Modern European civilization; a textbook for secondary schools

Preface

The following chapters include the first half of a textbook on the history of " Modern European Civilization" during the last three centuries. The volume is intended for the second year of the new two year course in European history. In accordance with the preferences expressed by a majority of high school teachers who were consulted, the second year's work begins with the conflict between the Stuart kings of England and Parliament in the early sixteenth century. This division, first proposed in connection with the " Early European Civilization," seems now to have been accepted almost universally by other textbook writers and by a majority of those schools which formerly favored some other division between the first and second year's work.

In common with " Early European Civilization" this book puts stress upon great movements rather than upon minor historical changes, however interesting the latter may be. It aims to give a larger amount of material on social and economic conditions and on social and economic changes than any similar textbook. Since the main purpose of both books is to explain the present through a study of the past, it treats in considerable detail those changes which are most closely associated with the most important institutions in Europe at the present time. Because a student of European history who has already devoted a year to the study of early European history is capable of doing more advanced work than was possible in his first year, this book has been made more difficult. Because it does not cover

VI PREFACE

the great periods of time included within the first volume of the series, it is possible to treat many topics in a much more complete way than was either possible or desirable in "Early European Civilization." Those characteristics of style and treatment, however, which distinguished " Early European Civilization" have been retained, being modified only so far as the character of the subject, the briefer period of time covered, and the greater maturity of the student have made possible. The remaining chapters of the book will be published the latter part of this year in time for use the second semester of the school year, 1918-9.

The author wishes to thank those who have aided him in any way in the preparation of this book. At this time he will express his indebtedness only to his colleague, Miss Leonora Schopbach of the Pasadena High School, who has given him help continually, and to Professor Frederic A. Ogg of the University of Wisconsin, who has read the manuscript of the volume and made many valuable suggestions.

Pasadena, Cal.

Jan. 1918.

Contents

(BY CHAPTERS AND TOPICS) I. Europe in the Early Seventeenth Century

SECTION

PAGE

1. Political Europe 1

Part I The Age Of Absolutism (1603-1789)

25. The Early Stuarts and Parliament (1603-1635) . . . .31

30. Puritan Revolution and Restoration (1635-1688) ... 37

37. Constitutional Government (1688-1760) 42

44. Social Conditions in England, Early Eighteenth Century . . 49

III. Absolutism on the Continent of Europe

53. The Age of Louis XIV 64

60. The Rise of Russia 70

66. The Rise of Prussia . . 77

IV. Struggle for Colonial and Commercial Empire

72. Contest for Atlantic Trade before 1700 86

77. English and French Colonies in the XVII Century .. . .91

83. Commercial Wars between England and France .... 99

V. Reform

94. Beginnings of Modern Treatment of Crime 117

99. Social and Religious Changes . . . . . . 122

103. Reform Philosophers . . 126

107. The Enlightened Despots 129

Part II The Age Of Revolution (1789-1849)

VI. The French Revolution

111. The Old Regime in France 140

120. Attempted Reform in France 147

123. The Early Revolutions 150

134. The French Republic 158

vii

Vlll CONTENTS

VII. Napoleon

PAGE

142. Napoleon Becomes Master of France 172

146. Napoleon in War and Peace (1802-1806) 176

151. Triumph and Downfall of Napoleon 183

VIII. Reconstruction and Reaction (1800-1830)

160. The Reorganization of Germany 197

166. The Reconstruction of Europe (1789-1815) . . . . .204

IX. The Economic Revolution in England

178. England before the Industrial Revolution 222

183. The Agrarian Revolution 228

187. The Industrial Revolution 231

193. Effects of Economic Changes 237

196. Influence of the Economic Revolution on England as a World

Power 241

X. Economic Revolution on the Continent

210. Social Progress on the Continent . 1 259

XI. Political Revolutions (1830-1849)

221. Revolutions of 1848 in Central Europe . . . . . 274

231. Importance of European Revolutions 285

Part III Democracy And National Development (1849-1918)

XII. National Unity (1849-1871)

235. The Unification of Italy 295

241. The Unification of Germany (to 1866) 302

248. The Second French Empire and German Unity . . . .312

Chapter I Europe In The Early Seventeenth Century

Political Europe

1. The Map of Europe. — A comparison of a map of Compari- Europe in 1600 with one of that continent in 1914 shows ^1914° more similarities than differences. Western Europe was Western much the same then as now, although at that time Eng- Eur °P e - land and Scotland were still separate kingdoms and Ireland had not yet been united with them to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

In central and southeastern Europe we find that great Central changes have taken place. Three centuries ago the center Eur °P e - of Europe was occupied by the huge, loosely united feudal state generally known as the Holy Roman Empire. What is now the kingdom of Italy was then a group of separate states, two of which, Venice and Genoa, were still republics. In east-central Europe there were two states, Lith-u-a'ni-a and the kingdom of Poland, which no longer appear upon the map as separate countries.

