Lecture: Enlightened Monarchs - Crash Course European History

Overview

• Lecturer: John Green
• Focus: Enlightened Monarchs and their engagement with Enlightenment ideals

Enlightenment Philosophers & Critiques

• Criticized rulers and aristocrats for:
  • Torture
  • Censorship
  • Despotic rule
  • Arbitrary imprisonment
• Montesquieu's "The Spirit of Laws" (1748):
  • Rejected divine right rule
  • Three types of government:
    • Democracies (small states)
    • Monarchies (mid-sized states)
    • Despotic states (empires)
• Preferred British model:
  • Law-based monarchy
  • Independent courts and parliament
  • Bill of Rights
  • Religious plurality

Enlightened Monarchs

Catherine the Great of Russia

• Corresponded with Voltaire
• Offered to print Diderot’s Encyclopedia
• Emphasized education (schools for girls, Russian dictionary)
• Built roads, fostered trade
• Consolidated aristocracy’s privileges and imposed taxes on ordinary people

Frederick the Great of Prussia

• Interests: Music, design, Chinese porcelain
• Authored an opera valuing religious tolerance
• Welcomed religious exiles
• Boasted military strength (army expanded from 80,000 to 200,000)
• Strengthened aristocracy (Junkers) control over serfs

Maria Theresa and Joseph II of Austria

• Maria Theresa:
  • Renumbered addresses, standardized system
  • Counted subjects and listened to their needs
• Joseph II:
  • Emancipated Jews, encouraged agricultural freedom
  • Reduced aristocratic power over serfs
  • Promoted free labor movement
  • Reforms rolled back posthumously

Louis XV of France

• Sought change without loss of power
• Attempted tax reforms, restricted by Parlements
• Lifted grain market restrictions (led to food supply issues)
• Reforms often destabilized society

Bourbon Reforms in Spain

• Streamlined government and increased revenue
• Allowed colonial Spanish descent to rise in bureaucracy
• Suppressed Jesuits for loyalty issues

Impact and Conclusion

• Reforms met resistance both from aristocrats and urban poor
• Aristocrats' lifestyle improved, lived in luxury (chateaux, Chinese porcelain)
• Poor experienced worsening conditions (rising poverty, sawdust bread)
• Massive wars and administrative consolidation led to rising tensions
• Imminent rebellions beginning in France signaled the need for more drastic changes

Final Note

• All reforms had mixed results, often enhancing state power while causing social unrest.