1.5 The Rise of New Monarchies

how leadership worked during the renaissance/reformation time period

Kings had to share power with the nobles and the church to some degrees

the most powerful group of people before the 1500s

the nobility (even more than the church and king)

Henry VIII

King during the Protestant reformation (the one who got divorced like 12 times) who very strongly opposed the protestant doctrine (so hated Martin Luther).

okay basically: married to Catherine of Aragon (daughter of Catholic monarchs of Spain) for 20 years but he divorced her because she couldn’t produce a male heir that survived. Then Anne Boleyn (Henry’s mistress) became pregnant so Henry married her but that marriage was declared illegal by the Pope —> Parliament made Henry head of the church of England

Treason Act

an act that made is a capital crime to refuse to recognize the church of England as the official state church (many people stayed catholic but secretly)

queens of England + their religions in England

Mary Tutor: tried to bring England back to Catholism

Elizabeth I: ended the persecution of Anglican Bishops that happened under Mary Tutor and then tried to bring England back to Anglicanism which is basically Protestantism which is the Church of England. she also passed the Act of Uniformity where the English people had to attend Anglican Church services once a week or pay a fine (this is called Top-down religious reform).

Bureaucracy

a group of officials (dozens or hundred of people) whose job it is to make sure people are following the laws

Concordat of Bologna

specific to France which is an agreement with Francis I and Pope Leo X (the tenth) about taxation. basically the Pope got the right to collect income from the French Catholic Church while Francis got the right to appoint church officials so they couldn’t communicate w the Pope directly anymore

the main ways to consolidate power

• topdown religious reforms

• being the only entity responsible for taxation

• assuming the right to determine the religion of their subjects (Protestant vs Catholic)

Peace of Augsburg

Gave individual rulers in the Holy Roman Empire the right to decide whether their subjects would be Catholic or Lutheran (the earliest thing of Protestantism)

other powerful people besides the monarchs

commercial and professional groups like merchants and bankers (especially in Italy and Germany) which allowed them to play a greater role in politics

key examples:

• Medici family - in Florence, Italy who established the banking industry

• Fugger family - in Augsburg, Germany who established the banking industry there

with lots of money in their hands, they became close with monarchs so each got political power and money

secular state

a state in which the church has little to no political influence (started in Italian states before spreading around to French, Dutch, etc.)

Republicanism

• Machiavelli helped spread ideas of this type of government structure for secular states.

• it’s basically where elected representatives make the laws and wield power by the consent of the governed

• this opposed the French man Jean Bodin, who thought absolute rule (with divine rights) for the monarch was better for secular states