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The Transformation of Europe 1500-1700. Religious Conflict in Europe. The Protestant Reformation. German Catholic monk Martin Luther (1483-1546) protested the sale of indulgences that had become a method of building the pope’s buildings in Rome.
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The Protestant Reformation • German Catholic monk Martin Luther (1483-1546) protested the sale of indulgences that had become a method of building the pope’s buildings in Rome. • With the invention of the printing press, Martin Luther publicized abuses of the Catholic church. • He advocated a “vernacular” bible written in the native language, rather than Latin.
The Protestant Reformation • Martin Luther also advocated the end to a priestly authority. • Soon, the low countries of modern-day Holland and Belgium adopted a form of French Protestantism known as Calvinism. • By the mid 17th century the protest soon took on a nationalist bent as almost half the German states rejected Catholicism in favor of Protestantism.
The Protestant Reformation • In England, English monarch Henry VIII (1509-1547) broke with the Catholic church in order to divorce his Spanish wife ( his brother’s widow) who could not give him a male heir to the throne. • He made himself head of the Anglican church and married Anne Boleyn (Anne gave him a daughter who later became Queen Elizabeth I). He would marry another four times after Anne in his life. • His successors established more Protestant practices adopted by Martin Luther.
The Catholic Reformation • The Catholic church decided to cleanse the church of its abuses . • They hoped to win back Catholics lost to Protestantism. • The Council of Trent met for 18 years to clarify doctrine, establish seminaries, and provide moral direction for the church. • The Society of Jesus was created in 1540 to hold recruits to a high educational and moral standard.
Religious Wars: France • For thirty-six years, the French Catholics fought the Huguenot Protestants for control of the French monarchy. • A series of eight civil wars between Catholics and Protestants ended with the king’s declaration making Protestantism illegal. Protestants fled to nearby Protestant countries.
Religious Wars: SpainLet’s Look Back at Spain’s Climb to Empire
Spain Becomes an Imperial Power • The ground work for Spain’s imperial power was established when Isabella I of Castile married Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469. • Through Isabella and Ferdinand, Spain led the way in colonial possessions and trade.
Religious Wars: Spain • In Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella mobilized the Catholic Church in the form of the Spanish Inquisition to consolidate their power. • They obtained a papal license and used it as a royal office to persecute Jews, Muslims, and any threatening Protestant movement.
Religious Wars: Spain • Under the Habsburgs, Charles I and Phillip II, the Spanish Empire expanded to include most part of South and Central America, Mexico, the Philippines, Guam, the Iberian Peninsula, including the Portuguese Empire, southern Italy, Sicily, cities in Northern Africa, and parts of modern Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. • Along with the arrival of precious metals, spices, luxuries, and new agricultural plants, Spanish explorers and others brought back knowledge, playing a leading part in transforming the European understanding of the world. • This was considered the Spanish Golden Age.
Religious Wars: Spain and England • Spain’s King Phillip II tried to bring England back to the Catholic church by marrying the Catholic Queen Mary I of England but Mary died in 1558 childless. • In 1588 Phillip tried to force England to return to the Roman Catholic church by sending the Spanish Armada (130 ships and 30,000 men) to dethrone Protestant Queen Elizabeth. • English forces sent burning, unmanned ships into its midst. A strong gale helped by scattering Spanish vessels through the North Sea.
Religious Wars: Spain and the Netherlands • At this time, Spain controlled the Low Countries where the northern provinces were adopting Protestantism. • The Dutch revolt against the Spanish domination went on for forty years until the provinces gained their independence in 1581 and became the Netherlands.
Religious Wars: Thirty Years’ War • The final religious war was the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) which was fought on German soil but engaged most European countries in fighting or financing the war. • More than 1/3 of the German population died while no one state proved its ability to dominate the others. Map of Europe in 1648, after the Peace of Westphalia. Small German states within the Holy Roman Empire are shown in gray.
Peace of Westphalia (1648) European states regarded each other as equal. They mutually recognized their rights to organize their own domestic affairs, including religion. The treaty established the era of the sovereign state. The Peace did not end war between European states.
Spain By the end of the 16th century, Spain’s power had begun to wane.
Portugal Portugal was too small to mount much of a challenge to the French or Spanish.
Holland • The Dutch did not have the manpower to build a standing army large enough to counter the French.
France and Britain As a result of the economic policies implemented by the French and British, by the 18th century, they were the two most powerful and competitive states in Europe. How did France and England accomplish this?
