This document summarizes key aspects of absolutism in Europe between 1660-1789. It describes the political theory of absolutism and how rulers like Louis XIV of France centralized power. It discusses enlightened absolutism under monarchs like Maria Theresa of Austria and Catherine the Great of Russia who balanced absolutism with support for education and the merchant class. War was used by these empires to consolidate power and increase their territories, shifting the balance of power in Europe. Colonialism and slavery developed under mercantilism to maximize profits for the mother countries.

1. Chapter 15: Absolutism & Empire,
1660-1789

2. Absolutism
Absolutism a political theory that claims:
•Rulers have complete sovereignty within their
territories.
•An absolute monarch can make law, dispense
justice, create and direct a bureaucracy,
declare war, and levy taxes, without the
approval of any other governing body.
•Divine Right: legitimizes absolute power
under the theory that God granted power and
authority to rulers in order to protect the faith.

3. Purposes of Absolutism
• Stability
• control over army, legal system, financial resources
• Success of absolutism requires:
• controlling special interests
• nobility
• church
• representative assemblies
• Can a ruler’s power ever be absolute?

4. Enlightened Absolutism
• Ruler accepted many principles of the enlightenment
• Emphasis on education
• Support for the merchant class
• Support for exploration
• Many absolutist monarchs supported the intellectual
movement known as the Enlightenment
• Paradox: “enlightened rulers” supported the
Enlightenment but not limits on monarchial power

5. ABSOLUTIST MONARCHS
France, Austria, Spain, Prussia, Russia

6. Who Were the Absolutist
Monarchs?
• Louis XIV of France
• Frederick William of Prussia
• Maria Theresa of Austria
• Peter the Great and Catherine the Great of Russia
• Philip II of Spain

7. Louis XIV of France

8. Cardinal Richelieu: Mentor to Louis XIV
• Cardinal Richelieu’s goals:
• Centralize political power
around the monarchy—not
the church;
• Make France the leading
power in Europe.

9. Louis XIV(1643-1715) of France
• Ruled for 72 years
• Personified France: “I am the State”
• Performing Royalty at Versailles (Sun King)
• Controlled nobility
• No Taxes on Nobility
• Require Nobility to reside at Versailles for 6 months each year
• Recruited Bourgeois as royal administrators
• Bourgeois: educated professionals who were not born into the
aristocracy
• Collected taxes and Administered laws
• Undermined Parliamentary Power– Estates General did not
meet during Louis’s Reign

10. The Versailles Palace Today

11. Louis XIV

13. Queen’s Bedchamber

14. Maria Theresa & Josef II of Austria

15. Remaking of Central and Eastern Europe
• Decline of Ottoman Empire and rise of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire
• 1683 Ottoman’s failed to capture Vienna
• 1713 Austria reconquered Hungary, Transylvania and Serbia from
Ottomans
• Vienna—cultural and political capital
• Hungary—buffer between Austria and Ottomans
• Territories were contiguous but deeply divided by ethnicity, language
and religion

16. Austro – Hungarian Empire after 1713

17. Multiple Ethnic Identities in a Contiguous
Space

18. MariaTheresa (r. 1740-1780) & Joseph II (r. 1765-1790)
• Enlightened absolutism
• Centralized administration
• Increased taxation
• Professional standing army
• Control over Church
• System of primary education
• Relaxation of censorship
• Liberalized criminal code

19. Prussia
• Became a powerful Protestant state.
• North German Princes (Hohenzollern) united lands after
the Peace of Westphalia (1648).
• Hohenzollerns took power from weaker lords (Junkers),
but gave them powerful jobs in the army.
• Government centralized as absolute monarchy under
Frederick William, who formed one of the fiercest
militaries ever seen…
• “Prussia is not a a state which possesses an army,
rather an army that possesses a state.”

20. Prussia (continued)
• Frederic William’s son,
Frederick II, a brilliant
military leader, given the title
“Frederick the Great.”
• Austria and Prussia had
both arisen as powerful
states, and competed with
each other for power over
central Europe for a long
time to come.
Frederick the Great of Prussia

21. Autocracy in Russia
• Peter the Great
• Westernization
• Social and Cultural Reforms
• Make Russia a great military power
• New tax system
• Table of Ranks
• required nobility to serve the state or be reduced in rank
• Peasants as tools of war
• By 1750 one half of the serfs were state peasants
• State peasants could be drafted into the military
• State peasants could be drafted into factories
• Peasants had no bargaining power over wages or working conditions
• Peasants could not leave jobs for a better job

22. Autocracy in Russia
• Peter the Great replaced the Duma (a “representative”
assembly of nobles) with a hand-picked Senate of 9
administrators
• Assumed direct control of the Russian Orthodox Church
by appointing an imperial official who managed its affairs
• The Communists would do the same in the 20th century but
contrary to Cold War propaganda, state control over the Russian
Orthodox Church did not originate with the Communists

