What were the differences between the rules of Charles II, James II, and William and Mary

• Charles II was the first king after the restoration of the English Monarchy. After Cromwell died England was sick of his Military Dictatorship, so they decided to have a king again. Charles II had to reevaluate what he would do with religious dissenters. 

• Test Act of 1673 was passed. It restricted the rights of all non-Anglicans but wasn't strictly enforced. Charles II was actually receiving money from France in order to get him to stop persecuting Catholics and to eventually make France Catholic. 
• Anti-Catholic beliefs spread all around France, which set James II (a Catholic) up for failure. 
• James II took control and granted religious freedom to everyone. He was hated by everyone. He eventually fled to France and William and Mary were crowned. 
• William and Mary had significantly less power than their predecessors. 
• Bill of Rights was passed and it took away power from the Monarchs and gave it to Parliament 
• John Locke argued in Two Treatises of Government that a government's job is to protect the rights of its people. If a government does not do that, then it becomes a tyranny and the people have a right to rebel.
• This new form of thought was different than Hobbes' Leviathan that argued people must sign their will over to a king and in doing so hand over their right to rebel in order to serve a common goal. 
• This new form of political thought ultimately ended the idea of divine right monarchies. The new king and queen did not have absolute power and were not seen as divine beings. 

Was the Glorious Revolution a result of the failures of Charles II and James II?

• Charles II became king when absolutism was a central political idea, but his country was divided religiously. Instead of forming a military dictatorship like Cromwell, he simply made it hard to be any other religion through the Test Act. In his attempt to return to the former glory of the monarchy, he ended up destroying it through poor decisions. He did not enforce the Test Act at all and anti-Catholic movements swept through England just in time for his Catholic brother, James II, to take over and destroy the divine monarchy altogether. 

Class Notes 10/25


THE SANDWHICH: James I --> Chalres I --> "Ollie" Cromwell --> Charles II --> James II 

• The Interregnum was the people in-between kings(when Cromwell had his military dictatorship)

The Civil War in England: Charles I vs. Parliament

• Parliament and Cromwell defeated and beheaded Charles I
• --> Rump Parliament- basically everyone who was fighting with Cromwell against Charles so they could keep their spot in Parliament 

To what extent was the civil war in England religious? To what extent was it political?

• It was a pretty even mixture of both. The tensions started out as being religious but quickly became political. For example, Calvinist Puritans wanted to purify the Anglican Church of Roman Catholic elements(this including getting rid of bishops). James I was opposed to this purification not because he believed that Bishops were important figures in the church, but because bishops were important supporters of the monarchy. It became more about politics when Charles I refused to call Parliament in session and consult them about building an army to suppress revolts in Ireland.  

The Triennial Act was put in place in order to prevent a monarch from not consulting Parliament. The act limited the power of the monarch by making government without Parliament impossible.

Which English king was most like Louis XIV?

• possibly James I because he also believed in the divine right of kings 

Class 10/24

Essay Review:
What was absolute power (according to the sources)?

• Each source agreed that absolutism is not tyrannical power, so absolutist rulers can't do whatever they want (they still have to answer to God, since He gave them power)

Is an absolutist in power by force?

• Not completely by force - they tried "mild measures at first," but if that failed, they would use force
• Generally, people obeyed Louis XIV because they wanted to, but he could use force if needed

The domestic rivals of absolutism are nobility and the Catholic church

Why was France on the rise as Spain declined?

• First, context is needed:  
• Spain was not in a great place - its New World trade was failing, but they had too much silver, which destroyed their economy
• It was made worse because there was no middle class, so there was a huge disparity between the elite and the peasants
• By expelling the Moors and Jews in the reconquista, the Spanish expelled their entire middle class
• The Moors and Jews were the producers in the economy (farmers, artisans, etc.)
• Without them, the Spanish only had the finite resources from the New World
• The crown declared bankruptcy
• War of Spanish Succession
• Charles II had no heirs because of infertility related to inbreeding (last Habsburg in Spain)



With looks like these, it's a shame his gene pool ended with him

• Spain had a weak ruler, and its future didn't look promising in terms of leadership
• Don Quixote was written as a satire of Spain at this time
• "The Spaniard convinced himself that reality was what he felt, what he believed, what he imagined rather than what it was" - tilting at windmilss
• Philip II was the pinnacle of Spanish absolutism
• The Spanish armada was defeated during his reign, which bean Spain's downward spiral
• Without its armada, Spain lost control of the seas. This enabled other countries, like France, to trade more and earn more money. This money then funded France's military, which made France a powerful state
• France was able to fill the void Spain left after its armada was defeated and the last Spanish Habsburg died. It had been developing in the years leading up to this, but Spain's downward spiral made it easy for France to become a prominent country.

