Commercial Revolution

As the World Turns

or

Day in the lives of Europeans of the 1600’s

Time of Confusion and FluxWhy????

Put on a time line: Tension mount as secular issues seem to take over

• Reformation: 95 thesis, Burning of Papal Bull, Peasant Rebellion, Henry’s act of supremacy, Calvin in Geneva, Peace of Augsburg

• Catholic Response: Council of Trent, Jesuits

• Philip’s Crusade: War against Netherlands, War against Moslems, War against England

• War of 3 Henry’s, St Bartholomew’s Day Mass., Henry Guise and Henry III Valois are murdered, Henry IV Bourbon takes over, Paris, Edict of Nantes, Henry IV killed,

• Thirty years War: Start 1618 , 4 phrases, Treaty of Westphalia

Themes to help you make connections

• Religious wars ended with Treaty of Westphalia• Increasingly secular issues drive national rivalries: dynastic

rivalries, economics• Domestic scene: struggle between new monarchy, old landed

aristocracy, new nobility and new dynamic middle class– Strangely the new monarchy wants to consolidate his power, centralize it

and uses absolutism as a method against the landed aristocracy who wants to keep their old powers from the medieval period

Commercial Revolution

• Transformation of the economy of Europe from agrarian and rural to commercial, industrial and urban based

Occurred over a long period of time—17th century or 1600’s at the same time as the last of the religious wars and the rise of absolutism

Commercial Revolution• Starts with the explorations• Leads to increase in world trade and new

goods: shift of economic power from the Mediterranean sea to the Atlantic

• Influx of gold leads to inflation but increase in population causes demand to increase pushing up prices.

• Hurts the Aristocracy: income from land, fixed, hard to find new sources, enclosed their lands, forces tenets off land, population shifts

• Growing significance of Middle class: new entrepreneurs, independent of the guilds, capitalists, expansion of commercial interests

• Middle class befriended the monarchy• Other social effects; slavery, migration

overseas, spread of European culture• Need for colonies: outlet for population,

raw materials, revenue for the king, leads to trade wars, conflicts on the continent spread to the colonies (world wars)

• Charters: monarchy issued monopolies to charter companies that were owned by stock holders who wanted a profit.

• Domestic system or putting out system or cottage system

• Mercantilism or Bullionism• Price revolution: slow gradual rise in

prices, debasing of currency, flow of gold new world, rise of capitalism, new trade in commodities and luxuries

• Labor force separate from ownership unlike the earlier guilds,

• Tariff walls, and subsidized exports

Rural Peasants

• Small yeoman or independent farmer

• Peasants: sharecroppers etc.

Aristocracy

• Noblese de sword: or old aristocrcy

• Noblese de robe: or new nobility

• Used enclosure to cope with loss of income due to inflation and set rents

Bourgeoise or Middle class

• Haute bourgeoise vs. petite bourgeoise

• Urban

• Professionals allies of the new monarchy

• Increased dynamically in 1600 due to commerce—money economy

Lower classes in urban areas

• Unskilled uneducated urban poor

• Wage earners: day workers

Impact of the Commercal Revolution

• Price revolution: inflation • Changing trade practices and institutions:

capitalism, Joint stock companies, entrpreneurship, charters, Mercantialism, banking, insurance industry, new commodities etc.

• Leads to new social patterns and interaction• Affects on education• Affects on agriculture: enclosure, rural poor,

new crops, life expectancy

Economic changes impact the social scene

look at Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Chardin, Rembrandt,

Hals, Leyster, Vermeer• Food• Dress• Homes• Furniture• Leisure time activities• Manners• Education and language• Health

Social Changes with the reformation

• Luther stressed:– Importance of education for both men

and women– Changing role for women: wife mother

and partner in business– New divorce laws– Later marriages: men late 20’s , women early 20’s– Nuclear family not extended family

• Calvin– Elect– Importance of education– Intolerance– Theocracy– Morality legislated by the church

Other gender issues

• Frequent remarriages for men

• Increase in premarital sex

• Increase in #illegitimate children

• Wet nurses for elite ranks

• Children 8 to 13 apprenticeships, school, domestic servants

William Hogarth

• English• Commentary on

–social–Economic –political life in late 17th

century

arrested

Apprehended

Artists

Bedlam

Beer Alley

Gin Alley

Convassing the voters

House of Commons

Enraged

• Party

Foundlings

Funeral

Gaming

Heir from Rakes Progress

The Heir Marries

Operas

Prison

Spinners

Looms Pre industrial England

Tavern

Toilet

Enraged

Ancien RegimeOld Regime

1600’s and 1700’s

Prior to French Revolution

CharacteristicsAristocratic elite: old legal

privileges, tax exempt, political privileges, socially

eliteUrban centers : guilds

declining, new middle class trying to show economic

status , wants to be accepted with elite

Rural Peasants high taxes and feudal dues

Importance of

Tradition

Hierarchy and Privilege very

visible

• Boucher

Chardin

Gainsborough