Although many of the philosophes continued to hold traditional views about women, female intellectuals like Mary Astell and Mary Wollstonecraft began to argue for the equality of the sexes and the right of women to be educated. The Enlightenment appealed largely to the urban middle classes and some members of the nobility, and its ideas were discussed in salons, coffeehouses, reading clubs, lending libraries, and societies like the Freemasons.
Innovation in the arts also characterized the eighteenth century. The cultural fertility of the age is evident in Rococo painting and architecture; the achievements of Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart in music; the birth of the novel in literature; and new directions in education and historical writing.
Although the philosophes attacked the established Christian churches, many Europeans continued to practice their traditional faith. Moreover, a new wave of piety swept both Catholic and Protestant churches, especially noticeable in Protestant Europe with the advent of Pietism in Germany and John Wesley and Methodism in England.
Thus, despite the secular thought and secular ideas that began to pervade the mental world of the ruling elites, most people in eighteenth-century Europe still lived by seemingly eternal verities and practices—God, religious worship, and farming. The most brilliant architecture and music of the age were religious. And yet the forces of secularization were too strong to stop. In the midst of intellectual change, economic, political, and social transformations of great purport were taking shape and would lead, as we shall see in the next two chapters, to both political and social upheavals and even revolution before the century’s end.
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CHAPTER TIMELINE
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CHAPTER REVIEW
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Upon Reflection
What contributions did Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau make to the Enlightenment? What did they have in common? How did they differ?
What is popular culture, and how was it expressed in the eighteenth century?
What kinds of experiences do you associate with popular religion in the eighteenth century? How do you explain the continuing growth of popular religious devotion?
Key Terms
Enlightenment
skepticism
cultural relativism
philosophes
cosmopolitan
separation of powers
deism
laissez-faire
economic liberalism
Romanticism
feminism
salons
Rococo
Neoclassicism
high culture
popular culture
pogroms
Pietism
Suggestions for Further Reading
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EUROPE Surveys of eighteenth-century Europe include I. Woloch, Eighteenth-Century Europe (New York, 1986); M. S. Anderson, Europe in the Eighteenth Century, 4th ed. (London, 2000); R. Birn, Crisis, Absolutism, Revolution: Europe, 1648–1789, 3rd ed. (Fort Worth, Tex., 2005); and T. C. W. Blanning, ed., The Eighteenth Century: Europe, 1689–1815 (Oxford, 2000).
THE ENLIGHTENMENT Good introductions to the Enlightenment can be found in U. Im Hof, The Enlightenment (Oxford, 1994); D. Goodman, The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (Ithaca, N.Y., 1994); and D. Outram, The Enlightenment, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2005). A more detailed synthesis can be found in P. Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, 2 vols. (New York, 1966–69). See also P. H. Reill and E. J. Wilson, eds., Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, rev. ed. (New York, 2004); the beautifully illustrated work by D. Outram, Panorama of the Enlightenment (Los Angeles, 2006); and M. Fitzpatrick et al., The Enlightenment World (New York, 2004). On the social history of the Enlightenment, see T. Munck, The Enlightenment: A Comparative Social History, 1721–1794 (London, 2000). Studies of the major Enlightenment intellectuals include J. Sklar, Montesquieu (Oxford, 1987); R. Pearson, Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom (New York, 2005); P. N. Furbank, Diderot: A Critical Biography (New York, 1992); and L. Damrosch, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius (Boston, 2005). On women in the eighteenth century, see N. Z. Davis and A. Farge, eds., A History of Women: Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes (Cambridge, Mass., 1993); C. Lougee, Le Paradis des Femmes: Women, Salons, and Social Stratification (Princeton, N.J., 1976); O. Hufton, The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe, 1500–1800 (New York, 1998); and M. E. Wiesner-Hanks, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2000).
CULTURE AND SOCIETY Two general surveys on the arts are E. Gesine and J. F. Walther, Rococo (New York, 2007), and D. Irwin, Neoclassicism (London, 1997). On the eighteenth-century novel, see G. J. Barker-Benfield, The Culture of Sensibility: Sex and Society in the Eighteenth-Century English Novel (Chicago, 1992). On Gibbon, see W. B. Carnuchan, Gibbon’s Solitude: The Inward World of the Historian (London, 1987). On the growth of literacy, see R. A. Houston, Literacy in Early Modern Europe: Culture and Education, 1500–1800 (New York, 1988). The impact of the Enlightenment on modern views of the body can be examined in R. Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason (New York, 2004).
POPULAR CULTURE Important studies on popular culture include P. Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (New York, 1978); J. Mullan, ed., Eighteenth-Century Popular Culture (Oxford, 2000); and R. Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York, 1984).
