Sanjib Kalita

BA(H)History, 2 Year nd

Rollno – 21816108

Question – Discuss the crisis of Europe in the 17th century.

Answer -
The term crisis brings different meanings to the mind when considered. Coombs.T. defines crisis
as a significant threat to operations that can have negative consequences if not handled properly.
A crisis, by definition, is ideally suited to explaining a transition. A crisis must first arise out of
some kind of a steady state which is made acute in a moment of critical decision, all of which is
followed by a resolution to a new steady state.
Crisis is an unexpected event that causes stress to the institution’s community or some part of the
community. A crisis disrupts the institutions normal operation, requires immediate response and
follow-up action once the response is completed.
th
This paper is an attempt to understand the crisis of Europe in the 17 century. This is divided into
three broad sections – i) Decline of Spain and Italy ii) The crisis debate iii) Impact of the crisis.
These sections are divided in order to understand the different aspects of the crisis.
th
In 16 century, an attempt was made in Europe to enter the age of modern economy by breaking
the barriers of medieval structures but it did not succeed. Entire growth has taken place with in
the old mould. After 1600, the commercial as well as industrial sectors began to lose their
influence because lack of support of agriculture.
The early seventeenth century in Europe has often been regarded as a period during which a
single general crisis afflicted the entire continent to some degree, affecting the economy,
demography and the political stability of most countries. During this period, some parts of
Europe experienced decelerated growth, some stagnated and in several parts economy witnessed
a steady decline. Many parts experienced uprisings, major conflicts, wars, and breakdown of
political orders.
Decline of Spain
One of the most striking phenomena of the early modern period was the rise and then the decline
of Spain between the late fifteenth and the late seventeenth centuries. Spain's rise to be a
European and global power began with the marriage (1469) of queen Isabel of Castile (1474–
1504) and king Ferdinand of Aragon (1479–1516), whose realm included Aragon proper,
Valencia and Catalonia. They not only united "Spain" by bringing together, very loosely, these
disparate territories, but they also conquered the last Islamic realm (Granada) in Iberia, supported
Columbus' Atlantic voyages, and extended Spanish dominion in north Africa and Italy.
th
With her territorial empire and her formidable force, Spain dominated Europe during the 16
century. If the size of the empire was a measurement of power, then Spain appeared to be at the
th
pinnacle of glory in the 16 century. However, there were several weaknesses existed with in this
vast empire. The decline of Spain, like that of all dominant powers, was in some respects
relative, simply the other side of the coin of the emergence, or re-emergence of other powers
whose previous weakness had enabled Spain to take a lead and to rise in the first place.
J.H.Elliott suggests that the Spanish decline cannot be viewed in isolation. For him, certain
features, earlier considered spanish, can now be given a universal character. He argued that
th
decline was not a dramatic one because even in the mid-17 century Spain was the largest
military power.
Carlo M. Cipolla rejected the decline thesis, he said ‘ Spain never developed to begin with.’ At
the same time, Henry Kamen argued that early modern Spain couldnot have declined, as she had
never risen.
Regarding the period of decline, there is not any clear-cut answer, it varies with each historian.
One view is that the period of decline set in 1640s whereas the seond view sees the beginning of
decline from the 1620s. and regarding the region, many historians believe that it was actually the
decline of only a few states of Spain, not the entire region. For example, J.J.Israel argues that in
th
the state of Valencia, expansion took place in 16 century followed by stagnation and decline in
th
17 century. Kamen emphasizes that it was the decline of state of Catalonia, not the whole Spain.
Talking about the Monetary and Fiscal troubles, Earl J.Hamilton suggests that the decline of
silver import in 1620s played a major role in the decline of Spain. Supporting his argument,
Dennis O. Flynn contends that mining profits supported the Spanish Empire. And spanish society
had got addicted to the influx of American treasure and couldnot survive in its reduction.
Some historians argued that the Spanish society was responsible for the decline of Spain. They
believe that there was no substantial growth of the middle class in Spain despite a vast colonial
empire. Accoding to Jan de Vries, nowhere was the depletion of the bourgeoisie more
disastrously complete than in Spain. John Lynch argued that there were many economic factors,
th
operating against the Spanish businessman in the 16 century. The influx of precious metals were
not properly utilized nor did it promote the rise of a powerful class of businessmen and
merchants. The ambition of the prosperous merchants was to be able to join the aristocracy and
escape the heavy burden of taxation. This mentality proved ruinous for the state in the long run
as it made it economically weak.
The spanish decline can be found in the demographic loses which she suffered throughout the
th
17 century. The heavy loss of population between the 1595 and 1602 was mainly caused by
plague which killed nearly one million people. And again fresh waves of famine and epidemics
hit the state between 1647 and 1652.
