WORLD CIVILIZATION
DOCUMENT PACKET
Tara Gupton
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Chapter Four
Class Outline
The Fall of Rome
The Plague Doctor
Descriptions of the Black Plague
Medieval Town: Customs
Chapter Five
Machiavelli Personality Test
The Prince
The Divine Comedy
Lucrezia Borgia
Leonardo DeVinci
The 95 Theses
The Tulip
The Council of Trent
Chapter Six
Letters from Christopher Columbus
The Death of Magellan
Hernan Cortes
Aboard a Slave Ship
An African Pamphleteer
In Defense of the Slave Trade
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Chapter Seven
Account of the St. Bartholomew Day Massacre
The Thirty’s Year War
The Golden Speech
Oliver Cromwell Overthrows the Monarchy
The Divine Right of Kings
Louis XIV Write to His Son
Chapter Eight/Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve/Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen/Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
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Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
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World Civilization Itinerary
These are NOT Daily Topics! This itinerary is subject to change at any time but it gives
us some outline on what we hope to accomplish this semester.
We will quickly review over the Greeks and Romans the first Unit of class.
Understanding the classical style will better help you to understand the reason and
purpose of the Renaissance. DON’T PANIC! There is a lot of information listed in that
first Unit but it will be very basic and just there to refresh your memory.
Topic #1: The Greek Influence/ The Rise of Rome/ The Republic to Empire/ Culture and
Society in the Roman World
Topic #2: The Development of Christianity/ The Decline and Fall or Rome
Topic #3: The Byzantine Empire and the Middle Ages
You’ll learn that World History is developed generally into two pieces. In this class we will be
focusing on the period that occurred from the 1400s forward. We begin this journey with the
Renaissance and Reformation.
Topic #4: The Renaissance (p375) in Italy, The Italian States, Renaissance Society,
Machiavelli’s Philosophy
Topic#5: The Artistic Renaissance (p382), Humanism, Literature, Art, Leonardo da
Vinci
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Topic #6: The Reformation, Martin Luther, John Calvin, The Church of England and
Henry VIII, The Role of Women,
Our quest moves forward and by this point we should have taken our first test. We now will begin
to study the Age of Exploration.
Topic #7: Magellan, The Portuguese Trading Empire, The Spanish Empire, The Slave
Trade, Political Structure of the Age of Exploration
We now begin a bloody period of history….
Topic #8: French Religious Wars, Elizabeth I, Protestant/Catholic England, Witch Hunts,
Thirty Years’ War
Topic #9: England’s Revolutions, Louis XIV, The Emergence of Prussia, Peter the Great
Topic #10: The Baroque Period, The Golden Age of Literature, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes
We’ll be backtracking to learn a bit about the foundations of Islam and then progress
forward onto the Muslim Empires.
Topic #11: The life and teachings of Muhammad, tenets of Islam, The Turks
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Topic #12: The Ottoman Empire, The Fall of Constantinople, The Safavid Dynasty
Topic #13: The Moguls, British India, The Ming Dynasty, The Qing Dynasty, Chinese
Culture
Topic #14: Korean Kingdom, Japan,
Topic #15: The Scientific Revolution, Astronomy, Galileo, Newton, Women in Science,
Descartes, The Scientific Method
Topic #16: The Path to Enlightenment, Voltaire, Adam Smith
Topic #17: The Austrian Empire, Catherine the Great, The Seven Years’ War
Topic #18: Colonies in Latin America, The American Revolution, The French
Revolution
Topic #19: The King of France, The Reign of Terror, Rise of Napoleon
Topic #20: Napoleon
Topic 21: Industrialization in Great Britain, Population growth, The Congress of Vienna,
Another French Revolution, Revolt in the Italian States, German Unification, A New Age
of Science,
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Topic 22: Women’s Right Movement, Universal Education, The Old Order, Crises in the
Balkans
Topic 23: The New Imperialism, Africa, India
Topic 24: Indian Nationalist Movement, Gandhi, Latin American problems
Topic 25: Challenges of East Asia, Boxer Rebellion, Opium Rebellion
Topic 26: The Road to World War I
Topic 27: The Russian Revolution
Topic 28: End of WWI and the Treaty of Versailles
Topic 29: Uneasy Peace, League of Nations, The Treaty of Locarno
Topic 30: The Great Depression, Dictatorial Regimes
Topic 31: Fascist State, Lenin, Stalin, Rise of Hitler and the Nazi Power
Topic 32: The fall of the Ottoman Empire, Arab Nationalism, Rise of Militant Japan,
Chaos in China, Chaos in Latin America,
Topic 33: The Path to WWII
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Topic 34: WWII The European Theater
Topic 35: WWII The Asian Theater
Topic 36: The Holocaust and Price of the War
Topic 37: The Cold War
Topic 38: Post Cold War
Topic 39: The Fate of Latin America, The Cuban Revolution, Argentina, Chili
Topic 40: Africa and the Middle East, Palestine, Iranian Revolution, Persian Gulf
Topic 41: Globalization, The World Today
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The Fall of Rome
by Michael Valdivielso
Many people have asked why the Roman Empire fell and usually they answer it themselves, so as to
prove a pet theory or bring an end to the debate once and for all. I believe there are MANY answers to
the question and that they all fit together, like a jigsaw puzzle. The reason I believe that is simple:
History is a jigsaw puzzle of many causes and many effects, spurred on and brought about by the simple
needs and wants of individuals. Let us start with the forest and work our way down to the trees. Let us
start with the grand strategy of the Roman civilization. The type of government at the time, is at this
point, is not an issue, but will be discussed.
(Section 4) Grand Strategy: The Legions of Rome
The Roman Republic started out as what historians call a 'Hegemonic Empire'. What that means, in basic
terms, is that the Romans directly controlled a small area of land with their legions. Legions, as you
know, can be thought of as heavy infantry armed with throwing spears, short swords and large shields.
Surrounding this region, or linked to it by roads or sea-lanes, are small client states. These were smaller
kingdoms that relied on Rome for protection and in return not only paid tribute, but also supplied the
legions with food and auxilia (auxiliary troops). Auxiliary troops were cavalry, men armed with bows and
slings, so on.
Outside the states are the tribes, some are clients to Rome and some are not. They were harder to
control because of the distance from Rome and their own lack of organization, but some tribes are
useful allies against other tribes. The whole set up was pretty nice. Minor threats, like raiders, could be
handled by the client states and the Rome never had to deal with it. Major threats, like invasion from
Parthian Empire, could be handled by just bringing in some of the legions, which when added to the
local auxiliary units, made a well-balanced defensive. In fact, legions plus auxiliary could be used for
invading and annexing new holdings.
Why would client states allow this or even be happy with this relationship? Freedom from direct control
was one. Yes, Rome had the power to replace kings, but by subjecting themselves to Roman diplomatic
control smart kings got protection from other powerful nations and OTHER client states. For without the
permission of Rome, no client state could declare war against another. Also, a King who proved himself
valuable to Rome could call on legions to help put down revolts and civil unrest.
What did Rome get? Rome got trade, power beyond the direct reach of their legions and an empire at a
tiny cost. Few legions were needed and most could be kept in reserve (what Edward N. Luttwak called
disposable and concentrated imperial forces). The very fact these forces were available would make
major powers think twice about invading any part of Rome's holdings. Thus, an elastic defense, flexible
and cheap, also allowed troops for swift expansion. A young republic, full of men who needed military
experience and money to hold office would do well in such a setting and so would Rome. Yet, when
Rome became an Empire, or what is also called the Principate, the First Emperors (who were not called
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emperors just yet) wanted to consolidate Roman holdings. They turned to absorbing client states into
provinces, campaigning against the Persians and even planned on taking all of Europe. Yet few pushed
the borders farther than the Republic's lands before the Empire. They and the legions turned to
defending the border, to keep what they had. They became, in other words, a 'Territorial Empire'.
A territorial empire is one that controls all territory directly, after either annexing or abandoning their
allies. All forces are put on the frontier, to protect the border.
The problem with border defense (sometimes called forward defense) is the lack of flexibility. The basics
are very simple. The legions, or most of them, are now on the border with provincial troops, who act like
auxiliary units. This is great against minor raids by tribes who are trying to break into the empire. True,
the legions are thinned out, but well placed forts, roads, walls and the use of natural barrier can really
give them an edge even against three times their numbers. Tribes rarely carry rams or engines of war in
their pockets and even a six-foot wall can cause problems. Men might get over it, but horses can't!
But what of major threats like invasions or revolts within the provinces? Few legions are in reserve, and
therefore, the empire can only handle so many major threats before they become MAJOR problems.
The Romans believed in economy of force and therefore, throughout most of their history had a fixed
number of legions. This might be great at keeping costs down, but a change in the way the empire was
run might have called for a change in the number of legions available. Rome and the emperors were not
willing to make that change.
Also, a fixed line made out of forts and bases and walls causes problems. Early legions moved about,
practiced and trained even in times of peace. They stayed tough and mean. Now they were held in
barracks, within walls, dealing with health problems caused by the crowded quarters and loneliness.
Some would go native, marrying and having families. Soldiers will want to spend time with family, over a
good meal and good wine than on the practice field, tossing about spears and hacking at posts. The best
would be taken away to Rome, to join the private armies of the Emperors (in other words bodyguards
for the paranoid men on the throne).
How about the legions not guarding walls, but facing the Parthian Empire? These legions became just as
undisciplined, as the leaders played about with improving the legions. They replaced legionnaires with
more cavalry and foreign specialists. These men who were loyal to Rome, were loyal because of coins
paid and promised wealth when they retired.
Also, let us not forget that peace itself can damage an army. Rome would bring periods of peace like no
other civilization and even THAT might have been a problem. That was only ONE cause. Let us examine
another.
(Section 3) Army and Inflation: Another Day, Another Denarius
Here, we will focus not on weapons and equipment, but the men, both soldiers and generals. The first
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armies, or in this case, the first legions were invented by the last King (or Kings) of Rome. The legions
were made up of the middle class, which was a political move to offset the power of the nobles. How it
would help the King to have two power groups within the city I have no idea. But the idea stayed with
the Republic. By 200 B.C. legions were made up of adsidui, citizens who owned property up to 400
denarii in value and able to support themselves financially. They were paid an amount of money
depending on what branch of the service they joined, how long they served and if they volunteered
more time. Some of their pay was used to pay for food and equipment.
The legions were well organized, broken down into smaller units with clear lines of command. Among
the types of officers, early legions had six tribunes attached to it and being a tribune (tribal officer)
brought great honor. Even an ex-consul could be a tribune. This showed links both to the Senate AND
the people. Early legions could be disbanded at the end of a campaign, or if still needed to secure new
land, only retiring soldiers were released. As the Republic grew and war sometimes-lasted longer,
financial assistance was given to soldiers, no doubt to help them because of the increasing amount of
time spent away from farms. Small campaigns, by 200 B.C., became full time wars and legions went from
being part-time jobs to full-time careers, spanning several years.
Marius' reform in the late 2nd century B.C. greatly changed the legions. Not only did he change the
structure, making it more flexible in battle, but he opened the ranks to the poorest of the poor and
equipped them using state funds. These men, having no links to powerful families, now saw their family
as their fellow soldiers and their loyalty was to the state and their leaders.
During the Civil War, which started in 49 B.C., both sides recruited from non-Romans and non-citizens.
Pay was also doubled, no doubt to secure loyalty. After the war Augustus established a military treasury
to handle discharge payments and made sure pay was under his control, not the generals. In his will he
asked that the legions be fixed at 28 and that the Empire's borders also be fixed.
This may sound like pay was the biggest cost of the army, but let us not forget supply and
transportation. Men had to be fed and therefore grain had to be shipped. Horses were needed, bridges
and road maintained, equipment built. Sometimes the goal of the legions was nothing more than to
collect tribute from a province.
Yet, pay raises happened a lot, sometimes doubling the soldiers' pay. Some historians believe the
increases to be an emperor's way of buying loyalty or maybe of fighting inflation. Whatever the reason,
here is the point we are getting at; Over the later centuries of the empire, while the number of legions
might not change often, they become more and more costly. Luxury was believed by the Romans to
destroy discipline and might have been a factor in the fall of their military in the last days of the empire.
Extra coins in the pocket will make soldiers think of the good times they can have. Large discharge
payments of either silver or land means a smart soldier is less likely to reenlist.
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At the same time, when the empire did try to expand, it used up silver and gold, yet gained no new silver
or gold mines to replace the old, exhausted ones. Its coinage, having started out as pure silver, now was
less than pure. Britain had been invaded on the hopes of finding such treasure, but it was found to be
worthless (no insult meant). For Rome to withdraw from a new province would be a sign of weakness.
No matter how much it hurt to keep and no matter how many legions it tied up once taken a province
was not to be given up without a fight.
You can see than, how inflation might make things harder on an empire whose borders have stopped
expanding or when they do expand gain very little in value. Add an army that does not grow but whose
paycheck does EVEN as the legions (mostly Non-Roman) become less useful and less skilled at the art of
war, at best becoming either border guards or personal guards.
One more thing must be examined I believe.
(Section 2) Discipline: Stand And Deliver
Discipline. Why is it so important and why do I keep bringing it up, picking on the poor Roman legions
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again and again? Let us once again first examine the trees, than focus on the big picture.
Early Roman legions had many things going for them. They were always on the go, using roads, many of
which they helped to build themselves. They also built fortifications around their camps, even when
within friendly territory. Why?
By building a thin wall plus ditch around the tents, which were centered in the middle, they could get a
good night's sleep, knowing fellow soldiers protected them. Also, spears thrown from outside were
unlikely to hit the soldiers in their tents, which were carefully placed in the center, away from the edge
of the camp. Nothing is worse than waking up to raiders stealing your stuff and trying to kill you. What is
the result of a good night's rest?
The next morning, the soldiers are relaxed, well fed and ready for battle. Remember that battles in
those days were lost when one side broke and fled. The side whose men were well rested and highly
disciplined won the day. Discipline was a 24-hour job. Soldiers trained and were kept from becoming idle
by building roads, setting up the camp's defenses each night and marching. Roman punishment was
harsh. Some of the men in a legion could be whipped for ONE man running away in battle.
Now, picture yourself as an enemy nation. Early Rome has lots of legions (remember the reserves). You
destroy one and take their standards. What does Rome do? They send more and more, because they
want to save face and regain honor they lost. The legions are tough and hard to defeat in battle. They
can and will win because sometimes they just won't FLEE.
Now, think of the later Roman legions. Few (in fact the same number just less available to use outside of
the empire), undisciplined and a mixture of people who are not very Roman or even Italian. As an
enemy nation, you are not as impressed and might even be able to bribe them or at least destroy the
few legions Rome sends after you.
In the end, it does not matter if the people have orgies and get drunk. They were doing that in the time
of the Republic and early Empire anyway. The problem starts when the legions start to lack discipline.
If that is not enough, lets talk about fear.
(Section 1) Fear: Dagger, dagger, who's got the dagger?
Fear was a tool, like any other. Rome used the fear of the legions, the overpowering military force of
their unused reserve to not only keep tribes and equally powerful nations at bay, but also used it when
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dealing with allies. It was something that always hanged over the friend and foe alike during diplomatic
talks. But it has limits.
German and Gallic tribes don't like being wiped out and fear death as much as anybody else. But during
hard times, their children need grain just as badly as Roman children. The Romans and the defenses
manned by their legions were great at defending against raiders and even punishing tribes, but they
could never stop the never-ending waves that beat on their borders.
The great Parthian Empire of the east at first saw a great power. Roman legions could and did win wars
and Romans were great at putting on a show after victory, building victory arches, and holding parades
and games. In later years, as Rome started to find itself slowing down, its legions thinned out to protect
the border of one of the largest empires known, its emperors corrupted (if not out right insane) and its
coins only half silver, the east must have noticed.
Let's not forget the Emperors. Remember, 'what can be gained by the sword can be taken by the sword'.
I am not sure who said it, but the Romans took it to heart. Emperors spent most of their time and
money making sure the Praetorian Guard was happy and that the people of Rome were happy. As long
as they had the throne, what happened in the empire was secondary. Fear of losing the throne overrode
fear of losing the empire. If there was not assassins around the corner, the emperors had a habit of
seeing them anyway.
The End: If Life is Wine, Why is everybody dead?
In the end, I am amazed it lasted so long. There are millions of tiny things I could add. There were
Emperors who were totally insane and feared any man who showed the least amount of skill or
intelligence in either running an army or running the government. There were Generals who marched
on Rome with their legions, leaving the frontier to defend itself. The Games bled the empire as
thousands died and free grain was given to the poor people of Rome to keep them happy. Slaves
worked the empire's farms and factories and mines. I guess what we should really ask is; Why did it NOT
fall earlier?
