Chapter 22 Outline
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The Transformation of the West
After 1450, western Europe became commercially active and had established the foundations of industrialization. Science and technology were more advanced than previously. More centralized governments developed. In areas of popular beliefs and family structure, the West was developing concepts not common in other civilizations. After 1450, the spirit of innovation spread beyond Italy and the Iberian peninsula to the rest of Europe. These ideas spread beyond the West with the development of European colonialism and the growing Western control of the international trade system. As Europe began to assume a more dominant position in world trade, the Protestant Reformation produced sweeping internal changes in Western society and religion. The Renaissance, built on a commercial society, challenged medieval intellectual foundations. Writers such as Petrarch and Boccaccio embraced classical models in preference to medieval ones. In the fifteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo introduced classical forms into the fine arts. Political realism appeared in The Prince of Niccolo Machiavelli. The Italian Renaissance stressed humanism emphasis on classicism and human endeavor. Renaissance merchants openly embraced the ideals of capitalism. Italian city-states patronized the arts, became more militarized, and began the formal use of diplomacy. Foreign invasions of the Italian peninsula after 1500 and the introduction of Atlantic trade routes diminished the role of Italy in commerce and politics. The sense of creativity endemic to the Renaissance moved northwards after 1450. Classicism became popular in northern European countries, although classical literature was balanced by innovation in the vernacular languages. As in Italy, the Northern Renaissance produced political change. States became more powerful, attempted to control religion within their boundaries, and engaged in manipulation of national economies. In northern Europe, however, restraints on the state remained significant. The cultural movement was largely limited to the ranks of the elite. Western technology in areas such as metallurgy and printing advanced after 1500. The advent of the printing press led to improvements in literacy and the rapid dissemination of ideas. The European family pattern featured a relatively late age of marriage and adoption of the nuclear family as the norm. These patterns of household formation linked family to individual property and stressed the importance of husband-wife relations. The Protestant Reformation began when Martin Luther protested the papal approval for the grant of indulgences in Germany. Luther argued against not only indulgences but also in opposition to the general authority of the pope, monasticism, clerical celibacy, and the restriction of the Bible to the clergy. Many German princes responded positively to Luther's message, at least in part as a means of advancing their independence. Luther's message also reached peasants seeking greater freedom from their lords and townsmen eager for justification for their pursuit of wealth. Once Luther's followers broke away from unified Christendom, other reformers emerged. In England, Henry VIII established the Anglican Church, both as a means of securing an annulment of his first marriage and because of his attraction to some new religious doctrines. Jean Calvin established a church in Geneva based on the doctrine of predestination. Calvinists engaged all believers in church administration and popular education. Calvinism spread from Switzerland to other parts of Europe and eventually to North America. The Catholic Church could not enforce unity, but it did continue to hold the majority of believers in France, Spain, Austria, Poland, Italy, and much of Germany. Catholic theologians continued to defend celibacy and the special role of the priesthood in religious worship. The end of religious unity led to a series of religious wars throughout Europe. A civil war between Protestant and Catholic factions devastated France until the Edict of Nantes of 1598 granted toleration for Protestant practices. Wars raged periodically among the German states. The most important of these conflicts was the Thirty Years' War, 1618 1648. When it ended with the Treaty of Westphalia, it was agreed that each ruler might determine the religion for his state. Spain, an ally of the Catholic German princes, also lost power in Europe as a result of the war. France, an ally of the Protestant princes, replaced Spain as the most powerful European nation. A civil war, the causes of which were in part religious, raged in England after 1640. Although the conflict ended earlier, religious toleration was only granted in 1689. The religious wars established that ecclesiastical unity could not be restored, but did not confirm the idea of individual freedom of religion. England and the Netherlands emerged as winners in the European balance of power on the basis of their prowess at sea. France was most powerful on the continent. The wars drained Spain's treasury and its ability to maintain a massive army. In some cases, Protestant churches challenged the concept of absolute monarchy and encouraged the growth of parliamentary government. The spread of Protestantism separated nature and market activities from religious belief. In the aftermath of the Reformation, there was greater emphasis on family life. The debate over religion stimulated the growth of literacy in many parts of Europe. In the sixteenth century, the economic structure of Europe underwent substantial change. One of the stimuli to greater trade was massive price inflation caused by the influx of bullion from the New World and the inability of the supply of goods to keep up with demand. Inflation encouraged investment and borrowing. Governments granted regional trade monopolies to great trading companies. With sufficient capitalization, European merchants began to supplant Arab and Indian traders in East Asia. Trade and colonial markets served to create a demand for manufactured goods. In both agriculture and crafts there was a shift toward production for the market rather than for subsistence. Between 1500 and 1650, the European population grew by nearly 20 percent. Urbanization accompanied population growth. The increase in disposable wealth among all classes led to higher standards of living. Not everyone prospered. Commercialization produced a new class of people without access to producing property, the proletariat. Most became at least partially dependent on labor in some aspect of the manufacturing process. Increasingly, the proletariat clustered in the cities, where poverty became their constant condition. Growing prosperity for some groups and more disposable wealth produced