The Turks controlled all southeastern Europe in the Southearly seventeenth century. The map of that day did ^ur^e not show any separate states or principalities corresponding to Roumania, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece, since the people of all those countries as well as most of Hungary and southern Russia were under Turkish rule.

E. E. C = Ashley, Early European Civilization. B 1

Northern and eastern Europe.

Relation of noble to king in the Middle Ages.

Beginnings of the monarchies.

Divine right of monarchs in France and England (XVII Century) .

In northern and eastern Europe we find the same names as to-day but a somewhat different division of territory. The kingdom of Sweden then included Finland, now a part of Russia. The Russia of that day governed about three fourths of the area in Europe that Russia did in 1914. Into Asia it covered only a small part of the great distance to the Pacific Ocean and the Persian gulf.

2. Historical Development of the Absolute Monarchies. — During the centuries preceding the Renaissance and the Reformation, central and western Europe was divided into a number of areas, each of which was ruled by a king. No one of these kings was an absolute monarch, but usually each was the most important noble of his country. He could call upon the other nobles to furnish him soldiers in time of war and give him necessary help in other ways. These nobles were free to render this service to the king or not as they pleased. Within their own domains therefore the great nobles of these countries ruled rather than the king. 1

During the latter part of the Middle Ages, especially in France and England, the kings tried to break down the authority of the nobles and to make themselves more powerful. Not until about 1450, however, did they, in France, England, and Spain, finally gain such power that they rather than the nobles actually ruled. In the three quarters of a century preceding the Protestant Reformation, Louis XI in France, Henry VII in England, and Ferdinand I in Spain really united their dominions and consolidated the royal authority?

The successors of these men in France and Spain added continually to their power until they became absolute monarchs. In France this story belongs rather to the seventeenth century than to the preceding epoch. With the death of Elizabeth, the English Tudor house came to

POLITICAL EUROPE 6

an end, and a new line of monarchs, the Stuarts, came to the throne. The struggle between the Stuarts to maintain their divine right to rule and the people, who demanded some share in the government, is the story of England in the seventeenth century.

3. Absolutism and Liberty on the Continent. — It Arbitrary must not be imagined that, because we call these monarchs ^solute ^ absolute, they really were all-powerful. To be sure, rule of the they did not need to call upon representatives of the ings ' nobles and the townsmen to help them make the laws ;

instead they contented themselves with issuing proclamations directly or through their councils. Their rule was not so much absolute, however, as it was arbitrary, because neither noble nor townsmen nor peasant was free from arbitrary interference by the king and his agents.

The authority of the absolute monarchs was limited Special in part, especially in France and Spain, by the special of^v- 68 privileges enjoyed by the provinces of their kingdoms. 1 inces, In the seventeenth century many cities also still had ^^^ many rights which they had gained in the Middle Ages. Even smaller villages were allowed a share in their own government which reminds us of the medieval English manor. We can see from this brief summary that, even if the common people were free, the centralized and absolute government of the king left them few rights in addition to those exercised by the self-governing cities or communes.

4. English Central Government. — Since the United Arbitrary States grew out of English colonies, the government of Tudors which in turn was influenced by the central and local through

Parliament 1 When the different duchies, counties, and other provinces had been and the united into countries by the kings of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- P nv y _ turies, these provinces were allowed to retain a large number of customs C1 *

and privileges. The provincial privileges were survivals of old rights of government enjoyed by these principalities when the nobles acknowledged their king not as a sovereign, but simply as an overlord. (Cf. § 113.)

governments of the mother country, we must study especially the government of England in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Although the monarch really ruled England, the king or queen governed through the Parliament and the Privy Council, for under the Tudors, who ruled until 1603, these bodies were the tools of the monarchs. Henry VIII and Elizabeth, wishing to govern arbitrarily, had dominated Parliament ; usually they had persuaded Parliament to do as they desired until the later years of Elizabeth's reign. The Stuart kings l found that Parliament was very far from being the tool that it had been for Henry VIII or Elizabeth. Local sT ' 5. Local Government and Individual Liberty in Eng-

in^nXnd* land ' — In tne ^ oca ^ g° vernment of England the local aris- (1600). tocracy had considerable influence. The counties were

ruled by justices of the peace, selected from the landed aristocracy by the king. The smaller districts, the parishes, had an assembly of rate-payers to levy taxes and elect parish officers, the only important local self-government of Tudor England. 2 "Rightstof Although Englishmen had more liberties than people mftn " " on the Continent, the term did not mean very much in 1600, in spite of Magna Carta and the system of jury trial. But in time, more rights were gained by Englishmen. 3

1 See Chapter II.

2 The county system was transplanted bodily to Virginia and to some other southern colonies. The parish meeting was modified by the Puritans in New England and survives in the New England town meeting.

