HIS109Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Feudalism, Great Fear, Conspicuous Consumption
Document Summary
The enlightenment driving the critique of the ancient regime, not consonant with the laws of nature! Lead to the physical violence and the over throw of regimes! The dream of reason brings about the monsters! 1789 breaks from the traditions of the past (1300-1789)! After the revolution, new ideas, driven by the enlightenment, driven by the writings of the philosophers, the ideas traveled europe-wide! As in the middle ages, people were divided legally into three estates! The clergy was the least numerous, rationalism and anti-clericalism made the church an extremely unattractive choice of career (100-150 thousand clerics out of 25 million)! The few church men controlled 10% of the land, the land was free from taxation and was poorly cultivated, serfdom was still practiced on those lands! Variations of wealth and status among the clergy! The greater of ce: aristocratic families dumping ground for extra! The aristocratic bishops lived in the court, treated as nobles, and regular cleric life.
