Early modern Europe
Early modern Europe, also referred to as the post-medieval period, is the period of
Some of the more notable trends and events of the early modern period included the Reformation and the religious conflicts it provoked (including the French Wars of Religion and the Thirty Years' War), the rise of capitalism and modern nation states, widespread witch hunts and European colonization of the Americas.
Characteristics
The modern period was characterized by profound changes in many realms of human endeavor. Among the most important include the development of
Periodization
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Regardless of the precise dates used to define its beginning and end points, the early modern period is generally agreed to have comprised the
The beginning of the early modern period is not clear-cut, but is generally accepted to be in the late 15th century or early 16th century. Significant dates in this transitional phase from medieval to early modern Europe can be noted:
- 1450: The invention of the first European movable type printing process by Johannes Gutenberg, a device that fundamentally changed the circulation of information. Movable type, which allowed individual characters to be arranged to form words and which is an invention separate from the printing press, had been invented earlier in China.
- 1453: Byzantine empire; the Battle of Castillon concluded the Hundred Years' War.
- 1485: The last Tudor monarchy, in the person of Henry VII.
- 1492: The first documented European voyage to the Americas by the Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus; the end of the Reconquista, with the final expulsion of the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula; the Spanish government expels the Jews.
- 1494: French king Charles VIII invaded Italy, drastically altering the status quo and beginning a series of wars which would punctuate the Italian Renaissance.
- 1513: First formulation of modern Machiavelli's The Prince.
- 1517: The ninety-five theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany.
- 1526: Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor gains the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary.
- 1545: The
The end date of the early modern period is variously associated with the
The role of nobles in the
The intellectual developments of the period included the creation of the economic theory of
Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a reform-oriented
The Reformation ended in division and the establishment of new church movements. The four most important traditions to emerge directly from the Reformation were
The largest Protestant groups were the Lutherans and Calvinists. Lutheran churches were founded mostly in Germany, the Baltics and Scandinavia, while the Reformed ones were founded in Switzerland, Hungary, France, the Netherlands and Scotland.[4]
The initial movement within Germany diversified, and other reform impulses arose independently of Luther. The availability of the
There were also reformation movements throughout continental Europe known as the
The Roman Catholic Church responded with a
Church of England
The Reformation reshaped the
Consequences of the Protestant Reformation
The following outcomes of the Protestant Reformation regarding human capital formation, the Protestant ethic, economic development, governance, and "dark" outcomes have been identified by scholars.[9]
Historiography
Margaret C. Jacob argues that there has been a dramatic shift in the historiography of the Reformation. Until the 1960s, historians focused their attention largely on the great leaders and also the theologians of the 16th century, especially Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli. Their ideas were studied in depth. However, the rise of the new social history in the 1960s look at history from the bottom up, not from the top down. Historians began to concentrate on the values, beliefs and behavior of the people at large. She finds, "in contemporary scholarship, the Reformation was then seen as a vast cultural upheaval, a social and popular movement and textured and rich because of its diversity."[10]
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment refers to the 18th century in
Difference between 'early modern' and the Renaissance
The expression "early modern" is sometimes used as a substitute for the term
The term early modern is most often applied to Europe, and its overseas empire. However, it has also been employed in the history of the Ottoman Empire. In the historiography of Japan, the Edo period from 1590 to 1868 is also sometimes referred to as the early modern period.
Diplomacy and warfare
The 17th century saw very little peace in Europe – major wars were fought in 95 years (every year except 1610, 1669 to 1671, and 1680 to 1682.)[12] The wars were unusually ugly. Europe in the late 17th century, 1648 to 1700, was an age of great intellectual, scientific, artistic and cultural achievement. Historian Frederick Nussbaum says it was:
"prolific in genius, in common sense, and in organizing ability. It could properly have been expected that intelligence, comprehension and high purpose would be applied to the control of human relations in general and to the relations between states and peoples in particular. The fact was almost completely opposite. It was a period of marked unintelligence, immorality and frivolity in the conduct of international relations, marked by wars undertaken for dimly conceived purposes, waged with the utmost brutality and conducted by reckless betrayals of allies."[13]
The worst came during the Thirty Years' War, 1618–1648, which had an extremely negative impact on the civilian population of Germany and surrounding areas, with massive loss of life and disruption of the economy and society.
