Chapter 15

State Building and the

Search for Order in the

Seventeenth Century

Social Crises, War, and Rebellions

Economic ContractionItaly and Spain

Population ChangesIncrease• First since Black Death• France, England, Netherlands

Decrease:1620s, 1640

The Witchcraft CrazeWitchcraft before the sixteenth and seventeenth centuryIncreased prosecutions and executionsAccusations against witchesReasons for witchcraft prosecutions

Religious uncertaintySocial conditions - communal

Women as primary victimsBegins to subside by mid-seventeenth century – Scientific Revolution???

The Thirty Years War (1618 – 1648)

BackgroundReligious conflict• Protestant League Vs Catholic Union

Dynastic-nationalist considerations • Habsburg control of HRE

Tensions in the Holy Roman Empire• Spain/Habsburg VS France/German

Protestant/England

Bohemian Phase (1618 – 1625)Acpt then reject Catholic ruleCatholic Victory – Spain support

Danish Phase (1625 – 1629)Christian IV (Denmark) invadesCatholic victory – Edict of Restitiution

Swedish Phase (1630 – 1635)Gustavus Adolphus Sweden InvadesHRE divided (Prot=North; Cath-South)

Franco-Swedish Phase (1635 – 1648)

France invades – supported Prot.• Spanish defeated

OutcomesPeace of Westphalia (1648)

Freedom of ChoiceFrance – gains landSpain – DeclineHRE – Free statesHabsburg Emp- Figurehead

Social and economic effectsDepopulation

Map 15.1: The Thirty Years’ War

A Military Revolution?

War and Politics in Seventeenth-Century Europe

New Tactics

New Technologies

The Cost of a Modern Military

Rebellions

Peasant Revolts (1590 – 1640)France, Austria, Hungary, Portugal and Catalonia

Russia (1641, 1645 and 1648)

Switzerland (1656)

Noble Revolts in France (1648 – 1652)

Absolute Monarchy in France

Foundations of French Absolutism

Cardinal Richelieu (1624 – 1642)• Policies and goals• Administrative reforms

Cardinal Mazarin (1642 – 1661)• The Fronde – Noble Revolt

Reign of Louis XIV (1643 – 1715)Administration of the Government

Domination and briberyReligious Policy

Edict of Fontainebleau (1685)Financial Issues

Jean Baptist Colbert (1619 – 1683)Daily Life at Versailles

Purposes of VersaillesCourt life and etiquette

The Wars of Louis XIVProfessional army: 100,000 men in peacetime; 400,000 in wartimeFour wars between 1667 – 1713• Invasion of Spanish Netherlands (1667)• Annexation of Alsace and Lorraine,

occupation of Strasbourg (1679)• War of the League of Augsburg (1689 –

1697)• War of the Spanish Succession (1702 –

1713)

Map 15.2: The Wars of Louis XIV

The Decline of SpainBankruptcies in 1596 and in 1607Philip III (1598 – 1621)Philip IV (1621 – 1665)

Gaspar de Guzman and attempts at reform

The Thirty Years’ WarExpensive military campaignsCivil WarThe Netherlands lost

Absolutism:Central/Eastern EuropeThe Rise of Brandenburg-Prussia

• The Hohenzollern Dynasty• Frederick William the Great Elector (1640 –

1688)ArmyGeneral War Commissariat to levy taxes Junkers – local power

• Frederick III (1688 – 1713)King of Prussia (1701)

The Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia

The Emergence of Austria

Habsburgs

Leopold I (1658 – 1705)Expands eastward

Conflicts with the Turks• Siege of Vienna (1683)

Multinational Empire

Italy: From Spanish to Austrian Rule

Defeat of the French in Italy by Charles V (1530)

Spanish Presence (1559 – 1713)

Consequences of the War of the Spanish Succession

Russia: From Fledgling Principality to Major Power

Ivan IV the Terrible (1533 – 1584)First Tsar

Romanov Dynasty (1613 – 1917)

Stratified SocietyTsar

Landed aristocrats

Peasants and townspeople

Peter the Great (1689 – 1725)Visits the West (1697 – 1698)Reorg. armed forcesReorg. central government

Divides Russia into provinces

Seeks control of the Russian Church Introduces Western Customs

Book of Etiquettes

Positive Impact of Reforms on Women

“Open a window to the West”

