Topic two: The Birth of Modern States and the Discovery of America
Lesson 1: The Birth of Modern States
A Europe in the XVth C
The Early Modern Period, 1500–1800Global and Comparative Dimensions
During the early modern period, the context of human affairs was changing dramatically. Within the globalization of life, three major changes were of special significance.
1. The development of new-style empires and large state systems that came to dominate global political and military affairs.
2. The internal transformation of the major societies, but especially the transformation of society in western Europe.
3. The emergence of networks of interaction that were global in their scope. These developments reoriented the global balance of societal power. The West, was in a position to assume political and military control over the whole world.
THE WORLD DURING THE AGE OF EUROPEAN EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION, 1450-1750
1. Europe and the World. In contrast to all other previous examples of Western expansion, the Age of Exploration and Colonization was an expansion of societies, not of groups.
- Records were kept, maps were made, and colonies were established and controlled.
- More ground was covered and far more rapidly than ever before. It was the first time that people of the west crossed the great oceans of the world. It carried westerners outside the orbit of Byzantium and the Moslems, placing them into new and unfamiliar contact with a bewildering variety of races, creeds, and cultures.
- Because of superior organization, technological strength, and drive, Westerners extended their power and influence throughout the world.
- It is important to note that these were not “New Worlds” that were conquered for there existed thriving cultures and civilizations throughout the areas of European dominance. Technology, especially weaponry, allowed westerners to defeat, control, and decimate many of the places to which they went. Within Europe itself, feudalism withered under the multiple impacts of the Price Revolution, the strengthening DTS monarchs, and the rising middle classes who possessed the money made during the Commercial Revolution.
Global picture
Great interregional networks of trade, conquests, and exchanges of ideas blurred the boundaries between the major societies in the Eastern Hemisphere, and oceanic travel opened the way for a fully global network. In this emerging global network, as Europeans began to cross the Atlantic, the older temple-palace civilizations of the Western Hemisphere were destroyed. Although the nomadic peoples of central Eurasia played a significant role in hemispheric interactions, by 1500 they had become peripheral peoples with little ability to influence major developments. The emerging great powers were the monarchical states of western Europe and the bureaucratic gunpowder empires in the rest of the Eastern Hemisphere.
Most important changes in boundaries: locate countries + Maps
Population had grown due to:
- end of diseases previous C. ie: the black death
- reasonable political stability
- re start of commerce
Compare Europe in the XVth C to present time color map + blank Europe
Similarities / DifferencesCompare Spain and Britain in the XVth C to present time
SPAIN / BRITAINSimilarities / Differences / Similarities / Differences
B What were kings and queens like? Maps, portraits, txtbk pp 62-65 / ITC
Changes that took place during in this periodTrastamara / Tudors
Situation of monarchy
Territorial expansion
Position regarding nobility
Position regarding religion
Other
The Tudors
ENGLAND, under the TUDORS, developed a centralized monarchy with an increasingly professional administration.
Tudor kings and queens: pp120
Henry VII 1485- 1509
Henry VIII 1509-1547
Edward VI
Mary Tudor 1553-1558
Elizabeth I 1558-1603
.
Trastámara dinasty
Enrique II de Trastámara "el de las Mercedes" o "el Fratricida" (1366-1367 & 1369-1379)
Known as "of the gifts" because of the privileges who gave to the noblemen who supported him, or "the fratricide" because of the slaying of his brother. He is the first king of the Trastámara dinasty.
Juan (John) I (1379-1390)
King of Castile, León, Toledo, Galicia, Seville, Jaén, Cordoba, Algeciras, Murcia and the Algarves. Lord of Molina. Claimed for the title of king of Portugal. He was defeated by Portugueses at the battle of Aljubarrota. He also fought against the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, who claimed the throne for his wife (Constanza de Castilla, daughter of Pedro I). At 1388, they accorded the son of Juan (future Enrique III) would marry the daughter of the Duke (Katherine of Lancaster). They received the title of "princes of Asturias", which is still the title of the heirs of the Spanish Crown.
Enrique III "el doliente" "the sufferer" (1390-1406)
. During his childhood there took place the massacres of Jews of 1391. Though unable to take the field because of illness (his name means "the sufferer"), he jealously preserved royal power through the royal council, the Audiencia (supreme court), and the corregidores (magistrates).
He sent emissaries to the court of Timur (Tamerlane), the central Asian emperor and ruler of Persia. During his reign, Castile started the conquest of the Canary Islands.
Juan II (1406-1454)
. Juan enjoyed reading philosophy and Latin. Under his sponsorship, Spanish literature appeared for the first time. He was the patron of poets Villena, the marquis of Santillana (Iñigo López de Mendoza), and Juan de Mena.
Like his ancestors of the Trastamara dinasty, he supported the French side at the Hundred Years War (at 1419, the Castilian fleet defeated the English one at La Rochelle).
Enrique IV "el Impotente" (1454-1474)
. During much of Enrique's reign, he quarrelled with his nobility about who would succeed him. The nobility wanted Enrique's half-brothers, Isabel or Alfonso, to inherit the throne, as the last one eventually did. Enrique had backed his daughter Juana "la Beltraneja", but the nobility did not believe her paternity (the nickname of Enrique means "the Impotent" and the origin of the nickname of Juana is because the nobility believed she was daughter of Beltrán de la Cueva, favourite of the king). He reconquered the city of Gibraltar.
Isabel I "la Católica" (1474-1504)
Queen of Castile, León, Aragon, Sicily, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, Majorca, Seville, Sardinia, Cordoba, Corsica, Murcia, Jaén, the Algarves, Algeciras, and Gibraltar; countess of Barcelona; lady of Biscay and Molina; duchess of Athens and Neopatras; countess of Roussillon and Cerdagne; marchioness of Oristano and Gociano. To reign, she fought against the supporters of her niece, Juana.
She finished the Reconquest, funded the discovery of America and, with her marriage with Fernando II of Aragon, united Spain.
Changes that took place to strengthen the monarchs’powers
At the beginning of the early modern era, political leaders and systems in Europe responded in many ways. Some established strong institutions of centralized control and administration, frequently with the aid of gunpowder weaponry. This process strengthened the monarchy as the most visible central institution and opened the way for expansion. Other states were unable to establish effective central control and gradually became minor elements on the continental and global scene.
Isabella and her husband had created an empire and in later years were consumed with administration and politics; they were concerned with the succession and worked to link the Spanish crown to the other rulers in Europe ie: daufhter Juana to Plilip (“the beautiful”) german Habsburg prince
Territorial expansion: Exploration of new lands txtbkpp 66
-Castile and Aragon united
-Navarre and Granada annexed
-
Position regarding nobility:
-end of feudal fragmentation
-majors have less power
-taxes to the Crown-less power of nobility
Religion Expulsion of the Jews and Muslims
Isabella, a very religious person, received with her husband the title of Reina Católica by Pope Alexander VI, a pope of whose secularism Isabella did not approve. Along with the physical unification of Spain, Isabella and Ferdinand embarked on a process of spiritual unification, trying to bring the country under one faith (Roman Catholicism). As part of this process, the Inquisition became institutionalized. and with the Dominican friar Tomás de Torquemada as the first Inquisitor General, the Catholic Monarchs pursued a policy of "religious cleansing".