Transcript European Society - ENMU ITS Web Media Server — Media

European Society in the 18th Century
Ancien regime (previous government or state)
• Rural Society
• Seigneurial rights, peasant obligations
• Urban Society
• Family Economy
• Population Growth
• Accepted practices challenged by the
Enlightenment
•
Society of the Old Regime
“Mankind are happier in a state of inequality and
subordination.” Dr. Samuel Johnson
Ancien Regime: European society before 1789
– Hierarchy and stratification
– Privilege of aristocracy and churches
– Foundation resting upon rural laboring force
– Slow challenge of urban society
European Society in the 18th Century
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Nobility
 Daniel Defoe: Gentlemen were "such who live on estates, and
without the mechanism of employment"
 England (<200 families, only title holder considered noble)
 France (ca. 4,000, all members of family considered noble)
 Privileges (exemption from the taille in France, for example)
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Rural society
 Nobles (aristocrats with titles of nobility: barons, counts or earls,
dukes) hold seigneurial rights
 Gentry (untitled aristocrats in Britain)
 Yeoman farmers (wealthier farmers, owning some land)
 Tenant farmers (England) and peasants (Continent)
 Continental peasantry: owe feudal dues, esp. labor obligation
 Fluid bottom: laboring poor, prostitutes, vagrants, and thieves
Life in the Cities
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Life in the Cities:
– Rising bourgeoisie (wealth & political ambition)
– Spectrum of merchant class (ship owner vs. tradesman)
 Reflects growing trade and consumption of new goods
(sugar, tea, coffee, rum, tobacco, cotton)
– Urban laboring poor (journeymen, domestic servants…)
– Marginalized destitute (beggars, vagrants, criminals)
Poverty of the city
Property, crime, and prison
Population growth after 1750:
– 1750: 140 million
– 1790: 190 million (26% increase in 40 years)
Family in 18th century Europe
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Trends
Family economy & its vulnerability
Foundling hospitals
– In 1770s 1/3 of all babies born in Paris
abandoned
Danger of childbirth
New ideas about childhood
Views about women
Population Change (millions), 1750-1790
30
25
20
1750
1790
15
10
5
0
Britain
France
Spain
Prussia
Russia
European Society in the 18th Century
Population growth after 1700:
1700: 120 million
1750: 140 million
1790: 190 million
Three Estates: continuity and variety
1st estate = clergy
2nd estate = aristocracy
3rd estate = everyone else
Third Estate: Commoners
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Townsfolk/city dwellers (bourgeoisie)
– Increase in population
– Migration a key factor
– Primary Roles: commerce, artisans,shopkeepers,
professionals, unskilled
– Ownership class: bankers, l
– “Middling Sorts”: lawyers, merchants, doctors
– “Lower Middle Sorts”: tradesmen & shopkeepers
– Workers
– The destitute
Third Estate: Commoners
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Peasantry
– 80-85 % of population
– Diet of breads, soups, root vegetables; beer/wine
Geographic variation
– Eastern (serfs)
 Least free
 Lived in multi-generational families
– Western (free)
 Britain: tenant farmers
 France: 60 % owned farms, but still rented
– Mobility restricted
The Aristocracy
•Social
and political
privileges
•Idleness and frivolity
•In France they often live
at court, elsewhere on
country estates
•Forbidden to work or
even invest in
commercial enterprises
or “trade”
•Obsessed by jealousy
and rank
•Often indifferent to
religion
Fragonard: The Swing
The Bourgeoisie
•Usually
involved with
trade or the professions:
law, medicine or
teaching
•Highly educated and
literate, intolerant of
noble pretensions of
superiority
•Look to government for
financial reform and
efficiency
•Many follow an austere
form of Catholicism
called Jansenism
Fragonard: La Lectrice
The Third Estate
•Made up of
both rural
farmers and town
dwellers
•Generally poor and
often destitute (picture
shows a prosperous
family scene)
•Usually devout
Catholics
•Suffer under unfair tax
system
Louis XV
(1715-1774)
•Comes to
throne as boy
of five years
•Leads life of indolence
and frivolity
•Dominated by women,
usually his mistresses
•Handsome and polite,
but untrustworthy and
petty
Hyacinth Rigaud: Louis XV
Madame la
Pompadour
•The
chief mistress of
Louis XV
•Dominated court
politics and royal offices
for many years (d. 1764)
•Her intervention in
politics brought scorn to
France and led to poor
decisions by the king
De la Tour: La marquise de la Pompadour
Enlightened Absolutism
Frederick II of
Prussia (1740-1786)
•Under Frederick
William I,
Prussia becomes a military state
•Junker class dominates army
•Middle class as civil servants
•King called himself “first
servant of the state”
•Reformed the law code,
eliminated torture except for
treason and murder
•Religious toleration
•Was a talented flautist and
composer
•Invited Voltaire to visit him for
long periods of time
Frederick II of Prussia
Frederick II
•Made Prussia
the
dominant military power
in Europe: 200,000 man
army
•His seizure of Silesia in
1740 begins War of
Austrian Succession
•Allied with England
against the French and
Austrians in the Seven
Years War (1756-1763)
•Intelligent, talented, brave
and ruthless
Catherine II of
Russia (1762-1796)
•German
princess becomes
empress of Russia after death of
her husband, the Tsar
•Familiar with the Philosophes,
claimed to want to reform
Russia, did little to achieve this
•Suppressed a peasant revolt in
1773
•Allowed herself to be fooled by
“Potemkin villages”
•Expanded Russian empire
•Partitioned Poland along with
Prussia and Austria
Joseph II
Holy Roman Emperor,
Archduke of Austria, king of
Bohemia and Hungary
(1765/80-1790)
•Co-ruler
with his mother,
empress Marie Theresa from
1765-80
•Influenced by the teachings of
the Enlightenment
•Sought to reform his lands
through logic
•Abolished serfdom
•Religious toleration
•Equality before the law
Joseph II
Joseph II
•“Philosophy is
the lawmaker
of my empire”
•The only true reformer among
the “Enlightened Despots”
•Tried to enforce uniformity
throughout empire
•German becomes official
language
•Sumptuary laws resented
•Reforms: too much, too
fast
•His successor, Leopold II
reverses reforms