The emergence of modern Europe, 1500–1648 Economy and society The 16th century was a period of vigorous economic expansion. This expansion in turn played a major role in the many other transformations—social, political, and cultural—of the early modern age.
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Economy and society The 16th century was a period of vigorous economic expansion. This expansion in turn played a major role in the many other transformations—social, political, and cultural—of the early modern age. By 1500 the population in most areas of Europe was increasing after two centuries of decline or stagnation.
On the whole, most of Europe had made good the population losses by the early decades of the sixteenth century, and was able to sustain a slow but steady growth for the next hundred years.
Two examples of the changes brought by population growth to the economic life of Europe can be cited. The first was the increased pressure on land and foodstuffs, which combined with the influx of American bullion into Europe to create the Price Rise.
Culturally, new values—many of them associated with the Renaissance and Reformation—diffused through Europe and changed the ways in which people acted and the perspectives by which they viewed themselves and the world. This world of early capitalism, however, can hardly be regarded as stable or uniformly prosperous.
By 1500 the population in most areas of Europe was increasing after two centuries of decline or stagnation. The bonds of commerce within Europe tightened, and the “wheels of commerce” (in the phrase of the 20th-century French historian Fernand Braudel) spun ever faster.
The end date of the early modern period is variously associated with the Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain in about 1750, or the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, which drastically transformed the state of European politics and ushered in the Napoleonic Era and modern Europe.
Commerce in the New World The philosophy of mercantilism shaped European perceptions of wealth from the 1500s to the late 1700s. Mercantilism held that only a limited amount of wealth, as measured in gold and silver bullion, existed in the world.
During the 1800s, some Western European nations industrialized. This means they changed from an agricultural society to one based on industry. Cities grew as people moved from the countryside to work in factories. At the same time, some Europeans began to feel strong loyalty to their country.
1800s, Age of RevolutionsBritain emerges as dominant nation.Napoleon Bonaparte's Consulate and Directory.French Bourbon Restoration.Rise of Nationalism.French Revolution of 1830, as a result of the July Ordinances and ending with the July Monarchy of Louis Philippe.More items...
Which of the following was a feature of the modern era in the centuries after 1500? Technological innovation began a period of rapid growth beginning in 1500.
Why did European economies grow during the 1500s? The large supply of resources from the Americas led to an increase in trade. What was the transatlantic slave trade? Europeans enslaved African people and brought them to American colonies to work.
The economic revolution spurred the growth of towns and the rise of a class of merchants who controlled great wealth. While towns and cities grew in size, much of Europe's population continued to live in rural areas. Although merchants and traders enjoyed social mobility, the majority of Europeans remained poor.
During the Renaissance, the European economy grew dramatically, particularly in the area of trade. Developments such as population growth, improvements in banking, expanding trade routes, and new manufacturing systems led to an overall increase in commercial activity.
In the late 1800's, economic, political and religious motives prompted European nations to expand their rule over other regions with the goal to make the empire bigger. The Industrial Revolution of the 1800's created a need for natural resources to fuel the newly invented machinery and transportation.
The invention and first use of technology from the 1800's is also integral to our lives today. Steam locomotives, the battery, photography, sewing machines, pasteurization, dynamite, the telephone, first practical car using internal-combustion engine and Coca Cola are just a few examples.
During the 18th century, elements of Enlightenment thinking culminated in the American, French, and Haitian revolutions. This was an age of violent slave trading, and global human trafficking.
The 16th century was a period of vigorous economic expansion. This expansion in turn played a major role in the many other transformations—social, political, and cultural—of the early modern age.
Financial crashes were common; the Spanish crown, the heaviest borrower in Europe, suffered repeated bankruptcies (in 1557, 1575–77, 1596, 1607, 1627, and 1647). The poor and destitute in society became, if not more numerous, at least more visible.
Merchants, entrepreneurs, and bankers accumulated and manipulated capital in unprecedented volume. Most historians locate in the 16th century the beginning, or at least the maturing, of Western capitalism.
The foremost conflict of the Late Enlightenment (along with the American and French Revolutions) was the Seven Years' War(1 756-63), which involved most of Europe. Fighting took place both in Europeitself and throughout the world, between the European empires.
The Reformation can be divided into two parts: a period of escalating conflictbetween Protestants and Roman Catholics (ca. 1500-1618) and the Thirty Years' War(ca. 1618-48) . The primary strugglesof the "escalating conflict" period were the Italian Wars and the Dutch Revolt, both of which lasted decades.
