CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE EMERGENCE OF THE EUROPEAN STATE SYSTEM
Chapter Summary
As order returned to Europe after 1650, the policies and practices of the great monarchies became more clearly absolutist. Louis XIV of France set the tone for this era. At his royal court at Versailles, Louis drew the French nobility away from independent sources of power in the cities and countryside of France. He offered them patronage and opportunities in his growing bureaucracy, defined taste for the elite, and proclaimed the monarch as the source of all legitimacy. Backed by skilled ministers Colbert and Louvois, Louis secured royal control over the use of armed force, law-making, and revenues. Louis’ expansionist foreign policy brought France much territory along her northeast border, but it also provoked an European alliance against him and impoverished the peasantry of France. When Louis died in 1715 the French nobility was able to reassert some autonomy against his successors, but the systems of state control, justice, and force he had created worked too well for them to wish to dismantle.
Elsewhere in Europe monarchs sought to duplicate the successes of the French kings. In Austria the Habsburg Leopold I, aided by the brilliant Eugene of Savoy, pursued a successful foreign policy against the French and the Turks. Though Louis laid the foundations for Vienna’s future cultural eminence, he was unable to curb the autonomy of his nobles as Louis had. The Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg-Prussia had greater success. There the Junker nobility worked with the elector (and later monarch), exchanging loyalty to the throne for virtual control over their great, grain-producing estates. The Prussian state combined military, justice, and administrative systems to an unusual degree, but this century also saw the beginning of cultural and scholarly life in Berlin. During the eighteenth century the work of state building continued. Frederick II of Prussia and Maria Theresa of Austria both used “reasons of state” - the need for secure borders, strong armies, regular finances, and efficient administration - to reform outdated practices and institutions in their realms. In Russia Peter the Great went farther than any other monarch in curbing the independent powers of the church and aristocracy. As increasing numbers of the peasant class were reduced to serfdom, the aristocracy itself became obligated for military and bureaucratic service. Peter expanded Russian territory, built a new capital, and transformed Russia into the greatest power in the Baltic. He also set the course of Russian social/political development for the next two centuries.
An alternate model of state-building could be found in England, the Netherlands, and Sweden, where small oligarchies of aristocrats or merchants controlled national policy. In Britain the Glorious Revolution of 1688 ended any hopes the crown had entertained of recapturing powers lost during the Civil War. The gentry, perhaps two percent of the population, exercised ultimate authority through the House of Commons, established religious toleration (though not equal rights) for all religions, and fully backed the new Bank of England. With finances stabilized and political discord reduced to party conflict, Britain experienced a century of territorial and trade expansion whose benefits gradually raised all levels of society. The United Provinces, meanwhile, slipped into the second rank as a great power, but awarded the mercantile and urban upper classes full control over the state. Similarly the Swedish nobility used the crown’s foreign policy defeats to construct a representative system based on England’s. The contrast between the absolutist and limited monarchical systems prompted two brilliant analyses of political systems by the Englishmen Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Beginning with similar assessments of an anarchic state of nature, each posited the existence of a social contract, though their conclusions as to the relations between sovereign and subjects differed considerably.
As states came to a clearer understanding of their interests (as opposed to the purely dynastic ambitions of monarchs) the nature of the European international system changed. Wars were fought with large, more professional, and more expensive armies that nevertheless were used with greater restraint than in the religious conflicts of a century earlier. Diplomacy might accomplish as much as violence in the way of border adjustments, although, in seizing Silesia from Austria, Frederick II created antagonism that was bound to result in hostilities. During the Seven Years’ War at mid-century, the continent’s deepest cleavages became apparent: Prussia pitted itself against Austria for control of central Europe, and France and Britain competed for world empires based on trade and conquest.
Lecture and Discussion Topics
1. Investigate court life at Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV. How did the king use attendance at court to consolidate his own power?
2. Compare and contrast the lives of Maria Theresa and Catherine the Great. How did each overcome the prejudices against female rulers?
3. Compare the power of the nobility in several European countries. Were nobles able to check the centralizing and absolutist tendencies of monarchs anywhere?
4. Research Peter the Great’s fascination with western advances. Did the influence of western Europe, as brought to bear upon Russian society by Peter, improve the lives of ordinary Russians?
