Early Modern European History - Religions tools.

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Amanda Summers

History 348: Early Modern European History

Kiril Petkov

Final History Paper

9 December 2003

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        Prior to 1400, Medieval Europe was without stable governments.  Politically, it was fragmented.  Feudal power was divided between kings and nobles causing an unstable society.  It was common for loyalties among peasants and even nobles to be divided and change periodically.  This is because power existed in different forms.  According to Max Weber, there are three types of power: Charismatic Power, Traditional Power and Bureaucratic Power.  States as we know them today, backed by bureaucratic power, did not exist.  Instead the other two types of power were prominent.  It was not until after the sixteenth century that sovereign states began to develop and bureaucratic power began to replace charismatic and traditional power.  The transformation of Medieval Europe from traditional power to bureaucratic power was a strong sign of the movement into what we now call Early Modern Europe (1400-1800 AD).

Of the events of Early Modern European history, the Religious Wars, during the seventeenth century, had some of the greatest impacts on society, economy and politics.  The Religious Wars were an indicator of the balance of political power in Europe at the time.  It is my intention to show that the Religious Wars, though most

believe were generally about religious freedoms, were actually used as a great political tool at the time.  With the wars came a shift in European power as well as the beginning area of many of the states as we know them today.

Figure 1: Map of Europe in 1400AD

The map of Europe above shows the political boundaries of the countries in the year 1400 AD.  Though we can see the beginning of the counties we are familiar with

today in name, such as France, England, Portugal and Germany, in many cases the area of the countries changed greatly after the Religious Wars as a result of the loss or gain of power.      

        The Reformation in Europe set the scene for the Religious Wars.  Although, the Reformation was almost completely free from bloodshed the Religious Wars would not have the same fate. Protestants and Catholics would shed each other's blood in extraordinary amounts. These struggles would eventually shatter the European monarchical traditions themselves. Protestants unhappy with the rule of Catholic kings challenged the monarchy.  The final result of these struggles would be the overthrow and execution of Charles I in England in the middle of the seventeenth century, an historical event that permanently changed Europe.

The first major sets of wars were fought in France as civil wars.  In 1559 Francis II became king of France at the age of fifteen. The three major noble families of France saw that the command of their country was weak and began to struggle for control of France.  These families were the Guises in eastern France, the Bourbons in southern France, and the Montmorency-Chatillons in central France. The Guises were both the most powerful and the most fanatical about Catholicism. The Bourbons and the Montmorency-Chatillons were mostly Catholics who—for political reasons—supported the Protestant cause.
        When Francis II died in 1560, his younger brother, Charles IX assumed the throne. He was too young to serve as king so his mother, Catherine de Medicis became

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regent. Catherine was a brilliant and powerful political thinker.  She knew from the beginning that the Guises were a threat to her and to her son. In order to control the threat, she allied with the Huguenots.  To gain their support in return, she allowed them to practice their religion and to hold services outside town borders.  Catherine was a Catholic and wanted France to remain Catholic.  However, she did not want the Guises to gain too much power. The only way to chip away at the political power of the Guises was to increase the political power of the ...

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