A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

128 Ch. 4 • The Wars of Religion

the resistance of the French
clergy, established royal
control over ecclesiastical
appointments. Many more
royal officials now repre­
sented and enforced the royal
will in the provinces than
ever before. One sign of the
growing power of the monar­
chy was that nobles lost some
privileges of local jurisdic­
tion to the royal law courts.
Francis confirmed and
enhanced Paris’s identity as
the seat and emerging sym­
bol of royal power. The sale
of offices originated in the
king’s desire for the alle­
giance of nobles and for the
King Francis 1 of France, looking very regal and revenue they could provide
proud of his increased authority, despite not the monarchy. His succes­
being painted wearing his crown. sors would depend increas­
ingly on the sale of offices
and titles for raising revenue. Finding nobles unwilling to provide all the
funds the king desired, the monarchy, in turn, put the squeeze on peas­
ants, extracting more resources through taxation.
The political and religious crises in the middle decades of the sixteenth
century threatened monarchical stability in France. They pushed the coun­
try into a period of chaos brought by the lengthy, savage war of religion
during which the four Valois kings who succeeded Francis I proved unable
to rule effectively.

Economic Crisis

The end of a period of economic expansion provided a backdrop for the po­

litical and religious struggles of the French monarchy. The population of

France had risen rapidly between the late fifteenth century and about 1570,

reversing the decline in population resulting from plagues and natural disas­

ters in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Land under cultivation

increased, particularly near the Mediterranean, where landowners planted

olive trees on hills and terraces. But by 1570, the increase in cultivable land

slowed down in much of France. The European population, which had risen

to about 100 million people during the sixteenth century, outstripped avail­

able resources. Prices rose rapidly in France, as in most of Europe, pushed

upward relentlessly by population increase. Beginning in the late 1550s, the