history 351: seventeenth century europe · history 351: seventeenth century europe 2017 history...

History 351: Seventeenth Century Europe

2017

History 351, 2017 • Syllabus is at

http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/351/351%20course.htm

• Lecture outlines at http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/351/351OUTLINE.htm

• Weekly readings are listed on the syllabus. • Home page:

http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/ Click on “Essays and papers” for information

on how to do exams and term papers well.

Requirements • Two Midterms (in class 3/1, 4/14) • A final (Saturday 5/6, 7:45 AM; place to

be announced) • Honors students do an extra paper,

due 5/3 • Readings: see syllabus. • Graduate students: 2 papers, each of

12-15 pages; due 3/27 and 5/3; topics by arrangement.

Introduction: An Age of Revolution

• Intellectual and Scientific Revolutions

• Astronomy : Galileo, Kepler • Physics and Mathematics:

Newton, Leibniz • Chemistry: Robert Boyle – “the

Father of Chemistry” • Mathematics: Simon Stevin

(Dutch; 1585) pioneers the decimal system of expressing fractions

Scientific and Intellectual Revolutions

• Mathematics: John Napier (Scottish; 1614) pioneers the use of logarithms, simplifying complex calculations.

• In 1642, Blaise Pascal (French)

invented a mechanical calculator which is sometimes seen as the forerunner of the computer.

• Medicine: William Harvey (English; 1628) discovered and described the circulation of blood.

A Pascaline - a mechanical calculator, invented by Blaise Pascal (1623-62) in

1642 William Harvey’s book on the circulation

of blood, 1628. It has been called the most important book in the history of

medicine

Scientific and Intellectual

Revolutions • New Instruments: the microscope

(Dutch; 1590) • The telescope (Hans Lippershey;

German/ Dutch; 1608) • Note military use of telescopes;

the practical, and especially military applications of science were important (especially to governments)

• The borders between different sciences were not yet clear; scientists had broad interests; science (natural philosophy) was not clearly distinguished from philosophy in general


• René Descartes (French; 1596-1650) is commonly seen as the founder of modern philosophy. He also pioneered co-ordinate geometry (using algebra to solve problems in geometry), and did important work in optics.


• Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was a philosopher (and lawyer and statesman) who stressed the importance of experiment in science, and the capacity for science to transform the world to the great benefit of

humanity. • In 1626 he went out into the snow to do an

experiment on refrigeration, when he caught a chill that turned into pneumonia and killed him.


• Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza (1632-77) was a philosopher with a strong interest in the new scientific discoveries. He made his living by grinding lenses and died of lung disease perhaps caused by inhaling ground glass.

• Born into the Jewish community in Amsterdam (Holland), Spinoza was excommunicated from it, and was regarded as an atheist by many Christian groups. Pioneers of new philosophical and scientific ideas were often criticized by the clergy.


• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1677), the

political philosopher, admired Galileo, and served as Bacon’s secretary when he was young. He shared many ideas with Spinoza, and was also accused of atheism. Hobbes attacked the claims to authority of the clergy, and was attacked by them.

Economic change: start of the agricultural revolution • A downturn in temperature: the

“Little Ice Age” and the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715)

• http://depts.washington.edu/schkatz/podcasts/katz0607_parker.mp3: Geoffrey Parker on the first global climate crisis.

• Worsening weather was accompanied by stagnation of the population (unlike the sixteenth century, when population rose sharply)

• In response to stagnating demand for food, people tried to cut the costs of food production, and tried to develop new markets (in cloth and other industrial goods, and in places outside Europe)

Economic change: start of the agricultural revolution • One way of cutting costs was to

reduce wages of agricultural

workers, or give them no wages at all but turn them into serfs, forced to work for their lords; enserfment took place in Poland, Russia, and elsewhere in eastern Europe.

• Another approach to cutting costs was to improve agricultural productivity, by introducing new farming techniques; this happened in the Netherlands, England, and some other areas in the west; it paved the way for the agricultural and industrial revolutions.

Economic change: global

expansion • Europeans greatly expanded their

trade with distant parts of the world, especially in America and Asia. They set up trading bases and colonies.

• Russians expanded eastward across the land mass of Siberia. They set up a fort at Yakutsk in the 1630s, and reached the Pacific in 1639.

• Europe’s center of economic gravity moved from the Mediterranean to the northwest and the Atlantic.

Military Revolution • Scientific and mathematical

advances often had military application.

• The seventeenth century was an age of almost constant warfare in Europe.

• Armies got larger, and guns and fortifications improved.

• Europeans got better at fighting wars. This was bad news for people elsewhere when they later encountered Europeans.

State building; the “age of absolutism”

• As armies expanded, more taxes were needed to pay for them; bureaucracies grew to collect the taxes.

• States became more powerful and centralized; representative institutions (estates; parliaments; diets) often declined.

• Since many states were monarchies, the increase of state power is often equated with the growth of “royal absolutism”


• In the course of the Thirty Years War (1618-48) some rulers and their advisors used the war to justify the

employment of emergency powers by the state, and the curtailment of traditional liberties.

• A fine example is Cardinal Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal (and Duke) de Richelieu (1585-1642), the chief advisor to Louis XIII of France.

• A parallel figure in Spain (the other major European power) was the Count-Duke of Olivares (1587-1645)


• Other key figures in the growth of absolutism include Jules Mazarin, Cardinal Mazarin (1602-61) who succeeded Richelieu as the chief advisor of the French monarch; and Frederick William, the Great Elector (1620-88), the architect of the power of (Brandenburg-Prussia (and later Germany).

• Most famous of all is the Sun King Louis XIV (1638-1715) of France, who succeeded Mazarin as his own chief advisor; here he is in 1661.


• State building also took place in areas that were not absolute monarchies.

• These included Great Britain (England and Scotland ) and Ireland; there it had become clear before the end of the century that the monarchy was not absolute and that the ruler was bound to rule with parliament and within the law.

• State building also occurred in the Dutch Republic, where representative institutions survived.

• The Dutch Republic and Britain proved to be more able to raise money and pay troops than Louis XIV’s France; people were happier to pay taxes where there were institutions which represented them.

• The great exception to the rule that the seventeenth century was an age of state building was Poland. There the state grew weaker, and in the eighteenth century it ceased to exist altogether, swallowed up by its ambitious neighbors (Russia, Prussia, Austria).

Some unifying factors: intermarriage; Latin

culture; mercenaries • Aristocratic and especially royal families tended to

marry into similar families across national boundaries. • Higher education across Europe was conducted in

Latin. Scholarly books were published in Latin. It was common to attend university outside your country.

• Lower down the social scale, men often fought as mercenaries for other countries (and other religions) than their own.

• There were many economic links across Europe. A key one was the export of grain from Poland and east Germany westward through the Baltic and then on to the Mediterranean. The grain often went in Dutch ships.

• The same ships brought wool from Spain to the Netherlands where industrial workers turned it into cloth; it was then re-exported round Europe.

Some unifying factors: intermarriage

• The Habsburg (/ Hapsburg) family were fond of intermarrying with itself, but internationally.

• Habsburgs were rulers of Spain and Austria. • In the late sixteenth century, Philip II of Spain was the

uncle, cousin, and brother-in-law of the Austrian Rudolf II.

• Interbreeding took its toll in the form of certain peculiarities such as the protruding lower lip and chin, visible here in the Austrian Leopold I (1640-1705; coin of 1694; a thaler – Joachimsthal – t(h)aler – daalder - dollar).

• Leopold was known as “Hogmouth”.

Some unifying factors: mercenaries

• It was often but by no means always men from lower down the social scale who took military service outside the land of their birth.

• A major exception is Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736). Eugene was born at Paris. His grandmother was a French royal princess, and his mother was probably a mistress of Louis XIV for a while.

• Louis refused to appoint Eugene to command in the French army, so Eugene transferred his loyalty to Leopold

(Hogmouth) and Austria, and inflicted multiple defeats on Louis.

Major Geo-Political Changes

• In 1600 Spain was the most powerful country in Europe, though faced with problems (including the Dutch Revolt).

• In 1600, France had just emerged from a long period of religious civil war.

• An important theme of the history of the first half of the century is the decline of Spain and the rise of France.

• French aggression against Spain, the Dutch, and the Holy Roman Empire is a key theme of late seventeenth century history (Strasbourg/ Strassburg; Alsace/ Elsass; Franche-Comté).

Major Geo-Political Changes

• The seventeenth century was the Golden Age of Sweden (Gustavus Adolphus 1611-32; Christina (1632-54), Charles XII (1697-1718)

• The century was also the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic, notable for its economic power.

• The Austrian Habsburgs were Holy Roman Emperors; under Ferdinand II (1619-37) they tried to increase control over the Empire, but later they concentrated on the Habsburg homelands, re-conquering territory from the Turks after the second siege of Vienna (1683; the first was in 1529).

• Russia, Brandenburg-Prussia, and England rose in power late in the century.

Europe: Geography • Mild, fertile, habitable plains; the

Great European Plain • Gulf Stream • Mountains: Urals; Pyrenees; Alps;

Carpathians; Apennines; Ardennes; Harz Mountains

• Mountain culture: Wales; Basques; Switzerland.

• Rivers: Rhine; Danube • Trade: efficiency of water

transport • Baltic trade: Hanseatic League;

Lübeck

Europe: Geography and climate

• Mediterranean trade; Venice; Ottoman Turks;

• oceanic trade routes pioneered by Portugal; spices and drugs from Spice Islands (East Indies)

• The Sound: Denmark; Zealand; Copenhagen; Scania; tolls on trade levied by the King of Denmark.

• The “Little Ice Age” • The Maunder Minimum • The Thames at London froze over in ten

different winters during the century; it froze more rarely later and not at all since 1814.

• Londoners sometimes held “frost fairs” on the frozen river (e.g. 1608, 1683-4).

• In 1658 the Baltic froze so solidly that the Swedes were able to march across the Sound and besiege Copenhagen.

The Sound (Øresund), Zealand, and Scania A “frost fair” on the

Thames at London, 1683-4.

Population and the Economy

• Population in the northwest continued to grow to the mid-seventeenth century; elsewhere it stagnated or fell.

• France had the largest

population: 20 million in 1600, up to 22 million by 1700 (despite very bad times in the 1690s)

• Germany had a population of around 16 million in 1600; it was badly hit by the Thirty Years War (1618-48) and fell to around 12 million by 1650; then it rose again, perhaps reaching 15 million in 1700.

Population and the Economy

• Spain’s population fell slightly from about 8.1 to 7.5 million;

emigration to America was a factor.

• Italy’s population was stable over the century or rose slightly (13 million in 1600 to 13.3 million in 1700), but fell in the first half; plague was a factor here (the plague of 1630 in Milan features in one of the most famous of all Italian novels, Manzoni’s Promessi Sposi of 1827).

• Italy remained densely populated, with some large cities: Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples.

Population and the

Economy • In Scandinavia, population in

1700 was about 3 million, a little higher than in 1600; but there had been some disasters along the way.

• Population in Poland and Hungary probably fell sharply.

• In the Spanish Netherlands and the Dutch Republic population rose; the Dutch population stabilized after 1660.

• The English population rose from 4 to 5 million between 1600 and the 1630s, and then stagnated.

Causes of Population Change

• A downturn in economic conditions made people poorer, more susceptible to disease, and less likely to marry young and have many children.

• Climate change caused or worsened economic problems.

• Other causes of economic difficulties include warfare, debasement of the coinage, and perhaps the decline of silver imports from America.

• People began to get married

later; this happened even in economically prosperous areas (England; the Netherlands).

Causes of Population Change: Disease

• Killer diseases included typhus, typhoid, and smallpox.

• The most feared disease was plague (bubonic, septicaemic, and pneumonic).

• Plague struck especially in towns and other densely populated or enclosed communities.

• But populations could often recover quite quickly from plague.

• In Amsterdam, plague struck in 1623-5 and killed over 10% of the population; the same happened in 1635-6, 1655, and 1664.

• But Amsterdam’s population increased from 50,000 to over 200,000 (through immigration).

• Plague disappeared from much of Europe after outbreaks in 1665-8.

The village of Eyam in Derbyshire; one of the last places in England to be struck by

plague (1665-6)

Plague Cottage in Eyam Causes of Population

Change • The last appearance of plague in

western Europe was at the French port of Marseille in 1720; it did not spread.

• Long-term loss of population resulted from repeated disasters, such as took place in Germany during the Thirty Years War, and in Poland between 1648 and

1667 (including the Cossack revolt in Ukraine in 1648, Russian invasion, and Swedish invasion in the Deluge (“Potop”), 1655-60.

Consequences of Population Growth

• In Poland and eastern Germany there was good farming land and low population density. When population in the west stagnated, landowners in the east kept up their profits by reducing wages and enserfing the peasants.

• In the northwest, new agricultural techniques were

developed, decreasing the price of food.

• When population stagnated in the northwest in the later part of the century, agricultural innovation continued; average incomes increased, stimulating industrial demand and production.

Towns • Towns in Spain generally

declined, though Madrid – the capital – grew rapidly early in the century.

• Italy’s towns also had some decline, though Italy remained

highly urbanized. • Some capitals grew greatly:

Berlin, Vienna, and most of all Paris and London – both of which had populations of over half a million late in the century.

• Towns connected with Atlantic trade grew: Liverpool, Hamburg, Cadiz.

• In Poland and Russia the rural aristocracy had great privileges, which discouraged urbanization.

• There was little urbanization in the Ottoman Empire, with the great exception of Constantinople.

Wenceslaus Hollar: London in 1657 (before the Great Fire of 1666)

Social Structure • Three “Orders” or “Estates” –

nobles, clergy, commoners. • A crisis for nobles? • Junkers in Brandenburg/ Prussia

join with the Elector in ruling. • Varying numbers of nobles: 10%

in Poland; 5% in Spain (more in Castile); 2% in France and England.

• Nobles relatively unimportant in Holland and Zeeland.

• Great variations in wealth and power among nobles.

• Spain: hidalgos; Grandees (25 families 1520; 120 in 1650).

Social Structure • Nobles: often tax exempt; all

offspring usually inherited noble status; these things not true in England.

• England: nobles, gentry; Houses of Lords and Commons; parliament.

• Nobles often lose status through trade or manual work; dérogeance.

• Townsmen; physicians; lawyers; clergy

• Archbishops; bishops; abbots; priests/ pastors

• Peasants; yeomen; where their tenure was most secure, agriculture was most productive: Netherlands; England; Catalonia.

Hollar: the bowing Gentleman

A Mortuary Sword A Rapier A Stiletto

Hollar: a Lady of the Court

of England Hollar: a Citizen’s

Daughter Hollar: a Kitchen Maid

Government • Republics: imperial free cities in

Germany (Nuremberg; Augsburg); Swiss

cantons; Venice • The Dutch Republic; seven

provinces (including Holland); Orange family; stadholder; crisis of 1618-19; Maurice (Maurits) of Nassau; Jan van Oldenbarnevelt;

crisis of 1650; William (Willem) II; Johan de Witt; crisis of 1672; William III.

• The English Republic 1649-60; Oliver Cromwell.

Execution of Oldenbarnevelt at The

Hague, 1619. Government: limited

monarchies • Sweden: riksdag (four estates);

monarchs deposed 1569, 1599; Form of Government 1634; constitutional revolution of 1680 brings absolute monarchy.

• Denmark: constitutional revolution of 1660 brings absolute monarchy.

• England: Glorious Revolution of 1688 makes clear that the monarch’s power is limited.

• Poland: Szlachta (nobles); Sejm (national assembly); liberum veto (from 1652).

Result of the Liberum Veto: disappearance of

Poland 1772-95 Government: absolute monarchies, limited in

practice • Small bureaucracies; lack of

modern technology. • France: Estates General 1614-15,

then none until 1789. • Venality of office. • Paulette (1604; Charles Paulet) • Intendants.

Religion • Christendom. • Orthodoxy; schism in Russia

between reformers and Old Believers.

• (Roman) Catholicism. • Hussites (Bohemia; 1400s) • Luther; Lutheranism (1517-) and

other forms of Protestantism; the Reformation.

• The Counter-Reformation (Catholic Reformation); the Council of Trent 1545-63.

Religion: Catholicism • Jesuits; (St) Ignatius Loyola.

• (St and Cardinal) Robert Bellarmine (d. 1621.)

• Protestant heresy linked to rebellion by Ferdinand II, Maximilian of Bavaria, Richelieu, Louis XIV.

• Matthew 16:18: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it”.

• Divine Providence. Bossuet. Gallicanism.

Bellarmine (1542-1621), by Gian Lorenzo Bernini,

Rome 1622 Francisco Suárez (1548-1617): “Doctor Eximius” Paolo Sarpi (1552-1623);

the Venetian Interdict 1606-7

Religion: Lutheranism and other forms of Protestantism

• Lutheranism; Zwinglianism; Calvinism.

