Download APWH CH 16

Chapter XVI
Transformations in
Europe
1500-1750
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Chapter Objectives
• Show how religious reformation & dynastic rivalries further divided
Europe at a time when greater unity seemed desirable
• Describe how royal centralization increased the unity & power of
Spain, France, and England
• Understand how state policies with regard to economic growth and
military reorganization, warfare, & diplomacy enabled northern
European countries to move ahead of Spain
• Analyze the relationships among climate change, human-induced
environmental change, & social change in Europe
• Understand the ways in which witch-hunts, the Scientific Revolution,
& the Enlightenment reflected different European views of the natural
world and of human society
Culture and Ideas
• Early Protestant Reformation
• In 1500, the Catholic Church, benefiting from European prosperity, was
building new churches, including a new Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Pope
Leo X raised money for the new basilica by authorizing the sale of
indulgences (2 types)
• German monk (?) Martin Luther (Doctor of Theology) challenged the Pope
on the issue of selling indulgences and other practices that he considered
corrupt or not Christian
• Luther began the Protestant Reformation, arguing that salvation was by faith
alone, Christian belief was based only on the Bible & Christian tradition
• Protestant leader John Calvin had a different theological position in (The)
Institutes (of the Christian Religion). He argued salvation was God’s gift to
those who were predestined and that Christian congregations should be selfgoverning and stress simplicity in life and in worship
• Protestant Reformation appealed to religious sentiments, also
to Germans who disliked Italian-dominated Catholic Church &
peasants & urban workers who wanted to reject the religion of
their masters
• Catholic Church agreed on a number of internal reforms and a
reaffirmation of fundamental Catholic beliefs in the Council of
Trent. These responses to the Protestant Reformation, along
with the activities of the newly established Society of Jesus
(the Jesuits) comprise the “Catholic Reformation” A
Scholarly reaction, using the Bible
• The Protestant Reformation led to a number of wars of
religion, the last of them concluded in 1648
Local Religion, Traditional Culture and Witch-Hunts
• European concepts of the natural world were derived from both
local religion and folk customs. Most people believed that
natural events could have supernatural causes
• Belief in the supernatural is vividly demonstrated in the witchhunts of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Over 100,000
people (3/4 of them women) were tried, about half of them
were executed
• Reasons for the witch-hunts were many but at the bottom was
tension between traditional beliefs & new religious and
political institutions
The Scientific Revolution
• European intellectuals derived their understanding of the natural world from
the writings of the Greeks & Romans (Aristotle! Explained everything)
• The observations of Copernicus and other scientists, including Brahe,
Kepler, & Galileo, undermined the earth-centered model of the universe
and led to the introduction of the Copernican heliocentric model
• The Copernican model was initially criticized and suppressed by Protestant
leaders and by the Catholic Church. Despite opposition, printed books
spread these and other new scientific ideas among European intellectuals
• Isaac Newton’s discovery of the law of gravity showed how natural laws
govern all physical objects. Newton’s discoveries led to the development of
Newtonian physics. However, Newton and other scientists did not believe
that their discoveries were in conflict with religious belief
The Early Enlightenment
• Advances in scientific thought inspired European governments & groups of
individuals to question the reasonableness of accepted practices in fields ranging
from agriculture to Government, religions, & social hierarchies
• This intellectual movement, which assumed that social behavior & institutions
were governed by scientific laws, is called the Enlightenment
• Enlightenment thinkers were also influenced by the Reformation & by accounts
of other cultures (including Jesuit accounts of China)
• New scientific methods provided the enlightened thinkers with a model for
changing European society. They were not a homogeneous group, but drew
inspiration from disparate sources and espoused a variety of agendas. Most were
optimistic that the application of reason would lead to human progress
• The ideas of the Enlightenment aroused opposition from many Absolutist rulers
& from clergy, but the printing press made possible the survival & dissemination
of new ideas
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Section Review
Outraged by corrupt church practices, reformers like Luther
& Calvin challenged the Pope & traditional Catholic
theology
In response, the Pope launched a Counter Reformation
Both Protestants & Catholics, seeking to enforce orthodoxy,
sanctioned widespread witch-hunts
The thinkers of the Scientific Revolution challenged
traditional biblical & Greco-Roman conceptions of the
cosmos
The advances in science prompted Enlightenment thinkers
to question many conventional ideas and practices
Social and Economic Life
• The Bourgeoisie
• Europe’s cities experienced spectacular growth between 1500 & 1700. The
wealthy urban bourgeoisie thrived on manufacturing, finance, & especially
trade, including the profitable trade in grain
• They forged beneficial relationships with Monarchs & built extensive family
& ethnic networks to facilitate trade between different parts of the world
• Partnerships between merchants & governments led to the development of
joint-stock companies & stock exchanges. Government also played a key
role in the improvement of Europe’s transportation infrastructure
• The Anglo-Dutch wars of the 17th century provide evidence of the growing
importance of trade in international affairs
• The bourgeois gentry gradually increased their ownership of land; many
entered the ranks of the nobility by marrying into noble families or by
purchasing titles of nobility
Peasants and Laborers
• While serfdom declined & disappeared in Western Europe, it gained new
prominence in Eastern Europe
• African slaves in the Americas contributed greatly to Europe’s economy
• The condition of the average person in Western Europe declined between
1500 & 1700 due to warfare, environmental degradation, & economic
contractions
• New World crops (potatoes & maize) helped peasants avoid starvation
• High consumption of wood for heating, cooking, construction,
shipbuilding, & industrial uses led to severe deforestation in Europe in the
late 17th and early 18th centuries. Shortages drove the cost of wood up
