History 102 What was a serf?

A serf was a peasant who was bound to the land; they belonged to the land. They only worked for nobles. As late as 1789 in France, of 22 million peasants, 1 million were still serfs. Serfdom survived until almost the 19th century in places like France. In the Middle Ages, there was a revival of serfdom, especially in Russia. There, serfdom worked a lot like slavery. Whole villages of serfs were given to nobles and czars. They were bought and sold like slaves. Some people, who wanted to bring attention to the evils of Russian serfdom, but who would have to suffer censorship in heavily controlled Russia, wrote instead about American slavery. In cities, there was a large group of artisans (craftsmen). There was a large assortment of them. They mostly belonged to guilds (organizations of craftsmen). Merchants were important in cities as well. The word merchant encompassed a wide array of businessmen. They were small manufacturers, bakers, etc. Merchants were in the Middle to Upper Middle Class, but artisans were in the Lower Middle Class. Middle Class people from cities were known as bourgeoisie in France from the German word for city. Middle and Upper burgs were businessmen like lawyers, etc. The lower middle class burgs were known as petite bourgeoisie. Major differences in outlook developed between the two groups; especially during the revolution in regard to the role of the state. Also, the difference in outlook between those people who lived in cities and those people who lived in the countryside was great. During the middle ages, as cities became larger and more prominent, the Upper Bourgeoisie were allied with the king, who needed money from the burgs for wars, etc. Kings also wanted to expand their power at the expense of the nobles who ruled the countryside. Nobles imposed on cities laws and tolls, etc, so the city burgs turned to the kinds. Eventually, those middle class burgs turned against both the nobles and king, and the king and the nobles had to come together. The smallest group at the time was the people who worked with their minds. They were the intelligentsia. These people were educated and used their educations in a professional group. They, in a way, belonged to the middle class (those who worked with minds, hands, or in business), as well. By the 16th and 17th centuries, this was the most dynamic group. Ascribed status: Among the things happening in Pre-Industrial Societies, the Middle class was growing, and an important social change was happening. In a countryside, if you were a noble/peasant, you would remain as such until death. For centuries, people were locked into their stations. Status was ascribed at birth; this was true even until the 19th century. It was very difficult to move up status in life. For example, nobles were ONLY the descendents of knights (the fighting class). In cities, your chances were better. You could perhaps be trained in business, law, or medicine. In cities, there was a more modern type of status (achieved). The most elementary fact about life in pre-Industrial Europe was the fact that life was very insecure. There was a widespread mindset that they lived in very close proximity to the reality of death. 20-25% of people didnt make it to age 1. 50% didnt make it till age 20, and only 10% lived till age 60. What were the major killers of the age? Disease: Diseases (epidemics, plague) such as the plague took many lives in pre-industrial Europe. The plague began in China in 1331. It came to Europe via the Black Sea, where it entered the Crimean Peninsula in southern Russia. By 1350, it had spread up and west to the corners of Europe. Between one quarter and one third of the population of Europe succumbed to the plague. It would continually reappear, each time less lethally, until it died out in the 18th century. The

bacteria that caused the Bubonic Plague were carried by fleas on rats that were pervasive in cities and in the countryside. It was so widespread and contagious that people thought it was caused by bad air. It was dubbed the Black Death from the dark spots that appeared on the bodies of its victims. Typhus, cholera, smallpox, there was no prevention and no cure. Famine: Famine was fairly common in European History. This was due to rather primitive agricultural techniques that were dependent on the vagaries of weather and climate. Also, the cultivation of ecologically demanding crops often cause soil exhaustion. In these case, one bad harvest put people in a bad situation, two caused dire straits, and three resulted inevitably in death. War: War obviously caused casualties; this was exacerbated by the fact that often even the superficially wounded died from infection. Also, during war farmlands became battlefields. Invading troops lived off of the land, reducing the amount of food available to people in the area. Disease spread (STDs, contagions, etc.). War disrupted commerce, and removed potential workers/harvesters (men) into battle. War trashed an area. It had a debilitating effect on the location of the battle and on the whole economy. To compete against the odds of survival, people adhered to the principles of communalism/collectivism. Village councils (male elders) decided such things as