St. Petersburg

Attacks Sweden

Great Northern War (1701 – 1721)

Peace of Nystadt (1721)

Russia gains control of Estonia, Livonia and Karelia

The Winter Palace – St. Petersburg, Russia

Map 15.5: Russia: From Principality to Nation-State

The Great Northern States

DenmarkMilitary losses

Bloodless revolution of 1660

SwedenGustavus Adolphus (1611 – 1632)

Christina (1633 – 1654)

Charles XI (1697 – 1718)

Ottoman Empire-Limits of Absolutism

The Ottoman EmpireSuleiman the Magnificent (1520 – 1566)Advance Europe and MediterraneanOttomans = European PowerNew Offensives second half of the 17th c.

The Limits of AbsolutismPower of rulers not absoluteLocal institutions still had powerPower of the aristocracy

The Ottoman Empire

Stop

Golden Age of the Dutch RepublicThe United Provinces

Internal DissensionThe House of Orange and the Stadholders

The States General opposes the House of Orange

William III (1672 – 1702)

Trade damaged by wars

Life in Seventeenth-Century AmsterdamReasons for prosperity

England and Constitutional MonarchyJames I (1603 – 1625): House of Stuart

Divine Right of KingsParliament - power of purseReligious policies -The Puritans

Charles I (1625 – 1649)Petition of Right“Personal Rule” (1629 – 1640): Parliament does not meetReligious policy angers Puritans

Civil War (1642 – 1648)Oliver Cromwell

Charles I executed (January 30, 1649)

Parliament abolishes monarchy

Cromwell (Dies 1658)Dissolves Parliament (April 1653)

Divides country into 11 regions

Levellers

Restoration & a Glorious Revolution

Charles II (1660 – 1685)King=Declaration of Indulgence (1672)

Repelled anti-Catholic/Puritan Laws

Parliament=Test Act (1673) – Only Anglicans could hold military and civil officesWhigs = Protestant/Parliament (against James II)Tories = Pro-King (Anti-James)

James II (1685 – 1688)Devout CatholicDeclaration of Indulgence (1687)Protestant daughters: Mary and AnneCatholic son born in 1688Parliament invites Mary and her husband, William of Orange, to invade EnglandJames II, wife and son flee to France

Mary and William of Orange offered throne (1689)

Bill of Rights

The Toleration Act of 1689

Responses to the RevolutionThomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679)Leviathan (1651)People form a commonwealthPeople have no right to rebel

John Locke (1632 – 1704)Two Treatises of Government Inalienable Rights: Life, Liberty and PropertyPeople and sovereign form a governmentIf government does not fulfill its duties, people have the right to revolt

The Flourishing of European Culture

The Changing Faces of ArtMannerism and Baroque

• Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598 – 1680) Throne of Saint Peter

• Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 – 1653) Judith Beheading Holofernes

French Classicism and Dutch Realism• French classicism emphasized clarity, simplicity, balance and

harmony of design• Dutch Realism: realistic portrayals of secular, everyday life

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 – 1699)

The Baroque Trevi Fountain in Rome

A Wondrous Age of TheaterGolden Age of Elizabethan Literature (1580 – 1640)

William Shakespeare (1564 – 1614)• The Globe Theater• Lord Chamberlain’s Company

Spanish TheaterLope de Vega (1562 – 1635)

• Wrote 1500 plays – about 1/3 survive

French Theater (1630s to 1680s)Jean Baptiste Molière (1622 – 1673)

• The Misanthrope• Tartuffe

Discussion QuestionsWhy were so many women targeted during the witchcraft craze?How did the Thirty Years’ War affect the different participants?Was French absolutism truly absolute? Why or why not?What purposes did Versailles serve?How did Western ideas influence the reign of Peter the Great in Russia?What gains did Parliament make at the expense of the monarchy during the course of the seventeenth century?How did English political thinkers react to the the English revolutions?How did the art and plays that emerged after the Renaissance reflect the societies of their day?

Web LinksThe Museum of WitchcraftChateau VersaillesThe Thirty Years War HomepageThe State Hermitage Museum – St. Petersburg, RussiaThomas HobbesRenaissance and Baroque ArchitectureMr. William Shakespeare and the InternetNational Drama: Spain to 1700