Q- Analyse the causes of the 17th century crisis in Europe

Q- Discuss the various issues involved in the 17th century crisis

Q- Do you think that the 17th century crisis touched every aspect of the life of
Europe? Comment.
Q- Critically examine the different dimensions of the 17th century European
crisis.
Q- Analyse the nature of the 17th century crisis in Europe.
Q- Do you agree with the view that the 17th century was a period of total
crisis in Europe?
Introduction
Centuries are conveniently employed as units of periodization. Such a division
of time implies that each century possess a physiognomy of its own. Similarly, a
crisis followed the 17th century Europe which has been an undisputed fact
among the historians who are occupied with early modern Europe. It has
become the hallmark of the seventeenth century in the same way renaissance
and the reformation characterize the sixteenth century and the enlightenment
and the revolution in the eighteenth century. But whether it was a crisis at all
or simply a continuation of normality?
‘The facts themselves may be interesting, but hardly useful. It is the study of
causes that makes history fruitful’- Polybius
Thus, in the following paragraphs, an attempt is made to look at the causes
that led to the crisis of the 17th century Europe. Considering that, we’ll also be
examining the debate that have revolved around the period with bunch of
historians and scholars providing a critical analysis of the same.
Demographic changes
The sixteenth century witnessed a spectacular growth in European population,
a reverse of which was seen in the 17th century. But this too was not even for
the whole Europe. On one hand Spain experienced depopulation (50% from
castile was gone) with France being relatively stable and on the other hand a
fast growth of population was seen in England though the rate of growth got
compromised for a century.
Robert Malthus along with M.M. Postan based their theory on demographic
crisis. R. Malthus had argued that in a natural economy, population has a
natural growth rate and increases geometrically whereas the natural resources
necessary to support that population grows arithmetically. This results in a
crisis till it is resolved with a loss of population
But for Peter Kriedte, the demographic decline was a reflection of both
Malthusian and social crisis which created long-term consequences on family
life and birth patterns, creating food shortages for the population. For example,
in Colyton in England, the average marriage age of women rose. This was
caused by a control mechanism designed to prevent a further increase in the
gap between the size of the population and the availability of food. This
becomes evident from the accounts of Moncado who uses marriage registers
as a source.
Monetary crisis
Some historians stress the role of money supply in effecting economic changes.
Scholars like Earl Hamilton and Pierre Chaunu points to the frequent
debasement of coinage throughout the Europe as a manifestation of a chronic
shortage of currency which was temporarily solved by the Spain’s silver imports
from the New world but the quantity started to decline resulting in the
monetary chaos.
Commenting on the nature of the crisis, Jan de Vries questions the role of
monetary factors in the long run. He does not subscribe to the view that the
economy of Europe has anything to do with the flow of metals from the New
World. Evaraert and Morineau have challenged Hamilton’s data. They argue
that the silver coming from America did not stay in Europe for long and it was
taken away to the east via the Levant to India and China.
Agrarian crisis
Agriculture was another hard hit as a result of declining population and capital
being tied to land. In the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, the
expansion of the marketable agricultural surplus was lagging behind that of
non-agricultural consumption.
On one hand, in the developed countries, notably in the Low Countries and
England, signs of agricultural revolution had long been visible. And on the other
hand, Peter Kriedte cites some data showing the decline in the grain prices in
France from 100% in 1620s to 50% in 1680s.
As far as France is concerned, agrarian decline was not substantial but here
agriculture was coming under increasing pressure from above. Apart from the
central authority, Jan de Vries argues that the maximum exploitation of the
peasantry was done by the nobility through their agents and lawyers to
increase their incomes as agricultural reorganization was ruled out by the
policies of the absolute monarchs.
This absolute control led to what Boris Porchnev have argued about is the
peasant troubles that demonstrated the agrarian system had outlived the limits
of feudalism leading to a crisis but several parts of north-western Europe,
including England, the Netherlands and certain parts of northern France,
experienced significant agricultural growth.