5. Describe navies in the eighteenth century, their capabilities, use in battle, and function in national policy.
6. How did religious strife continue to plague English politics and royal succession?
7. Assign students passages from Hobbes Leviathan and Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government. What assumptions about human nature did these writers share? What kinds of relationships between the sovereign and the people did they propose?
8. Explore the global nature of the Seven Years’ War.
Supplemental films
The Age of Absolute Monarchs in Europe. 13 min. Color. 1965. Coronet. Examines the concept of absolute monarchy through James I of England and Louis XIV of France.
Barry Lyndon. 187 min. Color. 1975. Depiction of Thackeray’s novel has excellent coverage of eighteenth-century warfare.
Daily Life at the Court of Versailles. 60 min. Color. Films for the Humanities. Enactments and period settings of Versailles under the Bourbons.
Peter the Great. 380 min. Color. 1980. Maximilian Schell and international cast in the television mini-series.
Restoration. 1995. Directed by Michael Hoffman, with Robert Downey Jr. and Sam Neill. A fictional account of a court physician who gains and then loses the patronage of Charles II.
The Sun King. 30 min. B/W Indiana University. Excerpts from Louis’ own writing.
Vatel. 2000. Directed by Roland Joffé, with Gérard Depardieu and Uma Thurman. This film, chosen to open
Cannes 2000, dramatizes an event from 1671, when the ageing Prince de Condé hosted Louis XIV and his
court for three days of wining, dining, and entertainment.
Multiple Choice Questions
The page numbers listed below indicate the correct answers and their locations in the text.
1. In his relations with the French nobility, Louis XIV
a. eliminated their privileged status
b. cultivated their support in exchange for his patronage (pp.590-591)
c. kept them at Versailles so they would not question his policies
d. b and c
2. The concept and policies of absolute monarchy did not involve which of the following?
a. the glorification of the king and his life style
b. the idea that all political authority flowed from the king
c. the creation of a bureaucracy that would make the king’s will law
d. the idea that the king was accountable to his people if he broke God’s law (p.590)
3. In their relations with the fine arts, absolute monarchs like Louis XIV
a. promoted artistic freedom to demonstrate their own advanced taste
b. encouraged works that flattered the nobility
c. shunned comedy as being insufficiently elevated
d. promoted works that enhanced the gravity and dignity of the monarch (p.592)
e. all of the above
4. Which was a lasting achievement of Louis XIV’s foreign policy?
a. he gained considerable territory on France’s northwest border from the Holy Roman empire (p.594)
b. he created a union of Spain and France under the French monarchy
c. he kept the British isolated from the Continent
d. he re-established close relations between France and the Holy Roman empire
5. Under Louis XIV’s successors,
a. the Huguenots were highly regarded by the government because of their contributions to the French economy
b. the government took a more active role in promoting social welfare
c. France experienced unprecedented economic and demographic growth (p.600)
d. b and c
e. a and c
6. Emperor Leopold I can be considered less successful as an absolute monarch than Louis XIV because he
a. relied on a small group of leading nobles to help him run the government
b. used foreigners in key administrative positions
c. failed to overcome the autonomous power of the aristocracy in many of the lands under his rule
d. all of the above (p.601)
7. The main enemies of the Austrian Habsburgs in the late seventeenth century were
a. the French and the Prussians
b. the French and the Italians
c. the Turks and the French (p.601)
d. the Turks and the Russians
8. Compared to other absolute monarchs, the rulers of Brandenburg-Prussia
a. fostered a close relationship between the military and state administration (p.603)