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Medieval Town: Customs of the Town of Chester, England
(1085)
Source
One of the great sources of the social history of medieval England is the so-called, “Domesday Book,”
a compendium of information about the Isles commissioned by William the Conqueror in the year
1085. This excerpt describes many of the social customs of this small English town.
II. The Medieval Town
If any free man of the king broke the peace which had been granted, and killed a man in his house, all
his land and money came to the king, and he himself became an outlaw.
He who shed blood between the Monday morning and the ninth hour of Saturday compounded for it
with ten shillings. From the ninth hour of Saturday to Monday morning bloodshed was compounded for
with twenty shillings. Similarly any one paid twenty shillings who shed blood in the twelve days after
Christmas, on the day of the Purification of the Blessed Mary, on the first day after Easter, the first
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day of Pentecost, Ascension day, on the Assumption or Nativity of the Blessed Mary, and on the day of
All Saints.
He who killed a man on these holy days compounded for it with four pounds; but on other days, with
forty shillings. Similarly who committed burglary or assault on those feast days or on Sunday, four
pounds; on other days, forty shillings.
Any one setting prisoners free in the city gave ten shillings. But if the reeve of the king or of the earl
committed this offense, he compounded for it with twenty shillings.
He who committed theft or robbery, or exercised violence upon a woman in a house, compounded for
each of these with forty shillings.
He who in the city seized upon the land of another and was not able to prove it to be his was fined
forty shillings. Similarly also he who made claim upon it, if he was not able to prove it to be his.
He who did not pay the tax at the period at which he owed it compounded for it with ten shillings.
If fire burned the city, he from whose house it started compounded for it with three oras of pennies,
and gave to his next neighbor two shillings. Of all these forfeitures, two parts belonged to the king and
the third to the earl.
A man or a woman making false measure in the city, and being arrested, compounded for it with four
shillings. Similarly a person making bad ale was either placed in the ducking stool or gave four
shillings to the reeve. This forfeiture the officer of the king or of the earl received in the city, in
whosesoever land it has been done, either of the bishop or of another man. Similarly also, if any one
held the toll back beyond three nights, he compounded for it with forty shillings.
In the time of King Edward there were in this city seven moneyers, who gave seven pounds to the
king and the earl, besides the ferm, when the money was turned over.
This city paid at that time of ferm forty-five pounds and three bundles of martens’ skins. The third
part belonged to the earl, and two to the king.
When Earl Hugh received it, it was worth only thirty pounds, for it was much wasted. There were 205
fewer houses there than there had been in the time of King Edward. Now there are just as many there
as he found.
A DESCRIPTION OF THE BUBONIC PLAGUE
From Barbara Tuchman's work
A Distant Mirror
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The Bubonic Plague which struck Europe in the 14th through 16th centurys nearly brought life to
a virtual standstill. The following excerpt from Barbara Tuchman's work describes the plague as
powerfully as anyone.
In October 1347, two months after the fall of Calais, Genoese trading ships put into the harbor of
Messina in Sicily with dead and dying men at the oars. The ships had come from the Black Sea
port of Caffa (now Feodosiya) in the Crimea, where the Genoese maintained a trading post. The
diseased sailors showed strange black swellings about the size of an egg or an apple in the
armpits and groin. The swellings oozed blood and pus and were followed by spreading boils and
black blotches on the skin from internal bleeding. The sick suffered severe pain and died quickly
within five days of the first symptoms. As the disease spread, other symptoms of continuous
fever and spitting of blood appeared instead of the swellings or buboes. These victims coughed
and sweated heavily and died even more quickly, within three days or less, sometimes in 24
hours. In both types everything that issued from the body- breath, sweat, blood from the buboes
and lungs, bloody urine, and blood-blackened excrement- smelled foul. Depression and despair
accompanied the physical symptoms, and before the end "death is seen seated on the face."
The disease was bubonic plague, present in two forms: one that infected the bloodstream,
causing the buboes and internal bleeding, and was spread by contact; and a second, more virulent
pneumonic type that infected the lungs and was spread by respiratory infection. The presence of
both at once caused the high mortality and speed of contagion. So lethal was the disease that
cases were known of persons going to bed well and dying before they woke, of doctors catching
the illness at a bedside and dying before the patient. So rapidly did it spread from one to another
that to a French physician, Simon de Covino, it seemed as if one sick person "could infect the
whole world." The malignity of the pestilence appeared more terrible because its victims knew
no prevention and no remedy.
Rumors of a terrible plague supposedly arising in China and spreading through Tartary (Central
Asia) to India and Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, and all of Asia Minor had reached Europe
in 1346. They told of a death toll so devastating that all of India was said to be depopulated,
whole territories covered by dead bodies, other areas with no one left alive. As added up by Pope
Clement VI at Avignon, the total of reported dead reached 23,840,000. In the absence of a
concept of contagion, no serious alarm was felt in Europe until the trading ships brought their
black burden of pestilence into Messina while other infected ships from the Levant carried it to
Genoa and Venice.
By January 1348 it penetrated France via Marseille, and North Africa via Tunis. Shipborne along
coasts and navigable rivers, it spread westward from Marseille through the ports of Languedoc to
Spain and northward up the Rhone to Avignon, where it arrived in March. It reached Narbonne,
Montpellier, Carcassonne, and Toulouse between February and May, and at the same time in
Italy spread to Rome and Florence and their hinterlands. Between June and August it reached
Bordeaux, Lyon, and Paris, spread to Burgundy and Normandy, and crossed the Channel from
Normandy into southern England. From Italy during the same summer it crossed the Alps into
Switzerland and reached eastward to Hungary. In a given area the plague accomplished its kill
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within four to six months and then faded, except in the larger cities, where, rooting into the
close-quartered population, it abated during the winter, only to reappear in spring and rage for
another six months.
In 1349 it resumed in Paris, spread to Picardy, Flanders, and the Low Countries, and from
England to Scotland and Ireland as well as to Norway, where a ghost ship with a cargo of wool
and a dead crew drifted offshore until it ran aground near Bergen. From there the plague passed
into Sweden Denmark, Prussia, Iceland, and as far as Greenland. Leaving a strange pocket of
immunity in Bohemia, and Russia unattacked until 1351, it had passed from most of Europe by
mid-1350.Although the mortality rate was erratic, ranging from one fifth in some places to nine
tenths or almost total elimination in others, the overall estimate of modern demographers has
settled- for the area extending from India to Iceland-around the same figure expressed in
Froissart's casual words: "a third of the world died." His estimate, the common one at the time,
was not an inspired guess but a borrowing of St. John's figure for mortality from plague in
Revelation, the favorite guide to human affairs of the Middle Ages.
A third of Europe would have meant about 20 million deaths. No one knows in truth how many
died. Contemporary reports were an awed impression, not an accurate count. In crowded
Avignon, it was said, 400 died daily; 7,000 houses emptied by death were shut up; a single
graveyard received 11,000 corpses in six weeks; half the city's inhabitants reportedly died,
including 9 cardinals or one third of the total, and 70 lesser prelates. Watching the endlessly
passing death carts, chroniclers let normal exaggeration take wings and put the Avignon death
toll at 62,000 and even at 120,000, although the city's total population was probably less than
50,000.
When graveyards filled up, bodies at Avignon were thrown into the Rhone until mass burial pits
were dug for dumping the corpses. In London in such pits corpses piled up in layers until they
overflowed. Everywhere reports speak of the sick dying too fast for the living to bury. Corpses
were dragged out of homes and left in front of doorways. Morning light revealed new piles of
bodies. In Florence the dead were gathered up by the Compagnia della Misericordia - founded in
1244 to care for the sick - whose members wore red robes and hoods masking the face except for
the eyes. When their efforts failed, the dead lay putrid in the streets for days at a time. When no
coffins were to be had, the bodies were laid on boards, two or three at once, to be carried to
graveyards or common pits. Families dumped their own relatives into the pits, or buried them so
hastily and thinly "that dogs dragged them forth and devoured their bodies."
Amid accumulating death and fear of contagion, people died without last rites and were buried
without prayers, a prospect that terrified the last hours of the stricken. A bishop in England gave
permission to laymen to make confession to each other as was done by the Apostles, "or if no
man is present then even to a woman," and if no priest could be found to administer extreme
unction, "then faith must suffice." Clement VII found it necessary to grant remissions of sin to all
who died of the plague because so many were unattended by priests. "And no bells tolled," wrote
a chronicler of Siena. "and nobody wept no matter what his loss because almost everyone
expected death.... And people said and believed, 'This is the end of the world.' "
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In Paris, where the plague lasted through 1349, the reported death rate was 800 a day, in Pisa
500, in Vienna 500 to 600. The total dead in Paris numbered 50,000 or half the population.
Florence, weakened by the famine of 1347, lost three to four fifths of its citizens, Venice two
thirds, Hamburg and Bremen, though smaller in size, about the same proportion. Cities, as
centers of transportation, w ere more likely to be affected than villages, although once a village
was infected, its death rate was equally high. At Givry, a prosperous village in Burgundy of
1,200 to l,500 people, the parish register records 615 deaths in the space of fourteen weeks,
compared to an average of thirty deaths a year in the previous decade. In three villages of
Cambridgeshire, manorial records show a death rate of 47 percent, 57 percent, and in one case 70
percent. When the last survivors, too few to carry on, moved away, a deserted village sank back
into the wilderness and disappeared from the map altogether, leaving only a grass-covered
ghostly outline to show where mortals once had lived.
In enclosed places such as monasteries and prisons, the infection of one person usually meant
that of all, as happened in the Franciscan convents of Carcassonne and Marseille, where every
inmate without exception died. Of the 140 Dominicans at Montpellier only seven survived.
Petrarch's brother Gherardo, member of a Carthusian monastery, buried the prior and 34 fellow
monks one by one, sometimes three a day, until he was left alone with his dog and fled to look
for a place that would take him in. Watching every comrade die, men in such places could not
but wonder whether the strange peril that filled the air had not been sent to exterminate the
human race. In Kilkenny, Ireland, Brother John Clyn of the Friars Minor, another monk left
alone among dead men, kept a record of what had happened lest "things which should be
remembered perish with time and vanish from the memory of those who come after us." Sensing
"the whole world, as it were, placed within the grasp of the Evil One," and waiting for death to
visit him too, he wrote, "I leave parchment to continue this work, if perchance any man survive
and any of the race of Adam escape this pestilence and carry on the work which I have begun."
Brother John, as noted by another hand, died of the pestilence, but he foiled oblivion.
20
The Contract of a Plague Doctor
The following agreement was entered into by the parties of Master Giovanni de Ventura and the
community of Pavia (Lombardy, Italy) on May 6, 1479.
Conditions agreed upon between the magnificent Community of Pavia and the doctor of
medicine, Giovanni de Ventura in order to treat the patients suffering from the plague.
CLAUSE 1
The community of Pavia and its council shall provide the sum of 30
florins per month to Master Giovani de Ventura.
CLAUSE 2
Payment of said funds shall be made two months in advance. (there
21
is a note which amended this to one month in advance).
CLAUSE 3
This clause stipulated that the community must make adequate
security pledges to guarantee payment of salary.
CLAUSE 4
The community of Pavia and its council shall provide Dr. Ventura with
"an adequate house in an adequate location, completely furnished."
CLAUSE 5
The community of Pavia and its council shall continue to pay Master
Giovanni Ventura for a period of two months after the termination of
his employment.
CLAUSE 6
The said Master Giovanni shall not be bound or held under obligation
except only in attending the plague patients. [It later was added that]
Giovani must treat all patients and visit infected places as it shall be
found to be necessary."
CLAUSE 7
The community of Pavia and its council shall grant citizenship to
Giovanni Ventura [It later was added ] according to how he shall
behave himself.
CLAUSE 8
In the event -- may God forbid it -- that the said Master Giovanni
should die in the exercise of these duties, that the heirs shall not be
required to make restitution of any part of his salary that might
remain unearned.
CLAUSE 9
The said Master Giovanni shall not be able to ask a fee from anyone,
unless the plague victim himself or his relatives shall freely offer it.
CLAUSE 10
Whenever and however it shall come about -- God forbid that it
should -- that because of a plague of this kind the city may be brought
so low that Master Giovanni cannot have his wage nor the things
necessary to his existence, that then and in that case Master Giovanni
may be released from his obligation without any penalty."
CLAUSE 11
The community of Pavia and its council is under obligation to maintain
a barber who should be al least adequate and capable..."
CLAUSE 12
The community of Pavia and its council has and is under the
obligation to provide said Master Giovanni with all and everything
which is necessary for his life, paying and exbursing the money
22
therefore..."
CLAUSE 13
Should the community of Pavia and its council not observe the
previously agreed conditions, either partially or totally, then and in
that case it would be possible to said Master Giovanni to be totally
free from any engagement notwithstanding the previous clauses or
others to be made. [It later was added] the doctor shall notify the
community at least ten days in advance so that the Community would
be on the condition to provide (for a substitute).
CLAUSE 14
Said Master Giovanni would have and should be obliged to do his
best and visit the plague patients twice or three times or more times
per day, as it will be found necessary."
CLAUSE 15
In the case--may God forbid it-- that the said Master Giovanni would
fall ill, and could not perform his office, that then and in such case he
should receive a salary only for the time of his service.
CLAUSE 16
Master Giovanni should not be allowed to move around the city in
order to treat patients unless accompanied by a man especially
designated by the Community.
23
Machiavelli personality test
To what extent does each of the following statements accurately describe you? Please indicate
the degree to which you personally agree or disagree with each of the following statements by
choosing a number from the scale below that reflects your opinion.
1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=neutral, 4=agree, 5=strongly agree
1) Never tell anyone the real reason you did something unless it is useful to do so.
2) The best way to handle people is to tell them what they want to hear.
3) One should take action regardless if it morally right.
4) Most people are basically not good and kind.
5) It is safest to assume that all people have a vicious streak and it will come out when they are
given a chance.
6) Honesty is not always the best policy in all cases.
7) There is always an excuse for lying to someone else.
8) Generally speaking, people won't work hard unless they're forced to do so.
9) All in all, it is not better to be humble and honest than to be important and dishonest.
10) When you ask someone to do something for you, it is not in your best interest to give the real
reasons for wanting it rather than giving reasons which carry more weight.
11) Most people who get left behind in the world lead clean, moral lives.
24
12) Anyone who completely trusts anyone else is asking for trouble.
13) The biggest difference between most criminals and other people is that the criminals are
stupid enough to get caught.
14) Most people are not brave.
15) It is wise to flatter important people.
16) It is impossible to be good in all respects.
17) P.T. Barnum was right when he said that there's a sucker born every minute.
18) It is hard to get ahead without cutting corners here and there.
19) People suffering from incurable diseases should have the choice of being put painlessly to
death.
20) Most people forget more easily the death of their parents than the loss of their property.
25
Dante’s Divine Comedy
(1321)
Dante
Source
Dante Alighieri’s long narrative poem, The Divine Comedy, describes the author’s imaginary journeys
through hell (Inferno), purgatory (Purgatorio), and heaven (Paradiso). It is considered to be one of
the great works of Western literature and it assured its author of celebrity status in Renaissance Italy.
Here is a brief excerpt from the Paradiso.
II. Humanism
We were still a little distant from it, yet not so far that I could not partially discern that honorable folk
possessed that place. “O thou that honorest both science and art, these, who are they, that have such
honor that from the condition of the others it sets them apart?” and he to me, “The honorable fame of
them which resounds above in thy life wins grace in heaven that so advances them.” At this a voice
was heard by me, “Honor the loftiest Poet! His shade returns that was departed.” When the voice had
ceased and was quiet, I saw four great shades coming to us: they had a semblance neither sad nor
glad. The good Master [Virgil] began to say, “Look at him with that sword in hand who cometh before
the three, even as lord. He is Homer, the sovereign poet; the next who comes is Horace, the satirist;
Ovid is the third, and the last is Lucan. Since each shares with me the name that the solitary voice
sounded, they dome honor, and in that do well.”
Thus I saw assembled the fair school of that Lord of the loftiest song which above the others as an
eagle flies. After they had discoursed somewhat together, they turned to me with sign of salutation;
and my Master smiled thereat. And fat more of honor yet they did me, for they made me of their
band, so that I was the sixth amid so much wit. Thus we went on as far as the light, speaking things
concerning which silence is becoming, even as was speech there where I was.
