chapter 17- the emergence of the european state system
TRANSCRIPT
Absolutism in France
Other Patterns of Absolutism
Alternatives to Absolutism
The International System
Chapter Seventeen: The Emergence of the
European State System
Absolutism in France
In the wake of the mid-seventeenth century
crisis, a strong impetus for a powerful and
centralized government grew
The institutions and practices which were created became the
essential components for the modern state
*Absolutism: the belief that power
emanated from the monarch’s unlimited
authority
Absolutism was based on a theory
known as the *divine right of kings
God’s representative on earth
The Rule of Louis XIV
The most famous absolutist state was the
Kingdom of France, which became the most
powerful regime in Europe
Louis XIV (1643-1715)—an archetype
God’s lieutenant and the authority from the Bible
VersaillesThe court and setting of
a kings rule is a reflection of his power
and the authority of the central government
Near Paris, a remote and elaborate court
was created (c. 1680)
The largest building in Europe
“Domestication of the aristocracy” —
authority and statues of lords no longer came from lineage but from
service to the thrown
Control of nobles and Lords and who controlled the land
Court Life
French culture was shape by the king’s patronage of those
artists and writers who appealed to the royal taste
Official taste is what counted
What exalted the king, dazzling displays at
Versailles—a reflection of France and the King
Paris and Versailles
One alternative center of society and culture was
Paris
Versailles was overwhelmingly a male
society, except for the royal mistresses in his
early years
Rigidly pious in later years
In Paris, women established and dominated the
*salons: gathering places which
promoted discussion—comedy, political
discussion, and lively entertainment
A converse to the somber court of the
King
Government
Absolutism was more than a device of royal
arrogance
The rebuilding of the state and the
reorganization of government institutions
Centralization of authority around the
throne
The long-lasting results of Louis’ Absolutism—control over these three
areas:
The use of armed force, the formulation and
execution of laws, and the collection and
expenditure of revenue
These required a centrally controlled bureaucracy
The King’s Dual Functions
In addition to his administrative skills,
Louis created an extravagant court life:
Hunting, cultivating arts, huge banquets
His court consumed an excessive share of the state’s resources and
became an end in itself
Like court life, government policy
under Louis XIV was tailored to the
aim of state building
Competing Ministers
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Advocated a mercantilist policy
He argued that the government’s policy
should be to increase France’s
wealth
Marquis of Louvois
The son of a military administrator,
Louvois consistently emphasized the
army as the foundation of
France’s power
Foreign Policy
The international scene of his court was
to serve the la gloire (the glory) of France
His efforts to expand that power prompted
their neighbors to form coalitions and alliances together
against France
Louis versus Europe
These alliances led to the concept of *balance
of power
Leopold I, the Holy Roman Emperor, was
distracted by war against the Turks in
the East
After 1683, the war turned in HRE’s favor
HRE’s attention and subsequent joining of
the war led to the halting French
expansion
When Louis lost territories in the 1680’s,
he sought peace
Eventually France got involved in a bitter war
with the Spanish to gain the throne
Economic strains emerged which reduced the tax
revenue size and the workforce, leading to an
extensive decline of French
economic, and therefore
political, power
The War of Spanish Succession
Louis pushed for Philip, Louis XIV’s grandson to take the
Spanish throne
He pushed for Spain and France to be united and to be
closed off to foreign trade
Leopold and William formed the Grand Alliance to fight
back against this gathering of power
A long battle emerged in Europe and overseas, in India,
Canada, and the Caribbean
Led by brilliant generals, the Grand Alliance won a series of
great victories
France endured a terrible famine in 1709
Despite the setbacks, he maintained his boarders and secured the Spanish throne
Domestic Policy
Control and Reform
The “Sun King” extended centralization to religion
and social institutions
Persecution and exile of Huguenots and the Catholic Jansenists
Revoked the Edicts of Nantes (1685)
The End of an EraFrance became the envy of Europe
An extreme contrast existed between the glittering court
and the misery of most French
Taxes and rents rose dramatically
Many began to see commoners as assets to the
state
France after Louis XIV
Traditional ambitions of the nobles
reasserted themselves after he died in 1715
A rejection of centralization emerged
Louis XV left with much debt from his
father’s wars
Louis XV and Fleury
He gave almost unlimited authority to