Thirty Years' War: 1618–1648
The Reformation led to a
Two main tenets of the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War, were:
- All parties would now recognise the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, by which each prince would have the right to determine the religion of his own state, the options being Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and now Calvinism (the principle of cuius regio, eius religio).
- Christians living in principalities where their denomination was not the established church were guaranteed the right to practice their faith in public during allotted hours and in private at their will.
The treaty also effectively ended the Papacy's pan-European political power. Pope Innocent X declared the treaty "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all times" in his bull Zelo Domus Dei. European sovereigns, Roman Catholic and Protestant alike, ignored his verdict.[15]
Scholars taking a
Diplomacy before 1700 was not well developed, and chances to avoid wars were too often squandered. In England, for example, King Charles II paid little attention to diplomacy, which proved disastrous. During the Dutch war of 1665–67, England had no diplomats stationed in Denmark or Sweden. When King Charles realized he needed them as allies, he sent special missions that were uninformed about local political, military, and diplomatic situations, and were ignorant of personalities and political factionalism. Ignorance produced a series of blunders that ruined their efforts to find allies.[18] King Louis XIV of France, by contrast, developed the most sophisticated diplomatic service, with permanent ambassadors and lesser ministers in major and minor capitals, all preparing steady streams of information and advice to Paris. Diplomacy became a career that proved highly attractive to rich senior aristocrats who enjoyed very high society at royal courts, especially because they carried the status of the most powerful nation in Europe. Increasingly, other nations copied the French model; French became the language of diplomacy, replacing Latin.[19] By 1700, the British and the Dutch, with small land armies, large navies, and large treasuries, used astute diplomacy to build alliances, subsidizing as needed land powers to fight on their side, or as in the case of the Hessians, hiring regiments of soldiers from mercenary princes in small countries.[20] The balance of power was very delicately calculated, so that winning a battle here was worth the slice of territory there, with no regard to the wishes of the inhabitants. Important peacemaking conferences at Utrecht (1713), Vienna (1738), Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) and Paris (1763) had a cheerful, cynical, game-like atmosphere in which professional diplomats cashed in victories like casino chips in exchange for territory.[21]
Major states
Holy Roman Empire
Since 1512, the
The Habsburgs expanded their control within and outside the Holy Roman Empire as a result of the dynastic policy pursued by
The main opponents of the Habsburg Empire were the
Spain
In 1492 the
The structure of the Spanish Empire was established under the
Under
France
The
The need for centralization in this period was directly linked to the question of royal finances and the ability to wage war. The internal conflicts and dynastic crises of the 16th and 17th centuries (the wars between Catholics and Protestants and the
England
This period refers to England 1558–1603. The
The
The tumultuous
Poland
In early modern Europe, the
Papacy
The papacy continued to exercise significant diplomatic influence during the Early modern period. The Popes were frequently assembling Holy Leagues to assert Catholic supremacy in Europe. During the Renaissance,
Other political powers
- Ottoman Empire
- Early Modern Italy
- Kingdom of Portugal
- Dutch Republic
- Holy Roman Empire
- Kingdom of Bohemia (Czech)
- Habsburg monarchy (Austria)
- Early Modern Germany
- Duchy of Prussia, Kingdom of Prussia
- Duchy of Bavaria, Electorate of Bavaria
- Electorate of the Palatinate
- Tsardom of Russia, Russian Empire
- Early Modern Sweden
- Denmark–Norway
- Early Modern Romania
- Kingdom of Hungary
See also
- Renaissance
- International relations 1648–1814
- Early Modern warfare
- Scientific Revolution
- Age of Discovery
- Protestant Reformation
- Catholic Counter-Reformation
- Thirty Years' War
- Age of Enlightenment
References
- ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3).
- ^ Quoted in Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church Archived August 13, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Kenneth G. Appold, The Reformation: A Brief History (2011) online
- ^ Andrew Johnston, The protestant reformation in Europe (Routledge, 2014).