We came to the foot of a noble castle, seven times circled by high walls, defended roundabout by a
fair streamlet. This we passed as if hard ground; through seven gates I entered with these sages; we
came to a meadow of fresh verdure. People were there with eyes slow and grave, of great authority in
their looks; they spake seldom and with soft voices. Thus we drew apart, on one side, into a place
open, luminous, and high, so that they all could be seen. There opposite upon the green enamel were
shown to me the great spirits, whom to have seen I inwardly exalt myself.
I saw Electra with many companions, among whom I knew Hector and Æneas, Cæsar in armor, with
his gerfalcon eyes; I saw Camilla and Pentheliea on the other side, and I saw the King Latinus, who
was seated with Lavinia, his daughter. I saw that Brutus who drove out Tarquin; Lucretia, Julia,
26
Marcia, and Cornelia; and alone, apart, I saw the Saladin. When I raised my brow a little more, I saw
the Master of those who know, seated amid the philosophic family; all regard him, all do him honor.
Here I saw both Socrates and Plato, who before the others stand nearest to him; Democritus, who
ascribes the world to chance; Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales, Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Zeno;
and I saw the good collector of the qualities, Dioscorides, I mean; and I saw Orpheus, Tully, and
Linus, and moral Seneca, Euclid the geometer, and Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Avicenna, Galen, and
Averroës, who made the great comment. I cannot report of all in full, because the long theme so
drives me that many times speech comes short of fact.
Medieval Sourcebook:
Niccolo Machiavelli: The Prince [excerpts],
1513
Niccolo Machiavelli, a diplomat in the pay of the Republic of Florence, wrote The Prince in 1513 after the overthrow
of the Republic forced him into exile. It is widely regarded as one of the basic texts of Western political science, and
represents a basic change in the attitude and image of government.
That Which Concerns a Prince on the Subject of the Art of War
The Prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and
discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules, and it is of such force that it not only upholds those
who are born princes, but it often enables men to rise from a private station to that rank. And, on the contrary, it is
seen that when princes have thought more of ease than of arms they have lost their states. And the first cause of
your losing it is to neglect this art; and what enables you to acquire a state is to be master of the art. Francesco
Sforza, though being martial, from a private person became Duke of Milan; and the sons, through avoiding the
hardships and troubles of arms, from dukes became private persons. For among other evils which being unarmed
brings you, it causes you to be despised, and this is one of those ignominies against which a prince ought to guard
himself, as is shown later on.
Concerning Things for Which Men, and Especially Princes, are Blamed
It remains now to see what ought to be the rules of conduct for a prince toward subject and friends. And as I know
that many have written on this point, I expect I shall be considered presumptuous in mentioning it again, especially
as in discussing it I shall depart from the methods of other people. But it being my intention to write a thing which
shall be useful to him to apprehends it, it appears to me more appropriate to follow up the real truth of a matter than
the imagination of it; for many have pictured republics and principalities which in fact have never been known or
seen, because how one lives is so far distant from how one ought to live, that he who neglects what is done for what
ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation; for a man who wishes to act entirely up to his
professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.
27
Hence, it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not
according to necessity. Therefore, putting on one side imaginary things concerning a prince, and discussing those
which are real, I say that all men when they are spoken of, and chiefly princes for being more highly placed, are
remarkable for some of those qualities which bring them either blame or praise; and thus it is that one is reputed
liberal, another miserly...; one is reputed generous, one rapacious; one cruel, one compassionate; one faithless,
another faithful.... And I know that every one will confess that it would be most praiseworthy in a prince to exhibit all
the above qualities that are considered good; but because they can neither be entirely possessed nor observed, for
human conditions do not permit it, it is necessary for him to be sufficiently prident that he may know how to avoid
the reproach of those vices which would lose him his state...
Concerning Cruelty and Clemency, and Whether it is Better to be Loved than Feared
Upon this a question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered
that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared
than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that
they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you successed they are yours entirely; they will
offer you their blood, property, life, and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it
approaches they turn against you. And that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other
precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by nobility or greatness of mind,
may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon; and men have less
scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which,
owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserved you by a dread
of punishment which never fails.
Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he
can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the
property of his citizens and subjects and from their women.
From: Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, ed. W. K. Marriott. London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1908, pp. 117-118, 129-131.
28
Lucrezia Borgia
Summary
The women of the Renaissance, like women of the Middle Ages, were denied all political
rights and considered legally subject to their husbands. Women of all classes were expected to
perform, first and foremost, the duties of housewife. Peasant women worked in the field
alongside their husbands and ran the home. The wives of middle class shop owners and
merchants often helped run their husbands' businesses as well. Even women of the highest class,
though attended by servants, most often engaged in the tasks of the household, sewing, cooking,
and entertaining, among others. Women who did not marry were not permitted to live
independently. Instead, they lived in the households of their male relatives or, more often, joined
a convent.
A few wealthy women of the time were able to break the mold of subjugation to achieve
at the least fame, if not independence. Lucrezia Borgia, the daughter of Pope Alexander VI, was
one such woman. As pope, Alexander VI attempted to use Lucrezia as a pawn in his game of
political power. To further his political ambitions he arranged her marriage to Giovanni Sforza of
Milan when she was thirteen, in 1493. Four years later, when he no longer needed Milan's
political support to as great a degree, he annulled the marriage after spreading false charges of
Sforza's impotence. Alexander VI then married Lucrezia to the illegitimate son of the King of
Naples. The Borgia legend stipulates that Cesare Borgia, Lucrezia's older brother, murdered
Lucrezia's son produced by this marriage. In 1502, at the age of 22, Lucrezia was again divorced
and remarried, this time to the duke of Ferrara, Alfonso d'Este. She remained in Ferrara until her
death in 1519, where she became a devoted wife and mother, an influence in Ferrara politics and
social life, and a noted patron of the arts.
29
Lucrezia's sister-in-law, Isabella d'Este, was perhaps the strongest, most intelligent
woman of the Renaissance period. She mastered Greek and Latin and memorized the works of
the ancient scholars. She frequently gave public performances, in which she demonstrated her
skill at singing, dancing, and playing musical instruments. In 1490 she was married to Francesco
Gonzaga, the duke of Mantua, and the pair shared a happy and loving relationship. Isabella
exerted a great amount of influence over the Mantua court, and it was due in great part to her
presence that Mantua became known as a major center of wit, elegance, and artistic genius. After
her husband, the duke, was captured in battle, she ruled Mantua herself. She also influenced the
economic development of the region, encouraging the development of the textile and clothing
industry that became the cornerstone of the Mantua economy. As a patron of the arts, Isabella
collected many paintings, sculpturres, manuscripts, and musical instruments, and encouraged
Mantuans to support the arts.
Commentary
The theme of the life of a Renaissance woman was subjugation. A woman was controlled
by her parents throughout her childhood, and then handed directly into the hands of a husband,
whom she most likely had not chosen herself, and who would exercise control over her until her
death or his. Women who did not marry for whatever reason were likewise granted no
independence of thought and action, living under subjugation in the home of a male relative or in
a convent, where a woman could become a nun, the only career accessible to the gender. Women
were frequently discouraged from participating in the arts and sciences, and thus the world will
never know the full literary and artistic potential of an age in which the spirit of expression was
perhaps the defining characteristic.
Only women of the highest class were given the chance to distinguish themselves, and
this only rarely. For the most part, the wives of powerful men were relegated to the tasks of
sewing, cooking, and entertaining. In history, women provide no more than a backdrop to the
political and social story of the Renaissance. For example, one can find very little written about
the women of the Medici line, though there must have been women if the line were to continue.
Thus, one concludes that even access to the most powerful men in the world did not necessarily
allow a woman to distinguish and express herself.
The case of Lucrezia Borgia is interesting in that it seemed to her contemporaries that she
was one of the most liberated and empowered women in all of Italy. Certainly, her mobility,
from place to place and husband to husband, was more than any Renaissance woman could hope
for. The details of her marriages garnered for her the common perception as both a powerful and
devious woman. However, upon historical review, it becomes quite clear that Lucrezia was not
in control of her life so much as she was a pawn in Alexander VI's master plan for the success
and wealth of the Borgia family. It is most likely that she resisted the pattern of marriage and
annulment which her father forced upon her during her early life, despite the advantages of
30
mobility and influence it bestowed upon her. In fact, history shows that Lucrezia only truly
exercised power after she had entered into a happy marriage with Alfonso d'Este, who allowed
her to participate to a great extent in the politics and society of Ferarra. Thus Lucrezia Borgia's
life may be looked on as demonstrative of the situation of women in the Renaissance, in that
even the illusion of power which surrounded her inhere early years was created by a man, her
father, who controlled her life, and the small measure of actual power which she was eventually
granted grew out of her traditional position as a devoted wife and mother.
Isabella d'Este differed from Lucrezia Borgia in that she broke down the barriers to power
and influence by virtue of her own independent spirit, strength, and talent. One is led to believe
by accounts of her character that she needed the approval of no man to live in the style that she
chose. Isabella was remarkable in that she was one of few women who expressed themselves in
the arts to any extent, and, even more so, in that she in effect became the first female head of an
Italian city state after her husband was captured in war. Isabella gladly assumed the role of
devoted wife, but did not allow that role to restrict the realm in which she held influence, proving
herself capable in many fields. Isabella stands out as one of the only strong female
representatives of the spirit of humanism.
Vasari On Leonardo Da Vinci
(1550)
Vasari
Giorgio Vasari. 1904. “Lives of the Renaissance Painters.” Readings in European History,
Volume One. Edited by James Harvey Robinson. Boston: Ginn and Company.
This description of Leonardo barely does justice to its brilliant subject. Da Vinci gave meaning to the
phrase “Renaissance Man.” He was an artist, a scientist, an inventor par excellence. This short piece
was written by Vasari, a contemporary of Leonardo, and a keen observer of Renaissance Rome. It is
believed that Vasari actually coined the term “renaissance.”
[Of Leonardo da Vinci:]
The richest gifts are occasionally seen to be showered, as by celestial influence, upon certain human
beings; nay, they sometimes supernaturally and marvelously congregate in a single person,—beauty,
grace, and talent being united in such a manner that to whatever the man thus favored may turn
himself, his every action is so divine as to leave all other men far behind him. This would seem
manifestly to prove that he has been specially endowed by the hand of God himself, and has not
obtained his preeminence through human teaching or the powers of man.
31
This was perceived and acknowledged by all men in the case of Leonardo da Vinci, in whom (to say
nothing of his beauty of person, which yet was such that it has never been sufficiently extolled) there
was a grace beyond expression, which was manifest without thought or effort in every act and deed,
and who had besides so rare a gift of talent and ability that to whatever subject he turned his
attention, no matter how difficult, he presently made himself absolute master of it.
In him extraordinary power was combined with remarkable facility, a mind of regal boldness and
magnanimous daring. His gifts were such that the celebrity of his name was spread abroad, and he
was held in the highest estimation not only in his own time but also, and even to a greater degree,
after his death,—nay, he has continued, and will continue, to be held in the highest esteem by all
succeeding generations.
Truly remarkable, indeed, and divinely endowed was Leonardo da Vinci. He was the son of Ser Piero
da Vinci. He would without doubt have made great progress in learning and knowledge of the sciences
had he not been so versatile and changeful. The instability of his character led him to undertake many
things which having commenced he afterwards abandoned. In arithmetic, for example, he made such
rapid progress in the short time that he gave his attention to it, that he often confounded the master
who was teaching him by the perpetual doubts that he started and by the difficult questions that he
proposed.
He also commenced the study of music, and resolved to acquire the art of playing the lute, when,
being by nature of an exalted imagination and full of the most graceful vivacity, he sang to the
instrument most divinely, improvising at once both the verse and the music.
[Verocchio, an esteemed artist of the period, upon seeing some of the drawings which Leonardo had
made, gladly agreed to take him into his shop.] Thither the boy resorted with the utmost readiness,
and not only gave his attention to one branch of art but to all those of which design makes a portion.
Endowed with such admirable intelligence and being also an excellent geometrician, Leonardo not only
worked in sculpture but in architecture; likewise he prepared various designs for ground plans and the
construction of entire buildings. He too it was who, while only a youth, first suggested the formation of
a canal from Pisa to Florence by means of certain changes to be effected in the river Arno. Leonardo
likewise made designs for mills, fulling machines, and other engines which were run by water. But as
he had resolved to make painting his profession, he gave the greater part of his time to drawing from
nature.
[Vasari wrote the following about the artist Raphael:]
When this noble artist died, well might Painting have departed also, for when he closed his eyes she
too was left, as it were, blind. . . . To him of a truth it is that we owe the possession of invention,
coloring, and execution, brought alike and together to that perfection for which few could have dared
to hope; nor has any man ever aspired to surpass him.
And in addition to the benefits which this great master conferred on art, being as he was its best
friend, we have the further obligation to him of having taught us by his life in what manner we should
comport ourselves toward great men, as well as toward those of lesser degree, and even toward the
lowest; nay, there was among his many extraordinary gifts one of such value and importance that I
can never sufficiently admire it and always think thereof with astonishment.
This was the power accorded to him by heaven, of bringing all who approached his presence into
harmony, an effect inconceivably surprising in our calling, and contrary to the nature of our artists.
Yet all, I do not say of the inferior grades only, but even those who lay claim to be great personages
(and of this humor our art produces immense numbers) became as of one mind, once they began to
labor in the society of Raphael, continuing in such unity and concord that all harsh feelings and evil
dispositions became subdued and disappeared at the sight of him; every vile and base thought
departing from the mind before his influence.
32
Such harmony prevailed at no other time than his own. And this happened because all were surpassed
by him in friendly courtesy as well as in art; all confessed the influence of his sweet and gracious
nature, which was so replete with excellence and so perfect in all the charities, that not only was he
honored by men but even by the very animals, who would constantly follow his steps and always
loved him.
[Michaelangelo and Church officials, including Pope Julius II, did not always have the best
relationship.]
The statue was finished in the clay model before Pope Julius left Bologna for Rome, and his Holiness
went to see it, but, the right hand being raised in an attitude of much dignity, and the pontiff not
knowing what was to be placed in the left, inquired whether he were anathematizing the people or
giving them his benediction; Michael Angelo replied that he was admonishing the Bolognese to behave
themselves discreetly, and asked his Holiness to decide whether it were not well to put a book in the
left hand. “Put a sword into it,” replied Pope Julius, “for of letters I know but little.” The pontiff left a
thousand crowns in the bank of Messer Antonmaria da Lignano for the purpose of completing the
figure, and after Michael Angelo had labored at it for sixteen months it was placed over the door of
San Petronio.
The work was eventually destroyed by the Bentivogli, and the bronze was sold to the Duke Alfonzo of
Ferrara, who made a piece of artillery, called the Julia, of the fragments; the head only was preserved,
and this is now in the Duke’s Guardaroba.
[The pope was very anxious to see the decoration of the Sistine Chapel completed, and constantly
inquired when it would be finished.] On one occasion, therefore, Michael Angelo replied, “It will be
finished when I shall have done all that I believe is required to satisfy Art.” “And we command,”
rejoined the pontiff, “that you satisfy our wish to have it done quickly,” adding that if it were not at
once completed he would have Michael Angelo thrown headlong from the scaffolding. Hearing this, our
artist, who feared the fury of the pope, and with good cause, without taking time to add what was
wanting, took down the remainder of the scaffolding, to the great satisfaction of the whole city, on All
Saints’ day, when Pope Julius went into that chapel to sing mass. But Michael Angelo had much
desired to retouch some portions of the work a secco, as had been done by the older masters who had
painted the stories on the walls. He would also have gladly added a little ultramarine to the draperies
and glided other parts, to the end that the whole might have a richer and more striking effect.
The pope, too, hearing that these things were still wanting and finding that all who beheld the chapel
praised it highly, would now fain have had the additions made; but as Michael Angelo thought
reconstructing the scaffold too long an affair, the pictures remained as they were, although the pope,
who often saw Michael Angelo, would sometimes say, “Let the chapel be enriched with bright colors
and gold; it looks poor.” When Michael Angelo would reply familiarly, “Holy Father, the men of those
days did not adorn themselves with gold; those who are painted here less than any, for they were
none too rich; besides which they were holy men, and must have despised riches and ornaments.”
[In 1546, San Gallo, who was in charge of the building operations at St. Peter’s in Rome, having died,
Pope Paul III asked Michael Angelo to undertake the office.] The master at first replied that he would
not, architecture not being his vocation; but when entreaties were found useless, the pope
commanded him to accept the trust, and to his infinite regret he was compelled to obey. He did not
approve of San Gallo’s plan. He would often publicly declare that San Gallo had left the building
without lights, and had heaped too many ranges of columns one above the other on the outside;
33
adding that, with its innumerable projections, pinnacles, and divisions of members, it was more like a
work of the Teutons than of the good antique manner, or of the cheerful and beautiful modern style.
