Weeks I and II lecture outlines

Life in Early Modern Europe (1450-1750s, approx.)

A.  "Old Regime" society and power structure based upon privilege

• social and legal position defined by "estates"
• nobles (aristocrats), clergy (priests, ministers), commoners (peasants, townspeople, merchants, etc.)

B.  A mostly rural population

• life largely dictate by factors of nature
• system of serfdom (aristocratic landowners control unpaid labor of peasants) in decline in Western Europe, but still strong in Eastern Europe
• major changes taking place in Western European agricultural methods and landowning/land-use patterns create greater agricultural surplus
• growing trend towards manufacturing goods in rural areas using the "putting out system"

C. Urban life

• cities and towns as centers of commerce and manufacturing
• dominance of the guild system in commerce and arisanal manufacturing, to regulate trade and production
• artisan guilds composed on skilled master craftsmen, working with apprentices and journeymen
• as states (national governments) became more complex, cities took on greater importance as administrative centers
• as literacy spread, cities rose in importance as centers of cultural life
• cities were "unplanned," overcrowded, dirty, "vectors" for spread of disease

D.  Demographic changes

• trends in 1450s-1750s generally high birth rates but also high death rates and high infant mortality
• in 1450s-1750s, common pattern was to delay marriage into late 20s (a strategy to limit family size)
• by 1750s and after 1750s, shifts occurring in patterns:  lower death rates, lower infant mortality rates, accelerated population growth
• some causes:  improved diet, advances in medical knowledge and care, trend towards younger marriages among peasants and urban laborers
• results included rural overpopulation, which fed into accelerated urban growth
• results also included increased demand for goods (as higher population meant expanded markets)

E.  Capitalism in Early Modern Europe

• capitalism as a system of social and economic organization
• property owners conduct commerce or produce goods/provide services with the goal of profit, and generally by using wage labor
• vestiges of suspicion and hostility towards commerce as an aspect of Christian religious culture and of the culture of the nobility
• rise of new merchant "class"
• rise of new educated professions
• development of a culture among the merchant and professional groups (the bourgeoisie, or the "middle class"), distinct from the culture of the aristocrats and from that of the peasants and urban laborers

F. The expansion of the commercial capitalist economy in the 1600s-1700s

• exploration and colonial dominance increased supplies of raw materials, foodstuffs, trade goods (etc) so as to stimulate the European economy and create an increasingly globalized market economy/web of trade
• the rise in grain prices in the 1600s stimulated increased production of cereal crops for the market
• in general rising prices and expanding markets stimulated the use of new methods of agriculture and production (as well as encouraging more intensive exploitation of labor)
• key players in the "new" emerging market economy were merchants/entrepreneurs, who introduce new forms of business (e.g., the joint stock company)
• states also contributed to the development of the commercial/market economy by introducing new measures (e.g., standardized currencies)
• rising profits from commerce and agriculture made more capital available for investment
• all this, plus increased levels of consumption, added up to a (relatively) steady economic expansion in the 1600s and 1700s
• as a result, capitalism as a global system was already beginning to transform ways of life on a global scale

G. Mercantilism (1600s-1700s)

• a new way (at the time) of thinking about the connections between government, society, and the economy--a new way of thinking about the power of the State
• emphasis on the State's freedom to act in the State's best interest
• this meant subordinating the interests of the Church, the nobility, and even the royal family to that of the State in policy making
• basic principle:  there is only a fixed amount of wealth in the world, and the goal is to increase your State's share of the world's wealth (as zero-sum game)
• basic principle:  the State can and should use all resources (land, people, natural resources) as it sees fit, in the State's interest (e.g., establishing state-granted monopolies, state-established price controls, state movement of populations, establishment of colonies, etc.)

H.  Absolutism (mid-1600s-late 1700s)

• new (at the time) way of thinking about the power of monarchs
• the monarch's power was not to be limited by the church, or by the nobility, or by constitutions, or by any other institution or constraint
• the monarch should act/base policy on "reasons of State"--the needs of the State, the best interests of the State
• to do this, monarchs had to subordinate the church and the nobility and had to build a centralized state bureaucracy
•  the specifics of the practice of absolutism differed from state to state (e.g., absolutism in France took its most sophisticated form, where as in Russia it rested most heavily on coercion)
• all but a few European states were "absolutist" monarchies in the 1600s-mid-1700s
• the most important example of a non-absolutist state was England:  as a result of revolutions in the 1600s, the English constitutional system had limited the monarch's powers and increased the Parliament's powers
• in the 1700s, the justification of Absolutism shifted away from the idea of the "divine right of kings" toward the "secular" idea of "Enlightened Absolutism"--that absolute monarch was the most rational form of government, in which the monarch would rule on the basis of rational (logical) principles