all right you're here for a review of unit 3 of ap european history so let's get to it get them brain cows ready for milking because we ain't got no time to waste now the title of this unit tells you what it's all about absolutism and constitutionalism these are two new innovations on government that are going to dominate europe during this period so the question is which states will become absolutist and which states will become constitutional and why intrigue and everything we talked about in the last unit sets the stage for these innovations in government in that unit states were working to centralize power and the reformation and the wars of religion help states along that road by merging political and religious authorities and providing common enemies to unite against and as a result those states would go one of two ways in this unit absolutism or constitutionalism and i reckon we ought to start with absolutism okay one of the major political shifts during this period was the shift towards absolutism in european monarchies and that's exactly what it sounds like absolutism describes how monarchs consolidated all state power under themselves in order to advance the needs of their own state now remember that prior to this period power was distributed among monarchs nobles in the church but during this period monarchs looked around at each other and said hey y'all want all the power to which they responded absolutely monarchical power joke nailed it anyway let's consider a couple of factors that led to the rise of absolutist states first there was the weakened influence of the catholic church due to a growing acceptance and tolerance of protestant practice and a lack of interest in religious warfare after the peace of westphalia second merchant classes were expanding rapidly during this period of global trade and in some measure they desired absolute monarchs for the economic and political stability they could provide additionally this meant that power was shifting away from landed nobility into the hands of this new merchant class so when i mentioned earlier that power was shared between three entities look at what's happening now the power of the nobility is waning and so is the power of the church and who's left monarchs and their power is only going to increase during this period now you're going to need to know some examples of these absolutist rulers and the poster boy for absolutism is and always will be louis xiv of france he was fond of saying les tate semois which when being translated means i am the state in other words he saw himself in his own person as the highest and only authority for france now while louis was still a child events were unfolding in france that would enable him to become that all-powerful monarch that he eventually became and these events collectively are known as the fran this was a rebellion of french nobles against cardinal mazaron who was ruling france at the time when louis was only a child as mazaron consolidated power in a centralized state therefore diminishing the power of the nobles that was just too much for them the short story is that the frond through france into chaos and mazaron ultimately prevailed but the key takeaway was this the vast majority of french people realized that they needed to have a strong ruler to protect them from each other and from living in chaos so when louis finally comes of age and is all like i am the state the people are ready for such a development now those words would mean absolutely nothing if louis couldn't back it up by actually ruling absolutely and he did that in the following ways with the help of his finance minister jean-baptiste colbert louis xiv introduced several reforms that helped consolidate power under his throne first was the intendant system louis sent bureaucratic agents called intendants into the various districts of france who acted as avatars of louis himself as such whatever policies louis passed his intendant would make sure that they were obeyed throughout france now this undermined the authority of local governors and more to the point the nobility and made sure all parts of louie's kingdom were made to obey his will so if you lived under louie's rule and he imposed a law and you were like ah the king lives all the way over there i'll never know whether i obey or not well you're probably going to go ahead and get your head chopped off because the king was there in effect through his intendance through all of these actions louis was steadily consolidating power under himself and away from local administrators and noble another way louis consolidated power was in the construction of the palace of versailles or if you live in the american south like i do versailles anyway in order to undermine the authority of the nobles he had many of them relocated into his own palace at versailles there he can keep an eye on them and demand their loyalty i mean it's awfully difficult to do anything to undermine the king's power when you live in his house in order to keep the nobility from thinking too much about losing their power louis threw parties on the regular and pushed enough alcohol on them to kill a stout farm animal and you know it actually worked for a while next louis revoked the edict of nante and in this way louis took power away from the catholic church the edict of nan was put in place by henry iv and established an almost unheard of degree of religious tolerance in france for the protestant minority living there louis decided that to have a state whose people did not all conform to his own religious beliefs which is to say catholicism wasn't a good look for a man who desired absolute power and in removing protection for the huguenot hundreds of thousands of them migrated