IN THIS CHAPTER
Summary: From 1600 to 1715, social and economic change created new opportunities for monarchs to consolidate their power at the expense of the traditional, landed nobility.
Key Ideas
• A series of bad harvests and continual warfare pushed the over-taxed peasantry to breaking point.
• European monarchs attempted to end the tax-exempt status of the nobility, town officials, and clergy.
• In those kingdoms in which the monarchs successfully allied themselves with a rising merchant middle class, they were able to curb the power of the nobility, town officials, and clergy and create a powerful centralized state.
• Russia was exceptional in that its monarchs were able to build a powerful centralized state by increasing the power of the nobility.
Key Terms
peasantry
nobility
monarchs
Divine Right of Kings
tax revolts
absolutism
English Civil War
the Commonwealth
Restoration
the Glorious Revolution
constitutional monarchy
Second Treatise of Civil Government
intendent
Versailles
Tsars
Law Code of 1649
Introduction
In the period from 1600 to 1715, the traditional hierarchical structure of European society came under new pressures. As you recall, this structure was one in which a large class of poor agricultural laborers (thepeasantry) supported a small and wealthy class of elites (the nobility). As the monarchs of Europe fought wars to expand their kingdoms and created larger state bureaucracies to manage them, the pressure to raise greater sums of money through taxes stretched the economies and social structures of European societies to breaking point. Meanwhile, the continuous increase in trade and diversification of the economy was creating a new class of people: a middle class made up of merchants and professionals that did not fit comfortably into the traditional hierarchy.
Economic Stress and Change
A series of unusually harsh winters that characterized the “little ice age” of the 1600s led to a series of poor harvests which, in turn, led to malnutrition and disease. In an effort to cope with increasing poverty, members of the besieged agricultural class opted to have smaller families. This combination of famine, poverty, and disease led to a significant decrease in the population during this period.
These “natural” problems that plagued the peasantry of Europe were exacerbated during this period by increasing demands from the nobility that ruled them. The endless warfare waged by the rival monarchs of Europe at this time further depleted the agricultural population by conscripting their sons into the army and taking them off to war. War also required money that the monarchs and their governments attempted to raise by increasing taxes. Because the nobility was largely exempt from taxes, the peasantry bore the brunt of this new economic burden. In many places, the peasantry resisted violently in a series of tax revolts, but temporary concessions won by them were quickly reversed.
Resistance to the monarchs’ desire for increased power and wealth came from provincial nobles, town officials, and church leaders. The outcome of these power struggles varied from kingdom to kingdom.
Britain: The Triumph of Constitutionalism
In Britain, these tensions came to a head in the form of a struggle between the monarchs of the Stuart dynasty and the English Parliament. Already an old and important institution by 1600, the English Parliament was an assembly of elites who advised the king. However, it differed from its counterparts in the other European kingdoms in several important ways:
• Its members were elected by the property-holding people of their county or district.
• Eligibility for election was based on property ownership, so its members included wealthy merchants and professional men as well as nobles.
• Members voted individually rather than as an order or class.
As a result, the English Parliament of the seventeenth century was an alliance of nobles and well-to-do members of a thriving merchant and professional class that saw itself as a voice of the “English people,” and it soon clashed with the monarch it had invited to succeed the heirless Elizabeth I.
When James Stuart, the reigning king of Scotland (known there as James VI), agreed to take the throne of England as James I (1603—1625), he was determined to rule England in the manner described by the theory of absolutism. Under this theory, monarchs were viewed as appointed by god (an appointment known as the Divine Right of Kings). As such, they were entitled to rule with absolute authority over their subjects. Despite this tension, James I’s reign was characterized by a contentious but peaceful coexistence with Parliament.
A religious element was added when James’s son and successor, Charles I (1625—1649), married a sister of the Catholic king of France. That, together with his insistence on waging costly wars with Spain and France, brought relations with Parliament to breaking point. Having provoked the Scots into invading England by threatening their religious independence, Charles I was forced to call on the English Parliament for yet more funds. Parliament responded by making funds contingent on the curbing of monarchical power. This stalemate degenerated into the English Civil War (1642—1646). Forces loyal to the king fought to defend the power of the monarchy, the official Church of England, and the privileges and prerogatives of the nobility; forces supporting Parliament fought to uphold the rights of Parliament, to bring an end to the notion of an official state church, and for notions of individual liberty and the rule of law.
The victory of the Parliamentary forces led to the trial and execution of Charles I for treason and to the establishment of the Commonwealth (1649—1660). The Commonwealth deteriorated into a fundamentalist Protestant dictatorship under the rule of the Parliamentary army’s leading general, Oliver Cromwell. Upon Cromwell’s death in 1658, English Parliamentarians worked to establish a Restoration (1660—1688) of the English monarchy, inviting the son of the king they executed to take the throne as Charles II (1660—1685).
