AP European History Prose Reading
1400 – 1648 Renaissance through Treaty of Westphalia
Taken from George Burson – Aspen High School on the net
The Renaissance
I. The Meaning and Characteristics of the Italian Renaissance
Renaissance means “rebirth.” Although the Renaissance does not represent a sudden or dramatic cultural
break with the Middle Ages, the period can be viewed as a distinct period of European history that
manifested itself first in Italy and then spread to the rest of Europe. Renaissance Italy was largely a land of
independent city-states. Within these new urban societies, a secular spirit emerged as increasing wealth
created new possibilities for the enjoyment of worldly things. Above all, the Renaissance was an age of
recovery from the disorder of the 14th century. Recovery was accompanied by a rebirth of the culture of
classical antiquity that led to new ways of viewing humans. Though not entirely new, there was a revived
emphasis on individual ability. These general features of the Italian Renaissance were primarily the
preserve of the wealthy upper classes—it was an elite, not a mass movement.
Beginning in the late 11th century the agricultural foundation of Western civilization began to be
transformed. The new agricultural practices and the subsequent increase in food production, which freed
part of the European population from the need to produce their own food, allowed diversification in
economic functions that led to a revival of trade, considerable expansion in the circulation of money, a
restoration of specialized craftspeople and artisans, and the growth and development of towns.
By the 14th century, Italian merchants were carrying on a flourishing commerce throughout the
Mediterranean and had also expanded their lines of trade north along the Atlantic seaboard. In England and
the Netherlands the Italians came into contact with the Hanseatic League. Hard hit by the plague, the
Italians lost their commercial preeminence while the Hanseatic League continued to prosper until the 15th
century when the League proved increasingly unable to compete with the developing larger territorial
states. The Hanseatic League had been formed as early as the 13th century when some north German towns
began to cooperate to gain favorable trading rights in Flanders. By 1500, more than 80 cities belonged to
the League. As the Hanseatic League began to decline in the 15th century, the Italians, especially the
Venetians, continued to maintain a wealthy commercial empire. Not until the 16th century, when the
overseas discoveries gave new importance to the states facing the Atlantic, did the Italian city-states begin
to suffer from the competitive advantages of the more powerful national territorial states.
The aristocracy constituted between 2 and 3 percent of the population in most countries, but they managed
to dominate society. They served as military officers and held important political posts. By 1500, certain
ideals came to be expected of the noble or aristocrat. First, nobles should possess fundamental native
endowments, such as impeccable character, grace, talents, and noble birth. The perfect courtier must also
cultivate certain achievements. Primarily, he should participate in military and bodily exercises since the
principal profession of a courtier was arms. He was also expected to have a classical education and to adorn
his life with the arts by playing a musical instrument, drawing, and painting. Finally, the aristocrat was
expected to make a good impression. While being modest, he should not hide his accomplishments, but
show them with grace. The purpose these courtly standards was so the courtier could win “the favor and
mind of the prince whom he serves, so that he may be able to always tell him the truth about everything he
needs to know, without fear or risk of displeasing him, and that when he sees the mind of his prince
inclined to a wrong action, he may dare oppose him so as to dissuade him of every evil intent and bring him
to the path of virtue” (The Book of the Courtier, 1528).
Peasants constituted as much as 85 to 90 percent of the total European population. During the 14th century
the manorial system and serfdom continued to decline, although in many places lords were able to retain
many of the fees thy charged their peasants. While serfdom was declining in western Europe, eastern
Europe experienced a reverse trend. The weakness of eastern rulers enabled nobles to tie their peasants to
the land and use servile labor in the large-scale production of grain for the ever-growing export market.
At the top of urban society were the patricians, whose wealth from capitalistic enterprises in trade, industry,
and banking enabled them to dominate their urban communities economically, socially, and politically.
Below them were the petty burghers, the shopkeepers, artisans, guildmasters, and guild members who were
largely concerned with providing goods and services for local consumption. Below these two groups were
the property less workers earning pitiful wages and the unemployed, living squalid and miserable lives.
These people constituted as much as 30 or 40 percent of the urban population. Beneath them were the
slaves, especially in the Italian cities.
Although some domestic slaves remained, slavery in European society had largely disappeared by the 11th
century. It reappeared in Spain, where both Christians and Muslims used captured prisoners as slaves
during the lengthy reconquista. In the second half of the 14th century, the shortage of workers after the
Black Death led Italians to reintroduce slavery on a fairly large scale. Slaves were obtained primarily from
the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea region. Between 1414 and 1423, 10,000 slaves were sold on
the Venetian market. Most slaves were females, many of them young girls.
By the end of the 15th century, slavery had declined dramatically in the Italian cities. Many slaves had been
freed by their owners, and the major source of slaves dried up as the Black Sea slave markets were closed
to Italian traders after the Turks conquered the Byzantine Empire. Prices rose dramatically, further cutting
demand. Moreover, a general feeling had arisen that slaves-the “domestic enemy” as they were called—
were dangerous and not worth the effort. The Portuguese shipped about 140,000 black slaves into Europe
from Africa between 1444 and 1505. Most of these slaves were kept as curiosities at court.
The extended family played an important role in Renaissance Italy. Families that were related and bore the
same surname often lived near each other and might dominate an entire urban district. Old family names
conferred great status and prestige. The family bond was a source of great security in a dangerous and
violent world, and its importance helps explain the vendetta in the Italian Renaissance. A crime committed
by one family member fell on the entire family, ensuring that retaliation by the offended family would be a
bloody affair involving large numbers of people. Marriages were arranged by parents, often to strengthen
business or family ties. The important aspect of the marriage contract was the size of the dowry. The size of
the dowry was an indication of whether the bride was moving upward or downward in society. With a large
dowry, a daughter could marry a man of higher social status, thereby enabling her family to move up in
society.
II. The Italian States in the Renaissance
By the 15th century, five major powers dominated the Italian peninsula—the duchy of Milan, Venice,
Florence, the Papal States, and the kingdom of Naples. Besides the five major states, there were a number
of independent city-states under the control of powerful ruling families that became brilliant centers of
Renaissance culture.
The frenzied world of the Italian territorial states gave rise to a political practice of the balance of power.
This system was designed to prevent the aggrandizement of any one state at the expense of the others. This
system was especially evident after 1454 when the Italian states signed the Peace of Lodi, which ended
almost a half-century of war and inaugurated a relatively peaceful era until 1494. The breakdown of the
balance power encouraged the French and Spanish to move into Italy. Feeling isolated, the duke of Milan
foolishly invited the French to intervene in Italian politics. The French took advantage of the offer in 1494,
and with an army of 30,000 men, advanced through Italy and occupied the kingdom of Naples. Other
Italian states turned to the Spanish for help and for the next 15 years, the French and Spanish competed to
dominate Italy. Beginning in the decade of the 1510s, the war was continued by a new generation of rulers
as part of a long struggle for power throughout Europe between the Valois and Hapsburg dynasties. The
terrible sack of Rome in 1527 by the Spanish army brought a temporary end to the Italian wars. Hereafter,
the Spaniards dominated Italy. Few Italians conceived of creating an alliance or confederation of states that
could repel foreign invaders. Italians remained fiercely loyal to their own petty states, making invasion a
fact of life in Italian history. Italy would not achieve unification and nationhood until 1870.
III. The Intellectual Renaissance in Italy
During the 14th through 16th centuries Italy was the cultural leader of Europe. This new Italian culture was
primarily the product of a relatively wealthy, urban lay society. One of the most important movements we
associate with the Renaissance is humanism. Renaissance humanism was a form of education and culture
based on the study of the classics. Humanism was not so much a philosophy of life as an educational
program that revolved around a clearly defined group of intellectual disciplines or “liberal arts”—grammar,
rhetoric, poetry, ethics, mathematics, astronomy, music, and history—all based on an examination of
classical authors. Crucial to all liberal studies was the mastery of Greek and Latin. The purpose of a liberal
education was to produce men who followed a path of virtue and wisdom and possessed the rhetorical skills
to persuade others to take it.
Petrarch (1304-1374) has often been called the father of Italian renaissance humanism. He was the first
intellectual to characterized the Middle Ages as a period of darkness, promoting the mistaken belief that
medieval culture was ignorant of classical antiquity. Petrarch’s interest in the classics led him on a quest for
forgotten Latin Manuscripts and set in motion a ransacking of monastic libraries throughout Europe.
Petrarch worried at times whether he was sufficiently attentive to spiritual ideals. His qualms did not
prevent him from inaugurating the humanist emphasis on the use of pure classical Latin, making it
fashionable for humanists to use Cicero as a model for prose and Virgil for poetry. As Petrarch said,
“Christ is my God; Cicero is the prince of the language.”
In Florence, the humanist movement took a new direction at the beginning of the 15th century when it
became closely tied to Florentine civil spirit and pride. Fourteenth-century humanists such as Petrarch had
described the intellectual life as one of solitude. In the busy civic world of Florence, intellectuals began to
take the classical Roman Cicero, who was both a statesman and an intellectual, as their model. Cicero
served as the inspiration for the Renaissance ideal that it was the duty of an intellectual to live an active life
for one’s state, and humanists began to serve the state as chancellors, councilors, and advisers.