to more tolerant states robbing france of a healthy portion of their merchant class additionally louis essentially made himself the head of the catholic church in france which merged political and religious loyalties of the french population and finally louis worked to consolidate power through military expansion now we'll talk more about louise wars in a moment but for now let me just mention how they were paid for in order to finance louis endless wars his finance minister jean-baptiste colbert shaped the french economy according to mercantilist policies which meant that he enacted steep tariffs throughout france and made sure that they were exporting more than they were importing and this had the effect of decreasing france's debt it also breathed new life into domestic industries expanded france's colonial holdings and created a favorable balance of trade but despite all the good work colbert did louise wars undid most of it okay now another absolutist ruler you should know is peter the great of russia by the time peter became tsar in 1682 russia was still socially and politically organized according to medieval standards other european nations in the west had adopted new technology and new methods of education and finance while russia lagged behind in a sort of feudalistic society so peter went on a little trip to some of these western nations to see how they did things and returned home convinced that russia had to westernize or else be overtaken by the western european states and so here are some of the reforms peter introduced to modernize russia while at the same time consolidating power under himself first peter introduced political reform he required nobles to serve in the army of the civil administration there was a series of ranks called the table of ranks that nobles could move through which meant that experts ended up on top and to peter this was both essential to a modern government and the key to reducing the power of the nobility second he introduced religious reform he reorganized the russian orthodox church by eliminating the role of patriarch which was kind of like the pope of the orthodox church and replaced it with the holy synod which peter populated with officials and ministers who would do peter's bidding and third peter introduced cultural reforms which is to say he tried to shape the russian culture to fit the image of western europe to that end peter required nobles to wear western clothing and shave their beards if you refused to shave your beard you had to pay a beard tax so needless to say peter would not approve of your boy heimlich there you go now in order to pull off all these innovations peter tripled taxes and that meant that most of the nobles and peasantry despised peter's reform even so peter's work to westernize russia brought the nation into the mainstream of european development and that process was continued through his later successor catherine the great now even though many monarchs were moving towards absolutism there were a couple of significant exceptions and i reckon we ought to talk about them now namely the english and the dutch first the english as france prussia austria and russia were all moving towards absolutism england was moving in the opposite direction towards constitutionalism now constitutionalism means that the government would be limited by the rule of law or to put it another way the monarch had to share power with a representative body and in the case of england that would be the parliament but there was some trouble on the horizon which would eventually lead england into a civil war to settle just how much power the monarch would have and that would be the english civil war which lasted from 1642-1651 the first cause was the doctrine of the divine right of kings this idea was gaining traction throughout europe and during this period it bled into england as well after elizabeth the first died without an heir james the first succeeded her he believed that the monarch was god's representative on earth and therefore any curtailment of his power is an affront to god's own power in other words the king represents jesus himself and ain't nobody taking away power from jesus but unfortunately for him england had created that pesky magna carta in 1215 which created the english parliament and gave it control over the money and thus prevented any king from wielding absolute power okay so then charles the first succeeded james and inherited this divine right belief from his father they believe that since they were representatives of god property for example could be taken for the throne with immunity this of course led to significant tensions between the monarchs and the parliament specifically the house of commons who liked to remind the king that english traditions forbade anyone's property for being taken for them except through the due process of law to which the king responded wouldn't that be hilarious if i believe that so that belief in the divine right of kings is for sure causing tension in england during this time the second cause of the war was economic now charles grew further embittered against parliament because of the economic troubles england faced after having fought the 30 years war which we talked about in the last unit and the need to raise an army to fend off an irish rebellion as well he and his father spent metric butt loads of money without oversight from parliament who was always trying to rein in the spending of these extravagant monarchs and the solution charles came up with in 1629 to avoid those restrictions was to refuse to call parliament into session and therefore they couldn't bother him easy peasy lemon squeezy but in order to crush the rebellion in scotland charles was forced to call