- ^ For a wide range of causes see G.R. Elton, ed. The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 2: The Reformation, 1520–1559 (1st ed. 1958) online
- ^ George Huntston Williams, The Radical Reformation (3rd ed, 2000).
- ^ A.D. Wright, The Counter-Reformation: Catholic Europe and the Non-Christian World (Ashgate, 2005).
- ^ A.G. Dickens, The English Reformation (1991).
- ^ Patrick Collinson, The Reformation: A History (2006)
- ISBN 9780199762798.
- ^ Bax, Ernest Belfort. "Gracchus Babeuf and the Conspiracy of the Equals", 1911 [1], accessed June 12, 2011.
- ^ John A. Mears, "The Emergence Of The Standing Professional Army In Seventeenth-Century Europe," Social Science Quarterly (1969) 50#1 pp. 106–115 in JSTOR
- ^ Frederick L. Nussbaum, The triumph of science and reason, 1660–1685 (1953) pp. 147–48.
- ^ "History of Europe – Demographics". Encyclopædia Britannica.
- ^ Cross, (ed.) "Westphalia, Peace of" Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church
- ^ Norman Davies, Europe: A History (1996) pp. 593–94.
- ^ Hamish Scott, book review in English Historical Review (Oct 2013) pp. 1239–1241.
- ^ J.R. Jones, Britain and the World: 1649–1815 (1980), pp. 38–39.
- ^ Gaston Zeller, "French diplomacy and foreign policy in their European setting." in Carsten, ed., The New Cambridge Modern History vol. 5 (1961) pp. 198–99, 206.
- ^ Charles W. Ingrao, The Hessian mercenary state: ideas, institutions, and reform under Frederick II, 1760–1785 (2003).
- ^ Davies, Europe (1996) pp. 581–82.
- ^ Edward Gaylord Bourne, The History and Determination of the Line of Demarcation Established by Pope Alexander VI Between the Spanish and Portuguese Fields of Discovery and Colonization (1892) online in Gutenberg.org.
- ISBN 978-0-521-45735-4.
- ^ Lynch, John. Bourbon Spain, 1700–1808. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers 1989, p. 21.
- ^ Schwaller, John F., "Patronato Real" in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture vol. 4, pp. 323–24.
- ^ Mecham, J. Lloyd, Church and State in Latin America: A History of Politico-Ecclesiastical Relations, revised edition. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1966, pp. 4–6.
- Haring, Clarence, The Spanish Empire in America. New York: Oxford University Press 1947, pp. 181–82.
- ^ "Ancien Regime", Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, The Gale Group Inc., 2004, retrieved 26 February 2017 – via Encyclopedia.com
- ^ See William Doyle, ed. The Oxford Handbook of the Ancien Régime (2012) 656 pp. excerpt and text search.
- ^ Major 1994, pp. xx–xxi
- ^ Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Ancien Regime: A History of France 1610–1774 (1999), political survey excerpt and text search.
- ^ D. M. Palliser, The Age of Elizabeth: England Under the Later Tudors, 1547–1603 (1983)
- ^ Barry Coward, and Peter Gaunt. The Stuart Age: England, 1603–1714 (5th ed. 2017), excerpt
- ^ Godfrey Davies, The Early Stuarts, 1603–1660 (Oxford UP, 1959).
Bibliography
- Major, J. Russell (1994). From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy: French Kings, Nobles & Estates. JHU Press. ISBN 0-8018-5631-0.
- )
- John Coffey (2000), Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558–1689, Studies in Modern History, Pearson Education
- Benjamin J. Kaplan (2007), Divided by Faith. Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge University Press
- Joseph S. Freedman (1999), Philosophy and the Arts in Central Europe, 1500–1700: Teaching and Texts at Schools and Universities Aldershot: Ashgate
Further reading
- Black, Jeremy. European International Relations, 1648–1815 (2002)
- Blanning, T. C. W. The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture: Old Regime Europe 1660–1789 (2003)
- Cameron, Euan. Early Modern Europe: An Oxford History (2001)
- de Gouges, Linnea. Witch Hunts and State Building in Early Modern Europe Nisus Publications, 2017.