The New Monarchs Build Strong Economic Policies • The new monarchs of England, France, and Spain increased their political power through: • taxation on sales, household items and salt. • England had economic policies that restricted trade from the New World to include only England. • England and France both implemented a policy of mercantilism, the acquisition of as much silver as possible. • Mercantilist ideas led to policies requiring that France and England use their own raw materials and manufacture within their own borders.
The Emergence of Capitalism Capitalism (an economic system in which private individuals provide goods in a free market while they bear the costs of production) emerged. Business men hired workers and made decisions about production rather than depending upon the government or upper classes to direct commerce. Europeans used networks of communication and transportation to provide their products to regions that had the most need and thereby profited. For example, Dutch merchants imported grain from eastern Europe and stored it in Amsterdam and sent it to Europe when there were crop failures.
Early Capitalism Capitalism had moral implications. Churches regarded profit as sinful. In particular, interest on loans was considered an immoral profit. Philosophers like Adam Smith (1723-1790), however, believed that a prosperous society was the result of individuals pursuing profit.
Constitutional Monarchies In the 17th Century, European monarchies began to develop into two distinct types: Constitutional monarchies : England and Holland Legislature Both countries allowed differing views while harnessing popular support. A partnership between merchants and rulers allowed the state to rely on the profits of commerce while the rulers instituted policies to support it.
Absolute Monarchies Absolute monarchies: France, Spain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia The absolute monarchs operated on the basis of the “divine right of kings.”
Absolute Monarchies: Louis XIV of France (1638-1715) Louis XIV declared himself to be the state: “L’etat, c’est moi.” He turned the royal hunting lodge, Versailles, into the largest building in Europe where he was the center of all. This way he could keep the nobles within the control of the monarchy. Louiv XIV worked diligently with his minister to promote economic development, improvements to the infrastructure, abolishing internal tariffs, and encouraging exports. Louis XIV also maintained an enormous standing army.
Absolute Monarchies: The Russian Tsars The Romanovs had held a tightly controlled government since coming to power in the early 17th century. The most important tsar was Peter I, known as Peter the Great. He reformed the army by offering better pay and more professionalism. He constructed a navy. He improved tax collection and general administration. The crowning achievement of his rule was the construction of St. Petersburg along the Baltic as a naval base and capital.
Absolute Monarchies: The Russian Tsars The most talented successor to Peter the Great was an Austrian princess, Catherine, who had married into the Russian royal family. To improve government efficiency, Catherine the Great divided Russia into fifty provinces and continued Peter’s promotion of development. She tried to help oppressed serfs until a rebellion by a disgruntled ex-soldier killed numerous nobles and government officials in the steppes north of the Caspian Sea. The rebellion failed, but from then on, Catherine vigorously protected authoritarian government.
Population Growth and Urbanization Increased population growth of western Europe was fueled by enriched diets with the advent of new food crops from the Columbian exchange. Because of improved diets, disease decreased and population grew. Along with population growth, Europe continued its pattern of urbanization that had begun in the middle ages. England and France combined the capital resources found in London or Paris with the manpower that could be tapped from the rural population.
Social Changes in Early Modern Europe Entrepreneurs avoided guilds by using the “putting-out system,” which provided raw materials for family households to spin and weave into garments. The businessman picked up the goods, paid the family, and sold his goods in town. The putting out system resulted in an improvement of life for the peasant class. Western European households acquired more material objects such as cabinets and furnishings while rural people ate and dressed better. As a result, individuals, including women, followed their own pursuits instead of family pursuits. Capitalism strengthened the nuclear family as an economic and social unit. Love became important in the choice of a spouse. Affection between parents and children took on more importance.
Scientific Revolution Before the 17th century, Europeans followed the scientific beliefs of Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria. Ptolemy proposed a motionless earth surrounded by hollow concentric spheres in which were embedded the larger planets, the stars, and the sun. Beyond that was heaven.
Scientific Revolution: Copernicus In 1543, Nicholas Copernicus argued that the earth was not the center of the universe and instead that the sun stood at the center with the planets, including the earth, revolving around it. His ideas rejected religious views and widely accepted view of science.
Scientific Revolution: Galileo (1564-1642) Galileo used the recently invented telescope to scan the heavens and determine that there were spots on the sun, mountains on the moon, and distant stars that no one had ever seen before. Galileo also proved that the speed of falling objects depended on their weight rather than the height of the fall.
Scientific Revolution: Isaac Newton In 1687, English mathematician Isaac Newton theorized that a great universal system existed in which all bodies were affected by gravitational forces. Until Einstein in the twentieth century, Newton’s ideas were the framework for all discoveries in the physical sciences.
