Hello there sky3d
You have asked about one of the more interesting periods in European
history and even world history in general. Now I don't know if you
are a student or a teacher so I will break things down in the
following manner. If you are a student, you will have to do some
additional work on your own to create a paper which you can hand in.
The entire outline of what you need to know for a good paper will be
here but not in the form of a final composition.
If you are a teacher or somebody simply interested in history, then I
presume you have some previous knowledge of the subject and will fully
understand the outlined material I am providing and won't need it in
essay form.
This was a time of European economic renewal and also the time of the
winding down of major religious conflicts in the region.
We will begin with the opening of the Atlantic Ocean. Before 1500,
the sea was an isolating wall but afterward became a bridge which
allowed Europe to enter the Age of Discovery.
That opening to the world should be combined with the improvements in
ship building which took place in the 1400s. If you want to go into
detail about the improvement in ships, that entails additional
research into the matter of improved riggings and the introduction of
the mariner's compass which allowed ships to sail out of the sight of
land.
You can learn more about ship rigging here:
( http://www.chez.com/philateliemarine/phil_mar_e/d_tail_types_e.htm )
- the website is "More on Different Ship Types" which breaks things
down into the "discoveries" ships and "working" ships, among others.
You can also find some information about the mariner's compass in this
site about the Royal Navy.
( http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/static/pages/142.html ) - check the
section on history.
At this time there was also growing speculation that the sea might
even lead to Asia in a manner which could go around the traders of
Alexandria and Constantinople.
The Portuguese made the first big move by rounding the Cape of Good
Hope to the coast of India in 1498. Vasco da Gama made the trip more
than once. The first time for trade and later to war against the Arab
traders which allows Portugal to build the forst trade empire of the
era. If you wish to enrich an essay about this period, you may want
to do some research about the Jesuits and Francis Xavier in
particular.
( http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06233b.htm ) - web page from the
Catholic Encyclopedia
You will notice that I'm starting far earlier than 1560 due to the
fact that the events of 1560 and later do not exist in isolation.
Some sort of groundwork is needed to understand them.
The Discovery of America pops out at us as well. We all know the poem
"In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, etc, etc. the West Indies
came under Spanish rule, Conquistadors go to South America, Cortès
conquers Aztecs, Pizzaro defeats Incas, Magellan finds a southwest
passage past Tierra del Fuego and discovers the Philippines and the
globe is circumnavigated. In 1494, the globe is divided between
Spain and Portugal with Spain getting most of the Americas and
Portugal, Africa, Asia, and the East Indies.
The gold of the New World allowed Spain to help finance the
anti-Protestant phase of the Counter Revolution.
While that religious conflict was heating up, there was also a
commercial revolution taking place. Europe had a growing population
and food production had to grow as well. At the beginning of this
time, inflation rates were quite low. As food production increased,
more of the less fertile land was pressed into use which drove up the
cost of producing food and created a period of inflation since wages
did not increase accordingly. This combined with changes in
production and commerce are a brief discription of the revolution.
The craft guilds weakened and an entrepreneurial spirit emerged in the
market place creating wealth for merchants, bankers, and Popes as well
as the beginnings of the modern capitalist system. In fact, it got
the church involved to the point it had to review parts of its dogma
relating to what constituted usury and what constituted legitimate
return on investment.
As far as governments were concerned, the shift had to be made from
mercantile policies to those which would build self-sufficient
economies. The transition also had to be made from "town" centered
societies to "national" societies.
In England, the government took over what the guilds used to do.
Parliament regulated apprenticeship appointments and wage scales.
In France, the government kept the guilds for tax reasons but limited
guild powers.
National tariffs were instigated to subsidize exports and limit
imports to keep a nations own commerce from having competition.
With the effects of the commercial revolution, population growth, and
the declining value of money, the classes of Europe took on forms that
would last until the Industrial revolution.
Of course all this leads up to where your question pretty much starts
which has to do with bringing an end to the religious revolution which
was also ongoing. I needed to establish a background for the social
changes which were at the heart of the matter. To you, this might be
a study in history as your question indicates. To me it is a study in
cultural anthropology dealing with the evolution of European social
classes during the period you want covered. It is the creation of
specific classes and their relationships to each other and Europe at
large that bring on the series of events that lead to The Peace of
Westphalia in 1644 and the final end of the Thirty Years War,
Swedish-French section in 1648.
And now, we're off.
Let's start with Phillip II of Spain. Charles V abdicated his throne
in 1556. He left Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary to his brother
Ferdinand, who became Holy Roman Emperor, and Spain to his son Phillip
II. Of course that meant that he also inherited all of the Americas.
He also married "Bloody Mary" and became King of England as well as
claiming the Throne of France for his daughter. He was a staunch
Catholic and because of this, put all of Spain's money and soldiers
into the religous wars.
In 1567 Phillip sent a new Governor General to the Netherlands who
went with 20,000 Spanish soldiers, and established a council to
suppress religious and political dissent. Of course the Netherlands
didn't appreciate this at all and they united against Phillip. Since
the Netherlands was a haven for protestants, Phillip set up the
Inquisition in Holland. Revolt erupted and the Calvinists attacked
and destroyed Catholic churches. When Phillip ordered his Governor
General (Duke of Alva) to counterattack and put hundreds to death,
William of Orange, who hated the Spanish anyway, joined with the dutch
to end Spanish rule.
Elizabeth of England secretly loaned money to the Dutch to support
their rebellion. The north (Holland) declared itself independent and
the south remained with Phillip. England boldly supported the Dutch
and they were allied together against Spain. Spain decided that the
only way to get Holland returned would be to invade England which led
eventually to the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Phillip never did get
to re-Catholicize Europe. A 12 year truce was brokered in 1609 with
the north being known as the Dutch Netherlands and the south the
Spanish Netherlands. There was a movement of protestants from south
to north. Both France and Germany were in decline because of the wars
of religion. From this situation, France was able to recover but
Germany was not.
