Chapter 16 Transformations in

Europe, 15001750
15001750

Culture and Ideas

Religious Reformation
In 1500 the Catholic Church was
benefiting from European prosperity
The Catholic Church was building new
churches including the new Saint
Peters Basilica in Rome
Pope Leo X raised money for the new
basilica by authorizing the sale of
indulgences.

Saint Peters Basilica

 The German monk Martin

Luther challenged the
Pope on the issue of
indulgences and other
practices that he
considered corrupt or not
Christian
Luther began the
Protestant Reformation

 Luther argued that salvation could be by

faith alone, that Christian belief could be
based only on the Bible and on Christian
tradition

 The Protestant leader John

Calvin formulated a different
theological position in The
Institutes of the Christian
Religion
Calvin argued that salvation
was Gods gift to those who
were predestined and that
Christian congregations
should be self-governing
and stress simplicity in life
and in worship

 The Protestant Reformation appealed not only to

religious sentiments
It also appealed to Germans who disliked the
Italian-dominated Catholic Church
It also appelaed to peasants and urban workers
who wanted to reject the religion of their masters

Traditional Thinking and WitchHunts

European concepts of the natural world
were derived from both local folk traditions
and Judeo-Christian beliefs
Most people believed that natural events
could have supernatural causes.

 Belief in the supernatural is vividly

demonstrated in the witch-hunts of the
late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries
In the witch-hunts over 100,000 people
(three-fourths of them women) were
tried and about half of them executed
on charges of witchcraft.

The Scientific Revolution

European intellectuals derived their
understanding of the natural world from the
writings of the Greeks and the Romans
These writings suggested that everything on
earth was reducible to four elements; that the
sun, moon, planets and stars were so light
and pure that they floated in crystalline
spheres and rotated around the earth in
perfectly circular orbits.

 The observations of
Copernicus and other
scientists including Galileo
undermined this earthcentered model of the
universe
This led to the introduction
of the Copernican suncentered 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 Newtons discovery of the

law of gravity showed why the
planets move around the sun in
elliptical orbits
Newtons discoveries led to the
development of Newtonian
physics
Newton and other scientists did
not believe that their discoveries
were in conflict with religious
belief

The Early Enlightenment

The advances in scientific thought inspired
European governments and groups of
individuals to question the reasonableness
of accepted practices in fields ranging
from agriculture to laws, religions, and
social hierarchies

 This intellectual movement, which

assumed that social behavior and
institutions were governed by scientific
laws, is called the Enlightenment.

 The new scientific methods provided the

enlightened thinkers with a model for changing
European society
The ideas of the Enlightenment aroused
opposition from many absolutist rulers and from
clergymen
However, the printing press made possible the
survival and dissemination of new ideas

Social and Economic Life

The Bourgeoisie
Europe's cities experienced spectacular
growth between 1500 and 1700.
The wealthy urban bourgeoisie thrived on
manufacturing, finance, and especially on
trade, including the profitable trade in
grain.

 Amsterdam's growth, built on trade and

finance, exemplifies the power of
seventeenth-century bourgeoisie enterprise.
The Anglo-Dutch wars of the seventeenth
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.

 The bourgeoisie forged mutually beneficial

relationships with the monarchs and built
extensive family and ethnic networks to
facilitate trade between different parts of the
world.
Partnerships between merchants and
governments led to the development of jointstock companies and stock exchanges.
Governments also played a key role in the
improvement of Europe's transportation
infrastructure.

Peasants and Laborers

1. While serfdom declined and disappeared in
Western Europe, it gained new prominence in
Eastern Europe.
2. African slaves, working in the Americas,
contributed greatly to Europe's economy.
3. It is possible that the condition of the average
person in Western Europe declined between 1500
and 1700.
4. New World crops helped Western European
peasants avoid starvation.
5. High consumption of wood for heating, cooking,
construction, shipbuilding, and industrial uses led to
severe deforestation in Europe in the late
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Shortages drove the cost of wood up.