- de Vries, Jan. The Economy of Europe in an Age of Crisis, 1600–1750 (1976)
- de Vries, Jan. European Urbanization, 1500–1800 (1984)
- Dewald, Jonathan. "The Early Modern Period." in Encyclopedia of European Social History, edited by Peter N. Stearns, (vol. 1: 2001), pp. 165–177. online
- Dorn, Walter L. Competition For Empire 1740–1763 (1940) online
- DuPlessis, Robert S. Transitions to capitalism in early modern Europe (2019).
- Flinn, Michael W. The European Demographic System, 1500–1820 (1981)
- Gatti, Hilary. Ideas of Liberty in Early Modern Europe (2015).
- Gershoy, Leo. From Despotism To Revolution: 1763–1789 (1944) online
- Grafton, Anthony. Inky Fingers: The Making of Books in Early Modern Europe (2020).
- Gribben, Crawford, and Graeme Murdock, eds. Cultures of Calvinism in Early Modern Europe (Oxford UP, 2019).
- Gutmann, Myron P. Toward the Modern Economy: Early Industry in Europe, 1500–1800 (1988)
- Hesmyr, Atle: Scandinavia in the Early Modern Era(2017).
- Hill, David Jayne. A history of diplomacy in the international development of Europe (3 vol. 1914) online
- Jacob, Margaret C. Strangers nowhere in the world: the rise of cosmopolitanism in early modern Europe (2017).
- Kennedy, Paul. The rise and fall of the great powers (2010).
- Klein, Alexander, and Jelle Van Lottum. "The Determinants of International Migration in Early Modern Europe: Evidence from the Maritime Sector, c. 1700–1800." Social Science History 44.1 (2020): 143–167 online.
- Langer, William. An Encyclopedia of World History (5th ed. 1973), very detailed outline
- Levine, David. "The Population of Europe: Early Modern Demographic Patterns." in Encyclopedia of European Social History, edited by Peter N. Stearns, (vol. 2, 2001), pp. 145–157. online
- Lindsay, J. O. ed. New Cambridge Modern History: The Old Regime, 1713–1763 (1957) online
- Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe: From the Renaissance to the Present (3rd ed. 2009, 2 vol), 1412 pp.
- Mowat, R. B. History of European Diplomacy, 1451–1789 (1928) 324 pp. online free
- Nussbaum, Frederick L. The triumph of science and reason, 1660–1685 (1953), Despite the narrow title is a general survey of European history.
- Parker, Geoffrey. The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800 (1996)
- Petrie, Charles. Earlier diplomatic history, 1492–1713 (1949), covers all of Europe; online
- Petrie, Charles. Diplomatic History, 1713–1933 (1946), broad summary online
- Pollmann, Judith. Memory in early modern Europe, 1500–1800 (Oxford UP, 2017).
- Rice, Eugene F. The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460–1559 (2nd ed. 1994) 240 pp.
- Schroeder, Paul. The Transformation of European Politics 1763–1848 (1994) online; advanced diplomatic history
- Scott, Hamish, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350–1750: Volume I: Peoples and Place (2015); Volume II: Cultures and Power (2015).
- "The State Church in Early-Modern Europe." in Arts and Humanities Through the Eras, edited by Edward I. Bleiberg, et al., (vol. 5: The Age of the Baroque and Enlightenment 1600–1800, Gale, 2005), pp. 336–341. online
- Stearns, Peter N., ed. Encyclopedia of European Social History (6 vol 2000), 3000 pp; overview vol. 1 pp. 165–77, plus hundreds of articles
- Tallett, Frank. War and Society in Early Modern Europe: 1495–1715 (2016).
- Wiesner, Merry E. Early Modern Europe, 1450–1789 (3rd ed. 2022)
- Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. Women and gender in early modern Europe (Cambridge UP, 2019).
- Wolf, John B. The Emergence of the Great Powers, 1685–1715 (1951) online
External links
- Discussion of the medieval/modern transition, from the introduction to the pioneering Cambridge Modern History(1903)
- Society for Renaissance Studies