AP European History
AP European History
During the Middle Ages, the test of a good government was whether it provided justice, law, and order. Politically, the Renaissance produced a different approach to power. During the Renaissance, the test of a good government was whether it was effective as well as able to increase the power of the ruler. The Florentine Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) put this new approach into practice. Machiavelli served the Florentine Republic as secretary and diplomat but was dismissed from office when the Medici family came back to power in 1512. In an attempt to regain the favor of the government, Machiavelli wrote The Prince (1513), a virtual instruction manual for a prince or ruler on the manner in which he should rule. This major work, which focuses on ethics and government, describes how rulers maintain power by methods that ignore right or wrong. Rulers need to accept the philosophy that “the end justifies the means.” Machiavelli believed that politicians should manipulate people and use any means to gain power. He did not advocate amoral behavior but thought that a politician’s actions should not be governed by moral consideration. A prince had to combine the cunning of a fox and power of a lion to achieve his goals.
The most able practitioners of Machiavelli’s approach to politics were the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century monarchs: Louis XI of France, Henry VII and Henry VIII of England, and Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. These leaders acted according to the principles discussed in The Prince. They invested in their government a strong sense of authority and leadership. In the sixteenth century, Jean Bodin’s (1530–1596) work, The Six Books on the State, outlined the first systematic and clear conception that absolute sovereignty resided in the nation regardless of the forms of government. The “state” was an absolute sovereign that tolerated no rival legal authority above it except God. Bodin’s ideas would contribute to the rise of absolutism in Europe.
Although France won the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), a series of wars fought between France and England, the French country was left devastated. Farmland was destroyed and many French nobles lost their lives. Yet, the French monarchy became stronger since the war had weakened the power of the nobles. A revival of commerce, leading to the rise of the bourgeoisie (middle class), further strengthened the power of the king. Throughout the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the French kings consolidated their powers. Louis XI, who ruled from 1461 to 1483, was the most successful of these monarchs. He curbed feudal anarchy, set up an efficient government, and is considered to be the architect of French absolutism.
After the Hundred Years’ War, England struggled to rebuild its economy. Unfortunately, the end of this war led to a civil war, known as the War of the Roses, between the House of York (symbolized by a white rose) and the House of Lancaster (symbolized by a red rose). After a 30-year struggle (1455–1485) a Lancastrian, Henry Tudor, gained control of England and his line ruled England until the seventeenth century. Henry Tudor (Henry VII) re-established the monarch’s authority over the nobles and promoted trade and prosperity. His most famous accomplishment was the establishment of the Star Chamber, a court to check aristocratic power. There was no jury, and torture was a common remedy for all problems.
Spain, unlike France and England, was divided into many separate kingdoms. The various groups who lived on the peninsula lacked a common tradition. Muslims (Moors) and Jews had significantly influenced Spanish society. Until the 1100s, the Moors had controlled most of the country and many Jews had achieved high positions in finance, government, and medicine. The Reconquista represented a centuries-long attempt to unite Spain and expel Arabs and Jews. In 1469, Ferdinand V of Aragon (1452–1516) was married to Isabella of Castile (1451–1504), thus uniting the Christian kingdom of Spain. In 1492 (the same year that Columbus landed in America) the combined armies of these kingdoms drove the Moors from Granada and from Europe. Under their reign, Spain remained a loose confederation of separate states. Ferdinand and Isabella worked together to consolidate royal authority and to strengthen the Spanish kingdom. They used the hermandades, a local police force, to strengthen royal justice. The Church was also used as a vehicle of state authority. Ferdinand and Isabella revived the Inquisition in 1478, a religious court controlled by the monarchy. They monitored and persecuted persons suspected of heresy, especially converted Jews, known as the marranos or conversos. The Inquisition ultimately led to the expulsion of all Jews. Despite this sanctioned intolerance, by the end of their reign, Ferdinand and Isabella had established a strong central government, which enabled Spain to become a leader in the exploration of Asia and the discovery of the New World in the Americas.