LET’S DO A BACKGROUND CHECK OF WHITE MAN TO HELP YOU FIGURE OUT SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THEIR CLAN :

The transition from medieval to early modern times began in the fourteenth century when economic decline, plague, and endemic warfare weakened the bonds of feudal society and undermined its values. Great historical transformations rarely limit themselves to the confines of a single century, and this one was no exception. Thus, a “long” fourteenth century, an extended period of demographic, social, and political stress in some of its manifestations lasted until well into the fifteenth century and beyond.

The institutional and social changes of this troubled age from the first signs of economic failure in the late thirteenth century to the demographic catastrophe of the Black Death and social disorder followed. It then examines the transformation of warfare : the introduction of the paid soldier, the triumph of infantry over armored cavalry, and the development of practical artillery. These changes would eventually transform the structure of society and politics by rendering feudalism obsolete, but they were also symptomatic of a world in which warfare had become almost universal. Conflict raged on Europe’s eastern frontiers and was becoming institutionalized in the west, where the Hundred Years’ War consumed the energies of France, England, and the Iberian kingdoms. For those who lived through these troubles, it was easy to believe that the society they had known was nearing the end of the world.


Famine, Economic Decline, and the Black Death ( 1315 – 50)

The fourteenth century was marked by a series of economic and demographic crises that had a profound effect on the social structure of Europe. Local crises of subsistence became common and, for the first time in two centuries, a large-scale famine struck northern Europe in 1315-17. Southern Europe suffered a similar catastrophe in 1339-1340. Overpopulation was the underlying cause. By 1300 only the cultivation of marginal soils could feed the ever growing populace. A succession of bad harvests brought on by unusually cold, wet weather made these lands virtually unusable and destroyed the ecological balance between the people and their food supply. The result was widespread misery and an end to population growth. Scarcity pushed the price of bread to levels that only the rich could afford. Desperate peasants ate their seed grain, thereby destroying all hope for a harvest in the year to come. Others ate leaves, bark, and rats. Though adult deaths from malnutrition were probably rare, the demographic impact of the famine was seen in a declining rate of conception and increased infant mortality. The result was widespread misery and an end to population growth. Desperate peasants ate their seed grain, thereby destroying all hope for a harvest in the year to come. Others ate leaves, bark, and rats. Though adult deaths from malnutrition were probably rare, the demographic impact of the famine was seen in a declining rate of conception and increased infant mortality.

Predictably, trade declined. Defaults on loans increased, and the banking system was under stress. The great international banks still controlled their branches directly and had unlimited liability for their losses. If a branch failed it created a domino effect that might bring down the entire structure. This happened in 1343 when the two leading Florentine banks banks – the Bardi and the Peruzzi – failed, setting off a widespread financial panic. The immediate cause of their failure was the repudiation of war debts by a major borrower, Edward III of England, but both banks had been gravely weakened before the final blow.

The Black Death struck in 1347-1351 upon a European population weakened by nearly two generations of hard times. Endemic in Asia since the eleventh century, the disease first enetered Europe through the Mediterranean ports and spread with terrifying speed throughout the subcontinent. Following the trade routes it reached Paris in the summer of 1348, Denmark and Norway in 1349, and Russia in 1351. Estimates are that within four years a third of the population of Europe died. It was the greatest demographic catastrophe in European history, and its ravages did not end with the first virulent outbreak. Subsequent epidemics occurred regularly in every decade until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Given that immunity apparently cannot be transmitted from generation to generation, the plague served as a long-term check on population growth, and most countries required more than two centuries to recover the population levels they had in 1300.

The relationship, if any, between the plague and poverty or malnutrition is unclear. In its most common form, bubonic plague is spread by fleas, which are carried by rats and other small mammals. A pneumonic form of the plague is spread by coughing. The onset of either form is rapid, and death usually comes within three days. The mortality rate seems to have been about the same for all who contracted the disease, so that lowered resistance as a result of malnutrition likely did not play an important part in its spread. At the same time, death came most frequently to those who lived in crowded conditions. Soldiers, ship’s crews, and the urban poor were at greatest risk, followed by those country folk whose poverty forced them to huddle together in their one-room cottages for warmth. The rich often escaped, either because they lived in more sanitary conditions or because, like the characters in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, they had the means to flee from the centers of population.

No one knew what caused the plague. Most probably believed that it was a visitation from God and took refuge in prayer and religious ceremonies. Flagellants paraded from town to town, beating each other with metal-tipped scourges in the hope of averting God’s wrath, while preachers demanded the reform of the church on the theory that its increasing interest in secular affairs had provoked divine retribution. Some have argued unnecessarily that the plague created a genuine and long lasting demand for spiritual renewal. However, other more sinister results were evident as well. In parts of Germany whole communities of Jews were burned alive because they were thought to have spread the disease by poisoning wells.


The Symptoms of the Plague

A description of the Black Death survives from one of the greatest of the late medieval writers. In 1348-1353 Giovanni Boccaccio, founder of Renaissance humanism, wrote the Decameron, a series of stories told in a villa outside Florence where a group of fashionable young people take refuge from the plague.

In the year of our Lord 1348, there happened at Florence, the finest city in all Italy, a most terrible plague; which, whether owing to the influence of the planets, or that it was sent from God as a just punishment for our sins, had broken out some years before in the Levant, and after passing from place to place, and making incredible havoc all the way, had now reached the west. There, in spite of all the means that art and human foresight could suggest, such as keeping the city free from filth, the exclusion of all suspected persons, and the publication of copious instructions for the preservation of health, and not withstanding manifold humble supplications offered to God in processions and otherwise; it began to show itself in the aforesaid year, and in a sad and wonderful manner. Unlike what had been seen in the east, where bleeding from the nose is the fatal prognostic, here there appeared certain tumors in the groin or under the armpits, some as big as a small apple, others as an egg; and afterwards purple spots in most parts of the body; in some cases large and but few in number, in others smaller and more numerous- both sorts the usual messengers of death. To the cure of this malady, neither medical knowledge nor the power of drugs was of any effect; whether because the disease was in it is own nature mortal, or that the physicians (the number of whom, taking quacks and women pretenders into the account, was grown very great) could form no just idea of the cause, nor consequently devise a true method of cure; whichever was the reason, few escaped; but nearly all died the third day from the first appearance of the symptoms, some sooner, some later, without any fever or accessory symptoms.

Plague Victims who were buried at Tournai, 1349, were buried without coffins and individual funerals had to be abandoned, and overwhelmed survivors could only dump the bodies in mass graves.


The Burning of Jews

This passage from the Chronicle of Jacob von Konigshofen describes the destruction of the Jews at Strasourg in 1549.

In the matter of this plague the Jews throughout the world were reviled and accused in all lands of having caused it through the poison which they are said to have put into the water and the wells and for this reason the Jews were burnt all the way from the Mediterranean into Germany, but not in Avignon, for the pope protected them there.

Nevertheless, they tortured a number of Jews in Berne and Zofingen who then admitted that they had put poison in many wells, and they also found the poison in wells. Thereupon they burnt the Jews in many towns and wrote of this affair to Strasbourg, Freiburg, and Basel in order that they too should burn their Jews. But the leaders in these three cities of Strasbourg, Freiburg, and Base, did not believe that anything ought to be done to the Jews. Therupon a conference was arranged to meet at Benfeld. The bishop of Strasbourg, all the feudal lords of Alsace, and the representatives of the three above-mentioned cities came there. The deputies of the city of Strasbourg were asked what they were going to do with their Jews. They answered and said that they saw no evil of them. Then they asked the strasbourgers why they had closed the wells and put away the buckets, and there was great indignation and clamor against the deputies from Strasbourg. So finally the bishop and the lords and the Imperial Cities agreed to do away with the Jews.

On Saturday – that was St. Valentine’s Day – they burnt the Jews on a wooden platform in their cemetery. There were about two thousand people of them. Those who wanted to baptize themselves were spared. Many small children were taken out of the fire and baptized against the will of their fathers and mothers. And everything that was owed to the Jews was cancelled, and the Jews possessed and divided it among the working men proportionately. The money was indeed the thing that killed the Jews. If they had been poor and if the feudal lords had not been in debt to them, they would not have been burnt. After this wealth was divided among the artisans some gave their share to the cathedral or the Church on the advice of their confessors.

Thus were the Jews burnt at Strasbourg, and in the same year in all the cities of the Rhine.


The Economic Consequences of the Black Death

The psychological effects of the Black Death would have a profound impact on religious belief, but its material consequences were equally dramatic. Demographic collapse relieved pressure on the land. Food prices dropped immediately. Land values and rents followed close behind, declining by 30 to 40 percent in most parts of Europe between 1350 and 1400. For landholders, both lay and religious, this was a serious loss; for ordinary men and women, it was a windfall. Stunned by the horror they had experienced, the survivors found not only that food was cheaper and land more abundant, but also that most of them had inherited varying amounts of property from their dead relatives.


The delicate ecological balance of the thirteenth century no longer existed. Acreage could be diverted to pursuits that were less efficient in purely nutritional terms, but more profitable and less labor intensive. Fields were converted to pasture for grazing sheep and cattle. Marginal lands in Germany and elsewhere reverted to forest where hogs could root at will and where the next generation of peasants could presumably find cheap firewood and building material. A larger percentage of the grain crop was devoted to the brewing of beer, and in the south vineyards spread over hillsides upon which in earlier times people had sought to grow food. If the prosperity of barbarian Europeans may be measured by their consumption of meat and alcohol, these were comfortable years. Some historians have referred to the period after the Black Death as the golden age of European peasantry. It did not last long.

For most people calorie and protein consumption undoubtedly improved. Wages, too, increased, because the plague created a labor shortage of unprecedented severity. In Italy, employers tried to compensate by purchasing slaves from the Balkans or from dealers in the region of the Black Sea. This expedient was temporary and not successful. Before 1450 Turkish expansion brought an end to the trade, and although the Portuguese imported African slaves throughout the fifteenth century, they for the most part remained in Portugal. The handful of Africans who served the households of the very rich made no impact on the labor market. Wages remained high, and many people were able for the first time to leave their ancestral homes in search of better land or higher pay. Hundreds of communities were abandoned completely. Such movements cannot be accurately traced, but the century after 1350 appears to have been a time of extraordinary mobility in which the traditional isolation of village life diminished greatly.

These developments provoked a reaction from the propertied classes. Caught between rising wages and declining rents they faced a catastrophic reduction in their incomes. With the passage of time some eased the situation by turning to such cash crops as wool or wine. Still others danced like beggars in front of their tenants, begging for rent, on their knees, and coaxing them to stay rather than leave. Their initial response was to seek legislation that would freeze wages and restrict the movement of peasants. Between 1349 and 1351 virtually every European government tried to fix, i.e. manipulate, wages and prices. For the most part, their efforts produced only resistance.

The failure of such measures led to strategies based upon the selective modification of feudal agreements. New restrictions were developed and long-forgotten obligations were revived. Southwest Germany provides some instructive examples. Peasants subject to one lord were often forbidden to marry the subject of another. If they did so, their tenures would revert to the husband’s lord after the couple’s death. As population movements had created a situation in which few subjects of the same lord inhabited the same village, this practically guaranteed the wholesale confiscation of peasant estates. At the same time, peasants were denied access to the forests, whose game, wood, nuts, and berries were reserved for the landholders. These forest laws created enormous hardships and were similar in their effects to the enclosure of common lands by the English gentry a century later. Peasants who depended upon these sources for firewood and for a supplement to their diet might be driven out and evicted from the land that was illegally taken in the first place by the gods of land on earth called landlords. The term has stuck since then, boosting the egos of owners of a piece of land, calling themselves landlords.

When such measures failed to raise enough money, landholders were often forced to sell part of their holdings to investors. If the land in question was held in fief the permission of the liege lord was usually required and could be secured by a cash payment or in return for political favors. Some of the buyers were merchants, lawyers, or servants of the crown who wanted the status provided by a country estate. Others were simply land holders who sought to consolidate their holdings at bargain rates. In either case the purchase of land tended to eliminate feudal obligations in fact and sometimes in law. The new owners had no personal ties to the peasants on their newly acquired estates and felt free to exploit their property as efficiently as possible. The net effect was to accelerate the shift toward private ownership of land that had begun with the commutation of feudal dues in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Princes, too, were affected by the drop in land values. Medieval rulers drew the bulk of their ordinary revenues from exploiting their domains. Domain revenue came from a variety of dues, rights, and privileges, as well as from rents, which were an important part of the whole. Most princes were happy to make common cause with the other great landholders or to compensate for their losses by levying new taxes.


The Statute of Laborers

Issued by Edward III of England in 1351, this is a typical example of legislation designed to restrict the increase in labor costs created by the Black Death.

The King to the sheriff of Kent, greetings, Because a great part of the people, and especially of working men and servants, have lately died of the pestilence, many seeing the necessity of masters and great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they may receive excessive wages, and others preferring to beg in idleness rather than by labor to get their living; we, considering the grievous incommodities which of the lack especially of ploughmen and such laborers may hereafter become, have upon deliberation and treaty with the prelates and the nobles and the learned men assisting us, with their unanimous counsel ordained :

That every man and woman of our realm of England, of what condition he be, free or bond, able in body, and within the age of sixty years, not living in merchandise, nor exercising any craft, nor having of his own whereof he may live, nor land of his own about whose tillage he may occupy himself, and not serving any other; if he be required to serve in suitable service, his estate considered, he shall be bound to serve him which shall so require him; and take only the wages, livery, meed, or salary which were accustomed to be given in the places where he oweth to serve, the twentieth year of our reign of England that is in 1347, or five or six other common years next before.

Social Disorder from the Jacqueries to the Bundschuh Revolts :

Attempts to reverse the economic trends set in motion by the plague created widespread discontent. In 1358 much of northern France rose in a bloody revolt called the Jacquerie (Jacques Bonhomme being more or less the French equivalent of John Doe. Peasants attacked the castles of their lords in one of the worst outbreaks of social violence in centuries. There was no program, no plan – only violence born of sheer desperation. In this case peasant distress was greatly aggravated by that portion of the Hundred years’ War that had ended with the French defeat at Poitiers in 1356. The countryside was devastated and financially broke and bankrupt, and the peasants were taxed to pay the ransoms of the king and his aristocratic followers who had been captured by the English on the battlefield.

Other revolts grew less from poverty than from the frustration of rising expectations. The English revolt of 1381, known as Wat Tyler’s Rebellion in memory of one of its leaders, was triggered by the imposition of a poll or head tax on every individual. The rebels saw it as regressive, meaning it fell heavier on the poor than on the rich, and as a threat to the economic gains achieved since the plague. In Germany the exactions of princes and landholders, including the clergy, provoked a series of rebellions that flared periodically throughout the fifteenth century and culminated in the great Peasant Revolt of 1524-1525. These are referred to as the bundschuh revolts after the laced boots that served as a symbol of peasant unity.

Much urban unrest also was in evidence, but its relationship to the plague and its aftermath is unclear. The overall volume of European trade declined after 1350, which was offset to some extent by continuing strength in the market for manufactured and luxury items. A more equitable distribution of wealth broadened the demand for clothing, leather goods, and various furnishings, while the rich, in an apparent effort to maintain their status in the face of economic threats, indulged in luxuries on an unprecedented scale. This led to the terminolgy called stinking rich. The trade in manufactured articles, though smaller in total than it had been in the thirteenth century, was therefore larger in proportion to the trade in bulk agricultural commodities. It was also more profitable. Towns, now considerably smaller, seem to have enjoyed a certain measure of prosperity throughout the period.


The Peasant Rebellion of 1381 in England

The following is from an account of Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, written by a supporter of the king.

A justice was assigned by the king and council to go into Kent with a commission, as had been done before in Essex, and with them went a sergeant at arms of our lord the king, bearing with him a great number of indictments against folks of that district, to make the king rich. And they would have held session at Canterbury, but they were turned back by the commons.

And after this the commons of Kent gathered together in great numbers, day after day, without a head or chieftain. But those who came from Maidstone took their way with the rest of the commons through the countryside. And there they made chief over them Wat Teghler Tyler of Maidstone, to maintain them and be their councillor. And on the Monday next, they came to Canterbury, four thousand of them entering into the minster [cathedral] at the time of high mass, there made reverence and cried with one voice to the monks to prepare to choose a monk for archbishop of Canterbury, “for he who is archbishop now is a traitor [for supporting the poll tax] and shall be decapitated for his iniquity. And so he was within five days after! And when they had done this, they went into the town to their fellows, and asked them if they had any traitors among them, and the townsfolk said that there were three, and named their names. These three the commons dragged out of their houses and cut off their heads. And afterwards they took five hundred men of the town with them to London.

At this time, the commons had as their councillor a chaplain of evil disposition named Sir John Ball, which Sir John advised them to get rid of all the lords, and of all the archbishops and bishops, and abbots, and priors, and most of the monks and canons, and that their possessions should be distributed among the laity. For which sayings he was esteemed among the commons as a prophet – and a fit reward he later got, when he was hung, drawn, and quartered, and beheaded as a traitor. One needs to reflect on the amount of these barbarian beheadings, i.e. literally cutting the heads of living humans off their bodies in gruesome murders, committed by the Europeans in those times, before getting critical of similar beheading trends followed in other parts of the world at present times. Civilized evolution seems to have evaded mankind over long periods of time, in spite of tall claims of literacy, technology, sophistications, and high levels of mental and physical achievements. After this, the said commons went to many places, and raised all the folk, some willingly and some unwillingly, till they were gathered together full sixty thousand. They wrought much damage in Kent because of the hate they bore the said duke. They cast his manors to the ground and all his houses, and sold his pigs – and all his store of corn, at a cheap price. And they desired one day to have his head, and the head of Sir Thomas Orgrave, clerk of receipt and sub-treasurer of England. They sent the king a petition, requiring that he should grant them the heads of fifteen other lords.

Their political balance, however, was changed by the new importance of manufacturing. Craft guilds and the artisans they represented were generally strengthened at the expense of the urban patriciate, whose rents were greatly reduced in value. The process was not entirely new. The Flemish cloth towns of Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres had been the scene of periodic revolts for a century before 1350, and outbreaks continued for years thereafter. By 1345 the guilds had triumphed, at least in Flanders, but this in itself failed to create tranquility. The patriciate refused to accept exclusion from the government, and various factions among the guilds fought among themselves to achieve supremacy. Given the chronic discontent among the mass of laborers, most of whom were not guild members and therefore disenfranchised, riots were easy to incite almost regardless of the cause. The disturbances in the German towns of Braunschweig and Lubeck were apparently of similar origin. Political factions were able to mobilize popular discontent in the service of their own, decidedly non-popular, interests; non-popular as per the thinking of the popular factions of the society.


The revolts of 1382 in Paris and Rouen appear to have been more spontaneous and closer in spirit to the rural uprisings of the same period, but the seizure of Rome by Cola di Rienzi in May 1347 was unique. Demanding a return to the ancient Roman form of government, he raised a great mob and held the city for seven months under the title of Tribune. The whole episode remains the subject of historical controversy. It was related to the absence of the pope at Avignon. The departure of the papal court in 1305 had wrecked the Roman economy and placed the city’s government in the hands of such old aristocratic families as the Orsini and the Colonna. Popular dissatisfaction kept the city in boiling turmoil for several years even after Rienzi was forced into exile.

The revolt of the Florentine Ciompi in 1378 was the culmination of thirty years of civic strife. The depression of 1343 had led the popolo grasso literally, fat people, to betray their city’s republican traditions by introducing a despot who would, they hoped, control the population. The subsequent revolt led to a government dominated by the minor, craft-oriented guilds and to the incorporation of the semiskilled woolcarders ciompi into a guild of their own. In 1378 the Ciompi seized control of the city and introduced a popular and democratic form of government that lasted until the great merchants of the city hired a mercenary army to overthrow it in 1382.

Few of these rebellions, urban or rural, had clearly developed aims, and none of them resulted in permanent institutional changes beneficial to the rebels. For the most part the privileged classes found them easy to suppress. The wealthy still possessed a near monopoly of military force and had little difficulty in presenting a united front, mainly due to their ill-gotten wealth through exploiting others. Their opponents, though numerous, were poor and usually disorganized. Communication among different groups of rebels was difficult, and outbreaks of violence tended to be as isolated and sporadic as they were brief.

These rebellions probably did not pose a fundamental threat to the existing social order, but they inspired fear. The chroniclers, who were by definition members of an educated elite, described appalling scenes of murder, rape, and cannibalism. They noted that women sometimes played a part in the agitation, and they regarded this as a monstrous perversion of nature. True or exaggerated, these accounts made it difficult for readers to sympathize with the rebels. The restoration of order as per the standards imposed by the wealthy for their own furtherance and benefits, was often followed by mass executions, i.e. mass genocide of living people, and sometimes by new burdens on the peasantry as a whole.

In general, the social disorders of the fourteenth century weakened whatever sense of mutual obligation had been retained from the age of feudalism and probably hastened the trend toward private ownership of land. Moreover they increased the fear and insecurity of the elite, who reacted by developing an attitude of increased social exclusivity. The division between popular and elite culture became dramatic at about this time. The tendency was to ridicule and suppress customs that had once belonged to rich and poor alike but were now regarded as loutish or wicked.

Meanwhile, an impulse that must have been largely unconscious led the upper classes into new extravagance and the elaboration of an extreme form of chivalric excess. The tournaments and banquets described in the Chronicle of Jean Froissart c. 1333-c. 1400 surpassed anything that an earlier age could afford and were at least partially inspired by the flowering of chivalric romance as a literary form. Ironically, this “Indian summer” of chivalry occurred not only amid social and economic insecurity but at a time when the feudal aristocracy was losing the remnants of its military function.

The Transformation of Warfare : The Emergence of the Soldier

Fourteenth-century Europe suffered not only from the famine and plague, but also from war. While the age was probably not more violent than others before or since, the scale and complexity of warfare was beginning to increase in highly visible ways. By 1500 the evidence was clear that the preceding two hundred years had witnessed a military revolution.

Long before the Black Death the feudal system of warfare had begun to break down. The warrior was becoming a soldier. The term soldier is used here in its original meaning : a fighting man who receives a cash payment for his efforts as opposed to one who serves in return for land or in the discharge of some nonmonetary obligation. This was an important development, not only because it changed the way in which wars were fought, but also because it altered the structure of western European society.

The increase in real wealth and in the circulation of money between 1000 and 1250 allowed princes to alter the basis of military service. Their own revenues, which were based in part on import-export duties and occasional levies on movable goods, were greatly augmented by the revival of trade. Beyond that the commutation of military and other services for cash helped to create substantial war revenues exclusive of taxes. Scutage, the payment of knight’s fees, and similar arrangements by which even the feudal class could escape military service in return for cash payments are first noted in the mid-twelfth century. By 1250 they had become commonplace. In 1227 the emperor Frederick II demanded eight ounces of gold from every fief in his realms, but only one knight from every eight fiefs. A quarter-century later the pope declared his preference for money over personal services from his vassals. The money was used to hire mercenaries or to pay knights to extends their service, often for an indefinite period. The case of Edward I of England is typical. His attempts to subjugate the Welsh and Scots could not be abandoned every autumn when his feudal levies went home. He therefore contracted with certain knights on a long-term basis, paying their wages from the proceeds of knight’s fees and from the nine great levies on moveable property that he collected between 1297 and 1302.

The need for long-service troops and the superior professionalism of those who fought year in and year out for their livelihood were decisive. By 1340 unpaid feudal service was becoming rare in western Europe, though the crown was not yet the sole paymaster of its armies. Men from the great estates were still paid by the lords who employed them. Townsmen were paid by the towns. This changed by the mid-fifteenth century in England and France and by 1480 in Spain, though towns and nobles could be called upon to provide equipment. In Italy the mercenary was dominant by 1300.

The major exceptions to this state of affairs were found in eastern Europe. In Poland a numerous class of small and middling gentry continued to perform unpaid military service throughout the fifteenth century. Those who account for this by pointing to the frontier character of Polish society would be wrong. In Hungary, Europe’s most exposed frontier, even the banderia, a heavy cavalry unit composed of noblemen, was paid in cash at an early date, and the armies of Janos Hunyadi, c. 1407-1456, and his son, Matthias I, were composed largely of mercenaries. Aside from such quasitribal survivals as the szechely of eastern Transylvania, the decision to pay or not to pay seems everywhere to have been governed by the availability of cash.

The first soldiers fought largely within the established conventions of feudal cavalry. Some were nobles, knights, or lesser folk who held land in fief but who were attempting to improve their fortunes during an age of rising prices and declining rents. In spite of being labeled as descendants of so-called noble clans, they thirsted for human-blood like bloodhounds in their material greediness, remaining ignorant about ethics and higher and finer aspects of life. Others were bastards or younger sons whose only inheritance was a sword, a horse, and a sound training in the profession of arms. They were soon joined by paid infantry, most of whom came from different social worlds. The fourteenth century also saw the evolution of infantry tactics that required either specialized skills or exceptional discipline and cohesion in battle. As those who possessed such training were rarely part of traditional feudal society, they, too, had to be paid in cash.

The skills were largely associated with the development of new or improved missile weapons. Archery had always been a factor in medieval warfare, but its effectiveness was diminished by improvements in personal armor. The introduction of the crossbow therefore marked the beginning of a major change. This weapon offered great accuracy and powers of penetration, though at a relatively slow rate of fire. It was first seen in the west during the twelfth century but was not extensively manufactured until a hundred years later. Originating in the Mediterranean, it was first used as a naval weapon and found special favor among the shipmasters of Genoa and Barcelona as a defense against pirates. When an attack was expected they lined their gunwales with the crossbowmen to decimate boarding parties before the ships could engage. Men selected and trained for this purpose had become numerous in the port cities of the western Mediterranean by 1300 and were willing to transfer their skills to land when the volume of maritime trade declined. The Genoese were especially noted for their service to France during the Hundred Years’ War; natives of Barcelona and Marseilles were not far behind.

The advent of the crossbowmen marked an alien intrusion into the world of feudal warfare and was resented by many knights. Their world held little place for the urban poor. However, the involvement of marginal people with deviant forms of social organization was only beginning. The famous longbow was another case in point. Basically a poacher’s weapon, it evolved beyond the edges of the feudal world in Wales and the English forests of Sherwood and Dean. Edward III perceived its advantages and introduced it in the Hundred Years’ War with devastating effect. The longbow combined a high rate of fire with penetration and accuracy superior to that of early firearms. It required many years of training to be properly employed. As most of those who were expert in its use were marginal men in an economic and social sense they were usually happy to serve as mercenaries.

Handguns followed a similar pattern. First seen in Italy during the 1390s, they achieved importance in Bohemia during the Hussite wars when John Zizka and his Taborite followers used them against German chivalry. Handguns followed a similar pattern. First seen in Italy during the 1390s, they achieved importance in Bohemia during the Hussite wars when John Zizka and his Taborite followers used them against German chivalry. One of their most effective tactics was to mount gun tubes on the sides of wagons and then form the wagons into a circle, thus creating a nearly impregnable waggenburg, or wagon fortress. One of their most effective tactics was to mount gun tubes on the sides of wagons and then form the wagons into a circle, thus creating a nearly impregnable waggenburg, or wagon fortress.


The Changing Realities of War

Jean Froissart’s account of the battle of Aljubarrota 1385 shows, perhaps unconsciously, the contrast between the rhetoric of chivalry and the harsh realities of war. The English auxiliaries refused knighthoods because they could not afford them. The battle, like many in the Hundred Years’ War, was won by the side that fought on foot. Decisive contributions were made by the archers and the city militia of Lisbon, who, as commoners, massacred every knight they could capture. The action begins with an address by the king of Portugal to sixty newly created knights. It ends when the Castilians chivalrously attack the Portuguese in their carefully prepared position in a mountain pass.

“My fair sirs, the order of chivalry is more exalted and noble than imagination can suppose, and no knight ought to suffer himself to be debased by cowardice or any villainous or dirty action; but when his helmet is on his head he should be bold and fierce as a lion; and because I wish you to show your courage this day where it will be most needful, I order you to the front of the battalion, where you must exert yourselves that we may both obtain honors, otherwise your spurs will not become you. Each new knight in turn as he passed answered, “Sire we will, with God’s grace, so act, that we may gain your love and approval”. None of the English were knighted this day; they were invited by the King to become knights, but excused themselves for that time.

The sun was now setting when the King of Castile advanced in puissant array, with banners displayed, and his men on barbed horses, shouting out, “Castile”, and entered the fortified pass, where they were received with lances, battle-axes, and such a flight of arrows, that they were thrown in confusion, and many wounded or slain. The King of Portugal fought on foot in this encounter, and having placed himself at the pass with a battle axe in his hand, performed wonders, knocking down three or four of the stoutest of the enemy, insomuch that none dared approach him. The Spaniards, as you might imagine, had a hard afternoon’s work, and the fortune of war was greatly against them. All who entered the fort of the Lisboners were cut to pieces, for the Portuguese would not ransom any, whether poor or noble. The number of slain was immense.

When peace returned, companies of handgun men found employment in Hungary and in the west.

Other specialists came largely from the non-feudal world and served under long-term contracts in return for cash. Light cavalry, needed for reconnaissance and foraging, were eventually found during the fifteenth century in Hungary, Albania, and southern Spain. Miners, whose skills were increasingly valued in siegecraft, were also hired under contract, though their service was normally limited to the duration of specific siege. Carters, muleteers, and laborers were hired as campaigns became longer and more complex and as peasants bought their way out of the service provisions of their feudal contracts.

All of these categories were overshadowed in the fifteenth century by the emergence of the pike as a primary battle weapon. The pike was a spear, twelve to sixteen feet in length. It was used in a square formation similar to the Macedonian phalanx and could, if the pikemen stood their ground, stop a cavalry charge or clear the field of opposing infantry. Massed infantry formations of this kind had been neglected during most of the Middle Ages because such tactics were incompatible with feudalism as a social system. Infantry had to be highly motivated and carefully trained to meet a cavalry charge without flinching. Neither condition applied to the majority of peasants on the great feudal estates. Their lords had every incentive to maintain this situation. In other societies, massed infantry formations were a rational adaptation to circumstances.

In medieval Europe, two main forms of social organization met this requirement : the city and the peasant league. Medieval towns were surrounded by enemies. In those areas where princely authority was weak (Italy, the Low Countries, and parts of Germany), they were forced to develop effective armies at a relatively early date. As most towns lacked either extensive territory or a large native nobility trained in the profession of arms, this meant that they had to rely on the creation of citizen militias supplemented on occasion by mercenaries. Those townsmen who could afford to bought horse and armor and tried to fight like knights. The majority served with pike or halberd, a long handled battle axe, and drilled on Sundays and holidays until they achieved a level of effectiveness far superior to that of peasant levies. The victory of the Flemish town militias over the chivalry of France at Courtrai in 1302 was a promise of things to come.

By 1422, pike tactics had been adopted by the Swiss Confederation, one of several peasant leagues formed in the later thirteenth century to preserve their independence from feudal demands. The successful defense of their liberties earned them a formidable military reputation, and after 1444 the Swiss were regularly employed as mercenaries by the French and by the pope. Their example was taken up by the other poor peasants in south Germany who emulated their system of training and hired themselves out to the emperor and other princes. Pike squares remained a feature of European armies for two hundred years, and mercenary contracting became an important element in the Swiss and south German economies.

The emergence of paid troops, new missile weapons, and massed infantry tactics changed the character of European warfare. By the end of the fourteenth century armies were larger and cavalry was declining in importance. The social consequences of these changes were profound because they tended, among other things, to monetarize the costs of war. In the simplest form of feudal warfare cash outlays were few. Men served without pay and normally provided their own food and equipment in the field. Large hidden costs existed because feudal levies consumed resources in kind, but these costs rarely involved the state. This changed dramatically with the advent of the soldier because only a sovereign state could coin money or raise taxes. As feudal nobles could rarely do either, they gradually lost their preeminent role as the organizers of war while the eclipse of cavalry reduced their presence on the battlefield. During the fifteenth century many great feudal families began to withdraw from the traditional function as protectors of society, leaving the field to men who served the sovereign for pay and privileges. In the process the state, too, was transformed. Where the feudal world had demanded little more than justice and military leadership from its kings, the new warfare demanded the collection and distribution of resources on an unprecedented scale. The monarchies of Europe were at first unprepared for such a task, and the difficulties they faced were compounded by a contemporary revolution in military technology.


The New Military Technology : Artillery, Fortifications, and Shipbuilding

The development of Western technology is often seen as a sporadic affair in which periods of innovation were interspersed with longer intervals of slow, almost imperceptible change. This is an illusion that comes from thinking of the inventions themselves instead of the complex process that created them, but periods certainly existed during which breakthroughs occurred at an accelerated rate. One of these was the later Middle Ages. Few of the changes had an immediate impact on everyday life, but their effects on war, trade, and government were great. The first is conventionally known as the introduction of gunpowder that would shed the blood of millions through its historic discovery, though the technological accomplishments involved were largely in metallurgy. The second was a major revolution in the design and building of ships.