He furthermore affirmed that fifty years of time, with more than three hundred thousand crowns in
the cost, might very well he spared, while the work might be completed with increased majesty,
grandeur, and lightness, to say nothing of better design, greater beauty, and superior convenience.
He made a model also, to prove the truth of his words, and this was of the form wherein we now see
the work to have been carried on; it cost twenty-five crowns and was finished in a fortnight, that of
San Gallo having exceeded four thousand and having occupied several years in making. From this and
other circumstances, it was indeed easy to see that the church had become an object of traffic and a
means of gain rather than a building to be completed, being considered by those who undertook the
work as a kind of bargain to be turned to the best account.
Such a state of things could not fail to displease so upright a man a Michael Angelo, and as the pope
had made him superintendent against his will, he determined to be rid of them all. He therefore one
day told them openly that he knew well that they had done and were doing all they could by means of
their friends to prevent him from entering on this office, but that if he were to undertake the charge
he would not suffer one of them to remain about the building.
Michael Angelo worked for his amusement almost every day at a group for four figures, but he broke
up the block at last, either because it was found to have numerous veins, was excessively hard, and
often caused the chisel to strike fire, or because the judgment of the artist was so severe that he
could never content himself with anything that he ever did. There is proof of this in the fact that few of
his works undertaken in his manhood were ever entirely completed, those entirely finished being the
productions of his youth. . . . Michael Angelo himself would often remark that if he were really
permitted to satisfy himself in the works to be produced, he should give little or nothing to public
view.
And the reason for this is obvious. He had advanced to such an extent of knowledge in art that the
very slightest error could not exist in any figure without his immediate discovery thereof; but having
found such after the work had been given to view, he would never attempt to correct it, and would
commence some other production, believing that a like failure would not happen again. This then was,
as he often declared, the reason why the number of pictures and statues finished by his hand was so
small. . . .
His powers of imagination were such that he was frequently compelled to abandon his purpose
because he could not express by the hand those grand and sublime ideas which he had conceived in
his mind, – nay, he has spoiled and destroyed many works for this cause. I know, for example, that a
short time before his death he burned a large number of his designs, sketches, and cartoons, that
none might see the labors he had gone through and the trials to which he had subjected his spirit in
his resolve not to fall short of perfection. I have myself secured some drawings by his hand which
were found in Florence and which are now in my book of designs; and these, although they give
evidence of his great genius, yet prove also that the hammer of Vulcan was necessary to bring
Minerva from the head of Jupiter.
34
Primary Source Analysis 95 Theses Excerpts
The following are selected theses points from Luther’s 95 Theses:
33. Men must be on their guard against those who say that the pope's pardons are that
inestimable gift of God by which man is reconciled to Him;
36. Every truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without
letters of pardon.
43. Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does a better
work than buying pardons;
47. Christians are to be taught that the buying of pardons is a matter of free will, and not of
commandment.
62. The true treasure of the Church is the Most Holy Gospel of the glory and the grace of God.
66. The treasures of the indulgences are nets with which they now fish for the riches of men.
67. The indulgences which the preachers cry as the "greatest graces" are known to be truly such,
in so far as they promote gain.
75. To think the papal pardons so great that they could absolve a man even if he had committed
an impossible sin and violated the Mother of God -- this is madness.
76. We say, on the contrary, that the papal pardons are not able to remove the very least of venial
sins, so far as its guilt is concerned.
Document Discussion Questions –
1. What does Luther say is the true treasure of the church?
2. What does Luther say about buying pardons (indulgences)?
3. Judging from all of these, what is Luther’s opinion on the position of the pope?
4. Rather than buying pardons, people should spend their money on what?
5. Does Luther believe a Christian has to have a pardon to be forgiven? What
DOES a Christian need?
6. What can papal pardons do (or not do) according to Martin Luther?
7. After reading these do you feel whether the pope had just cause to excommunicate Luther form
the church?
8. What does Luther’s motivation seem to be after reading excerpts from his controversial text?
35
THE CALVINISTIC "TULIP"
TULIP is the acronym for the basic ideas of classical Calvinism.
T -- total depravity. This doesn't mean people are as bad as they can be. It means that sin is in
every part of one's being, including the mind and will, so that a man cannot save himself.
U -- unconditional election. God chooses to save people unconditionally; that is, they are not
chosen on the basis of their own merit.
L -- limited atonement. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross was for the purpose of saving the
elect.
I -- irresistible grace. When God has chosen to save someone, He will.
P -- perseverence of the saints. Those people God chooses cannot lose their salvation; they will
continue to believe. If they fall away, it will be only for a time.
An Explanation of the TULIP
The aforementioned "TULIP" was fashioned at the Synod of Dordt (Dordrecht) in the early
1600s only in REACTION to five assertions of the Arminians (the "Remonstrants" or Dutch
"semi-Pelagian" protesters). As a result, these five points aren't the clearest, most coherent, or
most comprehensive presentation of the Calvinistic doctrine of salvation. By the way, Luther,
Cranmer, Zwingli, Bullinger, Bucer, et al., were all strict predestinarians and fully Augustinian
in their view of grace, etc., but the AP test seems to associate predestination only with Calvin
and Zwingli).
Nonetheless, once one understands the essence of the Calvinistic order of salvation (ordo
salutis), then TULIP makes sense. According to both English and American Puritans and
Continental Calvinists, SALVATION is conditional, whereas ELECTION is unconditional (U =
UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION). This distinction is vital to understanding TULIP: ELECTION
is God's eternal decree, outside of time, of who will have faith in Christ and thereby become a
36
member of His body and thus be spotless and righteous and obtain eternal life; in contrast,
SALVATION is God's historical outworking of this decree in time. Thus, according to
Calvinism, there is an entire chain of necessary and sufficient CONDITIONS one must meet in
order to be "saved" or obtain "SALVATION": if and only if one believes will one be joined to
Christ's body and participate in His blood and His fulfillment of the law; if and only if one is thus
joined to Christ will one be justified or declared legally righteous; if and only if one is thus
justified will one be adopted and volitionally sanctified and persevere in Christ; if and only if one
thus perseveres will one be physically glorified and receive a transformed resurrected body and
spend eternity with Christ.
HOWEVER, according to Calvinism, while one can thus ask "What must I do to be SAVED"
(Acts 16:30), it is nonsense to ask "What must I do to be ELECTED?" Why? Because a
volitional corpse or a spiritually dead person simply cannot read the Word or pray to God in a
way that will volitionally resurrect himself (herself) or soften his (her) heart's hostility to God-i.e., in regeneration or in being "born again," one is passive. In a word, the unregenerate, fleshly
person is TOTALLY UNABLE (= "T" of "TULIP") to do any spiritual good--he or she can't
even co-operate or work "synergistically" with the Holy Spirit (hence Calvinism teaches a pure
monergism, as did St. Augustine). Thus, if one is born a slave to sin and spiritually dead--is
"TOTALLY DEPRAVED or spiritually unable"--then salvation must ULTIMATELY be a free
or UNCONDITIONAL gift, in no way finally dependent or contingent on one's actions--back to
the "U" or "UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION": God simply reaches down and chooses to breathe
life into some spiritual corpses and pass over others.
Council of Trent
(1545-1563)
Source
The Council of Trent opened on December 13, 1545, and closed there on December 4, 1563. Its main
objecive was to review doctrines of the Church in answer to what it saw as the heresies of the
Protestants. It also sought to reform many of the abuses in the Church touching off a “counterreformation” within the Church proper.
Chapter XXVII, The Catholic Reformation: Philip II
I. The Decrees of the Council of Trent
The universal Church has always understood that the complete confession of sins was instituted by the
Lord, and is of divine right necessary for all who have fallen into sin after baptism; because our Lord
Jesus Christ, when about to ascend from earth, to heaven, left priests, his own vicars, as leaders and
judges, before whom all the mortal offenses into which the faithful of Christ may have fallen should be
carried, in order that, in accordance with the power of the keys, they may pronounce the sentence of
37
forgiveness or of retention of sins. For it is manifest that priests could not have exercised this
judgment without knowledge of the case; neither could they have observed equity in enjoining
punishments, if the said faithful declared their sins in general only instead of specifically and one by
one. Whence it is gathered that all the mortal sins of which penitents, after a diligent examination of
themselves, are conscious must needs be enumerated in confession.
Venial sins, whereby we are not excluded from the grace of God, and into which we fall more
frequently, although they may be included right and profitably, and without any presumption, in
confession, as the custom of pious persons shows, yet they may be omitted without guilt and be
expiated by many other remedies. But since all mortal sins, even those of thought, render men
“children of wrath” and enemies of God, it is necessary to seek pardon from God for every mortal sin,
by a full and modest confession…
It is impious to assert that confession, thus enjoined, is impossible, or to call it “a slaughter-houses of
consciences”; for it is certain that in the Church nothing more is required of penitents, except that,
after each has examined himself diligently, and searched all the folds and recesses of his conscience,
he confess those sins which he shall remember, by which he has mortally offended his Lord and God;
whilst the other sins, which do not occur to him after diligent thought, are understood to be included
as a whole in that same confession; for which sins we confidently say with the prophet, “Cleanse thou
me from secret faults.”
This holy Council enjoins on all bishops and others who are charged with teaching, that they instruct
the faithful diligently concerning the intercession and invocation of saints, the honor paid to relics, and
the legitimate use of images. Let them teach that the saints, who reign together with Christ, offer up
their own prayers to God for men; that it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke them, and to have
recourse to their prayers and aid in obtaining benefits from God, through his Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord, who is our sole Redeemer and Savior; and that those persons think impiously who deny that the
saints, who enjoy eternal happiness in heaven, are to be invoked; or who assert that the saints do not
pray for men, or that the invocation of them to pray for each of us individually is idolatry; or who
declare that it is repugnant to the word of God, and opposed to the honor of the “one mediator of God
and men, Christ Jesus,” or that it is foolish to supplicate, orally or mentally, those who reign in
heaven.
They shall likewise teach that the holy bodies of martyrs, and of others now living with Christ—which
bodies were the living members of Christ, and “the temple of the Holy Ghost,” and which are by him
to be raised unto eternal life, and to be glorified—are to be venerated by the faithful, through which
relics many benefits are bestowed by God on men. Consequently they who affirm that veneration and
honor are not due to the relics of saints, or that these and other sacred memorials are uselessly
honored by the faithful, and that the places dedicated to the memories of the saints are visited in vain
with the view of obtaining their aid, are wholly to be condemned, and now also condemns, them.
Moreover they shall teach that the images of Christ, of the Virgin Mother of God, and of the other
saints are to be placed and retained particularly in churches, and that full honor and veneration are to
be given them; not that any divinity or virtue is believed to be in them on account of which they are to
be worshipped; or that anything is to be asked of them; or that trust is to be reposed in images, as
was of old done by the heathen who placed their hope in idols; but because the honor which is shown
them is referred to the prototypes which those images represent; in such wise that by means of the
images which we kiss, and before which we uncover the head and prostrate ourselves, we adore
Christ, and we venerate the saints, whose similitude they bear….
38
Christopher Columbus in the “New World”
(1492)
Christopher Columbus
Source
There was no more fateful encounter in human history than Columbus’s “discovery” of the so-called
New World. In this letter, he describes his initial encounters with the native peoples of the Caribbean.
The Discovered Islands.
Because my undertakings have attained success, I know that it will be pleasing to you: these I have
determined to relate, so that you may be made acquainted with everything done and discovered in
this our voyage. On the thirty-third day after I departed from Cadiz, I came to the Indian Sea, where I
found many islands inhabited by men without number, of all which I took possession for our most
fortunate king, with proclaiming heralds and flying standards, no one objecting. To the first of these I
gave the name of the blessed Saviour, on whose aid relying I had reached this as well as the other
island. But the Indians call it Guanahany. I also called each one of the others by a new name. For I
ordered one island to be called Santa Maria of the Conception, another Fernandina, another Isabella,
another Juana, and so on with the rest. As soon as we had arrived at that island which I have just now
said was called Juana, I proceeded along its coast towards the west for some distance; I found it so
large and without perceptible end, that I believed it to be not an island, but the continental country of
Cathay; seeing, however, no towns or cities situated on the sea-coast, but only some villages and
rude farms, with whose inhabitants I was unable to converse, because as soon as they saw us they
took flight. I proceeded farther, thinking that I would discover some city or large residences. At
39
length, perceiving that we had gone far enough, that nothing new appeared, and that this way was
leading us to the north, which I wished to avoid, because it was winter on the land, and it was my
intention to go to the south, moreover the winds were becoming violent, I therefore determined that
no other plans were practicable, and so, going back, I returned to a certain bay that I had noticed,
from which I sent two of our men to the land, that they might find out whether there was a king in
this country, or any cities. These men traveled for three days, and they found people and houses
without number, but they were small and without any government, therefore they returned. Now in
the meantime I had learned from certain Indians, whom I had seized there, that this country was
indeed an island, and therefore I proceeded towards the east, keeping all the time near the coast, for
322 miles, to the extreme ends of this island. From this place I saw another island to the east, distant
from this Juana 54 miles, which I called forthwith Hispana; and I sailed to it; and I steered along the
northern coast, as at Juana, towards the east, 564 miles. And the said Juana and the other island
there appear very fertile. This island is surrounded by many very safe and wide harbors, not excelled
by any others that I have ever seen. Many great and salubrious rivers flow through it. There are also
many very high mountains there. All these island are very beautiful, and distinguished by various
qualities; they are accessible, and full of a great variety of trees stretching up to the stars; the leaves
of which I believe are never shed, for I saw them as green and flourishing as they are usually in Spain
in the month of May; some of them were blossoming, some were bearing fruit, some were in other
conditions; each one was thriving in its own way. The nightingale and various other birds without
number were singing, in the month of November, when I was exploring them. There are besides in the
said island Juana seven or eight kinds of palm trees, which far excel ours in height and beauty, just as
all the other trees, herbs, and fruits do. There are also excellent pine trees, vast plains and meadows,
a variety of birds, a variety of honey, and a variety of metals, excepting iron. In the one which was
called Hispana, as we said above, there are great and beautiful mountains, vast fields, groves, fertile
plains, very suitable for planting and cultivating, and for the building of houses. The convenience of
the harbors in this island, and the remarkable number of rivers contributing to the healthfulness of
man, exceed belief, unless one has seen them. The trees, pasturage, and fruits of this island differ
greatly from those of Juana. This Hispana, moreover, abounds in different kinds of spices, in gold, and
in metals. On this island, indeed, and on all the others which I have seen, and of which I have
knowledge, the inhabitants of both sexes go always naked, just as they came into the world, except
some of the women, who use a covering of a leaf or some foliage, or a cotton cloth, which they make
themselves for that purpose. All these people lack, as I said above, every kind of iron; they are also
without weapons, which indeed are unknown; nor are they competent to use them, not on account of
deformity of body, for they are well formed, but because they are timid and full of fear. The carry for
weapons, however, reeds baked in the sun, on the lower ends of which they fasten some shafts of
dried wood rubbed down to a point; and indeed they do not venture to use these always; for it
frequently happened when I sent two or three of my men to some of the villages, that they might
speak with the natives, a compact troop of the Indians would march out, and as soon as they saw our
men approaching, they would quickly take flight, children being pushed aside by their fathers, and
fathers by their children.
The Death of Magellan, 1521
40
Born in Portugal, Ferdinand Magellan took part in a number of Portuguese expeditions
exploring and conquering the East Indies during the early 1500s. By 1517, however, he
found himself out of favor with King Emanuel and shifted his allegiance to King Charles I
of Spain. The Spanish king accepted Magellan's proposal to lead a voyage westward to
the riches of the Spice Islands of present-day Indonesia.
On September 20, 1520, Magellan led a flotilla of five ships with a crew of 250 out of the
Spanish port of Sancar de Barrameda. Their goal was to find a water passage around the
Americas and continue on to the East Indies. This was a true journey into the unknown equivalent in adventurous risk to the twentieth century landing on the moon.
Contemporary wisdom had no knowledge of what lay beyond the shores of South
America and assumed it was a short distance across the Pacific Ocean to the Spice
Islands. The journey was long and arduous, punctuated by starvation, disease, mutiny
and desertion.