Also evident in the humanism of the first half of the 15th century was a growing interest in Greek.
Humanists eagerly perused the works of Plato and Greek poets, dramatists, historians and orators (e.g.
Thucydides, Euripides, and Sophocles), all of whom had been ignored by the scholastics of the Middle
Ages as irrelevant to the theological questions they were examining. Italian humanists were very critical of
the Catholic church at times, but fundamentally they accepted the church and above all wished only to
restore a simpler, purer, and more ethical Christianity. To the humanists, the study of the classics was
perfectly compatible with Christianity.
The period of the Renaissance witnessed the invention of printing with movable metal type. This
development was a gradual process that culminated sometime between 1145 and 1450. Johannes
Gutenberg’s Bible, completed in 1455 or 1456, was the first real book produced from movable type. By
1500, there were more than 1,000 printers in Europe who had published almost 40,000 titles (between 8
and 10 million copies). Probably 50 percent of these books were religious in character. Next in importance
were the Latin and Greek classics, medieval grammars, legal handbooks, works on philosophy, and an
ever-growing number of popular romances.
Printing became one of the largest industries in Europe, and its effects were soon felt in many areas of
European life. It encouraged the development of scholarly research and the desire to attain knowledge. It
facilitated cooperation among scholars and help produce standardized and definitive texts. Printing also
stimulated the development of an ever-expanding lay reading public. Without the printing press, the new
religious ideas of the Reformation would never have spread as rapidly as they did in the 16th century.
IV. The Artistic Renaissance
Renaissance artists considered the imitation of nature to be their primary goal. The new artistic standards
reflected a new attitude of mind in which humans became the focus of attention. The realistic portrayal of
the human nude became one of the foremost preoccupations of Italian Renaissance art. The new assertion
of human individuality was reflected in the new emphasis on portraiture. Patrons appeared in the corners of
sacred pictures, and monumental tombs and portrait statues honored many of Florence’s prominent citizens.
By the end of the 15th century, especially talented individuals, such as Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519),
Raphael (1483-1520), and Michelangelo (1475-1520), were no longer seen as craftsmen, but as artistic
geniuses. Artists became heroes, individuals who were praised more for their creativity than for their
competence as craftspeople. Michelangelo, for example, was frequently addressed as “the Divine One” (II
Divino). As society excused their eccentricities and valued their creative genius, the artists of the
Renaissance became the first to embody the modern concept of the artist. As respect for artists grew, so too
did their ability to profit economically from their work. They mingled with the political and intellectual
elite of their society and became more aware of new intellectual theories, which they then incorporated into
their art.
V. The European State in the Renaissance
France-- The 100 Years War had left France depopulated and prostrate. Unruly nobles made it difficult for
the king to assert his authority. But the war also developed a strong degree of French nationalism. The need
to prosecute the war provided an excuse to strengthen the authority of the king. Charles VII (1422-1461)
with the consent of the Estates-General established a royal army. He received from the Estates-General the
right to levy the taille, an annual direct tax usually on land or property, without any need for further
approval from the Estates-General. Losing control of the purse meant less power for this parliamentary
body. Under Charles VII the French king also began to assume control over the church in France.
The process of developing a French territorial state was greatly advanced by King Louis XI (1461-1483).
Some historians have called Louis XI the founder of the French national state. He retained the taille after
the 100 Years War as a permanent tax. This tax enabled the king to have a sound, regular source of income.
When the duke of Burgundy was killed in 1477 fighting the Swiss, Louis added the duchy of Burgundy to
his own lands. In 1480 the provinces of Anjou, Maine, Bar, and Provence were brought under royal control.
Louis also encouraged the growth of industry and commerce. For example, he introduced the silk industry
to Lyons.
England--The 100 Years War also seriously strained the English economy. Moreover, the end of the war
brought even greater domestic turmoil to England when the War of the Roses broke out in the 1450s. The
civil war pitted the house of Lancaster, whose symbol was a red rose, against the house of York, whose
symbol was a white rose. Many aristocratic families were drawn into the conflict. Finally, in 1485, Henry
Tudor defeated the last Yorkist king, Richard III and established the new Tudor dynasty.
As the first Tudor king, Henry VII (1485-1509) worked to reduce internal dissension and establish a strong
monarchical government. The English aristocracy had been much weakened by the War of the Roses
because many nobles had been killed. Henry eliminated the private wars of the nobility by abolishing their
private armies. Since England, unlike France and Spain, did not possess a standing army, the king relied on
special commissions to trusted nobles to raise troops for a specific campaign, after which the troops were
disbanded.
Henry VII was particularly successful in extracting income from the traditional financial resources of the
English monarchy, such as crown lands, judicial fees and fines, and customs duties. The king avoided war
and he did not have to call parliament on any regular basis to grant him funds. By not overburdening the
landed gentry and middle class with taxes, Henry won their favor, and they provided much support for his
monarchy. Henry also encouraged commercial activity.
Spain--During the Middle Ages, several independent kingdoms had emerged in the course of the long
reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from the Muslims. Aragon and Castile were the strongest; in the west
was the independent monarchy of Portugal; in the north, the small kingdom of Navarre oriented toward
France; and in the south, the Muslim kingdom of Granada.
A major step in the unification of Spain was taken with the marriage of Isabella of Castile (1474-1504) and
Ferdinand of Aragon (1479-1516) in 1469. This marriage was dynastic union of two rulers, not a political
union. Both kingdoms maintained their own parliaments (Cortes), courts, laws, coinage, customs, and
political organs. Nevertheless, the two rulers worked to strengthen royal control of government. They also
reorganized the army, making it the best in Europe by the 16th century.
Ferdinand and Isabella recognized the importance of controlling the Catholic church. They secured from
the pope the right to select the most important church officials in Spain, and the church became an
instrument for the extension of royal power. In 1492, flush with the success of the conquest of Muslim
Granada, Ferdinand and Isabella expelled all Jews from Spain. It is estimated that 150,000 out of possibly
200,000 Jews fled. Muslims were “encouraged” to convert to Christianity after the conquest of Granada. In
1502, Isabella issued a decree expelling all professed Muslims from her kingdom. To be Spanish was to be
Catholic, a policy of uniformity enforced by the Inquisition.
During the reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain (or the union of Castile and Aragon) began to emerge as
an important power in European affairs. Both Granada and Navarre had been conquered and incorporated
into the royal realms. Nevertheless, Spain remained divided in many ways. Only the royal dynasty provided
the centralizing force, and when a single individual, the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, succeeded
both rulers as Charles I 1n 1516, he inherited lands that made him the most powerful monarch of his age.
The Holy Roman Empire--After 1438, the position of Holy Roman Emperor remained in the hands of the
Habsburg dynasty. Having gradually acquired a number of possessions along the Danube, known
collectively as Austria, the house of Habsburg had become one of the wealthiest landholders in the empire
and by the mid-fifteenth century began to play an important role in European affairs. Through marriage, the
Habsburgs gained Luxembourg and a large part of the Low Countries. The addition of these territories
made the Habsburg dynasty an international power and brought them the undying opposition of the French
monarchy because the rulers of France feared they would be surrounded by the Habsburgs.
Although the Holy Roman Empire did not develop along the lines of a centralized monarchical state, within
the empire the power of the independent princes and electors increased steadily. These German states such
as Bavaria, Hesse, Brandenburg, and the Palatinate, posed a real threat to the church, the emperor, and
other smaller independent bodies in the Holy Roman Empire, especially the free imperial cities.
The Ottoman Turks and the end of Byzantium--Beginning in northeastern Asia Minor in the 13th century,
the Ottoman Turks spread rapidly, seizing the lands of the Seljuk Turks and the Byzantine Empire. In 1345,
they bypassed Constantinople and conquered the Balkans. In 1453, Constantinople fell to the Turks after a
siege of several months By the end of the 15th century the Turks were threatening Hungary, Austria,
Bohemia, and Poland. The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, became their bitter enemy in the 16th
century.
VI. The Catholic Church in the Renaissance
Two widespread heresy movements—Lollardy and Hussitism—posed new threats to the church. English
Lollardy was a product of the Oxford theologian John Wyclif (c. 1328-1384), whose disgust with clerical
corruption led him to a far-ranging attack on papal authority and medieval Christian beliefs and practices.
Wyclif alleged that there was no basis in Scripture for papal claims of temporal authority and he advocated
that the popes by stripped of both their authority and property. Rejecting all practices not mentioned in
Scripture, Wyclif condemned pilgrimages, the veneration of saints and other common church practices. His
attacks on church property were especially popular, and he attracted a number of followers who came to be
known as Lollards (the term means “mumblers of prayers and psalms,” and refers to what they criticized).
