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

Characterizing Absolute Rule 247

feudalism disappeared in Western Europe, it became more prevalent in the
East as lords dispossessed peasants from their land and the latter became
serfs. The economic crises of the seventeenth century, including the Thirty
Years’ War and the decline in Western demand for grain imported from the
East because of increased production in the West, only made conditions of
life harder for serfs.

In the Ottoman Empire, absolutism was even more despotic. All lands
were considered the sultan’s private imperial possessions. He granted
landed estates to those who served him, but because the sultan recognized
no rights of property, no hereditary nobility could develop to challenge his
authority. No representative institutions existed. Towns in the overwhelm­
ingly rural empire had neither autonomy nor rights.

Expanding State Structures

Absolute monarchs extended their authority within their territories by
expanding the structure of the state. The Renaissance city-states of Italy had
created relatively efficient civil administrations and had set up the first per­
manent diplomatic corps. During the seventeenth century, the apparatus of
administration, taxation, and military conscription gradually became part of
the structure of the absolute states, which were increasingly centralized.
The result was that in Europe as a whole, the number of government offi­
cials grew about fourfold. To fill the most prestigious offices, monarchs
chose nobles for their influence more than for their competence. But some
absolute rulers also began to employ commoners as officials to collect vital
information—for example, to project revenues or to anticipate the number
of soldiers available for war.
One result of these expanding ranks of officials was the tripling of tax rev­
enues between 1520 and 1670 in France and Spain, and in England as well.
To raise money, absolute rulers sold monopolies (which permitted only the
holder of the monopoly to produce and sell particular goods) on the produc­
tion and sale of salt, tobacco, and other commodities, and imposed taxes on
trading towns. The rulers of France, Spain, and Austria also filled the state
coffers by selling hereditary offices. James I of England doubled the number
of knights during the first four months of his reign. Queen Christina of Swe­
den doubled the number of noble families in ten years. In addition, as royal
power and prestige rose, the monarchs more easily found wealthy families
to loan them money, usually in exchange for tax exemptions, titles, or other
privileges.

Absolutism and Warfare

The regular collection of taxes and the expansion of sources of revenue

increased the capacity of absolute rulers to maintain standing armies and

fortifications, and to wage war. Absolute states were characterized by the