Chapter fifteenChapter 15 outline.htm

State Building and the Search for Order in the Seventeenth Century

Chapter Online; Reading Guide; Essay

I.                   Social Crisis, War, and Rebellion

A.     Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648)

1.       Wars

2.       Outcome

B.     Military Revolution

C.      Rebellions

II.                Practice of Absolutism:  Western Europe

A.     France and Absolute Monarchy

1.       Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIII

2.       Cardinal Mazarin and Louis XIV

3.       Reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715)

a.       “The Sun King”

b.      Control of State and Church

c.       Finances and Court at Versailles

d.      Louis’ Wars

B.     Decline of Spain

III.             Absolutism in Central, Eastern, and Northern Europe

A.     The German States

1.       Brnadenburg-Prussia

a.       House of Hohenzollern

b.      Frederick William the Great Elector (1640-1688)

c.       Frederick Williams’s Army and his Commissariat

d.      Elector Frederick III becomes King Frederick I

2.       Emergence of Austria

a.       House of Habsburg

b.      Leopold I’s move to the east

c.       Multicultural empire

B.     Italy

1.       Effects of War of Spanish Succession

C.      Russia

1.       Ivan IV, the Terrible

2.       Peter I (the Great) 1689-1725

a.       Centralization of Authority

b.      Westernization

c.       Peter’s Wars

D.     The Great Northern States:  Denmark and Sweden

E.     Ottoman Empire

1.       Conquest of Constantinople (1453)

2.       policies of Suleiman I the Magnificent (1520-1566)

3.       War with Austria

F.     Limits of Absolutism

IV.              Limited Monarchies and Republics

A.     Poland and its landed aristocracy

B.     The Dutch Republic

1.       Independence following the Peace of Westphalia

2.       Economic prosperity

3.       Amsterdam as a commercial capital

C.      England and the Emergence of Constitutional Monarchy

1.       James I and parliament

2.       Charles I and civil war

3.       Oliver Cromwell and the Commonwealth

4.       The Stuart restoration and Charles II

5.       James II and the “Glorious Revolution”

6.       William and Mary and the Bill of Rights

7.       Responses to the English Revolution

a.       Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan

b.      John Locke and Two Treatises of Government

D.     World of Seventeenth-Century Culture

1.       Changing Faces of Art

a.       Mannerism:  El Greco

b.      Baroque:  Rubens; Bernini; Gentileschi

c.       Dutch Realism: Leyster; Rembrandt

2.       The Theater

a.       Shakespeare (1564-1616) & Moliere (1622-1673)

Reading Guide:

What was a key result of Europe’s seventeenth century crisis?

What was Cardinal Richelieu’s significance in the administration of Louis XIII?

How was Louis XIV most successful in controlling the administration of his kingdom?

What did Louis XIV’s war accomplish for France?

What was the overall purpose of Versailles? 

Were the activities at Versailles in line with its purpose?  How?

How did Peter the Great hope to Europeanize Russia?

What were the foreign policy goals of Peter the Great?

Why were certain absolute rulers of the seventeenth successful in the goals?

What led to the British Declaration of Rights?

Why was the Declaration of Rights significant?

Compare the writings of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke?

What were some important cultural developments of seventeenth century culture?

Essay