Magellan didn't live to reach his goal - he lost his life while battling natives on an island
in the Philippines. Reduced to two ships, the remainder of his crew pressed on with their
mission, successfully reaching the Moluccas - the Spice Islands. Loaded with cloves, the
two ships continued homeward. Along the way, the Portuguese captured one vessel
reducing the original fleet of five ships to one. Finally, on September 6, 1522, almost
exactly three years after its departure, the Victoria with nineteen crew aboard returned
to Spain.
Death of the Captain
Our only immediate knowledge of Magellan's journey comes from the diary of the Italian
Antonio Pigafetta. Antonio was not a member of the crew but an adventurous tourist who
paid for his passage. In the following excerpt Antonio describes the death of Magellan on
an island of the Philippines.
Searching for a way to control the native population after he leaves the island, Magellan
persuades one of the local chiefs to convert to Christianity (referred to by Antonio as the
"Christian King"). Magellan hopes to make this chieftain supreme over the remaining
local tribes and loyal to the King of Spain. To bolster this chief's local supremacy,
Magellan decides that a show of force, particularly the power of his muskets and cannon,
against a neighboring tribe will impress the natives into submission.
Magellan orders an attack but miscalculates. He does not take into account that the reefs
along the island's beach will not allow his ships to get into effective range for their
cannon. As the battle is joined along the beach, the Spanish fire their muskets
ineffectively from too far a distance despite Magellan's attempt to order his crew to
cease-fire. Emboldened, the natives rush into the water flinging spears at the
unprotected legs and feet of the Spanish. The crew abandons Magellan in panic and the
Captain is soon overwhelmed:
41
"When morning came, forty-nine of us leaped into the water up to our thighs, and walked
through water for more than two cross-bow flights before we could reach the shore. The
boats could not approach nearer because of certain rocks in the water. The other eleven
men remained behind to guard the boats. When we reached land, those men had formed
in three divisions to the number of more than one thousand five hundred persons. When
they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries, two divisions on our
flanks and the other on our front.
When the captain saw that, he formed us into two divisions, and thus did we begin to
fight. The musketeers and crossbow-men shot from a distance for about a half-hour, but
uselessly; for the shots only passed through the shields which were made of thin wood
and the arms [of the bearers]. The captain cried to them, "Cease firing cease firing!" but
his order was not at all heeded. When the natives saw that we were shooting our
muskets to no purpose, crying out they determined to stand firm, but they redoubled
their shouts. When our muskets were discharged, the natives would never stand still, but
leaped hither and thither, covering themselves with their shields. They shot so many
arrows at us and hurled so many bamboo spears (some of them tipped with iron) at the
captain-general, besides pointed stakes hardened with fire, stones, and mud, that we
could scarcely defend ourselves.
Seeing that, the captain-general sent some men to burn their houses in order to terrify
them. When they saw their houses burning, they were roused to greater fury. Two of our
men were killed near the houses, while we burned twenty or thirty houses. So many of
them charged down upon us that they shot the captain through the right leg with a
poisoned arrow. On that account, he ordered us to retire slowly, but the men took to
fight, except six or eight of us who remained with the captain. The natives shot only at
our legs, for the latter were bare; and so many were the spears and stones that they
hurled at us, that we could offer no resistance. The mortars in the boats could not aid us
as they were too far away.
So we continued to retire for more than a good crossbow flight from the shore always
fighting up to our knees in the water. The natives continued to pursue us, and picking up
the same spear four or six times, hurled it at us again and again. Recognizing the
captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice, but
he always stood firmly like a good knight, together with some others. Thus did we fight
for more than one hour, refusing to retire farther. An Indian hurled a bamboo spear into
the captain's face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in
the Indian's body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway,
because he had been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw
that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with
a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to
fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo
spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and
our true guide. When they wounded him, he turned back many times to see whether we
were all in the boats. Thereupon, beholding him dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best
42
we could, to the boats, which were already pulling off."
References:
Paige, Paula, Spurlin (translator), The Voyage of Magellan, the Journal of Antonio
Pigafetta (1969); Robertson James Alexander, Magellan's Voyage Around the World
(1906) reprinted in: Nowell, Charles E. Magellan's Voyage Around the World, Three
Contemporary Accounts (1962); Zewig, Stefan, The Story of Magellan (1938).
Hernan Cortes Arrives in Mexico
It is spring, 1519. A Spanish expedition consisting of 11 ships is setting sail westward in hopes
of expanding the Empire. News had reached Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, that some of his
men had found land past the oceanic horizon where the sun sets. Velasquez appointed Hernan
Cortes as Captain-General of the Armada and sent him off to follow the rumor.
Cortes may not have been the most qualified to lead the expedition. Though he was experienced
and renowned for his courage, another reason for his appointment was his promise to help
finance the expedition. Cortes emptied his personal wealth and poured it into the trip. He
mortgaged his lands. He called on friends to both help prepare for the trip and to join his small
army.
508 soldiers sailed from Cuba with Cortes in search of new wealth. What had motivated these
men to leave Spain in search of rumors? Many of them were Spaniards who had arrived at the
end of the Cuban "land grab". The first Spaniards to arrive in Cuba were given land and Taino
Indians to use as slave labor. Latecomers, however, found little bounty left for them. Some of
them lived in poor and overpopulated regions of Spain, and wished to find breathing room. They
had learned their lesson: they now set sail with Cortes to be the first Spaniards to reap the wealth
that new lands brought.
The first land Cortes and his crew spotted was the coast of Yucatan, at one time the central
nervous system of the Mayan empire. Although never a fully unified empire, distinct groups of
Mayans occupied these areas, all sharing cultural characteristics such as a highly developed
calendar, a complex writing system, and sophisticated mathematics. Even today, the Maya
occupy some of these same lands and heartily preserve their significant cultures and languages.
Meanwhile, General Alvarado, one of Cortes' men who had traveled ahead, attacked a Maya
temple. Cortes reprimanded the general: it was impetuous aggression like this that could bring
their expedition to a disastrous and quick end. At Punta Catoche, Cortes came across Aguilar, a
man who had survived a shipwreck and spent nine years as a slave to a warlord. Cortes enlisted
the man; his knowledge of Maya would be invaluable to the explorer.
43
At Champoton, the first shots were fired against the Tabasco natives. The natives quickly
surrendered to Cortes' superior military power and supplied the Spaniards with goods and, more
importantly, an interpreter named Doña Malintzin. They then settled the city of Santa Maria de la
Victoria and departed Yucatan towards San Juan de Ulúa.
Cortes was unaware of the spiritual implications that surrounded his expedition. His arrival in the
Americas coincided perfectly with the predicted return of the Plumed Serpent named
Quetzalcoatl, the Aztecs main god, credited with creating Man and teaching the use of metals
and the cultivation of the land.
The expectation among the Aztecs about the return of Quetzalcoatl was considerable. Cortes’
armada arrived at Veracruz on Holy Thursday of 1519. Moctezuma Xocoyotzin II contemplated
how to approach the strangers, one of whom could be Quetzalcoatl. Ruling Tenochtitlan from
1502 to 1520, Moctezuma was devoutly religious and well-read in the ancient doctrines.
Moctezuma sent envoys to greet the newcomers, and the Spaniard fired shots to intimidate the
greeting party. Reports went back to Moctezuma, saying: "The noise weakened one, dizzied one.
Something like a stone came out of their weapons in a shower of fire and sparks. The smoke was
foul; it had a sickening, fetid smell." Another message characterized the visitors as people with
"very light skin, much lighter than ours. They all have long beards, and their hair comes only to
their ears"
The envoys also described the visitors, who traveled on horseback, as beasts with "two heads and
six legs". Montezuma decided to meet Cortés, who ultimately, aware of his superiority,
conquered Tenochtitlán. In comparison to the British colonization that occurred later in the
north, the Spaniards wanted to colonize the entire continent. The British inhabited the continent
more slowly and less ambitiously. Cortes viewed the death of Indians as a tragedy, considering
they could help the Spanish crown tap the resources of the land. The British, on the other hand,
interpreted the death of Indians as divine help to further the English cause.
The Spanish regarded Indians as subjects of the Crown. When possible, they were converted to
Christianity and taught useful crafts in order to ensure their contribution to the Spanish
colonization efforts. The British viewed the Indians as aliens and made no attempt to accept them
into their colonization plans, with the notable exception of colonists William Penn and Roger
Williams, two populists who championed religious tolerance, a liberal government and the fair
treatment of Indians.
Spain exerted strict control of immigration into their new land. They excluded heretics,
attempted to uphold the purity of the Spanish ruling stock and fervently guarded the resources of
the newly conquered lands. As a result, the Spanish colonization of North America promoted a
mainly Spanish and Indian culture in the southern portion.
The British, on the other hand, were more liberal in regards to who entered the New World.
"Come one, come all" described their philosophy. They had come to create a New World and
populate it with whomever was willing to contribute. Since the Indians in Mexico had been
44
forced to submit to their conquerors, the British accepted the Spanish as simply another ruler.
The Indians to the north never accepted the new government of the British.
Aboard a Slave Ship, 1829
In 1807 the British Parliament passed a bill prohibiting the slave trade. In January the following year
the United States followed suit by outlawing the importation of slaves. The acts did nothing to curtail
the trade of slaves within the nation's borders, but did end the overseas commerce in slaves. To
enforce these laws, Britain and the United States jointly patrolled the seas off the coast of Africa,
stopping suspected slave traders and confiscating the ship when slaves were found. The human cargo
was then transported back to Africa.
Interception at Sea
Conditions aboard the slave ships were wretched. Men, women and children crammed into every
available space, denied adequate room, food or breathing space. The stench was appalling - the
atmosphere inhumane to say the least. The Reverend Robert Walsh served aboard one of the ships
assigned to intercept the slavers off the African coast. On the morning of May 22, 1829, a suspected
slaver was sighted and the naval vessel gave chase. The next day, a favorable wind allowed the
interceptor to gain on its quarry and approach close enough to fire two shots across her bow. The
slaver heaved to and an armed party from the interceptor scrambled aboard her. We join Reverend
Walsh's account as he boards the slave
ship:
"The first object that struck us was an
enormous gun, turning on a swivel, on
deck - the constant appendage of a
pirate; and the next were large kettles
for cooking, on the bows - the usual
apparatus of a slaver. Our boat was
Plan for "stowage" of a slaveship, 1790
now hoisted out, and I went on board
with the officers. When we mounted her
decks we found her full of slaves. She
was called the Feloz, commanded by Captain Jose' Barbosa, bound to Bahia. She was a very broaddecked ship, with a mainmast, schooner rigged, and behind her foremast was that large, formidable
gun, which turned on a broad circle of iron, on deck, and which enabled her to act as a pirate if her
slaving speculation failed. She had taken in, on the coast of Africa, 336 males and 226 females,
making in all 562, and had been out seventeen days, during which she had thrown overboard 55. The
45
slaves were all inclosed under grated hatchways between decks. The space was so low that they sat
between each other's legs and [were] stowed so close together that there was no possibility of their
lying down or at all changing their position by night or day. As they belonged to and were shipped on
account of different individuals, they were all branded like sheep with the owner's marks of different
forms. These were impressed under their breasts or on their arms, and, as the mate informed me with
perfect indifference 'burnt with the red-hot iron.' Over the hatchway stood a ferocious-looking fellow
with a scourge of many twisted thongs in his hand, who was the slave driver of the ship, and
whenever he heard the slightest noise below, he shook it over them and seemed eager to exercise it. I
was quite pleased to take this hateful badge out of his hand, and I have kept it ever since as a horrid
memorial of reality, should I ever be disposed to forget the scene I witnessed. As soon as the poor
creatures saw us looking down at them, their dark and melancholy visages brightened up. They
perceived some- thing of sympathy and kindness in our looks which they had not been accustomed to,
and, feeling instinctively that we were friends, they immediately began to shout and clap their hands.
One or two had picked up a few Portuguese words, and cried out, "Viva! Viva!" The women were
particularly excited. They all held up their arms, and when we bent down and shook hands with them,
they could not contain their delight; they endeavored to scramble up on their knees, stretching up to
kiss our hands, and we understood that they knew we were come to liberate them. Some, however,
hung down their heads in apparently hopeless dejection; some were greatly emaciated, and some,
particularly children, seemed dying.
But the circumstance which struck us most forcibly was how it was possible for such a number of
human beings to exist, packed up and wedged together as tight as they could cram, in low cells three
feet high, the greater part of which, except that immediately under the grated hatchways, was shut
out from light or air, and this when the thermometer, exposed to the open sky, was standing in the
shade, on our deck, at 89'. The space between decks was divided into two compartments 3 feet 3
inches high; the size of one was 16 feet by 18 and of the other 40 by 21; into the first were crammed
the women and girls, into the second the men and boys: 226 fellow creatures were thus thrust into
one space 288 feet square and 336 into another space 800 feet square, giving to the whole an
average Of 23 inches and to each of the women not more than 13 inches. We also found manacles
and fetters of different kinds, but it appears that they had all been taken off before we boarded. The
heat of these horrid places was so great and the odor so offensive that it was quite impossible to enter
them, even had there been room. They were measured as above when the slaves had left them. The
officers insisted that the poor suffering creatures should be admitted on deck to get air and water.
This was opposed by the mate of the slaver, who, from a feeling that they deserved it, declared they
would murder them all. The officers, however, persisted, and the poor beings were all turned up
together. It is impossible to conceive the effect of this eruption - 517 fellow creatures of all ages and
sexes, some children, some adults, some old men and women, all in a state of total nudity, scrambling
out together to taste the luxury of a little fresh air and water. They came swarming up like bees from
the aperture of a hive till the whole deck was crowded to suffocation front stem to stern, so that it was
impossible to imagine where they could all have come from or how they could have been stowed
away. On looking into the places where they had been crammed, there were found some children next
the sides of the ship, in the places most remote from light and air; they were lying nearly in a torpid
state after the rest had turned out. The little creatures seemed indifferent as to life or death, and
when they were carried on deck, many of them could not stand.
After enjoying for a short time the unusual luxury of air, some water was brought; it was then that the
extent of their sufferings was exposed in a fearful manner. They all rushed like maniacs towards it. No
46
entreaties or threats or blows could restrain them; they shrieked and struggled and fought with one
another for a drop of this precious liquid, as if they grew rabid at the sight of it.
It was not surprising that they should have endured much sickness and loss of life in their short
passage. They had sailed from the coast of Africa on the 7th of May and had been out but seventeen
days, and they had thrown overboard no less than fifty-five, who had died of dysentery and other
complaints in that space of time, though they had left the coast in good health. Indeed, many of the
survivors were seen lying about the decks in the last stage of emaciation and in a state of filth and
misery not to be looked at. Even-handed justice had visited the effects of this unholy traffic on the
crew who were engaged in it. Eight or nine had died, and at that moment six were in hammocks on
board, in different stages of fever. This mortality did not arise from want of medicine. There was a
large stock ostentatiously displayed in the cabin, with a manuscript book containing directions as to
the quantities; but the only medical man on board to prescribe it was a black, who was as ignorant as
his patients.
While expressing my horror at what I saw and exclaiming
against the state of this vessel for conveying human beings, I
was informed by my friends, who had passed so long a time on
the coast of Africa and visited so many ships, that this was one
of the best they had seen. The height sometimes between decks
was only eighteen inches, so that the unfortunate beings could
not turn round or even on their sides, the elevation being less
than the breadth of their shoulders; and here they are usually
chained to the decks by the neck and legs. In such a place the
sense of misery and suffocation is so great that the Negroes, like
the English in the Black Hole at Calcutta, are driven to a frenzy.
They had on one occasion taken a slave vessel in the river
Image from an abolitionist
pamphlet, 1837
Bonny; the slaves were stowed in the narrow space between
decks and chained together. They heard a horrible din and
tumult among them and could not imagine from what cause it
proceeded. They opened the hatches and turned them up on
deck. They were manacled together in twos and threes. Their
horror may be well conceived when they found a number of them in different stages of suffocation;
many of them were foaming at the mouth and in the last agonies-many were dead. A living man was
sometimes dragged up, and his companion was a dead body; sometimes of the three attached to the
same chain, one was dying and another dead. The tumult they had heard was the frenzy of those
suffocating wretches in the last stage of fury and desperation, struggling to extricate themselves.
When they were all dragged up, nineteen were irrecoverably dead. Many destroyed one another in the
hopes of procuring room to breathe; men strangled those next them, and women drove nails into each
other's brains. Many unfortunate creatures on other occasions took the first opportunity of leaping
overboard and getting rid, in this way, of an intolerable life."