• Rejection of indulgences and Purgatory. Justification by faith

alone (solifidianism); 2 not 7 sacraments (baptism; eucharist/ Lord’s Supper; holy communion); pope has no power (perhaps is Antichrist); Scripture alone contains the rules of Christianity (tradition unimportant); against clerical celibacy and monasticism; monastic lands can be secularized; communion in both kinds

• Consubstantiation replaces transubstantiation; other Protestants reject both.

• Peace of Augsburg 1555.

Religion: Calvinism • John Calvin (d. 1564); Geneva. • Theodore Beza (d. 1604). • Predestination (compare with

Catholic Jansenists). • Many Calvinists were

Presbyterians; millenarians. • Calvinism spread in England,

France, the Dutch Republic, and in central and eastern Europe. In Germany the Electors of the Palatinate and (from 1613) of Brandenburg were Calvinists.

Theodore Beza Religion: other Protestant

groups • Anabaptists; Baptists. • Quakers. • Socinians; Fausto Sozzini; anti-

trinitarian; stress ethics not dogma; rationalist.

• Erasmus (d. 1536) and Erasmianism.

• Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) • George Calixtus (1586-1656);

syncretism. • The Tew Circle 1630s (influential

on Hobbes, Locke).

Hugo Grotius (1631) Religion: splinter

movements • Lutheranism: Pietism; Philipp

Jakob Spener (d. 1705). • Catholicism: • Quietism. Miguel de Molinos (d.

1697). • Jansenism: Cornelius Jansen;

(Blaise Pascal); ascetic, puritanical; stress human

sinfulness and divine predestination.

Ideas • Scholasticism; Aristotle. • Humanism. • Cabala (Cabbala); Cabalism.

• Hermeticism. • Millenarianism; John Napier. • Jean Bodin (d. 1596); political

science. • Witchcraft; the witch-craze; key

factors: judicial use of torture; cases decided by locals; areas of heightened religious tension; only about 15% of witches were men; the Inquisition (Spain, Portugal, Italy).

William Perkins (d. 1602) on Witchcraft

Thirty Years War 1618-48: Outline

• (1) Origins • (2) The Bohemian Phase and the

Palatinate 1618-24 • (3) The Danish Phase 1625-9. • (4) The Swedish Phase 1630-5. • (5) The French (and Swedish)

Phase 1635-48. • (6) The Peace of Westphalia 1648.

The Thirty Years War, 1618-48

• Linked wars: Spain vs. France 1635-59; Spain vs. Dutch, 1568-1609, 1621-48.

• Germany before the War: • The Peace of Augsburg 1555;

cuius regio eius religio • Catholicism; Lutheranism • Calvinism; the Elector Palatine

(Palatinate); the Elector of Brandenburg (from 1613)

The Thirty Years War: origins

• Germany before the War: • The “ecclesiastical reservation” in

the Peace of Augsburg: land belonging to the Catholic church after 1552 cannot be taken from it.

• War over Cologne 1583-8;

Bavarian Wittelsbach family controls Cologne thereafter.

• Imperial free cities; crisis at Donauwörth 1606-8.

The Thirty Years War: origins

• Donauwörth crisis: Protestants walk out of the Imperial Diet 1608; the Elector Palatine (Wittelsbach) founds the Protestant Union.

• 1609: Maximilian of Bavaria founds the Catholic League.

• 1610: Cleves/ Jülich succession

crisis. • 1610: assassination of Henry IV of

France.

Maximilian the Great, Duke of Bavaria (1573/1597-1651). His sister married Ferdinand of Austria in 1600; he married their 25-year old daughter in

1635.

Thirty Years War: the Bohemian Crisis 1618-20 • Rudolf II (Emperor 1576-1612) • Matthias (Emperor 1612-19) • Ferdinand II (Emperor 1619-37);

Styria; Graz. • Letter of Majesty (Bohemia)

1609. • Estates of Bohemia revolt 1618.

• Hradschin Palace/ Prague Castle • The defenestration of Prague;

Martinitz and Slavata (also Philip Fabricius von Hohenfall)

The Defenestration of Prague, May 23 1618 Rudolf II, by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1590-1.

Ferdinand II (1578/1619-37; here in 1614)

The Bohemian Crisis 1618-20

• Revolts in Bohemia, Austria, and Hungary 1618-20.

• Bethlen Gábor (Gabriel Bethlen; 1580-1629; Prince of Transylvania 1613-29).

• 1619: Estates of Bohemia elect Frederick V (Elector Palatine) as King in place of Habsburg Ferdinand II.

• Frederick V married to Elizabeth, daughter of British King James I.

• John George of Saxony.

Elizabeth Stuart (1596-1662): the Winter Queen

Bethlen Gábor

(1580/1613-29), Prince of Transylvania

John George of Saxony, 1626

The Bohemian Crisis and the Palatinate 1618-24

• 1620: battle of the White Mountain near Prague; defeat of the Winter King and Queen.

• Tilly (Johann Tserclaes, Graf von Tilly)

• 1620: Ambrogio (/Ambrosio) Spinola invades the Lower Palatinate (on the Rhine)

• Ernst von Mansfeld; Christian of Brunswick

• 1623: Ferdinand appoints Maximilian of Bavaria as Elector Palatine.

• 1624: Breakdown of English plans for a “Spanish Match” between Prince Charles and the Infanta Maria Anna. Johann Tserclaes, Count of (Graf von) Tilly (1559-1632); Altötting,

Bavaria

Tilly; Munich, Bavaria. The Thirty Years War: the

Danish Phase 1625-9;

Wallenstein. • Christian IV of Denmark (1577-

1648; King 1588-1648); Duke of Holstein; uncle of Charles I of Britain.

• Spinola captures Breda 1625. • English expedition to Cadiz, 1625. • Lutheran Dukes of Mecklenburg;

Mansfeld; Bethlen Gábor. • Wallenstein (Albrecht Wenzel

Eusebius von Waldstein/ Wallenstein; 1583-1634; Duke of Friedland 1625; Duke of Mecklenburg 1628).

The Surrender of Breda

1625; painted 1634-5 by Diego Velázquez

Wallenstein in 1629 The Thirty Years War: the

Danish phase 1625-9 • Battle of Lutter 1626; Tilly

defeats Christian. • Meanwhile Wallenstein fights

Mansfeld (d. 1626) and Bethlen Gábor.

• 1627: Persians defeat Turks at Baghdad; Bethlen Gábor backs out of the war.

• 1627: Wallenstein conquers

Jutland. • 1628: Wallenstein fails to capture

Stralsund. • 1629: Wallenstein makes peace

with Denmark.

The Thirty Years War: the Swedish Phase 1630-35.

• The Edict of Restitution (1629) and the dismissal of Wallenstein (1630).

• The succession crisis in Mantua 1628: war between France and the Habsburgs 1629-31.

• The “Spanish Road”. • Piet Hein captures the Spanish

treasure fleet 1628. • Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632;

King of Sweden 1611-32) invades Germany 1630. Piet Hein captures the Spanish silver

fleet in the Bay of Matanzas, Cuba, 1628

The Thirty Years War: the Swedish Phase 1630-5.

• 1631: Treaty of Bärwalde between Sweden and France.

• 1631: Tilly sacks Magdeburg (but not Rothenburg; Der Meistertrunk).

• 1631: Gustavus defeats Tilly at Breitenfeld.

• 1632: allied to the Swedes, John

George of Saxony attacks Bohemia and captures Prague.

• 1632: Gustavus attacks Bavaria and captures Munich.

• 1632: Gustavus defeats Tilly at the battle of the river Lech; Tilly dies of wounds.

• 1632: Ferdinand II recalls Wallenstein.

Gustavus Adolphus Der Meistertrunk:

schedule and activities for 2015

The Thirty Years War: the Swedish phase 1630-5 and the death of

Wallenstein (1634). • 1632: Wallenstein fights Gustavus

at Lützen; death of Gustavus. • Christina (1626-89; Queen of

Sweden 1626-54). • Axel Oxenstierna (1583-1654). • League of Heilbronn 1633. • Death of Wallenstein 25 February

1634 • Walter Butler; Walter Leslie; John

Gordon; Walter Devereux.

The Thirty Years War: the French (and Swedish)

Phase 1635-48 • 1634: Matthias, Count Gallas

(1584-1645) defeats Swedes and their allies at Nördlingen.

• 1635: Peace of Prague: Ferdinand II modifies Edict of Restitution; Saxony changes sides (again).

• 1635: France enters the war directly.

• 1636: the year of Corbie. • 1636: Swedes (under Johan

Banér) defeat Saxons at Wittstock.

The Thirty Years War: the French (and Swedish)

Phase 1635-48

• 1638: Bernard of Saxe-Weimar (1604-39) captures the fortress of Breisach on the Rhine; the French take control of it on his death in 1639

• 1640: revolts against Spain of Catalonia and Portugal

• Turenne; Condé; Torstensson. • Battles: Breitenfeld 1642; Rocroi

1643; Lens 1648. • (Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Alatriste

2006)

Lennart Torstensson (1603-51) in 1648 Queen Christina,

Riksdaler of 1647 The Peace of Westphalia

1648 • Efforts to negotiate peace of

Pope Urban VIII 1636, and of Ferdinand III (1608-57; Emperor from 1637) in 1640.

• Two peace conferences, at Münster (France), and Osnabrück (Sweden) start in 1645 and end in 1648.

• War between Spain and the

Dutch ends with Dutch independence.

• Sweden gets Western Pomerania including Stettin; also gets Bremen and makes other gains in North Germany (Brandenburg gets East Pomerania)

Ferdinand III (1608/37-57) The Peace of Westphalia

1648 • France gets most of Alsace, and

Breisach and some other strategic fortresses.

• Sovereignty of German states is recognized, and the powers of the Empire weakened (unanimity is required for the Diet to act).

• Palatinate: the title of Elector Palatine, and the Lower Palatinate (Heidelberg) restored to Karl Ludwig, the son of the Winter King and Queen.

• The Upper Palatinate stays with Maximilian of Bavaria, who loses the title of Elector Palatine, but

becomes Elector of Bavaria.

The Peace of Westphalia 1648: Religion

• Religion: Calvinism was now recognized.

• Rulers could establish either Catholicism or Lutheranism or Calvinism as the public religion of their lands.

• Rulers were to tolerate the private practice of religions which had been allowed in their lands in 1624.

• Rulers could expel (within 5 years) members of religious

groups that had not been tolerated in their lands in 1624, but could not take their property.

• Land taken from Protestants by Catholics after 1624 was to be restored.

The Peace of Westphalia 1648: Assessment

• The Peace of Westphalia made it clear that the Dutch would be independent from Spain, that the Emperor would not have sovereign power over Germany,

and that Protestantism would not be wiped out in Germany.

• The Peace is sometimes seen as a key turning point in the secularization of politics and international relations, when realpolitik or raison d’état replaced religious commitments; this is debatable.

Consequences of the Thirty Years War

• Germany suffered serious population loss, and economic dislocation.

• The losses varied greatly; in some

places population was hardly affected, but in others it declined sharply; in Pomerania it fell by perhaps 50%; in the area around Magdeburg by 90%; overall, German population fell from about 16 million to 12 million.

• The war stimulated efforts to prevent similar disasters in the future, by establishing internationally agreed laws on the grounds for war and on what was legitimate in war.

Jacques Caillot, from The Miseries of War, 1633

Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis

Scandinavia and Poland to 1660

• Swedish army under Torstensson attacks Denmark 1643; war 1643-5; Halland conquered by Sweden.

• Charles X of Sweden (1654-60) (married Hedvig Eleonora/ Holstein-Gottorp).

• John Casimir of Poland (1648-68). • 1655: Swedes invade Poland

(Potop: the Deluge). • Frederick III of Denmark (1648-

70).

Scandinavia and Poland to 1660

• 1657: Brandenburg changes sides and gains sovereignty of Prussia.

• 1658: Swedes besiege Copenhagen and conquer Scania.

• 1660: Treaties of Copenhagen and Oliva.

• (1667: Truce of Andrusovo: Poland loses Eastern Ukraine – including Kiev – to Russia)

Sweden and Denmark 1645

(Brömsebro): Sweden gains yellow areas, and red area for 30 years

Sweden and Denmark 1658 (Roskilde) and

1660 (Copenhagen): Sweden gains yellow and purple areas in 1658, but returns

purple area in 1660 The War between Spain

and France 1635-59 • Revolts of Catalonia and Portugal 1640. • Portugal: battle of Villaviciosa 1665; Spain

recognizes Portugal as independent 1668. • Catalonia: Louis XIII and XIV of France

become Dukes of Barcelona. • France weakened by the Fronde 1648-52. • 1652: Barcelona surrenders to Spain. • 1655: England joins the war; capture of

Jamaica (1655) and Dunkirk (1658) from Spain.

• Death of Oliver Cromwell 1658. • Treaty of the Pyrenees 1659; Maria Teresa

and Louis marry 1660. Maria Teresa (1638-83), by Velázquez, 1653; she

was the double cousin of Louis XIV, whom she

married in 1660

Spain: Outline • (1) Government; (2) Society; (3)

The Economy; (4) Olivares; (5) The Crisis of the 1640s.

• The Monarchs: • Philip II (el Prudente; the

prudent); 1556-98. • Philip III (el Piadoso; the pious);

1598-1621. • Philip IV (el Grande; the great; el

Re Planeta; the planet king); 1621-65.

• Charles II (el Hechizado); 1665-1700.

Spain in the Early Seventeenth Century:

Government • Vast resources and territory:

Spain, Portugal, Spanish (Southern) Netherlands (and a claim to the Northern provinces), Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, Milan, Franche-Comté (Besançon), Charolais, Luxemburg, much of Central and South America, Philippines.

• But the vastness of the territories creates problems of communication and

administration

Spain: Government: Disunity

• Disunity; different parts of Spain insist on their own rights and privileges (fueros).

• Spain divided into different states with their own customs, laws, and institutions, united only by having the same monarch.

• The largest and richest state was Castile, which controlled the American territories.

• The kingdom of Aragon was subdivided into Aragon proper,

Valencia, and Catalonia. • Portugal taken over by Spain only

in 1580; Portuguese Empire included Brazil and Goa.

Spain and Portugal in 1492

Spain: Government: Taxation

• Each region was reluctant to pay for expenses spent outside the region.

• Castile got burdened with greater taxes than other areas.

• Other regions thought this was

fair, because the American Empire was Castile’s; trade went through Cadiz and Seville.

• Castile wanted other regions to pay their fair share in taxes.

Spain: Government: Taxation in Castile

• Servicio ordinario y extraordinario (tax voted by the Cortes).

• Alcabala (10% sales taxes; towns often compounded; nobles often acquired the right to it).

• Millones (tax on foodstuffs; voted by the Cortes).

• Customs duties; taxes on church

(including on sale of indulgences). • Quint: 20% levy on silver from

America (about the same as alcabala in 1600; declined from 1620s)

• To raise more cash, government sold interest-bearing bonds – juros

• Weak finances limited military possibilities; 1628: Piet Hein

A “Piece of 8” Reales, 1687, Potosí mint.

Spain: Government: the Conciliar System.

• Philip II: the king governs in person

• El Escorial. • Council of State; Finance; War. • Council of Castile; Aragon;

Portugal; Indies. • Viceroys (Aragon, Navarre, Sicily,

Peru, New Spain, Catalonia, Sardinia, Portugal).

• Consulta. “If death came from Madrid, we would all be immortal”.

• Audiencias (America). Letrados.

Philip III, 1578/1598-1621 • Became King at the age of 20.

• Lazy; pious; fond of high aristocracy. • Married his 14-year old cousin

Margaret of Austria in 1599; she had 8 children in the next 12 years, and died in childbirth in 1611.

Philip IV, 1605/1621-65 (by Velázquez; 1652-3)

• Became King at the age of 16. • Interested in art collecting; court life;

religion; actresses; bull fights; horses. • His legitimate son and heir Balthasar

Charles died of smallpox in 1646 (aged 16).

• He had another legitimate son in 1661 – Charles II.

Charles II, 1661/5-1700 • 2 of Charles’ 4 grandparents were also

his great-grandparents. • Ferdinand I (d. 1564) was his direct

ancestor (great-great grandfather etc.) eight times over.

• He had serious physical and emotional problems.

• He married twice, but had no children. • His death was long expected (and

hoped for by those who stood to inherit).

Spain: Government: the validos/ privados;

valimiento • Government by the King in

person worked well under the

able workaholic Philip II. • But under lazier or less

competent Kings it made sense to leave decisions to a chief advisor – a privado/ valido (who often held few major offices).

• If things went wrong, this person could be blamed, and the monarchy survive unscathed.

• But the system linked the crown to the privado’s faction, annoying other nobles

• And the privado could be incompetent

Francisco Gómez de

Sandoval, Duke of Lerma (1553-1625) (by Rubens,

1603) • A high nobleman, he became a

favorite of the young Philip III before the latter became King in 1598,

• The King made Lerma his privado and in 1599 gave him a dukedom.

• Lerma used his power to make himself vastly rich.

