Self Directed Learner

 

Chapters 16, 17, 18

 

Chapter 16

 

1. Why did Louis XIV move the royal court from Paris to Versailles?  To keep tabs on/ undermine the power of the nobility
2. What were three consequences of the Fronde?  The govt. would have to compromise with bureaucrats and social elites that controlled local institutions, the French economy was badly disrupted, and Louis XIV was traumatized by the rebellion, causing him to believe that absolute monarchy was the only way to rule
3. What were key ideas of mercantilism?  That more product goes out than comes in, govt. regulation of economy
4. What caused a decline in the Dutch Economy?  Wars (especially the War of Spanish Succession)
5. Why did Louis XIV revoke the Edict of Nantes?  It was not a popular policy, had never been intended to be long term
6. What was the force behind Cardinal Richelieu’s policies in France?  Total subordination of all to the govt.
7. What did Colbert believe about French economic policy?  He believed that the French should only sell products, not buy them.
8. What was the Paulette?  An annual tax or paid by royal officials to guarantee heredity of govt. offices
9. What did Colbert do specifically to improve France?  Merchant marine, strong textile industry
10. Who fought against whom in the war of Spanish Succession, what was the outcome?  The English, Dutch, Austrians, and Prussians teamed up in the Grand Alliance against France to oppose Louis XIV’s uniting of Spain and France (due to a will left to his grandson).  The war ended in the Peace of Utrecht, with the Alliance beating the French.  England gained the most from the war. 
11. What was an ancestor to the cabinet system?  The Cabal, in England
12. What was administrative monarchy? Centralized govt. and administrative bureaucracy (career officials solely responsible to the king) greatly expanded.  It lacked consent of the governed
13. What was Cromwell’s protectorate like?  It was a military dictatorship.  He tolerated religion, except Roman Catholicism, and Catholicism in Ireland.  Mercantilist economy.  Established Navigation Act which required all English goods to be taken on English ships.
14. What battle symbolized the final collapse of Spain militarily?  Rocroi
15. What military reforms were made in France?  The control of armies went from the nobles to the state, more uniformed.
16. How did Henry the Great (or IV) seek to rebuild the French monarchy?  He converted to Catholicism ad sought better relations with the pope.  He issued the Edict of Nantes for religious tolerance.  He generally kept France at peace.
17. What were the intendants?  Administrators of the generalites (districts) in France recruited from the Noblesse de Robe.  They recruited for the army, supervised tax collection.
18. What caused the uproar of Protestants in 1627?  Louis XIII ending protestant military and political independence. (It was a state within a state he said).
19. What was French foreign policy under Richelieu aimed at?  The destruction of the Habsburg fence surrounding France.
20. How was the relationship between Louis XIV and the nobility?  On of collaboration
21. What was French Classicism?  The deliberate ornate style of many artists to imitate and recreate art of the Renaissance
22. Who painted The Rape of the Sabine Women?  Nicholas Poussin
23. What greatly enriched Spain, but then led to widespread inflation?  Flow of silver from Americas
24. Describe the Dutch Republic?  Merchants and Financiers held the power.  Fishing was the cornerstone of the Dutch economy.  The govt. was fiercely republican.  Dutch East India Co. helped overseas imperialism.
25. What was the spark plug to the Glorious Revolution?  Catholic heir produced by James II, and 7 Church of England bishops were imprisoned for refusing to read something
26. How was English society, generally in the 16^th and 17^th centuries?  Unstable politically
27. Who came in to rule after the Glorious Revolution?  William of Orange, who established a Bill of Rights.  Used many of rights Locke talked about, Life, Liberty, and Property.  Developed constitution as well.  Surpassed monarchy of Louis XIV in terms of potential and lead the world to greater moral and artistic heights.

 

Chapter 17

 

