England and France formally entered an alliance
against the Dutch, their chief commercial competitor.
§
In a secret part of the treaty, Charles II
promised to announce his conversion to Catholicism as soon as conditions in
England allowed for it.
§
Louis XIV—the king of France—promised to pay
Charles II a substantial subsidy for his conversion to Catholicism.
o
Test Act
§
Parliament passed this measure to exclude Roman
Catholics from public service and, more importantly, to prevent the ascension
of James, duke of York and brother of Charles II, to the throne.
o
Popish Plot
§
In 1678, Titus Oates claimed that Charles’s
Catholic wife was plotting with Jesuits and Irishmen to kill the king so James
could assume the throne.
§
Parliament believed Oates and anti-Catholic
sentiment in Parliament, a group that became known as the Whigs who were led by
the earl of Shaftesbury, made an unsuccessful effort to exclude James from
succession to the throne.
o
Charles II grew suspicious of Parliament and was
able to rule from 1681 to 1685 without calling it into session.
§
He drove Shaftesbury into exile, executed
several Whig leaders, and bullied local corporations into electing members of
Parliament who would be submissive to the royal will.
§
When Charles II died in 1685—after a deathbed
conversion to Catholicism—he left James the prospect of a Parliament filled
with royal friends.
·
The
Glorious Revolution
o
King James II works to gain rights for Catholics
in England
§
He
immediately demanded the repeal of the Test Act.
§
James II issued the Declaration of Indulgence
·
permitted free worship in England
§
He imprisoned seven Anglican bishops who refused
to publicize his suspension of laws against Catholics.
§
These
actions attacked the local authority of nobles, landowners, the church, and
other corporate bodies whose members believed they possessed particular legal
privileges.
o
People of England hoped that James II would be
succeeded by Mary, his Protestant and eldest daughter.
§
Mary was the wife of William III of Orange, the
leader of European opposition to Louis XIV.
§
James II’s Catholic second wife gave birth to a
son and there was now a Catholic male heir to the throne.
§
Those opposed to James II—and Catholicism—in
Parliament invited William to invade England to preserve its “traditional
liberties” of Anglicanism and parliamentary government.
o
Glorious Revolution
§
William of Orange arrived with his army in
November 1688 and was received by the English people without significant
opposition.
§
James fled to France and in 1689 Parliament
named William III and Mary II the new monarchs, thus completing the bloodless
“Glorious Revolution.”
§
William and Mary agreed to recognize the Bill of
Rights that limited the powers of the monarchy and guaranteed the civil
liberties of the English privileged classes.
·
English monarchs would now be subject to the law
and would be ruled by the consent of Parliament which would be called into
session every three years.
·
The Bill of Rights prohibited Roman Catholics
from occupying the throne.
·
The Toleration Act of 1689 permitted worship by
all Protestants and outlawed only Roman Catholics and those who denied the
Christian doctrine of the Trinity.
o
Act of Settlement
§
This law sanctioned that the English crown be
passed to the Protestant House of Hanover in Germany if Anne, the second
daughter of James II and heir to the childless William III, died without issue.
§
At Anne’s death in 1714, the Elector of Hanover
became King George I of Great Britain since England and Scotland had been
combined in the Act of Union in 1707.
·
The Age
of Walpole
o
George I confronted an immediate challenge to
his title when James Edward Stuart, the Catholic son of James II, landed in
Scotland in December 1715 but met defeat in less than two months.
o
This conflict put the legitimacy of the Hanover
monarchy in flux until Sir Robert Walpole took over the helm of government.
o
Walpole was supported by George I and
experienced great success from 1721 to 1742 due to his ability to handle the
House of Commons and his control of government patronage.
o
Walpole maintained peace abroad and expanded
Great Britain’s commercial interest from New England to India.
o
Walpole’s policies encouraged nobles and other
landowners to serve as local government administrators, judges, military
commanders, and to collect and pay taxes to support a strong navy that would
protect Great Britain’s world empire.
o
Free speech and religious toleration
flourished during this period and British political life became the
model for all progressive Europeans who questioned absolutism.