• Europeans began to use coal (mining) instead of wood. Some efforts were
also made to conserve forests & to plant trees, particularly to provide wood
for naval vessels
Women and the Family
• Women’s status & work closely tied to that of their husbands &
families
• Common people married relatively late until young men could make a
living on their own & young women could work enough to earn their
dowries. The bourgeois class also married late partly because men
delayed marriage until after finishing their education. Late marriage
enabled young couples to be independent of their parents & to keep the
birth rate low
• Bourgeois parents put great emphasis on education & promoted the
establishment of schools
• Most schools, professions, & guilds barred women from participation
Section Review
• Early Modern European society was more fluid than it appeared, with
an expanding economy & improved education promoting mobility
• The urban bourgeoisie created much of Europe’s wealth through trade,
manufacture, finance, & technological innovation
• Monarchs sought alliances with the bourgeoisie, whose wealth afforded
them political & social advancement as well as revenue
• Oppressed by economic & environmental trends, peasants & laborers
generally lived in poverty, their misery often provoked rebellion
• Although women remained subordinate to men, class & wealth were
the main determinants of their positions in life
Political Innovations
• State Development
• Between 1516 & 1519, Charles V of Burgundy, of the Austrian
Habsburg family, inherited the thrones of Castile & Aragon (Spain),
with their colonial empires; the Austrian Habsburg possessions; & the
position of Holy Roman Emperor. Charles V was able to forge a
coalition to defeat the Ottomans at Vienna in 1529, but he was unable to
unify his many territorial possessions
• Lutheran German princes rebelled against the French-speaking Catholic
Charles V, seizing church lands, giving rise to the German Wars of
Religion. The Peace of Augsburg gave religious freedom to the various
princes (by choice)
• When Charles V abdicated the throne, Spain (& America) went to his son
Philip while a weakened Holy Roman Empire went to his brother
Ferdinand
Monarchies in England and France
• England: conflict between Parliament & (Stuart) Charles I led to English
Civil War (Bye-bye Charles) & a Puritan republic under Oliver Cromwell
• After Stuart line restored, Parliament enforced its will & drove King James
II from the throne in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, forcing his
successors, William & Mary, to sign a document, English Bill of Rights, to
limit the power of the crown (Constitutional Monarchy)
• France: Bourbon kings able to circumvent the representative assembly
known as the Estates General & develop an Absolutist style of
government. Louis XIV’s finance minister Colbert was able to increase
revenue through more efficient tax collection & by promoting economic
growth, while Louis entertained & controlled the French nobility by
requiring them to attend (stay at) his court at Versailles
• John Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government challenged the
necessity of a monarch that was proposed by Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan)
Warfare and Diplomacy
• Constant warfare in early modern Europe led to a military revolution in which
cannon, muskets, and commoner foot soldiers became the mainstays of European
armies. Armies grew in size, and most European states maintained standing
armies, except England, which maintained a standing navy
• England took the lead in the development of new naval technology, as was
demonstrated when the English Royal Navy defeated The Spanish Armada in
1588, signaling an end to Spain’s military dominance in Europe
• With the defeat of Spain, France rose as the strongest power on continental
Europe, while its rival England held superiority in naval power. During the War
of the Spanish Succession, England, allied with Austria and Prussia, was able to
prevent the French house of Bourbon from taking over the Spanish throne
• With the War of the Spanish Succession, the four powers of Europe—France,
Britain, Austria, and Russia—were able to maintain a balance of power that
prevented any one power from becoming too strong for about two centuries
Paying the Piper (Economics)
• European states needed to raise new revenue to pay the heavy costs of their wars
• The Spanish undermined their economy by driving out Jews, Protestants, and
the descendants of Muslims so that bullion they gained from America was spent
on payments to creditors and for manufactured goods & food (?)
• The United Provinces of the Free Netherlands (Dutch), & Holland favored
commercial interests, craftspeople, & manufacturing enterprises. Amsterdam
became a major center of finance and shipping
• After 1650, England used its naval power to break Dutch dominance in overseas
trade. The English government also improved its financial position by collecting
taxes directly & by creating a central bank
• The French government streamlined tax collection, used protective tariffs to
promote domestic industries, & improved its transportation network. The French
however, were not able to introduce direct tax collection, tax the land of nobles,
or secure low-cost loans
Section Review
• Greater political centralization enabled early modern monarchs to exert increased
influence on economic, religious, and social life
• While the Holy Roman Empire fragmented along religious and political lines,
Spain, France, & England achieved greater centralization and religious unity
• Spain enforced Catholic unity with the Inquisition & France through Bourbon
policy, while Anglican Church became an arm of royal power
• In both England and France, monarchs struggled with rivals over the limits of
royal authority
• Armies grew larger and more sophisticated while European powers strove to
maintain a balance of power
• High military costs drove the European powers to attempt a variety of tax and
financial policies, the most successful being those of England and the
Netherlands
Conclusion
• The religious reformations combined with the Scientific Revolution led
the way for the Enlightenment, an age of reason, and the movement to
apply newly discovered natural laws to social (Political) behavior
• Foreign and domestic trade spawned rapid growth in European cities
and the rise of a wealthy commercial class, with Amsterdam in the
Netherlands the most vivid example. Agricultural improvements
increased production but the Little Ice Age and increased mining of
forests caused more difficulties for the poor
• The Holy Roman Empire declined in strength from religious
fragmentation while Spain and France increased centralized power
• The English increased naval power and established direct taxation and
a central bank, making the nation stronger financially than other
European powers