3 When the colonists later gained a larger share of self-government, it was worth while to claim these rights which had been guaranteed by the colonial charters. For these reasons much was said in America about the " rights of Englishmen " in the stirring years before our Revolutionary War.

It is interesting to notice that out of the semi-medieval English conditions in 1600 there was developed in England, within a century, a political revolution, that of 1688, which made England a comparatively modern T country, politically, and that there occurred among Englishmen men.

6. Position and Privileges of the Nobles. — In cen- Political

tral and eastern Europe the nobles had practically absolute p° wer °*

i «•! i , . the nobles.

control over the lives and property of the people on their estates ; most of the laws were made by them, although occasionally the customs of the localities limited these powers and gave the villeins and even the serfs some rights. When a peasant was accused of an offense, he was tried in the court of the noble. Even if he were condemned to die, he might not appeal to his king or to a higher court. The lord had also the right to levy taxes and to collect other charges from his people and from travelers.

Before the close of the Middle Ages the lords in France The oidand England had lost their right to levy and collect taxes S ,sh j?^ ed and to dispense justice as they pleased, 1 but the English squire. squire of that day was of course the big man of his village. He owned or controlled most of the land on which the village stood and which his tenant cultivated. The church had probably been built by his predecessors, and he had the right to appoint the curate of the parish. He was expected and usually was willing to attend divine service, even though he slept through most of it. When the services were over, he was allowed to leave the chapel first, his people uncovering and courtesying before him. He spent most of his time on his own estate, rarely traveling abroad, and occasionally entertaining his friends with fox hunting or some similar sport. He had the right to hold any county office, and if he were appointed

in America, within a century and three quarters, a greater revolution which represents even more perfectly the national democracy of the modern world.

1 Before the beginning of the seventeenth century there were few lords in either England or France who could decide cases even between tenants on their own estates and make that decision final if either tenant wished to carry the case to the next higher court, which in England usually was presided over by justices of the peace.

Social

position

of the

greater

French

nobles.

The open* field

system of strips.

Villeins and serfs.

Obligations of villeins.

as justice of the peace, could not [refuse although the position carried no salary. He might even^j bejhonored by election to Parliament by the voters of the county in which he lived.

The French monarchs, particularly from the time of Francis I and Henry IV, gained a good many of the political rights of the nobles. They allowed the lords who had formerly ruled their local estates to build magnificent chateaux, in which they gave lavish entertainments, or to attend those given by the king. Louis XIV carried this idea very much farther (§ 55).

7. Agriculture and Villeinage. — In the seventeenth century, as in the Middle Ages, most people lived in villages on the estates of the lords and cultivated the surrounding fields. It was customary to divide the cultivated land into three great fields. In any year one of these would be planted to wheat, another to barley, and the third would remain uncultivated. The next year each field would be used for a different purpose. Each of these large fields in turn was subdivided into strips, which were very much longer than they were wide and contained about an acre apiece. About one third of the strips probably belonged to the noble.

The peasants who were practically free were called villeins; they usually had the right to cultivate about thirty acres in strips widely separated, possibly ten in each field. The villeins owed a fixed amount of work to the lord, usually two or three days a week with additional time at planting season and harvest, together with such payments as a number of chickens, on certain days of the year. Other peasants were serfs who were bought and sold with the land. Each serf family had its own cottage and garden with four or five acre strips in addition.

By the beginning of the seventeenth century villeinage had practically disappeared from England. Those farmers who remained on the estates of the nobles usually The cultivated separate strips in open fields in common with J^jjf their neighbors, and they paid for this land a very much farmer, higher rent than their great-grandfathers had been obliged to pay. 1 Because of the high rents and other agrarian changes a great many of the former tenants had moved to the cities, attracted also by the business opportunities of the growing towns. 2

8. Serfdom. — In eastern, central, and southern Europe and in the Spanish peninsula practically all peasants were still serfs. In fact, the ancestors of these people . had been serfs during the Middle Ages.