Section Four--Rise of Absolute Monarchy in France: The World of Louis
XIV
·
Section
Overview
o
The French monarchy, which had faced numerous
challenges from strong, well armed nobles and discontented Protestants during
the first half of the seventeenth century, gradually gained firm authority by
the eighteenth century.
o
Two powerful chief ministers, Cardinal Richelieu
and Cardinal Mazarin, laid the groundwork for political absolutism in France.
o
Richelieu revoked many of the privileges that
had been granted to French Protestants through the Edict of Nantes.
o
A series of widespread rebellions among the
French nobles between 1649 and 1652 known as the Fronde was push back against the centralizing efforts of the
monarchy.
·
Years of
Personal Rule
o
When Mazarin died in 1661, Louis XIV took
personal control of France at the age of twenty-three and ruled until 1715.
o
Louis devoted tremendous personal energy to his
political tasks.
o
Louis ruled through councils that controlled
foreign affairs, the army, domestic administration, and economic regulations.
§
Louis appointed members of families who had long
histories of royal service and people just beginning to rise in the social
structure as they did not have the power base in the provinces—and present a
potential threat—like the ancient nobles.
o
Louis managed the nobility well by conferring
with regional judicial bodies, called parlements,
and consulting opinions before making rulings that would affect them.
§
Louis clashed with the Parlement of Paris in 1673 and required that it register laws
before raising questions about them.
·
Versailles
o
Louis and his advisors became masters of
propaganda and political image creation.
§
he dominated the nobility by proving he could
outspend them on social displays
o
Louis used the palace of Versailles to exert
political control.
o
Versailles, built between 1676 and 1708 on the
outskirts of Paris, was designed and decorated to proclaim the glory of the Sun
King, as Louis was known.
o
The palace housed thousands of the more
important nobles, royal officers, and servants; the nobles, in theory, grew
dependent upon the king.
o
Ritual and etiquette were very important at
Versailles and moments near the king were important to most court nobles who
were excluded from the real business of government.
·
King By
Divine Right
o
Louis was tutored as a child by the political
theorist Bishop Jacques-Benigne Bossuet who defended the notion of the “divine
right of kings.”
§
Medieval popes argued that only God could judge
a pope and Bossuet argued that only God could judge a king.
o
Louis allegedly once declared, “L’etat, c’est moi (“I am the state.”)
o
Louis’ absolutism applied to national interests
like the making of war or peace, the regulation of religion, and the oversight
of economic activity. Local institutions
retained their administrative authority.
o
Unlike the Stuart monarchs of England, Louis
firmly prevented the intervention of nobles and legislative bodies from
interfering with his authority on the national level.
·
Louis’s
Early Wars
o
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
§
Economic minister to Louis XIV
§
His financial programs made it possible for
Louis to raise and maintain a large and powerful army.
o
Louis’s goal was to secure international
boundaries for France.
§
Early wars with the Netherlands and Spain
·
War of Devolution—this war was fought by Louis
in order to support his first wife—Marie Therese—to inherit the Spanish
Netherlands.
o
Louis’s armies invaded Flanders and the
Franche-Comte and faced stiff opposition from an alliance of England, Sweden,
and the United Provinces of the Netherlands.
o
By the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Louis gained
control of certain towns bordering the Spanish Netherlands.
·
Louis invaded the Netherlands again in 1672 in
which he faced a coalition of Netherlands, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain,
Lorraine, and Brandenburg.
o
The war ended inconclusively with the Peace of
Nijmwegen, signed with different parties in successive years; France gained
more territory by the provisions of this treaty including the Franche-Comte.
·
Louis’s
Repressive Religious Policies
o
Section Overview
§
Louis believed that political unity and stability
required religious conformity.
o
Suppression of the Jansenists
§
Traditionally, the French Roman Catholic Church
enjoyed “Gallican Liberties” from papal authority in Rome but after the
conversion of King Henry IV to Catholicism, the Jesuits in France—who were
fiercely loyal to the Catholic Church—monopolized the education of French
upper-class men.