The wars of religion in France had less to do with theology than they
did a rebellion of the lower classes against higher authority. This
relates directly back to the creation of the new social order I had
mentioned earlier. The gap between the Nobility, church authority,
and the common people was wider than ever with the King of France even
having the power to nominate French bishops. By this time, the
Catholic church held the political "middle ground" in France and the
radical element was made up of fanatic Protestants and many of those
protestants were of the Nobility. After the death of Henry II,
Catherine de Medici tried to keep her sons in power but the country
fell apart.
During the last 40 years of the 16th century, there were nine civil
wars. These were not civil wars in the sense we think of a civil war
today with one segment of a nation fighting against another but rather
highwaymen spreading general terror. The Huguenots were led by Henry
of Navarre and Admiral de Coligny. The Catholics were led by Henry of
Guise. Another group of people were known as politiques. They believed
that politics should be secular and that religion was not important in
the government.
Henry of Navarre was a politique. This is the same period of time as
the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.
Henry of Navarre eventually became Henry IV who angered the French
Protestants by becoming Catholic so that the Catholic powers in France
would work with and support him. In response to Protestant pressures,
Henry issued the Edict of Nantes giving rights to French Protestants.
Henry also created another major change in social custom for the
French when he laid the foundations of Royal Absolutism.
Meanwhile, in a Germany which was falling apart, another religious
battle was shaping up, Catholic vs Lutheran. It is this Thirty Years
War which leads us to the end of your question.
The Holy Roman Empire was united by the Roman Catholic faith though
Lutheran states were now a part of the whole. Due to the fact that
the Lutherans were suspicious of the non-Lutheran states, they went
into cultural isolation. The peace of Augsburg permitted rulers to
choose the faith of their people, but after the peace, the Lutherans
tried to force other people to be Lutheran as well, and of course this
made Catholics angry. Now it may seem that the German civil war known
as the thirty Years War was fought over theological questions,
however, that was only part of the problem. the thirty Years War was
also fought over constitutional issues. The Emperor was determined to
establish central power but the German states wanted independent
power. the war actually had four different phases.
1 - Bohemian (1618-1625)
2 - Danish (1625-1629)
3 - Swedish (1630-1635)
4 - Swedish-French (1635-1648)
In 1618, the Bohemians didn't want to lose their independence to the
Holy Roman Emperor, so when the emperor sent an emissary to Prague,
the Bohemians threw him out of a window. Elector Palatine came to the
defense of the Bohemians and took on the title of Frederick V. The
new Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand came and defeated the Protestants,
and Frederick was forced to flee. During the Bohemian phase, the
Spanish were getting ready to fight the Dutch and French. Ferdinand
damaged Bohemia as much as he possibly could. He seized the estates
of over half the Bohemian nobles and gave the lands to the Catholic
church. Then the king of Denmark/Duke of Holstein took up the
Protestant cause, once again not so much for theological reasons, he
mostly just wanted to get some German land. Ferdinand commissioned
Albert of Wallenstein to fight the King of Denmark and the
counter-reformation flowed over Germany.
sky3d-ga - are you keeping track of all of this???
Ferdinand issued the Edict of Restitution by which he gave back all
church lands that were secularized and many Germans thought that maybe
the whole Protestant reformation over. Then Richelieu (a Catholic
Cardinal in France) got the King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus ( a
Lutheran) to fight the Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire. Of course
Richelieu being the strong pro-French statesman he was did this to
preserve French interests. So at the instigation of a French Roman
Catholic Cardinal, Swedish soldiers went into battle singing Lutheran
hymns. They were victorious for a while but then Gustavus was killed
and his chancellor took over the fighting. Wallenstein then stopped
fighting against the Swedes and was assinated because of it.
Richelieu then paid Bernard of Saxe-Weimar to maintain an army of
Germans (still looking out for French interests)
Take a deep breath here.
Suddenly the Spanish attacked France and sacked Paris. But while the
attention of the Spain was diverted, Portugal and Catalonia rebelled
against Phillip IV, and the other European monarchies backed the
rebellion.
By 1644, everybody was pretty much getting tired of the never ending
battles and negotiators and diplomats went to Westphalia to settle the
issues of Germany and reform the Holy Roman Empire. The Emperor
didn't much like this but by now there was nothing whatever he he
could do. France and Spain still refused to make peace, (that's
another story) but the Holy Roman Empire stopped fighting. It was
called the Peace of Westphalia. The Peace of Westphalia marked the end
of religious wars in Europe and the temporarily stopped the
fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire.
Search Google
Key terms - 17th century europe, 16th century europe, 15th century
europe, reformation, counter reformation, history +of european
monarchies, thirty years war, richelieu, elizabeth I, huguenots
Some of the sources used for the above
"Bloody Mary - Counter Reformation"
( http://home.clara.net/hetha/Tudors/bloody_mary_counter_reformation.htm
)
"Counter-Reformation"
( http://mb-soft.com/believe/txc/counterr.htm )
"The Thirty-Years-War"
( http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc2/lectures/30yearswar.html
)
"The Thirty Years War: Home Page"
( http://www.pipeline.com/~cwa/TYWHome.htm ) - You may want to spend
some time at this website as it is one of the better outlines of the
war.
"CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: The Thirty Years War"
( http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14648b.htm ) - a long article which
can fill in some of the detail you may need for a complete
presentation.
You understand that this is a period of history where the explanation
can often be as confusing as a disturbed ant hill. I hope this helps
somewhat with whatever it is you are trying to do. If I can clarify
anything for you in under 1500 words, please let me know.
Cheers
digsalot |
