Chapter 17: European Power and Expansion

Peace of Utrecht

a series of treaties, from 1713-1715, that ended the War of the Spanish Succession, ended French expansion in Europe, and market the rise of the British Empire

Fronde

a series of violent uprisings early in the reign of Louis XIV triggered by growing royal control and oppressive taxation

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 constitiutional 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 elected representatives

Mercantilism

a systme of economic regulations aimed at increasing hte power of the state based on the belief that a nation's international power was based on its wealth, specifically its supply of gold and silver

Cossacks

free groups and outlaw armies originally comprising runaway peasants living on the borders of Russian territory from the fourteenth century onward. By the end of the 16th century they had formed an alliance with the Russian State

Test Act

legislation passed by the English parliament in 1673 to secure the position of the Anglican Church by stripping Puritans, Catholics, and other dissenters of the right to vote, preach, assemble, hold public office, and attend or teach at the universities

Puritans

members of a 16th and 17th century reform movement within the Church of England that advocated purifying it of Roman Catholic elements

Navigation Acts

mid 17th century English mercantilist laws that greatly restricted other countries' rights to trade with England and its colonies

Proctectorate

the English military dictatorship established by Oliver Cromwell following the execution of Charles I (1653-1658)

Stadholder

the executive officer in each of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, a position often held by the princes of Orange

Boyars

the highest-ranking members of the Russian nobility

Peace of Westphalia

the name of a series of treaties that concluded the Thirty years' War in 1648 and marked the end of large-scale religious violence in Europe

Junkers

the nobility of Brandenburg and Prussia; they were reluctant allies of Frederick Williams in his consolidation of the Prussian State