• His enemies at court secured his fall in 1618; earlier that year he persuaded the Pope to make him a Cardinal.

Later privados • One of those who drove Lerma

from power was Olivares, who

became privado under Philip IV; more on Olivares in a while.

• On Olivares’ fall in 1643, his nephew Luis Méndez de Haro, Marquis of Carpio (d. 1661), succeeded him as privado.

• Mariana (or Maria Anna) of Austria married her uncle Philip IV when she was 14; she was regent for Charles II 1665-77, and appointed as privado first her Austrian confessor Johann Eberhard Nithard (to 1669) and then the minor noble Fernando de Valenzuela (1673-7).

• Philip IV’s illegitimate son John of

Austria took over in 1677, ending the age of the privados.

Charles II and his Mother, Mariana (or Maria Anna) of Austria (1634-

96) (Milan 1666)

Spain: Government: the Cortes of Castile

• The consent of the Cortes was required if the King wanted new taxes.

• The Cortes sometimes used its power over taxation to criticize royal policy.

• But it was a weak institution, and after 1665 it ceased to be called.

• The nobles and clergy did not send representatives to the Cortes; 18 towns did

• The representatives got to vote taxes for the whole of Castile, and to say how they would be distributed; their expenses were paid by the government; and they got a share of the taxes they voted.

Spain: Society • Nobles; grandees; títulos (Duke;

Marquis; Count; Viscount) (also Baron in Catalonia); caballeros;

hidalgos. • Clergy: 100-150,000 under Philip

IV (ten times as many as in England).

• Students; Colegios Mayores • Arbitristas • Link between trade and low

status; Granada 1492; purity of blood (limpieza de sangre); Jews; Moors; Marranos; Moriscos; Inquisition.

• Expulsion of the Moriscos 1609-14; 319,000 expelled; Valencia.

Expulsion of the Moriscos

1609 Spain: Economy

• Peasants: high taxation, and large payments to noble landowners encourage them to leave the land and emigrate to America.

• Mesta: aristocratic organization of sheep-owners, dominated by grandees; merino sheep.

• But Spanish wool increasingly uncompetitive with the New Draperies of the Dutch and English.

• Debasement of the coinage; vellón.

• Agricultural prosperity in Catalonia; Barcelona.

Olivares in 1635 (by Velázquez)

Gaspar de Guzmán, Count of Olivares, 1587-1645:

early career • Olivares became Duke of San

Lúcar la Mayor, and was known as the Conde-Duque (Count-Duke) from then on.

• He was a younger son of the Count of Olivares, who served as Spanish ambassador to Rome,

and as Viceroy of Naples and Sicily.

• Olivares’ father never quite made it to the rank of Grandee.

• There was Jewish blood in the family’s recent past.

Olivares: early career • Since he was a younger son, he

was not expected to inherit the family estates, and so would need to earn a living.

• So he was sent to the University of Salamanca, to be trained for a career in the church.

• But when his elder brother died, he became heir to the family lands; he married and was sent to court.

• In 1607 his father died and he inherited the countship and lands.

Olivares’ rise to power • At court, he was attached to the

household of the heir to the throne, who became Philip IV.

• Young Philip initially disliked Olivares; the latter worked hard to change that.

• When Philip IV became King in 1621, Olivares rose to power; by

1623 he was Philip’s chief minister.

• Olivares was intelligent, verbose, deeply religious, and self-doubting; he was well aware of Spain’s problems, and determined to solve them.

Olivares’ plans for reform • To make government more

efficient, he supplemented the councils with juntas – to which he appointed relatives and clients.

• They included the junta for reformation (1623).

• It proposed cutting the size of local government bureaucracy by

two thirds. • It advocated reducing the number

of students and grammar schools. • It proposed ending wasteful

spending by abolishing the ruff and brothels, and discouraging plays and novels.

A Ruff (on the Darnley Portrait of Elizabeth I,

1575) Olivares’ plans for reform • He intended to increase royal

authority, and with this in mind appointed officials from the

lesser rather than the higher nobility.

• He set up juntas for economic reform, intending to promote trade and agriculture, and reverse depopulation. He offered noble status to large-scale traders.

• He expanded the navy. • He wanted to share the cost of

government fairly across Spain, and ultimately to unite the different regions.

Olivares’ plans for reform • As a first step towards unification,

he planned a Union of Arms (1625) which would create a single Spanish army financed by all the regions in proportion to their wealth.

• Many of his plans failed (though the ruff fell out of fashion).

• Aragon resisted the Union of Arms.

• It was hard to reduce the size of the Castilian local bureaucracy as many offices had been bought by the office-holders, and the government could not afford to buy them back.

Olivares’ plans for reform

• Despite Olivares’ efforts, people continued to think of clergy and students as having high status, and equated trade with low status.

• To finance government, Olivares resorted to debasing the coinage by issuing vellón (base; billon) coins; this annoyed the Cortes and harmed the economy.

• But the main reason why Olivares shelved his plans was that Spain went to war again.

Olivares and foreign

policy • In 1621 the Twelve Years Truce

between the Dutch Republic and Spain expired.

• Some Spaniards thought the Truce should be renewed; but Olivares believed (rightly) that Dutch wealth had expanded greatly during the Truce, and he hoped that Spain could extract better terms from the Dutch, even if it could not reconquer them.

• The Austrian Habsburgs were successful in the early years of the Thirty Years War; it seemed

like a good idea for Spain to ally with them.

Olivares: Spain at War. • Spain had successes early in the

war; in 1625 Breda was captured, and Bahia (in Brazil) was recaptured; the Dutch were also defeated at Puerto Rico.

• Olivares’ motives: self-defense or world domination?

• Turning points: death of the Duke of Mantua (1627) and Mantuan succession crisis (1628-31); Duke of Nevers.

• Piet Hein captures the treasure fleet 1628.

1625: Admiral Fadrique Alvárez de Toledo leads

a Spanish and Portuguese force which recaptures Bahia from the Dutch.

Olivares: Spain at War • 1630s: Olivares tries to get more

financial and military resources from outlying parts of Spain and from Portugal.

• Unrest in Catalonia, Vizcaya 1632; Portugal 1637; Olivares backs down.

• 1638 fall of Breisach; 1639 Battle of the Downs – destruction of a Spanish fleet in the English

Channel. • 1639-40: billeting of troops in

Catalonia.

Olivares 1640-3: Crisis and Fall

• May 1640: Catalan Revolt begins; later some Catalan nobles invite in the French; the Revolt divides; 1648 peace with the Dutch strengthens Spain, and the Fronde weakens France; plague strikes Catalonia ealry 1650s; Philip IV promises easy terms and Barcelona surrenders 1652.

• Portugal: 1630 Dutch capture

Pernambuco in Brazil; Spain fails to recapture it 1640.

• Portuguese resent exclusion from Spanish America, and high taxation and use of Inquisition against those merchants who do trade there.

Coin of Louis XIII as Count of Barcelona, 1642

Olivares: 1640-3: Crisis and Fall

• Portuguese hope that if they split from Spain, Dutch will stop attacking

Brazil. • Portuguese resent efforts

of Olivares’ to use their resources in Dutch War.

• December 1640: Portugal revolts; allies with France.

• 1643: Fall of Olivares; d. 1645.

Portugal becomes independent

• 1640: John Duke of Braganza

becomes King John (João) IV of Portugal.

• Dutch continue attacking Portuguese possessions and capture Luanda (Angola) 1641; but Portugal recaptures it 1648, and drives Dutch from Brazil 1654.

• Portugal deserted by French 1659, but allies with England 1661; they decisively defeat Spain 1665 (Villaviciosa), and Spain recognizes Portugal’s independence 1668.

France 1589-1643:

Outline • (1) Henry IV (1553/89-1610) and

the end of the Religious Wars: Nantes and Vervins.

• (2) The reforms of Sully. • (3) The minority of Louis XIII

(1601/10-43) 1610-17: Marie de’ Medici and Concini.

• (4) Charles d’Albert, Duke of Luynes (1617-21).

• (5) Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal and Duke of Richelieu: (A) rise to power 1614-24; (B) domestic policy; (C) foreign policy and reason of state.

Henry IV and the End of the Wars of Religion

• 1559: death of Henry II (Valois) of France; he was succeeded in turn by his three young and ineffective sons.

• Religious civil wars in France from 1560s, between Catholics and Protestant Huguenots.

• 1572: St. Bartholomew’s Day massacres.

• 1584: Henry III’s brother and heir died; the King was childless, so his distant relative Henry Bourbon, King of Navarre,

became heir.

Henry IV of France (and III of Navarre); b. 1553; King

1589(/72)-1610 Pope Gregory XIII celebrates the killing of Huguenots in the St Bartholomew’s Day

massacres of 1572


• Henry of Navarre was a Huguenot.

• Zealous Catholics claimed that a heretic could not become King of France; under Henry, Duke of Guise, they formed the Holy

League (La Sainte Ligue) in 1585. • The War of the Three Henries

resulted (1585-9): Henry III and Henry of Navarre fought against Henry of Guise and the League

• Paris revolted and drove Henry III out, 1588.


• Henry III invited Henry of Guise and his brother the Cardinal of Lorraine to a conference; when they arrived his servants murdered them.

• In 1589 a Dominican friar, Jacques

Clément, murdered Henry III; Henry of Navarre claimed to be Henry IV.

• Philip II of Spain aided the League, and tried to put his daughter Isabella on the French throne; her mother had been Elisabeth Valois, Henry III’s sister.


• Many French people strongly opposed having a female monarch, believing that ancient Salic Law prohibited this.

• Many opposed Spanish

intervention in their affairs. • Henry IV gained support from the

politiques, a group which put political stability and temporal welfare ahead of religious considerations.

• In 1593, Henry IV converted to Catholicism.


• “Paris is well worth a mass” (“Paris vaut bien une messe”): Paris surrenders to Henry IV.

• Aristocratic members of the League grew worried about the

social radicalism of some of its members.

• By force and bribery, Henry IV got the leaders of the League to surrender.

• The wars ended in 1598 when Spain and France made the Peace of Vervins.

Henry IV: the Edict of Nantes 1598

• At the end of the religious wars, Henry IV granted the Huguenots (limited) religious toleration in the Edict of Nantes (1598)

• Huguenot nobles could hold

Protestant services in their own households.

• Huguenots could have public services in a limited number of towns, but not in Paris.

• Huguenot ministers were to be paid by the state.

Manuscript of the Edict of Nantes, April 13, 1598 Henry IV: the Edict of

Nantes 1598 • Huguenots were to have full civil

rights and to be eligible for all jobs in state service.

• Huguenots were granted control

of some fortified, garrisoned towns, such as La Rochelle.

• To enforce the Edict, provincial courts were set up with equal numbers of Protestant and Catholic members.

• But In the highest court – the Parlement of Paris – Catholics had a majority (of 10-6, and later 10-1).

Henry IV: religious tensions after the Edict.

• Though the Edict theoretically gave Huguenots full rights, in practice governments favored

Catholics, and Huguenot rights were eroded.

• Some Catholics thought the Edict was wrong, since it was sinful to tolerate heresy; some believed it was foolish to have an armed religious minority in the country.

• Assassination attempts by Catholic fanatics against Henry continued after he converted to Catholicism.

• After one of these, in 1595, the Jesuits (many of whom had sided with the League) were exiled from Paris.

Henry IV: religious

tensions after the Edict. • In 1604 the Jesuits were

readmitted to Paris; one of them – Pierre Coton – became the King’s confessor.

• Many Jesuits were ultramontanes.

• Many members of the Parlement of Paris were Gallicans.

• In 1610 Henry IV was assassinated by a Catholic fanatic, François Ravaillac.

• There were suspicions that Ravaillac was influenced by Jesuits; the Parlement burned Juan de Mariana’s De Rege et

regis institutione (1599), and took further action against ultramontane ideas in the following years.

Sully and domestic policy • One of Henry’s leading ministers

was the Huguenot Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully (1560-1641).

• Henry and Sully re-established order and economic prosperity; central to this was the simple fact that peace had been restored.

• Sully became superintendent of finances, grand commissioner of highways and public works, and

grand master of the artillery.

A statue of Sully by Gabriel-Vital Dubray, c.1853; in the Louvre

Sully and domestic policy • Sully rooted out financial

corruption by administrators (apart from himself).

• The taille (tax on land or personal property) fell slightly but the gabelle (tax on salt) rose.

• Sully built up a large surplus of revenue, enabling Henry to pay of debts to foreign powers.

• In the case of the Grand Duke of

Tuscany, Henry got out of paying his debts by marrying the Grand Duke’s daughter, Marie de’ Medici.

Marie de’ Medici (1575-1642) married Henri IV in 1600; here she is c.1606 In 1601, Marie gave birth to a son,

who became Louis XIII in 1610; here they are in 1603

Marie acted as Regent while Louis

was a boy; this dates from 1614. Elisabeth (1602-44)

married Philip IV of Spain In 1608 she gave birth to

another son, Gaston, Duke of Orléans (1608-60) Henrietta Maria (1609-69), the daughter of Henry IV and Marie, married Charles I

of England in 1625

Sully and domestic policy • Sully improved internal

communications, and planned a network of canals, and improving roads.

• Sully encouraged agricultural improvement and the draining of marshes.

• Henry supposedly said that he wanted every French family to have a “chicken in the pot” (poule au pot).

• Henry encouraged Sully to set up silk factories and plant mulberry trees.

Henry IV: rebellions and foreign affairs

• A conspiracy fomented by France’s neighbor Savoy was suppressed in 1602; the chief conspirators were the Huguenot Henry de la Tour d’Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon, and the

Catholic Charles de Gontaut, Duke of Biron; Bouillon fled and was later pardoned; Biron was beheaded.

• Henry fought a brief campaign in Savoy, 1600-1.

• Henry was instrumental in resolving the affair of the Venetian Interdict in 1606-7, arguably averting a European-wide war.

Henry IV: foreign affairs • Henry became infatuated with

Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, the fifteen-year

old wife of his cousin Henry de Bourbon, Prince of Condé; the Prince fled with her to the Spanish Netherlands.

• Henry made plans for war with the Habsburgs; perhaps he intended to pressure them into returning Charlotte; or maybe his main intention was to intervene in the Cleves/ Jülich succession crisis.

• Before he could take military action, he was stabbed to death by Ravaillac.

Ravaillac assassinates

Henry IV, May 14 1610 Memorial, at the place

where Ravaillac assassinated Henry Louis XIII (1610-43):

Minority 1610-17 • Marie de’ Medici: Regent to 1614

(effectively to 1617). • Marie: greedy; pious; venerates

the Virgin Mary; pro-Habsburg (her mother was the daughter of the Emperor Ferdinand I); dévot.

• She confirmed the Edict of Nantes.

• The high nobility, including Condé, resented her power, and protested that her regime was corrupt.

• They pressured her into calling the Estates-General in 1614.

Louis XIII (1610-43): Minority 1610-17

• The Estates-General achieved little; Marie dissolved it in 1615.

• In 1616 she had Condé arrested and removed some of his main allies from office.

• She ruled with her greedy Italian favorites Concino Concini and

Leonora Dori Galigaï. • In 1616 Marie and Concini

brought in to their administration, as secretary of state, Richelieu.

Concino Concini (1575-1617), Marquis d’Ancre and Marshal of France

Leonora Dori Galigaï (1568-1617); Lady-in-waiting and favorite of Marie de’

Medici

Louis and Luynes, 1617-21

• Louis XIII took power for himself and his favorite Charles d’Albert,

lord (Duke 1619) of Luynes. • Louis was pious, with a high

sense of duty; he liked outdoor sports, and especially hunting (most of all with falcons or vultures); he was suspicious of intellectuals.

• He befriended aristocrats with similar interests, especially Luynes, whom he made Grand Falconer of France in 1616.

• Luynes organized a coup against Marie in 1617; Concini was ambushed, assassinated, and torn apart.

The execution of Leonora Dori Galigaï, 1617

Louis XIII in the early 1620s

Charles d’Albert, Duke of Luynes, 1578-1621


• Leonora Dori Galigaï was convicted of bewitching Marie, and of Judaizing; she was beheaded and then burned at the stake.

• Marie soon recovered power as one of the King’s advisors.

• Marie, Louis, and Luynes and Louis agreed that the Huguenots held too much military power.

• Béarn in the Pyrenees was in the Kingdom of Navarre, and so theoretically independent of France.


• Louis and Luynes used force to end the independence of Béarn, and to promote Catholicism

there. • Some Protestant nobles

elsewhere in France resented these actions, and openly resisted the King.

• 1621: while he was campaigning against them, Luynes caught a fever and died, leaving Louis without a chief minister.

The Rise of Richelieu • Eventually (by 1624) Richelieu

became Louis’ leading advisor. • Richelieu was born in 1585. He

was Armand-Jean du Plessis; his father was lord (seigneur) de Richelieu; Richelieu is in Poitou,

west central France. • Richelieu was the fourth of five

children (and the third son). • His father died in 1590, when he

was five.

