The Social Structure
Nobility – composed of the monarchs, nobles, and church members. They are very wealthy and make up a small percent of the population. They can impose taxes, skip out on taxes, make decisions, and live the life of an intelligent snob, not to mention they have legal advantages too.
Bourgeoisie – created the gentry class. They are the middle classmen/merchants that hit jackpot and now have money. They have influences on the nobility and trade but it’s not their job to meddle in politics. They have to pay taxes. They can amp up status by marrying their daughters to nobility, which was actually quite easy because of their large dowries.
Middle Class – composed of merchants, shop owners, and people that occupy the lower positions of the church and government. They have to pay taxes, but there’s a lot of social mobility in this class. So Merchant B can easily make it big in horseshoe making and become Lord Merchant B the First. These people can usually get a fair education.
Peasants and Laborers – They had to pay the most taxes and exploited by everyone. They are the farmers and miners and lumberjacks. I think they made up the majority of the population. And due to how miserable their lives were, there were lots of rebellions toward the bourgeoisie and nobility. Blood gets spilled and everyone yells, “yahoo!”
Women – their status depended on their class, aka their family status rather than their gender. So to give an example, a wealthy woman is higher than a poor man. But their status within the family also grew a bit, especially in the middle class. People are now marrying later in life due to the fact that they have to save up for dowries and money. A couple must already be successful and have a place to move into.
Slaves – there was a brief decline on slavery thanks to the Atlantic slave trade.
Economy
During this time, the Netherlands really kicked off. The process is this; the rest of Europe produces raw materials like wood and cloth. They sell it to the Netherlands for a cheap price. Now consider this, the Netherlands don’t really have a lot of natural resources, so to survive, they must rely on textiles and manufacturing. So the Netherlands finish the product there and sell it back to Europe for a higher price because it’s finished. Clever? I think so.
They controlled half the world’s trade at the time, 80% of the north. Banks and real estate was all over the place. They also invented the flyboat, a large and expensive cargo ship. The Dutch put their joint-stock-companies, stock exchanges, and insurance companies to good use.
Meddling with Religion…
King Charles V inherits the throne of Spain and Austria. Seeing the vast resources before him, he decides to unite Europe and push the Ottoman Turks (who were Muslim) back. They did push them back but didn’t defeat them. Another disappointment was that his efforts to unify Europe as under the Catholic Church failed so miserably, Hollywood should make a movie out of it.
This led to the Peace of Augsburg, a treaty that recognized the princes’ right to choose the religion their state would be converted to.
… and Politics
Another thing Charles made a fuss about was the Parliament. For eleven years of tax meddling, he did not summon the Parliament once. After a rebellion on Scotland, he was forced to summon the Parliament on new taxes. Before they did so, the Parliament wanted Charles to guarantee he won’t ignore the Parliament again. Charles refused and thus triggered the English Civil War.
I was just feeling some sympathy for this guy, and he pulls off something like this. Sometimes, I just lose faith in humanity. Sigh.
Charles lost the war and was given a second chance to agree to the Parliament’s terms. He refused and was execute. Good for you Charlie.
When the following two kings, Cromwell and James II, also refused to agree to the Parliament’s terms, they snapped. The Parliament exiled James II. Then they took a sheet of parchment out and wrote their regulations, which the king MUST call them to chance any law, taxes, and war. It also reaffirmed the status of the Church of England but extended religious tolerance to Puritans as well. That sheet of paper became what we now know as the Bill of Rights of 1688. Well done, Parliament, well done.
In France, a similar battle was happening. To solve this, King Louis XIV built an enormous, beautiful palace at Versailles. He hosted parties and housed nobles to distract them from plotting whatever rebellion they were thinking of. To my dismay surprise, it worked quite well.
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