The lot of the serf was an unhappy one. He was not a slave, for he could not be sold except with the land, but he was in no real sense free, since he must spend prac- Extent tically his whole time working for the lord, such days and jJomon in such ways as the noble demanded. To be sure he the Conwas allowed some time for cultivating his own strips of tment - land, but he was likely to be called upon by the noble Conditions to plow or to weed, or to cut or thresh grain, at a time ° er fg when he should have been doing those things for himself. Moreover, in eastern Germany, in Russia, in Austria, and to some extent in southern Europe, the boys and girls of serf families were compelled to spend a number of years in the house of the noble doing menial work, often without pay of any kind.

9. Country Life. — As stated above, the people lived in small villages, usually at the foot of the hill below the manor house of the lord. I Because it had been impossible in the Middle Ages for people to live on scattered farms

2 In France the villein did not become a free man as in England, nor was he able usually to pay for his land in money. Later we shall study rather carefully the condition of the French peasants of the late eighteenth century (§§ 119, 199), and the changes in a century and a half before that time were not important.

Lifeftn villages except for cottars.

Houses and their furniture.

Food and drink.

without great danger from marauders, there were comparatively few scattered dwellings except those of " squatters," who had built huts upon the waste lands of the estates. In England these "cottars" were permitted, by a law of Elizabeth, to have not more than four acres of land.

The rest of the " country " people occupied huts or cottages on the village street, each cottage having its own garden-plot. The homes were, of course, less crude than those occupied by the forefathers of these people in the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, they were small, not very clean and rather dark, since glass was seldom or never found in the windows. Dirt floors were still common and rushes were used to a considerable extent instead of carpets. In the better class of cottages, as in the houses of the ordinary burgher, the floors were of stone or wood. Chimneys had come into use to some extent, even in the homes of the common people, but cooking was frequently done out of doors. The people slept on straw beds without springs and frequently without bedsteads. The furniture was simple and usually home-made, as were the wooden trenchers and other utensils used in cooking and eating.

For the common people there was still too little food, although vegetables added abundance as well as variety to the average meal. Since the Dutch and English fishermen made frequent trips to the North Sea fishing banks (§ 73), "and the French and English fishermen were bringing back cod and herring from similar banks off Newfoundland (§ 74), even the common people could afford to eat fish more frequently than in earlier centuries. Home-brewed beer or ale or mead was consumed in large quantities, sometimes serving for food as well as drink. In years of plenty^food was abundant, yet on the Continent, where the excessive number of tolls (§ 15) made it impossible to carry grain any considerable distance, local famines occurred on the average every third or fourth year.

10. The Large Cities. — The Renaissance, the discovery of America, and the opening of new sea routes to the East caused business to expand greatly. Commerce between European nations prospered and there was far more trade between Europe and the peoples of the far East and the New World than in previous centuries. This expansion of business led to the growth of towns and cities. 1 During the sixteenth century Antwerp had developed into a great commercial center. When it was almost destroyed by the Spanish in 1576, its trade was taken over by other towns, such as Amsterdam.

The development of England as a sea power during this period was due to her interest in colonization both in America and in India and to her defeat of the great Spanish Armada ; 2 it was reflected particularly in the growth of the country's principal city, London. When Elizabeth became queen, in 1558, London had fewer than 100,000 inhabitants. Even then she was one of the largest cities, if not the largest, of western Europe. At the opening of the seventeenth century her population had almost doubled and within two years after the Restoration (1660) she boasted a population estimated a little less than a half million. 3

The

economic renaissance and the growth of cities.

Growth of English trade and of London.

1 The medieval towns were small and none had a population that would compare with that of the modern city. In them were gathered artisans who usually belonged to craft gilds (E. E. C, § 557). Other gilds were made up of tradesmen or merchants who controlled the sale of certain articles within the town or the trade in those articles between towns. There was little international trade in the early Middle Ages.

3 No other European capital had as large a population as London. Even as late as 1801, at the beginning of the brilliant Napoleonic regime,

Conditions in the cities.

Difference between early modern and present-dayindustry.

Like their medieval predecessors these cities had rather narrow streets, which either were not improved at all or were paved very badly. Sidewalks were uncommon, even as to-day, in some of the older European cities, they are still practically unknown. Streets were not

lighted at night and were patrolled usually by guards known as the " watch" (§94).

A police force could quell actual disturbances, but was not able to stop street fighting or protect the unwary citizens who ventured forth unarmed or unguarded after nightfall. As a rule the only attractive buildings were the houses of the nobles, many of whom had their town houses at the national capital as well as manor houses or castles on one or more country estates. The houses of the poor were tenements several stories in height with few windows ; they were made less desirable for habitation by their filth and general unsanitary conditions.