·
Jesuits served as confessors to Henry IV, Louis
XIII, and Louis XIV.
§
A Roman Catholic religious movement known as Jansenism arose in the 1630s in
opposition to the political influence of the Jesuits.
·
Jansenists followed the teachings of Saint
Augustine which had also influenced many Protestant doctrines.
o
They believed—like Augustine—that human beings
had been so corrupted by original sin and could do nothing good nor contribute
anything to their own salvation.
o
Jansenists, although devoutly Roman Catholic,
lived austere and pious lives quite like the Puritans in England, and like the
Puritans they became associated with opposition to royal authority.
§
Jansenists families were associated with the
Fronde.
o
Cornelius Jansen was the founder of the movement
and published Augustinius
which
condemned Jesuit teaching on grace and salvation as morally lax.
§
On May 31, 1653, Pope Innocent X declared
certain Jansenists teachings heretical and
banned Jansen’s Augustinius.
·
Louis permitted the papal bull banning
Jansenists and therefore turned his back
on the traditional Gallican Liberties of the French Church which fostered
opposition to royal authority within the French Church.
§
During the 18th century—after the
death of Louis XIV—the Parlement of Paris and other judicial bodies in France
reasserted their authority in opposition to the monarchy.
o
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
§
Tension between the Catholic majority (90%) and Protestants
in France remained high in the years following the issuance of the Edict of
Nantes in 1598.
·
There were approximately 1.75 million Huguenots
out of a total population of 18 million
·
The French Catholic Church encouraged the
persecution of Huguenots claiming it was a patriotic duty.
§
Madame de Maintenon, mistress and eventually
second wife of Louis XIV, was a devout Catholic and expected the same from
Louis.
§
Louis started a systematic eradication of
Huguenots from public life by banning them from government office and excluded
them from certain professions like printing and medicine; furthermore, he
burdened them by quartering troops in their towns.
§
In October 1685, Louis revoked the Edict of
Nantes and significantly limited the rights of Protestants in France.
·
Protestant churches and schools were closed.
·
Protestant ministers were exiled.
·
Non-converting laity were condemned to be galley
slaves.
·
Protestant children were baptized by Catholic
priests.
§
Louis oppression of Protestants in France
signified that he was a fanatic and France became a symbol of repression in
contrast to England’s moderate –if not complete—religious toleration.
·
Louis’s
Later Wars
o
The League of Augsburg and the Nine Years’ War
§
Louis attempted to expand the national
boundaries of France and in 1681 sent his forces to occupy the free city of
Strasbourg on the Rhine River.
§
The League of Augsburg formed to stop French
aggression and was comprised of a coalition of English, Spanish, Swedish,
German, and Dutch troops who fought a series of battles against France between
1689 and 1697 in what was known as the Nine Years’ War.
§
The Peace of Ryswick ended the war and it
secured Holland’s borders and prevented Louis’s expansion into Germany.
o
War of Spanish Succession
§
Background
·
On November 1, 1700, the last Habsburg king of
Spain, Charles II, died without direct heirs but before he died, however, he
left his entire inheritance to Louis’s grandson Philip of Anjou, who became
Philip V of Spain.
·
Philip was the grandson of Charles’ sister Maria
Theresa and Louis XIV and it looked as though Spain had fallen into French
hands.
·
In 1701, England, Holland, and the Holy Roman
Empire assembled the Grand Alliance to preserve the balance of power in Europe.
§
War of Spanish Succession
·
France entered this war poorly equipped and
without adequate finances or skilled generals.
·
England, conversely, had advanced weapons
(flintlock rifles, paper cartridges, and ring bayonets) and superior tactics
(thin, maneuverable troop columns rather than traditional deep ones)
·
John Churchill, the English duke of Marlborough,
defeated Louis’s soldiers at every major battle.
