Overworked Pheasents Can't Keep Up With Kevin Bacon

Marxism suddenly makes much more sense in context. 

There was some serious Upton Sinclair's Jungle level worker abuse going on up in Eastern Europe during the seventeenth century. 

The abuse of fundamental civil rights was almost comedically broad scale, in a couple hundred years Eastern European nobles had enslaved the peasantry in all but name. 

Enslaving their names would have required trademark paperwork, and that would have necessitated what I am assuming to be a lengthier legal process than just regular old enslaving people en mass did.

The Lords were able to keep their peasants as property by limiting the peasant's freedom of movement...

Somehow the kicking off of one's Sunday shoes just wasn't as effective of a protest for Medieval Peasantry as it was for Kevin Bacon.

1. Impose and collect permanent taxes like you have the right (you don't).

1. Hire a permanent standing army to defend you from your noble buddies and to a lesser extent all of Asia. 

1. Conduct stately relations as you please, the only way to conduct stately relations. 

...and also by almost all around taking advantage of the incredibly short life span of your average Vladimir the Peasant by squeezing out whatever productivity potential or soul they had and then replacing their lifeless husks with unsuspecting Germans backups. 

The Lords could do this because unlike in Western Europe where sovereignty was pretty much balanced between the monarch and the nobility, Eastern Europe was decidedly ruled by the nobility alone and it was not in the kings best interest to oppose them. Lords functioned as their communities "prosecutor, judge, and jailor," so peasants could not raise any complaints about this treatment even if they were educated enough to make the attempt. 

Little did Eastern Europe realize, however, that their self-destructive behavior was having a toll on the health of those closest to them. 

The unsavory nature of their actions was causing Western Europe to develop permanent spinal crookedness from all of the looking down they were doing from across the Elbe River. The amount of pure Shade and Saltiness projected over to East Elbia was enough to kill crops and certain species of freshwater dwelling fish.

Luckily for Eastern Europe, horrible and constant war allowed for monarchs to catch up on a few years of Political 101 classes they had slept through. By leaving the Lords to their human trafficking,  Kings managed to gain power by keeping the following in mind:  

Uptown Austrailia: Germany Part I  

Leadership

• Habsburgs of Austria no power after 30 yrs War 

○ -> 300 separate political jurisdictions

• Protestantism - Czechs - Bohemia 

○ Bohemian Estates - representative body

○ Lost revolt (Battle of White Mountain)

§ Feridinand II - took complete control

○ Reorganization Giant step towards absolutism 

○ Protestantism stamped out in most of empire

§ Religious unity

• Ferdinand III 

○ Habsburg holdings - centralized government in hereditary German speaking provinces

§ Austria, Styria, and the Tyrol 

○ Permanent standing army

Ottomans

• Gov

○ Turkey

○ Peak of - Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent 

○ Sultan Controlled - Complete absence of private land and property 

§ Weakened state after death

§ Defended from officials so could afford to pay taxes and defend state

○ Top Ranks of Bureaucracy - Sultan's Slave Corps

§  Christian kids - Balkins 

§ Fight and administer

§ Janissary corps 

• Fought over Hungary - ancient conflict

○ Last stand 

§ Habsburg, Russian, Saxon, Bavarian, Polish, Venitian 

§ Took almost all of Hungary and Transylvania

§ Brought sense of Unity to Austria

• More religiously tolerant

○ Millet System

§ Divided subjects into millets - religious communities

§ Religious leaders supported as gained extensive power

State

• Territories ~ Habsburg Monarch

○ Hereditary Austria 

○ Bohemia 

○ Hungary

§ Nobility thwarted development of Absolutism

§ Resisted as Protestants 

§ Definitive compromise after rebellion 

□ Restored traditional privileges of aristocracy in exchange for acceptance of hereditary Habsburg rule 

• Charles VI 

Pragmatic Sanction - Habsburg possessions never divided, passed down to heir (could be female)

The Princes of Persia: Germany Part II 

Gov
• Hohenzollern family
○ General
§ Dukes of Prussia, little princely power
§ Electors of Brandenburg
□ Vote on Holy Roman Empire (+6)
§ 30 yrs war weakened pwr of Estates - rep bodies, absolutism
○ Elector Fredrick William - 1st Great Elector
§ United Provinces - Estates ruled by Junkers - nobility and landowners
□ Brandenburg
□ Prussia
□ Rhine
§ Permanent tax (w/out consent) for standing armies
§ States revenue tripled
§ Success
□ War
® Tartar attack dec. pop., weakened States
□ Estates focuses on self - Elector confirmed
® Compromise
◊ Bulk of taxes on towns
◊ Royal authority stopped at landlord's gates
○ Elector Fredrick III "the Ostentatious"
§ Imitated Louis XIV
§ Crowned King Fredrick I as reward for aiding Holy Roman Emperor in War of Spanish Succession
○ Fredrick William I "soldier's king"
§ Most talented reformer
□ Best army in Europe
□ Strict military values to whole society
® Unquestioning obedience - highest virtue
® Punishment for most minor infractions
® Welfare of king and state depended on the army
® Provided rational for great expansion of absolutism in Prussia
® Always at peace
® Sparta of the North
□ Strong Centralized Bureaucracy
® Got rid of Estates and local self-government
® Brought him into conflict with Junkers - local land owners
◊ Enlisted in the army
◊ Became the officer caste
§ love for tall soldiers - superior strength and endurance
Neighboring princes sent him tall soldiers as gifts