A Political and Social History of Modern Europe

NATIONAL

ational Monar

r hundred years, it is necessary to know what were the chief countries that existed at

rd, will the eye detect geographical boundaries which resemble those of the present day. There, England, France, Spain, and Portugal have already taken form. In each one of these countries

GL

The Engli

at Britain still preserved the independence of the kingdom of Scotland, while Irish princes and chieftains rendered English occupation of their island extremely precarious beyond the so- called Pale of Dublin which an English king had conquered in the twelfth century. Across the English Channel, on

, or rather its outcome, served to exalt the sense of English nationality and English patriotism, and to enable the king to devote his whole attention to the consolidation of his power in the British islands. For several years after the conclusion of peace on the C

of Royal Power in En

church. The Wars of the Roses had two effects which redounded to the advantage of the king: (1) the struggle, being really a contest of two factions of nobles, destroyed many noble families and enabled the crown to seize their estates, thereby lessening the influence of an ancient class; (2) the struggle, being long and disorderly, created in the middle class or "common people" a longing for peace and the convicti

evolences [Footnote: "Benevolences" were sums of money extorted from the people in the guise of gifts. A celebrated minister of Henry VII collected a very large number of "benevolences" for his master. If a man lived economically, it was reasoned he was saving money and could afford a "present" for the king. If, on the contrary, he lived sumptuously, he was evidently wealthy and could likewise afford a "gift."], import and export duties, and

relations of Engl

lish goods into the Netherlands. He likewise encouraged English companies of merchants to engage in foreign trade and commissioned the explorations of John Cabot in the New World. Henry increased the prestige of his house by politic marital alliances. He arranged a marriage between the heir to his throne, Arthur, and Catherine, eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isa

power of the king appeared to be distinctly in the ascendant. P

AN

The Frenc

e great centralized state which we call France. The Hundred Years' War had finally freed the western duchies and counties from English control. Just before the opening of the sixteenth century the wily and tactful Louis XI (1461-1483) had rounded out French territories: on the east he had occupied the powerful duchy of Burgundy; on the west and on the s

y Growth of Roya

royal coinage and a standing army under the king's command. The monarchs had struggled valiantly against the disruptive tendencies of feudalism; they had been aided by the commoners or middle class; and the proof of their success was their comparative freedom from political checks. The Estates-General, to which French commoners had been admitted in 1302, resembled in

elations of the Fren

and aggrandizement which was to mark the history of France throughout following centuries. His efforts in Italy were far from successful, but his heir, Louis XII (1498-1515), continued to lay claim to Naples and to the duchy of Milan as well. In 1504 Louis was o

national patriotism centering in the king. It was becoming self-conscious. Like England, France was on the r

AND PO

t of the Spanish and

tive Christian states, of which the following may be mentioned: Barcelona, in the northeast, along the Mediterranean; Aragon, occupying the south-central portion of the Pyrenees and extending southward toward the Ebro River; Navarre, at the west of the Pyrenees, reaching northward into what is now France and southward into what is now Spain; Castile, west of Navarre, circling about the town of Burgos; Leon, in the northwestern corner of the peninsula; and Portugal, south of Leon, lying along the Atlantic coast. Little by little these Chr

6) and Isabella (1474-1504), sovereigns respectively of Aragon and Castile. Granada, the last foothold of the Mohammedans, fell in 1492, and in 1512 Ferdinand acquired that pa

al a Real Nationa

ator. Portugal possessed a distinctive language of Latin origin and already cherished a literature of no mean proportions. In harmony with the spirit of the age the monarchy was tending toward absolutism, and the parliament, called the Cortes, which had played a

e Spanish Kin

cal traditions and institutions, the cause of Spanish nationality received great impetus during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was under them that territorial unity had been obtained. It was they who turned the attention of Spaniards to foreign and colonial enterprises. The year that marked the fall of Granada and the final extinction of Mohammedan power in Spain was likewise signalized by the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, which prefigured the establishment of a greater Spain beyond

f Royal Power in Spai

bel

ened, but their functions were almost imperceptibly transferred to royal commissions and officers of state. Privileges granted to towns in earlier times were now gradually revoked. The king, by becoming the head of the ancient military orders which had borne prominent part in the struggle against the Mohammedans, easily gained control of considerable treasure and of an effecti

reat wealth which temporarily flowed to her from the colonies, the prestige which long attended her diplomacy and her armies, w