A marriage between the royal families of England and Bohemia enabled Lollard ideas to spread to
Bohemia where they reinforced the ideas of a group of Czech reforms led by the chancellor of the
university at Prague, John Hus (1374-1415). In his call for reform, Hus urged the elimination of the
worldliness and corruption of the clergy and attacked the excessive power of the papacy. Since the Catholic
church was one of the largest landowners in Bohemia, and since Germans dominated the Czech church
hierarchy, many Bohemians supported Hus. When Hus, given a safe conduct by the emperor, presented his
ideas to the Council of Constance, he was arrested, condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake. This
action turned the unrest in Bohemia into revolutionary upheaval. The resulting Hussite wars combined
religious, social, and national issues and wracked the Holy Roman Empire until 1436. Both Wyclif and Hus
can be seen as forerunners to the Reformation.
The primary concern of the papacy is governing the Catholic church as its spiritual leader. but as heads of
the church, popes had temporal preoccupations as well, and the story of the Renaissance papacy is basically
an account of how temporal concerns came to overshadow the popes’ spiritual functions. To further their
territorial aims in the Papal States, the popes needed increased financial resources. Since they were not
hereditary monarchs, popes could not build dynasties over several generations and they came to rely on the
practice of nepotism (the word nepotism is derived from nepos, meaning nephew) to promote their
families’ interests. For example Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503), a member of the Borgia family, raised
one son, one nephew, and the brother of one mistress to the cardinalate. Alexander scandalized the church
by encouraging his son Cesare to carve a territorial state in central Italy out of the territories of the Papal
States. The Renaissance popes were great patrons of Renaissance culture, and their efforts made Rome the
focal point of the arts at the beginning of the 16th century.
The Reformation
I. Martin Luther and the Reformation in Germany
The failure of the Renaissance popes to provide spiritual leadership affected the spiritual life of all
Christendom. The highest positions of the clergy were increasingly held by either the nobility or the
wealthier members of the bourgeoisie. At the same time, to enhance their revenues, high church officials
accumulated church offices in ever-larger numbers. This led to a growing economic division between the
higher and lower clergy. Social discontent grew, especially among those able and conscientious priests
whose path to advancement was blocked by the nobles’ domination of higher church offices. The practice
of pluralism (the holding of many church offices) led, in turn, to the problem of absenteeism, as church
officeholders neglected their religious duties and delegated the administration of their dioceses to priests,
who were often underpaid and little interested in performing their duties. The 15th century was rife with
complaints about the ignorance and incapacity of parish priests, as well as their greed and sexual offenses.
One manifestation of religious piety in the 15th century was the almost mechanical view of the process of
salvation. Collections of relics grew as more people sought certainty of salvation through their veneration.
By 1509, Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony and Luther’s prince, had amassed over 5,000 relics to
which were attached indulgences that could officially reduce one’s time in purgatory by 1,443 years (an
indulgence is a remission of all or part of the punishment due to sin).
The Protestant Reformation had its beginning in a typical medieval question—what must I do to be saved?
Martin Luther found an answer that did not fit within the traditional teachings of the late medieval church.
Ultimately, he split with that church, destroying the religious unity of western Christendom. Martin Luther
was a Catholic monk with a doctorate in theology who taught at the University of Wittenberg, lecturing on
the Bible.
Luther was obsessed with the question of the assurance of salvation, and the traditional beliefs and the
church seemed unable to help him. The sacraments were a Catholic’s chief means of receiving God’s grace;
that of confession offered the opportunity to have one’s sins forgiven. Luther spent hours confessing his
sins, but he was always doubtful. Had he remembered all of his sins? Even more, how could a hopeless
sinner be acceptable to a totally just and all-powerful God? Probably sometime between 1513 and 1516,
through his study of the Bible, Luther arrived at an answer to his problem.
To Luther it appeared that the church was saying that one must earn salvation by good works. In Luther’s
eye, human beings, weak and powerless in the sight of almighty God, could never do enough to justify
salvation in these terms. Luther wrote: “Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the
Justice of God and the statement [in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans] that ‘the just shall live by his faith.’
Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God
justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into
paradise.”
The event that propelled Luther into an open confrontation with church officials was the indulgence
controversy. In 1517 Pope Leo X ordered an increased sale of indulgences to help pay for the construction
of Saint Peter’s Basilica. Luther’s archbishop, Albrecht of Brandenburg, also received a special
dispensation from the pope to obtain another church office beyond the two he already held. He borrowed
the money from a bank which then paid the pope. The pope then gave Albrecht the rights to sell
indulgences in Germany for ten years, with half of the proceeds going to pay off his debt and the other half
to Rome. Albrecht’s agent Johann Tetzel hawked the indulgences with the slogan, “As soon as the coin in
the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”
In response to the sale of indulgence Luther issued his 95 Thesis. Luther claimed that if the pope had the
power to grant indulgences, “why does not the Pope empty purgatory for the sake of most holy love and the
supreme need of souls?” The 95 Theses were quickly printed in thousands of copies and received
sympathetically in a Germany that had a long tradition of dissatisfaction with papal policies and power.
Between 1520 and 1530 Luther worked out the basic theological tenets that became the articles of faith for
all Protestant groups. To Luther, the “justice of God” was now not a punitive justice but the grace of God
that bestows salvation freely to humans, not through their good works, but through the sacrifice of Jesus on
the cross. Humans do nothing to merit grace; it is purely God’s decision. Since Luther had arrived at the
doctrine of salvation through faith alone from his study of Scripture, the Bible became for Protestants the
chief guide to religious truth. Justification by faith and the Bible as the sole authority in religious affairs
were the twin pillars of the Protestant Reformation.
Luther’s idea of the church as a spiritual priesthood of all believers differed markedly from the Roman
Catholic practice of a hierarchical institution headed by the pope. Whereas Catholic doctrine holds that
there are seven sacraments (marriage, baptism, holy orders, the Eucharist, penance, confirmation, and
extreme unction), Luther believed that the Scriptures support only two—baptism, and the Eucharist. In the
Eucharist Catholics hold the dogma of transubstantiation: by the consecrating words of the priest during the
Mass, the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Christ. In opposition. Luther defined
consubstantiation, the belief that after consecration the bread and wine undergo a spiritual change whereby
Christ is spiritually present but the bread and wine are not transformed. Catholics and Protestants agree that
the sacrament must be received worthily and that it is a source of God’s grace.
The church excommunicated Luther in January 1521. Luther was summoned to appear before the Reichstag
of the Holy roman Empire in Worms where he repudiated the authority of the pope. Though Luther placed
his conscience above the authority of the church, he also believed that he had arrived at the truth, from
which others were not allowed to deviate. The 21 year old emperor Charles V was outraged at Luther’s
audacity and through the Edict of Worms, Luther was made an outlaw within the empire, but he was
protected by Fredrick of Saxony who had earlier forbade the sale of indulgences within his duchy.
In the decade of the 1520s Lutheranism had much appeal and spread rapidly. The preaching of evangelical
sermons, based on a return to the original message of the Bible, found favor throughout Germany, and
many state authorities instituted church reforms. Luther also insisted on the use of music as a means to
teach the Gospel. Following his own denunciation of clerical celibacy, Luther married a former nun in
1525.
In 1524 German peasants revolted against their rulers, and looked to Luther for support. Luther reacted
quickly and vehemently against the peasants. He called upon the nobility to “stab, smite, and slay” the
stupid and stubborn peasantry. Luther did not believe in social revolution. To Luther, the state and its rulers
were ordained by God, who had given them the authority to maintain the peace and order necessary for the
spread of the Gospel. Luther was fully prepared to lend religious dignity to the rulers in return for their
ongoing support. The Lutheran churches in Germany (and later in Scandinavia) quickly became territorial
or state churches in which the state supervised and disciplined church members.
II. Germany and the Reformation: Religion and Politics
In 1519 Charles I, king of Spain was elected Holy Roman Emperor as Charles V (1519-1556). He ruled
over an empire consisting of Spain and its overseas possession, Bohemia, Hungary, the Low Countries and
the kingdom of Naples.
France became embroiled in conflict with Charles over disputed territories. These conflicts, known as the
Habsburg-Valois Wars, were fought intermittently between 1521 and 1544, preventing Charles from
concentrating his attention on the Lutheran problem in Germany. Fearful of Charles’ power in Italy, Pope
Clement VII joined the side of Francis I of France in the second Habsburg-Valois War. In April 1527, the
Spanish-imperial army of Charles V subjected Rome to a bloody sack. Sobered by the experience, Clement
came to terms with the emperor, and by 1530 Charles V was supreme over much of Italy. In the meantime,
the Ottoman Turks had defeated and killed King Louis of Hungary, Charles’s brother-in-law, in 1526.
Subsequently, the Turks overran most of Hungary, moved into Austria, and advanced as far as Vienna,
where they were finally repulsed in 1529.
Unfortunately for Charles, every time he attempted to deal with Lutheranism in his empire, foreign wars
intervened. It was not until Charles finally made peace with France in 1544 and the Turks in 1545 that he
felt free to deal with Germany. Germany was a land of several hundred territorial states. Though all owed
loyalty to the emperor, Germany’s medieval development had enabled these states to become quite
independent of imperial authority. Even Catholic authorities that might approve of the emperor’s antiLutheran policies had no real desire to strengthen the emperor’s hand politically.