parliament into session in 1640 and it became known as the long parliament this parliament passed the triennial act which forced the king to call parliament intercession at least once every three years thus creating more limits on the power of the king and so the tension was revived the third cause of the war was not surprisingly religion now the church of england was established by henry viii during the growing movement of protestantism however despite some significant changes in theology the anglican church which is another way of saying the church of england retained quite a few practices and structures from the catholic church like the hierarchy of bishops and priests however a growing minority in the church known as the puritans were getting a little saucy about these catholic holdovers and wanted to purify the church by ridding it of all these vestiges of roman catholicism james the first refused to bow to their demands and charles the first went so far as to marry a catholic no oh yeah anyway those three realities were causing significant tension between the king and parliament and in 1642 the english civil war began essentially it was a conflict between the king parliament and other elites over their respective roles in the political structure after three years of fighting the parliament's new model army was victorious over the king's army however charles the first refused to concede and at this point a member of the house of commons who also happened to be a puritan namely oliver cromwell rose up and led the parliamentary army against the king and won a decisive victory afterward cromwell kicked out any members of parliament who opposed him and those representatives that were left were known as the rump parliament the rum parliament then tried charles the first for treason found him guilty and went ahead and cut his head off and that is how you abolish kingship in england ladies and gentlemen but just to be clear cromwell is a great example of a ruler who got slapped drunk with power his intent through the war was to create a commonwealth in england but in reality he created a dictatorship he didn't give the people the rights that they thought they'd been fighting for but instead consolidated all the power under himself and in that way he fit machiavelli's definition of a leader who held on to power at all costs okay now let's talk about the consequences of the english civil war as a result of this war england became a true republic called the protectorate under the leadership of oliver cromwell who was named lord protector and though in word england was now a republic in reality it was ruled as a military dictatorship with cromwell at the head the people were none too happy with this arrangement not least because as a puritan cromwell imposed the same kind of strict moralistic rules upon england that john calvin imposed in geneva no drinking no swearing no dancing you know no wonder they weren't happy anyway the protectorate ended up falling apart after cromwell's death in 1658 so you know get them filthy mouths out strike up and dance and raise a glass so by 1660 parliament restored the monarchy giving the throne to charles ii and this became known as the restoration period but charles ii did not fulfill their hopes he schemed with france and didn't work well with parliament then james ii came to power after charles ii and he was kind of a turd by english reckoning he appointed all kinds of catholics to important positions in the army and universities in the government no oh yeah so parliament realizing that they had just fought a civil war to rid england of turned kings resisted james and instead offered the throne to james's daughter mary and her husband william of orange and when james heard of this plan like a real man he fled abdicating his throne and william and mary rose to power in 1689. this transfer of power was known as the glorious revolution because monarchs were changed without bloodshed except that there were quite a few rebellions and quite a bit of bloodshed but regardless with the ascension of william and mary to the throne the idea of the divine right of kings in england was officially put to death and england had established a true constitutional monarchy and a significant means by which parliament did this was by enacting the english bill of rights which included provisions for parliament to levy taxes not the monarch and stipulated that when parliament made a law it could not be annulled by the monarch additionally william and mary were not allowed to assume the throne until they signed the bill of rights okay now let's talk about the other exception to absolutism during this period namely the dutch now because of their strategic location on the atlantic the trading city of antwerp led the dutch to become the most prosperous state in europe during this period for almost a century the region had been controlled by the habsburg rulers in spain and as the dutch grew increasingly prosperous philip ii of spain decided to get his inbred hands on more of that wealth so he enacted policies that would clamp down on the netherlands and direct more of their wealth to the spanish throne furthermore the netherlands had to become a hotbed of protestantism especially the calvinist flavor and as it grew philip who was of course a catholic became more and more frustrated at their lack of obedience and when dutch protestant agitators began destroying and desecrating catholic churches across the netherlands philip went ahead and sent an army to squash the rebellion and ended up killing thousands of dutch protestants on charges of treason that's when protestant leader william of orange rose to leadership and led the dutch protestants in ridding the netherlands of