There were some policies taken by the Spanish state which contributed towards its decline. John
Lynch argued that the policies of religious intolerance adopted by the monarchs to evict the Jesus
and Moors from Spain had an paralysing impact on Spanish economy. Because the Jews occuies
the important positions as officials and entrepreneurs and also possessed considerable capital. At
the same time, the Moors constituted a large segment of the artisans and agriculturists. Ralph
Davis emphasizes the expulsion of Moriscos which ruined the rice fields and sugar industries.
Whereas, E.J.Hamilton deny any major impact of such expulsion on the decline of Spain.
Jan de Vries stressed the role of the military and wartime activities and said that military
conficts, religious wars, naval expenses, and lavish expenditures of the state created serious
problems.
Some historians like Braudel, Ralph Davis, John Lynch blame the agrarian policy of the spanish
state for the decline of Spain. Braudel highlights the shortcomings of the state policy towards
agriculture. According to John Lynch, the Spanish rulers never adopted a consistent policy
th
towards the agriculturists. Ralph Davis sees the 17 century agriculture as a movement away
from corn production into export crops and of little or no overall decline. According to Jan de
Vries, the crown established control over grain prices and this discouraged production. Thus, the
government’s control of grain prices, the alliance between the crown and the aristocracy and the
th
spread of epidemics and famine discouraged peasant farming during the 17 century.
Netherland was rapidly emerging as the hub of trade and manufacturing but the growing burden
of taxation led to the friction between spain and the people of the Netherlands. The harsh
religious policy of Philip II towards the calvinists and anabaptists antagonized the townsmen. A
strong resistance developed against the spanish policy of 1564-65. This transformed into a
popular political agitation in several provinces. Northern provinces declared themselves as
independent. This fight between the Spanish forces and the people of Netherlans continued till
1609. Power came to be divided between the ‘Regent’ a group of wealthy merchants who
successfully defended the united province against the Spanish attempts to recapture lost power
right untill 1648.
The wars and expulsion of non-christian subjects created the problem of labour shortage, which
caused industrial decline. Ralph Davis argued that the woollen industry of Spain provided the
greatest example of industrial decline. Spain fell into heavy debt and unrestrained expansion of
th
bureaucratic structure and expansion of army caused a heavy burden on population in the 17
century
Decline of Italy
th
At the beginning of the 17 century, Italy was still one of the most advanced of industrial areas
of Western Europe with an exceptionally high standard of living. But, be the end of the century,
Italy became an economically backward and depressed area. Factors responsible for its decline is
much more complex as Italy was more of a geographical zone and not a politucal unit.

Urbanization and economic growth came much earlier to Italy than the other parts of Europe.
During 16th century, many of the Itlaian city states tried to regain their earlier prosperity rather
than strive for positive advancement. But the main change came mainly between 1600 and 1670
(Carlo M. Gipolla ). In these seven blavck decades the industrial structure of Italy
collapsed.
In those years, the overall population of Italy shows a downward trend. The factore responsible
for this were famines, plagues, epidemics and wars which ravaged the urban population. They
had long term repercussions on the fortunes of these cities and severely restricted economic
opportunities and caused de-urbanization. Hollen Lees and Hohenberg argued that inter-regional
changes and de-urbanization led to the shrinking of the town population and a growth of rural
demography. The demographic decline in Italy had some serious repurcussions on the urban
econmy. The merchant bankers transferred capital from Italy to the safer regions.
On the decline of Venice, Braudel presents a revisionist view on the decline of Venice.
th th
According to him, by the end of 16 century and the after the crisis of first decades of 17
century, the wealthy venetian patricians did a complete turn around, abandonning trade and
concentrating on farming instead. The focus shifted on cultivation. For Braudel, the flight away
from more risky trade to agriculture should not be seen as the sign of decline because Venice
remained the busiest port. But, this view is not tenable for rest of Europe.
The French rulers invaded Italian states and destrioyed their economies, and this was followed
by the ivasion of Spain which led to heavy lossess. Thsese conflicts contributed to the political
decline of the northern states of Italy.
th
A seies of natural calamities during the 17 cdntury also had a devastating impact on population,
trade and industry. Milan’s population declined almoast half due to the plague of 1630-31 while
in many towns the losses varied from 30 to 60 percent.
th
Northern plain of Italy was known for its intensive agriculture during the 16 century. However,
the collapse of industries and the contracting urban population, reduced demand for many
agrarian products. Declining prices, heavy taxation and the spread of plague had a negative
bearing on the economy of the northern region.
th
In southern plain of Italy, the 16 century boom in agriculture had created a class of commercial
grain farmers who thrived on loans and borrowings. They took advantage of the inflationary
situation but once the prices began to fall, their position worsened and their debts mounted.