when to plant, how to harvest, livestock management, what resources went into common use, etc. The most extreme cases of this could be found in Russia where most peasants belonged to mirs (Russian, world), which were peasant communes. Elders would every 7 years divide the land according to the number of eaters in a family. An element of justice was associated with this; it was designed to ensure survival. Individual property was less important than communal security. In cities, guilds (organizations of craftsmen) were in place to secure the financial and occupational interests of their members. Guilds were concerned with ensuring its members had enough work to make a living. Also, guilds set the standards for the production of goods. One had to undergo years of training to become a master craftsman, at which time you were eligible to join a guild (which you had to do in order to have the work to, say, raise a family). Guilds kept membership down because of the idea that there were only so many jobs to go around. The moral economy was concerned with the supervision of the market and with protecting its consumers especially in hard times. Parochialism (or localism) was the idea that family and community were a persons first loyalty. This was a pre-nationalism (the sense of belonging to a large community known as a nation) idea. Nationalism was felt only by elite groups, mostly nobles and clergy who worked for the king in some capacity. The social nexus referred to the fact that in PreIndustrial Europe, money did not count as much as the social connections that people had. Everyone had a place and knew where his or her place was. It was part of ones socialization to learn ones place and how to act around others. It was expected that reverence be shown to those in higher positions, and those in higher positions were expected to show benevolence (under the idea of being a patriarch) and to look out for the interests of the least in the community and to show charity in hard times. Traditionalism was a dependency on the past ways of doing things (farming, craftsmanship, ways to act, role in family, loving, working). People with the most experience (often the oldest) were well respected because they were the walking libraries of experience. These people were the oral sources of knowledge, stories, songs, sayings. They became the means of passing knowledge from generation to generation. They were living bodies of knowledge. When modern change began to come, the most resistance came from traditionalists (from the countryside). As far as religion in Pre-Industrial Europe, at the local level, the most important person was the priest/minister because the local church was the center of the community where many of the most important events of someones life took place

(baptism, funeral, festivals, marriage, etc). Priests/ministers provided solace and comfort during bad times. On a larger scale, the church controlled education. Priests ran schools; in the 17th and 18th centuries, kings need better trained officials and soldiers so kings began to establish educational programs. Religion can also be a divisive force. For example, the Reformations resulted in 130 to 140 years of intense religious conflict. In Pre-Industrial Europe, there were two fundament types of families, nuclear and extended. Nuclear families consisted of one or two generations, parents or parents and their children. Extended families consisted of many generations, and may have included grandparents, parents, children, cousins, childrens families. Nuclear families were more common in cities and also were more prominent in the west. Extended families tended to exist in the East (especially Russia) and in the countryside. The marriage age in extended families was always earlier. Certainly, family life has changed. The Industrial Revolution was destructive to traditional family life. Women certainly had more power/clout. Life in the Middle Ages, the cast of mind people had was essentially religious, apocalyptic. Christians awaited the second coming and the end. The widespread belief was that this was relatively soon. The Christian outlook devalued life in this world. Our life on Earth was simply for the purpose of dying and going to heaven. According to Christian tradition, Adam and Eve were the first people in the world, in the Garden of Eden. Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of True Knowledge. Eve tempted Adam, they realized that they were naked, and they were expelled from the Garden. They had disobeyed God and presumed to partake in god-like powers. The sin was of pride. Pride was considered the deadliest of the deadly sins. This was believed because we were supposed to be just lowly sinners. Obedience and humility were stressed. We were just lowly sinners trying to work our way toward heaven amidst the temptations of the world around us. Through gods grace, we can cultivate virtue and avoid eternal damnation. Also, the ideas of major authorities were emphasized. The Bible (compiled by Christian scholars, who in the 4th century agreed on what would go in the New Testament) was the major source of authority. These scholars were the Church fathers. For example St. Jeromes Latin Vulgate was the definitive