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Wars of Religion
I. The Wars of Religion.
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The Results of the Protestant Reformation
o Long Term
 the Protestant Reformation strongly affected the development of
other movements such as capitalism, liberalism, democracy, and
nationalism by the way Protestants interpreted the Bible, the role
of the church in society, and the people's role in the church
 Politically, the Reformation was a victory of the state over the
church, which helped lead to the separation of church and state
 Calvinism was important in this movement because it emphasized
the individual’s role in salvation and in the decision-making of an
institution (the church) that supposedly had authority over him,
thus accustoming average people to the idea of participatory
government
 Protestantism led toward democracy because the its philosophy
emphasized the rights of the individual, and provided an important
precedent of successful revolt against powerful authority
o On the negative side, the Reformation broke down the almost monolithic
power of the Catholic church--this opened the door for the development of
stronger monarchs and political absolutism
The Wars of Religion in Europe
o One of the major results of the Reformation was the end of religious unity
in Europe
 Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Ireland, southern Germany, Austria,
Poland, and Hungary remained primarily Catholic
 Holland, England, Scotland, northern Germany, Switzerland, and
Scandinavia became Protestant
o The division of Christianity led to the growth of religious intolerance
during the 16th and 17th centuries
 A series of religious wars broke out, some of which we've
mentioned in the course of talking about the Reformation
 the civil wars in Germany with the Lutherans
 the civil war in Switzerland with Zwingli and Calvin
 the civil war in France involving the Huguenots
o Thirty Years War
 the most famous of these religious wars was the 30 Years' War
(1618-48)
 The conflict was between the Protestants (led by Gustavus
Adolphus, king of Sweden) and the Catholics (led by the
Hapsburg rulers of Austria)
 Ultimately, it became a dynastic struggle as the French
(pro-Protestant) and the Spanish (pro-Catholic) got sucked
into the conflict
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The battleground was the German lands of the Holy Roman
Empire
It was the most brutal and destructive war of its time and nearly
caused the economic and political collapse of Germany
The war ended with the Treaty of Westphalia which resulted in
France becoming more powerful, the emergence of the
Netherlands and England as international players, and the gradual
decline of Spain
II. Commercial Revolution
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European economic life changed dramatically in the 16th and 17th centuries
o From the local subsistence economy of the Middle Ages, Europe was now
engaged in a dynamic worldwide capitalism similar to modern times
o The profit motive became more pronounced as more people lived off
commerce and industry
o Major changes in agriculture freed up labor for the industrial revolution
Mercantilism became the norm for many nation states
o This is an economic system by which the government regulates the
economy to increase the wealth and power of the state
 Profit for the individual is only a secondary concern
 This insistence on putting the state above personal profit created
major changes in economic theory in the 18th century and set the
stage for the French revolution
o Before, in the Middle Ages, towns had stimulated trade, but now nation
states did, meaning those countries without a strong national government,
like Italy and Germany which were not even united, or eastern European
states with fragile unity, could no longer compete successfully
o Mercantilists believed the amount of wealth was fixed
 The idea was to get as much as you could, but to do so you would
take yours from someone else
 Thus, mercantilists stressed the importance of collecting precious
metals, much of which they took from the New World, and insisted
on a favorable balance of trade
 This concept meant selling more than you imported, and it implied
the use of high tariffs to keep out foreign competition and a
colonial system to produce what the mother country could not
Spain and Portugal
o Spain and Portugal got off to an early lead in exploration and exploiting
New World wealth, but neither continued into the 17th century
o The population of Portugal was simply too small, and after emigration,
plague and famine reduced it further, there were simply not enough
Portuguese to administer or defend a huge empire
o Spain's decay was harder to explain, for she had both the population and
money
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Spain, however, had hurt her own agricultural base by allowing
sheep to graze even on plowed fields in order to get more wool for
her wool industry
 Two and a half million sheep engaged in 400 mile long
sheep runs from the south of Spain in the winter to the
mountains in the north in the summer, and they munched
their way through Spain's valuable farmland in the process
 The Spanish government was also the victim of its own religious
persecution whereby the Jews and Muslims who made up her
middle class were expelled, taking with them their skills
 Spain lacked skilled craftsmen, so Spaniards had to use outside
banks and import the things they wanted
 Money from overseas simply created inflation in Spain which she
then exported to the rest of Europe
The Netherlands
o The Dutch made a stab at becoming the best in exploration and
exploitation of non-European resources
 The Dutch East India company and West India company were
private companies authorized by the state to administer overseas
territories, and they were successful in the short run
 The Dutch also possessed better ships and lower freight rates than
almost anyone else
 The religious toleration of the Netherlands encouraged those
persecuted elsewhere to settle there
o But the Dutch, like the Portuguese, were simply too small in numbers to
compete
o Especially when the English ended their civil war by 1660, and turned