47
An African Pamphleteer Attacks Slavery
(1787)
Quobna Ottobah Cugoano
Quobna Ottobah Cugoano. 1999. Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery. New York:
Penguin.
Though European writers, rather than non white writers, tended to have the most significant impact
on European attitudes toward slavery, there were nevertheless many former slaves who wrote
compelling works that attacked the problem of slavery in Western society. In this era, one lesserknown writer of African heritage was Quobna Ottobah Cugoano. Cugoano's background is largely
unknown, though he was born in what is today Ghana circa 1757. He was sold into slavery by other
locals at around thirteen years of age, and was sent to Grenada. His owner took him to England in
1772, where, through unknown means, he gained his freedom. Between 1787 and 1791, he spoke
frequently at abolitionist meetings, calling for an end to slavery, and wrote several letters to London
newspapers. He also published two books, but nothing is known of his whereabouts after 1791.
The excerpts below come from Cugoano's first book, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery,
published in 1787. Cugoano provides a clear and obvious challenge to English slavery based not only
on Christian principles, but also on more worldly concepts, and asserts that slaves have the right and
the obligation to rise up against their masters. Here, Cugoano attacks England and other nations for
perpetuating the slave trade.
But whereas the people of Great-Britain having now acquired a greater share in that iniquitous
commerce than all the rest together, they are the first that ought to set an example, lest they have to
repent for their wickedness when it becomes too late; lest some impending calamity should speedily
burst forth against them, and lest a just retribution for their enormous crimes, and a continuance in
committing similar deeds of barbarity and injustice should involve them in ruin. For we may be
assured that God will certainly avenge himself of such heinous transgressors of his law, and of all
those planters and merchants, and of all others, who are the authors of the Africans' graves,
severities, and cruel punishments, and no plea of any absolute necessity can possibly excuse them.
And as the inhabitants of Great-Britain, and the inhabitants of the colonies, seem almost equally guilty
of the oppression, there is great reason for both to dread the severe vengeance of Almighty God upon
them, and upon all such notorious workers of wickedness; for it is evident that the legislature of
48
Great-Britain patronises and encourages them, and shares in the infamous profits of the slavery of the
Africans.
And even in that part of it carried on by the Liverpool and Bristol merchants, the many shocking and
inhuman instances of their barbarity and cruelty are such, that every one that heareth thereof has
reason to tremble, and cry out, Should not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that
dwelleth therein?
The vast carnage and murders committed by the British instigators of slavery, is attended with a very
shocking, peculiar, and almost unheard of conception, according to the notion of the perpetrators of it;
they either consider them as their own property, that they may do with as they please, in life or
death; or that the taking away the life of a black man is of no more account than taking away the life
of a beast.
Therefore let the inhabitants of any civilized nation determine, whether, if they were to be treated in
the same manner that the Africans are, by various pirates, kidnappers, and slave-holders, and their
wives, and their sons and daughters were to be robbed from them, or themselves violently taken
away to a perpetual and intolerable slavery; or whether they would not think those robbers, who only
took away their property, less injurious to them than the other. If they determine it so, as reason
must tell every man, that himself is of more value than his property; then the executors of the laws of
civilization ought to tremble at the inconsistency of passing judgment upon those whose crimes, in
many cases, are less than what the whole legislature must be guilty of, when those of a far greater is
encouraged and supported by it wherever slavery is tolerated by law, and, consequently, that slavery
can no where be tolerated with any consistency to civilization and the laws of justice among men; but
if it can maintain its ground, to have any place at all, it must be among a society of barbarians and
thieves, and where the laws of their society is, for every one to catch what he can. Then, when theft
and robbery become no crimes, the man-stealer and the conniving slave-holder might possibly get
free.
But again let me observe, that whatever civilization the inhabitants of Great-Britain may enjoy among
themselves, they have seldom maintained their own innocence in that great duty as a Christian nation
towards others, and I may say, with respect to their African neighbours, or to any other wheresoever
they may go by the way of commerce, they have not regarded them at all. And when they saw others
robbing the Africans, and carrying them into captivity and slavery, they have neither helped them, not
opposed their oppressors in the least. But instead thereof they have joined in combination against
them with the rest of other profligate nations and people, to buy, enslave and make merchandize of
them, because they found them helpless and fit to suit their own purpose, and are become the head
carriers on of that iniquitous traffic. But the greater that any reformation and civilization is obtained by
any nation, if they do not maintain righteousness, but carry on any course of wickedness and
oppression, it makes them appear only the more inconsistent, and their tyranny and oppression the
more conspicuous.
But why this diabolical traffic of slavery has not been abolished before now, and why it was introduced
at all, as I have already enquired, must be greatly imputed to that powerful and pervading agency of
infernal wickedness, which reigneth and prevaileth over the nations, and to that umbrageous image of
iniquity established thereby.
I would hereby presume to offer the following considerations, as some outlines of a general
reformation which ought to be established and carried on. And first, I would propose, that there ought
to be days of mourning and fasting appointed, to make enquiry into that great and preeminent evil for
many years past carried on against the Heathen nations, and the horrible iniquity of making
49
merchandize of us, and cruelly enslaving the poor Africans; and that you might seek grace and
repentance, and find mercy and forgiveness before God Omnipotent; and that he may give you
wisdom and understanding to devise what ought to be done.
Secondly, I would propose that a total abolition of slavery should be made and proclaimed, and that
an universal emancipation of slaves should begin from the date thereof, and be carried on in the
following manner. That a proclamation should be caused to be made, setting forth the Antichristian
unlawfulness of the slavery and commerce of the human species; and that it should be sent to all the
courts and nations in Europe, to require their advice and assistance, and as they may find it unlawful
to carry it on, let them whosoever will join to prohibit it.
And, thirdly, I would propose, that a fleet of some ships of war should be immediately sent to the
coast of Africa, and particularly where the slave trade is carried on, with faithful men to direct that
none should be brought from the coast of Africa without their own consent and the approbation of
their friends, and to intercept all merchant ships that were bringing them away, until such a scrutiny
was made, whatever nation they belonged to. And, I would suppose, if Great-Britain was to do any
thing of this kind, that it would meet with the general approbation and assistance of other Christian
nations; but whether it did or not, it could be very lawfully done at all the British forts and settlements
on the coast of Africa.
These three preceding considerations may suffice at present to shew, that some plan might be
adopted in such a manner as effectually to relieve the grievances and oppression of the Africans, and
to bring great honour and blessings to that nation, and to all men whosoever would endeavour to
promote so great good to mankind.
50
A Defense of the Slave Trade
(1740)
Anonymous
(1740). "A Defense of the African Slave Trade." Documents Illustrative of the History of the
Slave Trade to America. Edited by Elizabeth Donnan. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution.
Justifying European involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade often involved the use of ideas that
made the endeavor seem moral; it was considered part of the "white man's burden" to release
Africans from a worst bondage at home. Merchants, in particular, felt the need for some justification
for transporting and selling human cargo. In this document, an anonymous person writes about
conditions along the Guinea Coast of West Africa and the cruel power of the local kings to control
African slaves. The anonymous writer is responding to a letter published in the Gentleman's Magazine
under the pseudonym Mercator Honestus, which argued against slavery and the slave trader.
It is well known that many of the great kingdoms of West Africa had dealt in a local slave trade for
centuries. Slaves were used in agricultural production, in households, and as part of court life. These
slaves were under varying degrees of bondage outside the realm of what we call "chattel slavery",
that is, under African customs, the condition of slavery was not hereditary and even slaves had some
rights. What is interesting about this account is the heavy emphasis on Enlightenment ideas such as
the right of every human being to liberty and happiness. European merchants believed they were
freeing Africans from an even worst fate, slavery without Western laws and Christianity.
Sir, The Guinea Trade, by the Mistake of some, or Misrepresentation of others, hath been charged with
Inhumanity, and a Contradiction to good Morals. Such a Charge at a Time when private and publick
Morals are laugh'd at, as the highest Folly, by a powerful Faction; and Self-interest set up as the only
Criterion of true Wisdom, is certainly very uncourtly: But yet as I have a profound Regard for those
superannuated Virtures; you will give me Leave to justify the African Trade, upon those Stale
Principles, from the Imputations of "Mercator Honestus"; and shew him that there are People in some
boasted Regions of Liberty, under a more wretched Slavery, than the Africans transplanted to our
American Colonies.
51
The Inhabitants of Guinea are indeed in a most deplorable State of Slavery, under the arbitrary
Powers of their Princes both as to Life and Property. In the several Subordinations to them, every
great Man is absolute lord of his immediate Dependents. And lower still; every Master of a Family is
Proprietor of his Wives, Children, and Servants; and may at his Pleasure consign them to Death, or a
better Market. No doubt such a State is contrary to Nature and Reason, since every human Creature
hath an absolute Right to Liberty. But are not all arbitrary Governments, as well in Europe, as Africa,
equally repugnant to that great Law of Nature? And yet it is not in our Power to cure the universal
Evil, and set all the Kingdoms of the Earth free from the Domination of Tyrants, whose long
Possession, supported by standing Armies, and flagitious Ministers, renders the Thraldom without
Remedy, while the People under it are by Custom satisfied with, or at least quiet under Bondage.
All that can be done in such a Case is, to communicate as much Liberty, and Happiness, as such
circumstances will admit, and the People will consent to: And this is certainly by the Guinea Trade.
For, by purchasing, or rather ransoming the Negroes from their national Tyrants, and transplanting
them under the benign Influences of the Law, and Gospel, they are advanced to much greater
Degrees of Felicity, tho' not to absolute Liberty.
That this is truly the Case cannot be doubted by any one acquainted with the Constitution of our
Colonies, where the Negroes are governed by Laws, and suffer much less Punishment in Proportion to
their Crimes, than the People in other Countries more refined in the Arts of Wickedness; and where
Capital Punishment is inflicted only by the Civil Magistrates. . . .
Perhaps my Antagonist calls the Negroes Allowance of a Pint of Corn and an Herring, penurious, in
Comparison of the full Meals of Gluttony: But if not let him compare that Allowance, to what the poor
Labourer can purchase for Tenpence per Day to subsist himself and Family, and he will easily
determine the American's Advantage. . . .
Nevertheless, Mercator will say, the Negroes are Slaves to their Proprietors: How Slaves? Nominally:
Not really so much Slaves, as the Peasantry of all Nations is to Necessity; not so much as those of
Corruption, or Party Zeal; not in any Sense, such abject Slaves, as every vicious Man is to his own
Appetites. Indeed there is this Difference between Britons, and the Slaves of all other Nations; that
the latter are so by Birth, or tyrannical Necessity; the former can never be so, but by a wicked Choice,
or execrable Venality. . . .
52
Account of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew
(1572)
De Thou
Source
On August 24, 1572, the French court launched as series of attacks against the leaders of the various
Protestant factions around the country. In the ensuing weeks, the violence spiraled out of control,
spreading deep into the provinces. Nearly 15,000 French Protestants, or Huguenots, were killed. Here
is the French historian de Thou’s oft-quoted account.
The Catholic Reformation. De Thou’s Account of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
So it was determined to exterminate all the Protestants, and the plan was approved by the queen.
They discussed for some time whether they should make an exception of the king of Navarre and the
prince of CondŽ. All agreed that the king of Navarre should be spared by reason of the royal dignity
and the new alliance. The duke of Guise, who was put in full command of the enterprise, summoned
by night several captains of the Catholic Swiss mercenaries from the five little cantons, and some
commanders of French companies, and told them that it was the will of the king that, according to
God’s will, they should take vengeance on the band of rebels while they had the beasts in the toils.
Victory was easy and the booty great and to be obtained without danger. The signal to commence the
massacre should be given by the bell of the palace, and the marks by which they should recognize
each other in the darkness were a bit of white linen tied around the left arm and a white cross on the
hat.
Meanwhile Coligny awoke and recognized from the noise that a riot was taking place. Nevertheless he
remained assured of the king’s good will, being persuaded thereof either by his credulity or by Teligny,
his son-in-law; he believed the populace had been stirred up by the Guises, and that quiet would be
restored as soon as it was seen that soldiers of the guard, under the command of Cosseins, had been
detailed to protect him and guard his property.
But when he perceived that the noise increased and that some one had fires an arquebus in the
courtyard of his dwelling, then at length, conjecturing what it might be, but too late, he arose from his
bed and having put on his dressing gown he said his prayers, leaning against the wall. Labonne held
the key of the house, and when Cosseins commanded him, in the king’s name, to open the door he
obeyed at once without fear and apprehending nothing. But scarcely had Cosseins entered when
Labonne, who stood in his way, was killed with a dagger thrust. The Swiss who were in the courtyard,
when they saw this, fled into the house and closed the door, piling against it tables and all the
furniture they could find. It was in the first scrimmage that a Swiss was killed with a ball from an
arquebus fired by one of Cosseins’ people. But finally the conspirators broke through the door and
mounted the stairway, Cosseins, Attin, Corberan de Cordillac, Seigneur de Sarlabous, first captains of
the regiment of the guards, Achilles Petrucci of Siena, all armed with cuirasses, and Besme the
German, who had been brought up as a page in the house of Guise; for the duke of Guise was lodged
at court, together with the great nobles and others who accompanied him.
53
After Coligny had said his prayers with Merlin the minister, he said, without any appearance of alarm,
to those who were present (and almost all were surgeons, for few of them were of his retinue): “I see
clearly that which they seek, and I am ready steadfastly to suffer that death which I have never
feared and which for a long time past I have pictured to myself. I consider myself happy in feeling the
approach of death and in being ready to die in God, by whose grace I hope for the life everlasting. I
have no further need of human succor. Go then from this place, my friends, as quickly as you may, for
fear lest you shall be involved in my misfortune, and that some day your wives shall curse me as the
author of your loss. For me it is enough that God is here, to whose goodness I commend my soul,
which is so soon to issue from my body.” After these words they ascended to an upper room, whence
they sought safety in flight here and there over the roofs.
Meanwhile the conspirators, having burst through the door of the chamber, entered, and when Besme,
sword in hand, had demanded of Coligny, who stood near the door, “Are you Coligny?” Coligny
replied, “Yes, I am he,” with fearless countenance. “But you, young man, respect these white hairs.
What is it you would do? You cannot shorten by many days this life of mine.” As he spoke, Besme
gave him a sword thrust through he body, and having withdrawn his sword, another thrust in the
mouth, by which his face was disfigured. So Coligny fell, killed with many thrusts. Others have written
that Coligny in dying pronounced as though in anger these words: “Would that I might at least die at
the hands of a soldier and not of a valet.” But Attin, one of the murderers, has reported as I have
written, and added that he never saw any one less afraid in so great a peril, or die more steadfastly.
Then the duke of Guise inquired of Besme from the courtyard if the thing were done, and when Besme
answered him that it was, the duke replied that the Chevalier ďAngoul•me was unable to believe it
unless he saw it; and at he same time that he made the inquiry they threw the body through the
window into the courtyard, disfigured as it was with blood. When the Chevalier ďAngoul•me, who
could scarcely believe his eyes, had wiped away with a cloth the blood which overran the face and
finally had recognized him, some say that he spurned the body with his foot. However this may be,
when he left the house with his followers he said: “Cheer up, my friends! Let us do thoroughly that
which we have begun. The king commands it.” He frequently repeated theses words, and as soon as
they had caused the bell of the palace clock to ring, on every side arose the cry, “To arms!” and the
people ran to the house of Coligny. After his body had been treated to all sorts of insults, they threw it
into a neighboring stable, and finally cut off his head, which they sent to Rome. They also shamefully
mutilated him, and dragged his body through the streets to the bank of the Seine, a thing which he
had formerly almost prophesied, although he did not think of anything like this.
As some children were in the act of throwing the body in the river, it was dragged out and placed upon
the gibbet of Montfaucon, where it hung by the feet in chains of iron; and then they built a fire
beneath, by which he was burned without being consumed; so that he was, so to speak, tortured with
all the elements, since he was killed upon the earth, thrown into the water, placed upon the fire, and
finally put to hang in the air. After he had served for several days as a spectacle to gratify the hate of
many and arouse the indignation of many others, who reckoned that this fury of the people would cost
the king and France many a sorrowful day, Francois de Montmorency, who was nearly related to the
dead man, and still more his friend, and who moreover had escaped the danger in time, had him
taken by night from the gibbet by trusty men and carried to Chantilly, where he was buried in the
chapel.
