Chapter 24
The Transformation of Europe
- War, Monarchies and Revolution
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The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1645)
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Holy Roman emperor attempts to force
Bohemians to return to Roman Catholic Church
All of Europe becomes involved in conflict
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Principal battleground: Germany
Political, economic issues involved
Approximately one-third of German population
destroyed
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Causes of the Thirty Years War
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Sprang out of complicated religious and political
grievances
Lutherans and Catholics had not fought since the peace of
Augsburg (1555)
Spread of Calvinism new source of friction – Calvinists
excluded from Peace of Augsburg
1608 Calvinists form Protestant Union
1609 Catholic’s form Catholic League
Both illegal military alliances, afraid of each other but
determined to keep the rival religion from making further
gains
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The Bohemian Phase
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Ferdinand of Styria gets elected king of Bohemia in 1617
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Tries to re-Catholicize the country
1618 civil war breaks out between Habsburgs and
Bohemian Estates
Estates depose Ferdinand elect Frederick V of the
Palatinate
Catholic League and Protestant Union get involved
Ferdinand wins Frederick flees
Within 10 years Protestantism stamped out with help of
Jesuits
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Danish, Swedish & French Intervention
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Protestants could not unite
1625 Protestant king of Denmark intervened partly to
save cause of co-religious partly to gain territory in
northern Germany
War slowly becomes less a war of religion and more a
struggle for the hegemony of Europe
1629 Danish withdraw
1631 Sweden intervenes
1634 Swedes ultimately defeated
War becomes France, Sweden & Dutch against Spain and
Habsburgs
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Peace of Westphalia (1643-1648)
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Europe’s first great peace at Congress of Westphalia
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Importance of the sovereign state
Cuius region, eius religio reconfirmed
Social results of the war –
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Armies robbed, raped and murdered their way back and forth
across Germany
Lack of any modern supply system meant that they had to live off
the land
Entire generation grew up accepting violence and brutality as
normal
Fragmentation of the Empire into practically independent states
hampered economic recovery
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Europe after the Peace of Westphalia,
1648.
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The Consolidation of Sovereign States
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Emperor Charles V (r. 1519-1556) attempts to
revive Holy Roman Empire as strong center of
Europe
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Through marriage, political alliances
Ultimately fails
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Protestant Reformation provides cover for local princes to
assert greater independence
Foreign opposition from France, Ottoman Empire
Unlike China, India, Ottoman Empire, Europe does not
develop as single empire, rather individual states
Charles V abdicates to monastery in Spain
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Sixteenth-century Europe
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The New Monarchs
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Italy well-developed as economic power through
trade, manufacturing, finance
Yet England, France, and Spain surge ahead in
16th century, innovative new tax revenues
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England: Henry VIII
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Fines and fees for royal services; confiscated monastic
holdings
France: Louis XI, Francis I
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New taxes on sales, salt trade
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The Spanish Inquisition
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Founded by Fernando and Isabel in 1478
Original task: search for secret Christian
practitioners of Judaism or Islam, later search for
Protestants
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Spread to Spanish holdings outside Iberian peninsula in
western hemisphere
Imprisonment, executions
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Intimidated nobles who might have considered
Protestantism
Archbishop of Toledo imprisoned 1559-1576
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Constitutional States
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England and Netherlands develop institutions of popular
representation
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England: constitutional monarchy
Netherlands: republic
English Civil War, 1642-1649
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Begins with opposition to royal taxes
Religious elements: Anglican church favors complex ritual,
complex church hierarchy, opposed by Calvinist Puritans
King Charles I and parliamentary armies clash
King loses, is beheaded in 1649
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The Glorious Revolution (1688-1689)
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Puritans take over, becomes a dictatorship
Monarchy restored in 1660, fighting resumes
Resolution with bloodless coup called Glorious
Revolution
King James II deposed, daughter Mary and
husband William of Orange take throne
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Shared governance between crown and parliament
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Results of the Glorious Revolution
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Establishment of parliamentary sovereignty over the crown
“Bill of Rights”
 Denied the king’s right to suspend acts of Parliament or
interfere with the ordinary course of justice
 Furnished a base for the steady expansion of civil
liberties in the generation after 1688
 Religious toleration and freedom from arbitrary arrest
were established by law
 Censorship of the press was quietly dropped
The king had to summon Parliament every year because he
could not pay or control his armed forces without
parliamentary consent
The struggle for control was no longer between king and
parliament but between factions (Whigs & Tories)
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Absolute Monarchies
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Theory of Divine Right of Kings
French absolutism designed by Cardinal Richelieu
(under King Louis XIII, 1624-1642)
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Destroyed castles of nobles, crushed aristocratic
conspiracies
Built bureaucracy to bolster royal power base
Ruthlessly attacked Calvinists
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Louis XIV (The “Sun King,” 1643-1715)
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L’état, c’est moi: “I am the State.”
Magnificent palace at Versailles, 1670s, becomes
his court
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Largest building in Europe
1,400 fountains
25,000 fully grown trees transplanted
Power centered in court, important nobles
pressured to maintain presence
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Versailles
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The European States System
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No imperial authority to mediate regional disputes
Peace of Westphalia (1648) after Thirty Years’ War
European states to be recognized as sovereign and equal
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Religious, other domestic affairs protected
Warfare continues: opposition to French expansion, Seven
Years’ War
Balance of Power tenuous
Innovations in military technology proceed rapidly
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