commercial revolution as the world turns or day in the lives of europeans of the 1600’s
TRANSCRIPT
Commercial Revolution
As the World Turns
or
Day in the lives of Europeans of the 1600’s
Time of Confusion and FluxWhy????
Put on a time line: Tension mount as secular issues seem to take over
• Reformation: 95 thesis, Burning of Papal Bull, Peasant Rebellion, Henry’s act of supremacy, Calvin in Geneva, Peace of Augsburg
• Catholic Response: Council of Trent, Jesuits
• Philip’s Crusade: War against Netherlands, War against Moslems, War against England
• War of 3 Henry’s, St Bartholomew’s Day Mass., Henry Guise and Henry III Valois are murdered, Henry IV Bourbon takes over, Paris, Edict of Nantes, Henry IV killed,
• Thirty years War: Start 1618 , 4 phrases, Treaty of Westphalia
Themes to help you make connections
• Religious wars ended with Treaty of Westphalia• Increasingly secular issues drive national rivalries: dynastic
rivalries, economics• Domestic scene: struggle between new monarchy, old landed
aristocracy, new nobility and new dynamic middle class– Strangely the new monarchy wants to consolidate his power, centralize it
and uses absolutism as a method against the landed aristocracy who wants to keep their old powers from the medieval period
Commercial Revolution
• Transformation of the economy of Europe from agrarian and rural to commercial, industrial and urban based
Occurred over a long period of time—17th century or 1600’s at the same time as the last of the religious wars and the rise of absolutism
Commercial Revolution• Starts with the explorations• Leads to increase in world trade and new
goods: shift of economic power from the Mediterranean sea to the Atlantic
• Influx of gold leads to inflation but increase in population causes demand to increase pushing up prices.
• Hurts the Aristocracy: income from land, fixed, hard to find new sources, enclosed their lands, forces tenets off land, population shifts
• Growing significance of Middle class: new entrepreneurs, independent of the guilds, capitalists, expansion of commercial interests
• Middle class befriended the monarchy• Other social effects; slavery, migration
overseas, spread of European culture• Need for colonies: outlet for population,
raw materials, revenue for the king, leads to trade wars, conflicts on the continent spread to the colonies (world wars)
• Charters: monarchy issued monopolies to charter companies that were owned by stock holders who wanted a profit.
• Domestic system or putting out system or cottage system
• Mercantilism or Bullionism• Price revolution: slow gradual rise in
prices, debasing of currency, flow of gold new world, rise of capitalism, new trade in commodities and luxuries
• Labor force separate from ownership unlike the earlier guilds,
• Tariff walls, and subsidized exports
Rural Peasants
• Small yeoman or independent farmer
• Peasants: sharecroppers etc.
Aristocracy
• Noblese de sword: or old aristocrcy
• Noblese de robe: or new nobility
• Used enclosure to cope with loss of income due to inflation and set rents
Bourgeoise or Middle class
• Haute bourgeoise vs. petite bourgeoise
• Urban
• Professionals allies of the new monarchy
• Increased dynamically in 1600 due to commerce—money economy
Lower classes in urban areas
• Unskilled uneducated urban poor
• Wage earners: day workers
Impact of the Commercal Revolution
• Price revolution: inflation • Changing trade practices and institutions:
capitalism, Joint stock companies, entrpreneurship, charters, Mercantialism, banking, insurance industry, new commodities etc.
• Leads to new social patterns and interaction• Affects on education• Affects on agriculture: enclosure, rural poor,
new crops, life expectancy
Economic changes impact the social scene
look at Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Chardin, Rembrandt,
Hals, Leyster, Vermeer• Food• Dress• Homes• Furniture• Leisure time activities• Manners• Education and language• Health
Social Changes with the reformation
• Luther stressed:– Importance of education for both men
and women– Changing role for women: wife mother
and partner in business– New divorce laws– Later marriages: men late 20’s , women early 20’s– Nuclear family not extended family
• Calvin– Elect– Importance of education– Intolerance– Theocracy– Morality legislated by the church
Other gender issues
• Frequent remarriages for men
• Increase in premarital sex
• Increase in #illegitimate children
• Wet nurses for elite ranks
• Children 8 to 13 apprenticeships, school, domestic servants
William Hogarth
• English• Commentary on
–social–Economic –political life in late 17th
century
arrested
Apprehended
Artists
Bedlam
Beer Alley
Gin Alley
Convassing the voters
House of Commons
Enraged
• Party
Foundlings
Funeral
Gaming
Heir from Rakes Progress
The Heir Marries
Operas
Prison
Spinners
Looms Pre industrial England
Tavern
Toilet
Enraged
Ancien RegimeOld Regime
1600’s and 1700’s
Prior to French Revolution
CharacteristicsAristocratic elite: old legal
privileges, tax exempt, political privileges, socially
eliteUrban centers : guilds
declining, new middle class trying to show economic
status , wants to be accepted with elite
Rural Peasants high taxes and feudal dues
Importance of
Tradition
Hierarchy and Privilege very
visible
• Boucher
Chardin
Gainsborough