• The period from the accession to personal rule of Louis XIV of France until the French Revolution is known as the age of absolutism.
• Absolutism is the conscious extension of the legal and administrative power of state sovereigns over their subjects and the vested interests of social and economic orders.
• The dates and the label “age of absolutism” require caution.
• By the sixteenth century, kings sought to assert sovereignty over the papacy and the aristocracy through Protestantism.
• Political thinkers like Jean Bodin advocated for absolutist theory before Louis XIV‘s rule.
• Prussia, Russia, and Austria also instituted centralized government, offering alternatives to the French model of absolutism.
• England is an important exception, where after 1688, absolutist tendencies gave way to an oligarchy with shared power between monarchy, aristocracy, and plutocracy.
• Absolutism was not equivalent to despotism.
• European monarchs did not see absolutism as untrammeled and arbitrary rule, unlike Oriental potentates.
• Despite efforts to consolidate authority, monarchs had to justify their actions to aristocrats, churchmen, merchants, and entrepreneurs.
• Monarchs respected the strength of political adversaries and legal processes, quarreling openly and breaking tradition only under exceptional circumstances.
• Monarchs were limited by rudimentary systems of transportation and communication, preventing consistent interference in subjects’ daily lives.
• Absolutism cannot be fully understood without relating it to commercial and industrial trends, such as tariff legislation, industrial regulations, currency manipulation, and tax laws.
• These tools were used by a centralized state to create a new economic order.
• Governments took steps to manage production and exportation, like England’s Navigation Acts of 1660, which restricted imports to English ships and required colonial goods to pass through English ports.
• The French government imposed new taxes to finance expanding bureaucratic and military establishments, creating pressure on the bourgeoisie and peasantry to generate more wealth.
• This pressure led to increased entrepreneurship and wage labor.
• The symbiotic relationship between state power and economic innovation was crucial to the rise of international state systems.
• The chapter examines the extent of royal power in late seventeenth and eighteenth-century Europe, the varieties of absolutism, and how the centralization of power contributed to the rise of an international state system.

THE APPEAL AND JUSTIFICATION OF ABSOLUTISM

• Absolutism appealed to many Europeans for the same reason as mercantilism, as both expressed a desire for an end to the turbulence of Europe’s “iron century.”
• The French religious wars, Thirty Years’ War, and English Civil War caused great instability.
• Absolutists argued that domestic order could only be achieved through a strong, centralized government.
• Just as mercantilists believed economic stability came from regimentation, absolutists believed social and political harmony came when subjects obeyed their divinely sanctioned rulers.
• Absolutist monarchs saw it as their duty to teach subjects how to order their domestic affairs, even against their will.
• Margrave Karl Friedrich (eighteenth-century ruler of Baden) stated that subjects must be made into free, opulent, and law-abiding citizens, regardless of their opinion.
• Louis XIV of France viewed the Fronde (rebellion) as a threat to the nation and believed he was appointed by God to rule wisely and justly.
• Louis XIV saw an intrusion by Parisians into his bedchamber as an affront to both his person and the state.
• Monarchs aimed to control armed forces, legal administration, and the collection and distribution of tax revenues.
• Achieving this required an efficient bureaucracy loyal to the monarchy, not to specific social or economic interests.
• Absolutist policy focused on creating institutions strong enough to confront obstacles like the Church, nobility, and semi-autonomous regions.
• The Church in Catholic countries (France, Spain, Austria) was often targeted for nationalization to reduce its power over the state.
• Charles III of Spain pushed for a papal concordat granting the state control over ecclesiastical appointments and papal bulls.
• Monarchs targeted the aristocracy: Louis XIV deprived it of political power while increasing its social prestige.
• Peter the Great of Russia co-opted the nobility into government service, while Catherine II exchanged privileges for surrendering political power to the monarch.
• Prussia’s Frederick the Great employed nobles in the army, co-opting them into state service.
• Joseph II of Austria confronted the nobility by denying them tax exemptions and blurring distinctions between nobles and commoners.
• Struggles between monarchs and nobles reflected the broader conflict between local privileges and centralized power.
• In France, monarchs waged war against the autonomy of provincial institutions, much like Spanish rulers did with independent nobles in Aragon and Catalonia.
• Prussia intruded into the governance of free cities, taking control of police and revenue powers.
• These struggles highlight the nature of absolutism and its success in achieving centralized power.
• Absolutism had both theoretical apologists and practical practitioners, such as Bodin and Jacques Bossuet.
• Bossuet’s Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Scripture (1708) defended absolute government as being in line with divine will.
• Bossuet argued that the king was answerable only to God, likening the king’s power to God’s own majesty.
• According to Bossuet, the king was a public figure, embodying all the strength and power of the state.
• Bossuet’s theory of divine right of kings was comforting for people who craved peace and stability after a century of turmoil.
• Bossuet’s political philosophy appealed to those involved in bold economic ventures requiring a strong, stable polity.