The success of the Reformation led to the Enlightenment, during which humanism reached its fully-developed form (see Enlightenment). The full spectrum of secular subjectswere eagerly explored, and all fields of knowledge were, at last, constantly tested with critical thought.
The Early Modern age can be divided into two periods: the Reformation(ca. 1500-1650; see Reformation) and the Enlightenment(ca. 1650-1800; see Enlightenment). The period can also be divided into two narratives: the history of the continentitself (the focus of this article), and the history of the overseas empiresamassed by European powers ...
Under the feudal system, monarchs ruled their lands indirectly via hierarchies of nobility (see Feudalism and Serfdom), whereas an absolutistmonarch directly rules an entire state, relatively free of interference from lesser nobles.
In Western Europe, countries only began to emerge toward the end of the medieval period, as monarchs finally managed to achieve firm centralized controlover large regions. During the Reformation, the power of monarchs continued to grow, while the power of local nobles continued to decline.
The vast economic and territorial expansionof the Early Modern age was a force for both good and ill. On the negative side, the scale of warbetween Western powers (in terms of troops, resources, and geographic extent) grew steadily.
The European total, 81.8 m. in 1500, had reached 104.7 m. by 1600. 4 The most obvious changes occurred in the population of the cities. In 1500 only five urban centres had 100,000 or more inhabitants: Constantinople, Naples, Venice, Milan and Paris. By 1600 the number probably stood at thirteen, while Milan now had 180,000 inhabitants ...
Spain in the sixteenth century was a major European power partly because she had a healthy rate of population growth, while her decline in the seventeenth century was undoubtedly connected with a serious population contraction due largely to plague.
The most beneficial change was undoubtedly the gradual disappearance of the plague in Western Europe, although it continued as an unwelcome visitor in Poland and Russia. Several reasons have been advanced for the decline of this menace. One is that the black rat was gradually replaced after 1600 by the brown rat.
The seventeenth century experienced, in more intensive form than the sixteenth, the three major checks on population growth: plague, war and famine.
Prussia had the similar disadvantage of a small total population, but the Hohenzollern dynasty managed to remedy this and make Prussia a major power in the eighteenth century by developing a bureaucracy geared to maintaining the army. Prussian militarism was, therefore, partly the outcome of a population deficiency.
The main reason was probably an increase in fertility (the number of births), and a less savage rate of mortality , for which the following explanation is usually given.
In acting as middlemen, bringing grain from the surplus–producing areas of Northern Europe to the needy states of the Mediterranean, the Dutch established themselves as Europe's major traders, building up a merchant fleet which was larger than those of all other European countries combined.
Enlightenment contributions to natural philosophy, and the ‘arts and sciences’; the Enlightenment ‘science of man’, as pursued in philosophy and political economy; writing sacred, civil and natural history in the Enlightenment; women, gender and Enlightenment. Participants will also be encouraged to attend the research-oriented Enlightenment ...
Throughout the degree, students work towards a dissertation. Recent topics have included: 1 The effects of the English Reformation on socio-economic relations in early modern England 2 Academic life of Moscow University in the eighteenth century 3 Levels of female involvement within the sixteenth-century commercial environment in England 4 The growth of the professional diplomat in the long sixteenth century: an Eastern Mediterranean perspective 5 Sex and Subcultures in Arts Clubs and Societies in London in the 18th Century 6 Pauper petitions and survival strategies in 17th-century England 7 'Ragged, and Torne, and True': Conceptions and Depictions of Poverty in England and the Netherlands, 1500-1650 8 The Suffering Christ: piety and identity in print and prayer, 1450-1550 9 Performance of the Condemned: Newgate 1676-1772 10 Doubt and Conscience in the life and writings of Thomas More
Class topics will include: the military-fiscal state. clientage and faction. confessionalisation. justice and the law. government, economy and social change. household order. communication, propaganda and magnificence. communication, representation and revolt.
In recent decades the political history of early modern Europe has re-invented itself in dialogue with social, economic and cultural history. Analyses of state formation and political culture have aspired to replace biographies of statesmen, narratives of party struggle and genealogies ...
The Dawn of the Global World, 1450-1800 : Ideas, Objects, Connections. The ‘globalization’ of history has been the most visible and significant development in historical scholarship of the past decade or so.
As part of the Skills component of the course, you will be able to learn a language - such as French, German, Italian, Spanish and many more. You can take dedicated Languages for Historians classes, specifically targeted to the needs of history scholars.
The Enlightenment, c. 1680-1800: Ideas and the Public Sphere. This option offers the opportunity to engage with a range of exciting new scholarship on the Enlightenment, covering the period from the second half of the seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth century.