his tutor Cardinal Fleury
Silent Absolutism
Gradually the populace had abundant harvests, a rising population, and
increased commercialism
Political Problems
Following Louis XV’s death in 1743,
War Hawks plunged France into more wars which led to an
increased strain on the lower classes
The Long Term
The 1700s were a time of notable advancements
Expansions in population, in the
rural economy, commerce, and empire building
Other Patterns of Absolutism
Four other monarchs built absolute states:
Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, and St. Petersburg
All varied in strengths and weaknesses
The Habsburgs at ViennaThe Habsburg Leopold I, the
Holy Roman Emperor (1658-1705)
He transformed Vienna into a city for nobles as well as small-
time traders
Leopold had no fondness of the pomp like Louis XIV
He supported many composers and musical culture
Government Policy
After the 30 Years War, it was discovered that the princes could
not be controlled
The Privy Council, dominated by
aristocratic families, ran Leopold’s government
The Power of the Nobility
Unlike Louis XIV, Leopold gave his aristocracy
influence in the government and the lands
Limited centralization beyond Austria
Leopold’s absolutism— the nobility retained far
more autonomous power
The Hohenzollerns at Berlin
A new power emerged in Brandenburg-Prussia
State-building was made possible by a close alliance between powerful rulers
and his nobles
Frederick William of Hohenzollern (r. 1640-1688)
He ruled the scattered territories
which stretched over 700 miles
Foreign Policy
Built a massive army some 8,000 strong by
1648
Military became a major factor in his foreign policy, a
major influence on the future policies
Prussia and Germany
Domestic Policy
The Elector Fredrick William was given the right to raise
taxes from the Diet of Brandenburg in 1653
With this power, he had no use of the
officials
Military expansion
The Junkers
Prussian nobles (“young lord”) formed an alliance with with
Frederick Williams that undermined the diet and representative
assemblies
They reimposed serfdom and
consolidated their land holdings
Frederick III
Frederick William’s heir, Elector Frederick III, had
no love of “pomp”
He fashioned Berlin as a cultural center, founding
libraries, fostered the arts, Academy of
Sciences, and sponsored German scientists and philosophers—Leibniz
Frederick only lacked one thing:
a crown
To fight with Leopold I against France in the War
of Spanish Succession
Fredrick was given the title
“King of Prussia”
Rivalry and State Building
Poland failed to centralize and was partitioned three times by Russian, Austria,
and Prussia
Absolute rulers built their states by increasing the size of armies, collecting larger revenues, and developing bureaucracies for the war
effort
The Prussia of Frederick William I (r. 1713-1740) sought to
strengthen absolutism at home and abroad
Uncluttered by royal ceremonies, he supervised all
government activities personally
The Prussia of Frederick William I
Emphasis on the Military
Organized his state to serve his military power
Fourth largest military in Europe behind France,
Russia, and Austria
Intensive drilling and standardized uniforms
Frederick the GreatFrederick II (r. 1740-1786)
—opposite to the temperament of his
Father
deist, sentimental, artistic, composer of
music, and admirer of French culture
His father forced him to work at all levels to gain
experience
Frederick’s Absolutism
Sought to expand political power not because it was his “divine mission” but because
absolute rule could bring results
An enlightened monarch who sought rational and
moral existence
Religious toleration and judicial reform
The Habsburg Empire
The Habsburg Empire held
diverse territories under one crown
They hoped to integrate Austria,
Bohemia, and Hungary
International Rivalry
Leopold’s successor, Charles VI (r. 1711-1740) was sonless, only having
his daughter Maria Theresa
He sought to pass the Pragmatic Sanction (1713),
declaring that all Habsburg dominions to pass to the eldest heir,
male or female
The focus on this succession ultimately weakened the HRE
This weakening was taken advantage by Austria and Prussia
She eventually solidified this kingdom through
military strength—completely convinced of
the divine mission
Reform in Church and State
She disdained religious toleration and loathed atheists—thus she sought to reform the Church
She abolished the clergy’s exemptions
from taxes
Habsburgs and Bourbons at Madrid
In Spain the Habsburgs had little
success in state building
Charles II (r. 1665-1700)—
incapable of having children, which led
to the War of Spanish Succession
Bourbon SpainWhen the Bourbons
gained the crown, they challenged the power of
the Jesuits who had gotten involved in the political
landscape
Expelled from Spanish territory in 1767
This led Jesuits to break free from the Spanish
Empire
Peter the Great of St. Petersburg
While many capitals were improved and
made cultural centers which reflected absolutism, St.
