APEURO Lecture 1F
Mrs. Kray

Manual for a realistic ruler
Considered first work of
political science
 Some say “The Prince” was
Ferdinand of Aragon


Good government provided
justice, law, and order


The ends justify the means
Patriotic appeal for a free
& united Italy
“It is much more safe to be feared than to be
loved, when you have to choose between the two.”

Taming the aristocracy (nobles of the sword)

Offered the institution of monarchy as a guarantee to law and order

Develop a consistent stream of revenue through taxation

Break down the mass of feudal, inherited, customary, or
“common” law in which the rights of the feudal classes were
entrenched.
The kings would MAKE law, enact it by his own authority, regardless
of previous custom or historic liberties
 What pleases the prince has the force of law!

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Make armies and war the sole preserve of the state

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Develop bureaucracies to enforce royal authority

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No more private armies
Staffed with members of the middle class (nobles of the robe) – did
not happen in Eastern Europe
Maintain religious control over clergy and the functions of
religion within their national boundaries

Hundred Years’ War
Severe financial burden
 Nobles had built up private
armies


War of the Roses
Civil war between two factions of
nobles
 Devastated England


Many people were killed; food
wasn’t grown; the wealthy spent
money on weapons & soldiers
House of Lancaster (Red Rose)
 House of York (White Rose)
 Richard III


First Tudor King

Tamed the nobles
reduced the number of dukes from 9
to 2
 Ended livery and maintenance – no
private army


Established Star Chamber
New system of courts to deal with
property disputes and infractions of
public peace
 Operated without a jury


Built England’s first navy
 The
Hundred Years’ War
had left France
devastated

Experienced 100 years of
warfare on its soil
 Burgundy
aimed to
replace French leadership
on the continent
 Feared
encirclement by
Habsburgs

Louis XI “The Spider” (1461-1483)
Built up royal army, suppressed brigands, and subdued
rebellious nobles
 Added new territory to the royal domain through
strategic marriages & by conquering part of Burgundy


Francis I (1515-1547)

Concordat of Bologna gave king control of French
clergy through an agreement with the pope

Established taxation with taille (direct tax) and
gabelle (salt tax)

Claimed lands in Italy
 There
was no Spain
 Complete
the
Reconquista of the
Moors who
occupied the
southern part of
the Iberian
Peninsula
 Establish
a national
identity in a
diverse kingdom

Their marriage united the 2 largest
provinces in Spain (Aragon & Castile)

Made alliances with towns (hermandades) to
establish law and order

Completed the reconquista

Established strict religious orthodoxy
Spanishness linked to sense of Catholicity
 Spanish Inquisition
 Jews expelled 1492


Sponsored voyages of exploration

Spain emerged as the strongest nation in
Europe

Charles V inherited the Spanish throne,
became the most powerful monarch in Europe

3 kinds of states

Princely states



Ecclesiastical states



run by a bishop or abbot
Large portion of the Empire consisted of these church states
Imperial free cities

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
each one had a little hereditary dynastic monarchy
Saxony, Brandenburg, Bavaria, Bohemia, Palatine, etc.
Approximately 50
Not large but dominated commercial and financial life
Emperorship was an elective office
7 electors: 4 princely lords, 3 ecclesiastical lords
(Palatine, Saxony, Brandenburg, Bohemia, Mainz, Trier,
Cologne)
 1452 electors chose Archduke of Austria as emperor, he
was a Habsburg


1452-1806 – Habsburgs consistently get selves re-elected
 1519
– Elected Holy Roman
Emperor and became symbolic
head of Germany
 Most
powerful ruler of his day
 Contemporaries
feared that
Europe was threatened with
“universal monarchy”


A kind of imperial system in
which no people could preserve
independence from Habsburgs
This is France’s great fear

Because emperorship was an elected office German
states over the centuries had prevented the emperor
from infringing upon their local liberties


Extracted concessions before election
Made centralizing gov’t power almost impossible

Fears of a universal Habsburg monarchy encouraged
countries like France to interfere in German affairs to
keep the area politically divided

Charles V battled numerous enemies during the
course of his reign

Ottoman Turks’ siege of Vienna, Habsburg-Valois Wars,
Algerian pirates, German Lutherans