Like all technological breakthroughs, those of the later Middle Ages were made possible by earlier developments. The success of any new process or invention depends not only on its ability to utilize existing materials and techniques, but also on the presence of an effective demand. That is, technology must be affordable as well as desirable. Sufficient capital accumulation must be available to pay for its development, and customers must be willing and able to purchase the results. Technology must be affordable as well as desirable. Sufficient capital accumulation must be available to pay for its development, and customers must be willing and able to purchase the results. The increase in real wealth between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries, and its concentration in fewer hands owing to the demographic catastrophe of the fourteenth century, provided the necessary economic base. The increase in real wealth between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries, and its concentration in fewer hands owing to the demographic catastrophe of the fourteenth century, provided the necessary economic base. Ideas and techniques kept pace.

The development of artillery and portable firearms is a case in point. Evolution began with the invention of gunpowder. In Europe saltpeter was first identified in the twelfth century. How or why it was combined with charcoal and sulphur is surprisingly unknown to this date, but the mixture was mentioned by Roger Bacon in 1248. A number of years passed before it was used as a propellant and its first application probably was in mining. This, however, is uncertain. Only the obstacles to its use are fully documented. Saltpeter was scarce and expensive. Years of experimentation were needed to arrive at the proper ratio of ingredients and even longer to develop grains of the proper consistency. Mistakes were often fatal, for black powder was not totally safe or dependable in use, and its chemistry was only recently been understood.

The first guns, which appeared around the middle of the fourteenth century, were hand forged from wrought iron bars and bound with iron hoops. They were heavy, expensive, and prone to bursting when fired. In spite of these drawbacks they remained dominant until the middle of the fifteenth century when they were superseded by guns cast from bronze. Bronze had been cast for centuries, notably for church bells, but gunfounding was done on a large scale and required more skill than the peaceful art that had preceded it. A large cannon might weigh several tons, and a number of them were required to arm a ship or besiege a town. The bronze used was approximately 80 percent copper and 20 percent tin. Large quantities of both copper and tin metals were therefore required, and gun production on a large scale was prevented during the fourteenth century by the exhaustion of existing mines. Copper in particular was in short supply. In 1450 a new process was introduced that extracted copper from ores in which copper and silver were found together. Large, previously unusable deposits in Saxony, Hungary, and Slovakia thus could be exploited, and copper production increased dramatically.

The introduction of bronze cannons was further delayed by the lack of adequate furnaces and by a proclaimed inability to deal with a physical property characteristic of bronze. Copper and tin tend to segregate as they cool, causing variations in the strength of the metal that might cause the guns to burst when fired. Generations and generations of experience were needed to solve these problems. By the 1460s they were largely under control, and large numbers of bronze cannons were quickly added to European armories. Within half a century every existing fortress was obsolete, for the high, relatively thin walls of medieval fortifications could withstand no more than a few hours of battering by the big guns. Towns and strongholds in militarily exposed areas were forced to rebuild if they were to survive. Between 1500 and 1530, Italian engineers developed a system of fortification that set the pattern for defensive works until the nineteenth century. Between 1500 and 1530, Italian engineers developed a system of fortification that set the pattern for defensive works until the nineteenth century. Walls were lowered and thickened to widths of forty feet or more. Bastions became wedge shaped and were laid out geometrically so that every section of wall could be covered by the defender’s guns. The works were then surrounded by a broad, steep-sided ditch that was usually faced with brick or stone. Between 1500 and 1530, Italian engineers developed a system of fortification that set the pattern for defensive works until the nineteenth century. Walls were lowered and thickened to widths of forty feet or more. Bastions became wedge shaped and were laid out geometrically so that every section of wall could be covered by the defender’s guns. The works were then surrounded by a broad, steep-sided ditch that was usually faced with brick or stone.

The cost was enormous. The guns were expensive and required large numbers of skilled men and draft animals to maneuver. The new fortifications required less skill to construct than their medieval predecessors, but their scale was far larger and their expense proportionately high. The development of artillery had increased the already heavy burden of warfare on states and subjects alike, and they carried it without opposing it.

The development of navies, though not taking place in earnest until the sixteenth century, was destined to have a similar effect. It rested upon changes in shipbuilding that by the fifteenth century had created vessels capable of crossing an ocean or using artillery in a ship to ship duel. The new ships were the result of a hybrid cross between two traditions of shipbuilding – the Mediterranean and the north European. The ships changed the world as few innovations have done before or since.

The dominant ship types in the medieval Mediterranean were the galley and the round ship. The galley was intended primarily for the war. Long, narrow, and light, its chief virtues were speed and maneuverability independent of the wind. However, it was too fragile for use in the open Atlantic or for extended use in its home waters between October and May. It also lacked carrying capacity, and this, together with its high manpower requirements, limited its usefulness. Though galleys were sometimes used for commerce, especially by the Venetians, the preeminent Mediterranean cargo carrier was the round ship. As its name implies, it was well-rounded, double-ended, and broad of beam with a high freeboard. Steered like a galley by side rudders located near the stern, it normally carried a two masted rig with triangular lateen sails. The round ship was not fast or graceful, but it was safe, roomy, and thanks to its high freeboard, relatively easy to defend against boarders. Its carvel type construction was typically Mediterranean. The hull planking was nailed or pegged edge on edge to a skeleton frame and then caulked to create a water tight, non load bearing hull.

The ships of northern Europe were different. Most were clinker built like the old Viking long ships with overlapping planks fastened to each other by nails or rivets. Their variety was almost infinite. By the middle of the thirteenth century the cog had emerged as the preferred choice for long voyages over open water. Of Baltic origin, the cog was as high and beamy as the round ship. A long, straight keel and sternpost rudder made it different from and more controllable than its Mediterranean counterpart. In accord with northern practice, it carried a single square sail on a mast set amidships. In accord with northern practice, it carried a single square sail on a mast amidships.

In the century and a half after the Black Death these two shipbuilding traditions merged to create the full rigged ship. The development of the cloth industry in England and the Netherlands created a North Atlantic market for alum, which was used as a fixative for dyes. This market was supplied by the Genoese, who soon found that it was economical to ship the material directly from its source on the Greek islands of Chios and Phocea to the trading center at Southampton. Cogs were well suited to this purpose, and the Genoese began to construct them in their own yards before 1350. Genoese shipbuilders were accustomed to carvel construction. As the fourteenth century progressed they were faced with dwindling timber supplies and increased prices for wood. Carvel construction was significantly lighter than clinker built and therefore not only familiar but also cheaper. Furthermore, cogs required a smaller crew than round ships. This became important after the Black Death when the wages of seamen increased, and by 1400, carvel built cogs on the Genoese model were used even on solely Mediterranean routes.

The Bastion Trace.

This aerial photo of the city of Lucca, Italy, shows fortifications erected in the sixteenth century as a response to the growing use of siege artillery. The cost of such works was immense, but no alternative existed to their construction if towns or strong points were to be protected against the new technology. Like the curtain walls of medieval times, the bastion trace held urban sprawl within strict limits. It also created a green belt around the city that could be used as a park. Once again, military necessity had transformed the European landscape.

The addition of multiple masts was in part a response to the need for larger ships. Shipbuilders soon discovered that a divided rig offered other advantages.

It reduced manning requirements because smaller sails were easier to handle. It also made possible the use of different sails combined according to need, thereby increasing speed and maneuverability under a wider variety of conditions. With Portuguese, Dutch, and Basque innovators leading the way, a recognizably modern ship had evolved by 1500.

The Evolution of Medieval Ship Types : These three ship models represent the best current thinking on the appearance and construction of medieval ships.
A is a medieval round ship with a lateen sail and steering oars of the type used to carry crusaders.
B is a reconstruction of an early cog with square sail and keel carried right aft to the sternpost rudder.
C is a model of the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s great ship that capsized in 1545. It may be regarded as an early galleon. Note the gun-ports.

With Portuguese, Dutch, and Basque innovators leading the way, a recognizably modern ship had evolved by 1500.

Given the military rivalry among states, a marriage between the new shipbuilding techniques and the cast bronze cannon was inevitable. The full tactical implications of this were not immediately apparent, but by the last quarter of the fifteenth century the major states were acquiring ships capable of mounting heavy guns. A sort of arms race in which monarchs sought to outdo one another in the construction of monster warships such as the French Cordeliere or the English Henry Grace a Dieu gave way to an emphasis on the more practical galleons of the sixteenth century. The competition to control the seas was on, and no state with maritime interest could afford to ignore it, thus creating a perpetual evil to feed the fires of competition laden with animosity and wars.


Centers of Conflict : The Eastern Frontiers

For much of the later Middle Ages the great north European plain, where it made a borderless transition into Asia, was in turmoil. East of the Elbe, two great movements were under way. The first was the eastward expansion of the German speaking peoples. Population growth in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries led to the establishment of German settlements in Poland, Lithuania, and the Baltic regions as well as in Transylvania and the Ukraine. The movement was not always peaceful, bringing the Germans into conflict with the Slavs who inhabited the region. Relations improved little with time, and the German “colonies” tended to remain isolated from their neighbors by linguistic barriers and mutual resentments. In its later phases, German expansion was led by the Teutonic Knights, a military order on the crusading model. From the mid-thirteenth century the Knights, i.e. the Teutonic Knights – a German military order on the crusading model, attempted the large scale conquest of Slavic as well as unclaimed land on which German peasants were then encouraged to settle.

On its eastern fringes the Slavic world was under equal pressure from the Mongols, who conquered most of Russia and the Ukraine in 1240-1242 and who raided as far west as Breslau in Silesia. The center of resistance to Mongol rule became the grand duchy of Moscow, founded by the son of the Russian hero, Alexander Nevsky. Nevsky had defeated a Swedish incursion in 1238 and the Teutonic Knights in 1240. His descendants were forced to concern themselves almost exclusively with Asia. Though continuing to pay tribute to the Mongol khans, the Muscovites engaged in sporadic warfare with them until 1480 when Ivan III refused payment and became, in effect, the first tsar. That such refusal did not affect his credit rating in those days is a matter to reflect upon when axis of evil terrorist countries such as america, tailors laws in its favor and wrests money from poor foreign nations, through its evil manipulative white-man, america-favoring policies. An early sign of the grand duchy’s preeminence was the transfer of the Russian Orthodox patriarchate from Kiev to Moscow in 1299.

During the fourteenth century, Russian preoccupation with the Mongols encouraged the Teutonic Knights, i.e the German Teutonic Knights to step up their activities in the Baltic. Resistance was provided by the Catholic kingdom of Poland, established early in the eleventh century, and by a rapidly expanding Lithuanian state whose rulers were still pagan. In 1386 the two states merged for mutual defense. Under the leadership of the Lithuanian Jagiello, who converted to Catholicism and became king of Poland as well, the knights were defeated at the battle of Tannenburg in 1410.

The Knights no longer existed as an aggressive force, but conflict did not end. Poland – Lithuania did not evolve into a centralized territorial state. It remained an aristocratic commonwealth with an elected king and few natural defenses. However, it was at this time a remarkably open society in which people of many faiths and languages could coexist. It even became the place of refuge for thousands of Jews. Driven from western Europe by the persecutions that followed the Black Death, they found that their capital and financial skills were welcomed by the rulers of an under-developed frontier state. The parallels with the Iberian kingdoms are striking. By the mid-fifteenth century Poland and Lithuania were the centers of a vigorous Jewish culture characterized by a powerful tradition of rabbinic learning and the use of Yiddish, a German dialect, as the language of everyday speech.


The Novgorod Chronicle

Novogrorod was an important trading city north of Moscow. This excerpt from its city chronicle provides a vivid picture of conditions on Europe’s eastern frontier in the year 1224.

A.D. 1224 Prince Vsevolod Gyurgevits came to Novgorod. The same year the Germans killed Prince Vyachko in Gyurgev and took the town. The same year, for our sins, this was not all the evil that happened : Posadnik, an elected official somewhat resembling a burgomaster or mayor, Fedor rode out with the men of Russia and fought with the Lithuanians, and they drove the men of Russia from their horses and took many horses, and killed Domazhir Torlinits and his son and of the men of Russa Boghsa and many others, and the rest they drove asunder into the forest. The same year, for our sins, unknown tribes came, whom no one exactly knows, who they are, nor whence they came out, nor what their language is, nor of what race they are, nor what their faith is, but they call them Tartars. God alone knows who they are and whence they came out. Very wise men know them exactly, who understand books, but we do not know who they are, but have written of them here for the sake of the memory of the Russian princes and of the misfortune which came to them from them.

To the south, in the Balkan Peninsula, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries marked the emergence of the Ottoman Empire as a threat to Christian Europe. By 1300 virtually all of the Byzantine lands in Anatolia had fallen under the control of ghazi principalities. The ghazis, of predominantly Turkish origin, were the Muslim equivalent of crusaders, pledged to the advancement of Islam. The last of their states to possess a common frontier with Byzantium was centered on the city of Bursa in northwest Anatolia.

The ghazis of predominantly Turkish origin, were the Muslim equivalent of crusaders, pledged to the advancement of Islam. The last of their states to possess a common frontier with the Byzantium was centered on the city of Bursa in northwest Anatolia. Under the aggressive leadership of Osman 1258 – 1324 it offered the opportunity for continued warfare to ambitious men from all over the Turkic world and a refuge to others who had fled from the Mongol advance in central Asia. With the population of the Ottoman state swelled by thousands of immigrants, the tiny emirate became the nucleus of the Ottoman empire.

From the beginning it was a serious threat to the Byzantine state revived by Michael Paleologus after the Fourth Crusade. Deprived of his Anatolian heartland and caught between the Ottomans on one side and the Serbian Empire of Stephen Dushan, d. 1355, on the other, the Greek emperor was only one of many regional princes striving for preeminence in the tangled world of Balkan politics. Taking advantage of divisions among the Christians, Osman’s son, Orhan, ordered the first Turkish invasion of Europe in 1356. The best hope of expelling him lay in an alliance between the Serbians and the Bulgarians. A history of mutual distrust inhibited their cooperation, however, and the Serbian army was defeated in 1371. By 1389 the Turks had achieved military predominance in the peninsula.

The threat to Constantinople was now imminent, and the Greeks sent missions to Rome in the hope of enlisting western support against the Turks. Negotiations broke down over theological and other issues. The pope was reluctant to compromise, and some Greeks came to believe that the Latin church was a greater threat to the survival of their religion than Islam. From the standpoint of Western intellectual development this contact between Greek and Latin scholar-diplomats would have far-reaching consequences, but politically it was a failure.

Meanwhile, southeastern Europe settled into a period of almost chronic warfare. The Serbs and Bulgarians were restless and unreliable tributaries of the Turks. The Byzantine emperor lacked a credible offensive force, but the Albanians remained a threat. In the northwest the Hungarians were growing uneasy. Eventually a crusade was organized by Janos Hunyadi, the voivod of Transylvania who would one day become king of Hungary. His defeat at Varna in 1444 and again on the plain of Kossovo in 1448 left the Turks in control of virtually everything south of the Danube. Only the Albanian mountains and Constantinople remained free.


In 1453 the great city, now seriously depopulated, fell to Mehmet “ the Conqueror” after a long siege. The Byzantine Empire had ceased to exist. The church of St. Sophia became a mosque, and the Greeks, together witht eh other Balkan peoples, became subjects of the Ottoman sultan. Their faith and much of their culture was preserved, for the Turks did not believe in forced conversions. They would not regain political independence until the nineteenth century.


The Hundred Years’ War in the West

The Hundred Years’ War, though centered on France and England, was a generalized west European conflict that also involved the Low Countries and the Iberian kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal. Because its active phases were interspersed with periods of relative peace, regarding it not as one war but as several whose underlying causes were related is probably best. The most immediate of these causes was the ongoing struggle over the status of English fiefs in France. The situation was complicated by dynastic instability and by the weakening of feudal institutions as a whole.

Of all the problems created by feudalism, none was more exasperating than the ambivalent situation of the kings of England. For two centuries they had struggled with their dual role as French vassals and as sovereign princes whose interests were frequently in conflict with those of France. Every reign since that of Henry II had produced disputes over Guienne and Gascony. Another French attempt to confiscate these fiefs led to the outbreak of the Hundred Years’ War in spring 1337.

This action by Philip VI of France came at the end of a long diplomatic crisis. Nearly a decade earlier Philip had been proclaimed king when his cousin, Charles IV, died without male heirs. The claim of England’s Edward III, son of Charles’s sister, had been denied on the controversial premise that the Salic law forbade royal inheritance through the female line. Edward, young and beset with internal enemies, chose not to press the point. Relations gradually deteriorated when Philip began to pursue more aggressive policies on several fonts. In the year of his coronation he recaptured the county of Flanders from the urban rebels who had achieved independence from France in 1302. This represented a threat to the primary market for English wool, as Philip was now in a position to forbid its importation. Philip then changed the nature of the homage owed for Guienne from “simple” to “liege” homage, meaning that Edward was now bound to defend him “before any man”. Worst of all, he supported Edward’s enemies in Scotland.

By 1336 Edward was secure on his throne and began preparing for war. Papal attempts at mediation failed, and in May 1337, Philip ordered the confiscation of English fiefs in France, citing Edward’ support for the Flemish rebels and other sins against feudal obligation as a pretext.

The first phase of the war went badly for France. This is at first sight surprising as England was by far the smaller and poorer of the two countries with a population only one third that of her rival. The difference lay in superior leadership. Edward quickly proved to be not only an able commander, but also a master at extracting resources from Parliament. By defeating the French in a naval battle off Sluys in 1340 he secured control of the English Channel. Subsequent campaigns were fought on French soil, including the ones that culminated in the victories of Crecy 1346 and Poitiers 1356. In both cases, French cavalry employing traditional tactics were defeated by the imaginative use of longbows in massed formations.

The treaty of Bretigny 1360 secured a breathing space of seven years during which the locus of violence shifted to the Iberian Peninsula. Conflict there centered on the policies of Pedro of Castile, known to the Castilian aristocracy as “the Cruel” and to his other subjects as “the Just”. Pedro’s nicknames arose from his efforts to strengthen the crown against the landed nobility. When he became involved in a border war with Pedro “the Ceremonious” of Aragon, the latter encouraged an uprising of Castilian of nobles under the leadership of Enrique of Trastamara, Pedro the Cruel’s half-brother. Enrique and his Aragonese ally then sought assistance from France.

They received it in part because of a phenomenon that surfaced for the first time after the peace of Bretigny. The practice of paying troops had created a class of men whose only trade was war and who, after a generation of fighting, had no place in civilian society. Similar trends have continued in the bloodthirsty, war-howling policies of colonialist countries such as America and its spineless stooges, such as Britain. For them peace was a catastrophe that forced them to become beggars or bandits. Most chose the latter, caring two hoots for humanity, others, or ethics; knowing the only thing they knew, to kill and spill others blood, just for a few bucks more. Roaming the countryside, often in their original companies, they lived by systematic pillage and extortion reinforced by the threat of murder, arson, and rape. The effect of their activities on a France already weakened by war, plague, and social disorder may be readily imagined.

The new French king, Charles V, was happy to dispatch a multinational contingent of these people to Spain under the command of Bertrand Duguesclin. Pedro of Castile responded by calling in the English under Edward of Woodstock, known as the Black Prince. The eldest son of Edward III and the winning commander at Poitiers, he repeated his triumph at Najera in 1367. The Castilian war dragged on until 1398 when Enrique was able to kill Pedro with his own hands and gain the throne. Because Enrique had won with the aid of the Castilian aristocracy, he was forced to confirm and extend their privileges, thereby guaranteeing that his successors would be faced with internal disorder. His victory was a defeat, not only for Pedro, but also for the state building ideals he represented.

An aftereffect of the Spanish war was the pretext for reviving Anglo-French hostilities. To pay for his Castilian adventure, the Black Prince so taxed his subjects in Guienne that they appealed to Charles V for help. Charles adopted a strategy of attrition, avoiding battle whenever possible and using the tactical skills of Duguesclin to harry and outmaneuver the English. By 1380 the English presence in France had been greatly reduced, but both kingdoms were at the limit of their resources. Fighting did not end completely. The next thirty five years may be characterized as a period of military stalemate and internal disorder in both countries.

The last stage of the war began when Henry V of England invaded the continent in 1415. ambitious and new to the throne, he sought to take advantage of the civil war then raging in France. The French king, Charles VI, had gone mad. His brother, the duke of Orleans, was named regent, thereby arousing the envy of John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy. Burgundy was perhaps the most powerful of the king’s relatives. His appanage – estates granted to members of the ruling family – included the rich duchy of Burgundy and most of what is now Belgium and the Netherlands. He was probably wealthier than the king. John arranged the assassination of Orleans in 1407 only to see another rival, Count Bertrand VII of Armagnac, installed in his place, same as a installing a new machine in another’s place. In the struggle that followed, Burgundy tried to ally himself with England, drawing back when he perceived the extent of Henry’s ambitions. The English king saw that John would do nothing to defend Charles VI or his Armagnac supporters.

The English invasion, intrusion, attack, was an immediate success. Using a variant of the tactics developed at Crecy and Poitiers, Henry crushed the French at Agincourt on October 25, 1415. Alarmed by the magnitude of the French defeat, Burgundy began to rethink his position, but he, too, was assassinated in 1419 by soldiers in the pay of the Armagnacs. His son, Philip, whose nickname “the Good” belied a ferocious temper, sought revenge by allying Burgundy once again with England.

The French king was virtually isolated. In 1420 he was forced to ratify the treaty of Troyes, which disinherited his son, the future Charles VII, in favor of Henry V. When Charles VI and Henry both died in 1422, Henry’s infant son, Henry VI of England, was proclaimed king of France with the English duke of Bedford as regent. The proclamation aroused great indignation in much of France where Charles of Valois was accepted as the rightful king. Charles, unfortunately, was not an inspiring figure. Inarticulate, physically unimpressive, and only nineteen years old, he retired with his supporters to Bourges where he quickly developed a reputation for lethargy and indecision, a reputation long forgotten and through the twisting and turning of words thence manipulatively tagged on other nations, in spite of not necessarily being true. The task of galvanizing public opinion was left to an extraordinary woman, Joan of Arc.

Joan was an illiterate peasant from the remote border village of Domremy. When she came to Charles in March 1429 she was probably no older than twenty but had already achieved local fame for her religious visions. She told him that voices had instructed her to raise the English siege of Orleans, and Charles, who probably though that he had little to lose, allowed her to go. The result was electrifying. By the time she arrived, the English had decided to give up, but the French did not know this. The apparently miraculous appearance of a young woman, dressed armor and with her hair cut like a man’s, was thought to have been the reason for the subsequent English retreat, and it created a sensation. The relief of Orleans, which preserved the south of France for Charles, was followed by a string of victories that led to the repudiation of the treaty of Troyes and his coronation at Rheims in July. All of this was popularly attributed to Joan who was present throughout. She never commanded troops, but her inspiration gave them confidence, and even civilians, oppressed by a century of apparently pointless warfare, were roused to enthusiasm. Unfortunately for Joan, Charles was not quite the fool he sometimes appeared to be. When she was captured by the English in 1430 he did nothing to secure her release or to prevent her from being tried at Rouen on charges of witchcraft and heresy. He no doubt preferred to take credit for his own victories and may have regarded her popularity as an embarrassment. The verdict was a foregone conclusion. Bedfored was determined to discredit her as an agent of the devil, and she was burned at the stake on May 30, 1431. Her habit of dressing as a man was taken as evidence of diabolical intent. Twenty five years later, in a gesture of belated gratitude, Charles VII reopened the case and had her declared innocent. The church made her a saint in 1920.

Joans’ brief career offers a disquieting vision of fifteenth century attitudes toward women, but it was a turning point for France. In 1435 Charles was reconciled with Philip the Good of Burgundy, and by 1453 the English had been driven out of France in a series of successful campaigns that left them with only the port of Calais as a continental base.


Political Turbulence and Dynastic Collapse : France, Castile, and England

Dynastic failures played a major role in continuing and intensifying the Hundred Years’ War. In a system based on heredity, the failure of a ruling dynasty to produce competent heirs in a timely manner meant either a disputed succession or a regency. The effect of a disputed succession may be seen in the origins of the war itself, in which the failure of all three of Philip IV’s sons to produce heirs gave Edward III of England a pretext for his quarrel with Philip of Valois, or in Castile, where a similar failure by Pedro the Cruel encouraged the pretensions of his half brother Enrique.

Regencies occurred when the legitimate heir could not govern by reason of youth or mental incapacity. An individual regent or a regency council might be designated in the will of a dying monarch or by agreement within the royal family, but these appointments were almost always contested. The reason lay in the structure of European elites. Each branch of the royal family and each of the great landholding clans were a center of wealth, power, and patronage to which other elements of society were drawn by interest or by hereditary obligation. Rivalries were inevitable, and the kings’s duty was to serve as a kind of referee, using his superior rank to ensure that no one became overmighty subject. Failure to perform this role in an adequate manner was often equated with bad governance.

By these standards, no regency could be good. Regents were usually either princes of the blood or connected with a particular faction of the royal family. They were partial almost by definition. Once installed they were in a position to sue the wealth and power of the crown to advance their factional interests while threatening the estates and the lives of their rivals. Those excluded from a regency often felt that they had no alternative but to rebel, though their rebellions were usually directed not at the semisacred person of the king, but at his evil counselors. This happened in the struggle between John the Fearless and the Armagnacs. The result was a civil war and renewed English intervention in France.


Other forms of dynastic failure had similar effects. In some cases, adult, presumably functional, rulers behaved so foolishly that their subjects rebelled. Castile in particular from this ailment throughout much of the fifteenth century. Juan II 1405 to 1454 left the government in the hands of Alvaro de Luna, a powerful noble whose de facto regency factionalized the grandees, the highest rank of Spanish nobles who were not princes of the blood. Juan’s son, Enrique IV the Impotent was generally despised for his homosexuality, his tendency to promote low born lovers over the hereditary nobility, and for his failure to maintain order. Faced with a monarchy they could neither support nor respect, the great landholding families raised private armies and kept the country in a state of near anarchy until 1479.

In England, the regency appointed during the minority of Richard II was accepted largely because the social unrest that culminated in the revolt of 1381 forced the aristocracy to close ranks. When he came of age, the favoritism and ineptitude of the young king aroused much opposition that he was deposed and murdered in 1399. Reflecting contemporary attitudes, Richard, like Enrique IV of Castile, was accused of homosexuality. The reign of Henry VI – from 1422 to 1461 and 1470 to 1471 – was even more chaotic than that of Richard II. Coming to the throne as an infant, Henry remained under the control of others throughout his life. Though respected for his peity he was wholly incapable of governing and suffered a complete mental breakdown in 1453. His incapacity led to the War of the Roses, a nine year struggle between the Lancastrian and Yorkist branches of the royal family that ended with a Yorkist victory at Tewksbury in 1471 and the murder of yet another English king.

Whether the result of royal inbreeding or sheer bad luck, these dynastic failures retarded the development of western European states. The increasing cost of and sophistication of war were a powerful impetus to the growth of royal power, but these anarchic interludes tended to interfere with bureaucratic development and to strengthen local privilege, at least temporarily. Feudal nobles whose position was threatened by economic and military change often saw them as an opportunity to recover lost ground. Above all they added to the sense of dislocation created by plague, war, and social change.


Art and Literature : The Measure of Discontent

By the end of the fourteenth century, the accumulation of disasters was having an impact on the art and literature of Europe. The bonds of society seemed to be unraveling. Lords abandoned their ostensible function as the military protectors of society and compensated for declining rents by preying upon their tenants. Peasants responded when they could by abandoning their tenures. The idea of mutual obligation that lay at the heart of feudalism could no longer be sustained, and many, including the fourteenth century author of the English poem Piers Plowman, came to believe that greed and self interest were everywhere triumphant. Moralists complained that the simpler manners of an earlier day had had given way to extravagance and debauchery. War was endemic and all the more intolerable because it did not end for the common people when a truce was signed. They still had to pay for it through taxes while trying to defend themselves against unemployed soldiers who often did more damage than the war itself. Plague, the conquests by the Turk, and the rule of imbecile kings were seen by many as signs of God’s wrath.

The expression of these concerns varied. At one extreme was the upper class tendency to take refuge in nostalgia for a largely fictional past. This took the form not only of chivalric fantasies, but also of the idyllic visions offered in the Tres riches heures du Duc du Berry, a magnificently illustrated prayer book in which happy peasants toil near palaces that seem to float on air. At the other extreme was a fascination with the physical aspects of death. The art of the period abounds with representation of skeletons and putrifying corpses. The Dance of Death in which corpses lead the living in a frenzied round that ends with the grave became a common montif in art and literature and was performed in costume on festive occasions. Popular sermons emphasized the brevity of life and the art of dying well, while series of popular woodcuts illustrated in horrifying detail how death would come to the knight, the scholar, the beauty, and a whole host of other human stereotypes. Not surprisingly, the word macabre seems to have entered the French language at about this time.


Despair became fashionable, but it was not universal. In Brabant and Flanders artists such as Roger van der Weyden and the van Eycks developed techniques for portraying the beauties of the world with unprecedented mastery. Their paintings, intended for display in churches and hospitals, dwelled lovingly on fine costumes, the brilliance of jewels, and the richness of everyday objects while portraying the hard, worldly faces of their owners with unflinching honesty. Regarding their work as an affirmative answer to the emphasis on death is tempting. Some certainly felt that because life was grim and short its pleasures should be enjoyed to the fullest. However, more exists to these paintings than meets the eye. Many of the beautifully rendered objects they portray are also symbols of a moral or spiritual value whose meaning would have been clear to all who saw them. The medieval fondness for allegory survived the fourteenth century and may even have grown stronger with time.


The people of the later Middle ages still used religious language and religious imagery to express themselves. They still thought in religious, traditional, and hierarchic terms, but their faith in traditional assumptions and values had been shaken badly by events they barely understood. They looked with dismay upon what had happened, but the transformation of their world had just begun.


This is an extract from a letter written on behalf of Joan the Maid to the king of England, the duke of Bedford, and their associates in 1429. It demonstrates her sense of mission and the spirit that ultimately drove the English from French soil.

I am a chieftain of war, and whenever I meet your followers in France, I will drive them out, if they will not obey, I will put them all to death. I am sent here in God’s name, the King of Hevane, to drive your body for body out of all France. If they obey, I will show them mercy. Do not think otherwise; you will not withhold the kingdom of France from God, the King of Kings, Blessed Mary’s Son. The King Charles, the true inheritor, will possess it, for God wills it and has revealed it to him through The Maid, and he will enter Paris with a good company. If you do not believe these tidings from God and The Maid, wherever we find you we shall strike you and make a greater tumult than France has seen in a thousand years. Know well that the King of Heaven will send a greater force to The Maid and her good people than you in all your assaults can overcome : and by blows shall the favor of the God of Heaven be seen. You Duke of Bedford, The Maid prays that and beseeches you not to bring yourself to destruction. If you obey her you may join her company, where the French shall do the fairest deed ever done to Christendom. Answer, if you desire peace in the city of Orleans; if not, bethink you of your great hurt soon. Written this Tuesday of Holy Week.


Thus, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are generally held to mark the end of the Middle Ages. By 1300 economic conditions had begun to deteriorate, and in 1347 – 1350 the great epidemic known as the bubonic plague or Black Death killed nearly a third of Europe. Faced with these shocks, the bonds of feudal society began to unravel. Declining rents and the rising cost of labor impoverished the landholding classes while attempts to turn back the clock through legislation caused riot and social disorder. In the short term, peasants benefited from inheritance and high wage rates. But as the ties of feudal obligation weakened and lands were transformed from fiefs to capital investments, the face of European agriculture began to change. In many areas, stock raising began to replace row corps, and peasants were dispossessed.

Warfare too, changed. The commutation of feudal services for cash made it possible to pay men to fight. This monetarization of warfare further undermined the position of the feudal classes because they lacked the sovereign rights to levy taxes or coin money. A the same time, the development of new weapons systems greatly increased the size and cost of armies. The Hundred Years’ War, complicated by intervals of political and dynastic collapse in each of the participating countries, was fought on a scale that had no precedent in feudal times. In eastern Europe, turmoil reigned from the Balkans to the shores of the Baltic. To many, society seemed in danger of collapse, but as always, new institutions and ideas were beginning to emerge from the ruins of the old.












In his play, ‘The Merchant of Venice’, Shakespeare portrays Shylock as a superb scoundrel of a character, who makes a living doing the business of money-lending in Venice, in Italy.

In early modern Europe, Jews made a living mostly through the business of money-lending. Venice, an Oligarchic state in those times, was founded at the end of the Roman Empire. The wealth of Venice was built on business-trade, and Jews were involved in the business of money-lending.

Anyone who needed money, made a beeline to the Jews for it. Shylock is portrayed as a professional Jewish money-lender in Venice, who strived to maintain the nuisance, i.e., the exploitative interest rates, that were prevalent during that time. However, Antonio, a merchant of Venice, on the other hand, preferred to lend money gratis, i.e. without interest, and this, in the opinion of Shylock, the Jewish money-lender, was responsible for the crashing of financial interest rates in Venice. This probably affected Shylock’s money-lending business causing him to bear a gradual grudge against Antonio. Also, Antonio was a Christian, and Jews, such as Shylock, had developed an inherent hatred towards Christians due to historic bigotry and racism that the Jews had been experiencing from Christians. This was probably due to the envy of Christians towards the rich Jewish money-lenders.