Climatic factors
There is a good deal of evidence that one of the main roots of the economic
problems which affected Europe in the early 1600s was some kind of climatic
change. An interesting explanation has been provided by the scholars of
Annales School emphasizing the role of climatic factors calling it ‘Maunder
Minimum’, which it considers responsible for the agrarian and demographic
shifts.
Geoffrey Parker discuses the role of astronomical studies in locating the non-
human causes of the crisis. Some historians, basing their arguments on the
works of scientists such as John Eddy of America, Cassini of France and
Hevelius of Poland, described the period as ‘the Little Ice Age.’ In this regard
some observations were made where the carbon content from the atmosphere
was seen increasing with a sharp decline in the sun’s spots and in the northern
lights too.
All these evidences, whether gathered by historians or meteorologists or solar
physicists, indicate a period of greater extremes of weather. This resulted in
crop failure and high grain prices, which were followed by a sharp fall in prices
of food grain, heavy taxation, epidemics and bad weather.
Political crisis
Trevor-Roper’s ‘general crisis’ theory have also interpreted that the crisis of
17th century not merely a constitutional crisis or crisis of economic production,
but a crisis in the expansion, and wastefulness of a parasitic state apparatus in
the size and cost of the court on one hand and the society on the other.
Historians such as N. Steensgaard, I. Schoffer and J.H. Elliott have emphasized
on how government tried to increase its income by introducing new sources of
revenue which included many forms of taxation such as ship money in England,
taille and aides in France and alcabala in Spain.
J.H. Elliott has been a strong critique of the theory of political crisis. According
to him, the essential difficulties of Spain were not a dislike by the society of an
overloaded court but was more in the nature of a struggle between the
periphery provinces and the royal authority at the centre.
Steensgaard also rejects Trevor-Roper’s court-country concept as having no
European validity and considers the crisis the outcome of a dynamic
absolutism, which with its taxation policy, ignored customary laws and posed a
threat to the traditional social balance. Schoffer too preferred terms like
‘stabilization’ and ‘shift’ rather than ‘crisis.’
Economic crisis
The survey of the most important economic sectors indicates that the
seventeenth-century crisis was not a universal retrogression, but that it hit the
various sectors at different times and to a different extent. Economy was hard
hit not just by climatic conditions or in population pressure but also in the
inability of the population to buy the staple corn and their inability to survive.
For example, many historians, taking up the case of the textile production
believes that Italian cloth virtually disappeared from the export market in the
17th century. The rural as well as urban expansion of the previous century of
the Flemish wool industry also went into long-term contraction. Many of the
French textile centres, such as Amiens, Reims, Rouen, also declined, and even
Beauvais stagnated.
However, the situation was not the same in Holland and England, where the
textile industry had reached a phase of distinct growth with the introduction of
draperies. As a result, Leiden emerged as one of the most important centres of
the industrial production in Europe.
This has led to the historians such as J.H. Elliott, J.I. Israel, Aston, Domenico
Sella and Braudel, emphasize that this period was not one of complete
economic regression, as suggested by E.J. Hobsbawm, but only of regional
decline. To Hobsbawm, the crisis revealed Europe’s failure to overcome the
obstacles created by the feudal structure to reach the stage of capitalism. On
the other hand, the Marxist writings as that of Chritopher Hill view the crisis as
the crisis of production.
Conclusion
Numerous empirical and theoretical aspects of the seventeenth-century crisis
therefore remain subject to debate. Moreover, neither Hobsbawm's Marxist
teleological stage theory of economic development nor Trevor-Roper's
court/country distinction, command much assent today. But the concept
widely continues to stimulate new research and new explanations of existing
data. As a result, the outlines of a new interpretation are beginning to appear.
It emphasizes continuities--for example, the acceleration of previously initiated
regional differentiation, agrarian specialization, commercialization, and
ruralisation of industry. And while contributing to the role it played in changing
the path of history or as some scholars suggests being a ‘catalyst’ in bringing
the pre-industrial era it thereby contributes to a more discriminating
understanding of both the significance of the seventeenth century and the
nature of crisis in the early modern world.