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY RELIGIOUS HISTORY A good introduction to the religious history of the eighteenth century can be found in G. R. Cragg, The Church and the Age of Reason, 1648– 1789, rev. ed. (London, 1990). On Pietism, see R. Gawthorp, Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia (New York, 1993). On John Wesley, see H. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism, 3rd ed. (New York, 2002).
Visit the CourseMate website at www.cengagebrain.com for additional study tools and review materials for this chapter.
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CHAPTER 18
The Eighteenth Century: European States, International Wars, and Social Change
A 1793 portrait of Catherine the Great of Russia by Johann Lampi
© Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia/ The Bridgeman Art Library
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CHAPTER OUTLINE AND FOCUS QUESTIONS
The European States
What were the main developments in France, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, the Mediterranean states, and the Scandinavian monarchies in the eighteenth century? What do historians mean by the term enlightened absolutism, and to what degree did eighteenth-century Prussia, Austria, and Russia exhibit its characteristics?
Wars and Diplomacy
How did the concepts of “balance of power” and “reason of state” influence international relations in the eighteenth century? What were the causes and results of the Seven Years’ War?
Economic Expansion and Social Change
What changes occurred in agriculture, finance, industry, and trade during the eighteenth century?
The Social Order of the Eighteenth Century
Who were the main groups making up the European social order in the eighteenth century, and how did the conditions in which they lived differ both between groups and between different parts of Europe?
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CRITICAL THINKING
What was the relationship among intellectual, political, economic, and social changes in the eighteenth century?
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HISTORIANS OFTEN DEFINE the eighteenth century as the years from 1715 to 1789. Politically, this makes sense since 1715 marks the end of the age of Louis XIV and 1789 was the year in which the French Revolution erupted. This period has often been portrayed as the final phase of Europe’s old order, before the violent upheaval and reordering of society associated with the French Revolution. Europe’s old order—still largely agrarian, dominated by kings and landed aristocrats, and grounded in privileges for nobles, clergy, towns, and provinces—seemed to continue a basic
pattern that had prevailed in Europe since medieval times. But new ideas and new practices were also beginning to emerge. Just as a new intellectual order based on rationalism and secularism was evolving from the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, demographic, economic, and social patterns were beginning to change in ways that reflected a modern new order.
The ideas of the Enlightenment seemed to proclaim a new political age as well. Catherine the Great, who ruled Russia from 1762 to 1796, wrote to Voltaire, “Since 1746 I have been under the greatest obligations to you. Before that period I read nothing but romances, but by chance your works fell into my hands, and ever since then I have never ceased to read them, and have no desire for books less well written than yours, or less instructive.” The empress of Russia also invited Diderot to Russia and, when he arrived, urged him to speak frankly “as man to man.” Diderot did, offering her advice for a far-ranging program of political and financial reform. But Catherine’s apparent eagerness to make enlightened reforms was tempered by skepticism. She said of Diderot, “If I had believed him everything would have been turned upside down in my kingdom; legislation, administration, finance—all would have been turned topsy-turvy to make room for impractical theories.” For Catherine, enlightened reform remained more a dream than a reality, and in the end, the waging of wars to gain more power was more important.
In the eighteenth century, the process of centralization that had characterized the growth of states since the Middle Ages continued as most European states enlarged their bureaucratic machinery and consolidated their governments in order to collect the revenues and build the armies they needed to compete militarily with the other European states. International competition continued to be the favorite pastime of eighteenth-century rulers. Within the European state system, the nations that would dominate Europe until World War I—Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia—emerged as the five great powers of Europe. Their rivalries led to major wars, which some have called the first world wars because they were fought outside as well as inside Europe. In the midst of this state building and war making, dramatic demographic, economic, and social changes heralded the emergence of a radical transformation in the way Europeans would raise food and produce goods.
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The European States
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FOCUS QUESTIONS: What were the main developments in France, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, the Mediterranean states, and the Scandinavian monarchies in the eighteenth century? What do historians mean by the term enlightened absolutism, and to what degree did eighteenth-century Prussia, Austria, and Russia exhibit its characteristics?
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Most European states in the eighteenth century were ruled by monarchs. Although the justifications of the previous century for strong monarchy continued to hold sway, divine-right assumptions were gradually superseded by influential utilitarian arguments as Europe became increasingly secularized. The Prussian king Frederick II expressed this new thinking well when explaining the services a monarch must provide for his people:
These services consisted in the maintenance of the laws; a strict execution of justice; an employment of his whole powers to prevent any corruption of manners; and defending the state against its enemies. It is the duty of this magistrate to pay attention to agriculture; it should be his care that provisions for the nation should be in abundance, and that commerce and industry should be encouraged. He is a perpetual sentinel, who must watch the acts and the conduct of the enemies of the state…. If he be the first general, the first minister of the realm, it is not that he should remain the shadow of authority, but that he should fulfill the duties of such titles. He is only the first servant of the state.1
This utilitarian argument was reinforced by the praises of the philosophes.
Enlightened Absolutism?