·
France made peace with England at Utrecht in
July 1713.
o
Philip V remained king of Spain but renounced
his place in the line to the throne in France which prevented the union of the
two major powers.
o
England was given control of Gibraltar and the
island of Minorca.
o
Louis recognized the right of the House of
Hanover to the English throne.
·
France
After Louis XIV
o
Section Overview
§
Despite its loss in the War of Spanish
Succession, France remained a great power.
§
Louis XIV was succeeded by his five-year-old
great grandson Louis V whose uncle, the duke of Orleans, became regent and
remained so until his death in 1720.
§
The regency of the duke of Orleans was marked by
moral and financial scandals which decreased the prestige of the French
monarchy.
o
John Law and the Mississippi Bubble
§
John Law’s Economic Reforms
·
The duke of Orleans was a gambler and for a time
he turned over the financial management of France to John Law, a Scottish
mathematician and fellow gambler.
·
John set up a national bank in Paris and printed
money in order to increase the amount in circulation and stimulate the economy.
·
Law also organized a monopoly called the
Mississippi Company on trading privileges with the French colony of Louisiana.
·
The Mississippi Company took over the management
of France’s debt and issued shares of its own stock in exchange for government
bonds which had fallen sharply in value.
·
The stocks soared in value and investors sold them
for paper money which they wanted to exchange for gold but the French bank
lacked the gold to pay out.
·
Law was forced to flee France and this affair
became known as the Mississippi Bubble.
o
Renewed Authority of the Parlements
§
Orleans weakened the monarchy in France by
drawing the nobility back into the decision-making processes of the government.
·
He set up a system of councils on which nobles
served but the experiment proved to be a failure since the nobility seemed to
lack the talent and desire to govern.
·
Despite their inadequacies, the nobility
continued to assert their ancient privileges and local influence over the
monarchy.
§
Orleans reversed the policy of Louis XIV and
reinstituted the full power of the Parlement.
·
Parlement became a vehicle for resistance to the
monarchy in France and the general public became increasingly interested in
curbing royal authority.
·
Cardinal Fleury became a leader in Parlement and
worked to preserve the authority of the monarchy while also preserving the
local interest of the French nobility.
o
Fleury is often compared to Walpole in England
because he pursued economic prosperity at home and tried to avoid war abroad.
Section Five: Central and Eastern Europe
·
Section
Overview
o
Central and eastern Europe were economically
much less advanced than western Europe; except for the Baltic ports, the
economy was agrarian and rulers possessed large estates with a peasant
workforce.
o
Political authorities east of the Elbe River
were weak and constantly warring and shifting allegiances between princes and
aristocracies and refused to subordinate themselves to a central monarchical
authority.
o
During the last half of the seventeenth century,
three dynasties emerged in this area—the Hohenzollerns in Prussia, Russia under
the Romanov family, and the Habsburgs in Austria—and would dominate central and
eastern Europe until the end of World War I in 1919.
·
Poland:
Absence of Strong Central Authority
o
In 1683, King John III Sobieski led a Polish
army to rescue Vienna from a Turkish siege but following this event Poland
became a symbol for the dangers of aristocratic independence.
o
The Polish monarchy was elective but distrust
among themselves usually led to the election of an outside power to the throne.
o
The Polish central legislative body was known as
the Sejm, or diet, and included only
nobles and specifically excluded representatives from corporate bodies like
towns.
§
The Sejm
followed a practice known as liberum veto
in which one member who staunchly opposed a piece of legislation could prevent
it from passing; this created a major block to effective governing.
o
The price of noble liberty and the absence of a
strong central government led to the disappearance of Poland from the map of
Europe in the late eighteenth century.
·
The
Habsburg Empire and the Pragmatic Sanction
o
The end of the Thirty Years’ War marked a
turning point in the history of the Austrian Habsburgs who had previously been
aligned with the Spanish Habsburgs—their cousins.