The Rise of Richelieu • Richelieu’s father had been a

supporter of Henry III (and later of Henry IV).

• Henry III rewarded the family by giving it the right to appoint the Bishop of Luçon; it became the family bishopric.

• Richelieu was not in line to inherit lands or the title; the heir

was his eldest brother Henry. • The next brother was Alphonse,

who was intended for the bishopric.

The Rise of Richelieu • Richelieu was trained to be a

soldier; he attended the University of Paris, and then a school for nobles which taught courtly manners and fencing; Richelieu retained military interests throughout life.

• Brother Alphonse (intended for the bishopric) got religion to such an extent that he became a monk. Richelieu retrained for the

bishopric, studying theology.

The Rise of Richelieu • Since he was under the canonical

age (26) to be a bishop, Richelieu went to Rome to plead for a dispensation from the pope in 1606.

• His intelligence, quick wits, and abilities as a speaker, greatly impressed the pope, who granted the dispensation.

• In 1608 Richelieu took up the job as bishop.

• He was a hard-working, committed, Counter-Reformation

bishop, who looked after the spiritual interests of his diocese, and wrote against Protestantism. Richelieu’s Principaux Points de la Foy

(1618 Paris reprint of a book published at Poitiers in 1617)

The Rise of Richelieu • In 1614 the clergy of Poitou

elected as one of their two representatives in the Estates-General.

• In Paris for the Estates-General, he met and cultivated Concino and Marie, and was appointed secretary of state in 1616.

• When Concino fell, Richelieu was

driven out of office. • 1619: Richelieu’s brother Henry

died in a duel; Richelieu inherited the title.

• When Marie de’ Medici returned to favor, Richelieu did so too.

In 1615 Louis XIII married Anne of

Austria (1601-66) daughter of Philip III of Spain; this portrait, by Rubens, dates

from the early 1620s

Richelieu gains power • Louis XIII was suspicious of

Richelieu, and at first saw him as his mother’s servant.

• But at Marie’s request he got the

pope to appoint Richelieu a Cardinal in 1622.

• 1624: Richelieu became a member of the King’s main advisory council – the Conseil des Affaires – and then its head.

• He began to diverge politically from Marie.

Richelieu c. 1637 Richelieu consolidates

power 1624-30 • Marie supported the dévots, who

wanted good relations with the Habsburg powers.

• The dévots included many

reforming Catholics who were suspicious of the military power of the Huguenots.

• Leaders of the dévots included Michel de Marillac (keeper of the seals) and Gaston d’Orléans (heir to the throne until 1638, when Anne of Austria gave birth to Louis XIV)

Richelieu consolidates power 1624-30

• Marillac favored internal reforms to build up the economy; Code Michaud 1629.

• Richelieu shared many of

Marillac’s views on the importance of internal reform, and like the dévots he thought that the Huguenots should be deprived of military power.

• But Richelieu supported the bons français who argued that France’s political interests required war against the Habsburgs, and who argued that the Habsburgs acted through self-interest and ambition for power, and used religion as a pretext.


• In 1627-8 the Huguenots revolted at La Rochelle; bons français and dévots agreed that the the Revolt had to be suppressed.

• La Rochelle was besieged; it surrendered on October 28, 1628; the Peace of Alais (1629) ended the military power of the Huguenots.

• In 1628, the Mantuan Succession Crisis raised the question of whether France should intervene militarily against the Habsburgs in Italy.

Louis XIII and Richelieu at the Siege of La Rochelle,

1628 Richelieu at the siege of

La Rochelle, by Henri Motte, 1881


• Richelieu persuaded Louis to lead an army into Italy in 1629.

• At court on 10 November 1630, Marie threw a tantrum, demanding that Louis dismiss

Richelieu; Louis appeared to give in, but the next day he ordered Richelieu to remain in office; Marillac was imprisoned; the Day of the Dupes.

• 1631: Richelieu was made a Duke; Marie went into exile in the Spanish Netherlands.

Richelieu: Medal of 1631, by Jean Warin

Richelieu: Domestic Policy • Outline: (1) Nobles; (2)

Representative Assemblies; (3) Intendants; (4) The Economy.

• Plots and Revolts by Nobles:

• 1626: the Count of Chalais (Henri de Talleyrand-Périgord) plotted with Gaston d’Orléans and was executed.

• 1632: Revolt of Languedoc under Henry, Duke of Montmorency, supported by Gaston d’Orléans.

• 1641: Revolt of Louis de Bourbon, Count of Soissons (a member of the royal family).

• 1642: Execution of Henri Coiffier de Ruzé d’Effiat, Marquis of St-Mars.

Louis de Bourbon, Count

of Soissons (1604-41), in 1640

Henri de Coiffier de Ruzé d’Effiat, Marquis of Cinq-

Mars, 1620-42 Richelieu: Domestic Policy • Nobles; the Problem of Dueling: • 1626: an edict institutes the

death penalty for dueling; it was flagrantly flouted by aristocrats including François de Montmorency-Bouteville; so Richelieu and Louis enforced the edict by having Montmorency-

Bouteville executed. • Assemblies: Estates-General

1614-15 (not again until 1789); Assembly of Notables 1627 (not again until 1787).

Montmorency-Bouteville (1600-27), the champion duelist of his generation,

dueled once too often in 1627 • 1627: François de Montmorency-

Bouteville, Duke of Luxembourg, fought a duel in Paris (he had fought 21 previous duels); his second, the Count of Chapelles, killed his opponent’s second (Bussy d’Amboise)

Richelieu: Domestic Policy • Assemblies : Provincial Estates:

suspended in Dauphiné 1628;

Normandy 1635. • Parlement of Paris; lit-de-justice;

Chambre de l’Arsenal 1631; 1641 edict limits Parlement’s right of remonstrance.

• Intendants. Venality of office. • Economy: Navy; Plans for state-

run trading companies; 1627 Compagnie de la Nouvelle France (Canada); 1630 national postage and stage-coach service; 1635 Académie française.

Richelieu: Foreign policy and reason of state

• Reason of state; ragione di stato;

Machiavelli; Botero; Cornelius Jansen, Mars Gallicus 1635.

• War drastically increases expenditure and taxation; before 1632, royal income was always below 50,000 livres a year; later in the 1630s it rose to 200,000.

• Revolts: Languedoc 1632; Normandy 1639.

• What was the purpose of the war?

• Breisach. Pinerolo. Alsace.

(Cornelius Jansen,) Mars Gallicus, 1639

• Typically of highly controversial books, this edition of Mars Gallicus has a false

author’s name – Alexander Patrick of Armagh – and no printer’s name or place of publication; sometimes the date was also falsified in such works.

A Medal of 1638, commemorating the capture of Breisach by Bernard of Saxe-Weimar; it went to France on his death

in 1639

Breisach’s strategic location on the Rhine

The Tomb of Richelieu, in the Sorbonne, 1694

The Richelieu medal gold, given by the modern Sorbonne (University of Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne) for outstanding contributions to

learning and the University.

1000 Franc banknote of 1957 (revalued at 10

Francs in 1960) Christoph Waltz as

Richelieu, 2011 First Midterm: Example

Questions • 1. Lutherans and Calvinists agreed on

which one of the following: (A) consubstantiation; (B) the independent power of churchmen; (C) the importance of predestination; (D) justification by faith alone.

• 2. Bethlen Gabor was: (A) a

Transylvanian Protestant; (B) the Dutch privateer who captured the Spanish treasure fleet in 1628; (C) the Duke of Mantua whose death sparked off the Mantuan succession crisis; (D) a prominent Catholic mercenary leader.

First Midterm: Example Questions (Contd.)

• 3. These two were thrown out of a window at the Hradschin Palace in Prague in 1618, beginning the Bohemian Revolt: (A) Frederick V and Elizabeth; (B) Ferdinand II and Maximilian of Bavaria; (C) Slavata and Martinic; (D) Tilly and Wallenstein.

• 4. Juros were: (A) the Spanish currency in the seventeenth century; (B) legal officials appointed by the crown to administer the law in the

localities; (C) Muslims who had outwardly been converted to Christianity but who were suspected of disloyalty and were expelled from Spain in 1609-14; (D) Spanish government bonds.

• 5. Which one of the following prominent French figures was not assassinated?: (A) Henry III; (B) Henry IV; (C) Henry Duke of Guise; (D) Louis XIII.

First Midterm: Example Questions (Contd.)

• 1. What were the main economic changes that occurred in seventeenth-century Europe, and what were their causes and effects?

• 2. Why did the Thirty Years’ War break out, why did it last so long, and why was it so destructive and violent?

• 3. What social, economic and political problems confronted Spain and France

in the age of Richelieu and Olivares, and how successful were the governments of the two countries in overcoming the problems?

The Dutch Republic to 1650: Outline

• (1) Society and Economy; (2) Government; (3) Religious and Intellectual History; (4) Narrative.

• The Heads of the Orange Family: (1) Maurice of Nassau (Maurits) 1585-1625; (2) Frederick Henry (half-brother of Maurice; both were sons of William of Orange, d. 1584) 1625-47 (there was also an older Catholic half-

brother who was Prince of Orange until his death in 1618; he was brought up in Spain); (3) William II 1647-50 (son of Frederick Henry).

Maurice of Nassau (1567/85-1625) Frederick Henry

(1584/1625-47; Maurice’s half-brother)

William II (1626/47-50) Johannes (/ Jan) Vermeer (1632-75), View of Delft

(c. 1660-1)

Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring,

(c. 1665). The Dutch Republic:

Society and Economy • Seven Provinces: Holland; Zeeland;

Utrecht; Friesland; Groningen; Gelderland; Overijssel.

• The Generality Lands. • Efficient agriculture; crop rotation;

high yields. • Small; urbanized; tolerant; seagoing;

fishers (especially of herring, often in English waters; Grotius, Selden, and the freedom of the seas).

• Sailors and shipbuilders.

• Skilled craftsmen immigrated from Southern Netherlands in the wars.

The Dutch Republic: Society and Economy

• Innovation in shipping: the fluyt or fluytschip.

• Shipbuilding factories; pre-cut lumber; wind-powered sawmills (1596).

• 1590s: Philip II closed Iberian ports to Dutch; so they started to explore and trade globally.

• 1598-1601: Olivier van der Noort sails round the world.

• 1602: East India Company (VOC: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie).

• 1621: West India Company.

Fluyts c. 1647: inexpensive ships with large storage capacity

The Dutch Republic: Society and Economy

• Dutch build fleets for French, Danes and Swedes.

• Shortage of land; so wealthy invest in insurance and banking; financial expertise of Amsterdam banks encourages foreign deposits.

• City council (vroedschap);

regents; city militias; mob. A Dutch Leeuwendaalder (Dordrecht 1576); this

was a major international trade coin throughout the seventeenth century;

(Joachims)thal – thaler – daalder – dollar.

Dutch Government • 7 self-governing Provinces; towns

largely self-governing; but military affairs, foreign policy, and (sometimes) religion decided by the Provinces together.

• Provinces had representative assemblies = States; States of Holland met at the Hague and represented 18 towns (with one vote each); the nobility had only one vote.

• Amsterdam paid about a quarter of the taxes of the whole Republic, and

had a large say in its affairs.

Dutch Government • Holland: head of civil

administration was Advocate (to 1618) and then Pensionary.

• The States General (meeting daily from 1593, usually at the Hague; unanimity was required on important matters; it voted taxes for military purposes, giving each Province a quota.

• Decentralization; lack of uniformity.

Dutch Government • Stadholder (lieutenant; deputy). • Orange family; head of the family was

Stadholder of Holland and most of the other Provinces, and Captain-General.

• The Captain-General’s power grew in war; so he often favored an aggressive foreign policy.

• Calvinist clergy tended to support aggression (against foreign Catholic powers).

• The merchants of Holland tended to oppose it; the Captain-General often supported the other Provinces against Holland, and the Calvinist clergy against total toleration.

Dutch Religious and Intellectual History

• A reason for the Revolt against Spain was to oppose religious persecution.

• Erasmian tradition of tolerance; Grotius. • 1573 William the Silent (Prince of

Orange) became Calvinist. • Calvinism established as state religion;

clergy receive public funding. • But local lay authorities (e.g. regents of

Holland) want to restrict power of Calvinist clergy and tolerate other groups.


• In practice, non-Calvinists enjoyed a large measure of toleration, especially in towns, where the lay authorities protected them.

• Catholics (a third of population 1650); Mennonites; Jews (got right of public worship 1597).

• Dutch witches: last execution 1595; last trial (acquittal) 1610.

• Tolerance (and high salaries in universities – e.g. Leiden) attracted important intellectuals.

• Descartes; Spinoza; Locke (Epistola de Tolerantia 1689).

• Publishing. Elzevir family.


• Religious and intellectual disputes:

• In the later part of the century, between Calvinists and Cartesians.

• In the early years of the century, between Arminians and Calvinists/ Gomarists.

• Jacobus Arminius (Jakob Hermanszoon, 1560-1609);

Franciscus Gomarus (1563-1641). • Antinomianism.

Jacobus Arminius (Jakob Hermanszoon, 1560-

1609) Franciscus Gomarus

(1563-1641) Gomarist/ Calvinist

Theology of Grace: TULIP • Total Depravity. • Unconditional Election. • Limited Atonement. • Irresistible Grace.

• Perseverance of the Saints. • (nothing to do with the great

Tulip Bubble, which burst in 1637).

Dutch History: Narrative • Jan van Oldenbarnevelt; Maurice

of Nassau. • 1609: Twelve Years Truce. • 1610: Remonstrance;

Remonstrants; Arminians; Simon Episcopius; Johan Uytenbogaert.

• Counter- (/ Contra-) Remonstrants.

• 1618-19: Synod of Dort (Dordrecht).

• 1619: execution of Oldenbarnevelt.

• Grotius imprisoned in Loevestein Castle (to 1621).

The Synod of Dort (Dordrecht) 1618-19

Dutch History: Narrative • 1621: Renewal of War with Spain. • Arminians; Academy at

Amsterdam 1632; Philip van Limborch.

• 1625: loss of Breda; succession of Frederick Henry; recapature of ‘s-Hertogenbosch 1629;

• Maastricht 1632; Breda 1637

(but not Antwerp). • Alliance with France 1635.

Dutch History: Narrative • 1641: marriage alliance with

England links Orange and Stuart families; 14-year old Prince William marries 9-year old Princess Mary.

• 1647: William II (now 20) succeeds Frederick Henry.

• 1648 peace with Spain; question of whether to disband army, and of religion in Generality lands.

• 1650: William’s coup against Holland; he dies of smallpox; William III born.

• 1653-72: Johan de Witt Pensionary; stadholderless period.

England before the Civil War, 1600-42

• Elizabeth I, 1558-1603: divisions on religious questions; puritans and papists; growth of the House of Commons; Spanish Armada 1588; Ireland and the Nine Years War 1594-1603.

• James I, 1603-25: divisions on constitutional and religious issues; Divine Right of Kings; foreign policy and the Spanish

Match; Buckingham. • Charles I, 1625-49: Arminianism;

constitutional issues; the Personal Rule 1629-40; the Scottish troubles 1637-41; the Irish Revolt 1641.

William II and Maria Henrietta Stuart, 1641; by

Anthony Van Dyck England before the Civil

War, 1600-42 • Elizabeth I, 1558-1603. • The Elizabethan Reformation:

1559 Acts of Supremacy and

Uniformity. • The Royal Supremacy: personal or

parliamentary? • Puritans (ceremonies and

vestments); Presbyterians; Separatists.

• Catholics (papists; recusants); seculars and regulars; Jesuits (from 1580).

Elizabeth I (1533/58-1603): the Rainbow Portrait (c.1600-2)


• Elizabeth I, 1558-1603: • The Spanish Armada 1588. • Growth of the House of

Commons. • The Nine Years’ War (1594-1603)

and the conquest of Ireland. • Fiscal conservatism; sale of royal

land. • James I, 1603-25. • The Stuarts - a new and foreign

dynasty; Great Britain. • Character; the Divine Right of

Kings; extravagance.


• James I, 1603-25: • Ulster. • Tensions with parliament. • The Union; Robert Cecil

(Salisbury) and impositions; the Great Contract (1610); parliaments – 1604-10; the Addled Parliament 1614; Howard family. George Abbot.

• Religion: Catholics – Gunpowder Plot 1605; Guy Fawkes. Puritans – Hampton Court Conference 1604.

James VI and I (1566/1567/1603-25), c.

1606 Ulster Plantation 1611

The Gunpowder Plotters (including Guy – or Guido

– Fawkes) England before the Civil

War, 1600-42 • James I, 1603-25: • Economic crisis: Alderman

Cockayne’s project 1614; Thirty Years War.

• Sir Edward Coke (sacked 1616). • Buckingham (George Villiers).

• Foreign Policy: the Spanish Match; Frederick and the Palatinate.

• 1621 Parliament: monopolies; impeachment (Bacon); foreign policy; Protestation of the Commons.