The relative peace of the Restoration period broke down when Charles’s brother, a Catholic, ascended to the throne as James II (1685—1688). James was determined to establish religious freedom for Catholics, to avenge his father, and to restore absolute monarchy to Britain. To thwart James’s plans, Parliament enlisted the aid of the king’s eldest daughter, Mary, the Protestant wife of William of Orange of the Netherlands. The quick, nearly bloodless, uprising that coordinated Parliament-led uprisings with the invasion of a Protestant fleet and army from the Netherlands, and which led to the quick expulsion of James II in 1688, is known as the Glorious Revolution. The reign of William and Mary marks the clear establishment of a constitutional monarchy, a system by which the monarch in Britain rules within the limits of the laws passed by a legislative body. The text written by the leading legal spokesman of the Parliamentary faction, John Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690), is still read today as the primary argument for the establishment of natural limits to governmental authority.
France: Absolutism
Several key differences allowed for a far different outcome in France. A series of religious and dynastic wars in the sixteenth century produced a kingdom in which the religious issue had been settled firmly in favor of the Catholic majority. The lack of religious turmoil in the seventeenth century allowed the French monarchy to cement an alliance with both the clergy and middle class, and to use the great administrative expertise of both to build a powerful centralized government. Both Louis XIII (1610—1643) and Louis XIV (1643—1715) relied on well-connected Catholic Cardinals to oversee the consolidation of royal power by transferring local authority from provincial nobility to a bureaucracy that was both efficient and trustworthy.
As chief minister to Louis XIII, Cardinal Richelieu used the royal army to disband the private armies of the great French aristocrats and to strip the autonomy granted to the few remaining Protestant towns. More significantly, he stripped provincial aristocrats and elites of their administrative power by dividing France into some 30 administrative districts and putting each under the control of an intendent, an administrative bureaucrat, usually chosen from the middle class, who owed his position and, therefore, his loyalty directly to Richelieu.
These policies were continued by Richelieu’s successor as chief minister, Cardinal Jules Mazarin, and perfected by Louis XIV when he took full control of the government upon Mazarin’s death in 1661. To the intimidation tactics practiced by Richelieu and Mazarin, Louis added bribery. Building the great palace at Versailles, 11 miles outside of Paris, Louis presented the nobility of France with a choice: Oppose him and face destruction or join him and be part of the most lavish court in Europe. In choosing to spend most of their time at Versailles, French nobles forfeited the advantages that made their English Parliamentary counterparts so powerful: control of both the wealth and loyalty of their local provinces and districts. As a result, Louis XIV became known as “the Sun King” because all French life seemed to revolve around him as the planets revolved around the sun.
Central and Eastern Europe: Compromise
Whereas the contests for power and sovereignty in Britain and France had clear winners and losers, similar contests in the European kingdoms further to the east resulted in a series of compromises between monarchs and rival elites.
In general, kingdoms in central and eastern Europe, such as Brandenburg—Prussia, the independent German states, Austria, and Poland, were less economically developed than their western counterparts. The economies of Britain and France in the seventeenth century were based on an agricultural system run by a free and mobile peasantry and supplemented by an increasingly prosperous middle class consisting of artisans and merchants in thriving towns. In contrast, the land-holding nobility of the kingdoms in central and eastern Europe during this period managed to retain control of vast estates worked by serfs who were bound by the land. By doing so, they were able to avoid the erosion of wealth that weakened their counterparts in Britain and France.
In both Britain and France, the power struggle between the monarch and the elites was won by the side that managed to form an alliance with the wealthy merchant and professional class. In the European kingdoms further east, however, these classes failed to gain in wealth and numbers as their counterparts in Britain and France had done. As a result, the stalemate between royal and aristocratic wealth and power remained more balanced, necessitating compromise.
Russia: Tsarist Absolutism
The seventeenth-century kingdom furthest to the east proved to be an exception to the rule, as its monarchs, the Tsars, managed to achieve a high degree of absolutism despite an agricultural economy based on serfdom and the lack of an alliance with a thriving middle class.
During the period beginning in 1613 and reaching its zenith with the reign of Peter the Great (1689—1725), the Romanov Tsars consolidated their power by buying the loyalty of the nobles. In return for their loyalty, the Romanov Tsars gave the nobility complete control over the classes of people below them. A prime example is the Law Code of1649, which converted the legal status of groups as varied as peasants and slaves into that of a single class of serfs. Under the Romanov Tsars, the Russian nobility also enjoyed the fruit of new lands and wealth acquired by aggressive expansion of the Russian Empire eastward into Asia.
