Characterizing Absolute Rule 249expansion of the Royal Navy. The crown’s reputation for repayment facili
tated raising money through loans at home and abroad. Amsterdam’s stature
as a great banking center contributed to the ability of the Dutch government
to fight extended wars. In contrast, the French monarchy lacked the confi
dence of wary investors, and despite the sale of privileges found itself in an
increasingly perilous financial situation. Moreover, the French monarchy
often had to pay higher rates of interest than private investors because it was
a bad credit risk.
Even in peacetime, military expenditures now took up almost half of the
budget of the European state. In times of war, the percentage rose to 80 per
cent, or even more. By the end of the sixteenth century, Philip II of Spain
had allocated three-quarters of state expenditures to pay for past wars or to
wage new ones. Appropriately enough, the bureau in Prussia that a century
later would oversee tax collection itself evolved from the General War
Office, making explicit the close connection between the extraction of state
revenue and the waging of dynastic wars. Inevitably, there came a point even
in absolute states when noble and other wealthy families upon which
monarchies depended for financial support began to grumble.
Absolutism and Religion
An alliance with established churches helped monarchs achieve and
maintain absolute rule. Absolute monarchs lent their authority and pres
tige to the established churches, the support of which, in turn, seemed to
legitimize absolute monarchical power. In Catholic states in particular,
the Church’s quest for uniformity of belief and practice went hand in
hand with the absolutist monarch’s desire to eliminate challenges to his
authority. The Church helped create an image of the king as a sacred fig
ure who must be obeyed because he served God’s interests on earth. In
turn, absolute monarchs obliged the Church by persecuting religious
minorities.
Absolute rulers also reduced ecclesiastical autonomy in their realms. The
Catholic Church lost authority to their absolute monarchs. Yet the Church
owned as much as two-thirds of the land in Portugal, at least one-tenth of
the land in Spain, Austria, and France, half the land in Bavaria and Flanders,
and considerable holdings in every Italian state. Moreover, the Church
claimed the right to the tithe, the tax of 10 percent on annual resources. But
absolute monarchs maintained authority over ecclesiastical appointments,
in effect creating national churches, much to the consternation of the
papacy in Rome. Signs of the victory of absolute rulers over the Catholic
Church included eliminating the Inquisition in France and Spain, closing
monasteries and expelling religious orders in France and Austria, assuming
control over censorship, reducing ecclesiastical authority over marriage, and
establishing the principle of state supervision over education.