D HOLY RO

an "Empire" Different

nal Mo

of whatsoever race or language, bound together in obedience to a common prince. Such, for example, had been the ideal of the old Roman Empire, under whose Caesars practically the whole civilized world had once been joined, so that the inhabitant of Egypt or Armenia united with the citizen of Britain or Spain in allegiance to the emperor. That empire retained its hold on portions of eastern Europe until its final conquest by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, but a thousand years earlier it had lost control of

an Empire; Its Mighty C

ower in

its practical acceptance. The feudal nobles of western Europe had never recognized it, and the national monarchs, though they might occasionally sport with its honors and titles, never admitted any real dependence upon it of England, France, Portugal, or Spain. In central Europe, it had to struggle against the anarchical tendencies of feudalism, against the rise of

an Empire practically R

man

nd both the Netherlands-that is, Holland and Belgium-and the Swiss cantons were only nominally connected. Over the Slavic people to the east-Russians, Poles, etc.-or the

conspicuous desire for strong centralized natio

l Weakness of the

nburg; duchies, like Saxony, Bavaria, and Württemberg; counties like the Palatinate, and a host of free cities, baronies, and domains, some of them smaller than an American township. In all there were over three hundred states which collectively w

rnment of the H

frequently the electors used their position to extort concessions from the emperor elect which helped to destroy German unity and to promote the selfish interests of the princes. The imperial Diet was composed of the seven electors, the lesser princes (including the higher ecclesiastical dignitaries, such as bishops and abbots), and representatives of the free cities, grouped in three separate houses. The emperor was not supposed to perform any imperial act without the authorization of the Diet, and

gs: Weak as Emperors b

es within the H

tion of some prince who had sufficiently strong power of his own to stay the attack or remove the fear. In this way, Rudolph, count of Habsburg, had been chosen emperor in 1273, and in his family, with few interruptions, continued the imperia

chy of Austria with its capital of Vienna. The family subsequently became related by marriage to reigning families in Hungary and in Italy as well as in Bohemia and other states of the empire. In 1477 the Emperor Maximilian I (1493-1519) married Mary of Burgundy, daughte

empts to "Reform" t

e city of Worms to discuss with Emperor Maximilian projects of reform. After protracted debates, it was agreed that private warfare, a survival of feudal days, should be abolished; a perpetual peace should be declared; and an imperial court should be established to settle all dispu

CITY-

"City-State

sent time. They believed that every city with its outlying country should constitute an independent state, with its own particular law-making and governing bodies, a

re of self-government, so that by the year 1500 they had become somewhat similar to the city- states of antiquity. In Germany, though they still maintained their local self-government, they were loosely attached to the Holy Roman Empire and were overshadowed in

er a National Monarchy not Att

literary expression, the people of the peninsula had not built up a national monarchy like those of western Europe nor had they even preserved the form of allegiance to the Holy Roman Empire. This was due to several significant events of earlier times. In the first place, the attempt of the medieval German emperors to gain control of Italy not only had signally failed but had left behind two contending factions throughout the whole country,-one, the Ghibellines, supporting the doctrine of maintaining the traditional connection with the Germanies; the other, the Guelphs, rejecting that doctrine. In the second place, the pope, who exercised extensive political as well as religious power, felt that his ecclesiastical influence would be seriously impaired by the creation of political unity in the country; a strong lay monarch with a solid Italy behind

ons of the country. The southern third of the peninsula comprised the ancient kingdom of Naples, which had grown up abou