Christian Bible. St. Thomas Aquinas essays on Christian theology were also important. The pope was the head of the Christian Church, the bishop of Rome, and the spiritual leader of all Christians. He had the last word on all doctrinal questions because of the concept of Papal Infallibility. Aristotle (4th century BC) was a Greek Philosopher. He was regarded by Christian fathers as the greatest genius of the ancient world. He was called the natural philosopher (scientist). This was because many of his views supported/conformed to the Christian natural world view. He believed in a rational design of the universe. Traditional European ideas about the universe were still based primarily on the ideas of Aristotle (Greece, 4th century BC), whose ideas had been discovered gradually during the middle ages and then brought into harmony with Christian doctrine by medieval theologians. According to Aristotle, a motionless earth was fixed at the center of the universe; around it moved ten separate transparent crystal spheres. In the first eight spheres were embedded the moon, sun, the five known planets, and the fixed stars. This was followed by two spheres that theologians added during the middle ages to account for slight changes in the positions of the stars over the centuries. Beyond the tenth sphere was heaven, with the throne of god and the souls of the saved. Angels kept these perfect spheres moving in perfect circles. Aristotles views also dominated thinking about physics and motion on earth (the sublunar world). This world was made up of four imperfect, changeable elements: the light elements (air and fire) naturally moved upward, and the heavy elements (earth and water) naturally moved downward. The natural direction of movement did not always

prevail, however, for elements were often mixed together and could be affected by an outside force such as a human being. Aristotle and his followers also believed that a uniform force moved an object at a constant speed and that the object would stop as soon as the force was removed. Aristotles science, as interpreted by Christian theologians, fit neatly with Christian doctrines. It established a home for God and a place for Christian souls. It put human beings at the center of the universe and made them the critical link in the great chain of being that stretched from the throne of god to the most lowly insect on earth. Science was a branch of theology, and it reinforced religious thought. Because of this emphasis on authority, there was a tendency for conformity and uniformity in important questions on life. Scientific thought/theories were subordinate to religious dogma. Scientific ideas have to conform to the teachings of the Church. All else was considered heresy. A heretic is someone who holds unorthodox views on religion, whose views do not conform to doctrine. This limited the knowledge that could be gained about the Nature of the Universe; it was assumed that only god could understand nature fully. Nature was destructive. This could be used by the authorities to convey the idea that natural disasters were the product of/retribution for sin, of gods fury caused by sin. The geocentric theory was the idea that the Earth was the center of the universe, and all heavenly bodies rotate around the Earth. This theory was developed by Ptolemy in the 2nd AD in Alexandria. Some events that took place between 1350 and the 1600s helped fashion a new outlook on life and nature. During the Renaissance, the principles of humanism, individualism, and secularism were emphasized. Secularism was associated with the great artists of the Renaissance (like Michelangelo, da Vinci, Raphael, etc). It was more than just great art. Humanism (Roman, humanitas from Cicero) originally was the idea that in order to be civilized, one had to be educated. In the Renaissance, it meant a movement began by scholars (monks/priests) to try to capture as much as possible the ancient teachings of Greece and Rome (after whose collapse teachings were saved by monks). Many of these teachings disagree with Aristotle. Scholars began reading manuscripts by people whose views disagreed with Aristotle. This caused the beginning of a breakdown of conformity. Humanists believed in the destruction of that sort of centuries worth of uniform thought. This fostered a sense of individualism. The Renaissance began in places like Genoa, Venice, and Florence which were very wealthy Italian cities. Merchants in Italy, especially, benefited from the Crusades that opened trade opportunities in the Middle East. Wealthy people there were able to patronize artists like Leonardo. Individualism, the idea that individual people have talent, etc, grew. Why be just a lowly sinner? Secularism, the idea that time here on Earth might just be enjoyable, expanded the emphasis of life in this world (worldliness). The Renaissance led directly to the scientific revolution. Johann Gutenberg in 1455 invented the printing press with movable type. This made possible the mass production and reduced price of books. There was a development of more widespread literacy and education, expedited by the printing press. More people start reading, become better informed, and the conformity of thought starts to break down. This leads to differences of opinion. Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther (1483-1546), at the beginning of the 16th century, began to criticize some Catholic practices, especially the granting of indulgences. Indulgences were the practice of paying the Church to reduce time in Purgatory. Indulgences were played off on the excuse that people were doing good works, making contributions to the holy mother church. Luther emphasized faith over good works, so much so that he changed some verses in the Bible that he translated into