 6. As the price of wood rose, Europeans began to use

coal instead of wood.
Some efforts were also made to conserve forests and to
plant trees, particularly in order to provide wood for naval
vessels.
7. Deforestation had particularly severe effects on the
rural poor who had relied on free access to forests for
wood, building materials, nuts and berries, and wild
game.
8. The urban poor consisted of deserving poor
(permanent residents) and large numbers of unworthy
poormigrants, peddlers, beggars, and criminals.

Women and the Family

1. Women's status and work were closely tied to
their husbands' and families'.
2. Common people in early modern Europe married
relatively late because young men served long
periods of apprenticeship when learning a trade and
young women needed to work to earn their dowries.
The young people of 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; it also helped to keep
the birth rate low.

 3. Bourgeois parents put great emphasis

on education and promoted the
establishment of schools.
4. Most schools, professions, and guilds
barred women from participation.

Political Innovations

State Development
1. Between 1516 and 1519 Charles of Burgundy,
descendant of the Austrian Habsburg family, inherited
the thrones of Castile and Aragon, with their colonial
empires, the Austrian Habsburg possessions, and the
position of Holy Roman Emperor.
Charles was able to forge a coalition to defeat the
Ottomans at the gates of Vienna in 1529, but he was
unable to unify his many territorial possessions.
2. Lutheran German princes rebelled against the
French-speaking Catholic Charles, seizing church lands
and giving rise to the German Wars of Religion. When
Charles abdicated the throne, Spain went to his son
Philip while a weakened Holy Roman Empire went to his
brother Ferdinand.
3. Meanwhile, the rulers of Spain, France, and England
pursued their own efforts at political unification.

Religious Policies
1. The rulers of Spain and France successfully
defended state-sponsored Catholicism against
the Protestant challenge.
2. In England, Henry VIII challenged papal
authority and declared himself head of the
Church of England. Later English monarchs
resisted the efforts of English Calvinists to
"purify" the Anglican Church.

Monarchies in England and

France
1. In England, a conflict between Parliament and king
led to a civil war and the establishment of a Puritan
republic under Oliver Cromwell.
After the Stuart line was restored, Parliament enforced
its will on the monarchy when it drove King James II
from the throne in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and
forced his successors, William and Mary, to sign a
document, the Bill of Rights, that limited the power of the
crown.

 2. In France, the Bourbon kings were able to

circumvent the representative assembly
known as the Estates General and develop
an absolutist style of government.
Louis XIVs finance minister Colbert was able
to increase revenue through more efficient tax
collection and by promoting economic growth
while Louis entertained and controlled the
French nobility by requiring them to attend his
court at Versailles.

Warfare and Diplomacy

1. 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).
2. In order to manage the large standing
armies and in order to use the troops more
effectively in battle, Europeans devised new
command structures, signal techniques, and
marching drills.

 3. Developments in naval technology during this period

included warships with multiple tiers of cannon and fourwheel cannon carriages that made reloading easier.
England took the lead in the development of new naval
technology, as was demonstrated when the English
Royal Navy defeated Spains Catholic Armada in 1588,
signaling an end to Spains military dominance in
Europe.

 4. 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.
5. With the War of the Spanish Succession and with
Russias emergence as a power after the Great
Northern war, the four powers of EuropeFrance,
Britain, Austria, and Russiawere able to maintain a
balance of power that prevented any one power from
becoming too strong for about two centuries.

Paying the Piper

1. The rulers of European states needed to raise new
revenue to pay the heavy costs of their wars; the most
successful made profitable alliances with commercial
elites.
The Spanish, however, undermined their economy by
driving out Jews, Protestants, and the descendants of
Muslims so that the bullion they gained from their
American empire was spent on payments to creditors
and for manufactured goods and food.

 2. The northern provinces of the Netherlands

wrested their autonomy from Spain and became
a dominant commercial power.
The United Provinces of the Free Netherlands
and particularly the province of Holland favored
commercial interests, craftsmen, and
manufacturing enterprises, and Amsterdam
became a major center of finance and shipping.

 3. 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
and by creating a central bank.
4. The French government streamlined tax
collection, used protective tariffs to promote
domestic industries, and improved its
transportation network.
The French were not, however, able to
introduce direct tax collection, tax the land of
nobles, or secure low-cost loans.