By the time of Luther’s death in 1546, all hopes of a peaceful compromise had faded. After a series of wars
between 1546 and 1552, Charles was forced to negotiate a truce. In the Peace of Augsburg (1555), the
division of Christianity was formally acknowledged, with Lutheranism being granted the same legal rights
as Catholicism. Each German ruler determined the religion of his subjects. The subjects did not have the
right to choose their religion. The Peace of Augsburg guaranteed the weakness of the Holy Roman Empire
and the continued decentralization of Germany. Exhausted by his efforts to maintain religious orthodoxy
and the unity of his empire, Charles abdicated all of his titles in 1556, and retired to his country estate in
Spain to spend the remaining two years of his life in solitude.
III. The Reformation in England
The English broke with Rome over political, not religious matters. King Henry VIII wanted to divorce his
wife Catherine of Aargon for two reasons. First, Catherine had produced no male, heir. The only offspring
was a sickly girl, Mary. No woman had ever undisputedly ruled England and Henry was worried that after
his death a war of succession like the War of the Roses would again break out. Second, Henry had fallen in
love with Anne Boleyn, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine, and he wished to marry her to have his heir.
Before her marriage to Henry, Catherine had been married to his brother Arthur, who had died young.
Church law prohibited marriage to a deceased brother’s wife, but Pope Julius II had granted a dispensation
for the marriage to take place. Catherine had claimed that the marriage with Arthur had never been
consummated and therefore was no marriage at all under canon law. Henry wanted Pope Clement VII to
declare the dispensation and his marriage invalid (Henry claimed Catherine had lied about the
consummation aspect of her marriage to Arthur).
Clement was not a free agent. The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, controlled Rome and the Pope.
Charles would not allow his Aunt Catherine to be set aside and her daughter to be done out of the
succession to the English throne. Henry was in a hurry because Anne Boleyn had become pregnant and he
had secretly married her in January 1533 to legitimize the expected heir. When Clement refused to grant
the annulment, Parliament (wishing at all costs to avoid another civil war) abolished papal authority in
England. In May the archbishop of Canterbury ruled that the king’s marriage to Catherine was “null and
absolutely void,” and then validated Henry’s marriage to Anne, and Anne was crowned queen. In October,
much to Henry’s disappointment, a baby girl, the future Queen Elizabeth I, was born.
In 1536 Henry closed about 400 monasteries and confiscated their land and possessions. Many were sold,
and the king received a great boost to his treasury, as well as creating a group of supporters who now had a
stake in the new Tudor order. Although Henry VIII had broken with the papacy, he changed little in matters
of doctrine, theology, and ceremony. Since religious doctrine and worship changed very little, most people
were indifferent to the transformation that had occurred. Popular acceptance was also furthered by Henry’s
strategy of involving Parliament in all the changes.
Henry soon tired of Anne Boleyn and had her beheaded in 1536 on a charge of adultery. His third wife,
Jane Seymour, produced the long-awaited male heir but died during childbirth. His fourth marriage to Anne
of Cleves, a German princess, was arranged for political reasons and the basis of a painted portrait. Henry
was shocked at her physical appearance when he saw her in person and soon divorced her. When his fifth
wife, Catherine Howard, committed adultery, Henry had her beheaded. His last wife was Catherine Parr,
who married the king in 1543 and outlived him. Henry was succeeded by the 9 year old and sickly Edward
VI (1547-1553).
During Edward’s reign the Church of England moved in a more Protestant direction. New acts of
Parliament instituted the right of the clergy to marry and the creation of a revised Protestant liturgy. These
rapid changes aroused much opposition and when Mary (1553-1558), Henry’s first daughter by Catherine
of Aragon, came to the throne she tried to restore Roman Catholicism. Mary understood little about the
practical nature of politics and even less about the changes that had swept over England in the past 30
years. Many owners of monastic lands feared that the lands confiscated by Henry would be restored to the
church. There was widespread dislike of Mary’s husband, Philip II, the son of Charles V, and the future
king of Spain. The burning of more than 300 Protestants roused further ire against “bloody Mary.” As a
result of her policies, Mary achieved the opposite of what she had intended: England was more Protestant
by the end of her reign than it had been at the beginning. People came to identify Protestantism with the
English resistance to Spain.
IV. John Calvin & the Development of Calvinism
John Calvin (1509-1564) was born in France. He received a classical education and was familiar with the
works of the Christian humanists and Luther. In 1533 he was converted to Protestantism and in 1536 he
moved to Geneva. In Geneva his highest office was pastor of a local church, yet from this position he was
able to mold the religious movement that would stem the forces of the Roman Catholic Reformation.
What is fundamental in Luther’s teaching is also fundamental in Calvin’s—1) the Word of God is the sole
source of authority in religion; 2) man is completely corrupt and sinful; 3) good works are irrelevant to
salvation; and, 4) a person is saved by faith alone. Yet there are fundamental differences in the two men’s
creeds. To Luther, since man’s actions can have absolutely no influence on God, man passively accepts
God’s love. To Calvin, God is almighty—He is omnipotent, perfect, just, and loving. God does all; sinful
and fallen man does and can do nothing to effect his salvation. All humans are worthy only of
condemnation, but God chooses some for salvation. How does He choose? Calvin’s answer is that He
chooses whom He wills to choose (the elect), and the rest of humankind (the reprobate) is justly consigned
to the eternal damnation they deserve.
Calvin identified three tests that might indicate possible salvation: an open profession of faith, a “decent
and godly life,” and participation in the sacraments of baptism and communion. Most importantly, although
Calvin stressed that there could be no absolute certainty of salvation, some of his followers did not always
make this distinction. To Calvin, and his followers, it was the duty of the elect to insure that all humans,
saved and damned alike, conform to God’s law, and that law is found in the scripture, especially the Ten
Commandments. Therefore, the Calvinist must wage unremitting war on sin wherever he found it—in
himself or in others. Thus, Calvinism became the militant international form of Protestantism.
V. The Catholic Reformation
The chief instrument of the Catholic Reformation was the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). The society was
founded by a Spanish nobleman, Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556). The order was grounded on the principles
of absolute obedience to the papacy, a strict hierarchical order, the use of education to achieve its goals, and
a dedication to engage in “conflict for God.”
In 1542 Pope Paul III established a Roman Inquisition to ferret out doctrinal errors. Where secular rulers
would allow it, nonbelievers were either forced to recant or burned at the stake. Heretical books were put
on the Index and Catholics were forbidden to read them.
Gradually the papacy was reformed. The Pope no longer sold offices. Relatives of Popes who had abused
their power were jailed or executed. Nepotism, simony, and bribery were eliminated. Papal pardons and
dispensations from canon law were no longer sold.
Pope Paul III also called for a council to resolve the religious differences created by the Protestant revolt.
The Council of Trent met intermittently from 1545 to 1563 in three major sessions. The Council affirmed
Scripture and tradition as equal authorities in religious matters; only the church could interpret Scripture.
Both faith and good works were declared necessary for salvation. The seven sacraments, the doctrine of
transubstantiation, and clerical celibacy were all upheld. Belief in purgatory and in the efficacy of
indulgences was affirmed, although the hawking of indulgences was prohibited. The Pope was seen as an
absolute monarch incapable of error in matters of faith and morals. With a new spirit of confidence, the
Catholic church entered a militant phase, as well prepared as the Calvinists to do battle for the Lord. An era
of religious warfare was about to unfold.
Religious Wars and European Expansion in the 16th & 17th Centuries
I. Politics & the Wars of Religion
France: From 1562 to 1598, violence and civil war divided and shattered France. The Valois monarchs
Francis I and Henry II had been strong rulers, but when Henry was killed accidentally in a tournament in
1559 he was succeed by weak sons. The forces held in check by a strong monarchy broke loose, beginning
a series of intermittent and confused civil wars.
As many as 50% of the French nobility became Protestants (Huguenots), including the house of Bourbon,
which stood next to the Valois in the royal line of succession. The conversion of so many nobles made the
Huguenots a potentially dangerous political threat to the monarchy. The religious issue was not the only
factor that contributed to the French civil wars. Towns and provinces, which had long resisted the growing
power of monarchical centralization, were only too willing to join a revolt.
The wars erupted in 1562 when the duke of Guise massacred a peaceful congregation of Huguenots in
Vassy. In 1572 it appeared that the conflict between Catholics and Calvinists would be reconciled through
the marriage of the king’s sister to the leading Huguenot, the Bourbon, Henry of Navarre. Many Huguenots
traveled to Paris for the wedding. But the Guise family persuaded the king that this gathering of Huguenots
posed a threat. King Charles IX and his advisors decided to eliminate the Huguenot leaders with one swift
blow. The Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre began on August 24 when the king’s guards killed some
prominent Huguenot leaders. These murders unleashed a wave of violence that spread across Paris. For
three days, frenzied Catholic mobs roamed the streets of Paris, killing 3,000 Huguenots. Henry of Navarre
was spared through his promise to become a Catholic (a promise he soon reneged on). Thousands more
Protestants were killed outside of Paris. The massacre boomeranged because it discredited the Valois
dynasty without ending the conflict.