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628) England before the Civil

War, 1600-42 • James I, 1603-25: • 1623: Jack and Tom Smith go to

Spain. • 1624: Parliament calls for war

with Spain. • 1625: death of James. • Charles I, 1625-49: • Character; Arminianism. • 1625: Parliament: impositions

and tonnage and poundage. • 1625: the Cadiz expedition.


• Charles I, 1625-49: • 1626: attempted impeachment of

Buckingham. • 1626-7: war with France as well

as Spain; Forced Loan; imprisonment of refusers,

without cause shown; Five Knights’ Case (1627; habeas corpus).

• 1628: Petition of Right. Assassination of Buckingham.

• 1629: the three resolutions; Arminianism and tonnage and poundage.


• Charles I, 1625-49: • The Personal Rule 1629-40 (/

Eleven Years’ Tyranny). • William Laud; Thomas

Wentworth (Earl of Strafford);

“thorough”. Star Chamber; High Commission; new ceremonies; the “beauty of holiness”. Ship Money.

• Persecution of puritans; Burton; Bastwick; Prynne (1637).

Charles I, Henrietta Maria, and Princes

Charles and James, by Van Dyck, 1633


• Charles I, 1625-49:

• 1637: the Scottish Prayer Book.

• 1638: the Scottish National Covenant.

• 1639-40: the Bishops’ Wars. • 1640: April-May: the Short

Parliament. • 1640: the Scots invade

England.


• 1640: November 3: the Long Parliament (to 1648/1660).

• 1641-2: divisions on social and

religious issues; attainder of Strafford (May 1641); reforming legislation; bishops; the mob; formation of parties (royalist and parliamentarian; Pym; St John; Hyde; Falkland).

• 1641 October: Irish Revolt. • 1642: outbreak of Civil War.

Protestant English depictions of the Irish

Revolt, 1641 Russia to 1682

• Outline: • Russia and Poland: contemporary

views. • Feodor I (1584-98) and Boris

Godunov (1598-1605): nobles, serfs, and the patriarchate.

• The Time of Troubles 1598-1613; Feodor II (1605); Vasili IV Shuisky 1606-10.

• Michael Romanov 1613-45. • Alexis 1645-76: rebellions;

Ukraine; Nikon and the Schism. • Feodor III 1676-82.

Russia: Feodor I and Boris Godunov

• Ivan IV, the Terrible (ruled 1553-84); boyars.

• Feodor I (1557/84-98): simple, saintly, feeble; 1580 married Irina, sister of

• Boris Godunov (1551/98-1605), who ruled for Feodor.

• Tsar = Caesar. Orthodox church; Constantinople.

• 1589: Patriarchate of Moscow. • Pomestie (estate of a service

noble); pomeshchiki (service nobles).

Russia: Feodor I and Boris Godunov

• Serfs; state peasants in North;

private serfs in South, tied to land, and taxable; largely rightless.

• Slaves. • Cossacks. • Mestnichestvo system (abolished

1682). • The succession: death of Feodor’s

half-brother Dmitri 1591 (not yet 9) in odd circumstances.

• 1598: Godunov succeeds.

The Time of Troubles 1598-1613

• 1601-3: bad harvests, seen as judgment of God against Boris

Godunov. • Appearance of the first false

Dmitri (Gregory Otrepiev? Or the real Dmitri?); he left Russia for Poland, gained some Polish support, and married the Polish noblewoman Marina Mniszech.

• 1604 Dmitri leads a Polish and Cossack army into Russia.

Boris Godunov (c.1551/1598-1605)

The Time of Troubles 1598-1613

• 1605: death of Godunov; murder in Moscow of his son Feodor II;

with boyar support, Dmitri I enters Moscow, but soon makes enemies; 1606 boyars kill him, and make one of themselves tsar:

• 1606-10: Vasili IV Shuisky; but his power was soon challenged by widespread unrest and in

• 1607 a second false Dmitri appeared; identity unknown (the first false Dmitri’s associate Mikhail Molchanov pretended to be Dmitri for a while but gave up in 1606); he (re-)married Marina Mniszech.

The Time of Troubles

1598-1613 • 1608-10: supported by Poles,

Cossacks, and opponents of the boyars, he defeated Shuisky, and threatened Moscow; in 1610 he was murdered by a follower.

• 1610: the boyars deposed Shuisky, and tried to rule through their own duma.

• 1610-13: Sigismund III of Poland invaded Russia and took Moscow; the Swedes invaded and took Novgorod (and briefly ran their own – third – false Dmitri).

Russia in the Time of

Troubles The Time of Troubles

1598-1613 • Invasion by Catholic Poles and

Lutheran Swedes helped to unite the Russians under leaders including the butcher/ trader Kuzma Minin.

• 1612: Russians recaptured Moscow.

• 1613: a zemskii sobor (land assembly) met and elected as tsar the 16 year-old Michael Romanov.

• 1619: Michael’s father released

from captivity in Poland; this was Filaret (/ Philaret; Feodor Nikitich Romanov); as Patriarch, Filaret ruled jointly with Michael until Filaret died in 1633.

Nicholas II, 1913 Ruble commemorating 300 years of the

Romanov dynasty

Michael and Alexis • Michael 1596/ 1613-45: • 1637: Cossacks captured Azov; in

1642 they offered it to Michael in return for military aid against the Turks; after consulting a zemskii sobor Michael declined.

• Alexis 1629/ 1645-76:

• Rebellions: 1648 Moscow, protesting against boyar favorites; 1649 law code (serfdom the default status for peasants).

• Debasement of the coinage fueled economic problems; together with the worsening position of peasants, these helped cause the rebellion of Stenka Razin 1670-1.

Tsar Alexis (Alexei) 1629/45-1676

Alexis and the Ukraine • Alexis debased the coinage to

help pay for war.

• Ukraine under Poland, but in practice largely controlled by self-governing, egalitarian, Orthodox, Cossack communities.

• Poles Catholicize through Uniate Church (1596) and try to spread serfdom.

• 1648: outbreak of revolt of Bogdan Khmelnitsky (Bohdan Chmielnicki; d. 1657).

• 1654: Russia intervenes; gains East Ukraine (including Kiev).

• 1667: Treaty of Andrusovo.

Russian gains from

Poland, including Kiev and Smolensk

Alexis: Nikon and the Schism

• Nikon (1605-81): from a peasant family; became a cleric and monk, and in 1652 Patriarch of Moscow.

• Nikon’s high views of the Patriarch’s powers.

• The reforms: changes in ceremonies.

• 1666-7: church council deposes Nikon; accepts his reforms.

• Old Believers; opposition to

westernization/ modernization. Avvakum burned 1682.

The Patriarch Nikon c. 1660-5: His signature and titles:

After Alexis • Feodor III (1676-82): succeeds at

14; dead at 20; abolition of mestnichestvo system 1682.

• 1682: disputed succession: Ivan V (b. 1666; supported by sister Sophia) and Ivan’s half-brother Peter I (b. 1672; supported by his mother Natalya). Ivan and Peter shared power.

• 1689: Sophia plotted with the

streltsy (elite city guards) to obtain full power; the plot backfired; she became a nun.

• 1694: death of Natalya; 1696 death of Ivan.

Poland-Lithuania: Outline • Society: a paradise for nobles. • Government and religion: Sejm;

pacta conventa; Golden Freedom; confederation; Rokosz.

• Narrative: Sigismund III 1566/ 87-1632; Władysław IV 1595/ 1632-48; John II Casimir 1609/ 48-68; Michael 1640/ 69-73; John III (Jan Sobieski; 1629/ 74-96).

Poland-Lithuania: Society • Commonwealth of Poland-

Lithuania. • Union of Lublin 1569. • Paradise of nobles. Szlachta.

Sejm. • Serfs. • Grain exports: 200,000 metric

tonnes annually in first years; peak 1618 250,000; 100,000 mid-century.

• Gdnask/ Danzig; Warsaw. Loss to Sweden of Riga and Dorpat/ Tartu 1621, 1629.

Poland-Lithuania and

neighbors 1617 Poland-Lithuania:

Government and Religion • Sejmik (sejmiki); dietine. • Sejm: Senate; Chamber of

Envoys. • 1573: elective kingdom; pacta

conventa. • All nobles elect King. • Golden Freedom; religious

toleration; Socinians; Raków; Arians; 1638 Socinian Academy closed; 1658 Socinians and Arians banished.

Poland: Government and

Religion • Nobles could form a

confederation if they believed King had infringed conditions of rule.

• If the King persisted in breaking the conditions, nobles could arm the confederation: Rokosz (1606-9; 1665-6).

• Consensus politics; the liberum veto – first used 1652; first used at the start of the Sejm 1688.

Poland-Lithuania: Narrative

• Vasa family: rulers of Sweden

from 1523. • 1587 Sigismund Vasa elected

Sigismund III of Poland; he became King of Sweden in 1592, but was deposed in 1599.

• 1605: he married a Habsburg (Constance; sister of Ferdinand II), without the consent of the Sejm; he planned constitutional reforms.

• 1606: Rokosz of Mikołaj Zebrzydowski.

Sigismund (Zygmunt) III (1566/87-1632), c. 1590


• 1609: the Sejm ends the Rokosz with an amnesty; henceforth a Rokosz will be justified only after the Sejm has given the King three warnings.

• Władysław IV 1632-48. Cossacks in Ukraine, resent Polish attempts to Catholicize them and to introduce serfdom; Władysław plans to lead Cossack in attacking Tatars (in Crimea) and Turks; Sejm vetoes the plan.

• 1648: revolt of Bogdan

Khmelnitsky; death of Władysław.

Monument to Bogdan Khmelnitsky, central Kiev (1888; bronze; weighs

ten tons)


• John II Casimir (1609/ 48-68; half-brother and first cousin of Władysław IV; their mothers were sisters). Maria Louisa (Ludwika Maria) of Gonzaga-Nevers.

• Lubomirski. Radziwiłł. Janusz Radziwiłł.

• Russian invasion; 1655 fall of

Vilnius; Radziwiłł invites in the Swedes; 1655-60: Potop (the Deluge).

• 1665-6: the Rokosz of Jerzy Lubomirski.

Janusz Radziwiłł 1612-55 (here c. 1654)

The Black Madonna of Częstochowa

• This medieval icon of the Virgin Mary miraculously saved the monastery of Jasna Góra from the Swedes in 1655, and inspired Poles to fight back against the invasion. In 1656 John II Casimir declared Mary the Queen and

Protector of Poland.


• 1668: Abdication of John II Casimir (d. in France 1672).

• 1669-73: Michael (Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki; b. 1640; married a daughter of the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand III).

• 1674-96: John (Jan) III Sobieski (b. 1629; grand hetman under Michael).

• 1683: Sobieski helps save Vienna from the Turks.

King Michael (Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki;

1640/ 69-73) Poland-Lithuania 1686

351-2015 B

Seventeenth Century Europe

2015

Popular Revolts

• Historiography:

• Marxism; class struggle; ideas as epiphenomena of economic reality. Boris Porchnev.

• The Annales school. Fernand Braudel. Structures (including mentalités); conjunctures; events.

The Mediterranean.

• Conservative empiricism: Roland Mousnier: society based on orders not class; events can be

important: The Assassination of Henry IV.

Popular Revolts: Russia

• The revolt of Ivan Bolotnikov (1565-1608) 1606-7: traditionally seen as a slave who became the

leader of a great peasant rebellion; but he was a former military bondsman and Cossack, and few of his

supporters were peasants.

• Bolotnikov was a general in the forces that opposed Shuisky and the boyars (between False

Dmitris); they included service nobles, and promised land and noble status to their followers.


• Bolotnikov 1606-7:

• The rebels besieged Moscow in 1606, but were defeated. Bolotnikov was captured in 1607, and

blinded and drowned in 1611.

• Stenka (Stepan Tomofeevich) Razin 1670-1:

• Razin a Cossack; attacked Azov 1667; pirate on the Volga and in the Caspian Sea 1667-9;

plundered Persians 1669.

• 1670-1: Razin’s revolt.


• Stenka Razin 1670-1:

• Astrakhan 1670. Defenestration of Prince I. S. Prozorovskii.

• Rebels head along the Volga towards Moscow.

• Razin gains peasant support by promising them a better deal; gains some support among clergy

(esp. Old Believers); and among non-Russian peoples (e.g. Chuvashes).

Алёна Арзамасская: Alena Arzamasskaya (d. 1670)

• A rare example of a female military leader was this ex-nun of peasant origin, who led an army of

7,000 men in Razin’s revolt. She was captured by tsarist troops and burned alive on the orders of their

general.


• Razin claimed to be fighting for the Tsar but against the Boyars; he also invoked the names of

the Virgin Mary, the Prophet Mohammed (some of his followers were Muslims) and the Patriarch Nikon.

• The Razin rebels admitted that there were some good Boyars; their aims were vague; they were

led by Cossacks.

• Tsarists Cossacks captured Razin 1671; he was executed.

Popular Revolts: Masaniello

• Revolt of Palermo (Sicily) May 1647 (suppressed September).

• Revolt of Naples July 7 1647; high taxation; new tax on fruit; rule of a narrow group of nobles,

with the Viceroy.

• The rebels’ first leader: Tommaso Aniello (Masaniello), a fisherman; murdered by his followers

16 July; given splendid burial the next day.

• Giulio Genoino (priest and lawyer). Gennaro Annese (arquebus maker).

• Neapolitan Republic 1647-8. French alliance.

• April 1648: Spain recovers Naples; amnesty, new Viceroy, abolition of some taxes.

Masaniello (Tommaso Aniello; 1622-47)

French Provincial Revolts

• 1632: Languedoc. Duke of Montmorency; Gaston d’Orléans.

• 1636-7: revolts of the Croquants: anti-tax revolts in a quarter of France (esp. SW); not confined

to peasants; sometimes led by a noble.

• 1639: revolt of the Nu-Pieds (bare feet; salt workers); Jean Nu-Pied; Jean Morel; provincial

liberties; elite leaders.

Popular Revolts

• Did class matter?

• Why was there not more revolt?

• Patronage.

• Romans 13:1: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of

God: the powers that be are ordained of God”.

• Divine providence. Innovation wrong.

Louis XIV, Mazarin, and the Fronde

• Anne of Austria (1601-66).

• Jules Mazarin (Giulio Mazzarini; 1602-61).

• Colonna. Pope Urban VIII.

• 1643: Anne Regent; conspiracy of François de Vendôme, Duke of Beaufort and Marie de Rohan,

Duchess of Chevreuse.

• Jean-Baptiste Colbert; Michel Le Tellier.

• Increasing cost of war: 1635-42 82 million livres annually; 1642-7 123 million.

Anne of Austria (1601-66) and Louis XIV c. 1645

Jules Mazarin (1602-61)

The Fronde 1648-53

• Paris: high food prices 1648-54; size; a history of unruliness (the League).

• Mazarin and Paris: 1644 new tax on building that had been done outside city limits; 1646-7 new

taxes on meat and wine; proposal to abolish paulette for some officeholders angers Parlement.

• 1648: rioting and rebellion; fronde = sling.

The Fronde of the Parlement, 1648-9

• 1648: Mazarin proposes new taxes and creation of new bureaucrats.

• Parlement opposes Mazarin, uniting with other institutions of central bureaucracy (Great

Council; Chamber of Accounts; Cour des Aides).

• 27 Articles; arrest of Pierre Broussel.

• Duchess of Longueville; (Condé).

Anne Geneviève de Bourbon, Duchess de Longueville (1619-79; sister of the Great Condé

The Fronde of the Parlement,1648-9; and of the Nobles, 1650-2

• Release of Broussel.

• Rebels seize control of Paris.

• 1649: Anne, Mazarin, and Louis leave Paris; March: they come to terms with Parlement, but do

not yet return.

• 1650-1: plot and rebellion of Condé; he is defeated by Turenne.

• 1652: Condé takes control of Bordeaux in southwest, and then Paris; Gaston d’Orléans, Broussel,

Beaufort.

Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé (1621-86; le Grand Condé)

The End of the Fronde and its results

• 1652: unable to hold Paris, Condé flees to the Spanish Netherlands; Louis and Anne return to

Paris;

• 1653: return of Mazarin. Suppression of the last frondeur rebellion, the Ormée in Bordeaux

(social overtones; Levellers; Sexby).

• Fronde persuades Louis XIV that absolute monarchy is only alternative to rebellion and anarchy.

Most French people see it as wasteful rebellion by self-interested bureaucrats and nobles, who had no

intention of introducing serious reforms; they conclude that absolute monarchy will better promote the

public good.

The English Civil Wars, 1642-6, 1648

• 1640-2: Charles I’s regime breaks down:

• Scottish war (Bishops’ Wars) 1639-40; Short Parliament April-May 1640.

• 1640: the battle of Newburn (August) , the Scots’ occupation of northern England, and the

Treaty of Ripon (October). Newcastle. York.

• 1640: November 3: Long Parliament meets.