23. Russian Foreign Policy Goal
• Secure a warm water (year-round) port on the Black Sea
and the Baltic Sea
• Without a warm water port, Russia was landlocked for at least 6
months out of the year
• Swedes and Ottoman Empire opposed Russian warm
water port
• Peter the Great failed to gain a warm water port

24. Catherine the Great

25. Catherine the Great
• German not Russian
• May have participated in the palace coup that deposed
and then executed her husband Peter III
• Social Reforms
• Hospitals
• Primary schools for children of rural nobility
• In 1769, renewed Peter the Great’s goal of obtaining a
warm water port
• Defeated Ottoman Turks and gained control of the North Coast of
the Black Sea
• Won independence for the Crimea and safe passage of Russian
ships through Bosporus into the Mediterranean
• Gained control of Ottoman provinces in the Balkans

26. ENGLAND
Limited Monarchy and the Rights of an Englishman

27. England’s Limited Monarchy
• Church of England entangled with English Nationalism
• Reduced political and social rights for Roman Catholics
• Limited rights for Protestant Dissenters (Calvinists: Puritans,
Separatists and Quakers)
• Charles II (1660-1685)
• Accepted the Magna Carta
• Agreed to follow the Petition of Right

28. James II of England
• James II (1685-1688)
• Roman Catholic Convert
• Decree of Religious Toleration for Catholics
• Declared in 1688 that newborn son would be raised
Roman Catholic

29. The Glorious Revolution
• 1688—Delegation of Whigs and Tories invited William of
Orange and his wife Mary Stuart to invade England to
preserve Protestantism
• 1689 William & Mary accepted the English Bill of Rights
which affirmed the following as “Rights of Englishmen”:
• Habeas Corpus
• Trial by Jury
• Petition the Monarch through Parliament
• Monarchy subject to the laws of England
• Act of Toleration granted Protestant dissenters the right to worship
freely but not to hold office
• Act of Succession (1701): every future monarch must be a member
of the Church of England

30. William & Mary
James II was Mary’s father and William’s Uncle/Father in Law. William and Mary were
Childless and when William died in 1702, Mary’s Sister, Anne, ascended the throne of
England as Queen Anne.

31. Who Benefitted Most from the Glorious Revolution?
• Consolidated positions of local control by large property
owners
• Patronage
• War contracts
• Oppressed the Roman Catholic Minority
• Another source of the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland that
continue to the present day

32. John Locke and the Contract Theory of Government 1632-1704
Two Treatises of Government (1690):
•State of Nature: Man is not evil born as tabula rasa
•All humans endowed with unalienable natural Rights
to life, Liberty and property
•Individual enforcement of Rights causes chaos
•Government established to arbitrate disputes over
rights
•All rights not expressly granted to government were
reserved to the people
•Government authority is both contractual
and conditional
•If Government abuses or exceeds its authority,
society has the right to dissolve it and
replace it

33. Thomas Hobbes 1588 - 1679
• Leviathan
• Man is evil and fallen
• The state of nature is violent
and unstable
• Absolute Ruler is necessary
to bring order & security
• People give up rights in
exchange for security
• Absolute Ruler affords
privileges
• Absolute Ruler is the only one
with rights –right to rule

34. BALANCE OF POWER
SYSTEM
War and Diplomacy

36. The Balance of Power System
• Diplomatic Goal: To preserve the balance of
power
• Lasted from 1661 until the outbreak of WWI
• Proponents were England, Holland, Prussia,
Austria
• Purpose: limit the power and expansion of
France through military and diplomatic alliances
• Fought a series of wars to enforce Balance of
Power including the 7 Years War aka French
and Indian War

37. ABSOLUTISM AND WAR
Europe’s monarchs used war to consolidate power and
increase territory

38. War of the Spanish Succession: 1702-1713
• Who would succeed King Charles II of Spain in 1700?
• France and Austria wanted members of their monarchy on the
throne
• England opposed partition of Spain
• Phillip V (King Louis XIV grandson) proclaimed King of Spain
• England, Netherlands, Prussia Austria declared war on France,
Spain and Bavaria

39. Treaty of Utrecht
• Philip V: retained Spain and its empire
• Louis XIV: agreed that Spain and France would never be
united under 1 ruler
• Austria: gained control over territories in Netherlands and
Milan and Naples
• Great Britain:
• retained Gibraltar and Minorca
• gained French territory in North America and Caribbean
• gained right to transport and sell slaves in Spanish colonies in the
Americas