11. Industry Three Centuries Ago. — We must keep in mind that, whereas to-day goods are made by large corporations, some of which have immense capital, huge

there were only 547,000 inhabitants in Paris. Vienna, which at this period was the home of the emperor and the most important capital in Europe, contained with its suburbs in 1800 but 231,000. Two centuries earlier its population was considerably less than that of either Paris or London. In 1600 Berlin was small and the name Pet'ro-grad (St. Petersburg) did not appear on the map.

Watchmen and Lanterns

Localized industries

of sevenbuildings, and thousands of workers, in those days, even in the cities, the small shop of a master with a few assistants was the rule, even where the gild system no longer existed. Usually the people of the larger cities were interested in commerce rather than in industry.

At that time there were no manufacturing cities which devoted their energy to steel and iron trade, as do Pittsburg in America and Sheffield and Leeds in England teenth to-day, although Lyon and some cities of south central century France were noted for their metal wares. The towns gave more attention to the weaving of cloth, always the most important industry of Flanders in northern Belgium, than to any other single industry. Those in England and northern Europe specialized in the weaving of wool. Some of those in southern France and Italy were particularly skillful in the weaving of silks and in a few places fine cotton goods were made on a limited scale. Some of the towns of France were already beginning to specialize in fine pottery. Paris in that day took the lead in creating new styles in hats. She was also famous for her chocolate. In the Middle Ages and until the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries, and even at the present time in eastern Europe, household industries were common (§ 179).

During the sixteenth century manufacturing, commerce, agriculture, and standards of living were much

affected by a great Refining Silver

The era of high prices.

Consolidation and decline of gilds.

change in the value of money. In the Middle Ages money had been scarce and consequently prices had been low. With the importation from America of large quantities of silver and gold, and the opening of new silver mines in Germany, Spain, and southern France, the precious metals became much more common and prices rose to three or four times what they had been. Of course some people made large profits ; others suffered extraordinary hardships. 1 We complained because prices rose 50 per cent in the twenty years before the beginning of the Great War. What would we have thought of a change several times as great ?

12. The Gilds. — The medieval cities had been hives of industry, carried on usually by the craft gilds. With the expansion of business in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was impossible for the gilds to play as large a part as formerly in the manufacture and sale of different commodities. By the close of Elizabeth's reign the gilds of England had ceased to have an important place in the business life of that nation. They maintained their organizations in some cases for two centuries or more, but most goods were thereafter produced at home and much business was done by chartered companies. On the Continent, however, the gilds continued to be important. 2

1 Those who owned land, who could and did increase their rents (E. E. C. §§ 664-665) were fortunate, but their tenants were not. Those tenants, as in many parts of France, that continued to pay a customary rent made a large profit on their crops, as the price of foods and other commodities rose several fold. Laborers and others whose wages rose slowly therefore had lower standards of living than formerly.

2 In the Netherlands and Germany the gilds were more powerful and continued for a century or two longer to control both the making and the sale of goods. In France the gilds were encouraged and were organized into large companies, chiefly for the purpose of furnishing revenues to the king. They lost some of their former business to chartered companies or to other capitalists who carried on industry on a larger scale than known in the Middle Ages.

Besides their problems due to the rise of the monarchies Some and the growth of new industries, the gilds fought one ^ u S^ of another. The shoe-makers objected when the cobblers made and sold new shoes instead of doing repair work exclusively. In Paris the meat cooks quarreled successfully at first with the gild cooks but unsuccessfully later with the poulterers. The French haberdashery corporation tried at the same time to get royal permission to make and sell new kinds of hats and to keep rival gilds from making substitute forms of headgear. The gilds not only quarreled with one another but they sometimes fought with brotherhoods of workmen.

13. Government Regulation of Industry. — During Beginnings the Middle Ages the gilds' rather than the king's govern- regulation* ment regulated the method of manufacture for different by the articles and prescribed the minimum quality of goods g( ^f e rnment that might be sold bj r members of the craft. Under the in the three Edwards in England, regulations were introduced A x es e

to control both the manufacture and the exportation and importation of goods. These early tariffs placed duties on wools and wines.

In France as in England royal supervision was devel- Governoped largely for the purpose of bringing the king revenues. Pf. 11 * re . gu " At the beginning of the seventeenth century regulation France. by the royal government was not onerous, but we shall see later (§ 56) how under Colbert, the great minister of Louis XIV, supervision of manufacture and of trade was carried to an extreme, even to defining the width of cloth and the number of threads per inch. Colbert's complete regulations filled several volumes and left the masters little opportunity to improve methods. In central and eastern Europe the regulation of industry was still controlled by the gilds rather than by the governments.