351 Introduction

351

Introduction to Seventeenth Century European History

(I) An age of revolution

The Seventeenth Century witnessed revolutionary changes in Europe. Ideas about science, society and philosophy changed dramatically; agriculture advanced in ways that would transform the production of food and the distribution of labor; and military tactics and technology improved to the point where European arms were superior to any in the world.

(a) Scientific and intellectual revolution

During the seventeenth century, European science made the transition to the modern era.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)and Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) produced the first astronomical theories based on accurate telescopic observations.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) and Robert Boyle (1627-91) made path-breaking discoveries in physics, mechanics, mathematics and chemistry.

William Harvey (1578-1657) discovered the circulation of the blood - a breakthrough for modern medicine.

The Scotsman, John Napier (1550-1617) invented logarithms, making accurate calculations of large figures practicable for the first time. Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716) independently devised calculus and Simon Stevin (1548-1620) invented a decimal system of expressing fractions. Blaise Pascal designed a calculating machine that is sometimes called the first computer.

The revolution in scientific theory was linked to important technical advances, such as the telescope (invented by Hans Lippershey, 1570-1619) and the microscope (developed by the Dutchmen, Hans and Zacharias Janssen, by the English chemist, Robert Hooke, and by the inventor, Anton van Leeuwenhoek).

Scientific advances took place in the context of wider intellectual change. Thus, Blaise Pascal was not only a distinguished mathematician, but a philosopher, a theologian and a satirist.

	René Descartes (1596-1650), an important founder of modern philosophy also worked on physics, optics and mathematics.
	Francis Bacon (1561-1626) stressed the importance of observation and experiment in his influential writings on scientific method.
	Benedict Spinoza (1632-77) is famous for his bold philosophical insights, but earned his living grinding precision lenses.
	Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) - who shared many of Spinoza's materialist views and was also attacked for atheism - much admired Galileo (condemned by the Roman Catholic Church for teaching that the Earth rotated around the Sun).

The new science and new philosophy were widely resisted by the established churches of both Protestant and Catholic countries, where clergy feared a loss of their power, if reason were freed from Scripture. And indeed, during the seventeenth century, the Church's authority over knowledge and education was undermined.

(b) Economic change: beginning of agricultural revolution

Estimated European population (in millions, excluding Russia)
1500	1600	1700
60.9	77.9	83.5

During the 16th Century the population of Europe had grown rapidly, but during the 17th Century this growth slowed and was even reversed in some places. The rise in population had increased the price of and demand for food - especially grain. When this demand slackened, landowners tried to increase the efficiency of agricultural production so that they could maintain their profits by cutting costs.

Landowners also branched out into manufacturing, investing in the production of cloth for example, and tried to supply new markets in America and Asia.

Western Europeans expanded westward, colonizing the New World, and Russians began to settle the vast areas east of the Urals.

An early engraving of European ships leaving for the New World

During the 15th and 16th centuries European trade had revolved largely around the Mediterranean, and the Renaissance was dominated by Italian artists and intellectuals. In the 17th Century, the Atlantic trade routes became far more important, the center of economic gravity shifted to Northern Europe, and it was there that intellectual, agricultural and industrial developments moved most rapidly. The application of scientific knowledge and mathematics to navigation and ship-building were intimately connected with the expansion of trade, just as increasing knowledge of chemistry and botany contributed to agricultural efficiency.

	Military needs also both stimulated and benefited from scientific advance: the telescope was invented for military reasons; the same mathematics that Galileo applied to ballistics (calculating the trajectories of canon balls) helped explain the movement of planets.
	Simon Stevin (1548-1620) applied his knowledge of mathematics, hydrostatics and surveying, to the construction of military fortifications.
	The 17th Century was an age of almost continual warfare in Europe, and military tactics and technology improved with practice. During the "military revolution", defensive and offensive advance leapfrogged until European armies were the most effective in the world. When the Turks laid siege to Vienna in 1529, their forces were only narrowly defeated, and continued to hold much of Balkans and Central Europe. When they repeated their invasion in 1683, the 150,000 Ottoman troops were comprehensively defeated by a Polish/German army of 68,000. At Zenta (1697), the Turkish army suffered at least 20,000 casualties (and lost its artillery and provisions and ten of the Sultan's wives/ concubines) while the Imperial armed forces lost only 300.
	Elsewhere in the world (India, China, Africa) European armies easily defeated native soldiers.

During the 17th century, the major European powers were constantly involved in military conflict: the Austrian Hapsburgs and Sweden two of every three years; Spain three years of every four; Poland and Russia four of every five.

(d) The growth of state power and the rise of absolutism

Armed forces in the 17th Century
	Spain	Dutch Republic	France	England	Sweden	Russia
1590	200,000	20,000	80,000	30,000	15,000
1630	300,000	50,000	150,000		45,000	35,000
1650	100,000		100,000	70,000	70,000
1670	70,000	110,000	120,000		63,000	130,000
1700	50,000	100,000	400,000	87,000	100,000	170,000

One major consequence of the military revolution was that warfare became increasingly expensive. To fight successfully, governments had to recruit more men and raise more money than ever before. Large armies required the expansion of central government and gave it the power to overcome opposition from local elites (nobles and cities).