spanish influence wait william of orange isn't that the guy who came to power in england after the civil war it is indeed the same guy but before he was king in england he was head of state in the dutch republic now the dutch republic was officially formed by the peace of westphalia in 1648 which in addition to ending the 30 years war also ended the 80 years war between the dutch and the spanish as a result of this the dutch republic emerged as the wealthiest european commercial empire they led in trade in the atlantic world for a time and had a large footprint in the indian ocean trade as well now the newly independent dutch did not install a king but rather established an oligarchy which is essentially a government ruled by a small group of people in this case the oligarchy was made up of the urban gentry and wealthy landowners which represented each province of the netherlands and together they made up the state's general and decided questions of foreign and domestic policy and you can't think of the state's general as if it were a representative government like they had to some degree in england the men who made up the state's general were elite members of society and typically pass policies that serve their own best interests even so the british and the dutch stand apart during this period as examples of european countries that did not go the way of absolutism okay we've been talking about how power has shifted and been reallocated during this period but now let's talk about power on a broader european scale now as you know from the last unit the piece of westphalia effectively ended the period of religious wars in europe religion was a major factor in why states went to war prior to this period but after westphalia the main reason wars occurred was to maintain the delicate balance of power in europe and the balance of power was the constant pursuit of making sure that all nations in the continent were more or less equal in power and that way no one nation can dominate the entire continent now you'll need to know a few examples of how this pursuit of the balance of power worked out so let's start with the partition of poland this idea of the balance of power sealed the fate of poland and essentially wiped it off the map for about 150 years poland itself was a constitutional monarchy but it was riddled with weaknesses the landed nobles exploited the peasantry and made a habit of defying the king additionally they did not have a robust bureaucracy like britain to unite the country and they had been weakened by almost constant war for decades add to that poland was surrounded by absolute estates namely russia prussia and austria and any absolutist worth his or her salt can smell weakness like a shark can smell blood in the water now the balance of power between these three nations was initially unbalanced by russia's victories against the ottoman empire which made russia the stronger nation in the central european sphere so instead of going to war against russia austria and prussia decided to propose a diplomatic solution but poland sits right here in the middle of us they're weak so how about we just divide poland up between us and maintain the balance of power without having to fight about it it took about 25 years starting in 1772 but eventually poland was annexed into these three rival powers and disappeared from the map but you know it's okay because the balance of power was restored right okay what else did the pursuit of the balance of power cause well the need for a balance of power increasingly created the need for countries to go to war with each other and expand their military for example let's talk about the battle of vienna in 1683. the ottoman empire was massive in the 17th century and held possessions in southeastern europe and they had ambitions to push further into central europe they attempted to invade austria in the battle of vienna in order to secure better trading routes along the danube river in order to keep this expansion from happening and thus disrupting the balance of power the austrian habsburgs poland before the partition and the holy roman empire united to stop the invasion and did so successfully with the balance of power restored that battle marked the end of ottoman expansion into europe oh yeah remember when i mentioned louis xiv wars let's talk about him now louis xiv was pretty thirsty to gain power and territory and engaged in almost endless wars in order to make gains in french territory and his dynasty along with other strategic dynasties that increased louie's power he fought the dutch war to gain territory in the spanish netherlands and to weaken the habsburgs which was ultimately unsuccessful he also fought in the war of spanish succession from 1702 to 1713 to pursue his own dynastic interest when charles ii of spain died it was arranged that philip v succeed him but the saucy part was that philip actually was louis xiv grandson more intrigued now several european nations feared this arrangement because it meant that potentially france and spain could be combined and ruled under a single throne namely louis xiv's throne now given each nation's extensive colonial holdings this would decisively tip the balance of power towards france and spain and then who could stand against them and so war immediately broke out to prevent this scenario so england the united provinces austria and prussia fought against france spain and bavaria and remember what this war was about it wasn't a religious war but rather a war to prevent one nation france in this case from gaining too much power and thus upsetting the balance of power in europe and that is crucial to remember well the war ended in 1713 with the treaty of utrecht which did a lot of things