01:360:401 Lecture 17: Chapter 17
21 May 2018
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Chapter 17: Absolutism in Eastern
Europe to 1740
1. Lord and Peasants in Eastern Europe
1. Introduction
1. Absolute monarchy was built on social and economic foundations
(1400-1650)
2. Princes and nobility of eastern Europe reimposed a harsh serfdom on
the peasants
2. The Medieval Background
1. The period of time from 1050-1300 (High Middle Ages) was a period
of general economic expansion characterized by the growth or trade,
towns, and population
2. After 1300, Europe’s population and economy dived because of the
Black Death, and both east and west sought to solve their economic
problems by exploiting peasantry
3. East of the Elbe, lords used political and police power to exploit the
peasantry
1. Kings and princes issued laws that restricted/eliminated the
peasant’s right of free movement and a peasant could no longer
leave without the lord’s permission (In Prussian territories by
1500, runaway peasants were hunted down and returned)
2. Lords took more and more of their peasants’ land and imposed
heavier and heavier lab obligations (gradual erosion of the
peasantry’s economic position was bound up with manipulation of
the legal system)
3. The Consolidation of Serfdom
1. All the old privileges of the lords reappeared and peasants were also
assumed to be in hereditary subjugation to their lords unless they
could prove the contrary
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2. All this occurred in Poland, Prussia, and Russia and law cod set no
limits on the lord
3.
4. The consolidation of serfdom accompanied the growth of estate
agriculture (influx)
5. Political, rather than economic, factors resulted in rise of serfdom in
the east
1. Eastern lords enjoyed much greater political power than the
western counterparts
2. The noble landlord class increased its political power at the
expense of monarchy (weak kings were forced to grant political
favors to win support of the nobility)
3. The political power of the peasants were weaker in the eastern
Europe and landlords systematically undermined the medieval
privileges of the towns
2. The Rise of Austria and Prussia
1. Introduction
1. Strong kings began to emerge in many lands and war and the threat
of war aided rulers greatly in their attempts to build absolute
monarchies
2. The would-be absolutist monarchs of Eastern Europe monopolized
political power
1. By imposing and collecting permanent taxes without consent
2. By maintaining permanent standing armies that policed the
country
3. By conducting relations with other states as they pleased
2. Austria and the Ottoman Turks
1. Czech nobility, largely Protestant, dominated the Bohemian Estates,
the represent-ative body of the different legal orders in Bohemia but at
Battle of the White Mountain, Habsburg defeated Protestants and new
nobility enslaved local peasants
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2. After the Thirty Years’ War, Ferdinand III, centralized the government
in the hereditary German-speaking provinces (Austria, Styria, and
Tyrol -- permanent army)
3. Ottomans, from Anatolia (Turkey), reached their peak in the middle of
the sixteenth century under Suleiman the Magnificent and their
possessions stretched from western Persia across North Africa and
up into the heart of central Europe
4. Apostles of Islam, the Ottoman Turks were foes of the Catholic
Habsburgs
5. The Ottoman Empire was built on the conception of state and society
where all the agricultural land of the empire was the personal
hereditary property of the sultan
6. The top ranks of the bureaucracy were staffed by the sultan’s slave
corps (slave tax)
7. Ottomans were more tolerant of other religions than the Europeans
were
8. Weak sultans failed to keep up with European military advances and
finally with an alliance with Louis XIV of France, surrounded Vienna
and laid siege to it in 1683, but the Habsburg defeated them,
expanding into Hungary and Transylvania
9. In 1713, Charles VI proclaimed the so-called Pragmatic Sanction,
which state that the Habsburg possessions were never to be divided
and passed to single heir intact
10. The Hungarian nobility, despite its reduced strength,
thwarted the full development of Habsburg absolutism as most of
them being Protestants continued to insist on their traditional rights
and rebelled under Prince Francis Rakoczy in 1703 (compromise)
3. Prussia in the Seventeenth Century
1. While local princes lost political power and influence, a revitalized
landed nobility became the ruling class; the Hohenzollern family ruled
the electorate of Brandenburg and Prussia (largest landowners in a
landlord society)
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Document Summary
Battle of the white mountain, habsburg defeated protestants and new nobility (cid:1688)enslaved(cid:1689) local peasants: after the thirty years" war, ferdinand iii, centralized the government in the hereditary german-speaking provinces (austria, styria, and. Prussia reverted to the elector of brandenburg who was a helpless spectator in the 30 years" war: devastation of brandenburg and prussia prepared the way for. Berlin), prussia (part of poland), and scattered holdings along the. Rhine in western germany: taxes could be charged with their consent and the estates of. Ostentatious(cid:1689)), was focused on imitating the style of louis xiv (crowned king frederick i for aiding the holy roman emperor in the. War of the spanish succession: frederick william i, (cid:1688)the soldiers" king,(cid:1689) part of the hohenzollern family, established prussian absolutism creating the best army in. Lithuanian state, which joined poland with much of ukraine in the. Ukraine from poland and completing the conquest of the tribes of all.