What made it possible for absolutist rulers to increase taxes?

• Growing bureaucracy of the state
• Who is the bureaucracy?
• In some absolutist states, the nobility
• This placated their desire for an illusion of power
• In others, the middle class
• People become directly loyal to the state (they have no past loyalties) 

Russia and Peter the Great

• Wanted Russia to westernize, since it never had a renaissance (unlike most of Europe)
• He was obsessed with a lot of western things, and felt that Russia needed to catch up

• He would literally rip out people's beards to make boyars less "orthodox" and more western
• Peter also wanted a superior navy, which was hard for Russia, since their ports were frozen over in the winter

Class 10/19

• Russia and the Mongols
• Mongols conquered a lot at this time
• The mongols connect what happened before with what happened after
• What was true in Russia before they got there and what is true after the mongols got there
• What is significant about what the Mongols did
• Good at serving the Khan which was helpful later on
• Previous to the Mongols the Kiev was the most important city in the area (late middle ages)
• Mongols approach and take over everything - either join and pay taxes or we’ll do bad things
• Kiev didn’t agree so the Mongols destroy Kiev and burn it to the ground
• Moscow rose after Kiev’s destruction
• Golden Horde is the Mongol Yoke
• Why is Moscow important?
• They were the city that cooperated and paid taxes to the mongols
• Ivan III is the Prince of Moscow and he is fed up with paying the Mongols and declared Moscow’s autonomy
• The boyars helped the Muscovite princes consolidate their power
• The third Rome
• First rome is Rome
• Second rome is Constantinople
• Third Rome is Moscow
• The connection between the byzantine empire and Moscow was the marriage of Ivan the great and the daughter of the last Empire
• He became more powerful because he combined with the empire
• 3 pillars of russian absolutism
• Orthodoxy
• Autocracy
• Nationalism
• After Ivan the Terrible killed his son there was a bad period in Russia called the Time of Troubles
• Austria
• The Hapsburgs are in charge
• They have Hungary, Bohemia, and Austria
• This hurts their absolutism
• Hungary was never fully in with the country and for absolutism to work everyone needs to cooperate
• The biggest issue for the Austrian Empire
• Subject nationalities- their subjects were of many nationalities
• Return of Serfdom in the east
• Difference between the serfs and peasants
• Serf is an agricultural worker and is tied to the land
• He has to protect his land
• Serf is different from a slave
• Hereditary subjugation
• Serfs were apart of this → they’re born a serf they stay a serf

Class 10/18/17

What is the difference between absolutism and totalitarianism? How are they similar?

• Although "absolutism" and "totalitarianism" have similar roots (absolute, total), absolution does not allow for the monarch to have "absolute" power. This is because they did not have the technology/means to gain control over everyone. The monarch also could not have "absolute" power because God is the most powerful, according to the Divine right of Kings. 

Who were France's King Louis XIV's rivals? What does he do about his rivals?

• The Fronde was the origin of the mistrust toward the nobility for Louis XIV as one incident scarred him when he was a child. So, the upper class Huguenots were seen as a threat by Louis XIV simply because they were nobility. He did not choose to completely oppress them but instead gained control of them to a certain extent through the creation of Versailles, which everyone wanted to be lucky enough to serve in. 

Why was the Edict of Nantes revoked by Louis XIV?

• Louis XIV revoked the Edict more in order to gain control than for religious reasons. Sure, he wanted everyone to be Catholic, but his main reason behind revoking the Edict was because forcing everyone to be Catholic was his way of gaining control. 

What is French absolutist rule built upon?

• Mercantilism basically made up the French economic policy. Mercantilism stressed the importance of selling more than a country purchases. France was opening up more factories in order to be able to have more outputs; however, they were spending more than they made. 

Importance of the estate general 

• Population of France divided into 3 estates
• 1st estate- clergy
• 2nd estate- nobility
• 3rd estate- everyone else, peasants 
• largest number of people in 

Why was Louis fighting everyone all the time?

• Louis' goal was to expand France to where he thought the boarders should be. After acquiring all this land, he gets greedy and keeps wanting more--> major issues 

What was the Treaty of Westphalia and why was it different than the Treaty of Augsburg?

• The Treaty of Westphalia was one that ended the Thirty Years' War, which took place from 1618 until 1648 in Europe.
• It redistributed lands in the Holy Roman Empire to the several European powers of the time.

• It also changed one major aspect of the Treaty of Augsburg - it added Calvinism as a religion that princes could use under "Cuius Regno, Eius Religio," which means "whoever reigns, the religion is his."


• Before Westphalia, the Treaty of Augsburg only allowed for Catholicism and Lutheranism as religions that princes could put into practice in their land, so Calvinists benefitted from this treaty. 

What is the point of this video?

• It shows how the Treaty of Westphalia's border redistribution were not only made by sound politics, but by insignificant aspects that did not benefit the people of the lands being affected. 
• What could the peasants of these lands do?
• Peasants could leave places being ruled by a prince who had a different religion, but usually this would be impossible because they were peasants.
• Peasants had virtually no social mobility (they were born, lived, and died peasants with no hope of getting substantial wealth or power)
• Treaty of Westphalia did not really benefit them in any significant way and was more for the princes than it was for the people.

Did princes have absolute power when deciding their religion?

• Yes and no. Yes, because a prince could use the decisions made in the Treaties of Westphalia and Augsburg to choose the religion that his people will have to follow, but this would cause a lot of issues (Issues that are similar to what started the Thirty Years' War in the first place), so they had to strike a balance.

Test Review 10/12

We spent the class reviewing parts of the chapter that we hadn't necessarily covered already.


Marco Polo

• Italian who travelled to Asia; after he returned, he wrote The Travels (roughly 1300). This book increased interest in East Asia and the Indies
• The increased interest in Asia was the impetus for the age of European exploration (Polo brought spices and goods back from Asia, and wrote about it in his novel, which made people want to experience it for themselves/trade for the exotic spices)
• Post-Polo trade went around the Indian Ocean, and India was the trade fulcrum. After Europeans reached the Americas, trade moved more to the Atlantic Ocean (Columbian Exchange)

Africa

• The Portuguese didn't really go further into Africa than the port cities
• Mansa Musa, a wealthy man from Mali, encouraged people to explore the interior of Africa with little success

Ottomans and Persians

• Ottomans are Muslim, not all Persians are Muslim (Persia is present day Iran)
• The Persian empire is smaller than the Ottoman
• Ottomans control land-trade routes (from Asia to Europe)
• They're the middlemen for these routes, which is how they make their money

Explorers

• God, Gold & Glory
• Technological advances that made exploration possible: 
• Caravel (not Carvel)
• Portuguese invented this 3-masted sailing ship (more sails made it more maneuverable)
• They also had more storage room, so they could hold more goods and supplies (like this) 

• Compass
• Astrolabe 
• Used in the process of celestial reckoning (determining latitude by finding the altitude of the sun and tracking its movement)
• 2 main countries: Spain and Portugal 
• They began American exploration
• Important Explorers
• Christopher Columber
• Sailed the ocean blue in 1492
• Looking for a shortcut to Asia, instead "found" America
• Marco Polo
• Went to China and introduced most Europeans to East Asia (and all of the goods there to be traded)
• Invented a fun pool game
• Amerigo Vespucci
• He was the one who figure out that Columbus never actually got to India, and that he discovered a "Mundus Novus" (New World)
• Because of this, the continent was named for him
• Spain and Portugal began fighting over territories --> Treaty of Tordesillas
• An arbitrary line created by Pope Alexander VI; Spain got everything to the east of it, Portugal got the west 
• Portugal really only got Brazil in the Americas as a result of this (it juts out), and Spain got the majority of Latin America
• Spanish territories were divided into 4 viceroyalties (administrative divisions)
• New Spain (Mexico)
• Peru (Peru)
• New Granada (Colombia)
• La Plata (Argentina)
• The viceroyalties were ruled by viceroys (imperial governors) 
• Below them was the audiencia (advisory council) 
• Spanish Social Hierarchy:
1. Spanish (born in Spain) living in the Americas (Peninsulares)
2. Americans with Spanish blood (creoles)
3. Mixed people (mestizos)
4. Natives/enslaved Africans
• African slaves were predominantly used in the Caribbean and Brazil, not so much in Mexico
• In Mexico, the local population wasn't affected by disease as much as in other places (such as Brazil and the Caribbean) 
• This meant that there was a larger indigenous workforce that the Spanish didn't have to import
• The Encomienda system was not slavery
• The Spanish didn't own their workers, they just had them work