54
The Thirty Years' Wars
1618-1648
The Thirty Years' Wars 1618-1648
The Origins of the Conflict
The Peace of Augsburg of 1555 had brought a temporary truce in the religious connict in the
German states. This settle-ment had recognized only Lutherans and Roman Catholics, but Calvinism had subsequently made gains in a number of states. The Calvinists began to demand
recognition of their rights. The Thirty Years' War began, however, as a direct result of a conflict
in the Hapsburg-ruled Kingdom of Bohemia.
The Bohemian Period (1618-1625)
In 1617, the Bohemian Diet elected Ferdinand of Styria as king of Bohemia. Ferdinand, a
member of the Hapsburg family, became Holy Roman emperor two years later, as Ferdinand II
(r. 1619-1637). He was an ardent supporter of the Catholic cause.
Ferdinand's election alarmed Bohemian Calvinists, who feared the loss of their religious rights.
In May 1618, the Calvinist revolt began when the rebels threw two Catholic members of the
Bohemian royal council from a window some seventy feet above the ground. Both councillors
fell into a pile of manure, and suffered only minor injuries. This incident became known as the
Defenestration of Prague.
Emperor Ferdinand II won the support of Maximilian I (1573-1651) of Bavaria, the leader of
Catholic League. Troops of the Holy Roman Empire and Bavari commanded by Baron Tilly
(1559-1632), invaded Bohemia. Tilly won a decisive victory over the forces of Fredreick V at
the Battle of White Mountain, near Prague. Frederick fled to Holland.
Emperor Ferdinand II regained the Bohemian throne, Maximilian of Bavaria acquired the
Palatinate. The Bohemian phase of the Thirty Years' War thus ended with a Hapsburg and
Catholic victory.
The Danish Period (1625-1629)
55
The Danish period of the conflict began when King Christian IV (r. 1588-1648), the Lutheran
ruler of Denmark supported the Protestants in 1625 against Ferdinand II.
King Christian was also the duke of Holstein and a prince of the Holy Roman Empire.
Ferdinand secured the assistance of Albrecht von Wallenstein (1583-1634), who raised an
independent army of 50,000. The combined forces of Wallenstein and Tilly defeated Christian in
1626 and then occupied the duchy of Holstein.
Taking control of Prague, the rebels declared Ferdinand deposed and elected a new king,
Frederick V (1596-1632), the elector of the Palatinate in western Germany and a Calvinist. The
German Protestant Union, which Frederick headed, provided some aid to the Bohemian rebels.
The Treaty of Lubeck of 1629 restored Holstein to Christian IV, but the Danish king pledged
not to intervene further in German affairs. The Danish period of the war, like the Bohemian
period, thus ended with a Hapsburg and Catholic victory.
The Swedish Period (1630-1635)
The Catholic victories alarmed Protestants almost everywhere. The victories of the emperor
endangered the independence of the German princes, while the French Bourbons were concerned
about the growth of Hapsburg power.
The newProtestant leader became King Gustavus Adolphus (r. 1611-1632) of Sweden. In the
summer of 1630, the Swedes moved into Germany. Later in the year, France and Sweden signed
an alliance, and France entered the war against the Hapsburgs.
The Thirty Years' War had begun primarily as a German conflict over religious issues. The
conflict now became a wider European war, fought mainly over political issues, as Catholic
France and Protestant Sweden joined forces against the Catholic Hapsburgs.
During the early stages of the conflict, the Swedes won several notable victories. Tilly, the
imperial commander, fell in battle in 1632.
Emperor Ferdinand II called on Wallenstein to form a new army. In November 1632, at the
Battle of Lutzen, the Swedes defeated Wallenstein, but Gustavus Adolphus was killed in the
fighting.
When Wallenstein entered into secret negotiations with Sweden and France, he was assassinated
a few days later. The emperor's army decisively defeated the Swedes at Nordlingen in southern
Germany.
56
The Treaty of Prague
The deaths of both Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein, together with the exhaustion of both the
Holy Roman emperor and the German Protestant princes, brought an end to the Swedish period
of the war. The Treaty of Prague, 1635 generally strengthened the Hapsburgs and weakened the
power of the German princes.
The French Period (1635- 1648)
The settlement reached in the Treaty of Prague was wrecked by the French decision to intervene
directly in the war. Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642), the chief minister of King Louis XIII (r.
161~1643) of France wanted to weaken the power of the Hapsburgs and take the province of
Alsace from the Holy Roman Empire. In addition, Richelieu was plotting against Spain and its
Hapsburg king, Philip IV (r. 1621-1665).
Both in Germany and in the Franco-Spanish conflict, the fortunes of war fluctuated. For a time,
the forces of the Holy Roman emperor, aided by King Maximilian of Bavaria and other Catholic
princes, more than held their own against the Swedes and German Protestants. France's success
against Spain, enabled the French to send larger forces into Germany. This helped tip the balance
in favor of the emperor's foes.
Emperor Ferdinand II died in 1637 and was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand III (r. 1637-1657).
Peace negotiations began in 1641, but made little progress until the death of Cardinal Richelieu
in 1642 and the French occupation of Bavaria in 1646.
The Peace of Westphalia (1648)
The Peace of Westphalia of 1648 ended the Thirty Years' War. Sweden acquired western
Pomerania, Eastern Pomerania was assigned to Brandenburg. France annexed part of Alsace and
some nearby territory.
The settlement formally recognized the independence of the Dutch Republic and Switzerland and
granted the German states the right to make treaties and alliances, thereby further weakening the
authority of the Holy Roman emperor.
In religious affairs, the Peace of Westphalia expanded the Peace of Augsburg to include
Calvinists, as well as Catholics and Lutherans.
The Peace of Westphalia ended the Holy Roman emperor's hope of restoring both his own power
and the Catholic faith throughout the empire. The empire was now fragmented into a number of
virtually independent states.
The end of the Thirty Years' War left Hapsburg Spain isolated.
57
The French war against Spain continued until 1659, when the Treaty of the Pyrenees awarded
France part of the Spanish Netherlands and some territory in northern Spain. King Philip IV of
Spain agreed to the marriage of his daughter Maria Theresa to King Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715) of
France.
Together, the Peace of Westphalia and the Treaty of the Pyrenees established France as the
predominant power on the European continent.
QUEENE
ELIZABETHS
SPEECH
TO HER LAST
P A R L I A M E N T.
The 30 of November 1601; her Maiestie being set vnder State in the Councell
Chamber at Whitehall, the Speaker, accompanied with Privy Councellours, besides
Knights and Burgesses of the lower House to the number of eight-score, presenting
themselves at her Maeisties feet, for that so graciously and speedily shee had heard
and yeelded to her Subiects desires, and proclaimed the same in their hearing as
followeth.
Mr. Speaker,
VV
EE perceiue your comming is to present thankes vnto Vs; Know I accept
them with no lesse ioy then your loues can haue desire to offer such a
Present, and doe more esteeme it then any Treasure of Riches, for those
Wee know how to prize, but Loyaltie, Loue, and Thankes, I account them invaluable,
and though God hath raysed Mee high, yet this I account the glorie of my Crowne,
that I haue reigned with your Loues. This makes that I doe not so much reioyce that
God hath made Mee to bee a Queene, as to bee a Queene ouer so thankfull a People,
and to bee the meane vnder God to conserue you in safety, and preserue you from
danger, yea to bee the Instrument to deliuer you from dishounour, from shame, and
from infamie; to keepe you from out of seruitude, and from slaverie vnder our
Enemies; and cruell tyranny, and vilde oppression intended against Vs: for the better
withstanding wherof, Wee take very acceptably your intended helpes, and chiefely in
that it manifesteth your loues and largenesse of heart to your Soveraigne. Of My selfe
58
I must say this, I neuer was any greedy scraping grasper, nor a strict fast holding
Prince, nor yet a waster. My heart was neuer set vpon any worldly goods, but onely
for my Subiects good. What you doe bestow on Me, I will not hoard vp, but receiue it
to bestow on you againe; yea Mine owne Properties I account yours to bee expended
for your good, and your eyes shall see the bestowing of it for your wellfare.
Mr. Speaker, I would wish you and the rest to stand vp, for I feare I shall yet trouble
you with longer speech.
Mr. Speaker, you give me thankes, but I am more to thank you, and I charge you,
thanke them of the Lower-House from Me, for had I not received knowledge from
you, I might a fallen into the lapse of an Error, onely for want of true information.
Since I was Queene yet did I neuer put my Pen to any Grant but vpon pretext and
semblance made Me, that it was for the good and availe of my Subiects generally,
though a private profit to some of my ancient Servants who had deserved well: But
that my Grants shall be made Grievances to my People, and Oppressions, to bee
priviledged vnder colour of Our Patents, Our Princely Dignitie shall not suffer it.
When I heard it, I could give no rest vnto my thoughts vntill I had reformed it, &
those Varlets, lewd persons, abusers of my bountie, shall know I will not suffer it.
And Mr. Speaker, tell the House from mee, I take it exceeding gratefull, that the
knowledge of these things are come vnto mee from them. And though amongst them
the principall Members are such as are not touched in private, and therefore need not
speake from any feeling of the griefe, yet We haue heard that other Gentlemen also of
the House, who stand as free, haue spoken as freely in it, which giues Vs to know that
no respects or intrests haue moved them other then the mindes they beare to suffer no
diminution of our Honour, and our Subiects loue vnto Vs. The zeale of which
affection tending to ease my People, & knit their hearts vnto vs, I embrace with a
Princely care farre aboue all earthly Treasures. I esteeme my Peoples loue, more then
which I desire not to merit: And God that gaue me here to sit, and placed me ouer you,
knowes that I neuer respected my selfe, but as your good was conserued in mee; yet
what dangers, what practices, and what perills I have passed, some, if not all of you
know: but none of these things doe mooue mee, or euer made mee feare, but it is God
that hath delivered me.
And in my gouerning this Land, I haue euer set the last Iudgement day before mine
eyes, and so to rule, as I shall be Iudged and answer before a higher Iudge, to whose
Iudgement Seat I doe appeale in that neuer thought was cherished in my heart that
tended not to my Peoples good.
And if my Princely bountie haue beene abused, and my Grants turned to the hurt of
my People contrary to my will and meaning, or if any in Authoritie vnder mee haue
neglected, or converted what I haue committed vnto them, I hope God they will not
lay their culps to my charge.
To be a King, and weare a Crown, is a thing more glorious to them that see it, then
it is pleasant to them that beare it: for my selfe, I neuer was so much inticed with the
59
glorious name of a King, or the royall authoritie of a Queene, as delighted that god
hath made me His Instrument to maintaine His Truth and Glorie, and to defend this
Kingdome from dishonour, dammage, tyrannie, and oppresion; But should I ascribe
any of these things vnto my selfe, or my sexly weaknesse, I were not worthy to liue,
and of all most vnworthy of the mercies I haue receiued at Gods hands but to God
onely and wholly all is giuen and ascribed.
The cares and trouble of a Crowne I cannnot more fitly resemble then to the
Drugges of a learned Physitian, perfumed with some Aromaticall sauour, or to bitter
Pils guilded ouer, by which they are made more exceeptable or lesse offensiue, which
indeed are bitter and vnpleasant to take; and for my owne part, were it not for
Conscience sake to discharge the dutie that God hath layd vpon me, and to maintaine
his glorie, and keepe you in safetie; in mine owne disposition I should be willing to
resigne the place I hold to any other, and glad to be freed of the Glory with the
Labors, for it is not my desire to liue nor to reign longer then my life and reigne shall
bee for your good. And though you haue had and may haue many mightier and wiser
Princes sitting in this Seat, yet you neuer had nor shall haue any that will loue you
better.
Thus Mr. Speaker, I commend mee to your loyall Loues, and yours to my best
care and your further Councels, & I pray you Mr. Controullor,
& Mr. Secretary, and you of my councell, that before
these Gentlemen depart into their Countreys
you bring them all to kisse my
Hand.
F I N I S.
Cromwell Abolishes the English Monarchy
(1651)
Source
At the culmination of the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell ended royal rule and established his own
military government with himself as Lord Protector. The monarchy would not be re-established until
1660. Here the Cromwellian regime lays out its position on abolition.
60
VII. The Commonwealth and Cromwell.
Whereas Charles Stuart, late king of England, Ireland, and the territories and dominions thereunto
belonging, hath, by authority derived from Parliament, been and is hereby declared to be justly
condemned, adjudged to die, and put to death, for many treasons, murders, and other heinous
offenses committed by him, by which judgment he stood, and is hereby declared to be, attained of
high treason, whereby his issue and posterity, and all others pretending title under him, are become
incapable of the said crowns or of being king or queen of the said kingdom or dominions, or either or
any of them; be it therefore enacted and ordained, and it is enacted, ordained, and declared, by this
present Parliament and by the authority thereof, that all the people of England and Ireland, and the
dominions and territories thereunto belonging, of what degree or condition soever, are discharged of
all fealty, homage, and allegiance which is or shall be pretended to be due unto any of the issue and
posterity of the said late king, or any claiming under him, and that Charles Stuart, eldest son, and
James, called Duke of York, second son, and all other the issue and posterity of him the said late king,
and all and every person and persons pretending title from, by, or under him, are and be disabled to
hold or enjoy the said crown of England and Ireland…
And whereas it is and hath been found by experience that the office of a king in this nation and
Ireland, and to have the power thereof in any single person, is unnecessary, burdensome, and
dangerous to the liberty, safety, and public interest of the people, and that for the most part use hath
been made of the regal power and prerogative to oppress and impoverish and enslave the subject;
and that usually and naturally any one person in such power makes it his interest to encroach upon
the just freedom and liberty of the people, and to promote the setting up of their own will and power
above the laws, that so they might enslave these kingdoms to their own lust; be it therefore enacted
and ordained by this present Parliament, and by authority of the same, that the office of a king in this
nation shall not henceforth reside in, or be exercised by, any one single person; and that no one
person whatsoever shall or may have or hold the office, style, dignity, power, or authority of king of
the said kingdoms and dominions…
The Divine Right of Kings
(1598)
James I
1918. The Political Works of James I. reprinted from the edition of 1616 with an
introduction by Charles Howard McIlwain. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
James Stuart (James VI of Scotland, 1567-1625; James I of England, 1603-1625) was an intellectual
who was rarely able to implement his ideas. He had hoped to unify England, Scotland, and Ireland,
but was thwarted by both political realities and his own personal failings. He sought to ease
international tensions, but his efforts to prevent the conflict that would become the Thirty Years' War
were unsuccessful. The outbreak of the Thirty Years' War also destroyed his hope of brokering a
61
European religious compromise. In addition to his duties as monarch, James I wrote on a variety of
topics. His most famous work, the True Law of a Free Monarchy, is a classic argument for divine-right
monarchy. Interestingly, although James penned this work in 1598, before he assumed the throne of
England, he never tried to implement divine-right rule in England. He firmly believed that his power
and authority derived solely from God, but acknowledged that as king of England, he had sworn oaths
to govern according to the "laws and customs of England."
The Trew Law of Free Monarchies: or the Reciprock and Mutuall Duetie Betwixt a Free King and His
Naturall Subjects
As there is not a thing so necessarie to be knowne by the people of any land, next the knowledge of
their God, as the right knowledge of their alleageance, according to the forme of governement
established among them, especially in a Monarchie (which forme of government, as resembling the
Divinitie, approacheth nearest to perfection, as all the learned and wise men from the beginning have
agreed upon; Unitie being the perfection of all things,) So hath the ignorance, and (which is worse)
the seduced opinion of the multitude blinded by them, who thinke themselves able to teach and
instruct the ignorants, procured the wracke and overthrow of sundry flourishing Common-wealths;
and heaped heavy calamities, threatening utter destruction upon others. And the smiling successe,
that unlaw rebellions have oftentimes had against Princes in ages past (such hath bene the misery,
and the iniquitie of the time) hath by way of practise strengthened many of their errour: albeit there
cannot be a more deceivable argument; then to judge by the justnesse of the cause by the event
thereof; as hereafter shall be proved more at length. And among others, no Common-wealth, that
ever hath bene since the beginning, hath had greater need of the trew knowledge of this ground, then
this our so long disordered, and distracted Common-wealth hath: the misknowledge hereof being the
onely spring, from whence have flowed so many endlesse calamities, miseries, and confusions, as is
better felt by many, then the cause thereof well knowne, and deepely considered. The naturall zeale
therefore, that I beare to this my native countrie, with the great pittie I have to see the so-long
disturbance thereof for lack of the trew knowledge of this ground (as I have said before) hath
compelled me at last to breake silence, to discharge my conscience to you my deare country men
herein, that knowing the ground from whence these your many endlesse troubles have proceeded, as
well as ye have already too-long tasted the bitter fruites thereof, ye may by knowledge, and
eschewing of the cause escape, and divert the lamentable effects that ever necessarily follow
thereupon. I have chosen the onely to set downe in this short Treatise, the trew grounds of the
mutuall deutie, and alleageance betwixt a free and absolute Monarche, and his people.
