Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight, Old Stuff: Approximately 1450 to around 1750 C.E.
Summary: A. European Rivals. B. Russia out of isolation. C. Islamic Gunpowder Empires: Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal. D. African States. E. Isolated Asia: Ming and Manchu China, and Tokugawa Japan.

Notes: A. Revolutions in European thought and Expression

1. Renaissance literally means "rebirth" and this was extremely apparent with the arts. Some of the greatest us of all time came out of the Renaissance, including Michelangelo and Brunelleschi.
2. Artists and sculptors such as Leonardo da Vinci and Donatello depicted their characters as human-like as possible, rather then the stiff medieval style of art.
3. The technique of linear perspective was developed by Tommaso Masaccio and Fillipo Brunelleschi. Linear perspective is the technique in which you draw farther away objects smaller, to give the painting a three-dimensional quality.
4. Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, making books easier to produce, making them cheaper and making it so that poor people were able to learn to read.
5. In 1517, Machiavelli published The Prince, a how-to book for monarchs who wanted to maintain their power.
6. In the early 1500s, Erasmus, one of the most well-known learned men of the time, was an counseled kings and popes.
7. Sir Thomas More, of England wrote Utopia, which describes an ideal society, in which everyone shared the wealth, and everyones needs were met.
8. The Renaissance also produced William Shakespear, arguably the most famous European writer of the time. Among his works are Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar and Venus and Adonis.

The Protestant Reformation:

1. When the church needed money to finance its immense building projects plus pay for Renaissance artists it had in its employ, it began to sell indulgences. An indulgence was a piece of paper that the church sold, that guaranteed life in Heaven. Not only did selling indulgences give the church money, it helped them keep control over the masses.
2. In 1517, a German monk named martin Luther nailed a list of 95 these on a church door. His list outlined his frustrations with the current church practices, including the selling of indulgences, which he said amounted to selling salvation for profit.
3. Martin Luther translated the Latin Bible into German, because Germans couldn't read Latin.
4. Pope Leo X was outraged and ordered Luther to recant his theses, at the assembly in Worms, 1521, Luther refused to recant his theses. The pope ordered Luther's arrest, but a nobleman from Luther's hometown defended him.
5. Luther's followers referred to themselves as Lutherans, and began to separate themselves from the Catholic Church.
6. John Calvin from France led a powerful Protestant group by preaching ideology of predestination. Calvinist doctrine stated that God had predetermined the destiny for all people, most of whom God had already damned.
7. King Henry VIII did not have a son as an heir to his throne, and tried to abandon his wife, Catherine of Aragon because of it. When the pope denied annulment of the marriage, Henry VIII renounced Rome and declared himself religious leader of England.
8. During the counter-reformation of the 1500s, the Catholic Church itself reformed, and won back some people that it had lost the Protestant denominations.
9. Ignatius Loyola founded the society of Jesuits, which was influential in restoring faith in the teachings of Jesus as interpreted by the Catholic Church.
10. The Council of Trent presided over the counter-period from 1545 to 1563.

The Scientific Revolution:

1. Nicolaus Copernicus developed a mathematical theory that the sun was the center of the universe, and that the Earth, along with the other celestial bodies, revolved around it.
2. In 1632, Galileo wrote his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems, he wrote it in Latin to reach a wide audience in hope of defeating defenders of Ptolemy. The Church summoned Galileo before the Inquisition in Rome, and he was forced to recant his book. It was placed on The Index, a list of heretical works, it stayed there until 1822.
3. The scientific method was that you should experiment with things, rather then just reason about them.
4. Tycho Brahe lived from 1546 to 1601. He built an observatory and recorded his observations.
5. Francis Bacon lived from 1561 to 1626. He published works on inductive logic.
6. Johannes Keplar lived from 1571 to 1630. He developed laws of planetary motion based on observation and mathematics.
7. Sir Isaac newton wrote The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1697. He invented calculus to help prove the theories of Copernicus, Galileo, Bacon and others. He also developed the law of gravity.
8. The scientific revolution contributed to a belief system known as deism. Deists are those that believe a god exists, but think that he plays a passive role.

The Enlightenment:

1. During the high middle ages and through the Renaissance and counter-reformation, the Church allied itself with strong monarchs. These monarchs believed that they had been chosen by God to rule, and that the people had a moral and religious obligation to obey them. This concept was known as divine right.
2. James I ruled England from 1603 to 1625.
3. Thomas Hobbes lived from 1588 to 1679. He wrote Leviathan, and believed that people by nature were greedy and prone to violent warfare.
4. John Locke lived from 1632 to 1704. He wrote Two Treatises on Government, and believed that human kind, for the most part was good. He also believed that all men were born equal to each other.
5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau lived from 1712 to 1778. He argued that all men were equal and that society should be organized according the the general will.