German. The situation was not helped by the fact that there was corruption in the church at the time. Notorious politicians Lucretia and Caesare Borgia were the children of Alexander II, a pope. Popes were not supposed to have children. Julius was the warrior pope. Popes were supposed to be peaceful. The Protestant movement was very strong in Central Europe. The Protestant Reformation led to a Catholic Counter Reformation and to warfare. The Reformation dealt a blow to conformity of thought at the time. Also, people were heading across the Atlantic, looking for a route to China. They happened, instead on North and South America. Magellan tried to circumnavigate the globe in 1519. They found the Earth was a lot bigger than previously though. They encountered new cultures. The world, it was discovered, was more complicated than people thought, and so were the cosmos. In the time before the scientific revolution, scholars were the group of people who knew why, and craftsmen were the people who knew how. Scholars of the scientific revolution combined the know how of craftsmen with the know why of natural philosophers. It was beginning to be understood that to understand nature and its laws, we must experiment. This led to the development of the modern scientific revolution. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) encouraged deep skepticism toward what was accepted as knowledge about nature. He argued that we should use inductive reasoning to draw conclusions from a set of facts. New knowledge had to be pursued through empirical, experimental research. If a scientist is interested in something, he should analyze the aspects of that thing. General principles will then emerge. Bacon was the PR guy for the scientific revolution. Rene Descartes (15961650) used even deeper skepticism. He decided it was necessary to doubt everything that could reasonably be doubted and then, as in geometry, use deductive reasoning from self-evident principles to ascertain scientific laws. He believed the universe was written in Mathematical Code. Descartes accepted only two facts as a starting point: There is a creator of the universe and cogito ergo sum. He used deductive reasoning, taking a general fact and finding underlying truths from that. Copernicus (1473-1543), in an attempt to explain and thereby glorify god, produced the first great departure from the medieval system. As a young student, he saw how astronomers still depended for their most accurate calculations on the work of Ptolemy (Alexandria, 2nd century AD). He worked on his hypothesis, the sun and planets revolve around the sun, from 1506 to 1530. He published On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres only in 1543, fearing the ridicule of other astronomers. This work was very controversial (perhaps the most controversial of its time). The work proposed a heliocentric view of the Universe. The Earth and planets in this model revolve around the sun. This was difficult to believe; up until then, people believed that the Earth was the most important place in the Universe, where gods plan was unfolding. If this was not true, humans (religions) lost most of their significance. Where were heaven and the throne of god? This theory suggested a much more complicated universe, as well. In 1616, the church officially declared Copernican theory false. Galileo (1564-1642) fashioned a telescope for himself; he began publishing the results of his observations of the heavens to prove Copernicuss theory. He saw mountains and imperfections on the moon, too. This was controversial because it was assumed that the closer you got to God, the more perfection you would achieve. Galileo also discovered 4 of Jupiters moons, saw Saturns rings, and determined the phases of the planet Venus. At one point, he was told not to teach Copernican theory as truth. He published Dialogues on the Two Great World Systems in Italian (versus Latin) so more people could read it. He was arrested in 1632 and put under inquisition until 1633. Inquisition was a tribunal with the purpose of searching out and eradicating