40. Catherine the Great and Balance of Power
Politics
• Russia’s gains in the war with the Ottoman Turks
threatened the Balance of Power in Eastern Europe
• Monarchs agreed to settle territory disputes
• Russia proposed that Austria-Hungary; Prussia and Russia
partition Poland
• Russia agreed to give up conquests in the Balkans in return for the
grain fields of eastern Poland
• Austria-Hungary obtained Galicia
• Prussia obtained coastal regions (Gdansk/Danzig)
• Poland ceased to exist as a sovereign territory until
after WWI
In 1939 Hitler and Stalin again divided Poland

41. Partition of Poland

42. War and Empire
• War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748)
• Austria, Britain and Dutch Republic vs. Prussia and France
• Prussia: argued that Maria Theresa could not succeed to the
Hapsburg throne because she was a woman
• A series of smaller wars
• Treaty of Aix-la Chapelle (1748)
• Only Prussia retained territory (Silesia)
• Maria Theresa survived with most of her territory intact

43. WAR, EMPIRE,
COLONIALISM, SLAVERY
Mercantilism, War Capitalism, Trade and Self
Government

44. What is Mercantilism?
• An economic theory and the policy directing the economy
of monarchial European states between 1600-1800
• Assumed that wealth and power depended on a favorable balance
of trade (exports exceeding imports) and the accumulation of
precious metals (gold and silver)
• Advocated forms of protectionism to protect dominance of
domestic production and wealth accumulation
• Monarchs and Nobility attempted to retain control of wealth through
granting monopolies to favored nobles or as rewards for service to
wealthy merchants.
• Competition was for monopoly and contracts—not based on free
markets
• Each monarch sought to restrain the trade of rival monarchs by
closing markets and colonies to competition
• Gaining markets and territory through war

45. Colonies in the New World
• War Capitalism
• Value of colonial commerce tied interests of European
governments and transoceanic merchants together.
• Merchants depended on governments to protect their investments
• Governments depended on merchants to create wealth that drove their
economies
• Ability to wage war depended on loans from wealthy investors and
ability to repay the loans with interest
• Spain, France, England and Dutch fought for greater control of
territory, markets and resources
• Colonies existed to benefit the mother country financially and
militarily
• Slavery used as economic system to maximize profits

46. Spanish Empire in 17th century

47. Seven Years War (aka) French and Indian
War (1756-1763)
• A global war
• Europe
• North America
• Central America
• West Africa
• India
• The Philippines
• Driven by personal antagonisms between Europe’s ruling
families
• British House of Hanover vs. French and Spanish House of Bourbon
• Hohenzollerns of Prussia vs. Hapsburgs of Austria
• Between 900,000 and 1,400,000 people died
• British got Canada and India from France
• Set the stage for the American War for Independence and the
French Revolution

48. English Empire by 1763

49. Slave Trade
• Run as monopoly in 16th and early 17th century by
European governments (English, Spanish, French)
• Slavery –a profitable business itself
• Cheapest labor for large cash crops or mining operations
• 18th century slave trade open to private entrepreneurs
• West African ports
• Exchange of Indian cloth, metal goods, rum and firearms in return
for human cargo
• Middle passage

50. American Revolution and Europe
• Americans increasingly view rights as inalienable, preferring
constitutional government over absolutist government.
• Global Impacts of American Revolution
• Americans independence from Britain
• 1778 France joined war on side of Americans to oppose increasing
British colonial power.
• French monarchs still absolutist. Incur huge war debt.
• Spain entered the war in support of France & to check British power in
North America
• Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic because it refused to
recognize the trade embargo with the North American Colonies
• Direct attack on Absolutism
• Absolutism/Authoritarianism vs Democracy & Constitutionalism
remained a central issue in Europe until the end of WWII

51. Absolutism, Colonial Dominance and the
U.S. Constitution
• Seen in the context of the broader sweep of western
civilization history
• American Revolutionary War: the last war in a century-long conflict
for colonial dominance by absolutist European monarchies
• U.S. constitutional system of checks and balances:
• Based on colonial experience with wars of absolute monarchs who were
free to declare war for any reason or for no reason at all
• Intended to check lavish spending of absolutist monarchs who lived in
great palaces and spent taxes lavishly on themselves but not for the
good of their people
• Fight over the Bill of Rights was essential to safeguard the basic rights
of Englishmen that American colonists had fought for
• Sought to mediate individual rights with the needs of the nation
• Contradiction between system of slavery and rights of men

52. Economic Growth in 18th Century Europe
• At the beginning of the 18th century ½ of all Europeans still died
of infectious disease
• New agricultural technologies made food production more
effective
• Immunities and better nutrition caused population boom in
major industrial cities like London, Amsterdam, Naples and
Paris
• Emerging mass market for consumer goods
• Golden age of the shopkeeper
• Consumer goods were products of a growing colonial empire in
Asia, Africa and the Americas
• England, France and Spain competed for control of colonial
territories, access to colonial resources and manpower