There is no doubt that Enlightenment thought had some impact on the political development of European states in the eighteenth century. Closely related to the Enlightenment idea of natural laws was the belief in natural rights, which were thought to be inalterable privileges that ought not to be withheld from any person. These natural rights included equality before the law, freedom of religious worship, freedom of speech and press, and the right to assemble, hold property, and seek happiness. The American Declaration of Independence summarized the Enlightenment concept of natural rights in its opening paragraph: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
But how were these natural rights to be established and preserved? In the opinion of most philosophes, most people needed the direction provided by an enlightened ruler. What made rulers enlightened? They must allow religious toleration, freedom of speech and press, and the right to hold private property. They must foster the arts, sciences, and education. Above all, they must not be arbitrary in their rule; they must obey the laws and enforce them fairly for all subjects. Only strong monarchs seemed capable of overcoming vested interests and effecting the reforms society needed. Reforms then should come from above—from the rulers rather than from the people. Distrustful of the masses, the philosophes believed that absolute rulers, swayed by enlightened principles, were the best hope of reforming their societies.
The extent to which rulers actually did so is frequently discussed in the political analyses of Europe in the eighteenth century. Many historians once asserted that a new type of monarchy emerged in the late eighteenth century, which they called enlightened despotism or enlightened absolutism. Monarchs such as Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia, and Joseph II of Austria supposedly followed the advice of the philosophes and ruled by enlightened principles, establishing a path to modern nationhood. Recent scholarship, however, has questioned the usefulness of the concept of enlightened absolutism. We can best determine the extent to which it can be applied by surveying the development of the European states in the eighteenth century and then making a judgment about the enlightened absolutism of the century’s later years.
The Atlantic Seaboard States
As a result of the overseas voyages of the sixteenth century, the European economic axis began to shift from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic seaboard. In the seventeenth century, the English and Dutch expanded as Spain and Portugal declined. By the eighteenth century, Dutch power had waned, and it was left to the English and French to build the commercial empires that created a true global economy.
FRANCE: THE PROBLEMS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHS In the eighteenth century, France experienced an economic revival as the Enlightenment gained strength. The French monarchy, however, was not overly influenced by the philosophes and resisted reforms even as the French aristocracy grew stronger.
Louis XIV had left France with enlarged territories, an enormous debt, an unhappy populace, and a five-year-old great-grandson as his successor. The governing of France fell into the hands first of the regent, the duke of Orl eans, whose good intentions were thwarted by his drunken and immoral behavior, and later of Cardinal Fleury (floo-REE), the king’s minister. France pulled back from foreign adventures while commerce and trade expanded and the government promoted the growth of industry, especially in coal and textiles. The budget was even balanced for a while. When Fleury died in 1743, Louis XV (1715–1774) decided to rule alone. But Louis was both lazy and weak, and ministers and mistresses soon began to influence the king, control the affairs of state, and undermine the prestige of the monarchy. One mistress—probably the most famous of eighteenth-century Europe—was Madame de Pompadour (ma-DAM duh POM-puh-door). An intelligent and beautiful woman, she charmed Louis XV and gained both wealth and power, often making important government decisions and giving advice on appointments and foreign policy. The loss of an empire in the Seven Years’ War, accompanied by burdensome taxes, an ever-mounting public debt, more hungry people, and a court life at Versailles that remained frivolou
s and carefree, forced even Louis to recognize the growing disgust with his monarchy.
Perhaps all might not have been in vain if Louis had been succeeded by a competent king. But the new king, Louis’s twenty-year-old grandson who became Louis XVI (1774–1792), knew little about the operations of the French government and lacked the energy to deal decisively with state affairs. His wife, Marie Antoinette (ma-REE ahn-twahn-NET), was a spoiled Austrian princess who devoted much of her time to court intrigues (see the Film & History feature). As France’s financial crises worsened, neither Louis nor his queen seemed able to fathom the depths of despair and discontent that soon led to violent revolution (see Chapter 19).
GREAT BRITAIN: KING AND PARLIAMENT The success of the Glorious Revolution in England had prevented absolutism without clearly inaugurating constitutional monarchy. The eighteenth-century British political system was characterized by a sharing of power between king and Parliament, with Parliament gradually gaining the upper hand. (The United Kingdom of Great Britain came into existence in 1707 when the governments of England and Scotland were united; the term British came to refer to both English and Scots.) The king chose ministers responsible to himself who set policy and guided Parliament; Parliament had the power to make laws, levy taxes, pass the budget, and indirectly influence the king’s ministers. The eighteenth-century British Parliament was dominated by a landed aristocracy that historians usually divide into two groups: the peers, who sat for life in the House of Lords, and the landed gentry, who sat in the House of Commons and served as justices of the peace in the counties. The two groups had much in common: both were landowners with similar economic interests, and they frequently intermarried.
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