§
The Austrian Habsburgs hoped to bring all of the
German states under their control and back to the Catholic fold in which they
failed and could no longer rely on the Spanish Habsburgs for support since
Spain’s power dropped significantly in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries.
o
Austrian Habsburg’s land and power
§
Retained hold of the title Holy Roman Emperor
due to their network of connections and skill in diplomacy.
§
Began to consolidate their power outside the
Holy Roman Empire which included the kingdom of Bohemia and the duchies of
Moravia and Silesia; and the crown of Saint Stephen which ruled Hungary,
Croatia, and the Transylvania.
§
The Treaty of Rastatt (which was part of the
Treaty of Utrecht) gave the Austrian Habsburgs control of part of the
Netherlands and Lombardy in northern Italy.
o
Habsburg lands were so diverse and included
people of so many different cultures and language that it was difficult to
establish any sort of unity.
o
Despite the disunity, Leopold I—the Habsburg
Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia—was able to defend Habsburg lands
against Turkish aggression and defeated the Turks when they laid siege on
Vienna.
§
Following this victory, the Habsburgs took
control of much of the Balkan Peninsula and made gains in Romania at the
expense of the Ottoman Empire.
o
The Habsburgs developed the port of Trieste on
the northern coast of the Adriatic Sea and turned it in to a profitable port
for trade.
o
The grandson of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles VI, feared for the dynastic survival of the Habsburg power because he
did not have a son, and therefore worked to pass legislation to ensure that
local nobles did not swallow up Habsburg lands when he died.
§
Pragmatic Sanction
·
This was Charles VI’s plan to have his daughter,
Maria Theresa, inherit his land and title.
·
Charles worked vigorously throughout his life to
get his family, other European monarchs, and nobles to recognize Maria Theresa
as his rightful heir.
o
Despite the Pragmatic Solution, less than two
months after the death of Charles VI, Frederick II of Prussia invaded the
Habsburg province of Silesia in eastern Germany.
·
Prussia
and the Hohenzollerns
o
Section Overview
§
The Hohenzollern family had ruled the
principality of Brandenburg since 1415 and in the seventeenth century added the
duchy of Cleves, and the counties of Mark and Ravensburg, East Prussia, and
Pomerania.
·
By the end of the seventeenth century, only the
Habsburgs possessed more territory than the Hohenzollerns within the Holy Roman
Empire.
§
Frederick William—who became known as the Great
Elector—established himself as the central unifying power in central Europe by
breaking down local noble estates, establishing an efficient bureaucracy, and
building a strong army.
§
Frederick’s relationship with the nobility
·
Frederick William demanded obedience from the Junkers—as the German landlords were
known—but in exchange allowed them to demand obedience from serfs.
·
He appointed nobles to positions in which they
administered the collection of taxes and thereby co-opted potential rivals into
his service.
·
Junkers
were also appointed to leadership positions in the military and were required
to pledge an oath of loyalty directly to Frederick.
§
Frederick I was the son of Frederick William who
was known for being the least “Prussian” of the Hohenzollerns because he built
palaces, founded Halle University, patronized arts, and lived luxuriously.
·
Frederick I sent his army to assist the
Habsburgs during the War of Spanish Succession and was rewarded by Holy Roman
Emperor Leopold I who allowed Frederick I to take the title “King in Prussia.”
§
Frederick William I—successor to Frederick
I—worked tirelessly to build the Prussian military which grew from about 39,000
in 1713 to over 80,000 in 1740, making it the third or fourth largest army in
Europe.
·
The officer corps became the highest social
class in the Prussian state.
·
Military priorities and values dominated
Prussian society, government, and daily life.
·
Frederick William I used his powerful army to
symbolize the power of Prussia but rarely put it to use.
§
Frederick II—the son of Frederick William I—took
control of Prussia and immediately upset the Pragmatic Sanction by invading
Silesia which fostered the Austrian-Prussian rivalry for control of Germany
that would dominate central European affairs for more than a century.
Section Six: Russian Enters the European Political Arena
·
Section
Overview
o
Russia did not emerge as a power in Europe until
the late seventeenth century.
o
Politically and geographically, it lay on the
periphery and never emerged as a major commercial power because it lacked
consistent access to warm-water ports.