Some governments used plunder to help finance their wars. Armies routinely subsisted on enemy territory by seizing food and fodder. The coin above was minted from silver looted from a Catholic shrine, and proudly proclaimed its origins: The legend reads Gottes Freundt, Der Pfaffen feindt (Friend of God, Enemy of priests)

In most European states, this extension and consolidation of central power was controlled by kings and took place at the expense of representative assemblies. "Emergency" powers to tax and make laws were obtained in time of war and never surrendered thereafter.
France and Brandenburg/ Prussia were the clearest examples of absolutist regimes; but even in England and the United Provinces (where representative bodies remained important), the power of central government increased. In fact, by 1700 these constitutional monarchies were better able to tap growing wealth than were absolute monarchs like Louis XIV or Frederick I.

(e) Elements of continuity

Despite the revolutionary changes taking place in seventeenth century Europe there were unifying factors. Dynastic intermarriage, a common Latin culture, international mercenaries, trade and other economic links all served to draw Europeans together in a common identity.

Despite endemic warfare, European states were closely interconnected by shifting political alliances, cultural exchange and trade.

All the ruling families of Europe intermarried. Indeed, the Hapsburgs of Spain and Austria intermarried so repeatedly that they began to display the birth defects that stem from incest. (Follow, for example, the marriages of the children and siblings of Ferdinand II of Austria or Philip III of Spain and you will continually return to the same people through different links).
The French royal family was so closely linked to the Spanish that they had a claim to the throne when Charles II died without heirs in 1701.
The royal families of Northern Europe also intermarried extensively. Sigismund III of Poland married two sisters of Ferdinand II - first Anne and then after her death, her sister Constance; his son by the first marriage, Ladislaus IV, first married Ferdinand's daughter (i.e. his cousin, Constance and Anne's niece) Cecily Renate, and then after her death, Louise Marie Gonzaga, who on his death married Ladislaus's half-brother and cousin, John Casimir.
The Stuarts of England were linked by marriage to the monarchs of Bohemia, Denmark, France, Modena, Portugal, and the United Provinces.

The educated elite of Europe shared a common culture. Almost every student learnt Latin and higher education lay in mastering a body of interrelated texts, particularly those of classical antiquity. Because all university courses were taught in Latin, it was easy for students to study abroad. Students from Calvinist countries often went to Leiden or Geneva.

Soldiers were as willing to cross international borders as students. It is estimated that in the period 1620-1640, 10% of the male population of Scotland was fighting abroad. In 1690, Louis XIV created a separate Irish Brigade for Irish soldiers fighting for him.

Gustavus Adolphus and his Swedish armies fought extensively in Poland and Sweden, and is here portrayed wearing a distinctively Polish jacket.

Gentlemen also acquired military experience by fighting in foreign armies. René Descartes fought for the Hapsburgs; Eugene of Savoy (who was a French aristocrat) led Austrian forces in the defeat of the French; the German Prince Rupert of the Rhine fought in the English Civil War.

There were many economic links within Europe. Large quantities of grain, and later cattle, were exported from the Baltic countries to the rest of Europe. Much of this grain was transported in Dutch ships, which also moved the Dutch herrings that were sold throughout Europe. In the Netherlands, Spanish and English wool or partially-made cloth were turned into fully completed cloth, and then re-exported throughout Europe. England imported vast quantities of wine and spirits from France throughout the 17th Century. The Portuguese shipped so much of their"Vinho de Emharque" to England that it simply became known as Port (after Oporto, a Portuguese port from which much of it was exported).

One thing that did divide Europeans was the date.

When Julius Caesar introduced the "Julian" calendar in 46 BC, he added a day every four years (each leap year) to compensate for the almost six hours that each year exceeds its 365 days. This was roughly 45 minutes too much, with the result that the calendar and the seasons were gradually growing more and more out of sync. By the 1580s, the beginning of Spring (the vernal equinox - important for establishing the date of Easter) was falling early in March. The calendar was ten days behind where it should have been.

Pope Gregory got rid of the extra ten days by shortening October 1582 (5-14 October were omitted), and stopped the problem re-occurring by decreeing that years divisible by 100 not be leap years. Most Catholic countries followed his lead at once. But some Protestants wanted nothing from the Pope - not even the right time, so their calendars retained the Old Style. Germany, the Netherlands and Poland did not adopt the "Gregorian" calendar until 1700, and England not until 1752. Another day had crept in by then. (You can be sure that nothing happened in England on the eleven days between the 3rd and 13th September 1752, since statute decreed that the day after 2nd September was 14th September). [Russia did not change until 1918, which is why the "October Revolution" of 1905 happened in November as far as the West was concerned].

As a consequence, for most of the seventeenth century the same event happened on two different dates, according to which calendar was in use. The Swedes thought that they won the Battle of Breitenfeld on 7 September 1631, the Imperial army thought that they lost the Battle of Breitenfeld on 17 September 1631. To simplify matters, most historians simply state up front that all their dates will be New Style (or Old Style).

*KEY EVENTS*
1601-1610	1611-1620	1621-1630	1631-1640	1641-1650
1651-1660	1661-1670	1671-1680	1681-1690	1691-1700