During Shakespeare’s times, Jews were absent from England for a long time, except for an occasional visitor. This proves that, during Shakespearean times, common people had no experience to counteract the prevailing bigotry and racism towards anyone who is not a Christian; for instance, towards a Jew, such as Shylock. Shakespeare was artistic enough to breathe a powerful and vivid expression into the onstage character of Shylock. This is seen in the way Shylock’s character portrays the alienation felt by the Jews because of the hatred emanating towards them from non-Jews. Many producers and actors of ‘The Merchant of Venice’, over periods of time, have opined that Shylock is the hero of this play. Shakespeare’s Shylock strives to give opposition to the play’s lovers, Bassanio and Portia, the sexy babe, in an attempt to counteract and aggravate the satisfaction that the audience is tempted to desire for the well being and the victory of these lovers.

Shakespeare’s Shylock has been portrayed, and appears to be, an evil villain in the play. However, he is not a true villain. Instead, there is more to it than meets the eye.

As depicted in Act 3, Scene 1, wherein Shylock says “To bait fish withal; if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies – and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? Tee Hee Tee Hee. If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge! The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction”.

Thus, Shylock obviously spouts out the venomous bona fide feeling of an ordinary Jew towards an ordinary Christian in those times. Hence, it seems that Shylock is a man driven mad with rage by the way he and his fellow-Jews have been treated over time. His rage forces him to be a villain, for he presupposes, in his probable rightful indignation, that unless he gives the Christians back as a villain, in a similar hard way, their tyranny and oppression of his Jewish clan will probably not stop.

Although, towards the end of this play, the Christian characters in it appear to be more merciful in their humanitarian attitudes and deeds than the Jewish character of Shylock; yet, the reality may not necessarily be so. This is because the Christian characters end up humiliating and frustrating the Jew’s attempts to avenge the long time tyranny of his clan at the hands of Christians. The fact that bigotry was prevalent towards the Jews in those days, and the fact that the crafty smartness of the Christian characters in the play, and the laws of Venice, did not allow Shylock to succeed in his endeavors, clearly depict that Christians were capable of subtle tyranny and oppression towards the Jews in those times.

Thus, from what happens to Shylock at the end of the play, it cannot necessarily be defined as a happy ending for Shylock; although, it definitely turns out to be a happy ending for the rest of the characters in the play. This is evident because Shylock expresses that he is content at being pardoned by the Duke; but, also expresses his desire to be relieved from the presence of the company of the Duke and others, as he feels unwell. This implies that he is personally not happy with the way things ended, as he could not succeed in his endeavors to teach the Christians a lesson on behalf of his fellow-Jews. Looking at it from the audience’s point of view, the ending of this play can be perceived as happy by some people and not happy by some others. This will depend on how different people in the audience relate to the play and view it from different angles as per their individual personalities and emotions, and also their personal favoritism, if any, towards different characters in the play.



Martin Luther, designated as the father of Protestant Reformation, wrote a treatise – a written argument, titled, ‘On Christian Liberty’ at the request of his mentors and would be successors, that he dedicated as a token of peace and good hope together with his accompanying conciliatory letter to Pope Leo X, in a final effort to prevent a split in the Roman Church.

Disgusted that the Roman Church, once the holiest of all, had “become the most licentious den of thieves [Matt. 21:13], the most shameless of all brothels, the kingdom of sin, death and hell” and that Pope Leo X had to “sit as a lamb in the midst of wolves”. Luther strived to reach out to the Pope through his treatise in a fervent hope of rekindling the spark of Christianity. In introducing us to his treatise – “On Christian Liberty”, he declares that the Christian is perfectly free from sin, death, and the devil through faith in Christ. However, he also reminds his idiotic readers that this does not imply that Christians are thus licensed to act in anyway they wish; rather they are conferred with an opportunity to serve their neighbors in a positive manner. This, according to Luther, is the gift of God for his children on Earth.

Luther maintains that the Christian is free from the need to do any works to achieve salvation. He enlightens us that we possess great powers of the spiritual kind. However, to tap these powers to their full potential, we need but just to believe in them and to have faith in God; and it will tide us through good times and bad times, in the face of enemies and oppression. It is a splendid privilege bestowed on all humans; however, it works only if one has faith and believes in it. “Yes, since faith alone suffices for salvation, I need nothing except faith exercising the power and dominion of its own liberty”.

This, according to Luther, is the inestimable power and liberty of the Christians. “He will fulfill the desire of those who fear him; he also will hear their cry and save them” [cf. Phil. 4:13]. To this glory a man attains, certainly not by any works of his, but by faith alone”. “From this anyone can clearly see how a Christian is free from all things and over all things so that he needs no works to make him righteous and save him, since faith alone abundantly confers all these things. Should he grow so foolish, however, as to presume to become righteous, free, saved, and a Christian by means of some good work, he would instantly lose faith and all its benefits”. Thus, Luther enlightens us to the fact that we humans are privileged to enjoy this liberty simply by having faith. He delivers the message that to enjoy this liberty, we need no other works of any kind that are measured and upheld for glory by rigid earthly material standards. Such earthly works do not form a necessary condition to enjoy this liberty that is conferred as a gift of God to believers who have faith. “Wherefore it ought to be the first concern of every Christian to lay aside all confidence in works and increasingly to strengthen faith alone and through faith to grow in the knowledge, not of works, but of Christ Jesus, who suffered and rose for him, as Peter teaches in the last chapter of his first Epistle (1 Pet. 5:10)”.

In an attempt to pave the way for the unlearned, Martin Luther puts forth two propositions about freedom and bondage of the spirit. One is that “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none” and the other is that “A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all”.

A righteous, free, and a pious Christian, is like a spiritual, new, and inner man, who becomes what he is not through any external factors, but by living the Word of God in everyday life. Luther enlightens us that “The Word is the gospel of God concerning his Son, who was made flesh, suffered, rose from the dead, and was glorified through the Spirit who sanctifies. To preach Christ means to feed the soul, make it righteous, set it free, and save it, provided it believes the preaching. Faith alone is the saving and efficacious use of the Word of God, according to Rom. 10[:9]:”.

Luther’s message is that a true Christian living a Christian life will live in a way as to serve others instead of harming them. “A man does not live for himself alone in this mortal body to work for it alone, but he lives also for all men on earth; rather he lives only for others and not for himself. To this end he brings his body into subjection that he may more sincerely and freely serve others”. As a social animal, humans have to necessarily deal with other humans in everyday life. In this context, a true believer or a true Christian strives to serve others in a positive way. “Accordingly the Apostle commands us to work with our hands so that we may give to the needy”. Thus, a Christian who lives righteously cares well for the body, mind, and soul, so that, as a healthy human, he/she can perform service to the needy and the weak, bear one another’s burdens, and thus live a honorable Christian life. Man serves man in faith that is truly active through love. As Luther says, “the freest service, cheerfully and lovingly done, with which a man willingly serves another without hope of reward; and for himself he is satisfied with the fullness and wealth of his faith”. “Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to interests of others”[Phil. 2:1-4]. Apostle prescribes the rule that Christians should follow, namely, to devote their works to the welfare of others, and use their abundant riches of having faith, other works, and whole life, in voluntary benevolent service and goodness to their neighbors. Thus, in positively serving, helping and dealing with other humans, including one’s neighbors, anyone living a life of a true Christian becomes a servant of all.

Going back to the context of Medieval Church times, this interpretation of Christianity that encourages one to perform joyful service to other humans through living the word of Lord in righteous and faithful living, is vastly different. Medieval churches preached that souls could be saved through religious ceremonies and good works, even if one had no faith at all. During medieval times, monastic tradition prevailed. The clergy were the main link between the people and the God. They believed that the public should just repeat any religious formulas provided by the Medieval clergy. One may have no faith at all, yet, if one would go along with the religious formulas and ceremonies of the clergy, he/she would still be blessed by God. Medieval piety was often mechanical, and involved practices such as sale of indulgences, misuse of pilgrimages, and proliferation of masses for the dead. Medieval church believers and followers were obsessed with death and purgatory in the wake of the bubonic plague. Salvation was assured by sacraments of the church. However, sins of life carried sentences to be served in the purgatory that was supposed to be less painful than those of hell. A mass for laid for the soul of the dead reduced the penalty by a specified number of years. Every sin could be forgiven if one flashed out money. One could do all un-Christian-like works in earthly life, and yet be forgiven without any past accounts. Priests minted money with their ugly midas touch on such bequeaths from sinners. The practice of indulgence was common. An indulgence was defined as a remission of sequential or purgatorial punishment for sins that could be granted by the Church. Its price being related to the number of years subtracted from the buyer’s term of sufferance in the purgatory. In fact, indulgences could even be purchased in advance for sins intended to be committed. For instance, someone going for a man-woman, man-man, woman-woman, man-dog, woman-dog, or the plurals of these types of sexy sexual encounters would purchase indulgences in advances for their intended sins.

Thus, in medieval times, humans could live life as an unbeliever, concentrate only on material works, not care for fellow-humans, and perform no service to benefit others, but only oneself, and yet, with the practice of the Church, buy one’s salvation. On the other hand, Luther’s Christian freedom enlightens us to live a life in joyful service to fellow-humans far and wide, and cherish the golden gift of having faith as a believer that is granted on equal footing to one and all humans, irrespective of their individual practices.




Ireland’s social quandary can be solved through laundering the problem in a special way. It is proposed that the Irish people, especially those with a dearth of money, should merrily engage in sexual reproduction to procreate without any family planning, fatten their newborn babies until they are one year old, and then sell these fattened babies for a good market price as edible food to be eaten by rich people who can afford this luxury of eating tasty human baby flesh. Thus, Ireland’s social problem can be laundered, i.e. solved.

Disdainfully, the Irish people are ridiculed with sharp rhetoric, words, and phrases, e.g., womb of a woman is compared to a dam – “It is true, a child just dropped from its dam, may be supported by her milk for a solar year, with little other nourishment”. Children murdered by their own mothers are depicted as ‘bastards’ and the reproducing mothers as ‘breeders’.

Ruthlessly, children are depicted as saleable commodities to be sold, killed, cut, cooked, and eaten by others who can afford to and have the stomach to do so. “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout”. This suggests that children are same as any other meaty animals that humans kill, cook, and eat. Do you eat your children? Do you smoke? Will you eat your children? Will they die? Everybody dies you know.

Irish landlords are snorted at as having the right of accessing and eating the flesh of their poor tenant’s children : “I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children”. Pitiless bastard landlords bite in to the assets of these poor children’s parents through atrocious rents making them poor. At other instances, 10 shillings are charged for the carcass of a good fat child”. Sane and healthy readers will be aghast at these nasty landlords, their money, power, and material hunger and selfishness and evil quality and their evil policies.

English beer bar bums snort scornfully at the poor Irish people during the eighteenth century. The Irish people are characterized as being irresponsible, incapable, and unsuccessful in achieving a materially good standard of living to adequately provide for their children’s upbringing. The English seem to think that the Irish people are like animals; hence the suggestion to fatten the Irish babies and sell them as edible food after they become one year old. According to the English, if the Irish cannot take care of their children, they might as well make a profit on them by fattening them and then selling them as edible meat in the market for the palates of the rich. This could be better than letting the children and their parents lead materially miserable earthly lives or dumping the children because of inadequate resources to take care of them. This same suggestion applies to axis of evil America whose women have wombs laden with teen pregnancies and their leaders send their men to world wars to knife the ten commandments, kill, kill, and kill more humans, spill human blood on an unprecedented scale equivalent to a massive oil spill disaster and steal the resources of poor nations and bring it back to their impregnated baby-laden teens who got pregnant during their teens despite proclaiming to be belonging to an educated nation, the axis of evil America.

The satire attempts to knock at the wild passions of the Irish people in a fervent hope that it would probably nauseate them upon reading or hearing about this proposal suggesting cannibalism. It is hoped that sexually wild reproductive passions of the people will be turned off in an effort to control their rapidly rising population without adequate resources to take care of them.

Comparing English attitudes towards the Irish with Christian attitudes towards the Jews, one can conclude that their contempt for each other was based on different airplanes of bloated arrogance. While the English scorn for the Irish was based on Irish poverty due to their burgeoning population and inadequate resources to take care of them; the Christian hatred for the Jews was based on their envy of the Jews’ financial success as money lenders and the Jews in turn reviled the Christians due to historic bigotry and racism.




Several varieties of monarchy emerged during the late seventeenth century—from limited monarchies, restricted by con­stitutions, parliaments, or aristocracies, to autocratic monarchies, with few restraints on despotic powers. In most of them, royal advisers began to evolve during the eighteenth century into cabinets of ministers led by a prime minister,- in some, parliaments eventually gained control over the cabinet system.
A prominent example of the latter was England un­der the Hanoverian kings, a monarchy severely limited by the strength of Parliament and the restrictions of the unwritten constitution. Under the first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, a cabinet system controlled by Par­liament had emerged by the 1730s. In France, the weakness of the Bourbon monarchy was revealed after the death of Eouis XIV, whose successor permitted a resurgence of aristocratic power based upon control of the high courts or parlements. The costs of war and an in­adequate system of taxation produced a financial crisis that helped precipitate the French Revolution.
Autocratic Prussia, meanwhile, emerged as a great power in the eighteenth century owing to the strength of its army. Frederick the Great tried to balance despo­tism and militarism with ideas of enlightened reform. Austria, however, is a better illustration of enlightened despotism, partly in the reign of Maria Theresa, but chiefly under Joseph II, the most advanced of eigh­teenth-century autocrats. Chapter 20 concludes with a discussion of Russia, where the monarch had despotic power and few restraints. Catherine II preserved autoc­racy in Russia by enlisting the support of powerful aristocrats.


The Structures of Government: Monarchy
The basic political characteristic of the Old Regime was—as it had been for more than one thousand years—monarchical government. In the strictest sense, monarchy meant the rule of a single person who held sovereignty (supreme power) over a state and its inhab­itants. Some monarchs, such as the Romanov emperors and empresses of Russia, held exalted titles and sover­eignty over vast territories,- others, such as the dukes of Modena in northern Italy, merely held noble titles and sovereignty over small, vulnerable states. The power of monarchs was frequently challenged by the nobility, disputed by provinces, or attacked in open rebellions. But the concept of monarchy was almost universally ac­cepted at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Even the skeptical intellectuals of that era still supported it, and only a few small states, such as the city-state of Genoa in northern Italy, sustained governments with­out monarchs, usually called republics.
The forms of monarchy varied significantly: from absolute monarchy (in which the monarch claimed un­restricted powers) to limited monarchy (in which clear legal limits were placed on royal sovereignty, to the benefit of the propertied classes). Absolutism remained the predominant form of European monarchy. The English poet William Cowper summarized it simply: "I am monarch of all I survey/My right there is none to dispute." Most monarchs wanted such power and as­pired to emulate the absolute monarchs of the seven­teenth century, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and especially King Louis XIV of France, the exemplars of the era called the age of absolutism. The theory of absolute monarchy held that rulers received sover­eignty directly from God. They governed by divine right, representing within their realm the sovereignty of God over all things. This idea rested on the exegesis of such biblical statements as "No authority exists unless it comes from God." Churches taught obedience to the monarch as a religious duty: God had given sover­eignty, and "No one but God can judge the king." Re­sisting a monarch was to attack God's order. An anonymous poem of the eighteenth century entitled "The Vicar of Bray" summarized the alliance of throne and altar in a succinct rhyme:
Unto my flock I daily preached
Kings were by God appointed,
And damned was he that durst resist
Or touch the Lord's anointed.
Despite such ideas, true autocratic monarchy—most of­ten called despotism—was rare, but parts of central and eastern Europe still lived under despotic rulers who were unrestrained by laws and acted as they wished. A despot might strangle an opponent with his bare hands, have another torn apart by dogs, or have his own son and heir flogged to death, as Tsar Peter the Great of Russia did.
Most monarchs could not exercise such unre­strained powers. Their governments were limited monarchies, or mixed monarchies, a contradiction in terms. The powers of monarchs were limited by tradi­tional privileges that earlier rulers had granted, a strong legal system enforced by independent courts, a strong nobility, the powers of an established state religion, rights delegated to a representative assembly, or finan­cial dependency on others. The Braganza kings of Por­tugal were limited by the power of the Catholic Church,- the Bourbon kings of the Two Sicilies (south­ern Italy), by having to ask an assembly for the money to rule. The Bourbon kings of France faced a resurgent aristocracy that used the law courts (parlemmts) to thwart the royal will.
The most formal restrictions upon royal sover­eignty were constitutional laws. Few states possessed a constitution in the modern sense of a single written document, and few peoples even had any expectation that they might obtain one. Sweden, where a century of absolutism had culminated in the disastrous Great Northern War (1700-21) ending Sweden's claims to be one of the great powers, adopted the strictest constitu­tion of the era in 1720. The Sweden nobility accepted the rule of a queen on the condition that she accept a document limiting her power and benefiting the upper classes. Most constitutions were less formal, usually a set of customary privileges claimed by the aristocracy as the ancient constitution of their national traditions. In Hungary, the Magyar aristocracy (the magnate class) held virtual autonomy. When the Hapsburgs incorporated Hungary into the Austrian Empire, the Hungari­ans insisted upon the prerogatives of their ancient con­stitution and rebelled when they believed it to be violated. The English constitution is the most studied model of limiting monarchical power, but it, too, did not exist in a single document stating these limits. It was a body of constitutional law dating back to the Magna Carta of 1215 in which King John had acknowl­edged limits to his power. The English revolutions in the seventeenth century had extended this process by breaking the power of the Stuart royal family and es­tablishing the dominance of parliamentary government. An unusual form of limited monarchy existed in Poland, where succession to the throne occurred by election. A representative body (the Sejm) of the Polish landowning gentry (the szlachta) chose each new king and claimed traditional rights, called "the five eternal principles," in­cluding the right to renounce allegiance to the king. This so weakened Poland that a Polish state fell prey to its stronger neighbors, losing vast territories to Austria, Prussia, and Russia in "the partition of Poland" (1772) and then ceasing to exist after two more partitions in the 1790s (see chapter 22).
Republican governments held that sovereignty be­longed to the citizens, usually to some privileged por­tion of them. Both the idea and the word had been inherited from ancient Rome. Republicanism slowly evolved into the modern sense of republic—in which sovereignty is held by citizens who elect a government and delegate limited powers to it—but this form did not apply during the Old Regime. In the eighteenth century, a republic meant a state in which the leaders (possibly a monarch) held power by the choice of their subjects (usually a small minority). The elective monar­chy of Poland and the mixed government of Holland could be seen as republican. Most of the republics of 1715 were oligarchies—the rule of the few instead of the rule of one—typically small city-states in Italy. The only great power to attempt republican government during the eighteenth century was revolutionary France during the 1790s.
The Evolution of Government-. Parliaments, Ministers, and Cabinets
Most countries of the Old Regime, except autocratic states such as Russia, possessed a representative assem­bly, typically called a parliament today but more often called a diet (from the Latin diaeta, a place of assembly). Diets had existed in Europe for centuries. The oldest was the Icelandic Althing, founded in A.D. 930, a century before the country converted to Christianity. In some strong monarchies, such as France and Spain, assem­blies existed in theory but not in practice. The French Estates General had once been a powerful body, elected by all classes of the population and able to limit taxa­tion. However, it met only when convoked by the king, and between 1614 and 1789 French kings never called a meeting. The Spanish Cortes, a unicameral assembly of noble and clerical representatives, typically met only at the beginning of a reign to swear homage to the new king. In Wurttemberg, Duke Eberhard Ludwig ruled for forty years, from 1693 to 1733, and permitted only one meeting of the Diet during his entire reign. That meet­ing opposed a standing army and the levying of taxes, but the duke proceeded to raise an army, collect taxes, and prevent further meetings of the Diet. Most diets were equally impotent,- only the British Parliament and the Swedish Rikstag had genuine legislative power. One of the most important trends in modern European polit­ical history has been the evolution of greater powers exercised by parliaments, but this trend was slow dur­ing the eighteenth century, when it was largely con­fined to Britain and France.
The most powerful political figures of the eigh­teenth century were usually the advisers chosen by the monarch to manage the government. Another impor­tant trend in political history was the slow evolution of these royal advisers into a modern government. Advis­ers gradually became ministers of state, charged with the direction of a bureaucracy, such as the Ministry of Finance or the Ministry of War. In efficient govern­ments, the advisers worked together as a cabinet of ministers, pursuing a common policy. During the eigh­teenth century this evolved into the cabinet system of government in Britain, culminating in the recognition of one minister as the head of the government, or the prime minister. Only the most energetic and able of monarchs, such as Frederick the Great of Prussia, served as their own prime minister, directing the bu­reaucracy. Instead, such strong leaders as Sir Robert Walpole in Britain (served 1721—42), Cardinal Fleury in France (served 1726—43), Count Kaunitz in Austria (served 1753-92), and Count An/id Horn in Sweden (served 1718—39) laid the bases of modern ministerial government. The final stage of this evolution is known as ministerial responsibility, when the prime minister and the cabinet no longer served at the king's pleasure but were responsible to parliament and held office only as long as a majority supported them. Signs of ministe­rial responsibility were evident in eighteenth-century Britain, but the idea developed in the nineteenth cen-
tury and was not widely accepted until the twentieth century.
Many ministers were selected by royal whim. The most powerful adviser might be the king's private secre­tary, as was Alexandrea de Gusmao, the strongest statesman in midcentury Portugal. Or power might be hidden behind a minor office. For example, the title of Adam Moltke, who dominated the government of Den­mark for a generation, was master of the royal house­hold. The two most influential advisers to King Louis XV of France were the man who had been his child­hood tutor and one of the king's mistresses.
The Rise of Parliamentary Government in Hanoverian England
The strength of parliamentary government in England was the result of seventeenth-century revolutions that limited the royal power of the Stuart kings. When it became clear that the royal line was dying out, Parlia­ment asserted its supremacy and selected a German princess from the House of Hanover (a relative of the Stuarts) as the heir to the throne. Thus, in 1714 the throne of England passed to a German, the elector of Hanover. He took the title of King George I, beginning the House of Hanover. His heirs took the names George II and George III, so eighteenth-century En­gland is known as Georgian England as well as Hanoverian England.
King George I did not speak English, and he never bothered to learn the language of his new kingdom, al­though he had already learned Eatin, French, and Ital­ian. He preferred life in Germany and made long trips to Hanover, where he kept a series of plump mistresses whom the English press loved to satirize. The king married his own cousin, then accused her of adultery, divorced her, and imprisoned her for thirty years. This monarch did not win the affection of the English peo­ple who generally considered him indolent and igno­rant. One of the sharpest tongued Englishmen, Samuel Johnson, summarized him simply: "George I knew nothing and desired to know nothing,- did nothing and desired to do nothing." Yet George founded a dynasty that outlasted the French Bourbons, the Austrian Haps-burgs, the Prussian Hohenzollerns, and the Russian Ro­manovs,- his family was renamed the House of Windsor during World War I and it continues to reign nearly three hundred years later.


The character of King George I contributed to the supremacy of Parliament. He showed little interest in government, and because of the language barrier, even his addresses to Parliament had to be read by someone else. Parliament further asserted itself with a new coro­nation oath, requiring each monarch to swear to obey parliamentary statutes. It established a mandatory term of office for itself, gained tighter control over the bud­get and the army, and produced a Bill of Rights that guaranteed citizens many liberties. But the most impor­tant effect of George Is disinterest in governing was that it allowed the development of the cabinet system of government.
George I's adviser Sir Robert Walpole became the first prime minister in British history and the architect of the cabinet system. Walpole did not come from the titled nobility but was the son of large landowners with nearly a dozen manors in eastern England. Because he was not the eldest son, Walpole studied for the church and only assumed management of the family estates after the death of his brother. His marriage to a rich merchant's daughter brought him a dowry of £20,000 and the independence for a parlia­mentary career. He championed the Hanoverian suc­cession and won the confidence of the royal family. George I and George II allowed him independence to shape the government, and Walpole accepted with en­thusiasm. Given the preeminence of Parliament in Britain, Walpole also had to win the confidence of that body, and he did so through remarkable managerial skills. He won the backing of the gentry in Parliament by cutting the land tax from 20 percent to 5 percent. He gained the faith of others by restoring order to British finances after a crisis caused by stock specula­tion—known as the South Seas Bubble—destroyed public confidence. He got the support of manufactur­ing interests with a policy favorable to foreign trade. The key to Walpole's success, however, was probably his patronage system in which he tried to find a job or an income for everyone who would support him. "There is enough pasture for all the sheep," Walpole said, and he delighted in spreading patronage to bish­ops and dukes. His opponents thought this scandalous. Jonathan Swift put it bluntly: "The whole system of his ministry was corruption,- and he never gave bribe or pension without frankly telling the receivers what he expected from them." But in this way, Sir Robert Wal­pole held power for twenty-one years and laid the foundations of modern parliamentary government.
The British Parliament of the eighteenth century was far from a modern, demo­cratic legislature. The upper house, the House of Lords, remained a bastion of the aristocracy where member­ship was inherited by the eldest son along with the family title. The lower house, the House of Commons, was elective, but voting was limited to adult males who paid forty shillings a year in property taxes, on the the­ory that men of property had a vested interest in or­derly government. This meant that fewer than 250,000 voted—approximately 3 percent of the nation. In addi­tion to the poor, women, criminals, Catholics, Jews, some Protestants (notably Quakers), and nonbelievers were barred from voting. A Qualification Act required that to become a member of parliament (M.P.) a candi­date must own land worth £300, leaving a tiny fraction of the nation eligible for office. Walpole, however, en­couraged the dominance of the House of Commons and accepted that his cabinet stood collectively respon­sible to that body.
British voters typically deferred to the leadership of a small elite of great landowners. According to a study



of British politics at the accession of King George III, this pattern of deference meant that only one voter in twenty acted independently and that a few prominent families controlled the House of Commons. The con­stituency of Wenlock in western England, for example, had a few hundred electors. Throughout the eighteenth century, they deferred to the leadership of the Forester family, choosing eight members of that family to repre­sent them in the House of Commons. Constituencies were drawn on unequal lines: Some constituencies, called pocket boroughs, were owned by a single family, which had the seat in its pocket and chose the M.P.,-others, called rotten boroughs, had so few votes that the seat could be bought. In 1761 the borough of Sud-bury openly advertised that its seat in the House of Commons was for sale. The vast lands owned by the duke of Newcastle included seven boroughs for which he personally selected the M.P. In such ways, 111 wealthy landowners controlled more than two hundred seats in Parliament.
Eighteenth-century England also witnessed the ori­gins of a political party system. Members of Parliament generally split into two large factions, not yet political parties in the modern sense, called the Tory and Whig parties. The Tories were somewhat more conservative (in the sense of supporting royal authority) than the Whigs (who were monarchists and defenders of the Hanoverian settlement, but who spoke for parliamen­tary supremacy). The leaders of both factions typically came from the aristocracy. Political parties did not yet dominate elections. A famous study of politics in the Georgian age concluded that party did not determine the outcome of a single election in the voting of 1761. Nonetheless, the Whigs—including Walpole—won a majority in the first elections under King George 1 and generally dominated British politics for the next two generations.
The strongest of Walpole's successors, William Pitt the Elder, strengthened the position of prime minister and the cabinet system of government. Like Walpole, Pitt was not born to the aristocracy, but he managed to die holding both the nickname "the great commoner" and the noble title the earl of Chatham. He was the grandson of a merchant who had made a fortune trad­ing in India in illegal competition with the East India Company. That wealth had bought Pitt's marriage into high society and his seat in Parliament representing the most famous of all rotten boroughs, Old Sarum. Pitt was polished and Oxford educated,- his rise in Parlia­ment was largely the result of exceptional oratorical skills. As prime minister during the Seven Years' War of 1756—63, Pitt's vigorous leadership helped to secure global victories over France, demonstrated the strength of cabinet government even in times of crisis, and made the government popular.
The evolution of parliamentary government in En­gland was an important stage in the growth of Euro­pean civilization, but noteworthy criticisms were made of government by a cozy, aristocratic elite. The loudest voice came from the son of a distiller, John Wilkes. Wilkes had an Oxford education and a helpful marriage to a wealthy older woman. Gibbon found him