1. What were the differences in conditions in Eastern Europe compared to those of Western Europe in how absolutism cam to being?  Eastern had serfdom, nobility reduced importance of middle class and towns.  Western Europe was the opposite.
2. How was serfdom consolidated?  Peasants’ right of free movement was taken away, and they became tied to the land.  Also, lords took more and more peasant land for themselves, and demanded more work.  Lords had more control because monarchs did not want to resist them.  The typical king was just first among equals in the noble class (from book).  He had peasants also.  Landlords could sell products to big capitalists instead of town merchants.
3. What three main things did monarchs do in Eastern Europe to monopolize political power?  Imposed taxes without consent (also made deals with nobles), maintained permanent armies, and conducted relations with other states however they liked
4. What was the Pragmatic Sanction?  A sanction that stated that the Habsburg possessions newly acquired from the Ottomans (after the Ottomans invaded), were never to be divided.
5. Who centralized the Habsburg Govts.? After the Thirty Years War?  Ferdinand III, who also created a permanent standing army
6. Who successfully stopped development of full Habsburg absolutism after they were taken when the Ottomans were defeated?  The Hungarians, who successfully resisted complete Habsburg rule.  They eventually compromised with the Habsburgs, and had many traditional privileges restored.  They also did not want to convert to Catholicism, which was another factor in their resistance.
7. What three provinces did “The Great Elector”, Frederick William, attempt to unite?  Brandenburg, Prussia, and areas of Western Germany along the Rhine.  All has separate estates, which the Great Elector had to surpass.  He rose to power because he was one of the Hohenzollern Electors, and the estates power had weakened after the Thirty Years War
8. Who were the Junkers?  Landowning class in Prussia
9. How did Frederick mange to pay in 1600 for a permanent standing Army?  He established taxation without consent in the estates.  Soldiers doubled as tax collectors.
10. How did Frederick keep power?  He reaffirmed rights of the nobles so he gained more political power, had a strong military to back him up
11. Who was Frederick William I, and what was peculiar about him?  He was obsessed with the military and liked tall soldiers.  He believed the welfare of the king and state depended on a powerful military.  He centralized the bureaucracy, and made Junkers join the military.  He was always at peace, and made society very strict.
12. Who went on conquests throughout Russia in the 12^th and 13^th century?  Mongolians, who enforced taxes and controlled the Slavic people.
13. How was Moscow able to destroy princely rivals and replace the Mongol Khan?  They gained favor in Mongol eyes.  Ivan I loaned money to other princes for taxes, and destroyed other principalities that attempted to rebel against the Mongols.
14. Under whom did the Muscovites gain complete control of all territories surrounding them?  Ivan III, who became the Tsar (Caesar).  He came to see himself as a Khan (Mongol ruler), the supreme prince of Russia.  Also, he married the daughter of the last Byzantine Empire, further increasing his power.  After the fall of Constantinople, the tsars saw themselves as heirs of the Caesars and Orthodox Christianity, thus claimed divine right.  Took control of Boyars, forcing them to serve them if they wanted to keep their land.  Service nobility rose (people would get land in return for military service.
15. What policies did Ivan the Terrible start?  He made it so all nobles, if they wanted land, had to serve the tsar.  He made peasants, urban traders, and artisans bound to the land, and took control of profitable businesses.
16. Why did Ivan the Terrible crack down on the Boyars?  He blamed them for the death of his wife, Anastasia, and the losing of wars.
17. What were the Cossacks?  Outlaw armies of Russian peasants who had fled from landowners and the Tsar’s officials.  Peasants became tied to the land because so many ran away.
18. Who was Ivan Bolitnikov, who was Stenka Razin?  Leader of Cossack rebellion after Ivan the Terribles’s death.  Leader of Cossack rebellion after the Russian Orthodox Church split.  In response to this violent rebellion, the upper class tightened the hold on the peasants.
19. Who was elected as the new Tsar after Ivan the Terrible’s death?  His grandnephew, Michael Romanov.
20. Who initiated the tearing apart of the Russian Orthodox Church?  Nikon, who said the church was corrupted.
21. What was Peter the Great most interested in?  Military power
22. What was Baroque?  An art style that encouraged emotional, exuberant art, which appealed to the senses of church goers
23. What bad alliance did Peter make that put his country in a long Great Northern War from 1700 to 1721?  He decided to ally with Denmark and the elector of Saxony, to wage a quick war on the powerful Sweden.  Denmark was quickly defeated then Sweden turned to attack Russia.
24. What did Peter do to increase state power and strengthen the military?  He reinstated the old service system (every noble was required to serve the govt. in some way for life).  Schools were created and five years compulsory education away from home was required of every nobleman.  He started a military-civilian bureaucracy with 14 ranks that everyone had to start (from the bottom).  He hired foreign professionals to his service.  He instituted a regular standing army, and drafts into the military for life.  He allowed western ideas to flow into Russia.  Established public health.
25. What Austrian military hero hired architects Erlach and Hildebrandt to build him a palace with wealth he received?  Eugene of Savoy
26. What was Karlsruhe?  An example of a royal city in Germany that reflected royal magnificence and centralization of political power.
27. How did Peter manage to construct St. Petersburg?  He drafted peasants to build it.  He commanded merchants and artisans to move in, and then pay for parts of it.  It was a baroque style city

 

Chapter 18

 