·
The
Romanov Dynasty
o
Background
§
Ivan IV (1533-1584)—later known as Ivan the
terrible—underwent a personality change that transformed him from a sensible
political leader into a tyrant who ruled through violence and oppression.
§
A period
known as the “Time of Troubles” followed the death of Ivan.
o
Romanov Dynasty
§
Michael Romanov
·
In an effort to end the “Time of Troubles”, in
1613 a group of Russian nobles elected as tsar a seventeen-year-old boy named
Michael Romanov whose dynasty would rule Russia until 1917.
·
Michael Romanov and his two successors—Aleksei
and Theodore—brought some centralization to Russia but the boyars, the old nobility, still retained a lot of bureaucratic
power and the streltsy, or guards of
the Moscow garrison remained a threat to mutiny against the tsar.
§
Peter the Great
·
Problems with succession
o
He and his half brother, Ivan V, were appointed
co-rulers of Russia and there rise to leadership was supported by the streltsy who expected to be rewarded for
their support.
o
Violence and bloodshed surrounded their
succession.
o
Sophia, sister of Ivan and Peter, was named
regent temporarily as Peter’s followers overthrew her power.
·
Peter took personal control of Russia in 1689
and established two goals.
o
First, to rid the tsar of the threat of the
jealousy of the boyars and the greed
of the streltsy.
o
Second, increase Russian military power.
·
Peter traveled to northwestern Europe in 1697.
o
He inspected shipyards, docks, and warehouses
where weapons were produced.
·
Peter returned to Russia to find that the streltsy had rebelled.
o
Peter surpressed the rebellion by murdering and
torturing an estimated one thousand conspirators.
·
Building a powerful military
o
He drafted about 130,000 men into the Russian
army during the first half of the eighteenth century and nearly 300,000 by the
end of his reign.
·
Peter tames the boyars by personally shaving of their long beards and the long
sleeves of their shirts and coats which made them the target of jokes
throughout the royal courts of western Europe.
§
Peter developed a navy starting in the 1690s
·
The purpose of a navy was to defend Russia’s
interests in the Black Sea against the Ottoman Empire.
o
Russia and the Ottoman Empire went to war in
1695 and Peter’s navy captured the Ottoman port of Azov on the Black Sea.
·
The navy was also used to fight against Sweden
in the Baltic Sea that went on for many years.
§
Russian Expansion in the Baltic Sea: The Great
Northern War
·
Following the Thirty Years’ War, Sweden
consolidated its power in the Black Sea which prevented Russia from having a
port on it and also only allowed Germany and Poland access to it on Swedish
terms.
·
The Great Northern War tool place between 1700
and 1721 between Sweden—led by King Charles XII—and Russia.
·
Sweden won many of the early battles including
the Battle of Narva in 1700.
·
By 1709, momentum had shifted to Russia as
Peter’s military defeated Sweden at the Battle of Poltava in Ukraine after
which Russia dominated the war.
·
The Peace of Nystad ended the war in 1721 which
confirmed that Russia’s conquest of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania which
secured it access to warm water ports.
§
Founding St. Petersburg
·
Peter constructed St. Petersburg—a new capital
city of Russia—on the Gulf of Finland where he built structures for government
affairs and encouraged the boyars to
construct townhouses.
·
St. Petersburg symbolized a new western
orientation for Russia and Peter’s determination to hold his possession of the
Baltic coast.
§
The Case of Peter’s Son Aleksei
·
Aleksei had been born to Peter’s first wife whom
he divorced in 1698.
·
In 1716, Aleksei traveled to Vienna where he met
with Habsburg emperor Charles VI and discussed a plot to overthrow Peter.
·
Peter’s informants learned of the planned
conspiracy and Peter personally carried out the interrogation of his son in
1718.
·
Aleksei died under mysterious circumstances on
June 26, 1718.