Petersburg in Russia was the only entirely
new capital
Tsar Peter I (the Great)—1682-1725
Peter’s Fierce AbsolutismNone of the state-
building rulers of the period had Peter’s terrifying energy to
exercise absolute power
Forced labor to build his capital in a cold swamp resulting in thousands
of deaths
Named after his patron saint
Western Models
After a humiliating military defeat, Peter sought the advances
that the Western nations had developed
While disguised, he traveled the European
countries
He built a Western modeled court, an
Academy of Sciences, and encouraged the first
Russian newspaper
Italian artists, Scandinavian army
officers, German engineers, and Dutch
shipbuilders
Bureaucratization
Peter ignored the Duma, the traditional advisory council, and
focused on his bureaucracy
He copied the models set by Prussia,
establishing a complex system of government
departments
The Imposition of Social Order
Peter’s policies laid the foundation for a two-class
system society
All peasants were reduced to one level, only slightly above
Serfs
Peter created a single class of nobles who found power in the bureaucracy rather than in the
traditional titles
The Subjugation of the Nobility
There was no voluntary alliance between nobles
and the government
The Tsar’s offered privilege and wealth in
exchange for public service
They coerced the nobility to follow the crown’s
wishes
Control of the Church Peter also absorbed the authority and wealth of
church lands by abolishing ecclesiastical
independence
He refused to replace the patriarch of the
Russian church who had died
The Church became a branch of the government
Military Expansion
Peter established a huge standing army, more than three hundred thousand
by the 1720s
He extended Russia’s frontier to the south and west, and, at the battle of Poltava in 1709, reversed his earlier defeat by the
Swedes
Alternatives to Absolutism
Alternative models did
develop: governments dominated by aristocrats or
merchants
Some of these systems are called constitutionalism
Aristocracy in the United Provinces, Sweden, and Poland
In the Dutch republic, the succession of William III seemed to move toward
absolutism
soon, however, the power of merchants and provincial
leaders
William sought the English crown and given attempts at
political centralization
Dutch Society
Instead of ancient families and bureaucratic
dynasties, the nobility was composed of
merchants and mayors
The elite were composed of hard-working financiers
and traders
Sweden
The Swedes created yet another non-absolutist model of state building
Charles XI (1660-1697), the monarchy was able to force
the great lords to return land to the throne
Stayed out of Europe’s wars and conserved resources
Charles XII (r. 1697-1718) revived
Sweden’s tradition of military conquest
In treaties signed from 1719 to 1721, Sweden
reverted to roughly the territory it had a century earlier
A splendid court arose in Stockholm
Poland
The sheer chaos and disunity that plagued
Poland until it ceased to exist as a state in the 18th
century was the direct result of the aristocracy blocking centralization
Poland was divided among the three major
powers
The Triumph of the Gentry in England
The model for a non-absolutist regime was
England
King Charles II (r. 1660-1685) seemed to hold
similar power to most absolutist rulers but was actually restrained by the
Parliament which had deep roots in England
He could not raise taxes but was given a fixed annual income financed by a tax on
beer
The Gentry and Parliament
The real control of the country’s affairs passed to
substantial land owners known as the gentry
The gentry were an independent force over various regions of land
Policy was still set by the King and his ministers, but the
Commons had be persuaded
The Succession
Despite divided authority, the
structure worked
Under James II (r. 1685-88), disaster
emerged
A zealous Catholic in a Protestant
country
The gentry invited the
Protestant ruler of the United
Provinces, William III
James II fled to France
A bloodless victory called the
“Glorious Revolution”
William and Mary
He gained what little title he could from his
wife Mary
The Parliament proclaimed them joint
monarch in 1689
*Bill of Rights determined the
succession of the throne
William guided England into an
aggressive foreign policy
He insisted that Parliament not meet while he was out of
country
But unlike James, William recognized
his limits
Politics and Prosperity
A small elite controlled the
countries policy and its institutions
A party system had developed during Charles
II’s reign
*Whig party, which opposed to the
throne, Catholicism, and rebellion against
James II
*Tory party, stood for independence
and authority of the crown, Anglicanism
The Sea and the Economy
England was winning for itself
unprecedented prosperity and laying the foundations of it’s
world power
England founded new colonies across the
globe
War and TaxesAs the financial and military needs of the
government expanded
A fully bureaucratized state
developed
Wars required an increase of resources and troops; 1690: 2 Million—1770: 30
Million
Contrasts in Political Thought
Intensive development of
new political systems led to an
outpouring of ideas about the nature and purpose of
government
Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes, from a poor family who
tutored aristocrats’ sons, attempted to use
the scientific method to analyze political behavior
Leviathan (1651)
People are selfish and ambitious and unless
they are restrained, they will fight perpetual wars
*State of nature—the state of war
Absolutism and sovereign power will
maintain peace
Locke
John Locke, a professor at Oxford,
sought to soften Hobbes
He based his theories on knowledge; tabula
rasa
Locke believed an underlying order
exists in every person
Second Treatise of Civil Government
Published in 1690, deeply influenced by Hobbes
He agreed with Hobbes but that the government should not encroach on three areas: life, liberty,
and property
He became the voice for the gentry
The International System
An orderly system on how nations are to
get along became a
major concern
Diplomacy and Warfare
Traditional dynastic interests still dominated policy
Family succession and arranged marriages to gain
new titles or alliances
Eventually, these dynastic interests gave way to the
impersonal conception of the state
“Balance of Power” and the Diplomatic System
The concept of equilibrium among state powers in Europe was
quickly taking hold
The Routinized management of foreign
relations fostered a collective European
identity
THE END