Spain

• Philip II (a Habsburg) introduced too much New World silver into the Spanish economy at once, causing mass inflation
• Spain was the leader of the world at this point in time
• The beginning of their downfall was in 1588, when the Spanish armada was defeated by the English

Las Casas and Montaigne

• Both Las Casas and Montaigne were critical of Europeans; however, Las Casas criticized the Spaniards' actions while Montaigne criticized their beliefs
• Las Casas discusses the violent acts committed by Europeans unto the Native Americans
• Montaigne discusses European hypocrisy (calling Native Americans savages while they were doing basically the same things in Europe)

Cannibals and Race and Triangular Trade

Triangular Trade 

• These two pictures show the basics of triangular trade to the colonies, Africa, and Europe 
• Raw materials came from New World through the use of slave labor and were brought to Europe to be manufactured and these manufactured goods were traded for slaves in Africa.

Michel de Montaigne: On Cannibals (1580)

• An essay that was more about the Europeans than Cannibals
• "The Europeans were doing exactly what the Cannibals are doing, but Europeans were so quick to judge the Cannibals because they were different... when in reality the Europeans were just as bad" - Me (I was told to quote myself) 
• They view everything that is even slightly different as bad but they fail to see their own problems
• Spanish Inquisition was burning people alive and feeding them to animals 
• He doesn't excuse their violence, he just compares it to the Europeans in a way that highlights their hypocritical nature
• He is also known as the father of the essay

• Cultural Skepticism and Relativism 
• Michel de Montaigne also was a skeptic 
• He did not easily believe what the Europeans were saying about the Indigenous peoples in the Americas 
• A helpful quote from the textbook
• "Skepticism is a school of thought founded on doubt that total certainty or definitive knowledge is ever attainable. The skeptic is cautious and critical and suspends judgment. Cultural relativism suggests that one culture is not necessarily superior to another, just different." 
• A quote from Montaigne 
• “Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, research is the means of all learning, and ignorance is the end.”

Race & Indigenous and African Peoples 

• Africans 
• Most were viewed as barbaric by Europeans at this time 
• They were used for slavery so commonly due to the Atlantic slave trade that many just saw them as property that could be bought and sold
• They had drastically different religions, cultures, and methods of war from those of the Europeans 
• Used the idea that Africans were barbaric to defend and increase slavery
• Some even said that it benefitted slaves because they could be converted
• Race became a source for inequality in a way that it never was before 
• Africans and Native Americans were seen as less than human 
• Bartolomé de Las Casas 
• There was a lot of debate about the treatment of the Indigenous peoples by Catholic missionaries
•  Sparked a discussion about how these people should be treated by Europeans 
• Las Casas wrote about the brutal treatment of the natives in Spanish colonies 
• "To these quiet Lambs . . . came the Spaniards like most cruel Tygres, Wolves and Lions, enrag’d with a sharp and tedious hunger"
• "Black Legend" - Spanish colonists treated the natives miserably 
• Shakespeare 
• Wrote plays about racial tolerance and included a diverse cast in many of his plays 
• Showed the globalization of the world due to trade and colonization

10/5 Class

• The Europeans believed that God killed the people they were gonna kill, using disease  
• The Columbian Exchange- had good and bad things
• Good
• Food
• Animals- beasts of burden (took the burden off of people)
• Bad
• Triangle trade- Africans
• Disease
• Encomienda system
• system in Spanish America that gave settlers the right to tax local Indians or to demand their labor in exchange for protecting them and teaching them skills
• Mita system
• used by Spaniards in Peru to draft native labor for the silver mines
• Mercantilism
• Economic system where the government controlled the economy to increase the power and wealth of a nation

• Carruca
• A plow used for agricultire

Class 10/4 

• was the Treaty of Tordesillas fair?
• not fair to the people who lived on this territory 

• Brazil- what is the one word that gyarn really wants to hear?
• *hint- its not "African"*
• "I said Brazil, you said African"
• SUGAR- sugar production very profitable 
• indigenous slaves in Brazil die of disease --> start bringing over African slaves

• Portuguese and Spain are similar to each other than other European places are with each other
• but Portuguese is nicer than Spain

• who is the #1 jerk?- Columbus 
• Exaggerated riches because he wanted to give them a reason to send him back

• Magellan- realized that the westward passage to the Indies wasn't going to work out because huge chunk of land in the way

• Cortez and Aztecs
• 4 reasons why Cortez was bale to take over:
• 1. took advantage of tensions in area- the ones who were being captured by aztecs to use as human sacrifices were willing to team up with Cortez
• 2. They thought he was a god 
• 3. Military superiority
• 4. Disease among the indigenous people

• Pizarro and Incas
• how are issues with Aztecs and Incas similar?
• 1. Pizarro also took advantage of issues in area- issues were more internal here though(civil warish)
• 2. diseases
• makes it sound like it was more of a surprise that Incas fell vs. Aztecs
• because they were so isolated and protected it seemed like
• Incas had bureaucratic efficiency- was a huge empire divided into manageable parts
• England
• came through companies, wasn't an attempt by english crown to take over everything (like Spain and Portugal did) 
• Jamestown came to make money
• others came for religious reasons
• France- was different from England
• fur traders
• found in Northern Canada
• Dutch
• New Amsterdam

• Organization of colonies- social pyramid
• • Peninsulares- Spanish natives who were born on Iberian peninsula but now live in Am
  • Creoles- are of spanish blood but born in the new world
  • Wanted to be treated like the other Spanish
• Mestizos - mixed btw native american and european
• Natives- indians, no spanish blood 

• Viceroyalties- the name for the four administrative units of Spanish possessions in the Americas: New Spain(Mexico), Peru(Peru), New Granada(Colombia), and La Plata(Argentina)

Class 10/3

Today, we talked about pre- and post-Columbian exploration and looked at maps from Ways of the World #tbt

Why were the Europeans able to do what they did (travel and trade wise) even before Columbus?

• The eastern world had more advanced technologies, which made European exploration easier
• Big 3 technologies: 
1. Caravels (boats)
2. Astrolabes (helped sailors find their latitudes by following the sun)
3. Compasses
• Spain and Portugal were the most successful seafaring countries because of their proximity to the Atlantic, and they succeeded through trial and error
• Prince Henry encouraged Portuguese exploration, even after failures

• Trade is what brought Europe out of the Middle Ages
• In the Middle Ages, sea trade hugged the coasts, and the Silk Road was protected by the Mongols

• Columbus was a bad ruler but a good sailor 
• The Columbian exchange was based on gold, God, & glory (most conquistadors only cared about the gold)
• Columbus set the example for other conquistadors
• Cortez & Pizarra = bad dudes
• de Las Cosas = didn't like encomienda system, so not all bad

What does the intellectual worldview of the Renaissance have to do with exploration?

• People wanted to learn more about their world and how it worked, which they could do through exploration. Additionally, people became more nationalistic as a result of the movements that occurred during the Renaissance (reconquista, etc), which made them want to bring glory to their countries through exploration
• Rediscovery of Ptolemy's Geography (classic) led people to believe that there was a shortcut around the globe to India, and that the Earth is round

This map is obviously not right, but it was a step in the right direction

Do the natives fit into the Renaissance worldview?

• Yes, the treatment of the natives fits into the Renaissance worldview. The only people who reaped the benefits of the Renaissance were upper-class white men, so their horrible treatment is consistent with the treatment of marginalized groups at this time. 

Does the Reformation change how Europeans view the world?

• After the Reformation, people were more likely/willing to question and challenge accepted beliefs, which made people's minds more open to exploration and discovering new lands and people.