After the massacre, France suffered years of religious rioting and domestic anarchy. Agriculture in many
areas was destroyed, commercial life declined severely, and starvation and death haunted the land. After
the assassination of the French king in 1589, Henry of Navarre claimed the French throne. Realizing that
he would never be accepted by Catholic France, declaring that “Paris is worth a Mass,” Henry converted
once again to Catholicism. Henry’s willingness to sacrifice religious principles to political necessity saved
France. Religious problems persisted until 1598 when Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes. The edict
acknowledged Catholicism as the official religion of France, but guaranteed the Huguenots the right to
worship in 150 fortified towns. In addition, Huguenots were allowed all political rights, including the
holding of public offices. The French Wars of Religion demonstrated to many French people the necessity
for strong government, laying a foundation for the growth of the French monarchy in the 17th century.
Spain--The greatest advocate of militant Catholicism and the most important political figure in the second
half of the 16th century was King Philip II of Spain (1556-1598), the son and heir of Charles V. Phillip’s
reign ushered in an age of Spanish greatness. The political and military commitments that Philip made also
help bring about Spain’s future decline.
One of Philip’s aims was to make Spain a dominant power in Europe. To a great extent, Spain’s
preeminence depended upon a prosperous economy fueled by its importation of gold and silver from its
New World possessions. The importation of American specie helped set off ruinous inflation that disrupted
the Spanish economy. Moreover the expenses of war devastated the Spanish economy. By the end of
Philip’s reign two-thirds of state income went to pay interest on the national debt.
Crucial to understanding Philip II is the importance of Catholicism to the Spanish people. They had little
difficulty in seeing themselves as a nation divinely chose to save Catholic Christianity from Protestant
heretics. The Netherlands (modern day Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg) was one of the richest
parts of Philip’s empire. The northern provinces were largely Germanic in culture and Dutch speaking,
while the southern French and Flemish speaking provinces were closely tied to France. In 1566 Dutch
Calvinists rebelled against the rule of Spain. The struggle went on after Philip had died; finally, in 1609, the
war ended with a Dutch victory, although the Spanish did not formally recognize the independence of the
Netherlands until 1648. The southern Catholic provinces remained a Spanish possession.
England--Elizabeth I became Queen of England in 1558. Elizabeth’s religious policy was based on
moderation and compromise. As a ruler, she wished to prevent England from being torn apart over matters
of religion. In 1559 Parliament repealed the Catholic legislation of Mary’s reign and a new Act of
Supremacy designated Elizabeth as “the only supreme governor of this realm, as well in all spiritual or
ecclesiastical things or causes, as temporal.” An Act of Uniformity restored the church service of the Book
of Common Prayer from the reign of Edward VI with some revisions to make it more acceptable to
Catholics. Elizabeth’s religious settlement was basically Protestant, but it was a moderate Protestantism.
One of Elizabeth’s greatest challenges came from her Catholic cousin, Mary, queen of Scots, who was next
in line to the English throne. Mary was ousted from Scotland by rebellious Calvinist nobles in 1568 and
fled for her life to England. Elizabeth placed her under house arrest. In 1587, Mary became embroiled in a
Catholic plot to assassinate Elizabeth and place Mary on the throne, and Elizabeth had her beheaded.
Elizabeth realized that war could be disastrous for her island kingdom and her own rule. Unofficially,
however, she encouraged English seamen to raid Spanish ships and colonies. In 1562 John Hawkins
disregarded the Spanish law that forbade foreigners trading with Spanish colonies. Hawkins picked up
slaves in Sierra Leone and exchanged them in Hispaniola for hides and sugar. The profits were so great the
Elizabeth secretly invested in his second voyage. He returned with a cargo of silver that made him the
richest man in England. The Spanish strongly protested this illegal trade, and on his third voyage in 1569
Hawkins lost three of his five ships to Spanish naval action, and he barely made it back to England. During
the following decades English sea captains visited the Spanish Indies as pirates and privateers rather than as
peaceful, though illegal, traders.
In 1581 Francis Drake took his ship through the Strait of Magellan, captured a Spanish treasure ship off the
Pacific coast of South America, then sailed up to California and from there to the South Pacific Spice
islands and to the Cape of Good Hope; thus, when he returned to England after an absence of three years,
he had circumnavigated the globe. The queen knighted Drake, and no wonder; his cargo of Spanish treasure
was worth twice Elizabeth’s annual revenue. In 1585-86, with the backing of the government, Drake took a
fleet of 30 ships into the Caribbean to plunder the Spanish.
Gradually, Elizabeth was drawn into more active involvement in the revolt in the Netherlands. This move
accelerated the already mounting friction between Spain and England. Philip II believed that the revolt in
the Netherlands would never be crushed as long as England provided support for it. In any case, a
successful invasion of England would mean the overthrow of heresy and the return of England to
Catholicism. In addition, the pope promised to pay Philip one million gold ducats to invade England to
avenge the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.
On May 9, 1588 the Spanish Armada of 130 vessels, carrying perhaps 30,000 men, sailed from Lisbon
harbor. An English fleet of about 150 ships met the Spanish in the Channel. The English ships were faster
and more maneuverable and many of them had greater firing power than their Spanish counterparts. A
combination of storms, spoiled food and rank water, inadequate Spanish ammunition, and, to a lesser
extent, English fire ships that caused the Spanish to scatter, gave England the victory. Many Spanish ships
went down on the journey home around Ireland; perhaps 65 managed to reach home ports. Although the
English and Spanish would continue their war for another 16 years, the defeat of the Armada guaranteed
that England would remain Protestant.
II. The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648)
The Peace of Augsburg in 1555 had brought an end to the religious warfare between German Catholics and
Lutherans. Religion, however, continued to play a divisive role in German life as Lutherans and Catholics
persisted in vying for control of various principalities. In addition, a number of German states had adopted
Calvinism as their state church. In 1608 the Protestant German princes formed the Protestant Union, and
Catholics retaliated with the Catholic League in 1609. This division of Germany into two armed camps was
made even more dangerous by the involvement of foreign states. The Protestant Union gained the support
of the Dutch, English, and French, while Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor aided the Catholic League.
The empire was composed of two armed camps.
The religious division was increased by a constitutional issue. The Habsburg emperors, strongly supported
by the Spanish Habsburgs, wanted to consolidate their authority in the Holy Roman Empire, but the
German princes resisted any increase in Habsburg power.
Historians divided the 30 Years’ War into four major phases. The Bohemian phase (1618-1625) began
when Protestant nobles rebelled against the Catholic Hapsburg ruler Ferdinand. In the defenestration of
Prague, Protestants threw two of Ferdinand’s officials from a castle window. They fell seventy feet, but
landed in a pile of manure and survived. The Bohemian rebels deposed Ferdinand, and elected as his
replacement Frederick V, who was the ruler of the Palatinate, and the head of the Protestant Union.
Ferdinand, who in the meantime had been elected as Holy Roman Emperor, refused to accept his
deposition, and aided by Catholic allies, defeated Frederick. Ferdinand confiscated the land the Protestant
nobles, and established Catholicism as the sole religion of Bohemia.
In the second phase of the war (1625-1629), King Christian IV of Denmark intervened in the Protestant
cause by leading an army into northern Germany, probably with the idea of annexing territory. The Danes
were totally defeated by the Habsburg forces, and played no further part in the war. After his victories,
Ferdinand II was at the height of his power and issued the Edict of Restitution in 1629 which prohibited
Calvinist worship and restored to the Catholic church all property taken by Protestant rulers.
In the third phase (1630-1635) the King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, swept the imperial forces out of
the north and moved into the heart of Germany. After the death of the king in 1623 in battle, the Swedish
forces remained in Germany, but they were much less effective. In 1634 the Swedes were driven out of
southern Germany. This imperial victory guaranteed that southern Germany would remain Catholic. The
emperor used this opportunity to make peace with the German princes by annulling the Edict of Restitution.
The fourth phase of the war was the Franco-Swedish phase (1635-1648). In this phase religious issues
became less important as dynastic power politics came to the fore. The Catholic French supported the
Protestant Swedes against the Catholic Habsburgs of Germany and Spain. In 1643 the French defeated the
Spanish and then moved on to victories over the emperor in southern Germany. By this time all parties
were ready for peace, and after five years of negotiations, the war in Germany officially ended with the
Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The war between France and Spain, however, continued until the Peace of the
Pyrenees in 1659. By that time Spain had become a second-class power, and France had emerged as the
dominant nation in Europe.
The Peace of Westphalia ensured that all German states were free to determine their own religion. France
gained part of Alsace and the cities of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, giving the French control of the FrancoGerman border area and excellent bases for future military operations in Germany. The more than 300
states that made up the Holy Roman Empire were virtually recognized as independent states, since each
received the power to conduct its own foreign policy. This provision ensured German disunity for another
200 years. The Peace of Westphalia also made it clear that religion and politics were now separate worlds.
Economically, many parts of Germany were devastated. Its population declined from 21 million to 16
million between 1618 and 1650.
