(^82) › STEP 4. Review the Knowledge You Need to Score High
✪^ The Commonwealth (1649–1660) The period during which England was ruled
without a monarch, following the victory of the Parliamentary forces in the
English Civil War and the subsequent execution of King Charles I.
✪^ Constitutional monarchy A theory of government that contends that a right-
ful ruler’s power is limited by an agreement with his or her subjects.
✪^ Intendent An administrative bureaucrat in absolutist France of the seven-
teenth century, usually chosen from the middle class, who owed his position
and, therefore, his loyalty directly to the state.
✪^ Edict of Nantes (1598) Decree by King Henry IV of France granting Protes-
tants religious tolerance and marking the end of France’s Religious Wars.
Revoked in 1685.
Key Individuals:
✪^ James I (England)
✪^ Peter the Great (Russia)
✪^ Catherine the Great (Russia)
✪^ Philip II, III, and IV (Spain)
Introduction
In the first half of the seventeenth century, the traditional hierarchical structure of European
society came under new pressures. This structure was one in which a large class of poor
agricultural laborers (the peasantry) supported a small and wealthy class of elites (the nobil-
ity). As the monarchs of Europe fought wars to expand their kingdoms and created larger
state bureaucracies to manage them, the pressure to raise greater sums of money through
taxes stretched the economies and social structures of European societies to the breaking
point. Meanwhile, a continuous increase in trade and in the diversification of the economy
was creating a new class of people: a middle class made up of merchants and professionals,
which did not fit comfortably into the traditional hierarchy.Economic Stress and Change
The first half of the 1600s was characterized by an economic contraction, precipitated by
a variety of factors. At the same time as new European nations began Atlantic exploration,
colonization, and trade, the amount of silver extracted from Spanish mines in the Americas
declined. This drop-off in the silver trade, coupled with a shift away from Mediterranean
trade routes toward the Atlantic, resulted in both Italy and Spain becoming less economi-
cally dominant.
A series of unusually harsh winters that characterized the “little ice age” of the 1600s
led to a series of poor harvests, which, in turn, led to malnutrition and disease. In an effort
to cope with increasing poverty, members of the besieged agricultural class opted to have
smaller families. While the smaller family unit would, over time, contribute to a higher
standard of living, this adjustment took time. The immediate impact of the combination of
famine, poverty, and disease was a significant decrease in the population during this period.
The problems of the European peasantry were exacerbated during this period by increas-
ing demands from the nobility that ruled them. As warfare and military might becameKEY IDEA13_Bartolini_Ch13_081-088.indd 82 27/04/18 1:54 PM