Wilkes: Reform of Parliament, 1 776
All wise governments, and well-regulated states, have been careful to mark and correct the various abuses, which a considerable length of time almost necessarily creates. Among these, one of the most striking and important in our country is the present unfair and inadequate represen­tation of the people of England in Parliament. . . .
[N]o less than 11 towns sent members to the Parlia­ment of Edward I [in the 13th century], which have long ceased to be represented. The names of some of them are scarcely known to us. ... What a happy fate has attended the boroughs of Gatton and Old Sarum, of which, al­though [they are now deserted ruins] the names are famil­iar to us: the clerk regularly calls them over, and four respectable gentlemen represent their departed great­ness. . . . Great abuses, it must be owned, contrary to the
primary ideas of the English constitution, were committed by our former princes, in giving the right of representa­tion to several paltry boroughs. . . . The marked partiality for Cornwall, which single county still sends, within one, as many members as the whole kingdom of Scotland, is striking. . . .
[I]t has been demonstrated that this number of 254 members [of parliament] are elected by no more than 5,723 persons. . . . [T]he mean, and insignificant [con­stituencies], so emphatically stiled ibe rotten part of our consti­tution, should be lopped off, and the electors of them thrown into the counties,- and the rich, populous, trading towns, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, and others, be permitted to send deputies to the great council of the nation.
a delightful friend, filled with "inexhaustible spirits, infi­nite wit and humor, and a great deal of knowledge" but added that "his life is stained with every vice." Wilkes spent much of his wife's dowry to win election to Parlia­ment in 1757, and he earned notoriety by publishing a barbed weekly journal named the North Briton, where he offended many people by discussing rumors of M.P.s sleeping with the king's mother. As the leader of British radicalism, Wilkes called for the reform of Parliament, abolishing rotten boroughs and redistributing seats in a fairer representation of population. George III was the most complex and important of the Hanoverian kings. He was the first Hanoverian to be born and educated in England. Although some British historians have described him as "an unbalanced man of low intelligence," George began his long reign—from 1760 to 1820—as a popular, hard-working king, considered a decent man of domestic virtues (in covAia'S'i to ViVs fyredi^^yiws awd. vsymv/ •c.t W,o vrAvAotero) and high patriotism. George III was also the first Hanoverian to intervene deeply in politics, the first to try to rule. He was stubborn and arbitrary, and he fought with Pitt and other ministers, dismissing them from office,- he tried to abolish the emerging system of political parties/ and for approximately a dozen years, he effectively ran the government through the choice of weak ministers and lavish application of Walpole's patronage system. George III is often best remembered for the mental imbalance that began to afflict him in 1765—now thought to have been caused by the meta­bolic disease porphyria—and led to his being stripped of royal powers in 1811. But for many years he was a formidable political figure, strong enough to order the arrest of Wilkes, who was expelled from parliament.
By 1780 the House of Commons had begun serious consideration of reforming itself. The house regularly received petitions from around the land, such as the Yorkshire Petition of 1780, demanding changes in rep­resentation. Reform won an important ally in 1783 when William Pitt the Younger (the son of Pitt the El­der) adopted the cause and introduced a bill to disen­franchise thirty-six rotten boroughs and to give seventy-two more seats to London and the counties. Pitt won the support of many Whigs but could not per­suade the prime minister of his own Tory party to ac­cept reform. His last attempt, in 1785, failed by a vote century. The House of Commons also voted to pre­serve the position of the privileged elite in 1787, when reformers tried to repeal the Test Acts that gave mem­bers of the Church of England a monopoly of positions in universities, military commands, and the govern­ment. Pitt led the opposition to that bill.
The political process did not stop with kings, parlia­ments, and radical reformers: The eighteenth century was an age of turbulent protest. One study has identified 275 urban disturbances in Britain between 1735 and 1800. The most common problem that drew crowds into the streets was hunger. Scarce or expensive bread caused food riots because many people lived on the mar­gins of survival. Labor riots were also common during periods of high unemployment. Such protests in Eng­land frequently became anti-Irish demonstrations, such as the 1736 riots of London construction workers fearful that Irish immigrants were taking their jobs and driving down the price of labor. Sometimes crowds protested specific bills in Parliament, as the people of Glasgow did in 1725 (against a tax on beer) and London workers did in 1736 (against a tax on gin).
Religious hatred was a common cause of riots in the eighteenth century, and English crowds regularly expressed their anti-Catholicism with "pope-burnings." When the House of Commons in 1778 voted to abol­ish legal restrictions upon the seventy-eight thousand Catholics living in England, the public uproar grew into one of the largest riots of the century. A vehement de­fender of Protestant dominance, an M.P. named Lord George Gordon founded the Protestant Association in 1779 to lead a protest campaign. In June 1780 Gordon led sixty thousand militant Protestants in a march on Parliament that precipitated three days of anti-Catholic riots, known as the Gordon Riots or the "No Popery Ri­ots". Mobs assaulted Catholic chapels, major prisons, and the Bank of England. George III used the army to quell the riots, killing 285 members of the crowd. Gordon was tried for treason and acquitted,- his campaign delayed Catholic emanci­pation for fifty years.
Britain and the Struggles of Empire
The eighteenth century was an age of nearly constant warfare for Britain,- wars were fought in Europe, in North America, in India, and on the high seas. The British contested both French and Spanish power in Eu­rope—fearing the hegemony of either Catholic power—and battled the French for global empire. And British military policy was successful in both objectives. The War of the Spanish Succession (1701 — 14) checked the French pursuit of continental hegemony, and a si­multaneous war in North America (Queen Anne's War) resulted in a significant growth in English power. The War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718-20) seriously curtailed Spanish power.
War was one of the few political questions that deeply interested the Hanoverian kin^s. George I and Ceorge // gladly letl Lnglish domestic politics in the ands of Walpole, but they resisted his policy of peace and international commerce. Both kings felt that the English army and navy represented the best defense of their Hanoverian homeland, and they accepted costly warfare to defend it. George II was the last king of En­gland to take personal command of an army in the field, fighting in the War of the Austrian Succession in 1743. George III thus inherited a huge national debt (£138 million) along with the throne, the result of mili­tary profligacy. He, too, fought constant wars, how­ever, and quintupled the English national debt to £800 million (see table 20.1).
The immense war debt that King George III inher­ited was the cost of participation in the first true world war—the Seven Years War in Europe (1756-63), and
The British Stamp Act, 1765
An act for granting and applying certain stamp duties, and other duties, in the British colonies and plantations in America, towards further defraying the expenses of de­fending, protecting, and securing the same. . . .
Be it enacted . . . that from and after [November 1, 1765] there shall be raised, levied, collected, and paid unto his Majesty, his heirs, and successors, throughout the colonies and plantations in America. . . .
For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment or sheet or piece of paper, on which shall be ingrossed, writ­ten or printed, any declaration, pleas, replication, rejoin­der, demurrer, or other pleading, or any copy thereof, in any court of law ... a stamp duty of three pence.
For every skin [etc.] . . . for any certificate of any de­gree taken in any university, academy, college, or semi­nary of learning ... a stamp duty of two pounds.
For every skin [etc.] . . . for any note . . . for any kind of goods, wares, or merchandize, to be exported from . . . the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of four pence.
For every skin [etc.] ... for any grant, appointment, or admission of or to any publick beneficial office or em­ployment ... a stamp duty of ten shillings,
For every skin [etc.] ... for any license for retailing of spirituous liquors ... a stamp duty of twenty shillings.
For every skin [etc.] ... for any probate of a will ... a stamp duty of five shillings.
Resolutions of the American Stamp Act Congress, 1765
The members of this Congress, sincerely devoted with the warmest sentiments of affection and duty to His Majesty's person and Government. . . with minds deeply impressed by a sense of the present misfortunes of the British colonies on this continent,- having considered as maturely as time will permit the circumstances of the said colonies, esteem it our indispensable duty to make the following declarations. . . .
I. That His Majesty's subjects in these colonies owe the same allegiance to the Crown of Great Britain that is owing from his subjects born within the realm. . . .
II. That His Majesty's liege subjects in these colonies are intitled to all the inherent rights and liberties of his natural born subjects within the kingdom of Great Britain.
III. That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of the people, and the undoubted rights of Englishmen, that no taxes be imposed on them but with their own consent, given personally or by their representatives.
IV. That the people of these colonies are not. . . rep­resented in the House of Commons in Great Britain.
V. That the only representatives of the people of these colonies are persons chosen therein by themselves, and that no taxes ever have been, or can be constitutionally im­posed on them, but by their respective legislatures. . . .
VIII. That the late Act of Parliament, entitled An Act for granting and applying certain stamp duties. . . , by imposing taxes on the inhabitants of these colonies . . . (has) a man­ifest tenancy to subvert the rights and liberties of the colonists.
government chose a compromise it thought safe: New taxes would be imposed in the colonies, which were the source of many imperial costs, but not in the British isles. The issue of this policy was the Stamp Act of 1765, a tax on the American colonies, requiring that a tax stamp be attached to official documents such as a will, a liquor license, or a college degree. The furious reaction in many colonies, especially Massachusetts and Virginia, held that such taxes could not be imposed un­der British law without the consent of those being taxed. Representatives of nine American colonies (Britain possessed more than thirty colonies in the Americas) assembled in a Stamp Tax Congress and adopted an angry resolution challenging the decision of Parliament as subverting "the rights and liberties of the colonists".
The confrontation over taxation simmered for a decade and led to the American Revolution of 1776—83. Parliament initially backed down in the face of American protests and rescinded the Stamp Tax in 1766. It adopted, however, a Declaratory Act asserting the right to adopt laws or taxes for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever." Consequently, new taxes were voted in 1767: The Townshend Duties—named for the Tory chancellor of the exchequer, Charles Townshend, who proposed the tax—imposed import duties on basic. Is such as glass, paint, paper, and tea entering the colonies. Renewed protests led to the repeal of these duties in 1770, except for the import tax on tea. The es­calating battle over taxes led in 1773 to the Boston Tea Party, a protest in which colonists dumped tea over­board from ships in Boston harbor. Parliament re­sponded with the Coercive Acts of 1774, closing the harbor and quartering troops in Boston. A few months later, in April 1775, the battles of Lexington and Con­cord began the military phase of the revolution.
Although the British had won a global war in 1763, they were in a weaker position in 1775. They were de­prived of the help that Americans had given them dur­ing the Seven Years' War. There was now no continental war to preoccupy and divide the European powers. One by one, the European powers exploited Britain's vulnera­ble position and declared war upon her. France entered the war in 1778, Spain in 1779, and Holland in 1780. The financial and military assistance of these states—es­pecially the French—plus the division of British opinion over the war, helped to decide the war. France, for ex­ample, secretly sent supplies and money to the Ameri­can revolutionaries in the early phase of the fighting, then sent increasingly larger armies, such as the force of six thousand men that arrived with Count Jean de Rochambeau in 1780. By the later phases of the war, French forces were decisive. In the battle fought at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, the largest army was nei­ther British nor American but French. Facing such grow­ing forces, the British accepted the independence of thirteen of ner American colonies in 1783.
The American Revolution obliged the British to re­consider the situation in other territories. Both nearby (in Ireland) and around the world (in India), Britain faced problems. The Anglo-Protestant domination of Ireland had grown steadily during English battles with Catholicism at home and abroad in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially after the Protestant victory in the battle of the Boyne in 1690. One striking consequence of these struggles could be seen in land tenure. In 1603 Catholics had owned 90 percent of the land in Ireland,- in 1778, they owned 5 percent (see table 20.2). Land tenure was at the center of British dif­ficulties in governing Ireland. In the 1760s Catholic se­cret societies had protested the pattern of evicting Irish Catholics from the soil and leaving them at the mercy of absentee landlords who collected extortionate rents. When Parliament considered improving conditions in Ireland, such as the Relief Act of 1778, the result was a Protestant backlash. Protestants in the northern coun­ties of Ulster founded the Protestant Volunteers, a para­military force of forty thousand armed men to their privileged position. The House of Commons ca­pitulated to the chief demand of the Protestants by cre­ating a Protestant-dominated parliament in Ireland known as Grattan's Parliament, which survived until Ire­land was merged into the United Kingdom in 1801. The British also had to reconsider their govern­ment of India. The Seven Years' War had solidified their control of the Indian subcontinent, but that con­trol was exercised by the British East India Company, an anachronistic monopoly created in the age of mer­cantilism. Lord North, the Tory prime minister whose policies helped to precipitate the American Revolu­tion, adopted a reforming policy for India. In 1771 he entrusted the government of India to a reformist governor-general, Warren Hastings, and in 1773 he se­cured the adoption of a Regulating Act that required audits of the East India Company's books. Hastings soon fought with the royal council appointed for India. With the loss of thirteen colonies in America, the House of Commons paid careful attention to the possi­bility of misgovernment in India. Thus, William Pitt the Younger secured the adoption of an India Act in 1784, putting the region under the direct control of the government instead of a corporation. The follow­ing year, Hastings was ordered home to stand trial for corruption.
The Vulnerable Monarchy of Bourbon France
In contrast to the situation in England, the French monarchy carried the powers of absolutism into the eighteenth century: Louis XIV, le Roi Soiei'i (the Sun King), the most powerful of the seventeenth-century monarchs, died in 1715 after the longest reign in the history of European monarchy, nearly seventy-three years. Advocates of limiting absolutism had placed their hopes in the heirs of Louis XIV, but within a single year (1711 — 12), Louis's son, grandson, and eldest great-grandson all died. The death of Louis XIV conse­quently brought to the throne his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV, who would reign for most of the eighteenth century (from 1715 to 1774).
Louis XIV had practiced the distrustful but shrewd administrative principle of fragmenting power near to the throne, and he extended this policy after death by a will dividing the powers of the regency to rule France until Louis XV came of age. The regent of France dur­ing the childhood of Louis XV was his cousin, Philippe II, the duke d'Orleans, a liberal and tolerant man, al­though profligate enough to be considered dissipated even in the context of royal families. The duke skillfully obtained full power by making a deal with the chief ju­dicial body in France, the parlement of Paris: The par-lement invalidated the will of Louis XIV, and in return, Philippe d'Orleans allowed the fifteen parlements of France greater powers to review (and block) royal de­crees. Thus, when Louis XV reached age thirteen and began to rule without a regent in 1723, he inherited a streamlined government, but he faced well-entrenched opposition from the aristocratic parlements.
Louis XV was an intelligent and capable young man, amiable enough to be called Louis "the Well-Beloved." He was not interested in controlling the gov­ernment as his great-grandfather had,- he liked the idea of absolutism but lacked enthusiasm for the daily chores of governing. Consequently, at age sixteen Louis XV entrusted the government of France to his tutor,




Cardinal Fleury (see illustration 20.4), who served as the virtual prime minister of France (without the title) between 1726 and 1743. Louis, who had been married at age fifteen for reasons of state, amused himself with a variety of women while Fleury used his long tenure, as Walpole did in Britain, to stabilize and organize the government.
When Fleury died, Louis XV tried to restore the system of Louis XIV—ruling personally instead of trust­ing a minister to govern. Like George II of England, he took command of his army and led it into battle in 1744. Ministers who wanted too much power were re­duced to the shadows, as was a finance minister of 1759 who left behind his name for that condition: Etienne de Silhouette. Instead of trusting a prime minister and a cabinet, Louis chiefly took advice from his official mis­tress, the Marquise de Pompadour (see illustration 20.5), whom he established at Versailles in 1745. For twenty years, until her death in 1764, Madame de Pom­padour exercised the greatest control over French do­mestic affairs. She exerted a generally liberal and enlightened influence on French policy, but she was not able to master the king's greatest problem: Like George III of England, he found that he had inherited a govern­ment deep in debt, with disordered finances and no ready solutions.
The French Financial Crisis and the Resurgent Aristocracy
The foremost problem facing Louis XV was the disas­trous state of French finances created by high military expenses and low taxation. The wars of Louis XIV left France in debt and near bankruptcy. The debt amounted to 36 percent of the government's budget in 1739. Royal opulence compounded the problem: The cost of main­taining the royal family, splendid palaces such as Ver­sailles, and the life of the royal court exceeded 10 percent of the national budget, whereas all expenditures on social welfare, including royal pensions, got only 8 percent of the budget. The extravagant spending on lux­uries could reach absurd levels. A single piece of furni­ture for a royal palace, gilded and bejewelled, cost more than the servant who dusted it could earn in two thou­sand years (see table 20.3).
Cardinal Fleury established financial order in France, but he could not resolve the underlying prob­lems of inadequate taxation and therefore could not eliminate the debt. The principal direct tax, the taillc, was collected on land and property, but it was inade­quate because the aristocracy, the church, and some towns had exemptions from it. Attempts to create an income tax without exemptions, such as the dixieme (10 percent) of 1710, had been blocked by the aristocracy, the church, and the parlements. The right to collect in­direct taxes, such as tax stamps on documents, had been sold to "tax farmers" for a fixed sum, while they collected whatever excess they could. Many traditional taxes, such as the salt tax (gabelle), had been cut for some regions and could not be increased.
The Seven Years' War converted an intractable fi­nancial problem into a national crisis. France was a populous, rich, and powerful land, but the government was facing bankruptcy. The war cost most of the French colonial empire and 50 percent of French world trade. The national debt rose to 62 percent of the na­tional budget in 1763, and it was growing because of huge interest obligations and a rigid tax structure,- new loans to restructure the debt could reduce the percent­age of the budget consumed but perpetuate the prob­lem. So finances became the dominant issue in France during the twilight years of the Old Regime: What re­forms could be adopted to avoid bankruptcy? The bat­tle over that issue created one of the century's most important political battles: Would the solution be dic­tated by the king and his advisers or would the aristoc­racy, using institutions such as the parlements, determine the outcome? Ultimately, neither side won. The financial crisis led France to one of the greatest revolutions of modern history (see table 20.4).
King Louis XV, once beloved, was unable to handle these problems. His indebted and ineffective govern­ment, his life of luxury and debauchery, even his impli­cation in a grain price-fixing scandal produced unpopularity and stately torpor. He had relied for years upon the advice of Madame de Pompadour, and her death in 1764 left the king in despair. He slowly be­came an eighteenth-century stereotype, the aging, but she still tried to influence politics.
Ttvi d»TOMVMVt fogiTC. VT\ && ¥T-S.lYC.Vi gWCTTITTltm'l '<&- ter the Seven Years' War was Duke Etienne de Choiseul, a capable soldier-statesman who had been sponsored by Madame de Pompadour. Choiseul effectively rebuilt French military strength after 1763 but not French fi­nances. To his credit, Louis XV attempted a solution. He ordered that a wartime tax, the vintjtieme—"the twen­tieth," a 5 percent income tax that fell on all classes— remain in force. This provoked a virtual rebellion of aristocrats who believed themselves exempt from such taxes. The aristocratic lawyers and magistrates of the no-bksse de robe, who controlled the parlements of the higher court system, formed the center of the resistance (see il­lustration 20.6). The Parlement of Paris ruled that the king's decree was illegal. In the south of France, the Par­lement of Toulouse even arrested the royal governor who tried to enforce the tax law. Louis XV capitulated to the parlements in 1764, re­scinding the vingtieme and changing his government. This did not end his battles with the parlements. When he tried to introduce a road building program in Brit­tany, relying upon a royal corvee to provide labor, Breton nobles and the Parlement of Rennes protested. The frustrated king ordered the arrest of the president of the Parlement of Rennes, but this provoked a united protest from all fifteen parlements, claiming that they repre­sented the nation whenever the Estates General (which had last met in 1614) was not in session. As the Par­lement of Rouen stated, they considered themselves "the custodian and the depository" of the French consti­tution, and the king must bend before the law. This time the king stood firm. In 1766 he sent royal troops to occupy the seat of the Parlement of Paris, then personally appeared before the parlement to express his anger. "I will not allow," Louis told the mag­istrates, this usurpation of power. "The magistrates are my officers, charged with the truly royal duty of ren­dering justice to my subjects." Louis insisted that the duties of the parlements did not restrict his sovereignty: "In my person only does the sovereign power rest. . . . To me alone belongs legislative power, unconditionally and indivisibly." To underscore his claim to absolute power, Louis XV named a new government, headed by Rene de Maupeou, to fight the parlements. In 1771 Maupeou abolished the parlements and created a sim­pler court system in which the magistrates were salaried state employees instead of owners of their office. He hoped to create a new tax system, both fairer and suffi­cient for the fiscal crisis, without facing an aristocratic veto. The aristocracy, backed by many philosophies who detested royal absolutism, naturally raised vocifer­ous opposition. But much opinion also supported the king. Voltaire stood with Maupeou's dismissal of the parlements, saying that he would rather be governed by a fine lion than by two hundred rats. he aristocracy won the day in 1774, when Louis XV died. His nineteen-year-old grandson, Louis XVI, possessed generally good intentions, but he was too timid, inexperienced, and weak-willed to stand up to the nobility. His first acts were to dismiss Maupeou and to restore the parlements. Consequently, he faced a strengthened aristocracy throughout his reign. In 1777, when Joseph II of Austria visited his sister, Queen Marie Antoinette, in Paris, he concluded that the gov­ernment of France was "an aristocratic despotism." Louis XVI also inherited the desperate financial sit­uation. In the year of his coronation, the state's rev­enues were 5 percent below its expenditures, increasing a debt that consumed a third of the budget just in inter­est payments. Those problems soon worsened. Begin­ning in 1778, France was again at war, supporting—and financing—the American Revolution. Other problems were beginning. The foremost source of French wealth was agriculture, and in 1774 an agricultural recession began. Farm profits, which translated into tax revenue, plummeted in 1775, and they never again during the Old Regime reached the levels of 1772—74. The decade between 1777 and 1786 saw five harvests in which the average farmer lost money, plus two other poor har­vests (see chart 20.1). The reign of Louis XVI did show signs of hope, as a result of a reforming ministry led by the minister of fi­nance, Robert Turgot, and the interior, Chretien Malesherbes. Malesherbes was a liberal who had de­fended the publication of the Encyclopedic. Turgot was a minor aristocrat who had reached high office in a typical way for a venal society: He bought his position for 100,000 livres. He was also a free-thinker a leader of the enlightened economic school of the Phys­iocrats, whose doctrines he explained in the Encyclopedic. In a series of decrees known as the Six Edicts (1776), Turgot and Malesherbes laid the basis for economic re­covery. The edicts abolished the monopoly of the guilds to stimulate economic competition. They abol­ished the burden of the corvee on peasants and replaced it with a tax on all landowners. And they eliminated most internal tariffs on the grain trade to bring down the price of bread. At the same time, Turgot cut gov­ernment spending, especially in the portion of the bud­get devoted to royal pensions and the royal court. The reforms of 1774—76 made many enemies. The opposition of the parlements, pressure from powerful guilds, and intrigues at court brought down Turgot in 1776 and Malesherbes followed him. The Parlement of Paris, for example, claimed that the Six Edicts "imperil the constitution". The magistrates carried the day: Guild monopolies, the corvee, and internal tariffs were all restored. Another capable minister of finance, a Swiss-born, Protestant financier named Jacques Necker, succeeded Turgot. Necker had made a fortune as a banker during the Seven Years' War. His home was one of the most influential centers of the En­lightenment, where his wife, Suzanne (a prominent writer and the daughter of a Swiss pastor), and their daughter, Germaine (later famous as the Baroness de Stael, also a distinguished writer), directed a brilliant sa­lon. Necker lived at the center of a network of finan­cial, political, and intellectual leaders, and they shaped a series of enlightened reforms during his ministry from 1778 to 1781. He drafted a royal decree for Louis XVI, abolishing the limited form of serfdom that survived in France, but the decree applied only to royal lands. It condemned serfdom in principle and urged aristocrats to follow the king's lead,- it did not force abolition in re­spect for the principle of private property. Few aristo­crats followed the king, so serfdom lingered in France. It was mostly concentrated in eastern France, in a re­cently annexed region known as the Franche-Comte. There, the parlement—most of whose members owned serfs—refused to register the royal decree. In financial matters Necker similarly followed a cautious route to avoid another open battle with the aristocracy. He attempted further royal economies and minor tax adjustment. Unfortunately, Necker's ministry coincided with the French entry into the American Revolution. He had no choice except financing the war effort by further borrowing, thereby worsening the government's plight. Louis XVI, who had sworn a coro-ijdiion oath to exterminate Protestantism and who chaffed under Necker's economies for the royal house­hold, used Necker's failure to solve the crisis as grounds for his dismissal in 1781. Necker thereupon published a book, Compte rendu (Accounts Given, 1781), which showed a shocked world the extent of the French deficit. The successors of Turgot and Necker as ministers of finance during the 1780s were utterly unable to break the logjam by which the aristocracy blocked meaningful tax reform. Charles de Calonne, a courtier and less able financier, skirted the edges of bankruptcy by continually increasing the debt. He, too, concluded that a new tax was essential and proposed a land tax, to be paid by aristocrats and the church as well as com­moners. To win aristocratic support, an Assembly of Notables (a body of uncertain constitutional basis) was called in 1787,- the assembly failed to agree upon any­thing except opposition to Calonne's tax. This led to Calonne's ouster and yet another minister of finance, The Parlement of Paris Protests a Royal Edict, 1776 The desire to relieve the burdens of the people is too wor­thy of praise in a sovereign and conforms too much to the wishes of your parlement for the latter ever to conceive the thought of dissuading Your Majesty from such a noble and legitimate goal. But when projects that hold out this pleasing prospect lead to real and aggravated injustices, and even imperil the constitution and tranquility of the state, it is our faithful duty, without seeking to place obstacles in the way of your beneficence, to set the barrier of the law against the imprudent efforts being made to pledge Your Majesty to a course of action the dangers and stumbling-blocks of which have been concealed from you. . . . This is not, Sire, a struggle between rich and poor, as some have tried to convince you. It is a question of Estate, and a most important one, since it is a matter of knowing whether all your subjects can and must be treated indis­criminately, whether differences in conditions, ranks, titles and preeminence must cease to be acknowledged among them. To subject nobles to a lax to redeem the u)/i>cc ... is to declare nobles subject to the corvee like commoners. . . . [NJoblemen, the descendants of those ancient knights who placed or preserved the crown on the head of Your Majesty's forefathers . . . could be exposed to the humilia­tion of seeing themselves dragged off to the corvee!
who sought even bigger loans, asked the parlements to approve new taxes, and met yet another rejection.
The consequence of the aristocratic rejection of new taxes was that the French national debt reached 100 percent of the budget in 1789. A second conse­quence was that the aristocracy forced Louis XVI to call elections for the Estates General. The Parlement of Be-sancon had proposed that solution in 1783 and others had adopted the idea. Louis resisted, trying instead his grandfather's idea of abolishing the parlements in 1788. He finally conceded defeat, however, and agreed to a meeting of the Estates General in May 1789—which led directly to the French Revolution.
The Hapsburg Empire in the Age of Maria Theresa
In contrast to Britain, where Parliament had broken the power of the king, or to France, where the resurgent aristocracy was restricting the power of the king, in Austria the Hapsburg family still held nearly absolute power during the eighteenth century. The political evo­lution in Austria—known as enlightened despotism— showed how monarchy could respond to new problems.
The Hapsburg Empire dominated Germanic central Europe at the start of the eighteenth century, dwarfing its rivals in size, population, and military might. Prussia numbered only 1.6 million persons and Bavaria 2.0 mil­lion,- the Hapsburg lands held 11.0 million. In the first decades of the century, Hapsburg armies under the skillful command of Prince Eugene of Savoy had fought well in the War of the Spanish Succession, and the peace treaties of 1714 gave the Hapsburgs the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium) and Lombardy. Wars with the Ottoman Empire at the end of the seventeenth century had acquired the Kingdom of Hungary, including vast territories in eastern Europe. Thus, in 1714 Vienna con­trolled lands from Brussels in the west to Milan in the south, Belgrade in the east, and Prague in the north— plus the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. This gave the Hapsburg emperor Charles VI, who reigned from 1711 to 1740, daunting political problems. The hetero­geneous, polyglot realm was united only by the person of the Hapsburg monarch.
Hungary gave Charles the most difficulty. The magnate class had been largely autonomous under the Turkish sultan, and their diet expected no less from the Hapsburgs. Some Hungarian nobles even claimed a re­markable right, the jus resistandi, which legalized resis­tance to central authority. Charles VI realized that "[I]t is very important that quiet should prevail in this coun­try," and he made numerous concessions to the Hun­garians, such as promises to continue their Diet, to tolerate religious minorities (many nobles were Protes­tants), and not to tax the magnates. Such concessions to regional rights, however, meant that Austria lagged behind rivals such as Prussia in the development of a centralized authority and bureaucracy.
The second formidable political problem con­fronting Charles VI was the issue of his successor. Charles had come to the throne in 1711 upon the death of his brother, the emperor Joseph I, because Joseph had no sons to succeed him, and the Salic Law prevented the election of Joseph's daughters as Holy Roman Empress. Charles, however, faced the same problem: His only son died in infancy, and all Haps-burg lands thus probably would pass to his daughter, Maria Theresa, who would not become Holy Roman Empress but who could, under Austrian law, inherit the family dominions. Charles knew that powerful men, both at home and abroad, might challenge his succes­sion, particularly if the throne passed to a woman,- he therefore devoted much of his reign to guaranteeing Maria Theresa's succession and preventing a war of Austrian succession. For Charles, the issue was not pro­tecting his daughter or defending the rights of women, it was the perpetuation of the dynasty and the territor­ial integrity of the far-flung Hapsburg lands. For his subject peoples, however, his death would open the prospect of independence or enhanced autonomy. For the European powers, it suggested the dismemberment of the Hapsburg Empire or annexation of choice parts of it.
The solution Charles VI proposed was a document called the Pragmatic Sanction. It proclaimed that the Hapsburg lands were indivisible, and it outlined the Austrian succession through Maria Theresa or other fe­male relatives. Charles obtained the agreement of his family and published the Pragmatic Sanction in 1719. For the next twenty years he bargained within the em­pire and abroad, buying acceptance of the Pragmatic Sanction. Negotiations with the Hungarian Diet pro­duced its acceptance in 1723, at the price of further weakening Viennese central authority over Hungary. A lifetime of diplomatic bribery bought the consent (sometimes recanted and bought again) of the Euro­pean powers. Britain, for example, accepted the Prag­matic Sanction by a treaty of 1731 ,• Charles paid Britain by closing the Austrian trading company (the Ostend Company) that competed with the British in global commerce. The king of Spain signed in return for the duchy of Parma.
Maria Theresa inherited the Hapsburg dominions in 1740 at the age of twenty-three, and she stayed on the throne until her death in 1780. She possessed en­ergy and determination but an empty treasury and a weakened army. She began to reorganize the govern­ment and entrust many decisions to two powerful min­isters, a chancellor for domestic affairs and a chancellor for foreign affairs, but the Pragmatic Sanction failed al­most immediately. Her realm accepted her, and the Hungarians were chivalrous in her defense, but the duke of Bavaria, the king of Spain, and the elector of Saxony each claimed the Hapsburg crown for himself. The Holy Roman Empire sided with Bavaria, choosing the duke to be emperor. The king of Prussia demanded the province of Silesia as his price for honoring the Pragmatic Sanction. When Maria Theresa refused to surrender Silesia, the Prussians invaded it, beginning a series of wars known collectively as the War of the Aus­trian Succession (1740-48).
The war went poorly for Maria Theresa at first. The Prussians occupied Silesia. France, Spain, and Bavaria joined an alliance against her. The support of Britain and Holland, however, prevented the partition­ing of the Hapsburg Empire. When the duke of Bavaria died in 1745, the electors of the Holy Roman Empire acknowledged the stability of Maria Theresa's position by choosing her husband, the duke of Lorraine, as Em­peror Francis I. The belligerents reached the same con­clusion about Maria Theresa in 1748, ending the War of the Austrian Succession in a treaty that sustained the Pragmatic Sanction except for permitting Prussia to re­tain Silesia.
The Hapsburg Empire had survived the coronation of a woman and the political problems that she inher­ited, but it had not overcome them. Maria Theresa's empire remained internally divided and less efficient than her rivals, although conditions improved when she entrusted the government to a strong chancellor, Count Kaunitz. Perhaps the worst problem confronting the Hapsburg Empire was that a hungry rival for leadership in central Europe, Prussia, had risen on the northern frontier. Within a few years, Austrian armies again found themselves engaged with the Prussians. The Seven Years' War thoroughly devastated both countries, leaving no true victors. When peace came again in 1763, the Aus­trian Empire remained firmly in the grip of Maria Theresa, but even larger financial and administrative problems now plagued her. She faced the problems of recovery and reorganization, even establishing a na­tional budget for the first time in her reign. The death of her husband in 1765, however, plunged her into grief: In a world of arranged, loveless marriages Maria Theresa had been deeply attached to Francis (see illus­tration 20.7). The young, exuberant empress who had loved theatricals and dances became a solemn, withdrawn, and increasingly religious figure who gave more and more of the government to trusted nobles such as Count Kaunitz.
The Hapsburc) Monarchy and the Enlightened Despotism of Joseph II
Solving the postwar financial problems of the 1760s led Maria Theresa into direct conflict with the aristocracy. In 1764 she tried to force the Hungarians to carry a fairer share of imperial taxes, but the Magyar magnates blocked her plans in the Hungarian Diet. The Hungarian resistance to tax reform led Maria Theresa in a sur­prising direction—toward the emancipation of the peasantry from the bondage of serfdom. Maria Theresa's most influential adviser in the emancipation of the serfs was her son, Joseph, whose reign in Austria would later provide the best illustration of enlightened despotism in eighteenth-century European monarchism.
Joseph was Maria Theresa's first son, born most in­conveniently in 1741 when his mother was confronted with the War of the Austrian Succession. His mother ordered that he not be given a rigorous, military educa­tion, and Joseph consequently acquired many of his ideas from his independent reading of the philosophes, not from strict tutors. Joseph came to see himself as the embodiment of the Enlightenment, the person who could link reason with absolute powers. When his fa­ther died in 1765, Joseph became the Holy Roman Em­peror and coregent with his mother in Austria. Maria Theresa shared some of her son's reformist ideas but tried to keep tight control of him and his friends, whom she called the Aufklaruntjs (Enlightenment) Party. After her death in 1780, Joseph could enthusiastically write, "I have made philosophy the legislator of my em­pire," but the same was not true of Maria Theresa. She had learned to rule in tough circumstances, and her policies often showed ugly signs of brutal torture, she was a brutal anti-Semite who launched a program to drive all Jews out of Bohemia, and she often betrayed a startling insensitivity to the life of a peasant nation. But her stern, and sometimes cruel, policies cre­ated the stable, centralized government with a well-regulated army and well-balanced treasury that would make the enlightened policies of her son possible.
The mixed personalities of mother and son launched enlightened despotism in Austria with a com­promise version of emancipation of the serfs. Years of famine and periodic peasant rebellion had shown that the serfs needed some relief. Joseph urged his mother to act, and Maria Theresa accepted his arguments. As
she later wrote "They fleece the peas­ants dreadfully. . . . We know, and we have proof of the tyrannical oppression under which the poor people suf­fer." Queen of Queens! Maria Theresa hesitated to act against the interests of the great landowners, but the tax-resistance of the Hungarian nobles angered her enough to proceed. The emancipation of the peasantry in the Hapsburg Empire began with an imperial decree of 1767 named the Urbarium. This gave Hungarian peasants a leasehold on the soil that they worked and the legal freedom to leave the land without the permission of the local lord. It did not, however, abolish the robot, the compulsory labor tax that peasants owed to lords. During the 1770s, mother and son slowly extended this emancipa­tion. Peasant obligations were separately reduced in each part of the Hapsburg lands: first in Austrian Silesia (1771), then in lower Austria (1772), Bohemia and Moravia (1775), and Styria (1778). After a rebellion by Bohemian peasants in 1775, another imperial decree converted the detested robot into a money tax on serfs in all royal lands.
Joseph II carried this work to its logical conclu­sion—the complete emancipation of the serfs—after the death of his mother in 1780. His decree of 1781 (the Untertanspatmt) gave peasants in Austria, Bohemia, and Galicia the right to appeal to the state in any dis­putes with their lords. That same year he abolished serfdom in Austria. Peasants there obtained the right to marry, to move to the city, and to learn a trade without permission. Then, between 1781 and 1785, Joseph ex­tended this emancipation to his other domains. Joseph II had practical reasons for his policy, such as asserting royal power against the aristocracy and creating a more efficient economy, but the ideas of the Enlightenment were an important factor. As the Patent to Abolish Serf­dom of 1781 stated in its preface, "reason and humanity alike require this change." That did not mean, however,
that Joseph was simply a gentle philosopher: Those around him often commented on his domineering, uncompromising, irritable character.
Maria Theresa's financial needs and Joseph Us re­forming zeal led to similar policies regarding the Catholic Church. The financial crisis of 1763 con­vinced the devout empress that she should challenge some of the tax exemptions and privileges of the church. She began by asking the church to make a greater "voluntary contribution" to the treasury and to limit future property donations to the church (which became tax-exempt land), but the Vatican refused. This led to imperial decrees restricting the church's acquisi­tion of land, beginning with a patent that applied to the duchy of Milan in 1767. Thus, the financial crisis brought the monarchy into conflict with the church just as it had with the nobility, and this led to a variety of reforms. In 1768 the first tax on the clergy was cre­ated. In 1771 a decree established the maximum amount of property that an individual could bring to the church when joining a monastic order. In this strug­gle, Joseph pressed his mother even harder than he did against the aristocracy, and after her death, he acted vigorously. Between 1781 and 1789, Joseph closed more than seven hundred monasteries with thirty-six thousand members, leaving twenty-seven thousand monks and nuns in the empire. He seized the lands of the dispersed orders, thereby raising revenues for the state and converting church properties into schools. In all matters, he tried to break the power of Rome over the Catholic Church in Austria, a national religious pol­icy known as Josephinism.
Joseph’s reputation for enlightened despotism went beyond the battles that he and his mother fought against the aristocracy and the church. Many of his re­forms, however, still sprang essentially from the need for governmental efficiency and greater revenue. He reformed the provincial adminis­tration, for example, replacing fifty-four bureaucrats in


To the Vice-Chancellor of Austria, March 1 785:
The present system of taxation in my dominions, and the inequality of the taxes which are imposed on the nation, form a subject too important to escape my attention. I have discovered that the principles on which it is founded are unsound, and have become injurious to the industry of the peasant,- that there is neither equality, nor equity ... it can no longer continue. . . .
I give you the necessary orders to introduce a new system of taxation, by which the contribution, requisite for the wants of the state, may be effected without aug­menting the present taxes, and the industry of the peas­ant, at the same time, be freed from impediments. Make these arrangements the principal object of your care, and let them be made conformably to the plan which I have proposed.
To an Austrian Noble, December 1 787:
Till now the Protestant religion has been opposed in my states,- its adherents have been treated like foreigners,- civil rights, possession of estates, titles, and appointments, all were refused them.
I determined from the very commencement of my reign to adorn my diadem with the love of my people, to act in the administration of affairs according to just, im­partial, and liberal principles,- consequently, 1 granted tol­eration, and removed the yoke which had oppressed the Protestants for centuries.
Fanaticism shall in the future be known in my states only by the contempt I have for it,- nobody shall any longer be exposed to hardships on account of his creed,-no man shall be compelled in the future to profess the re­ligion of the state. . . . The Empire shall not be the scene of abominable intolerance.
one district with eight. Between 1785 and 1789 he es­tablished a new tax law, based on physiocratic princi­ples such as equal assessment of property. To make such laws effective, Joseph II ordered a census and survey of his empire, enforced by the army. His new tax law marked the end of feudalism in another way: It abol­ished both the ancient peasant labor obligation, the ro­bot, and the compulsory tithe, which peasants paid to the church. Peasants still owed high taxes, typically amounting to 30 percent of their production (12.2 per­cent to the state and 17.8 percent to nobles), but this was far less than the confiscatory 70 percent many had previously paid.
Joseph II also earned recognition for enlightenment by responding to two great concerns of the philo-sophes: the toleration of religious minorities and the Beccarian modernization of law codes. In 1781 he is­sued the Edict of Toleration that extended the rights of full citizenship to Protestants and Jews. Such minorities were allowed to enter businesses and professions or to hold previously closed offices. They obtained the right to hold religious services, although regulations still re­stricted such details as the right to have churches with steeples or bells. Joseph's policy was again a mixture of enlightened ideals and practical politics. Emancipating the minorities brought people of talent into state service and promoted economic growth. Joseph admitted this in the Edict of Toleration, saying that he granted it because he was "convinced on the one hand of the per-niciousness of all restraints on conscience and, on the other, of the great benefits to religion and the state from true Christian tolerance."
Joseph II's legal reforms came in a series of decrees in the 1780s, chiefly 1787-88. He introduced both a new Civil Code and a new Penal Code. Together they abolished torture and the death penalty (except in mili­tary courts martial), introduced civil marriage and buri­al, ended class distinctions in the law, permitted religious intermarriage, eliminated several categories of crime (such as witchcraft and religious apostasy), and even forbade the ancient aristocratic tradition of primo­geniture, which concentrated inheritance in the hands of the eldest son.
These reforms did not make Joseph II universally popular. To achieve them, he enhanced and centralized the powers of the state, and this included unwelcome autocracy such as a strong police. He was hated in many provinces, where he sought to enforce the rule of Vienna over local traditions, including the mandatory use of the German language in business and govern­ment. He infuriated both the aristocracy and the Catholic Church by attacking their traditional rights.

The Army, the Bureaucracy, and the Rise of Hohenzollern Prussia
One of the most important political facts of the eigh­teenth century was the rise of Prussia. The elector of Brandenburg had acquired the province of Prussia in the seventeenth century, making the com­bined state of Brandenburg-Prussia an important, but still secondary, German state. The Holy Roman Empire recognized this state as the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701. It was an absolute monarchy with an impotent Diet and obedient aristocracy, known as the Junker class. It was one of the most autocratic states in Europe, but strict, able administration by the House of Hohen­zollern provided a solid basis for development.
The ruler at the beginning of the century, Frederick I, did little to advance Prussia into the ranks of the great powers. He admired the sophisticated life of the French royal court at Versailles and devoted his reign to making Berlin glitter with the same elegance. The generation gap between Frederick and his son, King Frederick William I, who reigned from 1713 to 1740, could not have been larger. Frederick William was a cruel, semilit-erate man who detested his father's world as effeminate,-he favored drunken nights with his advisers and soldiers. In the words of their successor Frederick II, Frederick I sought to turn Berlin into the Athens of Germany, then Frederick William I tried to make it Sparta.
Although contemporary observers found King Frederick William personally loathsome, they acknowl­edged that he was the person who converted Prussia into one of the great powers. His son, Frederick II— whose love of books, music, French, and kissing, caressing, sleeping and having sex with other men, i.e. people of the same sex, so horri­fied his father that he beat him violently, imprisoned him, and considered executing him—became Frederick "the Great Pusti" partly because he inherited the strong state that his father built. The rise of the Prussian state under Frederick William derived from several factors: the un­challenged authority of the monarchy, the subservience of the aristocracy to a duty called state service, an em­phasis upon building a strong bureaucracy and the army officer corps, and the hoarding of resources through niggardly expenditure and the avoidance of war. Frederick William I, in short, neither admired nor copied western models of government. He took the concept of compulsory state service by the aristocracy from despotic Russia. Prussian nobles were expected to serve as army officers or as civil servants,- in return they obtained a monopoly of many posts and great control over the peasants on their estates.
Frederick William's administration of Prussia rested on more than the domestication of the aristocracy and the conscription of bureaucrats. He made Prussia a cen­ter of the study of cameralism (state administration) and founded university positions in cameral studies. This set standards of professionalism for civil servants and bred a bureaucracy admired for its efficiency. What began as a duty for conscripted aristocrats grew into an honor that brought distinction. The best indication of Prussian ad­ministrative efficiency came in state finances. Monarchs in France, Spain, and Austria faced bankruptcy,- Freder­ick William had inherited nearly empty coffers himself. But his Ministry of Finance, created in 1713, and its tax-collecting bureaucracy soon became the envy of Eu­rope. A study of Frederick William's finances has shown that he doubled his revenue while reducing expendi­tures—chiefly by cutting the extravagant royal court that his father had maintained.
King Frederick William I became known as a miser, but he did not economize on military expenditures. Eu­ropean armies were changing in the early eighteenth century,- larger armies, maintained in peacetime, were becoming common. Wurttemberg had a standing army of six thousand men in 1700,- Poland, an army of twelve thousand. Saxony and Spain kept peacetime armies of approximately thirty thousand men. Frederick William inherited a standing army set at twenty-seven thousand men in the late seventeenth century,- by 1740 he had tripled its size to eighty-three thousand. To do this, Frederick William divided Prussia into military districts in 1730, assigning an enrollment quota of new soldiers to each,- when recruitment fell short in 1733, he added conscription. This meant that Prussia kept 4 percent of its population in uniform, a number previously unthink­able. An important element of this policy, however, was that soldiers be taken from the lowest levels of society, so that the large army not disrupt the productive classes of peasants and workers, whose hard work fattened the coffers of the rich. Criminals and debtors were released from prison to serve in the army. As Frederick II later explained this policy, "useful, hardworking peo­ple should be guarded as the apple of one's eye" because they paid the taxes that supported the army. He was a real mean military bastard. The doc­trine of state service gave sons of the aristocracy a mo­nopoly of the ranks in the officer corps, and this meant that nearly 15 percent of the aristocracy was serving as army officers. Prussia, as Voltaire wryly commented, was not so much a country with an army to defend it, as it was an army with a country to support it.
Frederick William built the Prussian army upon such rigid discipline that he became known as "the sergeant-king". The Prussian ideal was an army that gave cadaver obedience—even the dead would still obey orders. Creating this obedience went far beyond the famous goose-step drilling of Prussian soldiers: Flogging and even mutilation of human body parts were common punishments. The penalty for desertion was to have one's nose and an ear cut off, followed by a life sentence to slave labor. Nonetheless, desertion re­mained so common that Prussian army regulations required the cavalry to surround the infantry during any march through a wooded area. Capital punishment was also common, and it could be administered for merely raising a hand against an officer. This did not mean that Frederick William I frequently risked the lives of his soldiers. Prussia remained neutral in three major wars during his reign. When he did choose to fight, against troubled Sweden, he continued the expansion of Prus­sia with the acquisition of West Pomerania.
The Prussian Monarchy of Frederick the Great
Frederick William Is kingdom was inherited by his third son, the twenty-eight-year-old Frederick II, in 1740. The new king got absolute power, an enlarged kingdom, an efficient administration, a full treasury, and a feared army—the material opportunity to become Frederick the Great. His life did not begin that way. As a third son, he had not been expected to reach the throne. As a son of Frederick William, he had been expected to ac­cept a rigid education and rigorous military training. In­stead, Frederick had rebelled against his father at eighteen,- formed an intimate relationship with his tutor, Lt. Katte,- and tried to run off with him. Frederick William sentenced both men to death for desertion, forced Frederick to witness the beheading of his male homosexual lover, and then imprisoned him with a suspended death sen­tence. Frederick William pardoned his son, then married him off. Frederick accepted military training and learned his lessons well but infuriated his father again in his twenties by deciding that French literature and music were more interesting. Frederick became an excellent flute player and wrote flute compo­sitions throughout his life. When he came to power and built Sans Souci ("Carefree")—an ornate palace with French gardens—in Potsdam, outside Berlin, he de­lighted in the visits of Johann Sebastian Bach, with whom he played duets, and Voltaire, with whom he de­bated philosophy. Frederick became such a voluminous writer that his collected works run for thirty volumes.
Frederick II did not become known as Frederick the Great for writing poetry and incidental pieces for the flute. When he came to the throne in 1740, he turned to the task of government with enthusiasm, and he worked to extend his father's accomplishments. To the bureaucracy he added a system of competitive examina­tions for promotions and his own tireless labor as "the first servant of the state." He insisted upon daily written reports from his ministries and poured over them in a bureaucratic toil that would have been unthinkable for most monarchs. And when Frederick II decided upon ways to improve his kingdom, he did not hesitate to act. When he learned of the benefits of the potato, for example, he forced the nation to adopt it. He distrib­uted free seed potatoes to the peasants in 1744, then is­sued an edict demanding that they grow potatoes or have their ears and nose cut off, and sent the army to check on crops being grown.
But the rebellious and artistic Frederick became Frederick the Great as a soldier. Unlike his father, he was not reluctant to use the Prussian army. He came to the throne of Prussia in May 1740, five months before Maria Theresa inherited the Austrian throne,- by De­cember 1740 they were at war. Of his first twenty-three years on the throne of Prussia, Frederick was at war with Austria for fifteen years. He began by ignoring the Prussian promise of 1 726 to honor the Pragmatic Sanc­tion and invading Silesia in the first of three wars he would fight with Maria Theresa, sometimes called the Silesian Wars. Frederick II was neither a brilliant inno­vator nor a great battlefield strategist, but he was a su­perb tactician who found ways to defeat larger, or better placed, armies by concentrating his forces against a portion of his enemies. His success as a gen­eral was linked to a strategy of exhaustion in which he fought in indirect ways (such as occupying territory and destroying crops or commerce) rather than engag­ing in grand battles until one side or the other was an­nihilated, a real mean military bastard that he was. This won Silesia, Frederick's reputation as a genius, and international recognition of Prussia as a great power.
Another part of Frederick’s reputation rests on his claim to enlightened despotism alongside Joseph II of Austria. At the beginning of his reign, Frederick showed promise of becoming one of the most enlightened statesmen of the century. Within a few months, he abol­ished torture in criminal procedures, established free­dom of religion, granted limited freedom of the press, and founded the Berlin Academy of Science. That early promise was poorly fulfilled, however. Frederick re­mained attached to the ideals of the Enlightenment, in theory, but seldom enacted them. He remained a philosopher king, especially in contrast to his martinet father. His later years saw few reforms, however, and they were chiefly to improve Prussian finances, curing the problems he had created himself with long wars.Frederick II did continue to build the Prussian army. The standing army of twenty-seven thousand that Frederick
William I had expanded to eighty-three thousand approached two hundred thousand near the end of Frederick II's reign. He did this by subordinating all government activity to the military. During a peace­time army buildup in 1752, Frederick gave the army 90 percent of the Prussian budget. This extended to far-

Frederick the Great: The Nature of Monarchy, 1787
Essay on the Forms of Government
With respect to the true monarchical government, it is the best or the worst of all others, according to how it is administered.
We have remarked that men granted preemi­nence to one of their equals, expecting that he should do them certain services. These services consisted in the maintenance of the laws,- a strict execution of justice,- and employment of his whole powers to prevent any corruption of manners,- and defending the state against its enemies. . . .
Princes and monarchs, therefore, are not in­vested with supreme authority that they may, with impunity, riot in debauchery and voluptuousness. They are not raised by their fellow citizens in or­der that their pride may pompously display itself, and contemptuously insult simplicity of manners, poverty and wretchedness. . . .
If the prince, through debility, should aban­don the helm of the state to mercenary hands, I mean to ministers, in that case, each having differ­ent views, no one proceeds on general plans,- the new minister fritters away what he finds already established, however excellent that may be. . . .
There is but one general good, which is that of the state. . . . [T]he sovereign represents the state,- he and his people form but one body, which can only be happy as far as united by concord. The prince is to the nation he governs what the head is to the man,- it is his duty to see, to think, and act for the whole community, so that he may procure it every advantage of which it is capable.
Having no Prince for the state implied same as a body with its head cut off.
berger arms factory at Potsdam, which manufactured fifteen thousand muskets per year, and the military warehouses at Berlin and Breslau, which stored enough grain to feed sixty thousand soldiers for two years. Frederick also expanded the army by implementing the plan of a Prussian civil servant, Justus Moser, for army reserves. Moser conceived the idea of universal military training with most citizens remaining active in a militia in case they were needed. Frederick the Great was proud of his army and intolerant of criticism of it. He did not hesitate, for example, to execute Jesuit
priests who taught that deserting the army was not a mortal sin.
Frederick's militarism nearly destroyed Prussia. During the 1750s, Count Kaunitz of Austria engineered a brilliant diplomatic revolution that allied the Haps-burgs with Russia and England and included promises of the return of Silesia to Austria. Frederick chose war on his own terms and kept Silesia, but following the Seven Years' War, Prussia was, in the words of one his­torian, "a bleeding stump, drained of vitality." The war killed more than 10 percent of the population (500,000 of 4.5 million), and by 1763 boys of fourteen were be­ing conscripted to fight. More than one hundred towns and villages had been burnt to the ground, and thirteen thousand families had lost their homes. The devastated towns of Prussia included Berlin, which the Russian army put to the torch in 1760. The overflowing trea­sury that Frederick II had inherited had been squan­dered on war, forcing Frederick to face the critical question of eighteenth-century government: taxation. "No government can exist without taxation," he wrote. "This money must necessarily be levied on the people/ the grand art consists of levying so as not to oppress." He, like his peers, failed at the "grand art." Taxes were levied in inverse proportion to the ability to pay them: The rich and powerful had exemptions from taxation, so the poor and the middling were expected to carry the burden. That system worked in comfortable times, but the Seven Years' War broke it. Far from paying taxes, much of the population was near starvation in 1763. The monarch himself, although only fifty-one years old, seemed broken by age: His back was stooped, his face gaunt, his teeth missing, and he was plagued with both diarrhea and hemorrhoids. He re­turned to Berlin in military triumph known as der alte Fritz (Old Fritz)—partly an affectionate compliment, partly a sad comment. "It is a poor man who is coming home," the king acknowledged in 1763.
Frederick the Great's postwar policies necessarily focused on economic recovery, which was the same is­sue that threatened to consume George III and Louis XV. To achieve recovery, he ruled with the iron fist of the absolute monarch. Frederick placated the Prussian aristocracy, which kept its dominance of the bureau­cracy and its monopoly of army rank. He did not inter­vene in the relationship between lords and peasants,-there was no Josephine emancipation of the serfs or equalization of taxes in Prussia. In return, Frederick avoided the restrictions that British monarchs faced in Parliament or French monarchs encountered in the parliaments. The aristocratic bureaucracy, which could slow down or circumvent his policies, was his greatest obstacle. As one professor of cameralism put it, "Far from being an unlimited monarchy, [Prussia] is a thinly veiled aristocracy [that] rules the country in undis­guised form as a bureaucracy."

Little room existed for enlightenment in the despo­tism of Frederick the Great's later years. He was still re­membered as the king who had insisted that "[A]ll religions must be tolerated," but he extended few free­doms. When the German dramatist Gotthold Lessing followed Voltaire's footsteps to Berlin with high hopes, left protesting against a stifling environment: "Don't talk to me about your Berlinese freedom of thought and writing. It only consists of the freedom to make as much fun as you like of religion. . . . Let someone in Berlin stand up for the rights of the peasants, or protest against despotism and exploitation as they do now even in France and Denmark, and you will soon know by ex­perience which country is to this day the most slavish in Europe." Some modern scholars, however, have con­cluded that Frederick was the greatest of the enlight­ened despots. One French historian, impressed by a king of intellect and culture, concluded that he pos­sessed "the most complete character of the eighteenth century, being the only one to unite idea with power."
Catherine the Great and Despotism in Romanov Russia
The eighteenth century began in Russia, as it did in France, with one of the most powerful autocrats of the seventeenth century still holding the throne. When Pe­ter the Great of Russia died in 1725, he left behind a royal succession even more troubled than Louis XIV's legacy to France. The French got a five-year-old king and a resurgent aristocracy,- the Russians got a genera­tion of chaotic government. In 1718 Peter's son and heir to the throne, Alexis, became involved in political intrigues at court. As a result, Peter had Alexis, his only child, tortured to death. When Peter died a few years later, he left behind a large royal family, but no clear heir. The palace guards consequently chose Peter's wife, Catherine (a former Livonian serf), as the next monarch, and the great nobles at court accepted a woman on the throne for the first time because they believed that they could control her. A Supreme Privy Council of nobles thus came to exercise central power in Russia, led by Prince Alexander Menshikov, Peter's former minister and Catherine's former lover. Catherine died two years later, but the privy council retained power in Russia for thirty-seven years,- their intrigues selected two women and three children to sit on the throne. The nobility sought to shackle the monarch, as the English, the Poles, and the Swedes had done, and French aristocrats were seeking to do. They won many rights in the turbulent years between 1725 and 1762, but they failed to break monarchical autocracy. The Empress Anna (a niece of Peter the Great), for example, was offered the throne in 1730 on the condition that she accept a list of restrictions: She must have the ap­proval of the council to marry, name an heir, impose taxes, declare war, name new nobles, or issue a royal decree (ukase). Anna accepted, then defied the agree­ment. In such ways, absolute powers survived in 1762, when a strong monarch, Catherine II, arrived on the throne.
Catherine was the daughter of an impoverished German duke who had married her off at age sixteen to a feeble-minded grandson of Peter the Great, the Grand-Duke Peter. After childhood worries that a spinal deformity would make Catherine an ugly, unmarriageable drain on her family, she grew into an attractive woman with deep black hair contrasting with a pale complexion. Before she had matured into such physical attractiveness, however, the future empress had built her identity around her education and her strong, prob­ing mind. Her intelligence won the attention of the Russian royal family when hunting for a wife for the un­educated heir to the throne, Grand-Duke Peter. When Peter was unable to consummate the marriage, mem­bers of the royal family who were desperate to perpetu­ate the dynasty advised Catherine to find a lover who could produce children. She cheerfully complied and began a series of affairs that were among the most no­torious features of her reign—although they hardly dis­tinguished her from the behavior of male monarchs such as George I of England or Louis XV of France. Sex with multiple partners was the order of the day.
Catherine's lovers have historical importance be­cause one of them, Grigori Orlov, an officer in the royal guards, helped her to usurp the throne. When her husband was crowned Czar Peter III in 1762, the army began to conspire against him because he favored an al­liance with a recent Russian enemy, Frederick the Great of Prussia. Orlov became a leader of this conspiracy. When Peter threatened the arrest of his estranged wife, a military coup overthrew him and named Catherine empress. Her husband soon died in prison, apparently killed by one of Orlov's brothers and possibly with the connivance of Catherine, who ascended the throne at age thirty-two.
Catherine II of Russia reigned from 1762 until 1796. She initially faced significant opposition because she was a foreigner, Lutheran-born in an Orthodox land, and sexually scandalous. She obtained (and used) great power largely because she was able to strike a bar­gain with the aristocracy—the Avorianstvo class. Like Frederick II of Prussia, the basis of her reign became this compromise: She would enhance the position of the aristocracy and make no reforms at their expense. Catherine settled the deal by seducing the foremost leader of the old nobility, Nikita Panin, who then en­dorsed her claim. Thereafter, she exercised autocratic powers with a skill that rivaled Peter the Great, earning a reputation for enlightened despotism, although the evidence is greater for her despotism than for her en­lightenment. She initially accepted, but later opposed, an imperial ukase drafted by Panin that would have dele­gated legislative power to a council of nobles. She did restore to the nobility freedoms it had lost under Peter the Great. She abolished compulsory state service by all aristocrats but kept nobles in high diplomatic and military posts, winning the gratitude of many. She granted a monopoly on Vodka production to nobles, winning others.
Catherine II best placated the aristocracy by her policy on serfdom. She had read enough of the philosophes to be an enlightened enemy of serfdom in principle, and one of her first decrees upon coming to the throne had been to alleviate the conditions of serfs on the royal estates. As European Russia contained fifty million peasants—55 percent of them serfs on the royal estates—this was no small matter. And Catherine talked of abolishing serfdom. She consistently extended the power of aristo­crats over their serfs. A decree of 1765, for example, gave them the right to send troublesome peasants to Siberia.
Catherine's shrewd politics solidified her despotic authority by raising the Russian aristocracy to a level of power that they had not previously known. The culmi­nation of this trend occurred in 1785 when Catherine issued the Charter of the Nobility, which codified the collective rights of the dvorianstvo, such as freedom from state service. It gave aristocrats the sole right to acquire serfs, which town dwellers and even free peasants had sought. It excluded the aristocracy from taxation and from corporal punishment.
Partly for consolidating imperial power for thirty years, and partly for her enlightened reforms, Cather­ine 11 became known as Catherine the Great. The en­lightened side of her record, however, is ambiguous. She read many of the philosophes before ascending to the throne, and she was apparently much influenced by Blackstone, Beccaria, and Montesquieu. She corre­sponded with Voltaire and hosted Diderot on a visit to Russia. Her devotion to the ideals of the Enlighten­ment, however, remained stronger in theory than in ac­tion. She found it difficult to enact the ideas she liked. Diderot was dazzled to find "the soul of Brutus in the body of Cleopatra," but Catherine thought the philoso­pher's schemes were "sheer prattle." She wrote to him in 1770, rejecting many reforms for Russia, "All your work is done on paper, which does not mind how you treat

Catherine the Great's Instructions for a New Law Code, 1 768

33. The laws ought to be so framed as to secure the safety of every citizen as much as possible.
they should all be subject to the same laws.
35. This equality requires institutions so well adapted as to prevent the rich from oppressing those who are not so wealthy as themselves. . . .
36. General or political liberty does not consist in that licentious notion, that man may do whatever he pleases.
to­gether in a community where there arc laws, lib­erty can only consist, in doing that which every
one ought to do, and not to be constrained to do that which one ought not to do.
38. A man ought to form in his own mind an exact Liberty is the right of doing whatsoever the laws allow: And if any one citizen could do what the laws forbid, there would be no more liberty, because others would have an equal power of doing the same.
39. The political liberty of a citizen is the peace of mind arising from the consciousness that every individual enjoys his peculiar safety; and in order that the people might attain this liberty, the laws ought to be so framed that no one citizen should stand in fear of another,- but that all of them should stand in fear of the same laws.
it. ... But I, poor empress, must work upon human skin, which is much more ticklish and irritable."
Catherine's greatest effort at enlightened govern she sum­moned a Legislative Commission of 564 delegates, representing all classes except the serfs. Only twenty-eight members were named to the commission, and the rest were elected. Catherine charged the commission with the task of considering the complete reform of the laws of Russia. To guide the commission, Catherine prepared one of the most famous documents of her reign, the Grand Instructions (Nakaz) of 1767. These instructions contained both halves of enlightened despotism. They opened by asserting that "[T]he sovereign is absolute, for there is no other authority but that which centers in his single person." That statement of despotic power was followed by many enlightened principles: Catherine opposed tor­ture and capital punishment, called for a government based on the division of powers, and indicated her hos­tility to serfdom. The potential for change was enor­mous. As Panin reacted to the NakaZ, "[TJhese principles are strong enough to shatter walls!"
Despite the great promise of its beginning, the Legislative Commission of 1767—68 did not reform Russia. It received more than fourteen hundred peti­tions (more than one thousand of them from free peasants), held more than two hundred meetings, and quib­bled over details. The commission agreed to vote Catherine a new title ("the Great and All-Wise Mother of the hatherland"), but it could not agree upon a legal code. At best, it gave Catherine ideas for later years.
The need for reform in Russia was dramatized by a rebellion of serfs and the Cossacks of southern Russia in 1773—75, known as Pugachev's Rebellion. Lmilian Pu-gachev was a Cossack—a people who had lost their au­tonomy in 1772—and a deserter from the Russian army. He organized discontented serfs, Cossacks, and religious minorities into a rebel army in 1773. Pugachev announced that he was Czar Peter III, claiming he had been dethroned by Catherine and the great nobles. He formed a "royal court" among the rebels and proclaimed the emancipation of the serfs, giving them the incentive to fight for his victory. Pugachev's rebels withstood the Imperial army for nearly two years, capturing the town of Kazan, and stimulating serf rebellions throughout the region. The government took Pugachev so seriously that new defenses were built around Moscow to prepare for his attack. The rebellion collapsed in 1775 when Pugachev's own forces betrayed him. He was taken to St. Petersburg, exhibited in an iron cage, and then beheaded. Catherine ordered that Pugachev not be tortured but agreed that his question­ing could include the artful extraction of his teeth.
We, Peter III, by the Grace of God Emperor and : Autocrat of All Russia, etc.
This is given for nationwide information.By this personal decree, with our monarchicaland fatherly love, we grant [freedom] to everyonewho formerly was in serfdom or in any other ;obligation to the nobility,- . . . while to the Cos­sacks [we restore] for eternity their freedoms andliberties/ we terminate the [military] recruiting sys-
tern, cance'i personal and ocner monetary taxes, abolish without compensation the ownership of land, forest, pastures, fisheries, and salt deposits,- and we free everyone from all taxes and obliga­tions which the thievish nobles and extortionist city judges have imposed on the peasantry and the rest of the population. We pray for the salvation of your souls and wish you a happy and peaceful life here [on earth] where we have suffered and experi- enced much from the above-mentioned thievish nobles. Now since our name, thanks to the hand of providence, flourishes throughout Russia, we make hereby known by this personal decree the follow- ing: all nobles who have owned [estates granted by the state] or [inherited estates], who have opposed our rule, who have rebelled against the empire, and who have ruined the peasantry should be
seized, arrested, and hanged,- that is, treated in the same manner as these unchristians have treated you, the peasantry. After the extermination of these opponents and thievish nobles everyone willlive in a peace and happiness that shall continue to eternity.
Her principles against torture did not protect Pugachev's followers. Special troops scoured the countryside, tracking down rebellious serfs. Most were executed "ac­cording to Christian canon"—cutting off their hands and feet before beheading them, then leaving the bod­ies to rot at roadside while heads were displayed on pikes in town. Official State authorized gruesome murders were the order of the day.
Catherine II achieved her most important reforms in the aftermath of Pugachev's rebellion, but they did little to improve the conditions of serfdom. First, she reorganized the government of Russian provinces in 1775, hoping that more efficient government could solve local problems. Catherine divided Russia into fifty administrative provinces, each of which was then sub­divided into districts. She then allowed greater self-government at both the district and province level. Local nobles were named to head district governments. Councils, elected by town dwellers as well as nobles, shared in the government. Separate courts were estab­lished for nobles, burghers, and free peasants. Cather­ine carried this administrative reform further in 1785 when she issued the Charter of Towns. Like the reorga­nization of provincial government in 1775, this charter mixed the Old Regime's corporative society with ideas of the Enlightenment. Following the strict hierarchy of corporative society, the charter divided the urban categories, ranging from fine great merchants and leaders of the wealthiest guilds down to manual laborers. It allowed all six categories of town dwellers, including the unskilled working class, to par­ticipate in elections for the town council. Catherine the Great thus gave signs of enlightened aspiration, and she achieved a few noteworthy changes. But the foremost characteristic of her reign was still despotism, and the condition of the serfs worsened significantly under her rule.
As the eighteenth century drew toward a close, Europe remained a civilization dominated by the institutions of monarchy and aristocracy. This was true in all five of the great powers, although the nature of monarchy and the balance of power between monarchy and aristoc­racy varied sharply from state to state. In western Eu­rope, the absolute powers of the throne had been broken in England and were being severely tested in France,- in central and eastern Europe, the monarchs of Austria, Prussia, and Russia retained more despotic powers, although this typically rested upon some com­promise with the nobility. Historians often ask whether the greatest royal leaders of the era—the enlightened despots, Maria Theresa and Joseph II of Austria, Freder­ick II of Prussia, and Catherine II of Russia—are best understood as despots or as enlightened rulers. This question could equally be extended to the aristocracy: Were the British Parliament, the French parlements, the Junkers, and the dvoriano wiser rulers? In many coun­tries, the collision between monarchy and aristocracy would contribute to political upheaval within the next generation (see chapter 22).
Whatever the balance of political power, all gov­ernments of the Old Regime faced a similar set of prob­lems. Warfare was near the top of the list/ the eighteenth century was among the more bellicose in European history. The century began with two wars in progress involving great powers, and between 1701 and the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 only twenty-two years passed when none of the great pow­ers was at war. Perhaps the foremost problem created by the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years' War, and the American Revolution was economic: The monarchies of Europe became debtor states, and gov­ernments searched for new taxes to pay for war debts. This cycle of problems became intertwined with the struggle over monarchical power. Although the out­come remained unclear during the Old Regime, these problems threatened the end of the age of royal power.



High Culture: From the Baroque to the Classical
The predominant cultural style of the seventeenth cen­tury, known as the baroque, still dominated many of the arts—including architecture, painting, sculpture, furni­ture making, and music—in the early eighteenth century.




The baroque appealed to the emotions and spirituality through the grandiose, the ornately decorated, the ex­travagantly expressed. Whether looking at the energetic statues of Bernini, paintings of suffering martyrs by Car-avaggio, or the voluptuous pastel nudes of Rubens, the viewer was overwhelmed by the lavish baroque style. Ar­chitects brought baroque emotions to palaces and churches, composers brought them to oratorios and fugues, artisans even sought the baroque style in gilded chairs and writing tables. From Chippendale furniture in English homes, to the ornate gates of Place Stanislas in Nancy, the Spanish steps and piazza in Rome, the curved columns of the Karlskirche in Vienna, and Frederick the Great's Sans Souci in Potsdam, the rich and powerful made Europe look baroque. This style culminated in an extravagant artistic style, characterized by fanciful curved forms and elaborate ornamentation, known as ro­coco. Sans Souci Palace was ro­coco—there a warrior king could write French poetry, compose flute music, and dispute philosophers in a home he helped to design, with the gaudy yellow walls and the plump cherubs a soldier wanted.
Historians chiefly remember the high culture of the eighteenth century for the reaction against the baroque style. A revival of the styles and aesthetics of the classical Graeco-Roman world rapidly supplanted the baroque during the middle decades of the century. Neoclassical style, like earlier periods of classicism in European civilization, drew upon the widespread admi­ration of ancient civilization. The elegant simplicity of classical architecture—characterized by symmetry, mathematical proportions, the harmony of forms, and severe rules—contrasted sharply with the ornate baroque and the rococo. This contrast became a vogue in the 1740s after archaeologists began to excavate the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which had been buried (and preserved) by volcanic ash in A.D. 79. A classical revival swept European architecture, produc­ing such masterpieces as the Romanov Winter Palace in St. Petersburg (now the Hermitage Museum), Ea Scala opera house in Milan, and the Royal Crescent in Bath, England. In some cases, neoclassical buildings closely resembled classical structures built eighteen hundred years earlier. All across Europe, great landowners had ancient "ruins" constructed as part of their landscaping.

Classicism soon came to dominate the arts of the eighteenth century. Histories of the ancient world, such as Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall ojtbe Roman Em­pire, became popular reading together with the ancients
themselves. Universities required Latin and Greek of their students, and in some countries an honors degree in classics became the best route to a high-paying job or a government post. Painters, sculptors, dramatists, poets, and composers all mined classical literature for inspiration. The French painter Jacques-Louis David, for example, inspired a generation of politicians with his dramatic canvases—such as "The Oath of the Hor­atii"—depicting stirring moments in Roman history. Music was perhaps most shaped by eighteenth-century classicism. The strict attention to form, the mathematical precision, the symmetry learned from architecture became the basis of a new music: The development of the sonata, the symphony, the string quartet, and the concerto so changed musical composition that the name classical music remained long after the classical era.


Popular Culture in the Eighteenth Century
In recent decades, cultural historians have paid closer attention to the culture of the lower classes, as distinct from the high culture of the elite. The distinction is not absolute, because high culture and popular culture are often remarkably similar. In the eighteenth century, the classes of rural England, who welcomed the touring troops of actors who brought drama to the countryside. In London, David Garrick's famous theater on Drury Lane was as popular with the artisans and laborers who flocked to the cheap seats as it was with the wealthy who bought the boxes. In the capitals of opera such as Milan and Vienna, few shopkeepers could afford to at­tend the lavish productions. But Mozart had a popular following, too, and versions of his operas were pro­duced in lower-class music halls.



Popular culture and high culture also intersected for the converse reason: The well-bred, well-educated, and well-off also frequented the robust entertainments of ordinary folk. The world of popular culture—a world of rope-walkers, jugglers, and acrobats - of village bands and workers' music halls,- of folk­tales and folksong,- of races, fights, animal sports, and gambling - of marionettes, pan­tomimes, and magic lantern shows projected on smoke,-of inns, taverns, public houses ("pubs"), cafes, and cof­feehouses,- of broadsheets and limericks,- of carnivals and fairs,- of entertainment in public parks and on the village commons—was not the exclusive province of values. High culture honored this intersection by regu­larly borrowing from popular culture, from the folk theme that reappeared as a leitmotif in a symphony or the tales of oral culture that reappeared in learned anthologies.
A good illustration of the parallels in high culture and popular culture can be seen in two of their centers: the salon (high culture) and the coffeehouse (popular culture). The salon, a social gathering held in a private home where notable literary, artistic, and political figures discussed the issues of the day, characterized the educated world of high culture in the eighteenth cen­tury. Salons were typically orga­nized and directed by women of grace and style who shaped European culture by sponsoring rising young talents, protecting unpopular opinions, finding financial support for impoverished writers, and sometimes foster­ing political intrigues. The salons glorified conversation—about the life of the mind and the republic of letters, the arts, politics and policies, scandal and gossip, and wit and flirtation. Salon host­esses were sometimes the wives, daughters, or the



The Salon of Madame Geoffrin
Marie-Therese Geoffrin (4699-4 777] was the hostess of one of the most influential salons because she had an exceptional ability to en­courage artists, writers, and philosophers. Her skills as a hostess raised
was written after her death but provides a vivid portrait.
Madame Geoffrin . . . was born in 1699 and her mother died a year later in giving birth to a son. She lost her fa­ther in 1706, when she was only seven. The two children were confided to the care of their maternal grandmother, Mme Chemineau. The father of the little girl who will one day become Mme Geoffrin . . . had been a valet of tne wardrobe at L.ourt. nis wire, Miie Cnemmeau, was or higher social position for she was the daughter of a small banker. . . .
Mme Chemineau decided that [Therese's] education must be religious. She recommended pious reading, and the little girl fulfilled all her religious duties in her parish church. . . . The Church had a great influence on the youthful Therese, for it was in St. Roch's that she attracted lAic aUciil'iuii o5 YianiyUis Gcuuim. jhc was fourteen cinii
he was forty-eight. An idyll. Geoffrin had worked all his life in the mirror trade. . . . [H]e became head cashier [of] the most considerable glass manufactory of France. . . . He bore so good a reputation that one cannot suspect him of perversity: Therese had won his heart (as he had won his wife's heart) by her piety. . . . She brought him 185,000 livres to add to the 250,000 livres that he possessed. You
a younger husband. But Francois Geoffrin was greatly re­spected in the parish. . . . The couple lived a quiet life in the Rue Saint Honore. . . .
At this juncture Mme de Tencin [a famed salon host­ess and the mistress of the regent of France] came to live
in Rue Saint Honore. . . Everyone knew the manner of Mme de Tencin's life. . . . [W]e dare not describe these or­gies. . . . One would have supposed that Mme Geoffrin
font in fHp
ilrl
or cnrn a wnman
Mme de Tencin, [but] against all that could be antici­pated, Mme Geoffrin went to Mme de Tencin's and struck up a friendship with her. . . . There she met Montesquieu [and] Fontenelle. When she came to know Fontenelle and the rest of Mme de Tencin's friends, Mme de Geoffrin was about thirty. . . . Mme de Tencin was aging and she was not rich: men of mind were not indifferent to little pres­ents . Mme de Geoffrin offered the oossibilirv of better things and all aspired to be received in her house. . . . [She] was not slow to learn that to attract writers, philoso­phers and scholars it is well to offer succulent repasts. . . .
Mme de Geoffrin lived prudently. . . . She did not spend her income. Most of her fortune was invested in the glass manufactory. At one time the business was in a bad way, and Mme Geoffrin, who was a director, pointed out which member of the staff would have the ability to pull the business round. Her surmise was correct: prosperity was restored.
The originality of her salon was that she received painters, sculptors, and engravers as well as men of letters, an innovation. ... By thus enlarging her circle, she outran Mme de Tencin. The Wednesday night suppers were sup­plemented by Monday dinners. . . . [At them] Mme de Geoffrin always imposed on her guests the tone of the best society. She knew how to stop conversations that wandered on dangerous ground. She distaisted politics too. . . . [S]he would not allow political discussions in her house.

mistresses of powerful men, such as the duchess de Maine, the mistress of Philippe d'Orleans, the regent of France,- some were prominent intellectuals in their own right. Their ranks included women such as Madame de Lambert, the author of Advice of a Mother to Her Daughter (1734), which advocated university education for women. Another salon hostess, Louise d'Epinay, won the French academy's prize for 1774 for her Conversations with Emile.
The habit of organizing salons originated in the French aristocracy, but it was adopted by other ele­ments of the educated classes and spread across Europe. By the middle of the century, salons were flourishing in London, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, and Copenhagen, usu­ally assuming a national character somewhat different from Parisian salons. In England, they ranged from the formal salon of Elizabeth Montagu, the granddaughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who forbade such
frivolity as playing cards, to the less formal salon of Mary Monckton, the countess of Cork, which included such prominent figures as Samuel Johnson. Salons in the German states provided an opportunity for Jewish families to win wasteful social acceptance previously denied them. Moses Mendelssohn began the habit of holding open houses for intellectuals, and his daughter, Dorothea von Schlegel, built on this habit to emulate the French salons. Most German salons, however— such as those of Henrietta Herz and Rachel Levin at Berlin, or Fanny Arnstein at Vienna—insisted upon a stricter sexual respectability than characterized Parisian salons.
The coffeehouse served a similar cultural role for other social strata. Coffeehouses—and sometimes taverns, which were less expensive and less formal—served as meeting houses, reading rooms, and debating halls. The daily newspaper was at the center of this phenomenon. Dailies were born and began to flourish in the eighteenth cen­tury, starting with the Daily Couranl in London in 1702. Moscow had a newspaper later that same year, Berlin a daily paper from 1704, and Rome from 1716. Paris even had a women's newspaper, advocating the equality of the sexes—Le Journal des dames, founded in 1759—before it had a daily newspaper. Larger Sunday newspapers ap­peared in London in 1780. Until the technological in­novations of the mid-nineteenth century, however, these newspapers remained expensive and their circula­tion low. Institutions compensated for the high cost of newspapers. Subscription libraries and "reading soci­eties" appeared in the German states as early as 1704. But the coffeehouse provided the most popular solution by subscribing to multiple newspapers, holding public readings of newspaper stories for the benefit of the illit­erate majority, and providing the sociable setting. The towns and cities of eighteenth-century Europe were filled with coffeehouses. The first coffeehouse opened
in 1650, but more than two thousand had opened by 1725. The first coffeehouse in central Europe opened in Vienna in 1683, after a few sacks of coffee were taken from a retreating Turkish army. After the eighteenth-century boom, the Viennese all but lived in fifteen thousand coffeehouses. Coffee­houses became so popular in Berlin that Frederick the Great blocked the importation of coffee as a drain on the national wealth—a hint at how expensive coffee was initially.
Religion and Eighteenth-Century Culture
Christianity stood at the center of European culture in the eighteenth century, as it had for more than a thou­sand years. Although European civilization was almost exclusively a Christian civilization, it was split into many conflicting sects. The religious map of the Old Regime followed lines drawn by the Peace of West­phalia in 1648, which had ended a period of ferocious religious warfare. At the simplest level, most of northern Europe was Protestant, most of south­ern Europe was Roman Catholic, and much of eastern Europe was Orthodox. Protestant Europe included Great Britain, the Dutch republic, the northern German Scandinavia, part of divided Switzerland, and pockets in eastern Europe (notably in Hungary). Catholic Europe included Portugal, Spain, France, all of the Italian states This religious division of Europe left
minor­ity populations inside hostile countries. Important Catholic minorities existed in Britain (only 2 percent of the population, but including many powerful families), Holland (35 percent), Switzerland (40 percent), and Prussia (especially after the annexation of Silesia). Simi­lar Protestant minorities were found in Ireland (30 percent), France (1 percent, but disproportionately important, like Catholics in Britain), Piedmont (2 per­cent), Poland (4 percent), and Hungary (23 percent). In addition to Christian minorities, Europe contained small Jewish and Moslem populations. Jews were for­bidden to live in some countries (notably Spain) but formed a small minority (less than 1 percent) in many states, especially Britain, France, Holland, and Prussia,-they constituted larger minorities in eastern Europe, chiefly in Poland (7 percent), Hungary (2 percent), Russia, and the Ottoman territories. Moslems were al­most entirely confined to the Ottoman Empire, in the provinces of modern Bosnia and Albania, with only traces of the once flourishing Islamic culture of Iberia and the Mediterranean to be found.
Protestant Europe included three predominant faiths: Anglicanism, Calvinism, and Lutheranism. Virtu­ally all of the membership of the Anglican Church (the Church of England) was found in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Eutheranism was the dominant form of Protestantism in the German states and Scandi­navia, and Eutheran minorities were scattered in many east European states. A variety of Calvinist churches— usually called the Reformed Church—existed in west­ern Europe. Their traditional center was Geneva, where Calvin had established his church. Calvinist churches were predominant in Switzerland, Holland (the Dutch Reformed Church), and Scotland (the Presbyterian Church),- Calvinist minorities existed in many states, notably France—where the Reformed Church was ille­gal though 500,000 followed it in secret—Prussia, and Hungary.
In addition to these primary Protestant churches, many smaller Christian sects existed in 1700, and more were founded during the eighteenth century. Small populations of diverse Protestants—such as Quakers (the Society of Friends) in England and the Baptists in central Europe—lived even within Protestant states. In England, approximately 8 percent of the population, collectively called Dissenters or Nonconformists, be­longed to Protestant sects outside of the Church of England.
The Roman Catholic Church was more unified and centralized than Protestantism, but it, too, encom­passed diversity. Catholicism remained united by the authority of the pope and by the hierarchical adminis­trative structure directed by the Vatican. However, the eighteenth-century papacy was weaker than it had been in earlier centuries. Rome lacked the strength to resist the absolute monarchs of Catholic lands. Louis XIV of France had created a virtually autonomous French Catholic Church, often called the Gallican Church. (Gallicanism meant that the king named French cardi­nals and bishops himself and decided whether papal de­crees would apply in France.) Other Catholic monarchs copied the French administrative independence from Rome, as the kings of Piedmont did in the early eigh­teenth century and Joseph II of Austria did later. When the anti-Catholic Frederick the Great of Prussia wrote in 1750 that the pope is "an old neglected idol" who survived by the charity of kings, it was not a total exag­geration. Variations of Catholicism also depended upon the local strength of individual orders (such as the Je­suits) or doctrines (such as Jansenism). The Jesuits be­gan the eighteenth century as the most important of all Catholic orders. They were rigorously trained men who had acquired global influence through their educa­tional and missionary efforts, and they had increasingly turned their attention to politics. Their role in statecraft made the Jesuits controversial, however, and they were expelled from Portugal in 1759, from France in 1762, from Spain and many Italian states in 1767, and finally dissolved by Pope Clement XIV in 1773. Jansenism, named for a Dutch theologian, was equally controver­sial for teaching an austere, puritanical—almost Calvinistic—form of Catholicism, particularly in Belgium and France, and the doctrine was condemned by a papal bull (the traditional name for a papal edict sealed with a "bulla").
Important differences existed between Catholicism and Protestantism, shaping cultural differences in Eu­rope. These extended far beyond matters of faith—be­yond the fine points of theological doctrines, such as the nature of Christian sacraments or the route to salva­tion. Protestant pastors, unlike Catholic priests, married and raised families, frequently producing dynasties of preachers when their sons also entered the church and their wives and daughters took leading roles in Protes­tant organizations. Protestant states abolished the monastic orders that existed in Catholic countries and seized church lands,- thus, the church had a greater physical presence in Catholic countries through landownership and especially the far greater size of the clerical population. The Catholic Church owned 10 percent of the land in France and 30 percent in some regions, 10 percent to 15 percent of the land in Bo­hemia and northern Italy, 15 percent of Castile and central Spain, and 40 percent of Naples and southern Italy. The ecclesiastical population of Portugal has been estimated at 80,000 to 300,000—at least 4 percent of the population, and perhaps as much as 15 percent, wore the garb of holy orders. A study of the island of Corsica has found that a population of 220,000 people sustained sixty-five monasteries. The town of Valladolid, Spain, with a population of twenty-one thou­sand supported forty-six monasteries with an ecclesiastical population of 1,258—6 percent of the population. This physical presence of this church was dramatically different in England, where a population of 5.8 million people, 90 percent of whom were nomi­nally Anglican, sustained eleven thousand clergymen in the Church of England—less than 0.2 percent of the population. The culture of Tuscany, which was one-tenth the size of England yet supported more than twice the ecclesiastical population of England, was more strongly shaped by religion.


After these variations, all of Europe—whatever their beliefs or, increasingly, their disbelief—lived in a deeply Christian culture. Churches provided most of the social services that existed for the poor, crippled, aged, orphaned, released prisoners, and reformed pros­titutes. Such fundamental institutions as hospitals and schools were run by the church, not by the state. Schools provide perhaps the best illustration of the Christian character of European civilization. Few peo­ple received a formal education in the eighteenth cen­tury—most of the population in all countries remained illiterate—but the majority of the schools that existed were run by churches. The Presbyterian Church ran most of the schools in Scotland, the Anglican Church the majority of the schools in England, the Lutheran Church dominated Scandinavian education, and the Orthodox Church conducted most of the schools in Russia. In many Catholic countries—including Spain, Portugal, Poland, and most of the Italian states—the church totally controlled teaching,- in all Catholic countries, Catholic teaching orders such as the Jesuits and the Piarists supplied teachers. Religion formed a large part of the educational curriculum. The need to be literate to read the Bible was frequently the decisive reason in creating new schools, especially in Protestant faiths that stressed Bible reading.
Religion remained central to both high culture and popular culture. However, the great epoch of cathedral building had passed, Christian themes no longer domi­nated painting and sculpture, and literature had entered a thoroughly secular age,- European culture reflected an "age of reason" more than an "age of faith." Still, the arts of the eighteenth century relied heavily upon religion. Goethe's Faust (1773), one of the masterpieces of Ger­man literature, is a Christian tragedy of lost faith and damnation. The dominant buildings of the age were royal palaces and stately homes, yet many of the struc­tures that characterized baroque and rococo architec­ture were churches, such as the lavish Karlskirche in Vienna and the Cadiz Cathedral (see illustration 21.8). Even at the peak of the neoclassical boom in architec­ture, some of the most representative buildings of the age were churches, such as St. Genevieve in Paris, now known as the Pantheon. Composers may have favored secular subjects for the flourishing opera of the eigh­teenth century, but many of the masterpieces of baroque music originated in Christianity, such as Marc-Antoine Charpentier's powerful Te Deum. Johann Sebas­tian Bach long earned his living as cantor and organist at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, where he composed a huge array of music on Christian themes, such as his Mass in B minor. Haydn began his career in the choir at the court chapel in Vienna and went on to compose music for the mass as well as court music. Telemann spent most of his career as director of church music in Hamburg. And perhaps no music composed in the eighteenth century is more famous than Handel's Messiah.
Christianity similarly remained central to popular culture and the rhythms of daily life. The sound of church bells marked the time of day for most Euro­peans, and a church clock was often the only timekeep­ing that the poor knew until late in the eighteenth century. Sunday remained the day of rest—often the only day of rest—for shopkeepers, laborers, and peas­ants alike. The only vacation most people knew came from religious holidays and festivals, and the calendar of the Old Regime was filled with such days. In addi­tion to the universal holidays of the Christian calendar, such as Christmas and Easter, every region, village, and occupation added the celebration of patron saints. When governments tried to curtail the dozens of church holidays, workers in many regions responded by inventing "Saint Monday" in whose honor they might rest on that day.
Most governments maintained a state religion, re­warding its members and limiting the rights of non-members. In Denmark and Sweden, non-Lutherans could not teach, hold public office, or conduct religious services. In Britain, a series of laws called the Test Acts excluded non-Anglicans from military command, sit­ting in parliament, or attending Oxford or Cambridge universities. Catholics could not live in London, nor Protestants in Paris, in 1750. Restrictions were stricter in regions where the Inquisition retained power. More than seven hundred Spaniards condemned by the In­quisition were burnt at the stake between 1700 and 1746; the last burning for heresy in Spain came in 1781. The Inquisition exerted a greater force on Euro­pean culture by regulating behavior. A trial before the Inquisition in 1777 listed some of the behavior that true Christians must cease: (1) eating meat on Friday,-(2) crossing one's legs during a church service,- (3) be­lieving that the Earth revolved around the Sun,- (4) not believing in acts of the faith, such as ringing church bells during a storm to beg God to stop it,- (5) owning prohibited books, listed on the church's Index of for­bidden books,- (6) corresponding with non-Catholics,-and (7) disputing the idea that only Catholics could go to Heaven. No Protestant equivalent of the Inquisition existed, but that did not make Protestant lands models of toleration. Denmark forbade Catholic priests from entering the country under threat of the death penalty,-Danish law exiled anyone who professed belief in Catholicism and confiscated their property.
The Enlightenment and Its Origins
The eighteenth century is one of the most famous peri­ods in the history of European thought. Historians of­ten call that century the Age of Enlightenment (or the Age of Reason) because eighteenth-century writers smugly considered their epoch more enlightened than earlier eras. It was an age that cherished universities, learned academies, scientific laboratories and observa­tories, libraries, philosophic journals, books (especially great reference works), and talking about all of them. Although the term the Enlightenment was not used during the eighteenth century, synonymous terms—particularly the German term, Aufklarung— were used.
The history of the Enlightenment focuses on the influential thinkers and writers of the age. They are usually identified by a French name, the philosophes, which is a broader term than philosophers in English. The importance of the Enlightenment rests in the circula-tion of the. ideas of ate population and the influence of these ideas in changing the Old Regime. The Enlightenment was thus an experience shared by a tiny fraction of the popula­tion, an educated elite. The central ideas of the Enlight­enment are frequently simplified to a few basic concepts. The philosophes often did disagree with each other. They differed by temperament, beliefs, and the perspectives of different times and places. Nonetheless, a few concepts were nearly universal: (1) skepticism— questioning the validity of assumptions about society and the physical world without regard for traditional authority,- (2) belief in the existence of natural laws— such as the law of gravity—that govern both the social and physical worlds,- (3) confidence that human reason, rigorously applied, can discover these natural laws and establish them as the basis of human activity,- and (4) optimism that the application of reason and obedi­ence to natural laws will produce progress, leading to the perfection of human institutions.
One of the most eminent German philosophes, Immanuel Kant, summarized many of these attitudes in an essay of 1784 entitled "What Is Enlightenment?" His definition of Enlightenment was the liberation of indi­viduals from direction by others. Kant held that people achieved this liberation when they resolved to use their reason and to follow its dic­tates. Thus, he suggested a Latin motto for the Enlight­enment: Sapere aude! (literally, "Dare to know!"), which he translated as "Have the courage to use your own rea­son!" Put differently, Kant saw "a revolt against supersti­tion." Most philosophers shared this attitude. As one of them, Denis Diderot, wrote to another, Voltaire, in 1762: "Our motto is, 'No quarter for superstitions."
The Enlightenment developed from several trends in European thought. Skepticism had been one of the dominant themes of seventeenth-century philosophy, chiefly associated with the French philosopher Rene Descartes. In works such as the Dis­course on Method (1637), he had advocated universal doubt,- that is, the doubting of everything until it can be proven. Cartesian skepticism included doubting one's own existence, or the existence of God, until such exis­tence was demonstrated. In one of the most famous aphorisms of European civilization, Descartres con­cluded "Cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am")— the ability to reason proved the thinker's existence. Philosophic skepticism was thus well established before the Enlightenment, and precursors such as Pierre Bayle had even taken the dramatic step of applying skeptical philosophy to the Bible. Bayle, a Frenchman whose ad­vanced ideas forced him to live in the greater freedom of Holland, proposed "a detailed refutation of the

unreasonable deference given to tradition," and he in­cluded Christianity within that tradition. All religious questions, including the reading to the Bible, "require the use of reason." Not only did Bayle help to found the field of biblical criticism, but he also conveyed to the eighteenth century the belief that Cartesian universal doubt applied to everything.
A second fundamental source of the Enlightenment thought was the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, especially Sir Isaac Newton's synthesis of the accomplishments of many scientists. The Newtonian synthesis seemed so brilliant to the educated classes that many agreed with the judgment of the astronomer Edmond Halley: "It is not lawful for mortals to ap­proach divinity nearer than this." Newton had built upon a period of dramatic increase in human under­standing of the physical and natural world, especially in the field of astronomy. The scientific revolution had destroyed the geocentric theory of the universe, instead placing the Sun at the center in a heliocentric theory. This required sweeping, counterintuitive adjustments in European thought. For the heliocentric theory to be true, the Earth must move, at tremendously high speeds, around the Sun and rotate constantly on its


axis. The Sun did not rise or set, it merely appeared to do so because the rotation of the Earth turned a viewer toward or away from the Sun. Christian theologians fought such conclusions for more than a century. The Catholic Church placed the writings of astronomers on the Index of prohibited books,- and Martin Luther de­nounced astronomers as fools. The legacy of the scien­tific revolution to the Enlightenment thus included a willingness to challenge authority with reasoned evi­dence. The Catholic Church fought this reasoning with
Enlightenment is man's leaving his self-caused im­maturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another. Sapere Aude! Have the courage to use your own reason! is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.
Through laziness and cowardice, a large part of mankind, repeat, a large part of mankind, even after nature has freed them from alien guidance, gladly remain immature. It is be­cause of laziness and cowardice that it is so easy to usurp the role of guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minorl If I have a book which provides mean­ing for me, a pastor who has conscience for me, a doctor who will judge my diet for me, and so on, then I do not need to exert myself. I do not have any need to think,- if I can pay, others will take over the tedious job for me. . . .
But it is more nearly possible for a public to enlighten itself: this is even inescapable if only the public is given its freedom. . . . All that is required for this enlightenment is freedom, and particularly the least harmful of all that may be called freedom, namely the freedom for man to make public use of his reason in all matters.
The argument that "it is the Holy Spirit's intention to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." The Enlightenment canonized Newton because he convinced the intelligentsia that the new astronomy was correct and the churches were wrong. Newton was a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University. His accomplishments included the invention of differ­ential and integral calculus—simultaneously with the German mathematician Georg von Leibnitz—and ad­vanced studies of mechanics, dynamics, and motion. His greatest fame resulted from stating the Principle of Universal Gravitation (the law of gravity) in his master-work, Principia mathematica (1687). The "universal" ele­ment of the law of gravity fascinated the philosophes of the eighteenth century. Newton proved to them that human reason could discover "the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever." Voltaire, who popularized New­ton's work in Elements of the Philosophy of Metvton (1738), proclaimed him "the greatest and rarest genius that ever rose for the ornamentation and instruction of the species." The English poet Alexander Pope was equally lavish in praising the Newtonian synthesis in his Essay on Man (1734): "Nature and nature's law lay hid in night/God said, 'Let Newton be,' and all was light." And around the Western world, philosophes placed a bust of Newton in their study—as Thomas Jefferson did at Monticello—as a reminder that human reason could find universal natural laws.



A third source of Enlightenment thought, alongside philosophic skepticism and scientific rationalism, was the revival of classicism. Like the humanists of the Renaissance, the philosophes revered the Graeco-Roman past, but with a different emphasis. To them, antiquity represented the historical model of a society that had revered scientific observation and rea­soned objectively from these observations. This admi­ration of antiquity implied the rejection of knowledge supported only by authority, dogma, or superstition— the traits that the philosophes often associated with the history of Europe after the fall of Rome. As Diderot wrote to Catherine the Great, "The Greeks were the teachers of the Romans,- the Greeks and Romans to­gether have been ours."
Natural Law, Reason, and Progress
When the scientific revolution convinced the European intelligentsia that natural laws existed, the philosophes concluded that laws governing human activity—the or­ganization of governments, economic relations, the ef­ficient operation of prisons, and the writing of history—similarly "lay hid in night." Such laws merely awaited the Newton of economics or penology. The belief in natural law was not new,- ancient authors had asserted its existence, too. The scientific revolution merely allowed thinkers to embrace this old idea with a new self-confidence.
One of the leading figures of the French Enlighten­ment, the Baron Charles-Louis de Montesquieu, illus­trates this interest in natural law in his writings on political theory. Montesquieu was a wealthy provincial noble, educated in law, who inherited a. position at the Parliament of Bordeaux. Although he was elected the chief justice of the parliament, he was more interested in theories of government than in the day-to-day drudgery of his highly political job. He sold his of­fice—such positions were often the property of nobles in the eighteenth century—and turned to writing. His The Spirit of the Laws (\ 748) became one of the most widely influential books of the century, joining the seventeenth-century works of John Locke, who had at­tacked the divine right of royalty and asserted the di­vine royalty of right, in laying the foundations of modern political theory.
Montesquieu began The Spirit of the Laws by asserting that people, like the physical world, are "governed by invariable laws." This did not mean laws promulgated by the government and enforced by the courts/ Mon­tesquieu called that type of law "positive laws." Instead, Montesquieu meant laws in a scientific sense—laws that exist in nature, laws that state "fixed and invariable relationships" just as much as the law of gravity did. For example, Montesquieu believed that natural law pro­claimed the need for food and the attraction of the sexes. Other natural laws governing human relations were less certain. Montesquieu, for example, asserted that people were, by nature, peaceful rather than war­like One consequence of associating the existence of nat­ural laws and trying to define them was that they might be different from the positive laws enforced by the gov­ernment or the moral laws of the established church. Philosophes such as Montesquieu insisted that positive law must therefore be changed to agree with natural law. "The intelligent world," he wrote, "is far from being so well governed as the physical."
References to "nature" and "nature's law" are found in a great variety of eighteenth-century works in addi­tion to Newton's physics, Pope's poetry, and Mon­tesquieu's political theory. The most typical work of the Enlightenment, the French Encyclopedia of the Arts and Sci­ences (the Encyclope'die), devoted three full articles to nat­ural law. Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote one of the famous books in the history of education, Emile, or Con­cerning Education (1762), stressing natural education. "Na­ture," he wrote, "never deceives us,- it is always we who deceive ourselves." The first draft of the American Dec­laration of Independence proclaimed that people were entitled to independence and self-government by "the Laws of Nature." Not all philosophers used the theory of natural law, however. But even those who rejected it— as did the Scottish philosopher David Hume, who called it a "fallacious and sophistical" theory—discussed the idea secretly.
To discover natural laws, the philosophes relied on skepticism and rationalism. Skepticism meant question­ing and criticizing everything. "A thing is not proved when no has ever questioned it," wrote one of the edi­tors of the Encyclope'die. "Skepticism is the first step to­ward the truth." Kant insisted upon the skeptical evaluation of everything, including church and state, in The Critique of Pure Reason (1781):
Our age is the age of criticism, to which everything must be subjected. The sacredness of religion, and the authority of legislation, are by many regarded as grounds for exemption from the examination by this tri­bunal. But, if they are exempted, they become the sub­jects of just suspicion, and cannot lay claim to sincere respect, which reason accords only to that which has stood the test of a free and public examination.



Most philosophes shared this glorification of reason. Montesquieu stressed that reason must be the basis of law. An American philosophe, Thomas Jefferson, advised: "Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion." Denis Diderot, the coeditor of the Encyclopedic, wrote that the philosophe must be "actuated in everything by reason." The use of reason was as important to a thinker, he in­sisted rigidly, as grace was to a Christian.
The insistence upon rationalism caused collisions between the philosophes and the established authori­ties. This was especially true of the Christian churches, which insisted upon the primacy of faith as a standard of knowledge rather than, or in addition to, reason. One of the first popes directly rejected reason as the standard of the church, arguing that "[i]f the word of God could be comprehended by reason, it would no longer be wonderful." The conflict between reason and faith had interested many thinkers across the centuries, but faith had remained the Christian standard even af­ter the Protestant Reformation, when Martin Luther had condemned reason as "the Devil's Harlot." The philosophes recognized the conflict between reason and faith, and they typically insisted upon the primacy of reason. Diderot, one of the most adamant rational­ists, said that reason and faith are "not only incompati­ble, but in direct contradiction to each other. . . . [W]e are compelled to say either that faith is a chimera or that reason k useless." He, and most of the philosophes, preferred to break "the fetters that faith laid upon reason."

Despite such conflicts, the philosophes were gener­ally confident that the use of human reason to discover natural laws would produce a better world. Thus, the glorification of reason led to an optimistic cult of progress. The French mathematician Jean dAlembert, Diderot's coeditor of the Encyclopedic, thought "it is im­possible to deny that philosophy has shown progress among us. Day by day natural science accumulates new riches." The greatest champion of the doctrine of progress was another French mathematician, the mar­quis Antoine de Condorcet, whose Progress of the Humav Spirit (1795) foresaw nothing less than "the indefinite perfectibility of the human race"—a passage written shortly before Condorcet died in a prison of the French Revolution. Other leaders of the Enlightenment were not so optimistic, but most shared the premise of the cult of progress: Emphasis should be shifted from thoughts of eternal salvation to those of earthly happiness.

[There will remain one last picture for us to sketch: that of our hopes, and of the progress re­served for future generations, which the constancy of the laws of nature seems to assure them. ... In spite of the transitory successes of prejudice and the support it receives from the corruption of gov­ernments or peoples, truth alone will obtain a last­ing victory. We shall demonstrate how nature has joined together indissolubly the progress of knowledge and that of liberty, virtue, and respect for the natural rights of man,- and how these, the only real goods that we possess, though so often separated that they have even been held to be in­compatible, must on the contrary become insepa­rable from the moment when enlightenment has attained a certain level in a number of nations. . . . Once such a close accord has been established be­tween all enlightened men, from then onwards all will be the friends of humanity, all will work to­gether for its perfection and its happiness.

The French Enlightenment and the Encyclopedic :

Although skepticism and rationalism attracted the edu­cated classes of many regions, the home of the Enlight­enment was in France, where the authority of church and throne were already weakened and the political duel between the aristrocracy and the monarchy created an environment more favorable to radical thought than existed in most of Europe. The most famous and internationally read philosophes were French, as the universal use of a French word for them suggests. Voltaire's famous satiric novel Candide (1759), filled with witty criticism of the Old Regime, went through eight editions in the year of its publication alone. Rousseau's radical political tract The Social Contract (1762) had thirteen French editions in 1762-63. Montesquieu's The Spirit of the laws (1748) saw twenty-two French editions by 1751 and ten editions in its English translation by 1773,- it had appeared in Dutch, Polish, Italian, and German editions by the 1780s and was so widely read that it was translated into Eatin for the benefit of well-educated people in regions with less common languages, such as Hungary.

Nothing characterizes the French leadership of the Enlightenment better than the publication of the twenty-eight volumes of the Encyclopedic by Diderot and d'Alembert between 1751 and 1772. Many of the most famous writers of the eighteenth century contributed to what was perhaps the greatest intellectual accomplish­ment of the Enlightenment. The idea of compiling an encyclopedia was not new. The word itself came from the classical Greek encyclios——meaning instruction in the whole circle of learning—in both the arts and the sci­ences. Many famous efforts had been made to encom­pass the entire circle of learning, from Pliny's Natural History in the first century A.D. through a number of en­cyclopedic works in the seventeenth century. Diderot and d'Alembert did not produce the first encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, which saw a passion for compre­hensive reference works. Johann Jablonski of Danzig, the secretary of the Prussian Academy, produced a short encyclopedia, the Allgemeines Lexicon ("The General Dictionary") in 1721. Johann Zedler, a Eeipzig book­seller, had already completed a sixty-four volume Grosses, vollstantiges Universal Lexikon Aller Wissenschaften und Ktinste ("The Great, Complete Universal Dictionary of All the Sciences and Arts") before the first volume of the Encyclopedic appeared. A London clergyman, John Harris, published the first English-language encyclope­dia of the Enlightenment in 1704, and Gianfrancesco Pivati produced the first Italian encyclopedia in 1746-51.

Denis Diderot was an unlikely figure to supersede these massive works. He was the son of a lower-middle class family—his father was a cutlery maker—in provincial France. Diderot received his formal education from the Jesuits, then prepared for two years for a career in the church,- he was so devout that he fasted, slept on straw, and wore a hair shirt. Fur­ther study in Paris, however, changed Diderot into a Bohemian writer who broke with church and family alike, angering the former with his writing and the lat­ter with his behavior. Eike many philosophes, Diderot's writings earned him poverty and time in a royal prison. Thus, he eagerly accepted the opportunity to edit an encyclopedia, which was originally intended to be merely a translation of an English work.
The resultant Encyclopedic was a work of uneven quality and numerous inaccuracies, but it nonetheless became the encyclopedia. It owed its fame and influence to two characteristics. First, it was a collaborative enter­prise, not simply the work of its editors. The contribu­tors included many of the most influential writers of the Enlightenment,- Condorcet, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire all wrote for the Encyclopedic, with Voltaire

It cannot be denied that, since the revival of letters among us, we owe partly to dictionaries the gen­eral enlightenment that has spread in society and the germ of science that is gradually preparing men's minds for more profound knowledge. How valuable would it not be, then, to have a book of this kind that one could consult on all subjects and that would serve as much to guide those who have the courage to work at the instruction of others as to enlighten those who only instruct themselves! . . .

The majority of these (older encyclopedias) appeared during the last century and were not completely scorned. It was found that if they did not show much talent, they at least bore the marks of labor and knowledge. But what would these en­cyclopedias mean to us? What progress have we not made since then in the arts and sciences? How many truths discovered today, which were not foreseen then? True philosophy was in its cradle,-the geometry of infinity did not yet exist,- experi­mental physics was just appearing,- there was no di­alectic at all,- the laws of sound criticism were entirely unknown. . . . The spirit of research and competition did not motivate the scholars,- another spirit, less fecund perhaps, but rarer, that of preci­sion and method, had not yet conquered the vari­ous divisions of literature,- and the academies, whose efforts have advanced the arts and sciences to such an extent, were not yet established.

Censors of Books: Name given to men of learning who are in charge of the examination of books to be printed. . . . These censors have been created in various states in order to examine literary works and pass judgment on books which are to be printed, so that nothing would become public that could seduce minds with false doctrines or cor­rupt morals with dangerous maxims.

Humanity: Is a feeling of good will toward all men. . . . This noble and sublime enthusiasm is tortured by the suf­ferings of others and tormented by the need to relieve such suffering,- it fills men with the desire to traverse the world in order to do away with slavery, superstition, vice, and misfortune.

Intolerance: The word intolerance is generally understood to designate the savage passion that prompts us to hate and persecute those who are in error. . . Ecclesiastic in­tolerance consists in considering as false all religions other than one's own. Teaching, persuasion, and prayer—these are the only legitimate means of spreading the faith. Whatever means provoke hate, indignation, and scorn are blasphemous. . . . Whatever means would tend to incite men to rebellion, bring the nations under arms, and drench the earth with blood are blasphemous.

Natural Law: The term is taken to designate certain prin­ciples which nature alone inspires and which all animals as well as men have in common. On this law are based the union of male and female, the begetting of children as well as their education, love of liberty, self-preservation, concern for self-defense. . . .
We understand by natural law certain laws of justice and equity which only natural reason has established among men, or better, God has engraved in our hearts. The fundamental principles of law and all justice are: to live honestly, not to give offense to anyone, and to render unto each whatever is his. . . . Since this natural law is based on such fundamental principles, it is perpetual and unchangeable: no agreement can debase it, no law can al­ter it or exempt anyone from the obligation it imposes.

Negroes: For the last few centuries the Europeans have carried on a trade in Negroes whom they obtain from Guinea and other coasts of Africa and whom they use to maintain the colonies established in various parts of Amer­ica and in the West Indies. To justify this loathsome com­merce, which is contrary to natural law, it is argued that ordinarily these slaves find the salvation of their souls in the loss of their liberty, and that the Christian teaching they receive, together with their indispensable role in the cultivation of sugar cane, tobacco, indigo, etc., softens the apparent inhumanity of a commerce where men buy and sell their fellow men as they would animals used in the cultivation of the land.

Encyclopedic a large readership and extended the influ­ence of the French Enlightenment across Europe.

The second reason for the importance of the Ency­clopedic was that the ideas and opinions that it contained made it notorious. The Encyclopedie did not merely record information, it became a forum for the philosophies. They began in the first volumes by criti­cizing despotic government and the established church,-subsequent volumes contained direct attacks. As early as 1752, with only two volumes in print, King Louis XV of France ordered the Encyclopedic "to be and to re­main suppressed." The support of friends in high places—especially the king's mistress, Madame de Pom­padour—allowed publication to proceed, but it did so amidst controversy. In 1759 French courts turned the work over to a panel of churchmen and scholars to cen­sor. The government again denounced it, this time for causing "irreparable damage to morality and religion." Pope Clement XIII condemned it for "false, pernicious, and scandalous doctrines and propositions, inducing unbelief and scorn for religion." None of these threats, including excommunication for mere possession of it, stopped the publication.

The Enlightenment beyond France:

French leadership may have been unquestioned, but the Enlightenment was a widespread experience. The German Enlightenment (the Aufklamncj) drew on the excellence of German educa­tion, from compulsory education laws to superior uni­versities. Rulers even encouraged the process in some regions. Frederick the Great of Prussia considered him­self a philosophe and corresponded writing letters to Voltaire. He wrote dozens of books and composed more than one hundred symphonies, sonatas, and concertos. And he typically bought five copies of each book by the philosophes, to have one at each of his palaces. Freder­ick kept Prussian intellectuals on a short leash, however, and once said that the way to punish a region was to have it governed by philosophers. But he allowed suffi­cient tolerance that letters flourished, as they had be­gun to do under his grandfather (Frederick I), whose Berlin had boasted the first subscription library (1702), one of the first newspapers (the Vossische Zeiiung, 1704), and an Academy of Sciences (1711). Hapsburg Austria, in contrast, was largely closed to the Enlightenment by strict censorship, intolerance of minorities, and the hos­tility to science of the Austrian Catholic Church. Al­chemists outnumbered chemists in Vienna in the early eighteenth century. When Mary Wortley Montagu vis­ited, she concluded, "I don't find that learned men abound there."

The German Enlightenment produced a number of notable figures. The century began with Gottfried von Eeibnitz, Newton's equal as a mathematician and supe­rior as a philosopher, presiding over the Berlin Acad­emy. Leibnitz's reputation suffered somewhat when Voltaire's Candide ridiculed a sentence taken out of con­text from his Theodicee (1710): "God created the best of all possible worlds." His philosophy, however, did much to establish the scientific concept of natural law in eighteenth-century thought. And Leibnitz came closer than Voltaire to being the intellectual who mas­tered all fields of thought, from the scientific to the philosophic.

At the end of the century, the Aufldarung produced Germany's greatest poet, Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe was at the center of a remarkable intellectual circle in Weimar that marks the beginnings of modern German literature,- it included the poet and dramatist Friedrich von Schiller and the philosopher Gottfried von Herder. The dramatist Gotthold Lessing in Leipzig and Berlin, the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn in Dessau and Berlin, Immanuel Kant in Konigsberg, Jo-hann Stissmilch (one of the founders of the science of statistics) at Berlin, and the Bavarian Academy of Sci­ences in Munich show that the German Enlightenment spread widely across central Europe.

Other parts of Europe were centers of the Enlight­enment. A Swedish Enlightenment, evident in northern Europe, was known as the Gustavian Enlightenment be­cause it was encouraged by King Gustavus 111 of Swe­den. It centered upon the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences (1741), Linnaeus's Botanical Gardens at Upp­sala (1741), and the Swedish Academy at Stockholm (1786). There was also a noteworthy Neapolitan En­lightenment and a Scottish Enlightenment, which in­cluded Adam Smith (one of the founders of capitalist economics), David Hume (one of the greatest skeptics of the age), and James Hutton (one of the founders of modern geology). The prestige of the Enlightenment was so great that historians in every country have la­bored to show their national role in it, but for some re­gions—such as Spain, Portugal, and eastern Europe—the local Enlightenment was limited. In Spain, the hostility of the church limited the movement to a minority of the governing class. The largest periodical in Spain had a circulation of 630 copies, and a daring aristocrat who spoke publicly of the importance of rea­son was brought before the Inquisition on charges of heresy. Only a total of 280 books were published in Polish (including translations) in 1740. In Rumania, precisely two people were permitted to travel to west­ern Europe during the entire second half of the eigh­teenth century. In Hungary, the first periodical introducing French thought attracted 140 subscribers. Yet even in such circumstances pockets of the Enlight­enment could be found,- for example, one aristocratic family, the Czakys, assembled a personal library of more than five thousand volumes, four thousand of them in French. And scientific societies were founded at Warsaw, Cracow, Danzig (Gdansk today), and Bres-lau (Wroclaw today).

The Enlightenment and Christianity:

Wherever the Enlightenment stirred the educated classes, it had important implications for European civi­lization. This becomes especially clear when one views the relationship between the Enlightenment and Chris­tianity. Many of the philosophes bluntly attacked Christian beliefs and institutions, challenging the churches in ways that might have led them to the stake in other eras. Hume, for example, applied skepticism to Christianity: "[T]he Christian religion not only was at first attended by miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one." Diderot called Christianity "the most prejudicial of all the superstitions of the earth". Pri­vately, he denounced the Judeo-Christian deity as "a partial God who chooses or rejects, who loves or hates, according to his caprice,- in short, a tyrant who plays with his creatures."

Such ideas were not limited to one or two radical, dechristianized writers. Tom Paine attacked the con­cept of the Trinity ("The notion of a Trinity of Gods has enfeebled the belief in one God.") and the Bible ("Whenever we read the obscene stories, the volup­tuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than
Sire, if you want priests you do not need philoso­phers, and if you want philosophers you do not need priests,- for the ones being by their calling the friends of reason and the promoters of science, the others the enemies of reason and the favorers of ignorance, if the first do good, the others do evil.
You have both philosophers and priests,-philosophers who are poor and not very formida­ble, priests who are rich and very dangerous. You should not much concern yourself with enriching your philosophers, because riches are harmful to philosophy, but your design should be to keep them,- and you should strongly desire to impover­ish your priests and to rid yourself of them. . . .
But, you will say to me, 1 shall no longer have any religion.

You are deceived, Sire, vou will alwavs have one,- for religion is a climbing and lively plant which never perishes,- it only changes form. That religion which will result from the poverty and degradation of its members will be the least trou­blesome. . . .

And if you deign to listen to me, I shall be the most dangerous of all philosophers for the priests. For the most dangerous is he who brings to the monarch's attention the immense sums which these arrogant and useless loafers cost his state,- hundred and fifty thousand men to whom you and your subjects pay about a hundred and fifty thou­sand crowns a day to bawl in a building and deafen us with their bells. . . .

Since you have the secret of making a philoso­pher hold his tongue, why not employ it to silence the priest?
who consort with prostitutes, and priests who spread venereal disease,- other churchmen committed robbery, torture, and murder. Edward Gibbon ended his monu­mental, six-volume The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire with the conclusion that Christianity was one of the primary causes of the fall of Rome. He portrayed a corruption" contained in all human institutions.
The most famous critic of Christianity during the Enlightenment was Voltaire, the pen name of a French­man named Francois-Marie Arouet. Voltaire, the frail child of a Parisian legal official, received the finest clas­sical education from the church, at the Jesuit college Louis-le-Grand. A priest who admired Voltaire's intelligence led him into a freethinking group whose members did not hesitate to criticize or deride any in- wrote a poem satirizing the regent, the duke of Or­leans. Under the arbitrary legal system of the Old Regime, this poem was sufficient grounds for Voltaire's imprisonment without a trial. Thus, at age twenty-three, Voltaire was thrown into the Bastille for eleven months. Shortly after his release, Voltaire insulted an­other powerful noble who arranged to have the young poet beaten by a gang of thugs and imprisoned in the Bastille a second time. Voltaire wisely chose exile in England after his second release, which led to his admi­ration of Newton. His collisions with authority had al­ready made him one of the sharpest critics of the Old Regime.

Voltaire's principal criticism of Christianity was the intolerance that he found among Christians. He was not the first philosophe to adopt this theme. Daniel Defoe had already written a stinging satire in 1702 en­titled The Shortest Way with Dissenters, a book that per­suaded too few people because Defoe was pilloried in public stocks diid sent to pnson. Vokdiic iciuincd iu the theme so often that he made tolerance one of the highest principles of the Enlightenment. In a Treatise on Tolerance (1763), he denounced the Catholic Church for the mentality that led to the cruel murder of Jean Galas, a Protestant merchant who was tortured to death in 1761 on the fallacious charge that he had murdered his son to prevent him from converting to Catholicism. Voltaire demanded that Christians learn complete tol­erance: "It does not require any great art of studied elo­cution to prove that Christians ought to tolerate one another. I will go even further and say that we ought to look upon all men as our brothers. What! call a Turk, a Jew, a Siamese, my brother? Yes, of course,- for are we not all children of the same father, and the creatures of
the same God?" Voltaire returned to this theme in his Philosophical Dictionary (1764): "Of all religions, Chris­tians ought doubtless to inspire the most tolerance, al­though hitherto the Christians have been the most intolerant of men." By the end of the eighteenth cen­tury, many other philosophes adopted Voltaire's theme. Moses Mendelssohn, the great Jewish philosopher of the Enlightenment, published a powerful plea for the freedom of conscience, the toleration of minorities, and the separation of church and state—Jerusalem (1783). Mendelssohn also served as the model for the title character in Lessing's passionate call for toleration, Nathan the Wise (1779).

The criticism that the philosophes leveled upon Christianity became so widespread that some historians have called the eighteenth century an age of modern paganism. However, the Enlightenment was not simply an atheist campaign. Some of the most distinguished philosophes were churchmen, such as the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley, an Anglican bishop. The institutional hostility of the Catholic Church to the En­lightenment did not stop many individual Catholic churchmen from being enthusiastic participants. One study of the Encyclope'die has shown that, in some re­gions of France, priests bought the majority of copies. Pope Benedict XV was an intellectual himself, a friend of Montesquieu and Voltaire. In 1744 he permitted the
pnhliratinn nf stopped enforcing the decrees against books teaching the heliocentric theory of the universe. Many philosophes sought to reconcile Christianity and sci­ence, theology and reason, as Leibnitz did in Theodice'e (1710). Some stressed the limits of human reason: Pope's "Essay on Man" exalted Newton but also said it was "presumptuous" to believe that reason could explain everything.

Most of the Enlightenment skeptics retained some form of belief in God, if only as an "Omniscient Archi­tect" or "Designing Deity," terms favored by Mon­tesquieu in The Spirit of the Laws. The most widespread form of belief balancing rationalism and skepticism with a belief in a supreme being is known as Deism (sometimes Theism, the term Voltaire preferred). Deism was neither a structured religion nor a coherent body of religious beliefs. Instead it was an individualis­tic blend of reason, skepticism, and moral virtue com­bined with a rejection of religious intolerance, dogmatic belief, and powerful ecclesiastical institutions. A large percentage of the eighteenth-century elite fa­vored deism over organized religion, including not only French intellectuals such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesquieu, but also such prominent colonial figures as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson.

The Enlightenment and Government
The Enlightenment had equally grave implications for the monarchical governments of the Old Regime. The same application of skepticism and rationalism, the same search for natural laws, meant criticism of monar­chy and aristocratic privilege. Rousseau, for example, bluntly styled himself "Jean-Jacques Rousseau, enemy of kings" and did not hesitate to sign letters to Frederick the Great that way. Diderot was more dramatic with his hostility: "Let us strangle the last king with the guts of the last priest!" Voltaire, who had good reasons to de­spise the powerful, treated them to the same acidic ridicule in Candide as churchmen received. When Can­dide and a companion arrived in a new kingdom, for example, they "asked one of the lords-in-waiting how he should behave in saluting His Majesty,- should he fall on his knees or should he grovel, should he put his hands on his head or his behind, or should he just lick the dust off the floor . . . ?"

The criticism of a monarch who could imprison au­thors without a trial was a risky business. Voltaire's stay in the Bastille and Diderot's in the dungeon at Vin-cennes are only two of the most famous examples of the attempts to control troublesome writers. A study of French records has shown that the police kept thor­ough files on French authors,- fully 10 percent of all writers in 1750 had spent some time in prison, usually the Bastille. The police used royal lettres de cachet to pur­sue such critics of the government, especially pamphle­teers. Authors risked public whippings or even life sentences to the galleys for publishing their ideas. And the works of even the most famous writers were regu­larly censored by many authorities. Rousseau's Emile, for example, was not only condemned by the Catholic Church and placed on the Index of prohibited books, but it was also condemned by the Sorbonne (Univer­sity of Paris), the General Assembly of the Clergy, and the Parlement of Paris. Fortunately for Rousseau, only his book was burnt in a public ceremony.

Consequently, early eighteenth-century writers sought indirect ways, such as Voltaire's satires, to make their point. When Archbishop Francois Fenelon wanted to criticize the king, he hid his satire in the form of an
Eouis XV, the French courts, and the Catholic Church did not stop the publication of the Encyclopedic. Its essay on "Government" shows how radical the criticism had become. It stated that society exists under a civil consti­tution that invests rulers with their power, but those rulers are "bound therein by the laws of nature and by ancient epic. Fenelon's Telemacfue reports the travels of the son of the Homeric hero, Ulysses,- by describing Telemachus's visits to strange lands, Fenelon could com­ment on many forms of government and hide his com­ments on France. The book was banned and consigned to public fires anyway. Montesquieu similarly disguised his first critical comments in an epistolary novel (a novel in the form of letters), The Persian Letters (1721). These fictional letters were purportedly written by Per­sian visitors to Europe, whose naive comments hid barbs. One letter, for example, explains that the king of Spain owns many gold mines, but the king of France (who owns none) is richer because he has found a way to make unlimited money from the vanity of his sub­jects: He sells them offices, titles, and honors.

One strong criticism of government occurred natu­rally to writers—attacking censorship. Claude Helvetius, a rich government official under Louis XV, made one of the most vigorous attacks in 1758. His De I'esprit ("Essays on the Mind") was blunt: "To limit the press is to insult the nation,- to prohibit the reading of certain books is to declare the people to be either fools or slaves." His book was condemned by the parlement and burnt by the pub­lic executioner in 1759. In England, where the tolerance of ideas was slightly greater—but censorship was prac­ticed nonetheless—even jurists gave the philosophes some support. William Blackstone, a judge, a member of parliament, and one of the founders of modern univer­sity training in law, published four volumes of the ex­tremely influential Commentaries on the Laws oj'England (1765—69). He cautiously concluded: "The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state, but this consists in laying no previous restraints upon publi­cation, not in the freedom from censure for criminal matter when published."

As with the parallel battle against religious intoler­ance, not everyone agreed with the attack upon censor­ship. Conservatives rallied to the defense of the government, just as they stood by the church. Samuel Johnson, a journalist and lexicographer, is a good exam­ple. Johnson was a deeply conservative man who de­spised writers such as Voltaire and Rousseau,- his famous Dictionary (\ 755) defined "Conservative" as "Having the power of opposing diminution or injury". He thought it a splendid idea that writers of their sort should be sent to penal colonies. And he stoutly defended censorship: "No member of society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true."
As the Enlightenment progressed, political writers became bolder in their criticism. The opposition of Army: A collection of armed men,, obliged to obey one man.

Astrology: The practice of foretelling things of the knowledge of the stars,- an art now generally ex­ploded, as without reason.
Atom: Such a small particle as cannot be physically divided.
Conservative: Having the power of opposing diminution or injury.
Crack-hemp: A wretch fated 1-n the gallows. Dormitory: A burial place. Electricity: A property in some bodies whereby, when rubbed so as to grow warm, they draw little bits of papers, or such like substances to them. Ethnick: Heathen, pagan,- not Jewish or Christian. Freethinker: A libertine,- a contumner of religion: "Atheist is an old-fashioned word: I'm a free­thinker."
To Lecture: To instruct insolently and dogmatically. Mother (#5): Hysterical passion,- so called, as being imagined peculiar to women. Papistry: Popery: "A great number of parishes in England consist of rude and ignorant men, drowned in papistry." Proletarian: Mean,- wretched,- vile,- vulgar.

the law of reason." Nature and reason both dictated that the "purpose in any form of government [is] the welfare" of civil society. Thus, the bold argument con­tinued, society should expect "to abrogate laws that are flaws in a state" and even to change governments if needed.
Some political writers claim that all men who have been born under one government do not have the liberty to institute another one. Each person, they say, is born the subject of his father or of his prince, and consequently each person is under a perpetual obligation of subjection or fidelity. This reasoning is more specious than solid. Men have never regarded any natural subjection in which they are born, in regard to their father or to their prince, as a bond that obliges them without their own consent to submit to such authority. Sacred and profane history furnish us with frequent examples of a multitude of people who have revoked the allegiance and the juris­diction in which they are born.
Such ideas were not new to the Enlightenment. The English political theorist John Locke had made elo­quent statements of them in the late seventeenth cen­tury, especially in his Second Treatise on Civil Government (1690). Locke, however, had written in comparative freedom and in a state where royal absolutism had al­ready been broken by two revolutions.
Voltaire returned to France from his exile in En­gland (1726-29) filled with similar willingness to write of his opposition to absolutism. His Philosophical Letters (1734) praised the English for their form of government and suggested it as a model for the rest of Europe. "The English nation," be wroie, "is the only one of earth that has successfully regulated the power of its kings by re­sisting them,- and which, after repeated efforts, has es­tablished that beneficial government under which the Prince ... is restrained from doing ill."
Baron Montesquieu, however, produced the most widely studied political analysis of the era. His Spirit of the Laws stands as the founding work of modern comparative government. Mon­tesquieu adopted the ancient political observation— used by Luth Ansioife and Cicero—that three basic forms of government exist: a republic, in which the people or their representatives govern,- a mixed monar­chy, in which a king reigns with constitutional limits and aristocratic checks upon his power,- and a despo­tism, in which the monarch holds unchecked, absolute power. Montesquieu contended that none of these was a perfect, universal form of government because gov­ernments should be appropriate to local conditions. He proposed features of the ideal government, however.
The Spirit of the Laws
Law in general is human reason inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the politi­cal and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied. . . .
There are three species of government: repub­lican, monarchical, and despotic. ... A republican government is that in which the body, or only a part of the people, is possessed of the supreme power,- monarchy, that in which a single person governs by fixed and established laws,- a despotic government, that in which a single person directs everything by his own will and caprice, . . .
I here is no word that admits of more various significations, and has made more varied impres­sions on the human mind, than that of Liberty. . . . Political liberty does not consist in an unlimited freedom. . . . Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit. . . .

It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power. A govern­ment may be so constituted, as no man shall be compelled to do things which the law does not oblige him, nor forced to abstain from things which the law permits. . . .
In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative, the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations,- and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law. . . . When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty.


He championed "liberty," which he carefully defined: "Liberty does not consist in an unlimited freedom. . .. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit." This careful definition of liberty shifted the focus to the laws,- Montesquieu said, "Law in general is human rea­son." This made the question of liberty and the laws one of how reason shaped


This line of reasoning led Montesquieu to state two of the most famous political theories of the eighteenth century: (1) the theory of the separation of powers and (2) the theory of checks and balances. Montesquieu first argued that the centers of power within the state— the executive, the legislative, and the judicial powers— should not be held by the same person or institution. "When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person . . . there can be no liberty." He then added that these separated centers of power should check and balance each other: "Power should be a check to power." Such ideas had many dramatic impli­cations for the eighteenth century. They meant, for ex­ample, that powerful institutions controlled by the aristocracy, such as the French parlements, must check the potential despotism of a king.
By the late eighteenth century, the Enlightenment produced even more radical political arguments. Tom Paine, the son of a quiet English Quaker family who became an active participant in both the American and the French revolutions, wrote passionate pamphlets and carefully reasoned multivolume works of political the­ory. One of his pamphlets, Common Sense (1776), at­tacked monarchical government and advocated a republic—arguments aimed at the British colonies in America. His Rights of Man (1791-92) defended the leg­islation of the French Revolution, attacked monarchical government, and called on the English to overthrow George III. The government of Britain indicted him for treason.
Jeremy Bentham took Enlightenment political and social thought in yet another direction. Bentham was a lawyer with a comfortable inherited income that al­lowed him to pursue his writing, which he deeply im­bued with Enlightenment attitudes. He saw his writings as "an attempt to extend the experimental method of reasoning from the physical branch (sciences) to the moral." His Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) called for rationalist legislation, favoring the least possible leg­islation and the least possible government. "Every law," Bentham believed, "is an evil, for every law is an infrac­tion of liberty." This reasoning contained the germ of one of the dominant political gospels of the nineteenth century, classical liberalism.
Perhaps the most radical political theorist of the Enlightenment was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a Franco-Swiss philosophe who never experienced the comfort­able life that Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Bentham knew. Rousseau was the son of a watchmaker and a pas­tor's daughter. He was born in austere, Calvinist Geneva where stern laws regulated behavior. His mother died in the week of his birth, and his father de­serted him as a child, fleeing imprisonment for dueling. Rousseau was raised by his mother's strict religious fam­ily and apprenticed to an engraver, but he ran away from Geneva at sixteen. During the remainder of his youth, Rousseau wandered as a vagabond. He survived as a beggar, domestic servant, tutor, music teacher, and the kept lover of an older woman. When he settled in Paris in 1744, he had a hatred of the rich but gave no signs of converting this into literary fame. Some of Rousseau's revolutionary anger showed in an early es­say, the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (\ 755). His concern was not "natural" inequality among individuals, but "moral or political inequality, because it depends on . . . the consent of mankind." The discourse went on to demand nothing less than the complete reorganization of society to eliminate inequalities based upon factors such as rank or race. Before the Discourse was finished, Rousseau attacked the concept of private property, which he considered "the worst of our institutions."
The first man who, after fencing in a piece of ground, took it into his head to say: This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, how many miseries and horrors would not have been spared the human race by him who, pulling up the stakes or fill­ing in the ditch, had cried out to his fellow men: Take care not to listen to this impostor,- you are lost if you for­get that the fruits belong to all and the earth to none.
The same passion characterized Rousseau's more complex masterpiece, The Social Contract (1762). It opened with one of the most famous sentences of the Enlightenment: "Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains." The great human emancipation that Rousseau desired led him to propose an ideal government that mixed democracy and authoritarianism. Rousseau, the enemy of kings, admired democracy and stimulated its growth in Europe with sentences such as: "No man has a natural authority over his fellow men." This reasoning led Rousseau to state the right of people to use force to resist forced obedience to authority: "As soon as [a peo­ple] can throw off its yoke, and does throw it off, it does better,- for a people may certainly use, for the re­covery of their liberty, the same right that was em­ployed to deprive them of it." Rousseau also believed, however, that democracy would only work with "a peo­ple who were Gods." He criticized democracy because "it is contrary to the natural order" that a minority should always be governed by a majority. Thus, he introduced the concept of an abstract force, called "the general will," which would compel all members of soci­ety to desire the common good, same as the american way of spreading fear and terror and forcibly generating new jobs for security. Paradoxically, Rousseau's ideas thus encouraged both a democratic-egalitarian attack upon the Old Regime and a form of absolutism, the very concept of which had led to the initial Enlightened critiques of government.
The Spread of Rationalism
The Enlightenment had a tremendous impact on West­ern civilization because it spread skepticism and ratio­nalism to many fields of human activity. Even the study of history felt the influence of these doctrines. Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, for example, showed the advantages of a reasoned study of the sources. The Neapolitan Enlightenment offered similar lessons in history. Giambattista Vico's Principles of a New Science (1725) urged scientific standards: Scholars should seek "the universal and eternal principles (such as every science must have)." Another Neapolitan his­torian, Pietro Giannone, suggested that this meant his­torians must write "histories of the kingdom" that contained more than the "lives of the kings." So Gian­none began his masterwork with the words, "The his­tory of the Kingdom of Naples which I am undertaking will not deafen readers' ears with the clash of arms and the din of battle. . . . This is to be a civic history."
Another leader of the Enlightenment in Italy, Cesare Beccaria, applied the scientific standards of careful observation and reasoning to another human activity, the punishment of crimes. Beccaria, a wealthy Milanese noble, studied prison conditions in Milan, and he was horrified by the conditions he discovered: Criminal charges were brought in secret, the accused had few opportunities to offer a defense and produce evidence, trials held before a jury were rare, torture was used both to determine guilt and to punish it, barbarous physical punishments such as branding and mutilation were commonplace, and people were executed for minor crimes. Beccaria's Treatise on Crimes and Punishment (1764) marked the beginning of modern criminology, and it led to more humane standards in European civilization. His argument was simple: "It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them". Saying of sayings. Therefore, he said, "Every punishment that does not arise from ab­solute necessity is tyrannical." Beccaria accepted pre­ventive punishments—to stop a criminal from committing the same act again or to inhibit someone else from committing that crime—but he argued force-
Cesare Beccaria (4738—1794J was a Milanese nobleman who became one of the leaders of the Italian Enlightenment. He was an economist, a government official, a jurist, a professor at the University of Milan, and a pioneer of criminology and penology. His Tratto dei Delitti e delle Pene (Treatise on Crime and Punishment, 1764),/rom which the fol­lowing excerpt is taken, advocated many fundamental reforms such as the abolition of both torture and capital punishment.
Of the Right to Punish: Every punishment which does not arise from absolute necessity, says the great Montesquieu, is tyrannical. A proposition which can be made more general thus: Every act of authority of one man over another, for which there is not an absolute necessity, is tyrannical. It is upon this that the sovereign's right to punish crimes is founded,- that is, upon the necessity of defending the public liberty, entrusted to his care, from the usurpation of individuals. . . ,
Of the Intent of Punishments:. . . [I]t is evident that the intent of punishments is not to torment a sensible being, nor to undo a crime already com­mitted. Is it possible that torments and useless cru­elty, the instrument of furious fanaticism or the impotency of tyrants, can be authorized by a polit­ical body? Can the groans of a tortured wretch re­call the time past or reverse the crime he has committed?
The end of punishment, therefore, is no other than to prevent the criminal from doing further in­jury to society and to prevent others from commit­ting the same offense. . . .
Of Torture: The torture of a criminal during his trial is a cruelty consecrated by custom in most na­tions. It is used with the intent of either making him confess his crime, or explaining some contra­dictions, or discovering his accomplices, or for some kind of metaphysical and incomprehensive purgation of infamy. . . . The very means em­ployed to distinguish the innocent from the guilty will most effectually destroy all difference between them. It would be superfluous to confirm these re­flections by examples of innocent persons who from the agony of torture have confessed them­selves guilty.



fully against any form of torture. However, he found it "a cruelty consecrated by custom in most nations."
A leader of the German Enlightenment, Johann Sussmilch, applied rationalism differently,- he studied records about ordinary people. Sussmilch, a Lutheran pastor in Prussia, studied demographic data—birth, marriage, and death records—with such systematic thoroughness that he pioneered the field of statistics. Sussmilch's The Divine Order (1741) proved basic demo­graphic patterns, such as more boys are born than girls, but boys and men have a higher mortality rate. His cal­culations enabled Sussmilch to compile the first life ex­pectancy tables, and his work was so accurate that it was used for more than a century, until the vital revolu­tion of modern history changed mortality rates.
One criti­cisms of the human condition focused on the inequality of women. The word feminism did not yet exist—it was a nineteenth-century coinage—and no organized cam­paigns for women's rights had been established. But several philosophies shaped these later developments by challenging accepted attitudes about the inferiority of women. A few prominent philosophies, such as Con-dorcet and Holbach, championed the equality of women, but most leaders of the Enlightenment did not. Instead, a few educated women, despite lacking the ad­vantages of their famous colleagues, began to publish their own reasoned arguments about the condition of the sexes. It is indicative of the status of women that one of the most forceful works, an English pamphlet entitled Woman Not Inferior to Man, was published anony­mously in 1739 by an author known only as "Sophia, A Person of Quality". "Everyone who has but a degree of understanding above the idiot," Sophia wrote, can "observe the universal prevalence of prejudice and custom in the minds of Men." Sophia did not mince words: Men exercised a "tyrannical usurpa­tion of authority" over women.
The most influential advocate of the equality of the sexes, and one of the most important founders of femi­nist thought, was another Englishwoman—Mary Woll­stonecraft. Wollstonecraft, the daughter of an alcoholic and abusive father, learned to support herself despite having only a limited education. She and her sister di­rected a school near London, and this led Wollstone­craft to begin writing texts and tracts on education. Success introduced her to literary circles in London, where she met radical writers who encouraged her to continue her writing. She practiced some of her radical ideas in her own life, living with a man and having a child outside marriage. Wollstonecraft found only

If a celebrated Author had not already told, that there is nothing in nature so much to be wonder'd at as THAT WE WONDER AT ALL, it must appear to every one, who has but a degree of understanding above the idiot, a matter of the greatest surprize, to ob­serve the universal prevalence of prejudice and custom in the minds of the Men. One might natu­rally expect to see those lordly creatures, as they modestly stile themselves, everywhere jealous of superiority, and watchful to maintain it. Instead of which, if we except the tyrannical usurpation of authority they exert over us Women, we shall find them industrious in nothing but courting the meanest servitude. Was their ambition laudable and just, it would be consistent in itself, and this consistency would render them alike imperious in every circumstance, where authority is requisite and justifiable: And if their brutal strength of body entitled them to lord it over our nicer frame, the superiority of reason to passion, might suffice to make them blush to submit that reason to passion, prejudice, and groundless custom. If this haughty sex would have us believe they have a natural right of superiority over us, why do not they prove their charter from nature, by making use of reason. . . . What I have hitherto said, has not been with an intention to stir up any of my own sex to revolt against the Men, or to invert the present order of things, with regard to government and authority. No, let them stand as they are: I only mean to show my sex, that they are not so despicable as the Men would have them believe themselves.

limited happiness, however, and once attempted to drown herself in the Thames River.
From these poignant experiences, Mary Woll-stonecraft found the materials for her masterwork, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). She, too, con­structed her argument for women in the language of the Enlightenment. "In what," she asked, does human "pre-eminence over the brute creation consist? The an­swer is clear ... in Reason." Because women possessed reason as well as men, they were equally preeminent and should be treated that way: "[I]f they be really ca­pable of acting like rational creatures, let them not be treated like slaves." And she proclaimed her own, un­equivocal stand, unwilling to submit to domination by men: "I love man as my fellow,- but his scepter, real or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an in­dividual demands my homage,- and even then the sub­mission is to reason, and to not to man."