With the nobility firmly tied to the Tsar, opposition to the Tsar’s power manifested itself only periodically in the form of revolts from coalitions of smaller landholders and peasants angered by the progressive loss of their wealth and rights. Such revolts, like the revolts of the Cossacks in the 1660s and early 1670s, were ruthlessly put down by the Tsar’s increasingly modern military forces, and controlled thereafter by the creation of a state bureaucracy modeled on those in western Europe, and by encouraging the primacy and importance of the Russian Orthodox Church that taught that the traditional social hierarchy was mandated by God.
• Rapid Review
During the period from 1600 to 1725, the dynamics of the traditional, hierarchical social structure of European kingdoms came under new pressures. As their economies underwent a transformation from a purely agricultural base to a more complex system that included expanding trade and the uneven growth of a middle class of merchants and professionals, European monarchs attempted to solidify their claims to sovereignty.
• In Britain, their attempts failed as a section of the traditional nobility (which was motivated by both self-interest and religious conviction) formed an alliance with like-minded members of the rising merchant and professional class within Parliament, creating a system of shared sovereignty known as constitutional monarchy.
• In France, the Bourbon monarchs managed to form alliances with both the French Catholic Church and the middle classes to establish a system of Royal absolutism.
• In central and eastern European kingdoms like Brandenburg—Prussia, the German States, Austria, and Poland, a less dynamic economy meant that the stalemate between monarchs and traditional nobility was harder to break, and a series of power sharing arrangements was made.
• Furthest east, in Russia, the Romanov Tsars constructed an alliance with the grandest of the land-owning nobility at the expense of the classes below them and consolidated their power by expanding their empire and ruthlessly crushing opposition from below.
• Chapter Review Questions
1. During the period from 1600 to 1715, the traditional social hierarchy of Europe came under pressure by all of the following EXCEPT
(A) continuous warfare
(B) climate change resulting in series of bad harvests
(C) the rejection of religious practice by large numbers of people
(D) increased trade and the diversification of the economy
(E) the desire of monarchs to increase their power and authority
2. The English Parliament during the period from 1600 to 1715
(A) was a relatively new institution
(B) was exclusively an institution of the nobility
(C) was an institution opposed to monarchy
(D) was the institution in which nobles, merchants, and professionals formed an alliance to oppose the absolutist goals of the Stuart monarchs
(E) was in favor of a one-man, one-vote system of democracy
3. In the period 1600—1715, the English had the greatest success in resisting the absolutist designs of their monarchs for all of the following reasons EXCEPT
(A) the nobility forged an alliance with a wealthy and powerful merchant and professional class
(B) the English nobility was the most powerful in all of Europe
(C) the Parliament was an old and respected institution
(D) the Stuart monarchs were perceived to have Catholic leanings and sympathies
(E) the English economy was well-developed and diversified
4. Compared with the Romanov Tsars, the Bourbon monarchs of France in the period 1600—1715
(A) made less use of the Church and its expertise and influence
(B) were less reliant on the nobility for their power
(C) were more absolutist in their style of government
(D) sought to expand their empire to a larger extent
(E) were more committed to the primacy of the privileges and prerogatives of the nobility
5. The single most important factor in explaining the need of central and eastern European monarchs and nobles to reach compromises on the issue of sovereignty during the period from 1600 to 1715 was
(A) the lack of religiosity in the people
(B) the lack of ambitious monarchs
(C) the existence of strong peasant movements
(D) the lack of strong armies
(E) the lack of a well-developed middle class of merchants and professionals
6. The reign of Peter the Great of Russia (1682—1725) resulted in
(A) the abolition of the Russian Orthodox Church
(B) the territorial expansion of the Russian Empire
(C) the weakening of serfdom
(D) a decrease in the tax burden on poor peasants
(E) the emergence of a wealthy middle class
7. Compared with their counterparts in Russia, the English peasantry of the early 1700s
(A) bore a greater tax burden
(B) enjoyed less freedom of movement
(C) had a greater chance of improving their social and economic position
(D) enjoyed less religious freedom
(E) were more likely to live in towns
8. By the early eighteenth century, the kingdom whose political system afforded the greatest amount of self-rule to its subjects was
(A) England
(B) France
(C) Brandenburg—Prussia
(D) Austria
(E) Russia
• Answers and Explanations
1. C. Nowhere in Europe during this period was there a large-scale rejection of religious practice; rather, the religious fervor that pitted Catholics against Protestants complicated the tensions created by the other four answers. Choice A is incorrect because continuous warfare put pressure on the traditional social hierarchy by disrupting the economy and increasing the demand for taxes. Choice B is incorrect because a series of bad harvests meant that there was less wealth in the economy at a time when monarchs were demanding more. Choice D is incorrect because increased trade and a more diversified economy gave birth to a class of economically powerful merchants who did not fit into the traditional social hierarchy. Choice E is incorrect because the desire of monarchs to increase their power and authority led them to wage wars of conquest, which put enormous stress on the economy.