England: onset of Civil War 1640-2

• Criticisms of the King: constitutional issues (impositions; tonnage and poundage; Ship Money –

Hampden); religion (Laud; authoritarian Arminianism; tolerance of Catholics; Henrietta Maria).

• 1641: Triennial Act; abolition of Star Chamber and High Commission.

• Divisions in the Long Parliament: social, constitutional, and religious issues; the mob; bishops;

Strafford (Thomas Wentworth).

• Irish Revolt, October 1641.

The Long Parliament passed an Act of Attainder against the Earl of Strafford; he was beheaded on May

12, 1641

England: start of the Civil War

• Grand Remonstrance (November 1641).

• Royalists: Edward Hyde; Lucius Cary (Falkland); Hobbes; George Digby; William Cavendish

(Newcastle); Prince Rupert.

• Parliamentarians: John Pym; Oliver St John; John Hampden; Oliver Cromwell ; Denzil Holles;

Edmund Waller; Robert Devereux (Essex); William Fiennes (Saye and Sele)

• Battle of Edgehill, October 1642.

English Civil War

• 1643: royalist successes: Sir Ralph Hopton; Newcastle’s army (including Whitecoats); the King

and Rupert; the siege of Gloucester; battle of Newbury.

• 1643: Parliament reorganizes: the Eastern Association and its army; Edward Montagu

(Manchester); Oliver Cromwell (Ironsides).

• Collapse of censorship and church courts; proliferation of new sects.

The English Civil War: December 1643

English Civil War

• 1643: Parliament allies with Scots; Solemn League and Covenant; Wesminster Assembly;

Presbyterianism.

• 1644: Marston Moor. Essex and Manchester: failure and lethargy.

• 1645: Self-Denying Ordinance; New Model Army; Fairfax; Ireton; Naseby.

• Presbyterians and Independents. Erastians.

English Revolution

• 1646: fall of Oxford; King surrenders to Scots.

• 1646-7: Denzil Holles and Presbyterians try to disband army; the army enters politics.

• 1647: Scots hand over Charles and go home.

• 1647: army marches into London; purges Parliament; Putney Debates; Levellers; Ireton.

• 1648: second Civil War; Preston; Maidstone and Colchester.

A Leveller pamphlet: John Lilburne’s Regall Tyrannie discovered, 1647

The Commonwealth 1649-60

• 1648: December 6: Pride’s Purge.

• 1649: January 30: execution of Charles I.

• 1649: abolition of monarchy and House of Lords; the Rump Parliament.

• Radicals: Diggers; Quakers.

• 1649-50: Cromwell in Ireland: Drogheda; Wexford.

• 1650-1: Cromwell in Scotland; Dunbar 9/3.

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)


• 1651: 9/3: Worcester, the “crowning mercy” (and the Royal Oak).

• 1653: Cromwell dissolves the Rump; Barebones Parliament; Fifth Monarchists.

• 1653-8: the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell: social and political conservatism; religious

radicalism/ tolerance; Instrument of Government 1653 (separation of powers; union with Scotland and

Ireland); Humble Petition and Advice 1657 (second chamber).


• English expansion overseas: Jamaica 1655; Robert Blake; Dunkirk 1658.

• 1658: 9/3: death of Oliver; Richard Cromwell Protector 1658-9; Rump revived 1659; drift to

anarchy 1659-60.

• 1660: George Monck intervenes.

• 1660: May: Restoration of Charles II. Monarchy, House of Lords, bishops and Anglican church

restored.

The Coronation of Charles II, 1661: Monck follows the King

The Restoration, and the results of the revolutionary years

• The Restoration left open the question of religious toleration, and the details of how power

would be distributed between monarch and Parliament.

• The number of people belonging to religious groups outside the established Anglican church –

Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Quakers – was so large that it proved impossible to eradicate

them.

• There was general agreement that Civil Wars should be avoided in the future, and that slow,

piecemeal change was better than revolution.

Was there a General Crisis?

• Revolts: Scotland, Normandy 1639; Catalonia, Portugal 1640; England 1642; Naples 1647; France

(Fronde), Russia, Ukraine, England 1648: coincidence? Or a General Crisis?

• Connection with ending of 30 Years War?

• Unruly nobles, oppressed peasants, high taxation; centralizing governments;

• But all these things also existed at other times.

Geoffrey Parker: Global Climate Crisis

• Geoffrey Parker: The World Crisis: Climate, Catastrophe, and State Breakdown in the 17th

Century, which examines the economic, social and political impact of extreme climatic events on states

and their population by looking at the last global crisis to leave abundant records: 1640-60

Was there a General Crisis?

• Divergences: Thirty Years War not a factor in Ukraine, England, but it was in France, Spain;

Mazarin much more competent than Charles I.

• One common factor, and perhaps a crucial one, may have been climate change in the form of

cooling temperatures. Geoffrey Parker argues that there was a world crisis that resulted from extreme

climatic events in 1640-60.

Louis XIV and France: Outline

• (1) Introduction;

• (2) The King’s personality.

• (3) Domestic policy; Colbert’s reforms; reduction of power of great nobles and Parlement.

• (4) Louis’ religious policies: attacks on the Huguenots and Jansenists.

• (5) Louis’ conflicts with the pope; the régale; Gallicanism.

• (6) Setbacks in the 1690s: start of decline?

Louis XIV: Introduction

• Louis born September 1638; King - May 1643.

• Declared of age 1651, but left Mazarin to govern until he died in 1661.

• Sun King 1662; his reign the high point of absolutism.

• Louis continues and extends policies of Richelieu and Mazarin, reducing independence of great

nobles, undermining powers of Parlement, and combating Huguenots.

• Louis (and Colbert) had plans for economic reform (like Richelieu) but again shelved them to

fight wars (from 1672).

Louis XIV, 1664

Louis XIV, 1701

Louis XIV: Personality

• Medium height (wore high heels); good deportment; fond of hunting; intelligent and hard-

working; fond of food, not drink.

• Reserved, secretive; skilled at using arts as propaganda.

• Liked billiards. Collected art, coins, books (with pictures).

• Perhaps read Hobbes’ De Cive; liked to be read to, especially by Jean Racine.

Louis XIV: Personality

• 1660 married Maria Theresa; in 1661 she gave birth to the Dauphin Louis.

• Mistresses: Louise (later Duchess) de la Vallière; Françoise-Athénaïs, Marquise de Montespan.

• The Affair of Poisons 1677-82.

• Françoise d’Aubigné (Scarron), Marquise de Maintenon.

Louise de la Vallière (1644-1710)

Françoise-Athénaïs, Marquise de Montespan (1641-1707)

Françoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon (1635-1717)

Louis and domestic affairs: Colbert

• 1661: Louis restructures the conseil d’en haut.

• Nicolas Fouquet (finance) sacked and imprisoned.

• Hugues de Lionne (foreign affairs, to 1671).

• Charles Colbert (Colbert’s brother; foreign affairs 1679-96).

• Michel Le Tellier (war; to 1666); his sister married Colbert’s cousin.

• François Michel Le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois (war; 1666-91).

Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-83)


• Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-83); family of (ex-) traders, noble from 1650s; educated by Jesuits;

apprenticed to a banker, and then to a lawyer; a clerk in Le Tellier’s office; 1651 Mazarin’s personal

financial manager.

• Colbert in office: minister 1661, in charge of finance (controller-general 1665); superintendant

of building and arts 1664; secretary of state for the navy 1669 (increased navy from 19 to 140 warships).


• Nobles: great nobles invited to attend court and given meaningless titles/ offices; lesser nobles

threatened with investigations into their noble status.

• Bureaucrats: number of hereditary offices reduced; Parlement of Paris deprived of right to issue

remonstrances before registering royal edicts 1673; power of Provincial Estates reduced.

• Intendants: powers increased.


• Finance: efficient accounting; return of peace increases prosperity, and indirect taxes; direct

taxes fall.

• Economic projects: high tariffs; state-run factories and trading companies; East and West India

Companies.

• Gobelins. Versailles 1682.

• Academy of Sciences 1666.

• Colbertisme? Economic policies disrupted by war from 1672.

The Palace of Versailles

Versailles: a tapestry produced by the Gobelins factory

Louis XIV, Religion, and the Church

• Jansenists:

• Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638) Bishop of Ypres; Mars Gallicus 1635; Augustinus 1640.

• Antoine Arnaud. Pierre Nicole.

• Port-Royal and Port-Royal-des-Champs.

• 1649 University of Paris condemns 5 propositions from Augustinus; 1653 Pope Innocent X

condemns the propositions.

Louis XIV and Religion: Jansenists

• Blaise Pascal; Lettres Provinciales (1657); probabilism; probabiliorism; laxist casuistry; Louis

condemns the Lettres.

• Nuns at Port-Royal in Paris sent to Port-Royal-des-Champs 1665.

• 1669-79: Peace of the Church; Clement IX; Duchess of Longueville (d.1679).

• Louis exiles Jansenist leaders.

• 1709: Port-Royal-des-Champs closed.

• 1713: Clement XI issues bull Unigenitus.

Port-Royal-des-Champs 1709

Louis XIV and Religion: Huguenots

• Louis undermines rights of Huguenots (e.g. to national synod; to representation on law courts

deciding cases involving Edict of Nantes)

• Huguenots who convert given tax exemption.

• 1681: dragonnades; 1683: death of Colbert; Madame de Maintenon ascendant; siege of Vienna.

• 1685: Edict of Fontainbleau (Revocation of the Edict of Nantes).

• 1702-10: Camisards. Cévennes.

Louis XIV and Religion: the Pope and the

• Concordat of Bologna 1516.

• Régale spirituelle; Régale temporelle.

• Gallicanism. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet.

• Four Articles of the Assembly of the Clergy 1682.

• The pope refuses to confirm appointments of bishops.

• 1693: Louis XIV climbs down.

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704)

Louis XIV: setbacks in the 1690s

• War; revolts in Brittany and Bordeaux 1674-5.

• Louis Phélypeaux comte de Pontchartrain (finance; 1689-): sale of offices and titles.

• 1693-4: famine; 1695: capitation tax.

• Late 1680s on: calls for reform; opposition at court; Duke of Burgundy; François de Salignac de la

Mothe Fénelon, Archbishop of Cambray; Télémaque (1699); Pierre de Boisguilbert 1695; Sebastian Le

Prestre, Marquis de Vauban (1707).

Sebastian Le Prestre, Marquis de Vauban (1633-1707)

• Vauban was the foremost military engineer of his age, and a Marshal of France; he was also a

social thinker who opposed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes on economic grounds (1685), and

published Projet d’une Dixme Royale (1707) arguing for a ten percent tax that would be equally payable

by everyone.

Louis XIV and Europe: Wars

• Gloire; Charlemagne; Louis’ views on Habsburgs, English, Dutch.

• Outline:

• (1) The War of Devolution 1667-8.

• (2) The Dutch War 1672-8.

• (3) An uneasy peace, 1678-88; réunions.

• (4) The War of the League of Augsburg (Nine Years War) 1688-97.

• (5) The War of the Spanish Succession 1701-13.

Louis XIV and Europe: The War of Devolution 1667-8

• The War of Devolution 1667-8.

• Maria Teresa’s dowry. Brabant. Devolution.

• Le Tellier and Louvois. Army: 1661 – less than 20,000; 1667 – 72,000.

• Condé; Turenne; Vauban; Lille; Franch-Comté.

• 1668: The Triple Alliance: Dutch Republic, Britain, Sweden.

• French restore Franch-Comté and much of the Spanish Netherlands, but keep Lille and 11 other

fortified towns.

The War of Devolution, 1667-8

Louis XIV: the Dutch War 1672-8/9

• 1667: tariff war with Dutch; 1670: Treaty of Dover; 1672: army now 120,000; attempt to bribe

William of Orange; Britain declares war on Dutch; invasion.

• 1672: fall of Utrecht; opening of the dikes.

• 1672: revolt against De Witt; William III stadholder; 1673: Habsburgs ally with Dutch.

• (John Churchill and d’Artagnan at the siege of Maastricht, taken by Vauban 1673).

Louis XIV: the Dutch War 1672-8/9

• 1674: Britain makes peace; Denmark and Brandenburg join war, defeating France’s ally Sweden.

• 1674: French take Franche-Comté.

• 1678-9: Treaty of Nijmegen (with Dutch and Spain 1678; with the Empire 1679):

• France retains Franch-Comté.

• Denmark and Brandenburg return gains to Sweden.

Louis XIV: between (big) wars 1678-88

• Réunions: 1681: Strasbourg (Strassburg) in Alsace (Elsass); 1683: Luxembourg (Luxemburg).

• 1684: bombardment of Genoa; 20 year truce between Louis and Leopold.

• 1685: Revocation of the Edict of Nantes; James II in Britain; Palatinate – disputed succession.

• 1686: League of Augsburg.

Louis XIV: the War of the League of Augsburg 1688-97

• 1688: Louis invades the Palatinate; Glorious Revolution in England (William III and Mary II).

• 1690: Ireland: Battle of the Boyne (1/11 July).

• Growth of French army (to 300,000) and deficit.

• 1697: French take Barcelona, Cartagena.

• 1697: Peace of Ryswick: France returns recent gains, and some older ones – including

Luxemburg and Breisach; Louis recognizes William III as King of Britain.

Louis XIV: the War of the Spanish Succession 1701-13

• First partition treaty 1698: Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria to get most of Spanish inheritance (he

was the grandson of Leopold I and of Margaret Theresa of Spain, the sister of Charles II); but Joseph

Ferdinand died in 1699.

• Second partition treaty 1700: Archduke Charles (Austrian Habsburg) to get most of the Spanish

inheritance on condition it could never be united with the Holy Roman Empire.


• Second Partition Treaty: not accepted by Austria or by Spain; Charles II did not want his lands

divided, and so willed them all to Philip of Anjou, a younger grandson of Louis XIV;

• Charles II’s will said that if France turned down the lands, they would go to Charles, Archduke of

Austria.

• 1700: Charles II died.

• 1701: Louis XIV seized key fortresses in Spanish Netherlands, and on death of James II

recognized James III as King of Britain.


• 1704: Blenheim: John Churchill (Marlborough) and Eugene of Savoy defeat French and

Bavarians.

• 1707: Almanza: French and Spanish victory securing Spain (their commander was James

FitzJames, Duke of Berwick, son of James II and Arabella Churchill, Marlborough’s sister)

• 1709: Malplaquet: Marlborough and Eugene defeat the French at high cost; famine in France.

Two Victorious Generals on opposite sides: John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722), and his

nephew James FitzJames, Duke of Berwick (1670-1734)


• 1710: fall of the Whigs in England.

• 1711: Archduke Charles succeeds his brother Joseph as Holy Roman Emperor (Charles VI).

• 1713: Peace of Utrecht (1714: Treaty of Rastatt).

• Philip of Anjou keeps Spain and Spanish America as Philip V

• Austria gets Southern Netherlands, Milan, and Naples. Dutch and especially British make gains.

Louis XIV: Assessment

• Pierre Goubert

• Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie

• Jean Racine

• Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin)

• Voltaire

• Colbert

• Famine 1693-4, 1709-10

Late-Seventeenth Century Europe

• Outline:

• (1) Austria); (2) Brandenburg-Prussia; (3) Russia under Peter the Great: (a) the Great Northern

War 1700-21; (b) domestic reforms; (4) Sweden; (5) the Dutch Republic; (6) Britain: (a) the Exclusion

Crisis 1679-81; (b) the Glorious Revolution 1688-9; (c) William III and Mary II; (d) Anne.

Second Midterm, April

• (1) This King of Poland was largely responsible for the defeat of the Turks at the siege of Vienna

in 1683: (A) Jan Casimir; (B) Jan Sobieski; (C) George Casimir; (D) Augustus the Strong

• (2) The high nobility in Russia were the: (A) margraves; (B) pomestie; (C) szlachta; (D) boyars

Second Midterm

• (3) The richest and most powerful of the United Provinces was: (A) Brabant; (B) Flanders; (C)

Holland; (D) Savoy

• (4) This Stuart monarch attempted to rule without Parliament for eleven years (a period known

as the “Personal Rule”): (A) James I; (B) Charles I; (C) Louis XIII; (D) George I

• (5) In 1681 Louis XIV shocked Europe when he "reunited" this Alsatian city to France: (A)

Munich; (B) Strassburg; (C) Heidelberg; (D) Nuremberg

Second Midterm

• (1) What were Louis XIV's policies towards the other countries of Europe, why did so many of

those countries fear him, and why were they unable to defeat him?

• (2) Why did the English King and Parliament go to war with each other in 1642, and why did the

English restore the monarchy in 1660?

• (3) To what extent did the various riots, revolts, and upheavals that occurred in seventeenth-

century Europe arise from a single set of causes?

Second Midterm

• (1) Did the European rebellions of the mid-17th century constitute a single “general crisis?”

• (2) What were Louis XIV’s religious policies, and how successful were they?

• (3) Did Louis XIV’s wars alter the balance of power in Europe in favor of France, or were they

merely exercises in royal vanity?