Notes: B. European Exploration and Expansion

1. In 1488, Portugal financed a voyage by Bartholomew Dias who rounded the tip of Africa (known as the Cape of Good Hope).
2. In 1497, Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, explored east African kingdoms and then made his way to India, where he established trade relations.
3. In 1494 Portugal and Spain were already fighting over the newly found Americas.
4. The Spanish and the Portuguese drew up the Treaty of Tordesillas, which established a line of demarcation on a longitudinal line that runs through the Atlantic Ocean.
5. Amerigo Vespucci explored South America on several trip around 1500; realized that the continent was huge and not part of Asia. America was named after him.
6. Ponce de Leon in 1513 explored Florida for Spain in search of the fountain of youth.
7. Vaso de Balboa in 1513 explored Central America for Spain and saw the Pacific Ocean.
8. Ferdinand Magellan in 1519 sailed around the tip of South America to the Pacific Ocean for Portugal. He made it to the Philippines before he died, his crew continued and became to first to circumnavigate the globe.
9. In 1524, Giovanni da Verrazano explored the North American coast for France.
10. In 1578, Sir Francis Drake became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe.
11. In 1597, John Cabot explored the coast of North America for England.
12. Henry Hudson in 1609, sailed for the Dutch looking for a northwest passage to Asia, he also explored the Hudson River and made claims to the area for the Dutch.
13. In 1519, Hernan Cortes landed on the coast of Mexico with six hundred men, and found himself at the center of the Aztec Empire. On horseback, the Aztec leader, Montezuma thought that Cortes was a god, and sent an offering of gold to him. Unfortunately, when the Spanish saw the gold, it only made them want more, and they attacked Tenochtitlan.
14. The Spanish brought with them diseases, and the Aztecs suffered from them greatly, over 60 years, 18 million Aztecs were killed, from 1520 to 1580.
15. In 1531, Francisco Pizarro set out in search of the Incas with a tiny force of 200 men. Disease and superior weapons and a little help from Incan enemies quickly destroyed the Incan resistance. By 1535, Pizarro was in control of the region.
16. Once Spain had set foot on the new world, thousands of Spaniards arrived to build a new colonial empire.
17. The colonial society was a hierchical organization. At the top were the peninsulares, the Spanish officals sent to govern the colonies. Below them, the creoles, were people born in the colonies to Spanish parents. Below them were the mestizos, those with European and native American ancestry, below them were the mulattos, those with European and African ancestry. Then on the bottom there were native Americans, who had little or no freedom.
18. To run the empire, the viceroys, who were appointed governors of each of the five regions of New Spain, established the Encomienda System, which was like a feudal system.
19. When the Portuguese and Spanish established empires on the new world, new foods, animals, plants and lots of other things were transfered between Europe and the Americas. This was known as the Columbian Exchange.
20. The two key products of the Columbian Exchange were sugar and silver.
21. The Muscovy Company of England monopolized trade routes to Russia.

Notes: A. The European Rivals

1. In 1519, Charles V was elected Holy Roman Emperor by German princes, which meant that he held lands in part of France, the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany in addition to Spain.
2. King Henry VIII of England, who ruled from 1509 to 1547, nullified the popes rule in England, so that he could divorce his wife, Anne Boleyn, to try and get a male heir. He didn't get one, instead he got a female heir, whose name was Elizabeth.
3. The Elizabethan Age from 1558 to 1603, boasted commercial expansion and exploration and colonization in the New World.
4. Charles I rose to power in 1625, three years later he was desperate for money from Parliament. He agreed to sign the Petition of Right, a document limiting taxes and forbidding unlawful imprisonment. But Charles ignored the Petition after he got he got the money he needed. He claimed divine right and ruled without calling another meeting at Parliament.
5. The Roundheads, under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, attacked Charles I and defeated him. Charles was tried and executed, and Cromwell rose to power. Cromwell rules with violence and intolerance against catholics and the Irish.
6. Charles II, the exiled son of Charles I, was invited by Parliament to take the throne of England. This is called the Stuart Restoration.
7. When Charles II died his brother, James II took over.
8. In 1689, James II daughter and son in law signed the English Bill of Rights.