heresy. This was during the Religious wars, so unorthodox views were especially risky. Copernican and Galilean thoughts suggested an infinitely large universe. If this idea was true, where was god? The Inquisitors threatened Galileo with torture (they did not torture him though, because he was very famous by this time), and he recanted his theories. Galileo showed, with the rolling brass/inclined plane experiment, that a uniform force (gravity) produces a uniform acceleration. Galileo also contributed to the idea of inertia (the tendency of an object to maintain its velocity unless acted on by a force or the idea that forces, only, cause acceleration). Johann Kepler developed his three laws of planetary motion. In 1609, he demonstrated that the orbits of planets around the sun are elliptical, rather than circular, with the sun at one focal point. Also, He demonstrated that the planets do not move at a uniform speed in their orbits. Third, in 1619, he showed that the time a planet takes to make its complete orbit is precisely related to its distance from the sun. Newton (1642-1727) is most famous for his law of universal gravitation, the idea that every body in the universe attracts every other body in the universe in a precise mathematical relationship. He developed a form of calculus, and he came up with the Inverse-Square Law for the distance between objects. Leibnitz developed calculus. Newton suggested a god who was an ultimate craftsman. Newton was a scientific genius, but was very interested in mysticism. On a couple of occasions, he went crazy paranoid. He wouldnt talk to anyone, and he experienced long bouts of dementia. Someone investigated these occurrences and came to the conclusion that the time Newton spent in his lab (with toxic elements such as mercury and lead) lead to these bouts of insanity. He was devoutly religious. (And Copernicus was a clergyman.) They did not see any threat to religion in their work. But the Catholic Church put Galileo on trial, so are religion and science compatible? The scientific revolution undermined religions superiority to science. The microscope was invented by Anton Leeuwenhoek from Holland. William Harvey of Britain identified the function of the blood and its circulation. Blaise Pascal invented the barometer (amongst other things). During the scientific revolution, it was thought that the scientific method could be used to questions some of the components of the bible, particularly the Old Testament. Scientists began to submit theories in the bible to scientific scrutiny. The exodus, for example, was deemed impossible. This scrutiny served to undermine the authority of the bible for some. The Scientific Revolution helped encourage a very secular 18th century. Enlightenment Philosophers tried to adapt the scientific method to the study of man/society. This helped develop what we call the social sciences. Newton and Galileo did not think that they were undermining religion. They believed their theories served to enhance gods image, if anything. Galileo stated that the creator of the Copernican galaxy must be by far superior to the creator of the Ptolemaic galaxy. Yet it did serve to undermine religion. Both men, however, were right that science is involved with nature and religion to do with the spirit. It all comes down to faith. Scientific ideas are spread by books, obviously, and by scientific academies that began appearing in the 17th century in major cities. These academies brought together the scientific community, allowed experiments and data and theories to be published. It encouraged scientists from different nations to communicate; it created an international community of scientists and scholars. Salons were useful to get scientific ideas to percolate down to the middle class from the scientific community. A salon was a social meeting (usually in a living room setting). A gentry family would invite other local gentry. There was some form of paid entertainment. Every attendant displays some form of new information (experiments, new gadgets, etc). Salons became popular amongst the British gentry and in the nobility of other nations.

England: Monarchies from the Middle Ages tended to be weak. Monarchs had difficulty enforcing their power outside of the capitol city because to do this they needed money, well-trained officials, and soldiers. This led to the nobility ruling the country-side; some nobles had more power than the king. For example, the Duke of Normandy was more powerful than the French kind and WAS the king of England. By the 14th century, monarchies developed in many countries. Absolute monarchies claimed to be appointed by god. This was known as the Divine Right of King. They did not have to answer to anyone but god under this idea of divine right. The king was above the law. The other form of government, represented by England, is the constitutional monarchy, according to which the king who does have formidable powers, is still limited in some way. Britain did not actually have a constitution. There was an agreement between the nobles and monarchy. The Magna Carta, signed in 1215, was signed by King John (brother of Richard the Lion-Hearted). He was abusing his power so the people of the court rose up and made him acknowledge that he was bound by some laws. This led to a tradition in the role of monarch in England. In the 16th century, there were two very powerful leaders in the Tudor Family, though: Henry VIII (ruled 1508-1547), for example, had 6 wives. England had come out of a terrible civil war. The War of the Roses was won by Henry VIII. England had just achieved some stability. Henry was once a staunch supporter of Catholicism. He later broke with the Catholic Church. He married Catherine of Aragon (a region in Spain). Catherine had been married to Henrys brother Arthur. Arthur had died. To marry