Second Midterm

• Also: Compare and contrast the Dutch Republic and England in the first half of the seventeenth

century. How did the social, political, religious and economic structures of the two countries differ?

What were the main changes that occurred in the two countries during the years between 1600 and

1650?

• Compare and contrast the Dutch republic with the commonwealth of Poland/ Lithuania. How

did the social, political, religious and economic structures of the two countries differ? What were the

main changes that occurred in the two countries during the seventeenth century?

Late-Seventeenth Century Europe: Austria

• Austria:

• Leopold I (1640/ 1657/8-1705): “Hog-mouth”.

• Army of 100,000 in 1690s.

• Cameralism/ Cameral Science.

• Transylvania. Rákóczi family. (Báthory Erzsébet 1560-1614)

• Turks: Grand Viziers Mehmed Küprülü (1656-61); Ahmed Küprülü (1661-76); Kara Mustafa

(1676-83).

• Rebellion of Imre Thököly 1676-86.

• Siege of Vienna 1683. Eugene of Savoy. Buda 1686. Belgrade 1688. Treaty of Karlowitz 1699.

• Treaty of Rastatt 1714: Southern Netherlands, Milan, Naples, Sardinia.

Brandenburg-Prussia

• Brandenburg. Berlin. Hohenzollern.

• Electors: Joachim Frederick 1598-1608; John Sigismund 1608-19; George William 1619-40;

Frederick William, the Great Elector 1640-88; Frederick III 1688-1700 = King Frederick I 1700-13.

• 1613: Elector becomes Calvinist.

• 1614: Cleves; Ravensberg; Mark.

• 1618: (East) Prussia (from Poland to 1657) Königsberg.

Brandenburg-Prussia

• George William (1595/ 1619-40); married the sister of Frederick V (Palatinate; Bohemia); his

own sister married Gustavus Adolphus.

• Adam, Count Schwarzenberg.

• 1637: George William inherits Pomerania.

• Frederick William, the Great Elector (1620/ 40-88).

• Junkers. Army: under 2,000 1648; 27,000 1660; 45,000 1670s.

The Great Elector (on a West German stamp, 1995)

Brandenburg-Prussia

• Estates of Brandenburg 1653. Rights of junkers over towns and peasants confirmed.

• Prussia: opposition in Königsberg broken 1674.

• The Great Elector: diplomacy and foreign policy: 1655-60: war with Poland and Sweden; 1672-9:

war with France and Sweden; 1675: Fehrbellin; 1679 treaty with France; 1685: alliance against France;

admission of Huguenots.

Brandenburg-Prussia

• 1662-8: Oder-Spree canal (Stettin; Berlin)

• Frederick III/ I (1657/ 88-1713).

• University of Halle 1694.

• 1700: Frederick allies with Emperor Leopold I over Spanish Succession; Leopold confers title of

King in Prussia on Frederick.

• 1701: Frederick crowned King in Prussia.

• 1720: most of western Pomerania bought from Swedes.

Russia under Peter the Great 1682-1725

• 1689: removal of Sophia (sister of Ivan V, Peter’s half-brother); Natalya (Peter’s mother) in

charge.

• 1694: death of Natalya; Peter’s personal rule begins (Ivan V d. 1696).

• 1697-8: Peter tours the West.

• Foreign advisors: Patrick Gordon; Andrew Ostermann.

• Lower class advisors: Peter Shafirov; Alexander Menshikov.

Peter I, the Great (1672-1725)

Russia under Peter the Great

• Azov 1696. Sreltsy revolt 1698. Eudoxia.

• The Great Northern War 1700-21:

• Augustus the Strong of Poland and Saxony.

• Charles XII (1682/ 97-1718) of Sweden.

• Battle of Narva 1700.

• Russian invasion of Livonia and Estonia 1701-2.

• Foundation of St Petersburg 1703.


• 1706: defeat of Augustus the Strong; he abdicates in Poland.

• 1708: Russians defeat Swedes at Lesnaia.

• 1709: Peter defeats Charles at Poltava.

• 1710-11: Charles allies with Turks, who nearly overwhelm Russia but make peace 1711; Azov

returned to them.

• 1710: Russia takes Riga, Reval, Viborg.


• 1713-14: Russia occupies much of Finland.

• 1714: Russians defeat Swedes at sea.

• 1718: Charles XII dies.

• 1721: Treaty of Nystadt; Russia gets Estonia, Livonia, and a slice of Finland including Viborg.

• 1721: Peter given titles of Emperor, the Great, and Father of the Fatherland.


• Domestic reforms:

• Reform and modernization of army.

• Navy built; 48 large warships; 800 smaller ships.

• Senate: 9 (1711); 10 (1712).

• Colleges of war, navy, justice etc. (1717).

• Office of patriarch left vacant 1700.

• Tolerance towards western religions.


• Most Drunken Synod of Fools and Jesters.

• Bureaucratic reforms.

• Promotion of industry, textiles, mining, metallurgy; Neva-Volga canal 1703-9.

• Reform of calendar. Westernization.

• Peter kills his son and heir Alexis 1718.

• 1725: death of Peter, succeeded by his wife Catherine, a Lithuanian peasant.

Marta Helena Skowrońska (1684-1727): illiterate Lithuanian peasant, housemaid, and later (1725-7)

Empress of Russia

Sweden; the Dutch Republic

• 1670s: Sweden allies with French; defeated by Denmark and Brandenburg.

• 1680-2: constitutional revolution makes the king absolute.

• 1697-1718: Charles XII: aggressive foreign policy hastens decline.

• Dutch Republic from 1672: long, expensive wars, and competition from Britain cause start of

decline.

Charles XII of Sweden (1682/1697-1718)

William III (b. 1650), Stadholder of Holland (1672-1702) and King of England (1689-1702)

Britain

• Charles II 1660-85; James II 1685-8; William III (1689-1702) and Mary II (1689-94); Anne (1702-

14).

• Popish Plot 1678. Titus Oates.

• Exclusion Crisis 1679-81. Whigs. Tories.

• Shaftesbury (Anthony Ashley Cooper). John Locke.

• James II: toleration of Catholics and Dissenters.

• Tories driven from local power.

Britain

• James II: dispensing/ suspending power.

• Revocation of the Edict of Nantes 1685.

• A Letter to a Dissenter 1687 (Halifax); 1688 (Defoe).

• The “warming pan” baby James 1688.

• The trial of the Seven Bishops 1688.

• The “Immortal Seven”.

• William visits England (with 15,000 troops).

Britain

• 1688: Churchill switches sides (Sarah; Anne).

• 1688: The Glorious Revolution.

• Revolution Settlement:

• Parliament; cabinet; prime minister (1720s).

• 1689: Toleration Act; Bill of Rights.

• 1694: end of pre-publication censorship of the press.

• 1701: Act of Settlement.

Sarah Churchill (née Jenyns) 1660-1744

Britain

• Scotland: Glencoe massacre 1692 (Macdonalds; by Campbells).

• Ireland: siege of (London)Derry 1688-9; gun money; battle of the Boyne (July 1/11 1690).

• Jacobites.

• William III (1650/89-1702) and Mary II (1662/89-94): battle of La Hogue 1692; Bank of England

1694; re-coinage (Locke, Newton) 1696.

Britain

• Anne (1665/1702-14):

• War of the Spanish Succession 1701-13/14; Marlborough (John Churchill); Blenheim 1704.

• Union with Scotland 1707.

• Whigs. Tories. Occasional conformity. 1710 impeachment of Henry Sacheverell. Tory triumph in

elections. Abigail Masham.

• Peace of Utrecht 1713: British gains: Gibraltar (Rooke 1704); Acadia (Cajuns); Newfoundland; St

Kitts; asiento.

Queen Anne: medal celebrating victories 1704

The Military Revolution

• Michael Roberts 1955: (1) changes in tactics: pike and musket; (2) growth in size of armies; (3)

more ambitious strategies; (4) impact of war on society.

• Later revisions: Dutch contribution; siege warfare.

• Geoffrey Parker.

• Outline: (1) Land warfare; (2) Navies; (3) Impact of war on society.


• Land warfare: guns and fortifications.

• Trace italienne. Siege of Ostend 1601-4. Siege of ’s-Hertogenbosch 1629; Dutch besiegers

construct 25 miles of defensive fortifications.

• Pikemen; musketeers; (musket; arquebus).

• Flintlock. Bayonet.

• 1594: Dutch: continuous fire by lines of musketeers.

Trace Italienne: Breda

Trace Italienne: low, thick, angled bastions

Types of Pike (Pike; Halberd; Partisan; Spontoon)


• Drill. Jacob de Gheyn 1607. Maurice of Nassau; Frederick Henry; Gustavus Adolphus.

• Breitenfeld 1631.

• Growth in size of armies:

• Spain: 1470: 20,000; 1630s: 300,000.

• France: 1550s: 50,000; 1630s: 150,000; 1700: 400,000.

• Sweden: 1590s: 15,000; 1650s: 70,000; 1700s: 100,000.

• Dutch: 1590s: 20,000; 1700s: 100,000.

Jacob de Gheyn’s Drill Manual

De Gheyn: handling a musket (German and French; 1664)

•


• Navies:

• Galley; galleass; galleon.

• Frigate. Ship of the line.

• Trans-oceanic exploration/ colonization.

• Military change and society:

• Growth of armies – higher taxation – larger bureaucracies – state centralization – but this did

not always lead to erosion of representative institutions.

A Galleass

Ideas

• Greek and Latin classics; Roman Law (Civil Law); canon law; medieval scholasticism and

Renaissance humanism.

• Scholasticism and humanism:

• Scholasticism: Aquinas; Ockham; Aristotle.

• Humanism: lay culture; Italian city states (Florence – Medici; Milan – Visconti; Sforza);

practicalities; persuasion; eloquence; Cicero; Tacitus.

Ideas: Humanism

• From 1400s: Greek texts: Plato.

• “Ad fontes” (to the sources).

• Mid-1400s: Printing. Late-1400s/ early-1500s: Aldus Manutius; italic; Venice.

• Printing in the late-1500s/ 1600s: Elzevir; Dutch Republic.

• Desiderius Erasmus 1515 New Testament in Greek.

Aldine Italic and Anchor

Elzevir: Print (1661), and a title-page (1630)

Ideas: Humanism

• Scholastic humanists? Jesuits (and Calvinists).

• Civic humanism: Florence early 1400s; republicanism; duty of citizens to participate actively in

politics. Niccolò Machiavelli; Discourses; Prince; reason of state.

• Christian humanism:

• Erasmus; Sir Thomas More; doctrine de-emphasized; stress on ethics and (often) tolerance;

Grotius; Levellers; William Walwyn; John Locke; Epistola de Tolerantia (1689).

Ideas: Neo-Scholasticism

• The School of Salamanca; Francisco de Vitoria; Relectio de Indis (1532).

• Francisco Suárez (1548-1617); Coimbra; De Legibus (On Laws; 1612).

• Natural law; goals and institutions: survival/ family; prosperity / state (perfect community);

salvation church.

• Harmony of nature/ reason and grace/ revelation.

Ideas: Absolutism and the Divine Right of Kings

• Jean Bodin (1530-96).

• Six livres de la République (1576; Six books of the commonwealth).

• Comparative sociology/ politics; climate.

• Absolute and indivisible sovereignty.

• Mixed or limited government impossible; all key political powers must be held by one person/

group.

Jean Bodin (1530-96)

Jean Bodin, Six Bookes of a Common-weale, 1606

Absolutism and the Divine Right of Kings

• Bodin: non-resistance; only three possible forms of government (monarchy; aristocracy;

democracy; contrast with Aristotle); we should disobey commands of sovereign if they are against laws

of God or nature, but not resist sovereign (passive obedience); sovereign should respect rights of

property (taxation normally requires consent), but can override them in emergencies.


• Divine Right of Kings (/ Sovereigns): ruler gets power from God alone (Romans 13:1), and is

accountable only to God.

• Divine Right ideas compatible with non-monarchical forms of government: Venice;

• Johannes Althusius; Politica methodice digesta (1603; 1610, 1614): divine right democracy.

• Henry Parker, Observations 1642.

Divine Right of Kings: Patriarchalism

• Widely accepted that father / husband has power by nature in the family (but N.B. Mary Astell).

• Patriarchalists argue that first families were indistinguishable from kingdoms; Adam lived for

hundreds of years; later governments have the same powers Adam did; political power is natural and

does not stem from consent.

• Sir Robert Filmer (1588-1653); Patriarcha (c. 1632; 1680).

Filmer’s Patriarcha, published in 1680

Rubens: the Apotheosis of Henry IV (1621-5)


• French absolutists: Cardin Le Bret, De la Souveraineté (1632; justifies Richelieu’s policies);

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Politique tirée des propres paroles de l’Écriture sainte (1670s-1709; N.B. also

Bossuet’s Gallicanism).

• Reason of state; ragione di stato; raison d’état:

• Giovanni Botero (1589); Louis Machon; Gabriel Naudé.


• Britain:

• James VI and I. The True Law of Free Monarchies 1598.

• Filmer.

• Thomas Hobbes: absolutism grounded on science and deduced from first principles by a quasi-

geometric method; The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic 1640; De Cive 1642, 1647; Leviathan 1651.

Thomas Hobbes c. 1647

Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan 1651

Absolutism: Hobbes

• Hobbes:

• Self-preservation; the state of nature; the right of nature; the law of nature.

• “poor, solitary, nasty, brutish, and short”.

• War of all against all.

• Covenants create obligations, but are binding only once there is a sovereign; we have no rights

of property against the sovereign.

• Right of self-defense against sovereign.

Constitutionalism and contract

• Suárez: De Legibus (1612); Defensio fidei catholicae (1613): people were at first free and equal;

so no one had better claim to rule than anyone else; but nature requires government; so first

governments were direct democracies; so all later governments derive their powers from the first

democracy, by contract.

• The original contract defines the powers of current governments.

Francisco Suárez (1548-1617)


• Suárez: powers of modern governments vary because they stem from different original

contracts in different countries.

• Customs and constitutional practices derive from the original contract.

• If rulers break the contract they can be resisted;

• The Parlement of Paris condemns Defensio fidei 1613; retreat from radical contractualism after

1610.


• Conservative contractualism: absolutism can be based on contract; resistance is permissible only

in extreme circumstances.

• Hugo Grotius (1583-1645); De jure belli ac pacis (1625); “etiamsi daremus”.

• Samuel Pufendorf (1632-94); De jure naturae et gentium (1672).

• Radical contractualism: Levellers; regicides; Pierre Jurieu (contrast Pierre Bayle).

Samuel Pufendorf 1632-94


• John Locke (1632-1704). Two Treatises of Government (1689);

• Contract theory and resistance.

• Second treatise, chapter 5: “Of Property”:

• The Labor Theory of Property; earth originally held in common; what makes something private

property? Discovery; first occupation? Mixing labor with things, provided the things don’t waste; the

role of money. America, or James II?

John Locke’s Two Treatises 1689

Republicanism and radicalism

• Dutch Republic under De Witt 1650s-1672: alliance of science and republicanism (against

Calvinist clergy and Orange family).

• Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632-77): Tractatus politicus 1677; Hobbes and Machiavelli –

absolute sovereign democracy; toleration.

• England 1640s-50s: checks and balances; separation of powers.

James Harrington 1611-77

Republicanism and radicalism

• James Harrington (1611-77). Oceana 1656. People self-interested (Hobbes). Distribution of

wealth determines distribution of power. The Gothic balance destroyed. Two girls and a cake. Cats and

green sauce.

• Bi-cameral legislature. Rotation of office. Agrarian law. Secret ballot.

• Levellers. Diggers. Gerrard Winstanley.

Skepticism: the Pyrrhonian Crisis

• Aristotelianism undermined: Copernicus; Galileo.

• “And new philosophy calls all in doubt ... ‘Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone”

(John Donne).

• Exploration undermines idea that European customs are natural/ universal.

• Rediscovery in later sixteenth century of writings of Sextus Empiricus (c.160-210); unreliability of

senses; suspension of judgment. Pyrrho.

• Michel de Montaigne (1533-92); Pierre Charron (1541-1603).

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-92); essayist and skeptic

Scientific Revolution: Outline

• (1) Introduction: in 1600 alchemy not yet fully distinguished from chemistry, not astrology from

astronomy; many scientists held non-scientific views – Napier, Newton; science not fully distinguished

from philosophy – Descartes (Cartesianism), Bacon, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz; (2) Copernicus; (3)

Tycho Brahe; (4) Johannes Kepler; (5) Galileo; (6) Other scientific advances; (7) Newton; (8) Scientific

organization.

Scientific Revolution: Copernicus

• Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543); Polish priest.

• De revolutionibus orbium coelestium 1543

• Aristotle (300BC); Ptolemy (100s AD)

• Geocentric and heliocentric theories

• Aristotle/ Ptolemy: (1) sublunary sphere: decay; motion in straight line downwards; (2)

motionless earth at center of universe; (3) superlunary sphere: no decay; motion in perfect circles.

