1.

Explain the centralization of European royal monarchies in the sixteenth

and seventeenth centuries.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, Europe became a very centralized place. The
governments pushed for this centralization because it gave them more power and took
power away from the nobles and elites. The monarchs went about centralizing their
kingdom using several methods. One of the biggest things they did was nullify the power
of the Catholic Church and the Pope, and make themselves the heads of their own
national religion. They also created a national language and erected national institutions.
There was a problem though, when the absolutist monarchs butted heads with the
representative bodies of the state.
Strong rulers and talented advisors helped to spur the growth of the European
states in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The monarchal rulers relied heavily on great
advisors in the areas of politics, economics, religions, and almost everything else. Their
chief advisors were the most important to them, helping the transitions between rulers
and giving advice to the rulers when necessary. These monarchs also recognized the
importance of businessmen as advisors, using them to obtain information and advice in
the economy. These advisors worked with their kings/queens to help limit the autonomy
of the church. Often times the government would control the church and use it to convict
critics of the king of heresy (punishable by death). They would also use the church to
their advantage, often times switching religions when necessary to obtain what they
desired. The Protestant Reformation facilitated this process of government control and let
rulers like King Henry VIII take full advantage over religions and how much their followers
valued it. For instance, when the Catholic Church would not annul King Henry’s marriage,
he simply “converted” and was named the head of the Church of England, essentially
letting him do whatever he wanted. He then used his newly gained authority to disband
churches and sold church land to finance his navy. He also gave some of the land to
powerful allies.
The monarchs of Europe also helped to centralize their states by creating national
institutions and taking away power from the local elites. The French went about doing this
by appointing new royal officials to all of their provinces and by using their army to tear
down fortifications built by the nobles and towns to assert their independence from the
central French government. The growth of one common spoken language helped to
further strengthen the central governments of Europe. This growth was largely due to the
Protestant reformation, which stressed using the vernacular (local) language in church
services instead of using Latin. Popular secular (non-religious) literature also helped to
spread a national language, as they were printed in only the national language.
Many rulers favored absolutism over constitutionalism. Absolutism is when there
is no constitution to limit the monarch’s power. However when the monarchs had to deal
with representative bodies like Parliament, things became more difficult. The rulers now
had to approve new taxes and declarations of war with Parliament. This became known
as constitutionalism, where customs or laws limit a ruler’s power. The rulers would try to
find every way around these checks and balances. One good example of this was King
Louis XIV of France. The representative body of the Estates General limited his power.
The King decided that he would get around this power block by simply not calling the
Estates General in to session. Since he was unable to raise taxes, he devised clever
ways of collecting taxes so that he received triple the income. He also promoted France’s
economy in order to receive more money with the same amount of taxes. He knew that if
the economy did well, he would get more money to spend on what he wanted, such as a
massive mansion. He also sold government and official positions to make large sums of
money. Messing around with absolutism was dangerous business as King Charles of
England soon found out. He ruled over his kingdom for eleven years without calling the
Parliament into session and twisted tax laws to his favor (since he couldn’t raise taxes) in
order to gain more money. This led to problems when there was a rebellion and the King
was forced to call the Parliament into session to approve higher taxes and an army.
When the Parliament tried to pass new laws preventing the king from not summoning
them into session, the king refused and it soon led to a bloody civil war.

2. How were the politics and warfare related to European economies and
economic development from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century?

There was a lot of fighting going on in the European states in the 16th through 18th
centuries. The warfare led to political alliances and the monarchs trying to keep control of
their country. This in turn affected the economy because the kings needed money and
taxes to finance the wars, and a stable and thriving economy was vital.
Warfare dominated the early ages of Europe, and the constant struggle between
feuding states brought about quick changes in warfare and the way wars were fought.
The advent of firearms and cannons brought about changes in the weaponry of not only
the soldier but also the common villager. The number of troops throughout the European
states nearly doubled and the governments paid large sums of money to train and
maintain them. Because of the larger armies and more complex weaponry available, the
way the armies were commanded had to be changed. Better discipline and a sense of
comradeship helped this process, as well as a change in command and the command
structures of these armies. Naval technologies and fortifications also improved during this
time period, becoming stronger and more resistant to canons. Power often changed
hand, as one state would gain it for a short amount of time before they were confronted
with a new threat.
In order to finance the constant wars, states had to support large economies,
because they had to impose large taxes. Spain was a main example of how not
promoting the state’s economy could have bad consequences. Spain had one of the
largest and most powerful armies in the world and it financed it using silver imported from
the Americas. However they did not stimulate or support the growth of their economy in
way, so pretty soon the king was defaulting on loans that he had taken. High sales taxes
that the king was forced to impose discouraged any potential growth in the economy, and
the Spanish soon lost much of their military power. Politics often played a role in the
economies, with alliances and feuds having different affects on what happened to the
economy