1. What caused new, scientific ideas to be established?  Financially stable well educated, privileged groups interacted with intellectual writers, coming to see the world in a different view.
2. What was scientific thought based on in 1500 based on?  Aristotle, and his views
3. What did Copernicus propose, and what was the result?  That the universe was heliocentric, not geocentric.  Many protestant sects severely criticized him.  Catholic criticism was milder.
4. Who was the prime astronomer who established greatest observatory of the day?  Brahe.  Kepler took much if his information and formulated the laws of planetary motion.
5. What are the three laws of planetary motion, as found by Kepler?  Planets go around the sun in elliptical, rather than circular orbits, planets do not move at a uniform speed, and showed that the time a planet takes to complete its orbit around the sun is precisely related to its distance from the sun.
6. Whose greatest achievement was the elaboration and consolidation of the experimental method?  Galileo, who conducted controlled experiments to find out what happened.  He also formulated the law of inertia.
7. Why was Galileo tried for heresy by the papal Inquisition?  He openly ridiculed the views of Aristotle and Ptolemy in Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World.
8. Who wrote Principia?  Newton, who first stated there his principle law of gravitation.  He related the whole universe mathematically in one majestic system.
9. What were three causes for the scientific revolution?  Science becoming a branch of philosophy, the recovery of ancient mathematical scripts, and the problem of navigation, better instruments (for science).
10. Which college was the first to have scientists play an honored role in society?  Gresham College, which became the main center of scientific activity in England in the first half of the 17^th century.
11. What was Thomas Bacon’s major contribution to science?  The formalization of the empirical method into the general theory of inductive reasoning (or otherwise known as empiricism).
12. Who discovered analytic geometry?  Descartes.  He believed that it was necessary to doubt everything until that could be reasonably doubted, and then use deductive reasoning from self evident principles to discover scientific laws.
13. Which two scientists’ ideas are combined to form the modern scientific method?  Bacon and Descartes.
14. What was the most important original idea of the enlightenment?  That scientific methods should be applied to examine all areas of life; nothing was to be accepted on faith, but on strict reason.  Also, it was believed that progress was attainable; society’s problems could be discovered by science.
15. Who wrote, Conversions on the Plurality of Worlds, and what did it say?  Fontenelle.  It speaks of progress, and how it is attainable.
16.  Who was a famous skeptic of religious truth and wrote the Historical and Critical Dictionary?  Bayle, who demonstrated that throughout history, human beliefs had often been mistaken.
17. What principle did Locke insist in his, Essay Concerning Human Understanding?  That our environment writes up who we are and what we believe. (tabula rasa).
18. Whose philosophy is the U.S. checks and balances form of govt. based on?  Montesquieu, in his The Spirit of Laws.
19. Who was known for his sharp tongue, and thought that monarchy was the best form of govt.?  Voltaire.  He lived for a while with Madame du Chatelet, another philosophe of the day (woman).
20. Who published the first Encyclopedia?  Diderot
21. What did d’Holbach argue in System of Nature?  That humans were machines completely determined by outside sources.
22. What three reasons lead to the Enlightenment reaching its height in France?  The philosophes in France really were philosophers (there were salons in which many would gather to talk about philosophical matters), French absolutism and religious orthodoxy was strong, but not too strong, and  that French was the international language of the educated classes
23. Who wrote The Social Contract and believed that his friends were plotting against his life?  Rousseau, who believed in two main concepts, popular sovereignty, and the general will. 
24. What was the reading revolution?  A change and increase on reading to more secular books.  Reading for fun.
25. Who ran the (probably) most famous salon?  Madame Geoffrin
26. How did the enlightenment influence political developments?  (Essay).

 

Enlightened Rule

 

     As the Enlightenment progressed, 18^th century Europe witnessed a change in the absolutist governments of earlier centuries.  Monarchs such as Frederick II, Catherine II, Maria Theresa, and Joseph II began to lead with “enlightened absolutism” and were said to be “enlightened” because they encouraged the spread of Enlightenment ideas and lead revolutionary reforms (at the time).  However, despite these actions, many historians have questioned the rule of these leaders as “enlightened”; through deeper study one can see that they did put to use some Enlightenment ideals, but only ones which they perceived were best the state.  Therefore, the title of “enlightened”, given to many 18^th century monarchs is a little exaggerated.

     The reasoning that monarchs such as Frederick II, Catherine II, Maria Theresa, and Joseph II were “enlightened” is understandable, in that they did indeed enact very new and original reforms.  Frederick II made it so all people within his rule could worship and believe as they wished.  He improved schools for the improvement of knowledge.  He said, “I must enlighten my people…and make them as happy as human beings can be”.  Catherine II of Russia was studier of the enlightenment.  She read writers such as Bayle and Voltaire, and hired artisans to make Russia more like enlightened Western Europe.  She also allowed religious toleration, though limited.  Maria Theresa sought to improve the strength of the government and taxed nobles, though she was very old fashioned when it came to rule.  Her son, Joseph II, however, did more by the way of revolutionary reforms than all of these monarchs.  He enacted religious toleration of Protestants as well as Jews, to go with the state religion of Catholicism.  He even abolished serfdom and commanded that all peasant labor obligations must be paid in cash payments.  All of these rulers were called “enlightened” because of their remarkable reforms and attempts at improvement of the state.