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

Copernicus

• Aristotle/ Ptolemy: retrograde motion; epicycles.

• Copernicus: heliocentric theory; earth’s diurnal and annual motion; perfect circles; epicycles

remain.

• Objections to Copernicus: (1) why no stellar parallax? (2) if the earth is moving, why don’t things

fall at an angle?

Copernicus

• More objections: Psalms 93:1 says the earth cannot be moved; Joshua told the sun to stand still.

• Copernicus published reluctantly, at the end of his life; he asserted his theory as hypothesis, not

dogmatic truth.

• Increasing intellectual/ religious intolerance by both Catholics and Protestants in later 1500s;

• Luther and Calvin reject Copernicus’s views, as did most astronomers.

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)

• Tycho Brahe: Danish astronomer; worked for King of Denmark and then Emperor Rudolf II.

• A duel (1566) and a (partially) metal nose.

• Brahe’s theory: sun and moon go round earth; planets go round sun.

• 1572: a supernova in Cassiopeia; Brahe concludes that things change in the superlunary sphere.

• Careful, detailed observations. Employed Kepler.

Tycho Brahe

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

• German astronomer, astrologer, and mathematician; defended Copernicanism.

• Taught at Graz; expelled (as a Lutheran) 1600; invited by Brahe to Prague; succeeded him as

Imperial mathematician 1601; later worked for Wallenstein.

• 1605 argued that planets move in elliptical orbits (published 1609).

• Epitome of Copernican Astronomy 1617-21; three laws of planetary motion; a planet’s speed

varies with its distance from the sun.

Johannes Kepler

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

• Galileo born in Pisa; father a musician; educated in a monastery and thought of becoming a

monk or priest; instead went to University of Pisa to study medicine, but left without a degree.

• Studied mathematics and physics.

• 1588: published a book on the center of gravity in solids; it gained him patronage of Marquis

Guidobaldo del Monte and his brother, a Cardinal.

Galileo

Galileo

• 1589: the del Monte brothers secured him appointment as professor of mathematics at Pisa

University.

• 1591: he quarreled with an illegitimate son of the Grand Duke of Tuscany (over the son’s ideas

for a machine to drain marshes), and left Pisa.

• 1592: the del Monte brother find him a post at Padua University.

Galileo

• 1594: at Padua Galileo adopts Copernicanism

• 1600: Marina Gamba moved into his house and has three children; two daughters (who are sent

to a nunnery) and a son (who is eventually legitimated).

• 1608: Hans Lippershey makes a telescope.

• 1609: Galileo makes a better one; he shows that the moon is not smooth.

• 1610: he discovers 4 moons of Jupiter, rotating around the planet; not everything rotates round

the earth.

Modern picture of Galileo with his refracting telescope

Galileo

• 1610: published Sidereus Nuncius; becomes famous; goes to Florence as mathematician to

Grand Duke Cosimo II; also gets professorship at Pisa.

• Discovers sunspots, and the phases of Venus – suggesting Venus goes round sun (compatible

with theories of both Copernicus and Brahe).

• 1613: Letters on Sunspots supports Copernicanism

Galileo and the bible

• 1613: dinner with Cosimo; question raised of compatibility of bible with Copernicanism.

• 1613: manuscript “Letter to Castelli”

• 1615: Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (printed 1636)

• These two letters argued that church should abandon cosmology of Aristotle/ Ptolemy, and

interpret biblical passages which conflict with Copernicanism as metaphorical.

Galileo and the clergy

• Some clergy attacked Galileo in sermons, denying that he had the right to interpret the bible.

• 1615: the letter to Castelli was reported to the Inquisition in Rome.

• Galileo himself wanted to involve Rome and especially Robert Bellarmine, hoping the church

would endorse his ideas.

Bellarmine (1542-1621), by Bernini, 1622

Galileo and Bellarmine

• Bellarmine unconvinced; noted that not only bible but Fathers and other Catholic writers

rejected Copernicanism.

• Bellarmine argued that Catholic tradition should not be abandoned unless there was absolute

proof it was mistaken; anything else played into the hands of heretics.

• Bellarmine thought Copernicanism could be used as a hypothesis, but not taught as true.

Galileo and the church

• Bellarmine unconvinced by telescopic observations (bad eyesight).

• Galileo thought planetary motion was circular; that comets were caused by refraction of sun’s

rays in atmosphere; that tides result from earth’s motion (not moon).

• Many of Galileo’s observations compatible with Brahe’s system, taught by Jesuits at Rome.

Galileo and the Jesuits

• 1616: Copernicus’s book put on Index (until corrected); Galileo told not to teach Copernicanism

as true.

• 1619: Galileo quarrels with Jesuit Orazio Grassi over comets; Jesuits increasingly hostile to him.

• 1623: The Assayer (Il Saggiatore)

• The book was examined by the Inquisition but cleared in 1625.

Galileo: The Assayer and the mechanical philosophy

• The Assayer important less for what it said on comets than for:

• (1) arguing that secondary qualities – color, taste, etc. – are not in things but in our perception

of them; (2) there are no substantial forms (e.g. of a table, donkey, etc.); (3) there are no final causes /

teleologies; (4) stress on mathematics as central to science; (5) physical universe is matter in motion

behaving according to laws.

Galileo’s Dialogue on the Great World Systems (1632)

• By 1630 Galileo had finished his Dialogue on the Great World Systems.

• He took it to Rome to get it licensed.

• He had been on friendly terms with the man who in 1623 had become Pope Urban VIII.

• Perhaps in part because of this, the papal licenser gave permission for the book to be published;

it was in 1632 at Florence.

The Trial of Galileo, 1633

• The Dialogue discussed Copernicanism, and seemingly portrayed it as clearly correct.

• Galileo said it didn’t teach Copernicanism, but only presented the evidence so the reader could

decide.

• Pope Urban thought his own views were being mocked in the book.

• Galileo was called to Rome, questioned by the Inquisition, threatened with torture, and told he

was suspected of heresy.

Galileo: Trial and aftermath

• Galileo agreed to give up Copernicanism

• “Eppur si mouve”

• He was sentenced to imprisonment but allowed to live in house arrest in the countryside near

Florence.

• Died 1642.

• Galileo’s condemnation chills science in Catholic countries; Descartes withdraws a pro-

Copernican book from the press.

Galileo

• Catholic ban on teaching Copernicanism lifted 1758; Copernicus’s writings removed from Index

1835; Galileo’s condemnation reversed 1979.

• Galileo: work in mechanics: falling bodies move at speed proportional to time they’ve fallen,

regardless of weight density; but story of leaning tower of Pisa experiment apocryphal (Simon Stevin did

a similar experiment in Holland earlier).

• Projectiles move in parabolas.

• Analyzed complex motions as combinations of simple ones, described mathematically.

Other Scientific Advances

• Barometer: Evangelista Torricelli 1643 (pupil of Galileo and Castelli).

• Airpump: Otto von Guericke 1650.

• William Gilbert De Magnete 1600: distinguished magnetism from electricity (invented latter

word); earth a magnet.

• William Harvey: circulation of blood in animals 1628.

Airpump of Robert Boyle

More Advances in Science

• Compound microscope: Zacharias Janssen 1595; Galileo 1610.

• Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723): bacteria; protozoa; sperm; red blood cells.

• Robert Boyle (1627-91): father of chemistry; Boyle’s Law (pressure of gas inversely proportional

to volume).

• John Napier: logarithms 1614. Descartes: co-ordinate geometry. Leibniz: calculus.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

• Professor of mathematics at Cambridge 1669-1701.

• Gravity; laws of motion; mathematical foundations for observations of Galileo etc.

• Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (1687): every body in the universe attracts every

other body with a force proportional to their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the

distance between them.

Newton

Newton

• Demonstrated how his laws explain motion of tides, moon, comets, planets, and their satellites.

• Opticks 1704.

• The Newtonian reflector. Calculus.

• Member of Parliament 1689-90; 1701-2.

• Master of the Mint from 1696 (responsible for re-coinage 1696-7).

• Socinian; anti-Trinitarian; interested in biblical prophecies.

• President of the Royal Society from 1703.

Scientific Organization(s)

• Accademia dei Lincei founded 1603; Galileo a member 1611.

• Samuel Hartlib (c. 1600-62; German/ Polish/ English) and his circle. Bacon.

• Marin Mersenne (1588-1648) and his circle.

• The Royal Society 1662.

• The French Academy of Sciences 1666.

• Journals: Journal des savants (1665); Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society (1665); Acta

eruditorum (Leipzig 1682; Leibniz one of main contributors).

Thomas Sprat’s History of the Royal Society; he became Bishop of Rochester in 1684

Intellectual Revolution

• British empiricism; Continental rationalism.

• Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626; Baron Verulam and Viscount St Albans); son of Lord Chancellor;

trained for law and administration; knighted 1603; Attorney General 1613; Lord Chancellor 1618;

impeached in 1621 (over monopolies).

• Works: Essays (1597; revised and expanded to 1625).

Bacon: Writings

• Works: projected Instauratio Magna, surveying the whole of science; completed only:

• The Advancement of Learning 1605 (revised Latin version De augmentis scientiarum 1623), and

• Novum Organum (in Latin; 1620).

• He also wrote many works on law, history, religion, etc.

Sir Francis Bacon

Bacon: Empiricism and induction

• The ancient and scholastics were ignorant of a great deal about nature and science.

• By observation and experiment, we can find vast amounts of new truths about nature, which

can be used vastly to improve human life.

• The state should help co-ordinate scientific efforts.

• The church and religion should be kept out of science.

Bacon: Empiricism and induction

• Religion is a matter of faith/ belief, not knowledge; fideism.

• Scholastics/ Aristotelians argued by syllogisms, using deduction to draw conclusions from self-

evident first principles.

• Bacon argued that deduction produces no new knowledge; the proper scientific method is

induction of general laws from observation and experiment; rejected teleology.

• He de-emphasized mathematics, rejected Copernicanism, and was unaware of Gilbert and

Harvey.

René Descartes and Cartesianism

• René Descartes (1596-1650)

• Often seen as the founder of modern philosophy.

• Did important work in mathematics (pioneered co-ordinate geometry), optics, and other areas

of science.

• From a French minor noble family; educated by Jesuits and then at the University of Poitiers.

Descartes

René Descartes

• Descartes: biography:

• 1617: went to the Netherlands and joined the army of Maurice of Nassau.

• 1619: joined the army of Maximilian of Bavaria (was at the battle of the White Mountain in

1620).

• 1619: while stationed in Germany, he had dreams/ visions that persuaded him to follow a career

in philosophy, and gave him the cantral ideas of his later thinking.

Descartes

• 1622: moved back to France;

• 1623: sold the property he inherited and from then on lived off investment income.

• 1628-49: in the Dutch Republic.

• 1633: he abandons plan to publish his treatise Du Monde when Galileo is condemned.

• 1635: had a daughter (Francine) with a domestic servant (Helena Jans van der Strom); Francine

died in 1640.

• 1649: went to Sweden at invitation of Queen Christina.

Descartes

• Main works: 1637 Discours de la méthode de bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans

les sciences (Discourse on the method of conducting your reason, and seeking truth in the sciences).

• 1641: Meditationes de prima philosophia.

• 1644: Principia philosophiae.

• 1649: Les passions de l’âme (The passions of the soul).

Descartes' teachings: Cartesianism

• All physical things act according to the same laws; for example, the laws of optics are dependent

on the laws of mechanics, since light is reducible to small particles.

• Physical phenomena can be explained in terms of (combinations of) clear and simple laws; these

laws involve no occult powers (in contrast to Aristotelianism, and also to Newtonianism, which centers

on gravity).

• Some Newtonians thought their views more easily compatible (than Cartesianism) with

orthodox ideas about God.

Cartesianism

• The mechanical philosophy.

• Secondary qualities in our perception, not in objects (which consist only of shape, size, weight,

and motion).

• The universe is not what it seems, but what scientists measure it as being.

• The universe is a physical continuum, with different parts in different motions.

• God (like a clockmaker) started it. He also sustains it.

Cartesianism

• Skepticism; Cartesian doubt; cogito ergo sum (the “cogito”); the hypothesis of the evil demon.

• Clear and distinct ideas are true; God’s existence can be proved (design; first mover, etc.); God

would not permit an evil demon to deceive us.

• The external world, as measured and described by scientists, does exist.

Cartesianism

• Cartesian dualism: the thinking “I” is not reducible to matter; minds and souls are immaterial

• Minds have free will; bodies behave according to deterministic laws.

• How are minds and bodies connected?: the pineal gland; occasionalism; Arnold Guelincx (1624-

69).

• Reasoning ability more important than observation in science.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

• Plan for a three volume work on the whole of philosophy: De Corpore (1655); De Homine

(1658); De Cive (1642; 1647).

• Mathematics; squaring the circle. Geometry.

• Materialism; determinism (so why write Leviathan etc?). Nominalism. Anti-clericalism. Biblical

criticism.

• What are souls, spirits, God? (First cause; gas).

• To say that God spoke to you in a dream is to say you dreamed God spoke to you; revelation

unreliable.

Baruch/ Benedict de Spinoza (1632-77)

• Spinoza was born into the Jewish community in Amsterdam, but excommunicated from it in

1656.

• He made his living by grinding lenses, and this may have caused the lung disease from which he

died.

• Works: Principia philosophiae cartesianae 1663.

Spinoza

Spinoza

• Works: Tractatus Theologico-Politicus 1670. Tractatus Politicus 1677 (incomplete); Ethica ordine

geometrico demonstrata (1677).

• Descartes argued that material universe was one continuous entity, with no vacuums separating

different parts; but that there were many minds.

• Spinoza claimed that the universe was a single thinking and material substance, which was at

once God and nature.

Spinoza

• All is determined; people lack free will, but can attain a kind of freedom by controlling emotions,

and using reason to escape from irrational fears.

• The bible is full of contradictions and errors, and much of it should not be taken literally.

• Spinoza’s ideas were commonly seen as strange and atheistical.

Leibniz

• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1643-1716)

• Son of a Lutheran professor of moral philosophy at Leipzig; diplomat and advisor to Catholic

Archbishop of Mainz 1666-73; advisor, librarian and historian to the Duke of Brunswick (Elector of

Hanover from 1692).

• Achievements: calculus; many published and manuscript works on law, politics, mathematics,

and science; monads; optimism.

• Main works: Theodicy (1710); Monadology (1714)

Leibniz

Locke

• John Locke (1632-1704).

• Oxford academic; physician and secretary to the Earl of Shaftesbury; fellow of the royal society

1668; Whig; economic thinker; colonial interests.

• Essay concerning Humane Understanding 1690; empiricism; no innate ideas; under-labourer

theory of philosophy.

Locke

Deism, skepticism, and anticlericalism

• Decline of clergy’s power, and hold on education; Gallicanism; in France lay courts take control

of marriage law.

• Deism: idea of God as a clockmaker who created the universe but now leaves it to run on its

own; decline of ideas of Providence and Hell.

• Biblical criticism: Hobbes, Spinoza; Pentateuch; Richard Simon (Catholic priest; author of

Histoire critique du vieux testament; suppressed in France in 1670s; published in Holland 1685.

• Pierre Bayle (1647-1706): tolerant skepticism.

• Idea of a society of virtuous atheists: Bayle and Jansenists.

Final: typical questions

• A. A ship powered not by oars but by sails was (1) a galleass; (2) a galley; (3) a galleon; (4) none

of the above.

• B. Which military improvement is associated with Jacob de Gheyn?: (1) an influential drill

manual; (2) the tercio; (3) the wheel-lock musket; (4) the trace italienne.

• C. In a book published in 1628, he described the circulation of the blood: (1) Newton; (2) Leibniz;

(3) Harvey; (4) Napier.


• D. Galileo announced his discovery of four moons of Jupiter in: (1) The Starry Messenger;

(2) the Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina; (3) The Assayer; (4) the Dialogue concerning the Two Chief

World Systems.

• E. His writings exemplify scholasticism and were influential on the neo-scholastics of

the seventeenth century: (1) Machiavelli; (2) Aquinas; (3) Erasmus; (4) Hobbes.


• (1) What can be said for and against the idea that the seventeenth century was an age of

revolution in Europe?

• (2) "The seventeenth century was an age of absolutism, when the power of the state, and

especially of kings, almost everywhere grew at the expense of other sectors of the community." Discuss

this contention.

Final

• (3) The seventeenth century is sometimes regarded as a golden age for France, when society,

the state, and culture flourished to an unprecedented degree, and when the country became the most

powerful in Europe. What can be said for and against the idea that we ought to see the seventeenth

century as a golden age for England rather than France?

•

NON-CUMULATIVE SECTION

• Answer 1 (one) of the following three questions:

• (1) In what ways did weapons, warfare, and military organization change in seventeenth century

Europe? What were the consequences of the changes?

• (2) "Galileo's difficulties with the Catholic church were mainly his own fault." Discuss the validity

of this claim.

• (3) What was the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century and why did it happen?

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