aly in 1500: the Kingd

y called the Sicilian Vespers, had severed the relation between the island and the mainland, the former passing to the royal family of Aragon, and the latter troublously remaining in French hands until 1442. The reunion of the Two Sicilies at that date under the crown of

ly in 1500: th

ricts, as well as over the city, had been expressly recognized and conferred upon the bishop by Charlemagne in the eighth century. This bishop of Rome was, of course, the pope; and the pope slowly extended his territories through central Italy from the Tiber to the Adriatic, long using them merely as a bulwark to his religious and ecclesiastical prerogatives. By the year 1500, however, the p

ty-States of Nort

lane both of material prosperity and of intellectual culture than was to be found at that time in any other part of Europe, nevertheless they were deeply jealous of each other and carried on an interminable series

City-States: Milan

f art with the fine political subtleties of Italian tyrants. The Visconti ruled Milan from the thirteenth century to the middle of the fifteenth, when a Sforza, a leader of condottieri established the supremacy of his own family. In 1499, ho

ype of the Commercial

-Sta

ouncil controlled by the commercial magnates; (2) a centralized committee of ten; (3) an elected doge, or duke; and (4), after 1454, three state inquisitors, henceforth the city's real masters. The inquisitors could pronounce sentence of death, dispose of the public funds, and enact statutes; they maintained a regular spy system; and trial, judgment, and execution were secret. The mouth of the lion of St. Mark received anonymous denunciations, and the waves which passed under the Bridge of Sighs carried away the corpses. To this regime Venice owed an internal peace which contrasted with the endless civil wars of the other Italian cities. Till the final destruction of the state in 1798 Venice knew no political revolution. In foreign affairs, also, Venice possessed considerable inf

note:

until in 1499 she fell prey to the invasion of King Louis XII of France. Thereafter Genoa remained some years subject to the French, but in

tutions as for its art, in the first half of the fifteenth century had come under the tutelage of a family of traders and bankers, the wealthy Medici, who preserved

Type of the Cultured

y-S

1494, and aided materially in the expulsion of the Medici. Savonarola soon fell a victim to the plots of his Florentine enemies and to the vengeance of the pope, whom Charles VIII had

Obscure Duchy o

nsignificant duchy of Savoy, tucked away in the fastnesses of the northwestern Alps, whose d

City-States in

rman, but in the south the Walloons used a French dialect. At first the provinces had been mere feudal states at the mercy of various warring noblemen, but gradually in the course of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, important towns had arisen so wealthy and populous that they were able to wrest charters from the lords. Thus arose a n

City-Stats of the Netherlan

rity, which was supported by the nobility and clergy and opposed by the cities. In 1465 a common parliament, called the States General, was constituted at Brussels, containing deputies from each of the seventeen provinces; and eight years later a grand council was organized with supreme judicial and financial functions. Charles the Bold, who died in 1477, was prevented from constructing a great central kingdom between France and the

rope, and the splendor of the ducal court surpassed that of any contemporary sovereign. A permanent memorial of it remains in the celebrated Order of the Golden Fleece, which was institu

EASTERN EUROPE

nd Eastern Europe of

but of Great Impo

f the Germanies; and the city-states of Italy and the Netherlands. It may be well, however, to point out that in northern and eastern Europe other states had already come into existence, which subsequent

tern Europe: the Sc

nding generally to the present-day states of those names. The three countries had many racial and social characteristics in common, and they had been politically joined under the king of Denmark by the Union of Calmar in 1397. This u

avs in Central an

characteristics, including a group of closely related languages, which are called Slavic. These Slavs in the year 1500 included (1) the Russians, (2) the Poles and Lithua

e: Russi

ed an empire which stretched from the China Sea to the banks of the Dnieper. It was these Mongols who drove the Ottoman Turks from their original Asiatic home and thus precipitated the Turkish invasion of Europe. After the death of Jenghiz Khan the Mongol Empire was broken into a variety of "khanates," all of which in course of time dwindled away. In the sixteenth century the Mongols north of the Black Sea succumbed to the Turks as well as to the Russians.] khans who had set up an Asiatic despotism north of the Black Sea. The beginnings of Russian greatness are traceable to Ivan III, the Great (1462-1505), [Footnote: Ivan IV (1533-1584

e: Polan

l defense difficult. Civil war between the two peoples who composed the state and foreign war with the neighboring Germans worked havoc and distress. An obstructive parliament of great lords rendered effective administration impossible. The nobles possessed the property and co

