Chapter 10

Absolute Monarchy, Science, and and Enlightenment

Overview
Absolutism
Monarchs support science, scholarship, and
art
Scientific advancement influenced by the
Renaissance
New understanding about the relationship
between humanity and God
Rise of Absolutism
The Absolute Monarch: Louis XIV
 Trend toward absolute monarchy
 Cardinal Richelieu
 Louis XIV, “L’état, c’est moi”
 Desire to extend France’s empire to the Rhine River,
the Alps, and the Pyrenees
 Louis failed to realize his goals with opposition from
Britain, Holland, and the Austrian Habsburgs
Eastern Europe Rises to the West
Three Dynasties build up states in the East
 Distinctive region
 Trade with western Europe
 Nobles more independent than in the west
 Catholic and Orthodox Christianity
 Presence of Jews
Hohenzollern Dynasty of Brandenburg
Habsburgs of Austria
Romanovs of Russia
Prussia
Prince Frederick William
 Built up a centralized treasury and civil service and
greatly strengthened his army
 Landed aristocrats accepted the monarch’s authority in
return for complete control over the serfs
Frederick II (the Great)
 Expanded possessions to the east at the expense of the
less efficient Habsburgs of Austria
Europe in 1763
Austria
Habsburgs weakened by the declining
power of the Spanish branch of the family
Empress Maria Theresa and Joseph II
 Centralized control of the territory
 Improved the administrative and tax systems
 Limited the nobles’ exploitation of the serfs
Russia
Ivan the Great
 Moscow driven by sense of imperial mission
Ivan’s successors overthrow Tartars
 Tartars become Russian subjects
 Russian colonists penetrate east into the wilderness of Siberia
Romanov Dynasty: Peter the Great
 Goal to control Black to Baltic Seas
 Defeated Sweden, takes provinces of Karelia, Estonia, and Livonia
 St. Petersburg, “Window on the West”
Tsarina, Catherine II
 Encouraged Westernization
 Wars with the Turks
 Partitions of Poland 1772 to 1792
 Enlightened despots
 Russia and Austria multinational states
 Serfdom
“From Sea to Shining Sea”
Justifications for Absolutism:
Bossuet, Hobbes
Reconcile absolutist concepts and traditional Christian
doctrine
Jacques Bossuet, Politics Drawn from Holy Scripture,
1670
 Divine right monarchy drawn from teachings of Christianity
Thomas Hobbes
 Drive for self-preservation
 Reason allows an alternative to the anarchy of nature
 Law preferable to anarchy
 Surrender personal strength to higher authority
 Once civil government established, all subjects bound by their
contracts to obey it
 Supports absolutism but not divine right
 Justification for the authoritarian state
The Scientific Revolution of the
Seventeenth Century
Discoverers of a New Cosmos: Copernicus,
Kepler, Galileo
 Adapted by Ptolemy, Aristotle placed the solid,
immoveable earth at the center of things
 Christian thought went unchallenged until the
sixteenth century
 Ptolemy rejected the heliocentric theory
Copernicus & Kepler
Copernicus
 Polish cleric
 Interested in astronomy
 Concerning the Revolutions of the Celestial Bodies,
1543
 Earth revolved around the sun
 Condemned by religious leaders as contradicting Scripture
 Could furnish no observable proof
 Nature of spheres to rotate
Kepler
 Assistant to Tycho Brahe
 Planetary motion, the movements of planets
Galileo
Telescope
Observed the planets and the stars
Suggested that there could be more than one
center for heavenly orbits
Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems
Charged with heresy and brought before the
Inquisition
Experimentation with falling object
Makers of Scientific Method: Bacon,
Descartes
Francis Bacon
 Criticized Aristotle’s reliance on deduction
 Favored induction
 A total system of descriptive truth could be built
up
Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method, 1637
 Doubt all present ideas
 Deductive reasoning
 “I think, therefore, I exist.”