III. The Witchcraft Craze
In the 16th and 17th centuries witnessed a significant increase in the phenomenon of witch-hunting.
Witchcraft had been a part of traditional village culture for centuries, but it came to be viewed as sinister
and dangerous when the medieval church began to connect witches to the activities of the devil, thereby
transforming witchcraft into a heresy that had to be wiped out. The most recent figures indicated that more
than 100,000 people were prosecuted throughout Europe on charges of witchcraft. While no one was
immune from being accused of witchcraft, eighty percent of those accused were women, most of them
single or widowed and many over 50 years old. Moreover, almost all victims belonged to the lower classes.
Historians have offered a variety of explanations for the great European witch-hunt. Religious uncertainties
clearly played some part. The social unrest of the period caused people to look for scapegoats. That women
should be the chief victims of witch craft trials was hardly accidental. Women were viewed as inferior to
men both mentally and morally. Women’s moral weaknesses made them especially vulnerable to the
allures of Satan. The craze died down as governments began to stabilize in the 17th century. Fewer
magistrates were willing to accept the unsettling and divisive conditions generated by the trials of witches.
Finally, by the end of the 17th century, educated people were finding it contrary to reason to believe in the
old view of a world haunted by evil spirits.
IV. The Age of Exploration & Colonization
Portugal took the lead in overseas expansion in the fifteenth century. Portugal's small size and its location
on the Atlantic coast oriented it toward the Atlantic rather than toward Europe. Lisbon was on the route of
the Genoese and Venetian sea traffic with Flanders that sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar, and many
Italian captains and pilots were in the Portuguese navy. Their superior knowledge of navigation helped the
Portuguese lead the way. Prince Henry the Navigator (1394‑ 1460) began sending ships down the coast of
Africa in search of gold. By 1460 the African coast had been explored down to Sierra Leone, and a number
of coastal stations had been established.
European trade with the East was controlled by the Muslims. Therefore, with the exception of the
Venetians, who profited as middlemen, the Europeans eagerly sought a new route to the East Indies and its
spices. Prince Henry had not thought of India when he first began his operations, but as the Portuguese
reached father down the coast it was natural that India would become their ultimate goal.
It was the advanced navigational knowledge of the Portuguese that caused them to reject Christopher
Columbus in 1484 when he came to them and proposed reaching India by sailing west. By the l5th century
people knew the world was round. The question was the size of the Earth and what precise relationship its
continents bore to the oceans. Columbus had concluded that less than 3,000 miles of ocean separated
Europe from Japan instead of the 9,000 miles that actually exist. Accordingly, he believed that the shortest
and easiest route to Asia was across the Atlantic. The Portuguese were convinced that the globe was larger
than Columbus held, that the oceans were wider, and that the shortest route to the Orient was around Africa
rather than across the Atlantic. The Spanish lacked the experience of the Portuguese and in August 1492
they allowed Columbus to sail westward with three small ships manned by reliable crews with capable and
seasoned officers.
Ten weeks later Columbus landed at one of the Bahamian Islands. On December 23, 1492 Columbus
anchored off the island of Hispaniola and 1,000 Arawak Indians canoed out to inspect Columbus's flagship,
the Santa Maria. The Spanish sailors stayed up all night trading beads, brass bells and even shoelace tips
for gold. By the night of the 24th the entire crew of about 50 sailors was exhausted from their trading and
partying the night before. The cabin boy was given the helm and everyone else, including Columbus went
to sleep. Around midnight the ship hit a reef which ripped out the bottom of the boat and caused it to sink.
The dismantled wreck was used to build a fort at Navidad. Thirty-nine sailors remained there when
Columbus returned to Spain in early 1493. Columbus made three additional trips to the New World.
Columbus' discovery did not directly benefit the Spanish until they conquered the rich Aztec Empire in
Mexico in 1521, but it did prod the Portuguese to circumnavigate Africa and reach India by sea in 1498.
In the period between 1600 and 1763 Spain and Portugal were overtaken and surpassed by the powers of
Northwestern Europe--Holland, France, and Britain. The countries of Northwestern Europe were to
dominate the world--politically, militarily, economically, and to a certain degree, culturally--until 1914.
The domination of the world by Northwestern Europe did not actually materialize until after 1763. But it
was during the years between 1600 & 1763 that the basis for domination was laid. The British gained their
first foothold in India, the Dutch drove the Portuguese out of the East Indies, all the northwestern powers
set up stations on the coasts of Africa, and the French and British became the masters of North America
above the Rio Grande and controlled much of the commerce of the Iberian colonies to the south of it.
One reason for the Iberian decline was their involvement in the religious and dynastic wars of the 16th and
17th centuries. Spanish manpower and treasure were squandered by Charles V and Philip II to fight the
religious wars against the Protestants, the recurring campaigns against the Turks, and the dynastic struggles
against rival royal houses, especially the French. In waging these campaigns the rulers of Spain fatally
overextended themselves and helped bankrupt the country.
A second reason for the Iberian decline was that they became economic dependencies of Northwest
Europe. The economic dependence of the Iberian countries was a part of the general shift of the economic
center of Europe in the late Middle Ages from the Mediterranean basin to the north. By the l6th century the
Dutch controlled the Atlantic trade. In this new trade pattern, the dependent economic status of the Iberian
states was evident in their exports, which were almost exclusively raw materials--wine, wool, and iron ore
from Spain, and African gold and salt from Portugal. In return the Iberians received back their own wool,
which had been manufactured abroad into cloth, as well as metallurgical products, salt, and fish. Thus the
Iberian states, like the Italian, were declining at this time from the status of developed to underdeveloped
societies relative to the burgeoning capitalist economies of Northern Europe.
Northwest Europeans supplied up to 90 percent of the manufactured goods imported by Brazil and Spanish
America, as well as a high proportion of similar goods consumed in the Iberian peninsula itself. First the
Dutch, and then the British, controlled most of the carrying trade with the Iberian colonies. The net effect
of Spanish overseas enterprise was to fuel the booming capitalist economy of northwest Europe, while in
the Iberian peninsula it provided just enough wealth to forestall the basic institutional reforms that were
long overdue.
The economically backward Iberian states were able to take the lead in overseas expansion only because of
a fortunate combination of favorable geographic location, maritime technology, and religious drive. But
their expansion was not based upon economic strength and dynamism, which explains why the Iberian
states could not exploit their new empires effectively. One reason for the decline was the great inflow of
treasure which produced a sharp inflation. Prices and wages rose approximately twice as high in Spain as in
northern Europe. The inflation penalized Spanish industry, making its products too expensive to compete in
the international market.
At least as important as the price and wage inflation was the ruinous influence of the Spanish aristocrat and
Catholic church on the national economy and values. Although the aristocrats, together with the higher
churchmen, comprised less than 2 percent of the population, they owned about 96 percent of the land.
While maintaining strict orthodoxy through the inquisition, the church prospered and attracted ever-larger
numbers of clerics to its ranks. These men contributed little to the country’s economy. The nobility had all
the social status and prestige. And because the nobility looked down upon careers in commerce as
demeaning for any gentleman, this became the national norm. Consequently, the ambition of successful
merchants was to acquire estates, buy titles, which were sold by the impoverished crown, and thus abandon
their class and become nobles. As a result of these attitudes, and the expulsion of the Jews and Moors, the
economic spurt that occurred in Spain in the first half of the l6th century ended in failure.
In 1496 John Cabot sailed from England and discovered the Grand Banks--the sea off Newfoundland was
teeming with fish. The regular supply of immense quantities of cod was a great windfall for a continent
where many people lived near starvation for part of every year.
The French also joined the European race to colonize North America. In 1608 Quebec was established. By
1680 French explorers had canoed from Lake Michigan to the mouth of the Mississippi. The land claimed
by France was named Louisiana in honor of King Louis XIV.
V. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
Europe had a long history of contact with Sub-Saharan Africa through the Saharan caravan trade. The
Saharan trade began in the third or fourth century AD when the Berbers of the Maghrib began using the
camel to transverse the 1,000 to 2,000 kilometers that separate the two edges of the desert. The economic
motivation for the risky and expensive transSaharan trade had to be significant. Gold and slaves were the
motivating factors for the trade. Other goods were imported from the Sudan--ivory, ostrich plumes, kola
nuts--but these were insignificant when compared to the gold and slave trade. Ivory, for example, could be
procured more efficiently from eastern Africa. Until the sixteen century and the exploitation of American
gold, the Sudan was the paramount source of gold both for the Muslim world and for Europe. Estimates
suggest that at the peak of the Sahara gold trade over a ton of gold reached the Mediterranean annually. In
return for the Sudanese gold and slaves, the Berbers, and later, Arab traders, transported the goods of the
Mediterranean and European world south. Much of the trade across the desert to the south was probably in
luxury goods--books, paper, horses, tea, coffee, sugar, spices jewelry, perfumes, needles, scissors, and later,
guns. These commodities had a high value to weight ratio in order to maximize profit.