her, it required special permission from the Church. Henry had to ensure that Arthur had never consummated the marriage (so that Henry and Catherines marriage would not be incestuous). They got the permission, however there were several problems in the marriage. Namely, Catherine could not produce a male heir, and Henry had a roving eye. He fell in love with Anne Boleyn, who was apparently very attractive. Henry claimed that his and Catherines marriage should not have taken place since she was married to his brother and had an annulment. The church did not go for this, so Henry broke with the Church and began the Church of England, which was very similar to the Catholic Church except that Henry was the head of the Church of England instead of the Pope. After he broke with the church, he divorced Catherine and married Anne Boleyn. Anne Boleyn bore a daughter, Elizabeth. Anne was later accused of adultery and was beheaded in 1536, three years after her marriage. He then married Jane Seymore who produced a son, but she died in childbirth. He then married Anne of Cleeves. He then married Catherine Howard, who was the cousin of Anne Boleyn; she, too, was beheaded for adultery. Later he married Catherine Parr; she outlived him but died in childbirth. Elizabeth who ruled from 1558 to 1603 was known as the Virgin Queen. She never married but had male admirers. She was a shrewd politician; she was a survivor of a civil war situation. She was able to manipulate the men of the court. Seadogs under her employment plundered gold-laden Spanish ships on return from the New World. This led to war with Spain under Philip II, who sent their Armada to attack Britain. The fleet, however, was largely destroyed by a storm en route to England, and the remaining ships of the Spanish Armada were finished off by the British. This was a huge victory for England, and it enhanced Elizabeths reputation. She didnt have an heir so she was last in the line of Tudor monarchs. Her 2nd cousin, James Stuart who ruled Scotland, was the next in line to the throne. He reigned from 1603 1625). He had political problems though. For one, he believed in the divine right of kings, but he was Scottish and the Magna Carta had already been signed, which said that kings were limited by law and tradition. Also, the tradition of Parliament (a bicameral group, House of Lords (nobility) and House of Commons (gentry)), once a small body of men who just advised the king, over

the years acquired new responsibilities like raising money for the king. Also, many members of the House of Commons were Puritans (fundamentalist Protestants) who thought the church of England was too much like the Catholic Church. Protestants in England were part of two groups: the Presbyterians, who had a church hierarchy, and the Puritans, who believed each congregation was its own boss. We known the Puritans as the Pilgrims who arrived on American soil and founded settlements there. These protestants opposed the Church of England for being too Catholic. Puritans emphasized preaching (not rituals and sacraments). They believed in keeping mass as simple as possible, by only preaching from the bible during mass. The Puritans believed in Pre-Destination, which was the idea that it was already decided who was going to heaven and who was going to hell. There became an urgent need to prove that one was one of the saved, created a system of the elect versus the damned. Also, James had a personality quirk. He was known as the king who would be queen. He was an athlete, but he was also smitten by some men at court. Puritans were scandalized by his behavior. James was followed by his son Charles, who also wanted to rule as an absolute monarch. Finally, in 1629, he decided to rule without Parliament (who raised his money). He established a government monopoly on basic goods. This was interfering with commerce and property rights. This severely pissed off the middle class. In Scotland, a civil way broke out in 1642-1648. The Cavaliers, who supported Charles I, and the Roundheads (who supported Parliament) went to war with each other. The Roundheads won, and they put Charles on trial. They convicted him and put him to death (regicide). Oliver Cromwell was the new ruler. Since England no longer had a king, it became a commonwealth. He became Lord and Protector of the English Commonwealth. It was nearly a military dictatorship. Puritans, at this time, tried to remake England. They imposed a Puritanical regime on England. The Backlash against the Puritans came in several forms. The Ranters, for example, make a lot of noise. Abeizer Coppe was the most famous leader of the ranter religious sect that developed in response to the Puritanical Regime. Coppe could get up on a pulpit and cuss for hours on end. This was seen as a gift from god because if the Puritans say you cant cuss then obviously, god wants you to cuss. Puritans arrested him, bore a hole through his tongue, dragged him around town by his tongue, and then threw him in jail. People react to repression like the Puritans in predictable ways. By 1660, the country had had enough of commonwealth, military dictatorship, and Puritanism. The Stuart Restoration in 1660 saw Charles II invited back to the throne of England. He