greater expenditure within the household. Changes in social structure produced anxiety. From the end of the fifteenth century to 1650, popular insurrections sought to protect traditional patterns of living and doing business. These uprisings failed to halt change. Witchcraft prosecutions were directed against the poor and women. The disruption of religious unity prepared the way for a fundamental reorientation of western intellectual life. The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century was evidence of the search for new means of organizing knowledge and belief. Following the Reformation, a new form of government the nation-state dominated the structure of European polity. In the sixteenth century, Copernicus demonstrated that the earth rotated about the sun. In medicine, Vesalius made important discoveries that also overturned accepted beliefs. After 1590, the pace of discoveries quickened. Galileo publicized the Copernican system and theorized concerning gravity and planetary motion. John Harvey demonstrated the circulation of blood in animals and humans. A new methodology was developed for scientific experimentation. Francis Bacon argued for empirical research and René Descartes urged skepticism and rationalism in developing natural laws. In Principia, published in 1637, Isaac Newton arrived at a series of scientific laws concerning motion, gravity, and mathematical calculus. Scientific theories gained rapid circulation among the educated elite of Europe. Governments patronized institutions for the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Popular beliefs in witchcraft began to be replaced by trust in a system of laws through which nature could be controlled and understood. Scientific popularizers attacked religious ideas such as miracles that lacked scientific foundation. John Locke argued that faith was unnecessary, because humans could approach the reality of nature through their senses and reason. Although other intellectual fields made advances and there remained widespread support for traditional beliefs, science became the most important means through which Europeans understood their environment. The West, more than any other civilization, described its world view in scientific terms. In the seventeenth century, more centralized monarchies replaced feudal governments. Kings gained power at the expense of the regional aristocracy through militarization and more extensive administration. France was the best example of a centralized monarchy with more absolute powers. Under Louis XIV, France developed a national economic policy (mercantilism), encouraged scientific development, and destroyed the independent power of the nobility. In eastern Europe, monarchs attempted to emulate the centralization of authority established in France. Kings of Prussia and Austria-Hungary built strong armies and created national economic plans. Louis XIV of France used his newly- won power to intimidate other European nations in a series of wars. To halt French aggression, other states formed alliances. Prussia also used its military as a means of expanding its borders in eastern Europe. Britain and the Netherlands created more centralized states, but under parliamentary regimes. The Glorious Revolution of 1699 produced a government in which parliament won sovereignty over the monarchs. John Locke, in supporting the concept of parliamentary government, argued that power was derived from the people and that kings ought to govern in the public interest. Although both absolute monarchies and parliamentary governments gained many new powers, they were unable to displace the nobility completely. The nation-state was the most prevalent form of government in the West. These smaller nations were basically homogeneous culturally and able to engender public loyalty to a common institution. It was a common belief that the state ought to operate to the benefit of the governed, even in absolute monarchies. With this duty, states developed numerous public functions, often associated with the creation of a national economic policy. Commercialization, cultural change, and the rise of the nation-state continued after 1700. In western Europe, there were few alterations in the political pattern during the middle of the eighteenth century. In central Europe, the governments of Prussia and Austria-Hungary introduced greater religious toleration and increased the role of the state in formulating economic policy. Frederick the Great of Prussia considered himself an enlightened monarch. There were numerous wars during the eighteenth century over competition for colonial empire or expansion of European borders. In culture, the Enlightenment followed the scientific revolution. Enlightenment thinkers continued to press for scientific discoveries and applied the methods of scientific research to the study of human society. Enlightenment thinkers believed that social relations could be described by the same sorts of laws that regulated nature as a whole. The study of social sciences included criminology, politics, and economics. As a group, Enlightenment thinkers believed in the basic goodness of humans and the possibility of their improvement. Some of the more radical philosophers attacked Catholicism, condemned slavery as an institution, argued for economic equality, and assailed the concepts of patriarchy. Although the most important intellectual movement of the time, the Enlightenment was only one trend. Methodism in England demonstrated the continued appeal of religion. Novels offered sentimentality and emotion as an alternative to rationalism. Ideas were popularized through reading clubs, coffee houses, and interest groups. During the eighteenth century, ideas concerning children changed. Care of children involved less harsh correction and greater concern for play and education. There appears to have been stronger emotional ties among all family members. Western consumers began to buy the products of colonial plantations such as sugar, coffee, and tea. New technologies to increase productivity were introduced in agriculture. The spread of potato cultivation improved food supplies. During the eighteenth century, household production of textiles spread rapidly. Capitalist merchants supplied raw materials to households who produced yarn or cloth. Technology in the weaving industry spurred production. Improvements in agriculture and the demand for labor produced rapid population growth after 1730. The increased population enhanced the process of proletarianization. During the eighteenth century, changes in economy, social organization, politics, and culture were intertwined. The process of change produced a particularly dynamic society, whose position depended on establishing a prominent position in the world trade system.
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