First then, I will set downe the trew grounds, whereupon I am to build, out of the Scriptures, since
Monarchie is the trew paterne of Divinitie, as I have already said: next, from the fundamental Lawes
of our own Kingdome, which nearest must concerne us: thirdly, from the law of Nature, by divers
similitudes drawne out of the same.
By the Law of Nature the King becomes a naturall Father to all his Lieges at his Coronation: And as the
Father of his fatherly duty is bound to care for the nourishing, education, and vertuous government of
his children; even so is the king bound to care for all his subjects. As all the toile and paine that the
father can take for his children, will be thought light and well bestowed by him, so that the effect
thereof redound to their profite and weale; so ought the Prince to doe towards his people. As the
kindly father ought to foresee all inconvenients and dangers that may arise towards his children, and
though with the hazard of his owne person presse to prevent the same; so ought the King towards his
people. As the fathers wrath and correction upon any of his children that offendeth, ought to be by a
fatherly chastisement seasoned with pitie, as long as there is any hope of amendment in them; so
ought the King towards any of his Lieges that offend in that measure. And shortly, as the Fathers
chiefe joy ought to be in procuring his childrens welfare, rejoycing at their weale, sorrowing and
pitying at their evil, to hazard for their safetie, travell for their rest, wake for their sleepe; and in a
word, to thinke that his earthly felicitie and life standeth and liveth more in them, nor in himself; so
ought a good Prince thinke of his people.
62
As to the other branch of this mutuall and reciprock band, is the duety and alleageance that the Lieges
owe to their King: the ground whereof, I take out of the words of Samuel, dited by Gods Spirit, when
God had given him commandement to heare the peoples voice in choosing and annointing them a
King. And because that place of Scripture being well understood, is so pertinent for our purpose, I
have insert herein the very words of the Text.
10. So Samuel tolde all the wordes of the Lord unto the people that asked a King of him.
11. And he said, this shall be the maner of the King that shall raigne over you: hee will take your
sonnes, and appoint them to his Charets, and to be his horsemen, and some shall runne before his
Charet.
12. Also, hee will make them his captaines over thousands, and captaines over fifties, and to eare his
ground, and to reape his harvest, and to make instruments of warre and the things that serve for his
charets:
13. Hee will also take your daughters, and make them Apothicaries, and Cookes, and Bakers.
14. And hee will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your best Olive trees, and give them to his
servants.
15. And hee will take the tenth of your seed, and of your Vineyards, and give it to his Eunuches, and
to his servants.
16. And hee will take your men servants, and your maid-servants, and the chief of your young men,
and your asses, and put them to his worke.
17. Hee will take the tenth of your sheepe: and ye shall be his servants.
18. And ye shall cry out at that day, because of your King, whom ye have chosen you: and the Lord
God will not heare you at that day.
19. But the people would not heare the voice of Samuel, but did say: Nay, but there shalbe a King
over us.
20. And we also will be all like other Nations, and our King shall judge us, and goe out before us, and
fight out battles.
As likewise, although I have said, a good king will frame all his actions to be according to the Law; yet
is hee not bound thereto but of his good will, and for good example—giving to his subjects: For as in
the law of abstaining from eating of flesh in Lenton, the king will, for examples sake, make his owne
house to observe the Law; yet no man will thinke he needs to take a licence to eate flesh. And
although by our Lawes, the bearing and wearing of hag-buts, and pistolets be forbidden, yet no man
can find any fault in the King, for causing his traine use them in any raide upon the Borderers, or
other malefactours or rebellious subjects. So as I have alreadie said, a good King, although hee be
above the Law, will subject and frame his actions thereto, for examples sake to his subjects, and of
his owne free-will, but not as subject or bound thereto.
And the agreement of the Law of nature in this our ground with the Lawes and constitutions of God,
and man, already alleged, will by two similitudes easily appeare. The King towards his people is rightly
compared to a father of children, and to a head of a body composed of divers members: For as
fathers, the good Princes, and Magistrates of the people of God acknowledged themselves to their
subjects. And for all other well ruled Common-wealths, the stile of Pater patriae was ever, and is
commonly used to Kings. And the proper office of a King towards his Subjects, agrees very wel with
the office of the head towards the body, and all members thereof: For from the head, being the seate
of Judgement, proceedeth the care and foresight of guiding, and preventing all evill that may come to
the body, so doeth the King for his people. As the discourse and direction flowes from the head, and
the execution according thereunto belongs to the rest of the members, every one according to their
63
office: so it is betwixt a wise Prince, and his people. As the judgement coming from the head may not
onely imploy the members, every one in their owne office, as long as they are able for it; but likewise
in case any of them be affected with any infirmitie must care and provide for their remedy, in-case it
be curable, and if otherwise, gar cut them off for feare of infecting of the rest: even so is it betwixt the
Prince, and his people. And as there is ever hope of curing any diseased member of the direction of
the head, as long as it is whole; but by contrary, if it be troubled, all the members are partakers of
that paine, so is it betwixt the Prince and his people.
And now first for the fathers part (whose naturally love to his children I described in the first part of
this my discourse, speaking of the dutie that Kings owe to their Subjects) consider, I pray you what
duetie his children owe to him, & whether upon any pretext whatsoever, it wil not be thought
monstrous and unnaturall to his sons, to rise up against him, to control him at their appetite, and
when they thinke good to sley him, or to cut him off, and adopt to themselves any other they please
in his roome: Or can any pretence of wickedness or rigor on his part be a just excuse for his children
to put hand into him? And although wee see by the course of nature, that love useth to descend more
than to ascend, in case it were trew, that the father hated and wronged the children never so much,
will any man, endued with the least sponke of reason, thinke it lawful for them to meet him with the
line? Yea, suppose the father were furiously following his sonnes with a drawen sword, is it lawful for
them to turne and strike againe, or make any resistance but by flight? I thinke surely, if there were no
more but the example of bruit beasts & unreasonable creatures, it may serve well enough to qualifie
and prove this my argument. We reade often the pietie that the Storkes have to their olde and
decayed parents: And generally wee know, that there are many sorts of beasts and fowles, that with
violence and many bloody strokes will beat and banish their yong ones from them, how soone they
perceive them to be able to fend themselves; but wee never read or heard of any resistance on their
part, except among the vipers; which prooves such persons, as ought to be reasonable creatures, and
yet unnaturally follow this example, to be endued with their viperous nature.
And it is here likewise to be noted, that the duty and alleageance, which the people sweareth to their
prince, is not bound to themselves, but likewise to their lawfull heires and posterity, the lineall to their
lawfull heires and posterity, the lineall succession of crowns being begun among the people of God,
and happily continued in divers Christian common-wealths: So as no objection either of heresie, or
whatsoever private statute or law may free the people from their oathgiving to their king, and his
succession, established by the old fundamentall lawes of the kingdom: For, as hee is their heritable
over-lord, and so by birth, not by any right in the coronation, commeth to his crowne; it is a like
unlawful (the crowne ever standing full) to displace him that succeedeth thereto, as to eject the
former: For at the very moment of the expiring of the king reigning, the nearest and lawful heire
entreth in his place: And so to refuse him, or intrude another, is not to holde out uncomming in, but to
expell and put out their righteous King. And I trust at this time whole France acknowledgeth the
superstitious rebellion of the liguers, who upon pretence of heresie, by force of armes held so long
out, to the great desolation of their whole country, their native and righteous king from possessing of
his owne crowne and naturall kingdome.
Not that by all this former discourse of mine, and Apologie for kings, I meane that whatsoever errors
and intollerable abominations a sovereigne prince commit, hee ought to escape all punishment, as if
thereby the world were only ordained for kings, & they without controlment to turne it upside down at
their pleasure: but by the contrary, by remitting them to God (who is their onely ordinary Judge) I
remit them to the sorest and sharpest school-master that can be devised for them: for the further a
king is preferred by God above all other ranks & degrees of men, and the higher that his seat is above
theirs, the greater is his obligation to his maker. And therfore in case he forget himselfe (his
unthankfulness being in the same measure of height) the sadder and sharper will be correction be;
and according to the greatnes of the height he is in, the weight of his fall wil recompense the same:
for the further that any person is obliged to God, his offence becomes and growes so much the
greater, then it would be in any other. Joves thunderclaps light oftner and sorer upon the high &
stately oaks, then on the low and supple willow trees: and the highest bench is sliddriest to sit upon.
Neither is it ever heard that any king forgets himself towards God, or in his vocation; but God with the
greatnesse of the plague revengeth the greatnes of his ingratitude: Neither thinke I by the force of
argument of this my discourse so to perswade the people, that none will hereafter be raised up, and
rebell against wicked Princes. But remitting to the justice and providence of God to stirre up such
scourges as pleaseth him, for punishment of wicked kings (who made the very vermine and filthy dust
64
of the earth to bridle the insolencie of proud Pharaoh) my onely purpose and intention in this treatise
is to perswade, as farre as lieth in me, by these sure and infallible grounds, all such good Christian
readers, as beare not onely the naked name of a Christian, but kith the fruites thereof in their daily
forme of life, to keep their hearts and hands free from such monstrous and unnaturall rebellions,
whensoever the wickednesse of a Prince shall procure the same at Gods hands: that, when it shall
please God to cast such scourges of princes, and instruments of his fury in the fire, ye may stand up
with cleane handes, and unspotted consciences, having prooved your selves in all your actions trew
Christians toward God, and dutifull subjects towards your King, having remitted the judgement and
punishment of all his wrongs to him, whom to onely of right it appertaineth.
But craving at God, and hoping that God shall continue his blessing with us, in not sending such
fearefull desolation, I heartily wish our kings behaviour so to be, and continue among us, as our God
in earth, and loving Father, endued with such properties as I described a King in the first part of this
Treatise. And that ye (my deare countreymen, and charitable readers) may presse by all means to
procure the prosperitie and welfare of your King; that as hee must on the one part thinke all his
earthly felicitie and happiness grounded upon your weale, caring more for himselfe for your sake then
for his owne, thinking himselfe onely ordained for your weale; such holy and happy emulation may
arise betwixt him and you, as his care for your quietnes, and your care for his honor and preservation,
may in all your actions daily strive together, that the Land may thinke themselves blessed with such a
King, and the king may thinke himself most happy in ruling over so loving and obedient subjects.
Louis XIV Writes to His Son
(1661)
Louis XIV
Louis XIV. 1970. A King's Lessons in Statecraft: Louis XIV: Letters to His Heirs with
Introduction and Notes by Jean Longnon. Translated by Herbert Wilson. Port Washington,
NY: Kennikat Press.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, England, for various reasons, was moving toward
what we might call a "Constitutional Monarchy." In such a system, the power of a king or a queen is
limited by a written constitution (or, in England's case, where there is no written constitution, a series
of documents that serve the same general purpose as a constitution). In general, such a system tends
to be more decentralized than centralized, as power is delegated to bodies such as a parliament. In
contrast, France during the same period was developing, to the envy of the rest of Western Europe, a
strong, centralized absolute monarchy, where the king's position was not limited in any way. Louis
XIV, who ruled from 1643 to 1715, became the prototypical absolute monarch, even developing a sort
of "cult of personality" around him.
Because ruling over and maintaining such a centralized system required care and attention, Louis XIV
in 1661 wrote a series of memoirs to his son, the dauphin. These memoirs not only provided practical
advice for the king's heir, they also provide us with insight into royal attitudes and priorities. Sadly for
65
Louis XIV, the dauphin died before his father, and it was Louis's great-grandson who became Louis XV
in 1714.
MANY REASONS, all very important, my son, have decided me, at some labour to myself, but one
which I regard as forming one of my greatest concerns, to leave you these Memoirs of my reign and of
my principal actions. I have never considered that kings, feeling in themselves, as they do, all
paternal affection, are dispensed from the obligation common to fathers of instructing their children by
example and by precept.
I have even hoped that in this purpose I might be able to be more helpful to you, and consequently to
my subjects, than any one else in the world; for there cannot be men who have reigned of more
talents and greater experience than I, nor who have reigned in France; and I do not fear to tell you
that the higher the position the greater are the number of things which cannot be viewed or
understood save by one who is occupying that position.
I have considered, too, what I have so often experienced myself -- the throng who will press round
you, each for his own ends, the trouble you will have in finding disinterested advice, and the entire
confidence you will be able to feel in that of a father who has no other interest but your own, no
ardent wish but for your greatness.
I have given, therefore, some consideration to the condition of Kings -- hard and rigorous in this
respect -- who owe, as it were, a public account of their actions to the whole world and to all
succeeding centuries, and who, nevertheless, are unable to do so to all and sundry at the time without
injury to their greatest interests, and without divulging the secret reasons of their conduct.
[Louis talks briefly about his own reign]
Two things without doubt were absolutely necessary: very hard work on my part, and a wise choice of
persons capable of seconding it.
As for work, it may be, my son, that you will begin to read these Memoirs at an age when one is far
more in the habit of dreading than loving it, only too happy to have escaped subjection to tutors and
to have your hours regulated no longer, nor lengthy and prescribed study laid down for you.
There is something more, my son, and I hope that your own experience will never teach it to you:
nothing could be more laborious to you than a great amount of idleness if you were to have the
misfortune to fall into it through beginning by being disgusted with public affairs, then with pleasure,
then with idleness itself, seeking everywhere fruitlessly for what can never be found, that is to say,
the sweetness of repose and leisure without having the preceding fatigue and occupation.
I laid a rule on myself to work regularly twice every day, and for two or three hours each time with
different persons, without counting the hours which I passed privately and alone, nor the time which I
was able to give on particular occasions to any special affairs that might arise. There was no moment
when I did not permit people to talk to me about them, provided that they were urgent; with the
exception of foreign ministers who sometimes find too favourable moments in the familiarity allowed
to them, either to obtain or to discover something, and whom one should not hear without being
previously prepared.
I cannot tell you what fruit I gathered immediately I had taken this resolution. I felt myself, as it
were, uplifted in thought and courage; I found myself quite another man, and with joy reproached
myself for having been too long unaware of it. This first timidity, which a little self-judgment always
produces and which at the beginning gave me pain, especially on occasions when I had to speak in
public, disappeared in less than no time. The only thing I felt then was that I was King, and born to be
one. I experienced next a delicious feeling, hard to express, and which you will not know yourself
except by tasting it as I have done. For you must not imagine, my son, that the affairs of State are
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like some obscure and thorny path of learning which may possibly have already wearied you, wherein
the mind strives to raise itself with effort above its purview, more often to arrive at no conclusion, and
whose utility or apparent utility is repugnant to us as much as its difficulty. The function of Kings
consists principally in allowing good sense to act, which always acts naturally and without effort. What
we apply ourselves to is sometimes less difficult than what we do only for our amusement. Its
usefulness always follows. A King, however skilful and enlightened be his ministers, cannot put his
own hand to the work without its effect being seen. Success, which is agreeable in everything, even in
the smallest matters, gratifies us in these as well as in the greatest, and there is no satisfaction to
equal that of noting every day some progress in glorious and lofty enterprises, and in the happiness of
the people which has been planned and thought out by oneself. All that is most necessary to this work
is at the same time agreeable; for, in a word, my son, it is to have one's eyes open to the whole
earth; to learn each hour the news concerning every province and every nation, the secrets of every
court, the mood and the weaknesses of each Prince and of every foreign minister; to be well-informed
on an infinite number of matters about which we are supposed to know nothing; to elicit from our
subjects what they hide from us with the greatest care; to discover the most remote opinions of our
own courtiers and the most hidden interests of those who come to us with quite contrary professions.
I do not know of any other pleasure we would not renounce for that, even if curiosity alone gave us
the opportunity.
I have dwelt on this important subject longer than I had intended, and far more for your sake than for
my own; for while I am disclosing to you these methods and these alleviations attending the greatest
cares of royalty I am not unaware that I am likewise depreciating almost the sole merit which I can
hope for in the eyes of the world. But in this matter, my son, your honour is dearer to me than my
own; and if it should happen that God call you to govern before you have yet taken to this spirit of
application and to public affairs of which I am speaking, the least deference you can pay to the advice
of a father, to whom I make bold to say you owe much in every kind of way, is to begin to do and to
continue to do for some time, even under constraint and dislike, for love of me who beg it of you,
what you will do all your life from love of yourself, if once you have made a beginning.
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