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Crisis and Reform in the Greater Mediterranean History 111 – World History since 1500

Spring 2022

Jorge Minella ([email protected])

The Course so Far

 Course started with the Ottomans and the European Maritime expansion.

 But then moved elsewhere.

 Americas.

 Africa.

 Asia.

 Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

 What about Europe and the Ottoman Empire?

Europe, 1500-1750

 Fragmentation and rivalries.

 Religious conflicts.

 Competing regional identities.

 New political, knowledge, and social models.

Siege of Stralsund (1628), Thirty Year’s War.

The Ottoman Empire

 Expansion.

 Military and governance innovation.

 Incorporation.

Ottoman miniature about the Szigetvár campaign showing Ottoman troops and Tatars as avant- garde.

The Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire

 Vast territory in the crossroads of Europe, Africa, and Asia.

 Multicultural Empire.

 Lasted 623 years (1299 – 1922).

 What explains Ottoman expansion, durability, and influence?

 Military power.

 Clever governance.

 Minimal trade restrictions.

 Relative religious tolerance.

The Ottoman Military

 Professional standing army.

 Janissary corps.

 Devshirme recruitment.

 Well trained.

 Well equipped.

 Highly loyal to the Sultan.

Land Grants and Religious Tolerance

 Timar.

 Land grants to the military personnel.

 Factor of stability in frontier zones.

 Deeply religious state (Muslim), but religiously tolerant.

 If compared to most Christian nations.

 No mass conversion.

 Still Muslims privileged.

Expansion

 Most significant expansion between 1453 and 1683.

 Ottoman Navy dominated the Mediterranean Sea until 1571.

 Defeat in the Siege of Vienna in 1683 marks end of expansion.

Society

 Most rural peasants and herders.

 Urban life thrived.

 Social hierarchy based on occupation.

 Social mobility possible.

 Through education.

 And military service.

The map of Istanbul (Constantinople) by Matrakçı Nasuh during the 16th century

Society

 Life shaped by military campaigns and international trade.

 Strong merchant class.

 Trade with Africa, Asia, and Europe.

 Low trade taxes.

 State-maintained caravanserais.

 Patriarchal society.

 But women often engaged in export crafts.

Fractured Europe

The Protestant Reformation

 Martin Luther.

 1517 Critique of the Catholic Church.

 Corruption of the clergy.

 Purgatory and indulgences.

 Defended that people had direct access to holy scriptures and God.

 Lutheranism, Calvinism.

 Spread in central and northern Europe.

Catholic Response

 Convert people overseas.

 Reinforce the Church’s doctrines.

 Protestants labeled heretics.

 Resulting in the explosion of religious conflict in Europe.

St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, 1572 France, painting by François Dubois.

Rivalries Beyond Religion

 Spanish, French, English, Dutch.

 Competition for overseas colonies and trade, that is, wealth.

 Religious divisions added.

 Spain started to decline in the late sixteenth century.

 England and the Dutch rising.

Depiction of the 1588 Spanish Armada defeat, by Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom, 1601.

The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648)

 Ferdinand II - Attempts to re-Catholicize parts of the Holy Roman Empire.

 Civil War within the Holy Roman Empire.

 Catholic vs. Protestant.

 Spain, France, the Dutch later involved.

 Unprecedented level of destruction.

 1/3 of the population of central Europe died.

 Agricultural production disrupted.

Crisis and New Models

Crises and New Models

 Crises demand new models.

 Impacts of the maritime expansion.

Jacques Callot’s 1633 depiction of an event in the Thirty Years’ War. France.

New Model of Knowledge

 Direct observation of nature.

 First, the cosmos.

 16, 17th centuries: Galilei, Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, Newton.

 Mathematical Models.

 Philosophers.

 Deductive method.

 Inductive method.

 Scientific Revolution.

The Emergence of Capitalism

 Deep change in socio-economic relations.

 Commercial and Industrial stages.

 "an economic system in which private parties make their goods and services available on an open market and seek to exploit market conditions to profit from their activities." (p. 708)

 Profit and market.

Capital, Land, and Labor

 Wage labor.

 Changes in land tenure.  Land enclosure.

 Rise of commercial agriculture in seventeenth century Europe.  Partially due to the Columbian

Exchange.

New Business Models and Capital Accumulation

 East India Trade Companies.

 Banking and Insurance.

 Transatlantic slave trade.

 Profits reinvested.

 Slavery.

 Overexploitation of slave labor facilitated capital accumulation.

 Provision of raw materials.

 Therefore, maritime expansion key to the development of capitalism.

The State and Capitalism

 The state was a key player in the emergence of capitalism.

 Example of England.

 Mercantilism.

 Trade surplus.

 Benefit of the English state, manufacturers, and merchants.

A painting of a French seaport from 1638, at the height of mercantilism.

New Players

 Bourgeoisie.

 City citizens, not hereditary nobility.

 Emerging group: wealth from trade and other capitalist activity.

 First in England and the Netherlands.

The 16th-century German banker Jakob Fugger and his principal accountant, M. Schwarz, registering an entry to a ledger. The background shows a file cabinet indicating the European cities where the Fugger Bank conducts business. (1517)

New Political Models

 Constitutionalism.

 First in England, late seventeenth century.

 Absolutism.

 France, mid-seventeenth century.

 Centralized states.

Absolutism

 One ruler with all power.

 Near absolutism in sixteenth century Spain.

 But seventeenth century France best example.

 Louis XIV.

 Military power.

 Court grandeur.

Palace of Versailles, 1668. Built for Louis XIV.

Constitutionalism

 Early modern constitutionalism: written charter defining a power-sharing agreement between a monarch and a parliament.

 Certain subjects, certain rights.

 Which subjects? What rights?

 England.

 Tumultuous process between 1630s and 1680s.

Lecture Recap

 Ottomans.

 Military prowess and integrative policies.

 Challenged European kingdoms and empires.

 Europe.

 Religious fervor.

 Gunpowder.

 Wars.

 Seeds of change.

 Scientific Revolution.

 Capitalism.

 New political models.