Between 650 and 1600 about 2 million slaves were exported across the Sahara to the north coast of Africa
and the Middle East. Millions more were taken from East Africa by Arab traders. This trade continued into
the twentieth century. These slaves were often individuals who had been captured during warfare. In other
cases, they were political exiles or criminals who were sold because their labor or special skills they had
acquired had market value. In addition, the incidence of drought and famine caused the destitute to sell
themselves or their children into slavery. These factors for enslavement would also hold true when the
Europeans dominated the slave trade. Domestic African and Middle Eastern purchasers of slaves valued
women more highly than men, since the social productivity of women (not only as domestics, concubines,
and wives, but also as laborers) exceeded the economic productivity of men (as agricultural or artisan
laborers). The highest priced slaves in the Middle East were eunuchs, which serves to accentuate the
basically female orientation of slavery in that region. With the discovery of the Americas, and the
expansion of the plantation system, men, not women, became the gender that was the most in demand for
slavery.
To understand slavery in the New World, one must first look at the European "world view" of labor during
the "Age of Exploration." In sixteen century Europe agricultural labor was not "free," as we would define
the term today. Yes "the [western European] peasant was free, but he still had to serve, to cultivate the land
which was always controlled by a feudal overlord. He was free, but everywhere the state demanded taxes
from him, the Church tithes, and the landlord feudal dues." In eastern Europe the system of serfdom was
reestablished. Eastern Europe, like the New World, was being pushed into a colonial-like existence as a
supplier of raw materials for western Europe. To ensure an adequate labor supply for the production of
these raw materials (primarily grain) the upper classes of eastern Europe abolished many of the freedoms
the peasant classes had gained since the 13th century.
Europeans, especially those in the Mediterranean basin, knew of the West African gold fields and were
eager to exploit them. Europeans realized that the first European country that could first circumvent the
Arab middle-men that controlled the access to the gold of sub-Saharan Africa would, in effect, control the
specie that backed Europe's supply of money. Portugal was uniquely situated to be this country. It is located
on the Atlantic, right next to Africa. Furthermore, the ocean and wind currents are such that it is difficult
for sailing ships leaving port farther north than Portugal and southwest Spain to travel due south. Portugal
had significant previous experience with long-distance trade throughout the Mediterranean basin. The
Portuguese had established commercial connections with the Italian city-state of Genoa and this connection
gave the state access to the capital necessary for expansion.
During the fifteenth century, Portugal was the most stable state in Europe. She knew peace when her
potential rivals knew internal warfare. For a small state like Portugal "expansion was the most likely route
to the expansion of revenue and the accumulation of glory." Thus, Portuguese mariners went down the
African coast looking for gold, not slaves. It was the discovery of the New World that made African slaves
a valuable commodity. The availability of slaves for sale was an unexpected by-product of the gold trade.
The Atlantic African slave trade began in 1442 when two captains of Prince Henry the Navigator took
twelve African slaves to Lisbon. The Portuguese proceeded to ship thousands of African slaves to their
homeland. Prior to the discovery of America, the plantation system had already been established on the
Atlantic islands (the Azores, the Madereiras, the Canaries, the Cape Verde Islands, and São Tomé), and it
was easy to transfer the system to the tropical climate region of the New World.
Why did the trans-Atlantic slave trade develop in sub-Saharan Africa and not elsewhere? The answer is
primarily based on economics, not race. As indicated earlier, labor was unfree everywhere during this time
period. It has been estimated that between one-half to two-thirds of all the immigrants to the British North
American colonies came as indentured servants. Other races besides black Africans had been traditionally
enslaved (the word slave itself probably comes from the fact that many of the slaves in the pre-Atlantic era
were Slavs. In the Ottoman Empire "all the members of the sultan's household, from highest field
commander to humblest Janissary [foot soldiers], were slaves, recruited mainly from Christian peasant
villages located in the mountainous wild west of the Balkan peninsula)."
A large local supply of labor for the American plantations was not available. It was not through a lack of
effort. From the beginning, the Spanish and Portuguese planned on using the Native Americans as an
unfree work force. The Iberians were in desperate need of labor for their sugar plantations and mines and it
could not be supplied from the Mother Countries, therefore several different systems of unfree labor were
instituted. The mita system was built on the forced labor system of the Incas, and it required one-seventh of
the Native adult male population of the old Inca empire to work in the silver mines of Potosí every year.
The encomienda system allocated a chieftain and his people to a Spaniard. Native Americans had to supply
labor, and later, cash tributes to their Spanish overlords. Both the Spanish and the Portuguese attempted to
enslave Native Americans, but in the lowlands, where the plantations were located, most of the Native
Americans died from European diseases. The population losses were rapid and are estimated as high as 90
percent for the Americas as a whole.
On the Caribbean islands the natives were totally wiped-out. High Native American death rates were the
case in North America too. For example, at the beginning of the eighteenth century one European estimated
that in only fifty years smallpox and rum had reduced the number of Native Americans living within 200
miles of Charleston, SC, by over 80 percent. Estimates on the number of PreColumbian Native Americans
vary from 30 to 100 million. At the time of Columbus, Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals had only 80
million people, with Spain's population perhaps 7 million. While 100 million may seem like too high an
estimate, it is important to remember that the Americas had one-fourth of the earth's land surface and was
rich in sources of food. "It seems sensible to begin with the assumption that there were a lot of Americans
in 1492."
Expansion involves its own economic imperatives. "The ability to expand successfully is a function both of
the ability to maintain relative social solidarity at home. . .and the arrangements that can be made to use
cheap labor far away (it being all the more important that it be cheap the further it is away, because of
transportation costs). . . . Europe needed a source of labor from a reasonably well-populated region that was
accessible and relatively near the region of usage. But it had to be from a region that was outside its worldeconomy so that Europe could feel unconcerned about the economic consequences for the breeding region
of wide-scale removal of manpower. Western Africa filled the bill best."
In 1510 the first shipload of African slaves was shipped to the New World. The venture was highly
profitable, for there was urgent need for labor in the Americas, especially on the sugar plantations. Portugal
dominated the trade in the sixteenth century, Holland during most of the seventeenth, and Britain during the
eighteenth. The West African coast was dotted with about forty European forts which were used for
defense against the rival trading nations and for storing slaves while awaiting shipment across the Atlantic.
Textbooks often show a map of African commerce with a typical triangular voyage. The first leg was from
the home port to Africa, with a cargo including metal products, cloth, firearms, hardware, beads, and rum.
The goods were bartered for slaves brought by Africans from the interior to the coast. The slaves were
shipped across the Atlantic on the so‑ called "Middle Passage." The average death rate during the "Middle
Passage" ranged from 10 to 55 percent, depending on the length of the voyage, the chance occurrence of
epidemics, and the treatment accorded the slaves. The final lap was the voyage home with the plantation
produce such as sugar, molasses, tobacco, or rice.
Philip Curtin points out that the above model is too simplistic since "a variety of multilateral trading
voyages was possible." For example, a "French ship might make the outward voyage to Africa, pick up a
cargo of slaves, but sell it in Spanish America for bullion. The bullion in turn would find its way to the
Compagnie des Indes for shipment to southern India in return for indigo-dyed cloth of a kind much in
demand in Senegal. This cloth might be sold in Senegal--not for slaves, but for gum and for Senegalese
cloth in demand further down the coast in Dahomey (Benin). The Dahomean slaves would be sold, in turn,
in the New World, and variants of the same cycle could be played out again."
Most slaves were employed on sugar plantations and producing this crop, before modern machinery, was
very labor intensive. Planters estimated that they needed one worker for each acre cultivated. Although
sugar must be "cured" as soon as it is cut to remove the plant's water (it begins to decompose as soon as it is
cut), once concentrated, it had a long shelf life and a high value-to-bulk ratio. This means that it could be
profitably transported from America to Europe.
In the seventeenth century the cost of slaves was low in Africa. So low in fact that Brazilian and West
Indian planters believed that it was cheaper to work their slaves to death and buy new ones, than it was to
raise them from birth. If a slave lived two years, a planter got his money's worth of labor. With the
exception of the British North American colonies, this attitude, the prevalence of tropical diseases, and the
high ratio of men to women, insured that the American slave population could only be maintained through
the continued importation of more slaves. We do not know why the North American colonies were an
exception to this rule. (It might have to do with the cost of slaves. Because the United States was so far
north, it was on the periphery of the slave trade. It took months longer for ships to reach the American
south from Africa than it did to reach Brazil. The death rate on the middle passage was as much as 50
percent higher, and therefore the cost of slaves would be more, perhaps making it more economically
desirable to not work one's slaves to death).
At the mouth of the Gambia River in the 1680s a young male slave sold for goods worth about £5.50.
According to Philip Curtin "Five pounds sterling would have bought 17 trade muskets or 200 liters of
brandy or 349 kilograms of wrought iron. The cost of slaves was so low because "the economic model for
enslavement is one of burglary, not of production. In economic terms, the value of the slave is not a real
cost [e.g. how much it cost to raise the slave to a salable age] but an `opportunity cost.'"