but for our purposes we just need to point out that the treaty stipulated that philip v would remain on the spanish throne but that france and spain must remain separate entities so the treaty of utrecht maintained the balance of power in europe okay now third the pursuit of the balance of power-led european nations to expand their military is because you know you just can't kill other europeans without a sizeable army and the key player here was gustavus adolphus of sweden small militias became obsolete as adolphus built a massive professional standing army and deployed it mightily during the 30 years war they were highly organized into ascending ranks so that the hierarchy of authority was clear also new military technology was developed from firearms to mobile cannon to more elaborate fortifications but in order to finance all of this adolphus was required to raise taxes and expand the bureaucracy in order to keep everything organized other european leaders looked at the swedish army and were like dang i got to get me some of that not least louis xiv and this expansion of the military affected the balance of power significantly it was those nations who expanded their military in the ways that i just mentioned that found themselves on the winning side of the balance of power okay now it's time to talk about agriculture because during this period farming underwent some major innovations and taken all together it's known as the agricultural revolution it started in britain and the low countries of the netherlands and here's the crazy thing more and more people were moving to urban areas for industrial work for example recall from unit 1 the enclosure movement which gradually reduced the amount of land available to farmers and that sent a lot of them to the cities looking for work but even with fewer farmers agricultural output nearly tripled in various places across europe how did that happen so glad you asked now remember the farming innovations from the last period the most significant of which was the three field system and that was a big deal but still a third of the land had to lie fallow every year so that the soil's nutrients could be replenished but in this period a new innovation was developed in order to replenish the nutrients of the soil farmers discovered that they could alternate grain crops which leach nutrients from the soil with other crops that restored nutrients to the soil like potatoes and clover now fields could produce crops with no yearly fallow period this had the effect of dramatically increasing the food supply and other agricultural goods additionally this period saw the introduction of several new farming technologies three of which i'm going to tell you about now first was the introduction of jethro tulle's seed drill which made sure the seeds were planted at exact intervals and covered them over with dirt another innovation the mechanical hoe was able to increase the efficiency with which weeds were removed from the soil and third was the cast iron plow which in addition to digging furrows for planting more efficiently was made with interchangeable parts that allowed for easier repair and quicker manufacturing now also contributing to this increased production of food was the colombian exchange which we talked about in unit 1. one of the key foods for peasants was the potato which was exceedingly nutritious and cheap to grow in fact half an acre of potatoes could feed a family all year long and with all the new foods being introduced like avocados and beans and squashes the diet of europeans expanded which led to better health and longer lifespans now of course no discussion of europe from 1648 to 1815 would be complete without some chatter on economic developments am i right you know i'm right so let's start with economic shifts on the ground and then we'll look at them from the state perspective so during this period labor and trade were increasingly freed from traditional restrictions imposed by governments and corporate entities and this occurred most dramatically in england for example prior to this period workers would only be paid if they were part of a guild which had its own authority structure the guilds usually controlled prices and kept them high which benefited the elite rather than the workers with the rise and transformation of britain's wool industry which had been around since medieval times british manufacturers began paying wages directly to workers which had the effect of limiting the influence of guilds this had the further effect of raising workers wages because since they got paid per garment there was a great incentive to increase productivity okay now let's talk about the context in which many of these workers were performing their labor namely the cottage industry before the factory became the dominant mode of manufacturing goods in the industrial revolution on which more in the next unit goods for purchase were made mainly in people's homes that's why we call this the cottage industry it's also known as the putting out system merchants and entrepreneurs will buy raw materials and then pay wages to various people to transform those raw materials into finished goods for example merchants would buy raw cotton or wool and then they would pay wages to spinners and weavers and dyers who would then produce a finished textile which could then be sold on the market the system is what laid the foundation for industrialization in the next century and this system had the effect of increasing the number of workers especially in rural villages who could earn wages and sustain their family now the growth of this kind of market economy led to increasing demand for manufactured goods which meant that there was a push to get