Unit 3 Absolutism: Building Powerful States in Early Modern Europe

Absolutism

A form of monarchy in which the ruler claims ultimate authority over the state (especially lawmaking, taxation, justice, and foreign policy) and works to centralize power by weakening independent bodies like nobles or representative assemblies.

Centralization

The process of concentrating political power in the central government by expanding royal institutions (bureaucracy, courts, taxation systems, army) and reducing regional or noble independence.

Louis XIV

King of France (r. 1643–1715) often treated as the model absolutist monarch for combining personal authority, administrative centralization, cultural propaganda, and military power to strengthen the state.

Fronde

French civil unrest (1648–1653) that convinced Louis XIV that independent aristocratic power was dangerous and helped shape his strategy of controlling the nobility.

Versailles

Louis XIV’s palace-court used as a political tool: it drew nobles to the king, made status depend on court access and ritual, and pulled elites away from provincial power bases.

Intendants

Royal officials sent to French provinces to oversee taxation, justice, and policing; they extended the crown’s reach and weakened independent regional authorities.

Gallicanism

The belief that the French church had certain liberties relative to the pope, increasing the French monarchy’s influence over religious affairs.

Edict of Nantes (1598)

French edict that granted toleration to Huguenots (French Protestants), allowing limited rights of worship and legal protections.

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685)

Louis XIV’s cancellation of Protestant toleration to promote Catholic religious unity; it pressured conversion, restricted Protestant worship, and triggered significant Huguenot emigration.

Huguenots

French Protestants; after 1685 many fled France due to persecution, taking skills and capital with them and worsening economic and diplomatic tensions.

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Louis XIV’s finance minister who pursued state-directed economic policies to increase royal revenue and strengthen French power.

Mercantilism (Colbertism)

Economic strategy aimed at increasing state power by promoting domestic manufacturing, encouraging exports, limiting imports, and using regulation/infrastructure to steer the economy toward greater state revenue.

Military-fiscal state

A state whose institutions for taxation, administration, and credit expand primarily to fund war; war strengthens state capacity but also creates heavy burdens and debt.

Standing army

A permanent, professional army maintained in peacetime and tied to the state; a key tool of absolutist power and European state-building in the 1600s–1700s.

Hohenzollern dynasty

The ruling dynasty of Prussia that oversaw the building of a centralized, militarized state to survive among stronger European powers.

Frederick William (the Great Elector)

Prussian ruler (r. 1640–1688) who strengthened central authority by creating a standing army, improving taxation to fund it, and reducing regional estate independence over time.

Junkers

Prussian landed nobility who often served as army officers and local administrators; in exchange for service, they retained/expanded control over serfs, supporting absolutism through elite cooperation.

Frederick William I

Prussian king (r. 1713–1740) closely associated with the disciplined “army state,” emphasizing bureaucratic efficiency and militarization.

Composite monarchy

A multi-territorial state (like the Habsburg monarchy) made up of lands with different laws, languages, and elites, making centralization harder and requiring negotiation across diverse regions.

Maria Theresa

Habsburg ruler (r. 1740–1780) who strengthened Austrian state capacity through reforms that improved administration, taxation, and military coordination.

Joseph II

Habsburg ruler (r. 1780–1790) linked to enlightened absolutism; he attempted to rationalize laws and reduce some traditional privileges to make the state more efficient (not to create democracy).

Westernization (Peter the Great)

Russia’s state-driven push (especially under Peter the Great, r. 1682–1725) to adopt Western European military, administrative, and elite cultural practices to compete as a great power.

Table of Ranks

Russian system under Peter the Great that tied noble status and advancement to state service rather than purely birth, helping the monarchy mobilize elites for government and military needs.

Millet system

Ottoman imperial structure that granted certain non-Muslim religious communities limited self-governance (e.g., family law and communal leadership) under imperial oversight and taxation—an administrative strategy for managing diversity, not modern legal equality.

Janissaries (and devshirme)

Elite Ottoman infantry historically tied to the state; closely associated with the devshirme system that recruited boys from some Christian communities, converted and trained them for state service to create loyal military-administrative personnel.