3.2: Empires: Administration 1450-1750 t

How rulers of land based empires legitimized and consolidated their power

Europe: 3 ways

• 1: Divine Right of Kings

  • Similar to mandate of heaven

  • In England, King James believed that god put rulers in power and therefore king was vice regent of Jesus himself

    • To oppose king was to oppose Jesus/God

    • Resulted in kings seeing themselves as outside of the law because what the will of god

• 2: Justices of the Peace

  • Tudor Dynasty (1485-1603) used them to settle legal disputes and carried out the will of the monarch around England

• Power was not unchecked

  • 1689 Parliament passed English Bill of Rights

    • Freedom to petition, protections from cruel and unusual punishment

• 3: Rise of Absolutism in France

  • Monarchical system giving absolute power to the king

  • Henry IV began process by insisting on Divine Right of Kings

  • Louis XIII created entendents, similar to Justices of the Peace because they executed the will of the king and collected taxes (also known as tax farmers)

  • Louis XIV consolidated so much power he was virtually a dictator

    • Combined legislative and judicial system for himself

    • Built Palace at Versailles to show power

    • Also decreed that nobles must live at palace to keep them close and avoid rebellion

Ottoman Empire:

• Ottomans sultans used a system called Devshirme

  • Took enslaved people from tribute states of empire (Balkans)

    • Educated these people and made them serve in military or work as administrators of the empire

    • Typically boys from age 8-20

  • Islam teaches that muslim cannot enslave another muslim so the Ottomans took people from the southern European and Balkan christian population

  • Janissaries were the elite military corps of the Ottoman empire from the Devshirme system

    • The administrators or janissaries became fiercely loyal to the sultan

• East and SE Asia

  • Ming Rulers overthrew Yuan Dynasty and established Ming Dynasty (1368–1644)

    • Wanted to remove all traces of mongols

      • Reintroduced civil service exam and strengthened bureaucracy

  • Japan was organized like feudal europe

    • Daimyo were landowning aristocracy who employed samurai for protection

    • Japan was fractured among many daimyo territories 

    • Over time the daimyo grew powerful and unified more of Japan

  • Tokugawa Shogunate (1603 – 1868)

    • Tokugawa Ieyasu was a daimyo who moved power from daimyo to shogun

    • The emperor remained in his palace in Kyōto chiefly as a symbol of power behind the shogun

    • Similar to Louis XIV, required daimyo to live in capital city of tokyo as well as their home

• India/Mughal Empire (1526–1761)

  • Akbar known as greatest ruler of Mughal empire

    • Established efficient system for managing

    • Zamindars went around india collecting taxes and settling disputes as administrative power

  • 3 main ways rulers legitimized power: Religion, Art, and Architecture

    • In Africa in the Songhai Empire (unit 1), Askia the Great claimed Islam as official religion and created a sense of cultural unity

    • In India, Shah Jahan commissioned the Taj Mahal as a tomb for his wife

    • The Ottomans changed Constantinople to Istanbul and built magnificent mosques, the most magnificent of them being the Suleymaniye Mosque 

    • Louis XIV built Palace at Versailles in France

    • All these grand gestures made people realize these rulers had power