manufacturing out of people's homes and into new buildings called factories again we're going to talk way more about this in the next unit so i'll just mention it briefly here the first iteration of factories were all about textile production which means that they made cloth good these factories were powered by moving water which is why they had to be built around rivers and streams and richard archery's water frame was a significant invention on this count it was a wheel that was turned by moving water which could then power machines that created fabric and clothing workers became increasingly specialized in their jobs within the factory walls and no longer would any one person create a sellable good from start to finish but like i said the cottage industry set the stage for this in the cottage industry merchants would bring their goods from one set of workers to the next this house would weave the fabric that house would die the fabric and on and off and this division of labor only intensified in the factory and all that put together led to an explosion of demand for manufactured textiles now the growth of the market economy led to new financial practices and institutions as well for example we see the rise of the insurance industry during this time for a monthly premium insurance companies would recoup an entrepreneur's losses if something catastrophic happened like a fire destroying a factory and with that kind of security entrepreneurs especially in england gained confidence to invest metric but loads of money into the factories and the growing inventories of goods for sale also we saw the rise of specialty banks in venture capital prior to 1750 if an entrepreneur wanted to build a factory for example they would have to borrow money from family or have a fortune of their own but with this explosion of commerce due to the rise of the factory system specialty banks arose which kept only some of the money people deposited and loaned the rest out as venture capital to be paid back with interest venture capital in case you don't know is just what it sounds like if you have a venture you'd like to attempt like starting a business or building a factory then this bank can loan you the capital which is to say the boom boom to get it done okay so that's how economic changes were playing out at the ground level so now let's look at it from the top and see how states are experiencing economic change europeans are going to increasingly control the worldwide economy during this period and as we've already talked about that control of the worldwide economy is going to contribute significantly to events like the agricultural revolution and the consumer revolution which we'll talk about in the next unit but the question is how did they come to dominate the world economy well states still had their roots sunk in mercantilist policies remember mercantilism was a state-driven economic system the main goal was to increase the country's store of gold and silver by maintaining a favorable balance of trade which means more exports than imports you can see these kind of policies played out for example in france with louis xiv finance minister jean-baptiste colbert also remember that one of the key driving factors of mercantilos policies was the establishment of colonies and why is that because not only were colonies valuable sources of raw materials for their parent country but the people who lived there could also buy the manufactured goods produced by those raw materials and about halfway through this period mercantilism is going to start giving way to capitalism but for now mercantilist policies are going to fit right in with the political trend of absolutism but europe began dominating the world economy in large part because of increased demand for new world products like sugar and rice and cotton this increase in demand meant that colonial plantation owners needed more laborers to harvest their crops as indigenous laborers quickly died off because of european diseases or ran away european planters increasingly turned to african enslaved laborers to work their land this had the effect of increasing the food supply in most of europe as i mentioned before these africans were captured from their homes forced onto slave ships and then made to endure the brutal middle passage often with only enough room for their prostrate bodies these enslaved africans endured weeks and sometimes months of disease and brutality only to arrive to similarly harsh conditions in the plantation fields and the slave trade was part of a larger system of trade known as the triangular trade and three guesses as to what shape these trade routes resembled triangle on the nose me from that camera and here's how the cycle of trade went merchants started on the west coast of africa to buy enslaved laborers and then they carried them across the middle passage to trade them in the caribbean for sugar and molasses and then sailed up to the atlantic colonies in north america to trade them for rum and then run it all over again now because enslaved labor kept prices low this global trade significantly contributed to a growing consumer culture in europe in other words because these prices were low more people were buying more things for example they bought sugar which was once considered a luxury they bought textiles made of cotton and silk and the tobacco tray became a massive industry because what's an evening with friends without those magnificent lung darts all right if you need any more help with these topics then my unit 3 playlist is right here and it's going to make all your dreams come true click right here to get my ultimate review packet which is going to help you get an a in your class and a 5 on your exam in may heimler out