§
Reforms of Peter the Great’s Final Years
·
Due to fears that emerged as a result of
Aleksei’s failed conspiracy, Peter worked to bring the nobility and the Russian
Orthodox Church more closely under the authority of persons loyal to the tsar.
§
Administrative Colleges
·
Peter copied the Swedish system of
administrative colleges which were bureaus of several persons operating
according to written instructions rather than departments headed by a single
minister.
·
He created eight colleges to oversee matters
such as the collection of taxes, foreign relations, war, and economic affairs.
§
Table of Ranks
·
This system equated a person’s social position
and privileges with rank in the bureaucracy or military, rather than with his
lineage among the traditional landed nobility.
§
Achieving Secular Control of the Church
·
After some bishops had sympathized with Peter’s
son, in 1721 Peter simply abolished the Patriarch, the bishop who had been the
head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
·
Peter established a government department called
the Holy Synod which consisted of
several bishops headed by a layman, called the procurator general.
·
The Holy Synod
was expected to rule the church in accordance with the tsar’s secular
requirements.
§
Peter died without a successor which caused
soldiers and nobles to determine who ruled Russia for the next thirty years
after his death.
Section Seven: Religious Toleration and the Ottoman Government
·
Section
Overview
o
The Ottoman Empire dominated politics in the
Muslim world as it controlled much of the Middle East including the important
cities of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem.
o
The Ottoman Empire granted subjects like Roman
Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Jews much religious toleration.
o
The government was ruled through units called
millets of officially recognized religious communities.
o
Dhimmis were non-Islamic people who were
tolerated by law could practice their religion and manage their internal
communities through their own religious officials but they were considered
second class citizens and were generally unable to rise in the service of the
empire.
§
Dhimmis paid a special poll tax, could not serve
in the military, and were prohibited from wearing certain clothes.
§
Many dhimmis achieved economic prosperity
through commerce but the Ottomans never developed skills required to nurture a
growing commercial economy because the government discouraged interaction among
the different groups within the empire.
o
The practice of devshirme called for Ottoman sultans to rely on people who would be
loyal directly to them in order to serve as elite troops in the military. Therefore, sultans systematically recruited
many young men and boy Christians from the Balkans.
§
There young men were raised as Muslims and were
organized into elite military infantry units; the most famous of these units
were called Janissaries.
o
In contrast to Europe, few people from the
socially leading families gained military, administrative, or political
experience in the central institutions of the empire.
·
The Role of the Ulama
o
Islamic religious authorities played a
significant role in the political, legal, and administrative life of the
empire.
o
The dynasty saw itself as a defender of Shari’a, or Islamic law, and the Sunni
traditions of Islam.
o
Ulama and the Ottoman state administration
worked together to create policies and make decisions that were in accord with
Islamic law.
o
The Ulama encouraged the Ottoman sultans to
conform to traditional like even as the empire was confronted by a rapidly
changing and modernizing Europe.
·
The End of Ottoman Expansion
o
From the fifteenth century onward, the Ottoman
Empire had tried to push westward into Europe.
o
The Ottoman army launched its most aggressive
assault on Europe in 1683 when it unsuccessfully laid siege to Vienna.
o
Gradually squabbles between the vizier—second in
charge to the sultan—and sultans created a lot political instability throughout
the Muslim world.
o
Local political elites started to assert their
own authority over their regions which the Ottoman Empire allowed in
Transylvania, Wallachia, Moldavia, Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia, but they were
required to pay tribute to the central government.
o
European merchants no longer used the Ottomans
as middlemen in trade with Asia which caused major economic recession by the
late seventeenth century.
o
The Ottomans battled a coalition of Austria,
Venice, Malta, Poland, and Russia to whom the loss a series of battles.
§
Treaty of Carlowitz: ended the wars between the
Ottomans and European powers that required the Ottomans to surrender most of
Hungary to the Habsburgs.
·
European intellectuals began to view the once
feared Ottoman Empire as a declining power and Islam as a backward-looking
religion.