     The title given to these 18^th century rulers as “enlightened” may have seemed fit for 19^th century historians, but now may seem too much for some historians in current scholarship.  German historians of the 19^th century believed that an “enlightened despot” must be educated in enlightenment ideals, and that reform must come from the top.  Frederick II, Catherine II, Maria Theresa, and Joseph II all fit this definition, thus were called “enlightened despots”.  Joseph II was known as the “revolutionary emperor”, because of his groundbreaking goals for reform.  Later historians have shown, however, that this ruler was just involved in a more advanced state-building work.  Frederick II did say that he wanted to make his people as happy as possible, but only, “…as happy as the means at my disposal permit”.  This is exemplified in his general condemnation of serfdom, but his accepting of it in practice.  He knew it would be all too dangerous to challenge the existing social structure of his state.  Catherine II, like Frederick II, condemned serfdom in theory, but knew that a move away from the practice would have to be very gradual.  After the peasant revolt in 1773, however, she decided that the peasants were dangerous and, in 1775, gave all nobles total control over their serfs, thus ending her “enlightened” ways.  Maria Theresa did little to earn the “enlightened” title bestowed upon her, though she did gradually attempt to reduce the power of lords.  Recent scholars have proved that the “enlightened” title given to 18^th century monarchs was exaggerated.  These monarchs set out to reform and make changes in the spirit of the enlightenment, but the changes were for the betterment of the state, not necessarily its subjects.

     When it comes down to the analysis of these monarchs, not all were exactly the same, and none of them were completely “enlightened”.  Catherine II and Frederick II both encouraged the spread of enlightenment ideas throughout their states.  Maria Theresa sought gradual reform, and her son Joseph II, sped up her attempted reform, probably making the most significant changes of all the monarchs.  However, when it came down to reform of the social structure many of these monarchs backed down from their “enlightened” title.  Frederick II, though opposed to serfdom, did not dare challenge the practice.  Neither did Catherine II, who increased the power of the nobles.  Both knew that they would take their enlightenment ideas only so far, unwilling to risk separation of their states; after all, the most important thing in European politics was a strong state.  Thus, all the reforms enacted were in a somewhat enlightened sort of way, but for the strict improvement of the state.  Joseph II attempted, and may have been able to succeed with his enlightened efforts, but they were cut short when he died prematurely, leaving his empire in turmoil.  None of the monarchs of the 18^th century completely earned the title of “enlightened” because they were all not willing to change the social structure existing in their state; they did not want their state to fall apart, but be strong, and able to defend itself.

          Though monarchs of the 18^th century may have encouraged enlightenment ideals, they were not necessarily “enlightened” themselves.  They were absolute rulers, attempting to improve their own state, making it as strong as possible.  If they were able to improve the lives of their subjects, they would, but only if it did not conflict with the power of the state, which was over all.

 

Reflection: Self Directed Learner

 

     At the end of my first semester in AP European History, our teacher assigned the class to assemble into 3 or 4 people groups, and all write questions and an essay on the material from the semester.  Each member of a group was assigned a couple of chapters, and at the due date for the questions we were all to turn in our questions to each other, so we could study for the upcoming final.  I had three vast chapters to cover.  I was forced to direct myself into filtering the data, and write legitimate questions.  By doing this I showed that I could teach myself to study, and to compile key facts and details.  I feel that I wrote good questions, and learned much in writing them.  I believe that they helped my group as well.  I did well on the final, and learned that I could study on my own.

 

 

 

Self Directed Learner: Most Improved Defensive Player

 

    

 

 

 

 

     I was really looking forward to going into this year’s football season.  I was very excited because I knew the plays well, and had worked very hard I the off season to get bigger, faster, and stronger.  I had spent hours in running and lifting in the weight room.  I could see my improvement as an athlete.  Because of the work I had put in, I did get better, and earned a starting spot at receiver and cornerback.  I cherished being on the field, and I could see that my play improved with each game.  By the end of the year I was pretty solid at corner, and could hold my own with anyone I played against.  Though we lost the game that decided the league title, I was rewarded for my hard work by being called up to varsity for playoffs.  It was an awesome experience and I learned a lot for next year.

     At our season banquet, awards were passed out for specific things.  To my surprise, when the Most Improved Defensive Player award was given, it had my name on it.  It was an honor to receive.  The award was icing on the cake to a solid season, and hard, but worthwhile off season.  This award shows that I am a self directed learner.  I saw what I needed to improve, sought the help I needed, and went about trying to improve.  I did not only get the satisfaction of improvement, but also got the notice of my coaches for that improvement.  This award will always show me that I can improve if I work hard for something.