Introduction to Modern Europe
  1. Rationale for this course. "History Lessons," by Robert Darnton (Princeton Univ.), past-president of American Historical Association.
  2. Methodology:
    1. Method: Historical analysis.
    2. Purpose:
  3. COMPARATIVE MODERNIZATION
    1. One view of what is modern? Re. Robert E. Neil:
    2. The premise:Traditional/command societies - the norm.
    3. Traditional, classic civilizations of the West --- rationalist, humanist tradition
    4. Middle East --- "other-worldly" religious traditions.
      1. Jewish monotheism ---- rooted in a sense of divinely-revealed law governing human behaviour
      2. Christianity evolved out of Judaism ---- became eschatalogical and expansionist.
      3. Islam:---- the threat and the alien "other."
    5. The Western Synthesis: a unique potential for modernization. Important! Click here.
    6. The differences within the West and between the West and other parts of Europe and the world will be explained as a consequence of how they modernized.
      1. Four factors central to the modernization of traditional/command societies: See Readings, pgs.5- 6.
      2. The West experienced liberal modernization.
      3. The Periphery: The Conservative Modernizers shared some, if not all of the pre-modern western tradition, but remained outside the mainstream of modernization, reacting to and adapting "western" techniques to native realities.
  4. The Medieval Imprint on Western Civilization
    1. Feudalism --- fundamental to liberal modernization.
      1. In the west, feudalism was a response to the forces of the age.
        1. Collapse of the Roman imperium
        2. Germanic invasions provided a new and ultimately dynamic ethnic component. Click here for interactive map.
      2. Reversion to traditional/command society and proto-feudalism as a response to the needs of the time. See: McKay, xxvi-xxvii
      3. High feudalism probably crystalized sometime in the eight century under the influence of the Vikings, Magyars and Saracens. See McKay xxvii and read: Readings, 6-8
        1. Subinfeudation based on an honorable contract between freemen. Click here for an example of such a contract.
        2. Manorialism
      4. The significance of feudalism.
        1. Concept of rights where extant.
        2. See Ignatiev in Readings, 20-23.
  5. The High and Late Middle ages overlap what McKay calls the first stage of the Renaissance.
    1. The emergence of a new economy based on the Bourg or town.See Readings, 8-9
    .
      1. Agricultural revolution of the 11th century and the rise of regional trade.
      2. The Rise of Towns (Stadtluft macht frei). -a force for radical change (McKay, xxvii-xxviii)
    1. The development of a Europe-wide trade network and its consequences.
      1. Wealth, free cities and political fragmentation.
        1. Still, medieval urban life was far from modern.
          1. Corporate society.
          2. Guild system.
          3. Town charters led to political systems run by "merchant princes."
      2. Countryside under the control of feudal princes.
      3. Stateless ----- no concept of nation in the modern sense.
    2. The Rise of the "New Monarchy." (See: McKay, xxviii)
      1. Impact of the rise of a money economy.
        1. Scutage, debasement of coinage---inflation
        2. Feudal councils into parliaments -- See Magna Carta -- the roots of constitutionalism.
        3. Roman law, the significance of education and the rise of a new "nobility of the robe."
      2. The transition to "quaisi-modern, centralized national" monarchy in the England and France.
      3. The survival of the traditional structure in Central and Eastern Europe.
    1. The Late Middle Ages (1300-1550) and the Transition to the Early Modern Era.
      1. Econ. Change and Social Crisis in an era of transition
        1. Over-expansion of agriculture reduced yields, diet deficiencies, plague, famine and depopulation..
        2. Labor shortages, peasant rebellions -- gradual whithering of serfdom in the West.
        3. In England:--- the enclosure movements.
        4. In France, a different pattern.
      2. The military obsolescence of the feudal system.
  1. The Renaissance
    1. "First Period" in Italy (McKay, xxx) saw the "rebirth" of trade, towns, money economy and overlaps High and Late Middle Ages 1050-1300.
    2. The Quatrocento.
      1. Why Italy? Geography and economics.
      2. The rise of individualism, secularism based on humanistic inquiry into classical learning.
    3. Art: See Video: "The Renaissance, the Age and its art." Click here for the text and here for web-prints of many of images shown in the video.
    1. New Literature and the rise of the vernacular.
      1. Dante (1265-1321) Petrarch (1304-1374), Boccaccio (1313-1375 transformed the vernacular of their native Tuscany into the origins of modern Italian.
      2. In France: the lang d' oui
      3. Middle-High German to Luther.
      4. England and Wycliffe
      5. Spain----- Significance of Castille
      6. Bohemia and Hus
  2. Reformation or "Protestant Revolution"
    1. The origins of the Reformation.
      1. Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy (1305-1378) and the Great Schism (1378-1417).
      2. Secularism of the papacy..
      3. The Northern Renaissance..
        1. The need for reform based on humanistic discoveries
        2. Early nationalist religious --Wycliffe and Hus..
    2. Luther and the "poor man's Renaissance
      1. The reaction of the German Princes, e.g. Götz von Berlichingen
      2. The Peasants' War (1524-1525) and its consequences.
        1. The Consequences
        2. Impact on the serfs
        3. Augsburg compromise of 1555 and its consequences. See Centennia.
    3. English Reformation.
      1. Land reform..
      2. Ireland..
    4. Evangelical faiths that arose out of the movements of Calvin and Zwinglii in Switzerland.
      1. Seeds of "national revolts."
      2. Emigration into Eastern Europe and the U.S.
  3. Overseas Expansion and the Commercial Revolution of the 17th Century.
    1. "Voyages of discovery." Why?
    2. Consequences in the West: factors in ultimate liberal modernization.
      1. "Price revolution"
      2. Consequences: Winners and losers:
    3. Significance for "new monarchs"
      1. Absolutist modernization.
      2. Reliance on the new bourgeoisie.
      3. Mercantilism as the economic analog of new/absolute monarchy. See McKay, p. 540
    4. Europeanization of the globe --- revolutions:
      1. Bourgeois/national on behalf of independence and constitutionalism against the remnants of feudalism;, e.g. Netherlands and U.S.
      2. Bourgeois revolution on behalf of rights against the remnants of feudalism in France, 1789