The Grand Synthesizer: Newton
Isaac Newton perfected and refined the new
cosmic system
Developed the system of calculus
Principia (Mathematical Principles of
Natural Philosophy), 1687
Explained planetary motion and gravity
Organization of Science
Robert Boyle
 Chemistry
William Harvey
 Circulation of blood
Developments in optics
Universities slow in promoting the new learning,
still in the grip of religious and humanist traditions
Societies for the advancement of research found in
Italy, London, and France
Interdependence of scientific investigators and
their equipment
The Impact of Science on
Philosophy: The Enlightenment
A radically new view of the universe and
the forces that move it
Revised Cosmology: The “World Machine”
 Philosophes
 Enlightenment period is from 1687 to 1789
 Traditional beliefs collapsed
Enlightenment Views on God and
Society
The View of God: Deism
 Conflicts of Newtonian system and Christian theology
 “Divine Watchmaker”
 Lord Herbert of Cherbury
 Make Deism a universal faith
 Popular with eighteenth-century intellectuals
 Churches and synagogues continued to be the main influence on
the way of people’s lives
The View of Human Society
 Growing optimism about human prospects had its roots in the
Renaissance but strengthened by the new science
 Doctrine of human perfectibility
 Runs counter to traditional Christian teaching
 Reformers aimed to remake social institutions according to the
lights of reason
Faith in Nature and Reason
Christianity rests its faith in the power of God as known
through revelation; the Enlightenment puts its trust in nature
as understood through reason
The goal of Christianity is heaven and the goal of the
Enlightenment is progress
“Culture of nature”
Philosophes concluded that reason is the key to nature’s
secrets and powers
John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding,
1690
 All knowledge comes from experience
 Education for adults as well as children
The Vision of Progress
 New idea of history
 Marquis de Condorcet, Progress of the Human Mind, 1794
 Expectation of universal happiness
 Every individual guided by reason could enjoy true independence
Political Response to the New
Philosophy: Enlightened Despotism
Development of ideas about government
and social order
Influence of the Philosophes
Impact on America and France
Frederick II of Prussia
Maria Theresa and Joseph II of Austria
 A peaceful revolution
 Catherine II of Russia
Political Response to the New
Philosophy: Enlightened Despotism
Construct a view of humanity that would be universally
valid
 Perfect exact forms of expression
Classicism: Racine, Pope
 Jean Racine
 Catholic education
 Classical themes centering on a single moral issue
 Relied on the spoken word to reveal character and passion under
stress
 Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 1711
 An Essay on Man
 Rationalistic view of the universe
 Influenced by Deism trying to reconcile the discoveries of science
with the idea of a benevolent God
 Restrain curiosity with pride
Satire: Voltaire
Absorbed the ideas of English philosophy and politics
Candide, 1759
 Targets: bigotry and hypocrisy of organized religion, the atrocities
of war, the “inhumanity of man to man”
Voltaire had faith in the method of science and the power
of reason
Admired simple honesty, moderation, humaneness, and
tolerance
 “Tolerance is the natural attribute of humanity.We are all formed
of weakness and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s
folly. This is the first law of nature. It is clear that the individual
who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same
opinion, is a monster.”
The Architecture of Reason: Wren,
Jefferson
Baroque transitions to Rococo to Neoclassicism in
art and architecture
Christopher Wren
 Great Fire of London, 1666
 St Paul’s Cathedral
Andrea Palladio, Renaissance architect
 Provided manual for classical style
 Palladian manner
Thomas Jefferson
 Enamored with classical style
 Influenced by Maison Carrée
 Public architecture of Washington reflects classical
revival
Academy Painting: Portraits of
Aristocratic Elegance
Painting was least affected by the radical
changes in science and philosophy
Prior to French Revolution art remained in
the Rococo style
 Belgian master, Antoine Watteau
 François Boucher and Jean-Honré Fragonard
 Functioned totally for entertainment
English painting more somber, classical
 Joshua Reynolds
 Portraits in the “Grand Manner”
The Classical Age of Music
Classical is a musical style that applies to the eighteenth
century
Music in Western Civilization
 Prehistoric cultures used music as a vehicle of magic
 Music held a high place in Greek scale of values
 Greek music primarily vocal
 Romans adopted Greek forms
 Roman papacy passed a portion of the musical heritage of
antiquity to western Europe
 Pope Gregory the Great collected and organized
 Christian sacred music in the sixth century
 Originated in a variety of oriental sources, chiefly Hebrew
 Vocal
 Disappearance in the disorders of the Middle Ages
 Polyphony
 New instruments
Birth of the “Modern” Style:
Monteverdi, Handel, Bach
Instrumental music written for listening
Music drama
Claudio Monteverdi
 Operatic overture
George Frideric Handel
Johann Sebastian Bach
 Death marks the end of the Baroque period in music
The Classical Spirit: Haydn, Mozart
 Franz Joseph Haydn
 Chamber and symphonic music
 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
 Master of all types of composition
 Opera
Discussion Questions
What are the theoretical justifications for
absolutism? Are divine right monarchy and
absolutism the same? Explain.
Who were the leaders of the Scientific Revolution
and what did they create? What were the
consequences of the new science? What was its
influence outside the scientific community?
Why did the Enlightenment occur? What were its
ideas about society, politics, and religion? What
was the impact of these views?
How and why did music change in this period?
What were the consequences?