: Hungary

ss of the sovereigns in the thirteenth century, the infiltration of western feudalism, and the endless civil discords brought to the front a powerful and predatory class of barons who ultimately overshadowed the throne. The brilliant reign of Matthias Hunyadi (1458-1490) was but an exception to the general rule. Not only were the kings obliged to struggle against the nobles for their very existence-the crown was elective in Hungary-but no

he Ottoman T

26), under whom they had established themselves in Asia Minor, across the Bosphorus from Constantinople. Thence they rapidly extended their dominion over Syria, and over Greece and the Balkan peninsula, except the little mountain state of Montenegro, and in 1453 they captured Constantinople. The lands conquered by the arms of the Turk

ONAL R

ire (1914), Vol. II, ch. i, ii; William Cunningham, The Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times, 5th ed., 3 vols. (1910-1912), Vol. I, Book V valuable for social conditions under Henry VII; William (Bishop) Stubbs, Lectures on Medi?val and Modern History, ch. xv, xvi; F. W. Maitland, The Constitutional History of England (1908), Period II. On Scotland: P. H. Brown, History of Scotland, 3 vols. (1899-1909), Vol. I from earliest times to the middle of the sixteenth century; Andrew Lang, A History of Scotland, 2d ed., 4 vols. (1901- 1907), Vol. I. On France: A. J. Grant, The French Monarchy, 1483- 1789, 2 vols. (1900), Vol. I, ch. i, ii, brief and general; G. B. Adams, The Growth of the French Nation (1896), ch. viii-x, a suggestive sketch; G. W. Kitchin, A History of France, 4th ed., 3 vols. (1894-1899), Vol. I and Vo

y the same author, The Realm of the Habsburgs (1893) 5 Kurt Kaser, Deutsche Geschichte zur Zeit Maximilians I, 1486-1519 (1912), an excellent study appearing in "Bibliothek deutscher Geschichte," edited by Von Zwiedineck-Südenhorst; Franz Krones, Handbuch der Geschichte Oesterreichs von der altesten Zeit, 5 vols. (1876-1879), of which Vol.

history; Edward Armstrong, Lorenzo de' Medici (1897), in the "Heroes of the Nations" Series, valuable for Florentine history about 1500; Col. G. F. Young, The Medici, 2 vols. (1909), an extended history of this famous Florentine family from 1400 to 1743; Ferdinand Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, trans. from 4th German ed. by Annie Hamilton, 8 vols. in 13, a non-Catholic account of the papal monarchy in Italy, of which Vol. VII, Part II and Vol. VIII, Part I treat of Rome about

jours, 6th ed. completed to 1913 by émile Haumant (1914), a brilliant work, of which the portion down to 1877 has been trans. by Leonora B. Lang, 2 vols. (1879); W. R. A. Morfill, Russia, in "Story of the Nations" Series, and Poland, a companion volume in the same series. See also Jeremiah Curtin, The Mongols: a History (1908). For the Magyars: C. M. Knatchbull-Hugessen, The Political Evolution of the Hungarian Nation, 2 vols. (1908), especially Vol. I, ch. i-iii; A. Vámbéry, The Story of Hungary (1886) in "Story of the Nations" Series; Count Julius Andrássy, The Development of Hungarian Constitutional Liberty, trans. by C. Arthur and Ilona Ginever (1908), the views of a contemporary Magyar statesman on the constitutional development of his country throughout the middle ages an