France

1. After the Hundred Years' War, in which the French drove the English from France, the French began to unify and centralize authority in a strong monarchy.
2. In 1598, Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes, which created an environment of toleration.
3. Henry IV was the first Bourbon king. The Bourbons ruled France until 1792.
4. Cardinal Richelieu, a Catholic, was the chief advisor to the Bourbons. His primary role was to strengthen the French crown.
5. Louis XIV was four years old when we inherited the French crown. His mother and Cardinal Mazarin ruled in his name until he reached adulthood.
6. Louis XIV appointed Jean Babtiste Colbert manage the royal funds.
7. After the War of Spanish Succession from 1701 to 1714, France' military power was weakening.

German Areas

1. The Holy Roman Empire wasn't really Rome, but rather in present day Austria and Germany, and surrounding regions.
2. The Holy Roman Empire lost parts of Hungary to the Ottoman Turks in the early 1500s.
3. The thirty years' war from 1618 to 1648 devastated the region and significantly weakened the Holy Roman emperors.
4. By the eighteenth century, the northern German city-states were gaining momentum and power.
5. In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg was intended to bring an end to the constant conflicts between Catholics and Protestants that engulfed the region during the Reformation and the counter-reformation.

Russia

1. After the Turks conquered Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire fell, the center of Orthodox Christianity moved northward to Moscow.
2. At around the same time of the fall of Constantinople, Russian leaders were overthrowing the Mongols. In 1480 Ivan III of Moscow refused to pay tribute to the Mongols and declared Russia free of Mongol rule.
3. Ivan III, and later his grandson, Ivan IV, established absolute rule in Russia, uniting it and expanding it ever eastward.
4. Ivan IV was such a strong leader and held such absolute power that he came to be know as Ivan the Terrible.
5. Ivan the Terrible took on the title of czar, and executed anyone whom he thought might be a threat to his power, including his own son.
6. After the death of Ivan IV in 1584, Russia's feudal lords battled over who should rule the empire. The madness subsided after Michael Romanov was elected czar by the feudal lords.
7. Peter the Great who ruled from 1682 to 1725, westernized Russia. He built Russia's first navy, and had all the upper class women wear western fashion clothes. Also all men had to shave their beards.
8. Under Catherine the Great, who ruled from 1762 to 1796, more enlightened policies of education and western culture were implemented.

Islamic Gunpowder Empires

1. After the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, they made it their capital city.
2. The Ottomans enslaved children of their Christian subjects and turned them into fighting warriors, known as Janissaries.
3. In 1526, Babur, a leader who claimed to be descended from Genghis Khan, invaded northern India and quickly defeated the Delhi Sultanate and established the Mughal Empire.
4. Babur's grandson, Akbar, who ruled from 1556 to 1605, was able to unify much of India by governing under a policy of religious toleration.
5. Under Shah Jahan, Akbar's grandson, the Taj Mahal was built.
6. After Akbar, two developments forever changed India. First was that the religious toleration ended. Second was the arrival of the Europeans.

Africa

1. On the west coast of Africa, the centralized kingdom of Kongo was bolstered by its trade with Portuguese merchants as early as 1480.
2. South of Kongo, the Portuguese established a small trading post in Angola as early as 1575, with the sole purpose of expanding their trade with slaves from the interior.
3. When the Portuguese attempted to further exert their authority and control, Queen Nzinga strongly resisted. For 40 years the Queen led her men into battle. Eventually Nzinga fell to the Portuguese, because they had superior weapons.

Asia

1. In the early fifteenth century, the Chinese made huge fleets of ships, and Zeng He, a Chinese navigator, led fleets throughout southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, all the way to east Africa, a century before the Europeans did the same.
2. In 1644 the Ming emperor invited a group of Qing warriors from Manchuria to help stop a peasant uprising. But instead the Qing ousted the emperor. The Ming Dynasty ended and the Manchu Dynasty began.
3. Manchu Emperors were well steeped in Chinese traditions. Kangxi, who rules from 1662 to 1722 was a Confucian, as was his successor, Qianlong.
4. Kangxi conquered Taiwan, and extended the empire into Mongolia, central Asia, and Tibet. Qianlong added Vietnam, Burma and Nepal.

Japan

1. In 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Tokugawa Shogunate, a strict and rigid government that ruled Japan until 1868.
2. The Tokugawa period is also known as the Edo period. Because during this time they moved their capital to Edo, which is modern-day Tokyo.
3. In 1635, a National Seclusion Policy prohibited Japanese people from traveling abroad, and from most people from coming to Japan.
4. Japanese art forms also flourished, Kabuki theatre and haiku poetry were both very popular.

Changes and Continuities in the Role of Women

1. A number of women became powerful, this includes Elizabeth I, of England, Isabella of Spain, and Nur Jahan from India. Elizabeth didn't get to her high rank because of the death of a husband.