AP European History Unit 3/4: Absolutism, Constitutionalism, Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment

Vocabulary terms, significant figures, and key dates for AP European History Unit 3 and 4 covering Absolutism, Constitutionalism, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment.

Absolutism

A political system in which a ruler holds total power.

Divine Right of Kings

The belief that kings receive their power from God and are responsible only to God.

Restoration

The period of time after the death of Oliver Cromwell, where a monarch was restored by Parliament within England.

Constitutional monarchy

A government in which the king or queen shares power with a lawmaking body and has their power limited by the country’s constitution.

Enclosure movement

The process of consolidating small landholdings into a smaller number of larger farms in England during the eighteenth century.

Tariff

A tax on an imported good or service.

Cottage industry

A method of production in which tasks are done by individuals in their rural homes; also known as the putting-out system.

Proto-industrialization

A system of rural manufacture that was intermediate between autarchic feudal production and modern urban factory production.

Navigation Acts

English laws that protected the monopoly to sell British goods, such as sugar, within the empire.

Oligarchy

A system where a small group of people control the government.

Balance of power

A system in which no one empire, kingdom, or country would dominate, either on the continent or in the New World.

Fronde

A series of uprisings in France from 1648 to 1653 that challenged the growing power of the monarch.

Intendants

Royal representatives that went to the countryside in France to run the country on behalf of the king.

Junkers

Prussian nobility.

Boyars

Russian nobility.

Grand Embassy

A group of about 250 boyars in Russia who traveled to Europe to see how more advanced Western European countries operated.

Holy Synod

Established by Peter the Great, it was made up of officials and priests within the Russian Orthodox church who were obedient to the tsar.

Natural laws

General principles about the way the world works, which are based on mathematical proofs or expressed in mathematical formulas.

Astronomy

The study of the universe beyond the earth.

Heliocentric

Sun centered.

Rationalism

The theory that reason rather than experience is the foundation of certainty in knowledge.

Empiricism

The theory that all human knowledge comes through what the senses can experience.

Social Contract

A mutually beneficial agreement struck between the people and those who would govern them.

Tabula Rasa

Blank slate.

Philosophes

18th century intellectuals of the Enlightenment.

Deism

The belief that God had created the world and set it in motion and then left it to run on its own according to natural laws.

Methodism

Founded by John Wesley, it is a Protestant Christian theology that focuses on a personal experience with God, through which any individual can earn salvation.

Laissez Faire

A French phrase that means “hands off”; it promotes the idea that government should not interfere with the economy.

Consumer Revolution

Refers to the significant increase in the consumption of goods and services that occurred in Europe during the 18th century, driven by rising incomes and changes in societal attitudes towards consumerism.

Domesticity

The idea of the home as a private sphere distinct from the encroachments of the public world.

Rococo

An artistic movement in the 18th century that was more graceful and secular than Baroque and reflected a general shift in emphasis from the public to the private sphere.

Neoclassicism

An artistic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries that honored secular values of reason and order and upheld the classical ideals of simplicity and symmetry.

Enlightened Absolutism

A system in which rulers tried to govern by Enlightenment principles while maintaining their full royal powers.

James I (1566-1625)

Also known as James IV, King of Scotland, he became the first Stuart king of England.

Charles I (1600-1649)

Son of James I, he was the King of England at the time of the English Civil War.

Oliver Cromwell (1559-1658)

Leader of the New Model Army during the English Civil War, and eventually the Lord Protector of England after the fall of Charles I.

William III (1650-1702)

Also William of Orange of the Netherlands, he took the throne of England during the Glorious Revolution.

Mary II (1662-1694)

Daughter of James II and husband of William III, she helped her husband overthrow her father during the Glorious Revolution.

Jethro Tull (1674-1741)

Invented the seed drill and mechanical hoe in 1701, which revolutionized farming in England in the early 1700s.

Rembrandt (1609-1669)

A Dutch painter of the Dutch Golden Age, who is considered one of the greatest artists of all time.

Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632)

King of Sweden who centralized power and revolutionized warfare in the 17th century.

Louis XIV (1638-1715)

King of France and the best example of absolutism in the 17th century. He built the Palace of Versailles and fought many wars that increased the strength of France within Europe.

Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683)

Finance minister of France under the rule of Louis XIV who instituted mercantile policies to decrease French debt and revitalize its industries.