The Crisis Debate
The political, economic, and social upheavals of the mid-seventeenth century are called a
‘General Crisis’, and debated under that rubric, in most countries. The date and intensity of this
crisis verieas from one region to another and differs with each historian.
One current has argued that the crisis was economic in origin. A second has focused on politics,
particularly the mid-century revolts and rebellions. A third current has adopted a sceptical stance
towards the very concept of a general crisis. We will discuss these currents one by one.
Economic Theories
th
Scholars present several explanations for the economic decline during the 17 century. The
economic strand of the debate, in turn, falls into three broad classes: Marxist theories, theories
stemming from price historians, and theories that locate the cause of the crisis in long-term
ecological or demographic movements.
The Marxist scholars see the crisis as the last phase of transition from the feudal to the
capitalistic economy. E.Hobsbawm opened the debate in 1954 along these lines. To Hobsbawn,
the crisis revealed Europe’s failure to overcome the obstacles created by the feudal structure to
reach the stage of capitalism. He emphasizes that the crisis of production was general in Europe
but its solution could be found only in the English bourgeois revolution of the 1640s. To him,
th
bourgeois revolution was the most decisive product of the 17 century crisis.
Following Hobsbawn, B.Porshnev saw two separate stages of class struggle. The mid-century
revolts were a ‘lower form of class struggle’ between peasants and feudal nobility, which the
nobility won by developing the central state. A ‘higher’ class struggle for control of that new
entity then followed, between bourgeoisie and feudal aristocracy.
All Marxist theories shared two basic elements: the revolts were class conflicts, and the crisis
was one of production, part of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, but there was
disagreement.
Another group of economic historians, less theoretically motivated than the Marxists,
concentrated on the evidence of price trends, diagnosing the seventeenth century as a period of
instability following the sixteenth-century ‘price revolution’. P.Chaunu focused on the evidence
of Spanish-American trade, whose final two Kondratieff cycles (the violent fluctuations of 1600–
20, and the general decline of 1620–50) he identified with the general crisis, possibly as its
cause. R.Romano broadened the focus to the whole European economy, and to agriculture rather
than trade as that economy’s largest sector. While underlying structural factors such as the
reimposition of serfdom play a role in Romano’s theory, a Keynesian demand slump is viewed as
the trigger, associated with the monetary upheavals of northern and central Europe in 1619–22.
Finally, a third group of economic theories of the crisis focused on ecological and demographic
trends. J.A.Eddy argued that the ‘Maunder minimum’, the period of low sunspot activity in the
seventeenth century, caused lower temperatures and higher precipitation, poorer and later
harvests, and a panEuropean (even world-wide) subsistence crisis. E.Le Roy Ladurie argued that
the cycles of expansion and contraction in the European economy were caused by an inescapable
Malthusian dynamic. When populations hit their production ceilings, they limited their numbers
by the ‘positive checks’ of famine, pestilence and war and the ‘preventive checks’ of late
marriage and low fertility. According to Le Roy Ladurie, Europe reached such a Malthusian
ceiling in the seventeenth century, resulting in a protracted crisis of subsistence.
Political Theories
The political theories of the crisis have as a rule been less sophisticated and less general than
those put forward by economic historians. Some valuable insights were gained, notably by the
first attempt at a political explanation, by H.R. Trevor-Roper, who argued in 1959 (against
Hobsbawm) that the mid-century revolts were not a class struggle, but political conflict between
a court faction (which benefited from the growing strength of the Renaissance state) and a
country faction (which suffered the consequences). According to him, the Renaissance
th
monarchies continued to expand in the 16 century till their cost and extravagance, their growing
bureaucracies, wars and governmental inefficiency caused an intolerable burden to the societies
that they dominated. He attributes all the rebellions to one and the same crisis that developed
through the tension between the court and the country but the solutions to these crisis were
different in different places.
J.H.Elliot criticized Trevor-Roper and said that 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. Neils Steensgaard also rejects Trevor-
Roper’s court-country concept as having no European validity and considers the crisis the
outcome of dynamic absolutism, which with its taxation policy, ignored customary laws and
posed a threat to the traditional social balance.
Several historians like R.Mousnier argued that the crisis resulted from conflict between nobility
and crown over taxes, as in France during the Fronde, while Josef Polisenský argued that it was
an international crisis confronting absolutism and parliamentarism, as in Central Europe during
the Thirty Years’ War. He suggests that the Thirty Years War was an integral part of the crisis and
reflected an aggravation and culmination of the internal contradiction in the structure of the
society.
Rejection of the notion of crisis
There are other other historians who reject the entire notion of crisis. P.Clark, J.H.Elliott,
I.Schöffer, and J.Topolski separately pointed out spates of popular revolt and political rebellion
at periods other than the 1640s: e.g., in the 1560s and 1590s.