ruled until 1685. James II, who ruled from 1685-1688, was booted out because he was a Catholic (and he had a Catholic heir). This was the Glorious Revolution, in which James II stepped down from the thrown, asked to leave the country, and no blood was spilt. His successors were William and Mary (who was James daughter). Her husband was William of Orange; they lived in the Netherlands. William was heavily against the French king. He died in 1702, Mary in 1694. Queen Anne, who ruled from 1702-1714) died without heir. During Annes reign, under the Act of Union, England and Scotland (and conquered Ireland) and Wales were officially joined to form Great Britain. Since Queen Anne had no heir, Parliament convened to bring in the elector of Hanover, beginning the House of Hanover. The first Hanover King was George I. He ruled from 1714 to 1727. He could not speak English. This presented no real opposition for Parliament to gain the upper hand on the monarchy. George III was the British King at the time of the American Revolution. The Civil War and the Glorious Revolution showed that kings were not absolute in England. (In those cases, one king was executed and the other thrown out.) They needed a compromise that would leave the king as the executive officially but would put a good amount of power in Parliament. Kings had a lot of places (jobs) to offer. (They needed

horses, linens, etc. There was household staff, ministers, advisors, admirals, positions in the Anglican Church, etc.) This was a powerful tool for him. George I had Robert Walpole (1721-1742) as a very good advisor who knew what those places lent to the power of the king. His motto was let sleeping dogs lie. This led Walpole to be able to get a lot through Parliament. After a while, the House of Commons developed into what was really the legislative body, the House of Lords into the Supreme Court, and the position of the king the executive body. Under Walpole, there was a lot of corruption in England though. There were Pocket Boroughs (like Old Saram) that were basically old, uninhabited mounds of dirt, that were well represented by people in the House of Commons. Then there were Rotton boroughs which was basically a town or city whose voters (from the gentry class) were known to want to be offered things for their votes. It was, however, the most sophisticated political system of the time. It allowed for the input of more people than any system in Europe (with the possible exception of Holland later). The gentry debated, decided issues, etc. Absolute monarchy did not allow for that. The practice of primogeniture also forced younger brothers to go into professions, supporting commercial attitudes. The French, for example, on the other hand were prejudiced against work. The English, however, accepted the idea of profit. This led to England pursuing a very aggressive foreign policy to try to capture foreign markets and resources. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) wrote Leviathon (1651). He had a negative view of human nature; he believed that the worst thing was anarchy. John Locke, on the other hand, who lived from 1632 to 1704 and published Two Treatises of Civil Government in 1690, believed that it was most important for government to preserve life, liberty, and property. They were both contract theorists and debated the role of the sovereign. Thomas Hobbes had a profound influence on political conservatism. Locke was perhaps the earliest component of political liberalism. Hobbes and Locked deal with how government and societies come into being. Before, most people attributed the development of government to the hand of god. Hobbes and Locke removed god from political theories. They both argued that before government, men lived in a state of Nature, which is bad. Men then form a government. Hobbes described the State of Nature as a war of each person against every other person. [Nasty, brutish, short quote] Hobbes described human nature negatively, as consumed by greed, suspiciousness, and hubris. When, however, men come together, they form a government with a sovereign. When this happens, people are obliged to obey their ruler. When the ruler is tyrannical, people must obey him anyway. He believed that people must not overthrow their sovereign because this will create anarchy. Locke had a more optimistic view of Human nature. He believed that people were basically reasonable but that there were squabbles. This created a need for government to preserve life, liberty, and property. Locke stressed liberty; this set him apart from Hobbes. Locke believed that if a ruler becomes oppressive (reduces liberty), people are obliged to overthrow him and find a new ruler. Locke makes revolution a requirement if the leader is oppressive. This difference can be explained by the fact that Hobbes used to work for Charles I (who was overthrown and executed). He was horrified by the regicide and had to live through the Puritanical regime that followed. Hobbes witnessed a lot of chaos and became reactionary. Locke, who witnessed the Glorious Revolution in 1688, saw only that James II stepped down and ushered in William and Mary, who were two very popular rulers. Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince.