Chapter III: Economic Renewal and Wars of Religion, 1560-1648

--Portugese in East--1498, Vasco Da Gama rounded Cape of Good Hope, entered unknown world of Arab commerce. Landed on Malabar coast. Returned home with shipload of goods. Returned in 1502 with fighting fleet of 21 vessels. Ferocious war between Arabs and Portugese over trading rights. Portugese eventually won, established bases in Aden, Goa, and Malacca. By direct shipments, Portugese could far undersell Venetians. Venetians = from then on restricted to trade with Near East only. Lower prices added en ormously to European consumption.

--St. Francis Xavier led Jesuit group to new territories, converted thousands by 1550.

--Columbus--1492, discovers Carribean for Spain. Hoping it to be India, Spain sends Columbus with 17 ships, 1,500 workmen for second voyage. Columbus kept on trying to find east, but couldn't. Churchmen, though, forthwith sent missionaries to convert Indians. Government saw it as source of gold and silver. Conquistadores conquered Aztecs and Incas, enslaved to work mines. Also brought in African slaves.

--Magellan--about 1520, found southwest passage, rounds Cape Horn, crosses Pacific to Philippines (Magellan killed), fights across Indian Ocean, back to Spain. New ideas of sie of earth.

--French and English search for northwest passage.

--1494--Spain takes Philippines, all America. Portugal takes Brazil, all rights of trade with Asia and East Indies.

--16th C. Spanish America--Established their own civiliation. Natives enslaved. Instituted kind of European manor. "Lord" controlled labor of slaves. Must provide parcels of land and 2 days/week for them to work for their own food, 1 day of rest. Enfo rcement of these regulations = questionable. Not many women, so lots of mestizos. Mestizo and many pure Indians adopted Spanish Church, culture. Compared to before, treatment under Spaniards = relatively mild. 1545--great silver deposits of Potosi. Use of mercury to extract metal from ore. Riches from mines financed Spanish Counter Reformation. Atlantic ports swelled to distribute goods and wealth to and from America, East Indies.

--Other nations, like England, Dutch, etc., could not mount similar colonization efforts until domestic troubles and Wars of Religion = cleared.

#12: Commercial Revolution

--Great growth in population.

--Very slow inflation--possibly from increase in population, increasing demand for food, increasing costs of production. Also, had royal habit of debasing currency to get quick fixes. American discoveries increased money supply. Seems to have affectd all prices, but price of hired labor, or wages, changed least. Commercial undertakings = easier: markets = larger, stocks of goods inc value with time, borrowed money = easily repaid. "Commercial revolution" from town-centered to nation-centered economic systems.

--Town and surrounding countryside used to be self-sufficient unit: transportation = horrible. Craftsmen produced only goods known to sell well in small market of town. Little risk, little innovation.

--Widening of trading place, or market. Local guildmaster did not know what would sell in distant markets, would not have enough capital anyway even if he knew. Thus, entrepreneurs used knowledge of distant markets to tell guildsmen what to make, to buy it, and then sell it elsewhere. Fugger family. Also, could install capital, or means of production in people's homes in countryside, so they can produce while farming. When times = bad, can lay them off, will still live off of farm. Thus, defeated mon opoly of town guilds. "Putting out" or "domestic" system.

--Dichotomy between workers, who = only interested in their task, and managers, who had no personal acquaintance with workers, but coordinated the entire operation, paid wages.

--Developing industries--shipbuilding, printing, mining, cannon/musket manufacture. All required extensive investment, borrowing or joining up with capitalists. Increasing means of sustaining wars.

--Food from all different areas of world, where could produce cheaper.

--Loans, business or otherwise: Bank of Amsterdam. Up to 30%/year. But as banking industry became more established, interest dec., and banking became acceptable feature of capitalism.

--Mercantilism--based on desire to have gold, silver flow into a country. Gradually replaced by simple desire to hve strong, self-sufficient economy. "Set the poor to work," make England a hive of industry. Inc export of finished goods, reduce of raw materials. Favorable "balance of trade," so other nations could pay back in bullion. Guilds restricted in England and France for greater control of industry. New industries, stealing skilled workers from other nations, while discouraging emigration of you r own, who might take your trade secrets or mysteries with them. Government subsidies on "favorable" exports, taxes on imports. Supporting merchants abroad by giving them monopolies on trade with certain areas by exclusive charters.

#13: Changing Social Structures

--Created classes of landed aristocracy, peasantry or mass of agricultural workers, miscellaneous middle class, urban poor.

--Food prices rose most: Peasants paying rents in money benefited, nobles receiving in foodstuffs benefited. Peasants working for wages hurt. Village life = less equalitarian.

--Nobles, if incomes declined, sought work in king's or church's service. Even if income increased, tried to increase education for children. In either case, concern for civilian pursuits inc. Increasing importance set on ancestry as badge of status.

--Bourgeois = people living in a town and enjoying benefits of its charter. Refers to middle level of society between aristoc. and laboring poor. Class lines blur: some bourgeois owned land, while nobles invested in overseas ventures. Still, consciou sness of social difference remained. Some bourgeois elite, like rulers of towns, important people in government, intermarried with nobility. All the way down to small shopkeepers, apprentices.

--Mass of population = still working poor.

--Education--great demand for educated parish priests, literate clerks and agents. Government needed men from nobility or middle class who could cooperate in large oragnizations, be reliable, understand finance, etc. Widespread need for lawyers. Thus, many new schools, universities = established. Some offered scholarships to intelligent poor: about half of class at Oxford = plebian, or from big merchants down to quite modest levels.

--Versus Eastern Europe--Price rise, increase of Baltic shipping increased lords' incentive to increase production of agricultural goods. Peasants owed 3-4 days/week of forced labor, with rest to work their own land. But nobles submerge peasantry into serfs to get more labor. Could spend more than 3-4 days on lords' land, since lord = often final court of appeal, central monarchy being very weak. Lords lived very lavishly.

#14: Miscarriage of Spanish Crusade

--Charles V abdicated in 1556, year after Peace of Augsburg. Left Austria, Bohemia, Hungary to Ferdinand; Iberian peninsula,17 provinces of Netherlands, Free County of Burgundy, Milan, Naples, Tunis, America, Portugese Empire to Philip II.

--Philip II (1556-1598)--above all else, Catholic. Willing to pour all his kingdom into Catholic Reformation. To economic, material interests he gave no thought: wealth of Potosi = easy solution. Meanwhile, golden age of Spain's culture. Philip's Esco rial.

--Also, first years of Queen Eliz'a reign in Englnd, where religious issue = still in flux. Calvinism agitated Netherlands, France fell apart under rule of teenage boys. Calvinists, Catholics in England, France, Spain felt closer to each other than to other members of their nations. Little national unity.

--Revolt of Netherlands

--17 provinces, united only by fact that have common ruler, some semblance of federal cooperation. North spoke German dialect; South, French. Antwerp = one of economic centers.

--Joyeuse Entree--symbol for rights Netherlanders exercised as a people.

--Hatred of Philip--foreign, Spaniard in Spain. After 1560, many Spanish governors, troops, officials = sent to Netherlands. 1566: about 200 nobles of various provinces founded league to check Spanish influence on Netherlands. Both Catholics, Protest ants petitioned Philip not to bring his Inquisition. Philip refused petition. Mass riot broke out, spread through country. Pillagin of Churches, fierce destruction of symbols of "popery." Aroused by socioeconomic grievances as well as religious belief. Ev en Neth. nobles, unable to control riots, began to look on Spanish with less disfavor.

--Philip sent Inquisition immediately, with the Duke of Alva, troop reinforcements. Sentenced some thousands to death, confiscated estates of several great nobles. What would otherwise have been class struggle took on flavor on national opposition. H ead became William of Orange, whose estate = confiscated, ex-lieutenant to Philip in Holland. Acting as sovreign, authorized ship captains to make war at sea. Spanish reciprocated with more torture, hangings, burnings. Netherlands = torn apart by anarchy, revolution, civil war. No lines, political or religious, = clear. But by 1576, anti-Spanish prevailed over religious. Formed union to drive out Spanish.

--England

--Queen Liz lent aid in secret, for fear of starting war with Spain, estranging English Catholics. Also, did not kill Mary Stuart not to estrange Catholics.

--1578--Spanish under Parma reclaim southern provinces: promise to observe Joyeuse Entree, appeals to moderates tired of violence. But 7 northern provinces, led by Holland, Zeeland, form Union of Utrecht in 1579. 1581, declare independance from Spin, call themselves United Provinces of the Netherlands. A definite geographical line. Both halves wanted the whole.

--In England, popular fears of Spain, indignation at their "meddling" in English matters unite people behind Eliz. Even Catholics renounce conspiracies against her. Brits now openly allied with Dutch. "Sea dogs." Spain decides to dethrone Eliz: chea per to conquer England than to protect ships against sea dogs. Brits react: execute Mary Stuart in 1587, Drake singes beard of king of Spain by burning ships in harbor as prepare to attack.

--Armada = ready in 1588. Despite huge size lose to more maneuverble, lighter, faster British ships under Sir Francis Drake. "Protestant wind" blew ships north to foreign territory, where got lost, shipwrecked in harsh weather.

--Results

--Philip died in 1598.

--Intense national spirit in England. Love of the land. Ruin of Armada gave Brits, Dutch free reign over seas.

--Battle lines in Netherlands swayed until 1609, when 12 Years' Truce = signed. North of line = Dutch. South = Spanish Netherlands. Protestants go up or become Catholic. S. Netherlands = almost ruined by war. Antwerp, other great cities never recover : Dutch control mouths of the rivers. Amsterdam's ascendancy.

--Spain's decline--vast nobility not willing to work. Most intelligent people go into religion, not government. Lost valuable work force when drive out Moriscos.

#15: Disintegration, reconstruction of France

--War as described.

--Politique--men who concluded that too much = made of religion, that no doctrine was important enough to justify everlasting war. Perhaps there is room for 2 churches. Believed that men lived primarily in state, not church. Overlook a man's ideals if he = loyal Frenchman. H. of Navarre, though now a Protestant, = at heart a Politique, as was Jean Bodin: first thinker to develop mosern theory of sovreignty. Held that in every society, must be 1 power strong enough to give law to others, with consent i f poss, without if necc. Thus, ideas of royal absolutism, sovreign state.

--2 previous Henries assassinated. Navarre, or Henry IV, enthroned (1589). First of Bourbon dynasty. Catholics did not recognize him until he abjured Calvinism. Huguenots = outraged, demanded positive guarantees of religious liberty.

--1598--Edict of Nantes protected Huguenots, other Protestants, made them a less rebellious element in state. Tried to put country back together, instill mercantilism. Assassinated, 1610.

--Richelieu--Mercantilism, took away Protestant fortresses, military, put nobility under law for factional fighting, joins Protestant forces to end Habsburg dominance.

#16: 30 Years' War, 1618-1648

--Competition among Calvinisits, Catholics, and Protestants for German Lands. Constant attrition of Catholic lands. Spanish plan to consolidate Habsburg position in central Europe, unite Germany, from which could mount more formidable attack on Dutch. French opposition to this plan, support of German Protestant states who = against Emperor's unification, even though France = Catholic.

--4 Phases of War:

1) Bohemian 1618-1625.

2) Danish 1625-1629.

3) Swedish 1630-1635.

4) Swedish-French 1635-1648.

1) Bohemians threw representatives of Emeperor out the window, fearing loss of Protestant liberties. Emperor sent troops to restore authority. Bohemians elected new king: Elector Palatine, head of new Protestant Union, founded in 1608. Spanish easily defeated, Frederick V (Palatine) fled, lost territories. Ferdinand elected Emperor again, re-Catholicization of Bohemia began. In Austria, also Protestantism stamped out. Protestant Union dissolved 1621.

2) Duke of Holstein, king of Denmark, took over lead for Protestants. Intentions mixed with politics: wanted a few bishoprics for his son. Ferdinand commissioned Wallenstein to rise another army, defeat Danish, which they did. Full tide of Counter-Ref ormation flowing over Europe. France = unable to help because of domestic troubles: Huguenots, fractious nobles. Hired maintenance of 40,000 troop Swedish army in Germany. French and Dutch gave money to Swedes.

3) Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus, unified Sweden, ideally suited to be Protestant champion. IN 1630, sent troops to Germany. Richelieu also sowed seeds of mistrust for Emperor among Catholic states of Germany. Wallenstein withdrew, was assassinated. Saxons and Prot. German states settled for separate peace in Peace of Prague, 1635. Swedes basically isolated in Germany.

4) Richelieu renewed assurances of financial support to Swedes, moved their own troops to Rhine. Spanish, from Belgium and Franche-Compte, drove deept into heartland of France. But when Portugal and Catalonia rebelled against Spain, Frnace and other P rot states quickly recognized sovreignty, sent troops. Devestated parts of Spain. International war on German soil. Growing resentment of foreign intervention.

--Peace of Westphalia--1648--Great congress. Pope basically ignored. General checkmate to Counter Reformation. Reaffirmed Peace of Augsberg. France got 3 Alsace/Lorraine area bishoprics. Mouths of German Spanish Netherland rivers = controlled by Dutch , hampering trade. Each of 300 or so German states became sovereign, independent unit. Made Empire ineffectual institution of government, took away all powers of taxation, etc. Could only act as a unit if all states agreed, which = impossible. Broke any c hance of universal monarchy for 2 centuries.

--Germany = wrecked. Agriculture ruined, starvation followed, with pestilence. Mybe about third of population died. Marauding bands of mercenaries. Cultural vacuum in Central Europe, Germany ceased to play important part. Atlantic peoples: French, Du tch, English, went to forefront. Catholic/Protestant lines stabilized.

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