their full attention to the upstart Dutch, the Golden Age of Holland came
to an end
England
o England, after a slow start, prevailed in the long run
 Although inferior to France in population, fertility of the soil and
size, England nonetheless had some major advantages that became
clearer over time
 Her geographical isolation discouraged military conquest, so she
did not have to pay for a huge army as France did
o The English were among the first to achieve national unity, and so did not
suffer from the infighting so characteristic of Germany and Italy, let alone
Eastern Europe
o In England, the aristocracy and middle class controlled Parliament, so the
government enacted laws benefiting trade and banking, unlike in France,
where the Estates General met less and less frequently
 One example of such favorable laws in England was a
mercantilist's dream come true; the Navigation Acts restricted
trading with England to English ships
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Ships could not sail directly to Europe from English colonies
without first putting into English ports where they would pay a tax
before reshipping
 In fact, the American colonists objected so strongly to these laws
which benefited England but not them that it is one of the root
causes of the American revolution
o Likewise, like the Dutch but unlike the Spanish, the English benefited
from relative religious toleration
 There were no religious wars here to kill people off nor cause the
flight of skilled craftsmen like the Huguenots in France or Jews in
Spain
o The English were also aided by the fact that the distance from the mother
country to her colonies in the New World was considerably shorter than
the distance between Spain and her colonies, allowing the English to
communicate more quickly and efficiently with her colonies
Other economic developments
o Important commercial developments occurred in the 17th century as well
o Banking and accounting
 Public banks superseded private ones like the Fugger (the people
who sold indulgences) family bank in Germany and Medici family
bank in Florence of the early Renaissance
 The Bank of Sweden was first, but the most famous was the
Bank of England, chartered in 1694
 Bank notes issued on these public banks and their
sophisticated credit systems allowed commerce to flourish
 Double entry bookkeeping, invented now, helped people know at a
glance how much they were really worth, and joint stock
companies were created to raise the large amounts of money
needed to succeed in this worldwide trade
o The two major developments of the 17th century, however, which set the
stage for the industrial revolution of the 18th were the domestic system
and changes in agriculture
 The Domestic System
 The domestic system, sometimes called the cottage industry
system, worked by having an entrepreneur buy raw
materials, like wool, and give it to peasants who took it
home where the wool would be cleaned, carded, spun and
woven into cloth
 The cloth would be returned to the entrepreneur at a
specified date
 The domestic or cottage system had many advantages
 It increased employment in rural areas, providing
the poor with income
 It was not regulated by guilds, so people were free
to experiment with new methods
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In time, people began specializing, like making only
buttons or only carding wool
 The domestic system was carried out at home, in a
healthier environment than the later factories
provided
 The system was suitable for common items like cloth,
buttons, knives and shot, but it would not work for luxury
goods like tapestries or fine porcelains that required special
training to do and centralized workshops with a heavy
investment in plant
 In France, perennially short of money, guilds were also
taxing agents, so the French government was reluctant to
encourage domestic industries for fear of losing tax revenue
the guilds provided
 In fact, the domestic system appeared first in England
which, not surprisingly, throughout the 18th and 19th
centuries, specialized in simple, common items where the
profit margin was small on each item, but total sales were
enormous
Second Agricultural Revolution
 The other major development was in agriculture
 People who had made fortunes in trade began buying land
to consolidate their position socially and to take advantage
of rising food prices
 These capitalist estate owners forced peasants to
farm more efficiently--and they had a long way to
go
 In the seventeenth century, European crop yields were little
better than they had been in ancient times, that is about four
or five bushels of wheat for every one sown
 The Second Agricultural Revolution these new capitalist managers
created solved the problem of setting the land lie fallow to avoid
soil exhaustion
 As late as the Middle Ages, one third of the land was left
fallow each year
 Now farmers would alternate grain that robbed the soil of
nitrogen with nitrogen storing crops like beets and turnips
 Not only could you now grow on all the land, all the time,
but the nitrogen storing crops actually rejuvenated the soil
 Elaborate systems of rotation were developed, some lasting
as long as ten years
 More food meant more fodder for animals that in turn led to bigger
and healthier herds and more manure to enrich the soil
 To carry out the system efficiently, however, required large
amounts of land
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Thus the Second Agricultural Revolution led to the enclosing of
common land and pastures which in turn created a new class of
tenant farmers
 The independent English farmer began to disappear
 The first steps toward this agricultural revolution were taken in the
Low Countries where land was scarce and the population large
 In short order, the process spread to England which began
reclaiming marshes in the Dutch fashion around Cambridge
on a scale unseen since the Cistercians
In any case, the industrial revolution of the 18th century was made possible by the
developments of the 17th century, both in domestic industry and agriculture, but
the industrial revolution was like a cleaver through history, creating vast social
and economic changes we still deal with