Chapter 18 European Power and Expansion

Bill of Rights of 1689

A bill passes by Parliament and accepted by William and Mary that limited the powers of British monarchs and affirmed those of Parliament.

constitutionalism

A form of government in which power is limited by law and balanced between the authority and power of the government, on the one hand, and the rights and liberties of the subject or citizen, on the other; it includes constitutional monarchies and republics.

republicanism

A form of government in which there is no monarch and power rests in the hands of the people as exercised through deleted representatives.

Thirty Years' War

A large-scale conflict extending from 1618 to 1648 that pitted Protestants against Catholics in central Europe, but also involved dynastic interests, notably of Spain and France.

absolutism

A political system common to early modern Europe in which monarchs claimed exclusive power to make and enforce laws, without checks by other institutions; this system was limited in practice by the need to maintain legitimacy and compromise with elites.

Protestant Reformation

A religious reform movement that began in the early sixteenth century and split the Western Christian Church.

Catholic Reformation

A response to the Protestant Reformation. Counter-Reformation that opposed Protestantism spiritually, politically, and militarily. Council of Trent laid a solid basis for the spiritual renewal of the Catholic Church. It gave equal validity to the Scriptures and to tradition as sources of religious truth and tackled problems that had disillusioned many Christians. Council of Trent served as the basis for Roman Catholic faith, organization, and practice. Just as seminaries provided education, so did new religious orders, which aimed to raise the moral and intellectual level of the clergy and people. The Ursuline order of nuns attained enormous prestige for its education of women. Another important new order was the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits. This order played a powerful international role in strengthening Catholicism in Europe and spreading the faith around the world.

mercantilism

A system of economic regulations aimed at increasing the power of the state derived from the belief that a nation's international power was based on its wealth, specifically its supply of gold and silver.

sovereignty

Authority of states that possess a monopoly over the instruments of justice and the use of force within clearly defined boundaries and in which private armies present not threat to central control; seventeenth-century European states made important advances toward sovereignty.

Louis XIV

During his reign French monarchy reached the peak of absolutist development. He believed in the divine right of kings. He danced at a court ballet dressed as the sun, thereby acquiring the title "Sun King." He also recognized that even though kings were divinely anointed and shared in the sacred nature of divinity, they could not simply do as they pleased. They had to obey God's laws and rule for the good of the people. Despite increasing financial problems, he never called a meeting of the Estates General. He insisted that religious unity was essential to his royal dignity and to the security of the state. Revoked the Edict of Nantes.

Treaty of Westphalia

Ended the Thirty Years' War and marked a turning point in European history. The peace not only ended conflicts fought over religious faith but also recognized the independent authority of more than three hundred German princes, reconfirming the emperor's severely limited authority.

Cossacks

Free group and outlaw armies living on the borders of Russian territory from the fourteenth century onward. By the end of the sixteenth century they had formed an alliance with the Russian stat.e

Treaty of Augsburg

In 1555 Charles V agreed to this, which officially recognized Lutheranism and ended religious war in German for many decades. Under this treaty, the political authority in each territory of the Holy Roman Empire was permitted to decide whether the territory would be Catholic or Lutheran. Most of northern and central Germany became Lutheran, while southern Germany was divided between Lutheran and Catholic. It dashed Charles V hope of uniting his empire under a single church.

Council of Trent

Laid a solid basis for the spiritual renewal of the Catholic Church. It gave equal validity to the Scriptures and to tradition as sources of religious truth and tackled problems that had disillusioned many Christians. Served as the basis for Roman Catholic faith, organization, and practice.

Puritans

Members of a sixteenth- and seventeenth-century reform movement within the Church of England that advocated purifying it of Roman Catholic elements, such as bishops, elaborate ceremonials, and wedding rings.

Jesuits

Members of the Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius Loyola and approved by the papacy in 1540, whose goal was the spread of the Roman Catholic faith through humanistic schools and missionary activity.

Navigation Acts

Mid-Seventeenth-Century English mercantilist laws that greatly restricted other countries' rights to trade with England and its colonies.

divine right of kings

The belief propagated by absolutist monarchs that they derived their power from God and were only answerable to him.

moral economy

The early modern European view that community needs predominated over competition and profit and that necessary goods should thus be sold at a fair price.