If an African king captured a neighbor's village in war he was entitled by law and custom to enslave the
inhabitants. The captives were "free" booty from the war and were essentially without cost to the king
(assuming he was fighting the war for political objectives). While the women and young men might be kept
as local slaves, keeping recent enemies of fighting age around was dangerous. The usual practice was either
to kill the captive immediately or to sell him a distant point. We do not have enough evidence to know
whether some West African wars were caused by the desire to capture slaves, or if the captives were simply
a by-product of wars fought for other reasons.
Most Africans were sold into bondage by other Africans. There were several reasons for this. First, tropical
diseases were extremely deadly to Europeans when they reached West Africa. Europeans wanted to get in
and get out of the region as fast as possible. The sparse historical evidence available indicates that during a
slave trading voyage it was not uncommon for the death rate to be higher among sailors than slaves. This
high mortality rate precluded Europeans from sending expeditions ashore to capture slaves. This high
mortality rate is also why the Europeans did not establish formal colonies in West Africa until the late
nineteenth century, when modern medicine finally made the European death rate from tropical diseases
politically and economically acceptable.
Second, African leaders wanted to control the slave traffic. They wanted the profits they could achieve as
middle-men, and they wanted to insure that the people sold into bondage were the ones they wanted to sell.
By keeping the trade in their own hands, the African rulers who controlled the trade guaranteed that their
subjects were not the ones sold into slavery (some exceptions to this rule are discussed below).
The third reason ties in with the first two. It was cheaper for the Europeans (who had a tremendous amount
of capital tied up in their ships and trading goods) to pay Africans for slaves rather than spending the time
and resources in capturing them themselves. To the slave-ship owner, slaves were a commodity (like sugar,
tobacco and textiles) to be transported. It was someone else's job to get the commodity to the dock.
The corrupting influences of the slave trade affected Africans as well as Europeans. Many African societies
sold condemned criminals into the slave trade. Such prisoners also included political opponents of the king
and his friends. In some societies an adulterer could be sold to the profit of the husband. It was not
unknown for a husband to use a young and attractive wife to snare a victim. If the police power of a region
was weak, bands of young men would raid well away from their own village trying to pick up individuals
or small groups that were unable to defend themselves. In southeastern Nigeria people were "sacrificed" to
important oracles--they were not killed but were sold into slavery.
Higher slave prices meant that slaves could be taken farther away from the coast. All the costs of slavery-guards, food, taxes and tribute paid to different rulers for protection--increased the farther inland one went.
At peak prices slaves came from as far as 1,000 miles from the African coast.
The total African slave trade took about 28.7 million Africans from their homes over a period of centuries
(650-1920). Out of this total, 12 million were involved in the Atlantic trade (the others were taken through
the Red Sea, from the Swahili Cost, and across the Sahara). An additional two million West Africans were
killed in the course of enslavement, and an estimated 4 million became slaves within Africa. In 1700, West
Africa had an estimated population of 25 million. Prior to 1650, the trade was rarely more than 10,000 per
year. From the late seventeenth century to the 1750s, driven by the growing demand of the sugar plantation
system, slave prices began rising at an average rate of 2 percent per year and this increase drove up the
number of slaves shipped. In the peak decades of the 80s and 90s the trade averaged 100,000 slaves a year.
Historians are not sure of the impact of slavery on West Africa, but some speculations can be made. If
warfare was initiated for the primary purpose of capturing slaves (something that historians are unsure of) it
would have disrupted the social and economic fabric of the region. Some ethnic groups (e.g. the Aja in the
Bight of Benin) lost substantially amounts of population. Since the Atlantic trade shipped twice as many
men as women for economic reasons, a surplus of women developed. Polygamy was reinforced, and
women took over jobs traditionally done by men. The fear of enslavement may have encouraged men to
marry at a young age, and to take a second wife at a younger age. Africa's population would surely have
been greater without the slave trade.
VI. The Spanish Conquest of the New World
The Indians crossed into North America across the Bering Sea between 20,000-40,000 years ago. American
Indians differed greatly in the languages they spoke--about 2,000 distinct Indian languages have been
classified. This represents almost as much variation in speech as in the entire Old World, where about
3,000 languages are known to have existed in l500.
Indian cultures can be classified into three groups: 1) hunting, gathering, and fishing cultures; 2)
intermediate farming cultures; and, 3) advanced farming cultures. The advanced farming cultures were
located in central and southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and the Andean highland area (Ecuador,
Peru, Bolivia, and northern Chile). The intermediate farming cultures were generally in adjacent regions,
while the food-gathering cultures were in more remote regions--the southern part of South America, and
the western and northern part of North America.
Indians domesticated over 100 plants, about as many as were domesticated in all Eurasia. About 50 percent
of the crop tonnage of the world today is from plants first domesticated by Indians—tobacco, tomatoes,
corn, potatoes, yams, and manioc (tapioca) are all New World crops. Horses, cows and pigs came from
Europe, and turkeys and llamas came from the Americas.
When Hernando Cortes landed on the Mexican coast in 1519, the Aztec empire was at its height. The
Aztecs had developed a harsh and efficient military system that allowed them to conquer all of central
Mexico. Their domination provoked constant rebellions among the tribes they subjugated, from whom they
extracted slaves and human victims for their gods. In one especially dry season, the Aztec ruler,
Montezuma I, claimed that "the gods are thirsty," and 20,000 Indians were sacrificed.
The Aztec social system rested on a rigid class structure with most manual work being performed by slaves
captured during military campaigns. Their capital city of Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, was described by
the conquering Spaniards as being equal to any in Europe.
The Inca civilization was the most advanced of the Native American cultures. It was a totalitarian state that
systematically expanded its power--at the time of European discovery the Incas controlled an area of more
than 350,000 square miles. At the head of the system was the ruling god‑ emperor, called Inca. Under him
was a highly structured noble class and priests, followed by lower level officials. All property was owned
by the state and all work was organized on a communal basis. Through a system called "mita" (which the
Spanish adopted) all members of the lower classes had to work free for the empire for a period of four
months a year. The capital of Cuzco ("navel" in the Inca language) had enormous palaces and temples,
many of which were gilded with gold, and other imposing dwellings which housed the elite.
In November 1532, the Spaniard Francisco Pizarro lead a group of 168 Spanish soldiers against the Inca
emperor Atahuallpa and his 80,000 soldiers. The encounter took place deep in Inca territory, 1,000 miles
from the nearest Spanish reinforcements, yet Pizarro was able to capture Atahuallpa within a few minutes
after the two leaders met and hold him for ransom. After the ransom—enough gold to fill a room 22 feet
long by 17 feet wide to a height of over 8 feet—was delivered, Pizarro had Atahuallpa murdered.
It is hard for us to grasp the enormous numerical odds against which the Spaniards’ military equipment
prevailed. The Spaniards killed thousands of natives in this battle while not losing a single man. The key to
the Spanish success were their steel swords, lances, and daggers. The Spaniards’ steel or chain mail armor,
and, above all, their steel helmets provided an effective defense against Indian blunt clubs. The Indians’
quilted armor offered no protection against steel weapons. Horses also gave the Spaniards a tremendous
advantage. The Incas, like all other foot soldiers, were never able to defeat cavalry in the open prior to the
20th century.
A factor that is often overlooked in the Spanish conquest of the Americas is the existence of writing. Spain
possessed it, while the Inca Empire did not. Without writing Atahuallpa had very little information about
the Spaniards, their military power, and their intent. However, while Pizzaro himself happened to be
illiterate, he belonged to a literate tradition. From books, the Spaniards knew of many contemporary
civilizations remote from Europe, and about several thousand years of European history. Pizarro explicitly
modeled his ambush of Atahuallpa on the strategy of Cortés. In short, literacy made the Spaniards heirs to a
huge body of knowledge about human behavior and history. By contrast, not only did Atahuallpa have no
conception of the Spaniards themselves, and no personal experience of any other invaders from overseas,
but he also had not even hear (or read) of similar threats to anyone else, anywhere else, anytime previously
in history. That gulf of experience encouraged Pizarro to set his trap and Atahuallpa to walk into it.
It was European, and later, African diseases that played a major, if not the major, role in allowing the
Indians to be so easily defeated. Because of their geographical isolation, the Indians had no natural
immunity to Old World diseases like smallpox, tuberculosis, measles, malaria and yellow fever. Hernando
Cortés' conquest of Mexico in 1519 illustrates the role disease played in the European domination of the
Americas. The Aztec ruler, Montezuma, did not fight Cortes and his fewer than 600 men, but instead
allowed them to enter his capital Tenochtitlan (Mexico City). The Spaniards took Montezuma hostage and
controlled the city. Later, the Aztecs revolted. The Spaniards killed Montezuma, and retreated to a safe
haven. But, they left smallpox behind and an epidemic swept the city. After a seventy-five day siege,
Tenochtitlan again fell to Cortés. According to a contemporary account when the Spaniards entered the
city: "the streets, squares, houses, and courts were filled with bodies, so that it was almost impossible to
pass. Even Cortés was sick from the stench in his nostrils."
Historians use the phrase “Colombian Exchange” to describe the exchange of plants, microorganisms, and
animals between the Americas and the Old World.