Philip V (1683-1746)

Grandson of Louis XIV who took the throne of Spain during the War of Spanish Succession.

Frederick William I (1688-1740)

King of Prussia who created a large and powerful army and turned Prussia into a prosperous and efficient nation.

Peter I (1672-1725)

Tsar of Russia, also known as Peter the Great, who modernized and westernized Russia and made them into a great European power.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

An English philosopher who is responsible for creating the scientific method.

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

A French philosopher and mathematician who is known as the father of modern day rationalism.

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

A Polish astronomer who proposed the heliocentric model of the universe in his book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

A German astronomer who developed the laws of planetary motion and discovered that the planets orbit around the sun in elliptical orbits not perfect circles.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

An Italian astronomer who made regular observations of the heavens with his telescope and discovered craters on the moon as well as the moons of Jupiter.

Isaac Newton (1643-1727)

An English mathematician and astronomer who discovered the universal law of gravity as well as the laws of motion.

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564)

A Dutch physician seen as the founder of modern human anatomy; he dissected human bodies and described the individual organs and general structure of the human body.

William Harvey (1578-1657)

An English physician who showed that the heart was the beginning point for the circulation of blood.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

An English philosopher whose book Leviathan, published in 1651, argued for the idea of an absolute sovereign.

John Locke (1632-1704)

An English philosopher and empiricist seen as the “father of liberalism” who wrote about social contract theory and natural rights in his book Second Treatise of Government.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

A Genevan (Swiss) philosopher and writer during the Enlightenment who wrote on topics ranging from social contract theory to childhood development; also known as the “father of Romanticism” for emphasizing emotions along with reason.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

A British philosopher and writer during the Enlightenment who advocated for women’s rights in her book A Vindication on the Rights of Woman in 1792; also known as the “mother of feminism”.

Voltaire (1694-1778)

A French philosopher and writer seen as the greatest figure of the Enlightenment who wrote 70 different books and is known for his criticisms of Christianity in France.

Denis Diderot (1713-1784)

A French writer of the Enlightenment famous for organizing his Encyclopedia, which gave people increased knowledge of many different subjects outside of the realm of religion.

Montesquieu (1689-1755)

A French philosopher and judge most famous for his book The Spirit of Law in 1748, which discusses the idea of separation of powers.

Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)

An Italian philosopher and criminologist during the Enlightenment who spoke out against the use of torture and the death penalty in his book On Crimes and Punishments in 1764.

John Wesley (1703-1791)

An English Anglican priest who founded the religious movement of Methodism in the 18th century.

Adam Smith (1723-1790)

A Scottish economist known as the “father of capitalism” due to his ideas within his famous book Wealth of Nations in 1776.

Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)

An English economist most famous for his Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798, which discussed the problems of overpopulation with England at the turn of the 19th century.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762)

An English aristocrat, writer, and medical pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation in Britain after spending time in Turkey.

Edward Jenner (1749-1823)

An English physician who developed the world’s first vaccine in 1796 for smallpox.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

A German composer of the late Baroque period who wrote numerous cantatas, vocal pieces featuring instrumental accompaniment, for the Leipzig Church.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

An Austrian composer who was a part of the Neoclassicism movement and focused on secular rather than religious themes, as well as order and balance instead of drama and emotion.

Maria Theresa (1717-1780)

A member of the Habsburg family and ruler of the Austrian empire from 1740 to 1780 who took power during the War of Austrian Succession.

Joseph II (1741-1790)

Son of Maria Theresa who became Austrian emperor (first as co-regent and then by himself after 1780) and served as a great example of an enlightened absolutist due to his many enlightened reforms.

Frederick II (1712-1786)

Also known as Frederick the Great, king of Prussia who expanded Prussian lands; an enlightened absolutist who believed the king’s duty was to protect and serve his people through efficient government and prosperity.

Catherine II (1729-1796)

Also known as Catherine the Great, she was the tsarina and empress of Russia after overthrowing her husband Peter III; she increased Russian power while encouraging the arts and learning.

1543

Nicolaus Copernicus published On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres about the heliocentric model of the universe.

1648

Marked by two important events: #1 the Fronde in France, and #2 the trial of Charles I in England.

1688

The Glorious Revolution in England.

1713-1714

The Peace of Utrecht ends the War of Spanish Succession.

1740

The start of the War of Austrian Succession.

1776

Adam Smith published Wealth of Nations, a book espousing the ideas of capitalism.