The opponents of the theory of general crisis argue that the social or political disorders remained
specific to local conditions and these did not coalesce into brader movements. The rebels, ecept
England, didn’t challenge the legitimacy of the rulers and the main demand was the restoration
of customary norms. The local elite used these revolts for their own gains and secured
concessions from their respective rulers.
J.Topolski argued that the seventeenth century saw not a general economic crisis, but
‘consolidation’ and the beginning of regional differentiation. Others contended that the evidence
is flawed, and too regionally various to support the notion of any simultaneous or widespread
economic breakdown.
Writers like Perez Zagorin do not agree with the analysis of Hobsbawn. He argues that there is
complete absense of evidence in Hobsbawn’s argument and that he cannot demonstrate the
actuality of the ‘general crisis’ in accordance with his description of the crisis. Similarly, the
connection between the English revolution of the 1640s and the crisis in Europe is uncovincing.
John Elliot and A.D .Lublinskaya completely reject the notion of general crisis as provided bt
Hobsbawn, Treveor-Roper and Mousnier. But the debate remains inconclusive.
Impact of the crisis
The 17th century crisis brought about significant changes in Europe but its impact was far from
uniform. On the one hand it created conditions for a new phase of expansion by removing
tensions within the productive sectors and restoring balance between population and food
supplies, and on the other hand it fastened feudal grip over a sizeable population of Europe.
Demographic Terms
When considering the impact in demographic terms, the crisis resulted in high mortality in
several parts of the continent. The impact was greater in urban centers. The demographic losses
caused extensive dislocation of trade and industry. Prolonged wars accompanied by natural
calamities like plague epidemics and famines, caused extensive dislocation of social life. Most of
the battles in the thirty years war were fought in central Europe. the population loses varied from
25% to 40%. It took another half century for Europe to recover from the demographic loses.
Economic Terms
Military operations, economic disruptions and population loses caused a severe strain on
government resources. It placed heavy strain on already burdened economy of Europe by
increasing the burden of taxation on the lower classes. Except for England the crisis led to the
extension of power of the rulers over their subjects to extract the maximum from all possible
sources.
One of the most important developments in the post-crisis period was the shift away from the
continental countries towards the sea powers of the north-west. The gap between the eastern and
western regions was further widened during the 17th century.
Another important consequence of the crisis was the displacement of industry to the countryside
and the spread of proto-industrialization in some parts of western and central Europe. This
marked the first phase of industrialization. Many of the manufacturers and the entrepreneurs
moved to the countryside because of the rising labor costs in the urban centers and began to
depend on cheaper rural labor. The declining prices further turned them towards mass production
to reduce the unit costs by higher output, thereby increasing profits by means of large turnovers.
This resulted in the manufacture of inexpensive draperies instead of more expensive cloth. The
third means of increasing their profits was to expand the volume of trade with the colonial world
to compensate the reduced demand in the domestic markets.
This trend resulted in profound transformation in urban industrial organizations which now faced
competition from rural industries and in 18th century the guilds began losing their economic
significance.
Scholars suggest that it was the improved technology of England, the Netherlands and the
northern France that enabled them to overcome the problem of low prices and make substantial
economic progress. Robert Brenner and Pierre Vilar emphasize the role of a strong feudal
structure in preventing the progress of capitalism.as labor in lands remained tied up in petty
production, heavy feudal exaction and the exploitative role of feudal monarchies played a vital
role in prolonging such conditions. This situation led to stagnation of technology and kept the
market structure extremely limited.
For capitalism to develop, it was necessary for peasants to turn into landless laborers. This
situation developed in England where peasant unity had given way to social differentiation
consisting of different layers of peasantry but in other places, the absolute monarchs protected
small peasants in order to remain in power.
Social Terms
The long and continuous war had created a serious shortage of labor, which was needed to work
on demesne lands. The demographic loses had made labor very costly. In such situations, the
lords instead of hiring fresh labor to work in their private lands opted to utilize the existing serfs
by placing additional responsibilities on them.
Thus, whereas in Western Europe the extension of the demesne was carried out through impetus
towards capitalism, in Eastern Europe, because of chronic shortage of manpower, it led to
strengthening and consolidation of serfdom. Hence the gap between eastern and western Europe
was greatly widened after the 17th century crisis.

Conclusion - At the end, we could say that the various empirical and theoretical aspects of the
seventeenth-century crisis remain subject to debate. Neither Hobsbawm's Marxist teleological
stage theory of economic development nor Trevor-Roper's court-country distinction command
much assent today. But the concept has been widely if selectively appropriated and continues to
stimulate new research and new explanations of existing data.