2. D. The existence of Parliament as an institution that mixed traditional nobility with newly wealthy merchants and professionals allowed for an alliance between the two to form in opposition to Stuart absolutist designs. Choice A is incorrect because Parliament was, by 1600, an old and respected institution. Choice B is incorrect because Parliament’s members were elected from local elites whose qualifications were based on property ownership, not noble birth. Choice C is incorrect because the Parliament was not opposed to monarchy as a form of government, but only to the notion that the monarch had absolute and unlimited power. Choice E is incorrect because Parliament’s members did not, in this period, question the notion that only those who met certain property qualifications were entitled to vote.
3. B. The wealth and power of the English nobility as a class was in decline as the economy became more diversified and new forms of wealth created an economically strong middle class. Choice A is incorrect because the nobles inside Parliament did forge an alliance with a wealthy and powerful merchant and professional class to resist the absolutist designs of the Stuarts. Choice C is incorrect because the tradition of a powerful Parliament gave the noble—merchant alliance credibility with the English people. Choice D is incorrect because the Stuart monarchs were perceived to have Catholic leanings and sympathies, which did not sit well with the English people. Choice E is incorrect because the advanced development of the English economy is what produced the merchant middle class with whom the nobles in Parliament allied.
4. B. The Bourbon monarchs of France built the power of their state at the expense of the nobility and, thus, did not rely on them in the way the Romanovs did. Choice A is incorrect because the Bourbons made extensive use of the clergy as they built their new administrative state. Choice C is incorrect because the Bourbons were every bit as absolutist as the Romanovs in their aims; they simply achieved the goal by different means. Choice D is incorrect because the Bourbons were less expansionist than the Romanovs. Choice E is incorrect because the Bourbons were, unlike the Romanovs, set on curbing the power and prerogatives of the nobility.
5. E. The key to successfully building or resisting a powerful centralized state in this period was the degree to which the monarchs or nobles could forge an alliance with and utilize the talents and wealth of a merchant middle class. Therefore, the lack of such a class forced compromise in the central and eastern kingdoms. Choice A is incorrect because all European peoples were equally religious during this period. Choice B is incorrect because the Monarchs of Europe were equally ambitious during this period. Choice C is incorrect because peasants in all the European kingdoms resisted encroachment on their rights and livelihood in the only way they could, through occasional tax and bread riots. Choice D is incorrect because all European monarchs were capable of raising sizeable armies during this period.
6. B. The territorial holdings of the Russian Empire were greatly expanded under Peter the Great. Choice A is incorrect because the power of the Russian Orthodox Church was strengthened during the reign of Peter the Great. Choice C is incorrect because the institution of serfdom was supported, not weakened, by Peter the Great. Choice D is incorrect because the tax burden on the Russian peasantry was increased under Peter the Great. Choice E is incorrect because no wealthy merchant class emerged in Russia during the reign of Peter the Great.
7. C. The English peasantry of the early 1700s had a greater chance of improving their social and economic position because the English economy was much more developed and diverse than that of Russia, and because the English Revolution of the seventeenth century had curbed the power of the monarchy and the nobility and established the rule of law. Choice A is incorrect because the English peasantry of the early-1700s bore a lesser tax burden than its Russian counterparts. Choice B is incorrect because the peasantry in England, where serfdom had long been abolished, enjoyed a greater freedom of movement than their Russian counterparts who still labored under a system of serfdom. Choice D is incorrect because the English peasantry enjoyed greater religious freedom than their Russian counterparts. Choice E is incorrect because “peasants” are agricultural laborers and, by definition, live in the countryside rather than towns.
8. A. The constitutional monarchy and the rule of law that resulted from the English Revolution of the seventeenth century guaranteed its subjects the greatest amount of self-rule in Europe. Choice B is incorrect because the subjects of France lived under an absolutist regime constructed by the Bourbon monarchy. Choices C and D are incorrect because the subjects of Brandenburg—Prussia and ofAustria enjoyed only a moderate amount of self-rule as the monarchs and nobility fought each other to a standoff. Choice E is incorrect because Russians lived under an absolutist regime built through an alliance between the Tsar and the Russian nobility.