b. consulted the Diet (representative assembly) more frequently
c. broke the power bases of the great nobles
d. worked to free the peasantry from obligations of serfdom
9. Which of the following is not true of the nobility of Brandenburg-Prussia during the reign of Frederick William?
a. they were able to consolidate their land holdings and make them highly profitable
b. the reimposition of serfdom increased the profitability of their holdings
c. they engaged in commerce in agricultural produce
d. royal tax policies were advantageous to them
e. they resisted royal absolutism (p.603)
10. The Junkers
a. refused to cooperate with Prussian rulers
b. fiercely resisted Frederick William’s efforts to undermine the Diet
c. were economically inefficient
d. cooperated with Prussian leaders by staffing the army and bureaucracy (p.603)
11. Frederick William I
a. used conscription to fill the ranks of his army
b. recruited mercenaries to serve in his army
c. maintained a personal regiment
d. all of the above (p.604)
12. Frederick II gained a reputation for enlightened absolutism by
a. making education compulsory
b. founding an agency that oversaw all government functions except justice, education, and religion
c. encouraging religious toleration and judicial reform (p.606)
d. expanding Prussian territory
13. The Pragmatic Sanction
a. was a Prussian document
b. declared that Habsburg dominions could be inherited by a female heir (p.606)
c. laid the foundations for the Habsburg army
d. declared war on the province of Silesia
14. Maria Theresa
a. exempted clergymen from taxes
b. failed to obtain new tax revenues from local diets
c. alienated nobles in the far reaches of her domains
d. reformed the Church as testimony to her piousness (p.608)
15. Peter the Great, who came to power in Russia after a long period of royal weakness, was able to establish himself as absolute ruler by
a. working cooperatively with the independent Russian Orthodox church
b. reducing the inefficient bureaucracy
c. improving the conditions of the Russian peasants
d. forcing the nobility into royal service (p.611-612)
16. The English gentry in the seventeenth century were different from nobles in most of Europe because
a. they had ultimate control over national policy (p.614)
b. they constituted a much larger portion of the population than did the nobility in other places
c. the great majority of them dissented from the official church
d. all of the above
17. The Act of Toleration
a. ended persecution for religious belief in England (p.617)
b. stated that a catholic could become ruler of England
c. allowed members of any religion to sit in parliament
d. allowed members of any religion to attend a university
e. all of the above
18. The so-called Glorious Revolution
a. brought a foreign dynasty to the English throne
b. led to the establishment of a standing army in England
c. gave the new king greater authority, in order to stabilize the country
d. confirmed that the gentry controlled England
e. a and d (p.617)
19. The great naval power of the eighteenth century was
a. France
b. the Netherlands
c. Spain
d. England (p.618)
20. In the late seventeenth century the United Provinces
a. succumbed to the absolutism of the Stadholder
b. was crippled by having to maintain both land and naval power (p.612)
c. had one of the most powerful landed aristocracies in Europe
d. b and c
21. Thomas Hobbes believed that
a. all political authority must reside in an absolute and sovereign power in order to restrain the natural warlike impulses of human beings (pp.622-623)
b. the natural rights of all human beings include freedom of expression
c. the will of the state may be exercised only with the approval of the majority
d. the natural state of human beings is one of freedom, equality, and peace
22. A major difference between the ideas of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke is that
a. Locke rejects the idea of a social contract
b. Locke thinks that humans live peacefully in the state of nature
c. Hobbes believes that the ruled have no right to rebel against the sovereign (p.624)
d. Hobbes rejects private property
23. In the Seven Years’ War the main lines of conflict were
a. Austria vs Britain, and France vs Prussia
b. Austria vs Russia, and Prussia vs France
c. Austria vs Prussia, and Britain vs France (p.627)
d. Austria vs France, and Britain vs Russia
24. The terms of Peace at Hubertusburg
a. punished Prussia severely
b. allowed Prussia to keep Silesia (p.629)
c. returned Silesia to Austria
d. returned Saxony to Prussia
Essays
25. Compare the policies and activities of Louis XIV, Peter the Great, and the “Great Elector.” What similarities do you find in the actions of absolute monarchs?
26. Compare the role of the Russian, Prussian, French, and English aristocracies in their respective states and societies. How do their powers and privileges differ? In what ways were they similar? What were the major issues of concern to eighteenth-century aristocrats?
27. How similar were the United Provinces and England when William III of the United Provinces became the king of England? What were these similarities? How did the situations in the two countries differ?
28. Compare the ideas of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke on the origins and purposes of government. How were their works responses to the political conditions of their time?
29. Describe the nature of eighteenth-century warfare. Why did kings and diplomats not hesitate to resort to war as an instrument of national policy?
30. Explain the conditions that prompted the nobilities of England and France to assist rather than prevent the centralization of the state. How did the nobilities and aristocracies of Sweden and Poland prevent the formation of a centralized state?