The culture during the eighteenth century has been one of the most widely admired and praised ornaments of European civilization. Traditionalists have been drawn to the last great age of the European aristocracy, the last period of strong monarchy, and the last epoch in which established churches directed most of the population. They have been fascinated by the glittering opulence of the baroque culture. It was an age of spec­tacular palaces and stately homes and an age of daz­zling, opulent rococo churches. This was the last flowering of the hierarchical world of the old elites, and its richness will long be admired.
But the eighteenth century is more often remem­bered as the age of a new elite, of the educated and ar­ticulate philosophes. The members of this new elite of the mind often came from the old centers of privilege and position (Montesquieu was a baron and Condorcet a marquis), but many influential voices had modest ori­gins (Rousseau was a runaway apprentice and Woll-stonecraft a self-supporting teacher). They were an elite, however,- they may have spoken on behalf of the many, but they were usually speaking to a relatively small percentage of a largely illiterate population. His­torians have consequently argued about the true influ­ence of the new elite. How much influence did their rationalism and skepticism have? Their progressive ideas challenged the Old Regime in the most funda­mental ways, questioning every power and privilege of the old elites of land, altar, and throne. The eighteenth
century would end with the vast upheaval of the French Revolution, in which aristocracy, clergy, and royalty all lost their historic roles in European society. But histori­ans have never agreed whether the old elites had failed so badly that they precipitated the revolution, or whether the new ones had stimulated revolution with their thorough criticisms.






The 16th century Spanish regime’s destructive conquest of the two great American Indian empires, the Aztec and the Incas, forced the Spanish crown to confront the basic issues of morality and governance. The Spanish monarchy envisaged itself as Christian rulers, and the unrestrained exploitation of American Indians by the conquistadores became a cause for embarrassment to them. Tension prevailed between the Spanish conquerors and their crown. American Indians on the mainland began to die in enormous numbers. Although many were killed in self-defense, most succumbed to European diseases such as smallpox, for which American Indians had developed no immunities. Unconfirmed estimates indicate a 90% mortality of American Indians, holding the Spanish conquest responsible for this greatest demographic catastrophe in the history of mankind.

The medical knowledge of those times was inadequate to control the epidemics. The church and the state, however, were resolute to do something about this situation. The Dominican friar, Bartolome de Las Casas, spearheaded a vigorous propaganda campaign on behalf of American Indians. It ended in a series of debates at the University of Salamanca, revolving around the central issue; whether American Indians were rational beings or not.
A proclaimed reformer, Bartolome de las Casas’s view of humanity is a very special and a precious gem of a view indeed. According to him, all mankind was one, and all people were alike in that which concerns their creation and all natural things, and no one was born enlightened. His views imply that all mankind must initially be guided and aided by those born prior to them. Thus, the so-called savage peoples of the earth may be compared to uncultivated soil that reaps weeds and useless thorns. However, Las Casas reminds the us that even this uncultivated type of soil has within it such natural virtue, that by a little bit of hard work and cultivation, it too can be made to yield sound and useful fruits.

Las Casas pointed that, if the Indians were rational beings, then, according to Aristotle and the teachings of the church, they could not be enslaved. Las Casas won his point. This convinced the emperor Charles V to issue the decree of the New Laws, forbidding American Indian slavery and abolishing the encomienda system.

Las Casas was the pioneer of the policies that arose from the debates initiated by his view points. These policies symbolized the only sustained and systematic effort by an early modern European government to develop a moral basis for their colonial rule. They inspired a school of political thought that flourished in Spain until the end of the 17th century. For instance, American Indians were granted legal membership of the Spanish society.

Las Casas upheld the view that the mission of westerners, as they traded and conquered territory in other parts of the world, should be state-building together with providing spiritual welfare of its newly acquired subjects. It implies that the new territories should be governed according to the Christian principles of natural law, thus leaving no grounds for the conquistadores to commit any tyranny against the conquered. As recorded in history, the conquests of the Europeans, although appearing to be a state-building process, had also the embedded religious motives of spreading the concepts of Christianity. This was sometimes referred to as the Christian triumphalism of the Crusades.

During the period from 1542-1543, emperor Charles V issued the so-called New Laws. The citizens who bore the brunt of the effect of these New Laws began to curse their severity once they perceived them clearly.

The conquistadores of Peru moaned that they were ill-requited for their labor and services if in their moribund years they were to have no one to serve them. They brazenly revealed the symptoms that they had suffered in the conquest of Peru. Symptoms such as teeth decayed from eating roasted corn, wounds, bruises, and lizard bites, were extensive in these conquerors. Hence, they despised these New Laws that would deprive them of the few vassals that they had hoped for, in return for their blood-shedding and wasting their estates in the conquest of Peru for their emperor, Charles V.

Even the priests and friars affirmed that they could not support themselves nor serve their churches if they were deprived of their American Indian towns. Fray Pedro Munoz was the one who spoke most shamelessly amongst them. Belonging to Mercedarain Order, he derided both the viceroy and the king. He stated that the New Laws stunk of calculation rather than of saintliness, for the king was taking away the slaves that he had sold without returning the money received from them.

All this reveals a selfish and a narrow-minded view of humanity on part of these conquistadores, priests and friars who disapproved of these New Laws. This is because they seem to be incapable, unfair, and disinclined to view humanity on equal footing grounds, as Bartolome de Las Casas had the fairness and capability to. It also tells us that these disapprovers expected to be lazily served by the American Indian slaves, without sparing any humane thought to the sufferings of those slaves; who, as Las Casas reminds us, were just as human as the ones whom they served. This is reflected in Las Casas’s concept that “all mankind is one, and all people are alike in that which concerns their creation and all natural things, and no one is born enlightened” .

‘The Burning of Jews’, from the Chronicle of Jacob von Konigshofen, describes the destruction of Jews that took place at Strasbourg in 1549.
In those days, belief prevailed among ordinary Christians that it must be the Jews who must have been responsible for the plague, also called bubonic plague, that had resulted in the Black Death era during the 1300s throughout Europe resulting in one third of the European population being wiped out. Christians believed this to be true because the Jews were hated and accused worldwide of having caused this plague through poisoning the water and wells. Many Jews had already been burned from Mediterranean to as far as Germany. However, in Avignon, the Jews were protected by the Pope.
Yet, the Christians were obsessed with their belief about the Jews’ poisoning of the water and wells, and causing the plague. So, they tortured a number of Jews in Berne and Zofingen. As a result of this torture, the Jews admitted that they had poisoned many wells. Also, searches were conducted that revealed poison in the wells. This confirmed that the tortured Jews admissions were true, thus affirming the ordinary Christian’s belief that the Jews must be responsible for the plague.

At first, the leaders of Strasbourg, Basel, Freiburg and Alsace did not believe nor agree that anything should be done to the Jews. To resolve the matter, a conference was called at Benfield. This conference was attended by the bishop of Strasbourg, all the feudal lords of Alsace, and the representatives of Strasbourg, Basel and Freiburg. During this conference, the city deputies of Strasbourg maintained that they could see no evil about the Jews. However, when the topic of questioning the closure of wells in Strasbourg was brought up at the conference, an enormous indignation, bellowing, hue and cry arose against the city deputies of Strasbourg. This led the bishop and the lords and leader of the imperial cities of Strasbourg, Basel, Freiburg and Alsace to finally arrive at a consensus to do away with the Jews. A decision was reached to this effect to burn the Jews on a wooden platform in their cemetery on St. Valentine’s day.

However, before being burned, the Jews were made to surrender all pledges and notes that they had taken for debts over the course of their lifetime. The Jews had a history of professional money-lending. They had gotten rich over time through this money-lending business to feudal-lords. This process impoverished the feudal lords. As a result, there developed a gradual mass animosity towards the Jews that finally resulted in their burning. About two thousand people were to be burned as a result of the decision of the bishop and the lords of the Imperial cities. Only those who wanted and agreed to baptize themselves were spared this gruesome burning. It seems that during the process of this mass burning of about two thousand Jews, there were some kind Christian watchers who could not bear to see Jewish children being burned so cruelly. So, they grabbed these small Jewish children out of the fire, but baptized them forcibly converting them to Christianity. This was done against the will of the Jewish parents’ who screamed refusal at this baptism, even as they burned helplessly.

Since not all Jews were killed in the process, the leaders could sense trouble ahead with those Jews who were shown mercy and allowed to remain alive on conditional baptism to Christianity. In a fervent hope to avoid probable future animosity against these saved and baptized Jews, the Council and the leaders decided to disburse the cash money of the Jews proportionately among the working men to pacify their hatred of the Jews. For, it was indeed money that had killed the Jews. Had the Jews not been rich, and if the feudal lords had owed no debt to these rich Jews, they would probably have been spared such gruesome burning.




Florence born medieval Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, renown for his world literature, intellectual achievements and spiritual vision, and with a zest for composing poetry influenced by classical and Christian traditions, wrote a masterpiece called ‘The Divine Comedy’. Appraised as the greatest poem ever written by a European, it is a dazzling evocation of hell, purgatory, and paradise. Dante wrote it originally in Tuscan vernacular (the basis of modern Italian) enabling locals to understand and enjoy his poems.

In honor of the Trinity, ‘The Divine Comedy’ was written in three sections, viz, the Inferno (Hell), in which the great classical poet Virgil leads his friend Dante on a trip through hell; the Purgatorio (Purgatory), in which Virgil leads Dante up the mountain of purification; and the Paradiso (Paradise), in which Dante travels through heaven.

Disturbed by the fate of his ancient heroes, Dante imagines himself on a journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven. While en route purgatory, Virgil, Dante’s dead Roman friend, acts as his guide to show him how to avoid those sins which he (Virgil) and other virtuous pagans of his time, suffered for no fault of theirs, except that they were born before the age of Christian mysteries. Dante sees a dim and endless assembly of men, women, and children, amidst sounds of sad and ubiquitous sighs indicating their passive condition.

Distressed that Dante is not raising the question about the type of the souls, that are thus suffering; Virgil enlightens Dante about these souls. According to Virgil, these souls are in hell because they lacked Baptism’s grace as they were born before the age of Christian mysteries. Hence, they did not worship God’s Trinity in fullest duty. Virgil himself is one of these souls and suffering this same fate. He says that because of these short-comings, he and others souls here are lost. However, he reminds Dante that, he and other souls have been spared the fire and suffering of Hell in one affliction only: “that without hope we live on in desire”.

Dante inserts Pagan figures into Christian works and Virgil shows Dante how sinners were punished for their sins. According to Virgil, the punishment meted out to them was to live on in a desire for reaching the heavens, even though it may appear to be in vain and without any fervent hope.
This way of looking at the virtuous pagan dead shows no difference from traditional medieval Christianity, an era that encouraged the development of scholastic philosophy and theology. This is because in traditional medieval Christianity, theologians diverted their attentions and energies to the concept of knowledge of God achievable single-handedly by humans and the knowledge communicated through the revelations. Proof of existence of God was based on the structure of the human thought itself. Efforts were made to integrate the natural knowledge of God together with the knowledge revealed in the gospel to weave a unified whole. Natural human reason was integrated together with philosophic and scientific way of thinking to understand the supernatural content of the Christian revelation. The ultimate ideal was to combine the natural wisdom of ancient Greek and Roman pagans together with the religious wisdom of Christianity. Thus, Dante’s imaginations, and the revelations from Virgil to Dante, are very much in tune with the concepts of medieval Christianity. Hence, although ‘The Divine Comedy’ is filled with classical allusions and references to Florentine politics, it is still medieval in inspiration and does not show any difference from traditional medieval Christianity.




Peter Paul Vergerio was a leading educational theorist during the Renaissance period. In a passage extracted from one of his letters written to another fellow humanist, Ubertino of Carrara, Vergerio pays glowing tribute to, and commends, the value of liberal arts in education.

Sifting through various subjects available to the students of any liberal arts education, Vergerio communicates to Ubertino that History should take the prime place in the list of subjects that comprise any ‘Liberal Studies’ component of the education. He places History in this front seat because of its appealing qualities of attractiveness, and its practical utility. These qualities make it appealing to both the scholar and the statesman.

Next in line to History, Vergerio places Moral Philosophy. He considers Moral Philosophy to be in tune with the list of subjects that form a valid liberal arts education. This is because the purpose of Moral Philosophy is to teach humans the secret of true freedom. Also, Vergerio enlightens us that History provides us with real examples of the teachings instilled by Moral Philosophy. While Moral Philosophy guides us about the paths available for humans to take in this life, History shows us what our predecessors had done in the past; the paths they took, the pitfalls they fell in to, en route some paths, and the rewards that they bagged, en route some other paths. Vergerio hopes that reviewing these historical facts will enable us to derive some beneficial lessons from the successes and failures of our predecessors.

Further, Vergerio adds that no liberal arts education can be complete without its third component, viz, Eloquence; that holds a place of distinction among the refined arts. Eloquence enables us to exhibit in logical embellishment, the essential truth of things that Philosophy teaches us. With the power of Eloquence, Vergerio says, we can bring conviction to differing minds. And, amidst all this, History provides us with the shining light of experience.
Vergerio describes to Ubertino the purpose of studying these subjects in a liberal arts education. According to him, History provides us with the shining light of experience backed with real examples of the precepts instilled by Moral Philosophy. These factors make History attractive. Coupled with the practical utility of History, it becomes an appealing choice of study for both the scholar and the statesman. Moral Philosophy teaches us the secrets of true freedom, and enables us to look at, and decide on, the path of life that one wishes to walk on. Eloquence demonstrates in coherent beautification, the essential truths that are learned from Moral Philosophy, so as to give confidence, assurance, and hope to conflicting minds.

All of these subjects ought to be very useful for students in the 21st century.
This is because, as Vergerio says, nothing compares to the gift of education in these liberal studies. No amount of accumulated material wealth or security against the future can be compared to the radiance of the sunny light emanating from the rich power of these liberal arts subjects. Enlightenment through these liberal arts subjects enables humans to achieve great distinctions, albeit, in a humble way. This, according to Vergerio, brings honor to the city of birth of these enlightened humans.

Looking at it from the point of view of educating students as good citizens for the future, it can be said that 21st century students are just as human as any other students of previous eras. They face the turmoil of the present times, just as their predecessors faced the turmoil of the past times. In that context, 21st century students too can benefit from liberal arts studies in the same way as Renaissance students benefited from it during Vergerio’s times. Repeating Vergerio stance that, History gives its learners shining light of experience from the real-life examples of the past peoples; Moral Philosophy sheds light on the paths available for true freedom; and, Eloquence empowers the learners to demonstrate their knowledge effectively to convince others to sift the good from the bad; one can thus conclude that all of these subjects ought to be still useful for the students of the 21st century.


ABOUT CIVIL GOVERNMENT:
i. it having been shown in the foregoing discourse:
Firstly. That Adam had not, either by natural right of fatherhood or by positive donation from God, any such authority over his children, nor dominion over the world, as is pretended.

Secondly. That if he had, his heirs yet had no right to it, Thirdly. That if his heirs had, there being no law of Nature nor positive law of God that determines which is the right heir in all cases that may arise, the right of suc­cession, and consequently of bearing rule, could not have been certainly determined.
Fourthly. That if even that had been determined, yet the knowledge of which is the eldest line of Adam's posterity being so long since utterly lost, that in the races of man­kind and families of the world, there remains not to one above another the least pretence to be the eldest house, and to have the right of inheritance.

All these promises having, as I think, been clearly made out, it is impossible that the rulers now on earth should make any benefit, or derive any the least shadow of autho­rity from that which is held to be the fountain of all power, "Adam's private dominion and paternal jurisdiction"; so that he that will not give just occasion to think that all government in the world is the product only of force and violence, and that men live together by no other rules but that of beasts, where the strongest carries it, and so lay a foundation for perpetual disorder and mischief, tumult, sedition, and rebellion (things that the followers of that hypothesis so loudly cry out against), must of necessity find out another rise of government.


CIVIL GOVERNMENT
political power, and another way of designing and knowing the persons that have it than what Sir Robert Filmer hath taught us.
3. To this purpose, I think it may not be amiss to set down what I take, to be political power. That the power of a magistrate over a subject may be distinguished from that of a father over his children, a master over his servant, a husband over his wife, and a lord over his slave. All which distinct powers happening sometimes together in the same man, if he be considered under these different relations, it may help us to distinguish these powers one from another, and show the difference betwixt a ruler of a commonwealth, a father of a family, and a captain of a galley.
3. Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws, with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury, and all this only for the public good.

OF THE STATE OF NATURE
4. To understand political power aright, and derive it from its original, we must consider what estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.
A state also of equality, wherein all the power and juris­diction is reciprocal, no one having more than another, there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of Nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another, without subordi­nation or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set
one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.
5. This equality of men by Nature, the judicious Hooker looks upon as so evident in itself, and beyond all question, that he makes it the foundation of that obligation to mutual love amongst men on which he builds the duties they owe one another, and from whence he derives the great maxims of justice and charity. His words are:
"The like natural inducement hath brought men to know that it is no less their duty to love, others than themselves, for seeing those things which are equal, must needs all have one measure; if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man's hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire, which is undoubtedly in other men weak, being of one and the same nature: to have anything offered them repugnant to this desire must needs, in all respects, grieve them as much as me; so that if I do harm, I must look to suffer, there being no reason that others should show greater measure of love to me than they have by me showed unto them; my desire, therefore, to be loved of my equals in Nature, as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to themward fully the like affection. From which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant." (Ecd. Pol. i.)
6. But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence; though man in that state have an un­controllable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges every one, and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or posses­sions; for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker; all the servants of one sovereign Master, sent into the world by His order and about His
business; they are His property, whose workmanship they are made to last during His, not one another's pleasure. And, being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one com­munity of Nature, there cannot be supposed any such sub­ordination among us that may authorise us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another's uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for ours. Every one as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wil­fully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he as much as he can to preserve the rest of mankind, and not unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.
7. And that all men may be restrained from invading others' rights, and from doing hurt to one another, and the law of Nature be observed, which willeth the peace and preservation of all mankind, the execution of the law of Nature is in that state put into every man's hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree as may hinder its violation. For the law of Nature would, as all other laws that concern men in this world, be in vain if there were nobody that in the state of Nature had a power to execute that law, and thereby preserve the innocent and restrain offenders; and if any one in the state of Nature may punish another for any evil he has done, every one may do so. For in that state of perfect equality, where naturally there is no superiority or juris­diction of one over another, what any may do in prosecution of that law, every one must needs have a fight to do.
8. And thus, in the state of Nature, one man comes by a power over another, but yet no absolute or arbitrary power to use a criminal, when he has got him in his hands, according to the passionate heats or boundless extravagancy of his own will, but only to retribute to him so far as calm reason and conscience dictate, what is proportionate to his trans­gression, which is so much as may serve for reparation and restraint. For these two are the only reasons why one man may lawfully do harm to another, which is that we call punishment. In transgressing the law of Nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity, which is that measure God has set
to the actions of men for their mutual security, and so he becomes dangerous to mankind; the tie which is to secure them from injury and violence being slighted and broken by him, which being a trespass against the whole species, and the peace and safety of it, provided for by the law of Nature, every man upon this score, by the right he hath to preserve mankind in general, may restrain, or where it is necessary, destroy things noxious to them, and so may bring such evil on any one who hath transgressed that law, as may make him repent the doing of it, and thereby deter him, and, by his example, others from- doing the like mischief. And in this case, and upon this ground, every man hath a right to punish the offender, and be executioner of the law of Nature.
9. I doubt not but this will seem a very strange doctrine to some men; but before they condemn it, I desire them to resolve me by what right any prince or state can put to death or punish an alien for any crime he commits in their country ? It is certain their laws, by virtue of any sanction they receive from the promulgated will of the legislature, reach not a stranger. They speak not to him, nor, if they did, is he bound to hearken to them. The legislative authority by which they are in force over the subjects of that common­wealth hath no power over him. Those who have the supreme power of making laws in England, France, or Holland are, to an Indian, but like the rest of the world—men without authority. And therefore, if by the law of Nature every man hath not a power to punish offences against it, as he soberly judges the case to require, I see not how the magistrates of any community can punish an alien of another country, since, in reference to him, they can have no mere power than what every man naturally may have over another.
10. Besides the crime which consists in violating the laws, and varying from the right rule of reason, whereby a man so far becomes degenerate, and declares himself to quit the principles of human nature and to be a noxious creature, there is commonly injury done, and some person or other, some other man, receives damage by his transgression; in which case, he who hath received any damage has (besides the right of punishment common to him, with other men) a particular right to seek reparation from him that hath done it. And any other person who finds it just may also join with him that is injured, and assist him in recovering from the offender so much as may make satisfaction for the harm he hath suffered.
11. From these two distinct rights (the one of punishing the crime, for restraint and preventing the like offence, which right of punishing is in everybody, the other of taking reparation, which belongs only to the injured party) comes it to pass that the magistrate, who by being magistrate hath the common right of punishing put into his hands, can often, where the public good demands not the execution of the law, remit the punishment of criminal offences by his own authority, but yet cannot remit the satisfaction due to any private man for the damage he has received. That he who hath suffered the damage has a right to demand in his own name, and he alone can remit. The damnified person has this power of appropriating to himself the goods or service of the offender by right of self-preservation, as every man has a power to punish the crime to prevent its being committed again, by the right he has of preserving all mankind, and doing all reasonable things he can in order to that end. And thus it is that every man in the state of Nature has a power to kill a murderer, both to deter others from doing the like injury (which no reparation can com­pensate) by the example of the punishment that attends it from everybody, and also to secure men from the attempts of a criminal who, having renounced reason, the common rule and measure God hath given to mankind, hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or a tiger, one of those wild savage beasts with whom men can have no society nor security. And upon this is grounded that great law of Nature, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." And Cain was so fully convinced that every one had a right to destroy such a criminal, that, after the murder of his brother, he cries out, " Every one that findeth me shall slay me," so plain was it writ in the hearts of all mankind.
12. By the same reason may a man in the state of Nature punish the lesser breaches of that law, it will, perhaps, be demanded, with death? I answer: Each transgression may be punished to that degree, and with so much severity, as will suffice to make it an ill bargain to the offender, give him cause to repent, and terrify others from doing the like.

Every offence that can be committed in the state of Nature may, in the state of Nature, be also punished equally, and as far forth, as it may, in a commonwealth. For though it would be beside my present purpose to enter here into the particulars of the law of Nature, or its measures of punish­ment, yet it is certain there is such a law, and that too as intelligible and plain to a rational creature and a studier of that law as the positive laws of commonwealths, nay, possibly plainer; as much as reason is easier to be understood than the fancies and intricate contrivances of men, following contrary and hidden interests put into words; for truly so are a great part of the municipal laws of countries, which are only so far right as they are founded on the law of Nature, by which they are to be regulated and interpreted.
13. To this strange doctrine—viz., That in the state of Nature every one has the executive power of the law of Nature—I doubt not but it will be objected that it is un­reasonable for men to be judges in their own cases, that self-love will make men partial to themselves and their friends; and, on the other side, ill-nature, passion, and revenge will carry them too far in punishing others, and hence nothing but confusion and disorder will follow, and that therefore God hath certainly appointed government to restrain the partiality and violence of men. I easily grant that civil government is the proper remedy for the incon­veniences of the state of Nature, which must certainly be great where men may be judges in their own case, since it is easy to be imagined that he who was so unjust as to do his brother an injury will scarce be so just as to condemn himself for it. But I shall desire those who make this objection to remember that absolute monarchs are but men; and if government is to be the remedy of those evils which necessarily follow from men being judges in their own cases, and the state of Nature is therefore not to be endured, I desire to know what kind of government that is, and how much better it is than the state of Nature, where one man commanding a multitude has the liberty to be judge in his own case, and may do to all his subjects whatever he pleases without the least question or control of those who execute his pleasure? and in whatsoever he doth, whether led by reason, mistake, or passion, must be submitted to? which men in the state of Nature are not bound to do one to another.

And if he that judges, judges amiss in his own or any other case, he is answerable for it to the rest of mankind.
14. It is often asked as a mighty objection, where are, or ever were, there any men in such a state of Nature? To which it may suffice as an answer at present, that since all princes and rulers of " independent" governments all through the world are in a state of Nature, it is plain the world never was, nor never will be, without numbers of men in that state. I have named all governors of "independent" communities, whether they are, or are not, in league with others; for it is not every compact that puts an end to the state of Nature between men, but only this one of agreeing together mutually to enter into one community, and make one body politic; other promises and compacts men may make one with another, and yet still be in the state of Nature. The promises and bargains for truck, etc., between the two men in Soldania, in or between a Swiss and an Indian, in the woods of America, are binding to them, though they are perfectly in a state of Nature in reference to one another for truth, and keeping of faith belongs to men as men, and not as members of society.
15. To those that say there were never any men in the state of Nature, I will not only oppose the authority of the judicious Hooker (Ecd. Pol. i. 10), where he says, " the laws which have been hitherto mentioned "—i.e., the laws of Nature—" do bind men absolutely, even as they are men, although they have never any settled fellowship, never any solemn agreement amongst themselves what to do or not to do; but for as much as we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with competent store of things needful for such a life as our Nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity of man, therefore to supply those defects and im­perfections which are in us, as living single and solely by ourselves, we are naturally induced to seek communion and fellowship with others; this was the cause of men uniting themselves as first in politic societies." But I, moreover, affirm that all men are naturally in that state, and remain so till, by their own consents, they make themselves mem­bers of some politic society, and I doubt not, in the sequel of this discourse, to make it very clear.

OF THE STATE OF WAR
16. the state of war is a state of enmity and destruction; and therefore declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty, but sedate, settled design upon another man's life puts him in a state of war with him against whom he has declared such an intention, and so has exposed his life to the other's power to be taken away by him, or any one that joins with him in his defence, and espouses his quarrel; it being reasonable and just I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction; for by the fundamental law of Nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred, and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion, because they are not under the ties of the common law of reason, have no other rule but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as. a beast of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.
17. And hence it is that he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him; it being to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his life. For I have reason to conclude that he who would get me into his power without my consent would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom—i.e. make me a slave. To be free from such force is the only security of my preservation, and reason bids me look on him as an enemy to my preserva­tion who would take away that freedom which is the fence to it; so that he who makes an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me. He that in the state of Nature would take away the freedom that belongs to any one in that state must necessarily be supposed to have a design to take away everything else, that freedom being the foundation of all the rest; as he that in the state of society would take away the freedom belonging to those of that society or commonwealth must be supposed to design to take away from them everything else, and so be looked on as in a state of war.
18. This makes it lawful for a man to kill a thief who has not in the least hurt him, nor declared any design upon his life, any farther than by the use of force, so to get him in his power as to take away his money, or what he pleases, from him; because using force, where he has no right to get me into his power, let his pretence be what it will, I have no reason to suppose that he who would take away my liberty would not, when he had me in his power, take away everything else. And, therefore, it is lawful for me to treat him as one who has put himself into a state of war with me —i.e., kill him if I can; for to that hazard does he justly expose himself whoever introduces a state of war, and is aggressor in it.
19. And here we have the plain difference between the state of Nature and the state of war, which however some men have confounded, are as far distant as a state of peace, goodwill, mutual assistance, and preservation; and a state of enmity, malice, violence and mutual destruction are one from another. Men living together according to reason without a common superior on earth, with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of Nature. But force, or a declared design of force upon the person of another, where there is no common superior on earth to appeal to for relief, is the state of war; arid it is the want of such an appeal gives a man the right of war even against an aggressor, though he be in society and a fellow-subject. Thus, a thief whom I cannot harm, but by appeal to the law, for having stolen all that I am worth, I may kill when he sets on me to rob me but of my horse or coat, because the law, which was made for my preservation, where it cannot interpose to secure my life from present force, which if lost is capable of no reparation, permits me my own defence and the right of war, a liberty to kill the aggressor, because the aggressor allows not time to appeal to our common judge, nor the decision of the law, for remedy in a case where the mischief may be irreparable. Want of a common judge with authority
puts all men in a state of Nature; force without right upon a man's person makes a state of war both where there is, and is not, a common judge.
20. But when the actual force is over, the state of war ceases between those that are in society and are equally on both sides subject to the judge; and, therefore, in such controversies, where the question is put, "Who shall be judge?" it cannot be meant who shall decide the contro­versy; every one knows what Jephtha here tells us, that "the Lord the Judge" shall judge. Where there is no judge on earth the appeal lies to God in Heaven. That question then cannot mean who shall judge, whether another hath put himself in a state of war with me, and whether I may, as Jephtha did, appeal to Heaven in it? Of that I myself can only judge in my own conscience, as I will answer it at the great day to the Supreme Judge of all men.

OF SLAVERY
21. the natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of Nature for his rule. The liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but that established by con­sent in the commonwealth, nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact according to the trust put in it. Freedom, then, is not what Sir Robert Filmer tells us: "A liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws"; but freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it. A liberty to follow my own will in all things where that rule prescribes not, not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man, as freedom of nature is to be under no other restraint but the law of Nature.


22. This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power is so necessary to, and closely joined with, a man's preservation, that he cannot part with it but by what forfeits his preserva­tion and life together. For a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot by compact or his own consent enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another to take away his life when he pleases. Nobody can give more power than he has himself, and he that cannot take away his own life cannot give another power over it. Indeed, having by his fault forfeited his own life by some act that deserves death, he to whom he has forfeited it may, when he has him in his power, delay to take it, and make use of him to his own service; and he does him no injury by it. For, whenever he finds the hard­ship of his slavery outweigh the value of his life, it is in his power, by resisting the will of his master, to draw on himself the death he desires.
23. This is the perfect condition of slavery, which is nothing else but the state of war continued between a lawful conqueror and a captive, for if once compact enter between them, and make an agreement for a limited power on the one side, and obedience on the other, the state of war and slavery ceases as long as the compact endures; for, as has been said, no man can by agreement pass over to another that which he hath not in himself—a power over his own life.
I confess, we find among the Jews, as well as other nations, that men did sell themselves; but it is plain this was only to drudgery, not to slavery; for it is evident the person sold was not under an absolute, arbitrary, despotical power, for the master could not have power to kill him at any time, whom at a certain time he was obliged to let go free out of his service; and the master of such a servant was so far from having an arbitrary power over his life that he could not at pleasure so much as maim him, but the loss of an eye or tooth set him free (Exod. xxi.).

OF PROPERTY
24. whether we consider natural reason, which tells us that men, being once born, have a right to their preserva­tion, and consequently to meat and drink and such other things as Nature affords for their subsistence, or " revela­tion," which gives us an account of those grants God made of the world to Adam, and to Noah and his sons, it is very clear that God, as King David says (Psalm cxv. 16), "has given the earth to the children of men," given it to man­kind in common. But, this being supposed, it seems to some a very great difficulty how any one should ever come to have a property in anything, I will not content myself to answer, that, if it be difficult to make out " property " upon a sup­position that God gave the world to Adam and his posterity in common, it is impossible that any man but one universal monarch should have any "property" upon a supposition that God gave the world to Adam and his heirs in succession, exclusive of all the rest of his posterity; but I shall endeavour to show how men might come to have a property in several parts of that which God gave to mankind in common, and that without any express compact of all the commoners.
25. God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life and convenience. The earth and all that is therein is given to men for the support and comfort of their being. And though all the fruits it naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of Nature, and nobody has originally a private dominion exclusive of the rest of mankind in any of them, as they are thus in their natural state, yet being given for the use of men, there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial, to any particular men. The fruit or venison which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows no enclosure, and is still a tenant in common, must be his, and so his—i.e., a part of him, that another can no longer have any right to it before it can do him any good for the support of his life.

26. Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a "property" in his own "person.". This nobody has any right to but himself. The "labour" of his body and the "work" of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state Nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men. For this "labour " being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others.
27. He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. Nobody can deny but the nourishment is his. I ask, then, when did they begin to be his? when he digested? or when he ate? or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he picked them up? -And it is plain, if the first gather­ing made them not his, nothing else could. That labour put a distinction between them and common. That added something to them more than Nature, the common mother of all, had done, and so they became his private right. And will any one say he had no right to those acorns or apples he thus appropriated because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his ? Was it a robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in common ? If such a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him. We see in commons, which remain so by compact, that it is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state Nature leaves it in, which begins the property, without which the common is of no use. And the taking of this or that part does not depend on the express consent of all the commoners. Thus, the grass my horse has bit, the turfs my servant has cut, and the ore I have digged in any place, where I have a right to them in common with others, become my property without the assignation or consent of anybody. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them.
28. By making an explicit consent of every commoner necessary to any one's appropriating to himself any part of what is given in common. Children or servants could not cut the meat which their father or master had provided for them in common without assigning to every one his peculiar part. Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can doubt but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His labour hath taken it out of the hands of Nature where it was common, and belonged equally to all her children, and hath thereby appropriated it to himself.
29. Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian's who hath killed it; it is allowed to be his goods who hath bestowed his labour upon it, though, before, it was the common right of every one. And amongst those who are counted the civilised part of mankind, who have made and multiplied positive laws to determine property, this original law of Nature for the beginning of property, in what was before common, still takes place, and by virtue thereof, what fish any one catches in the ocean, that great and still remain­ing common of mankind; or what ambergris any one takes up here is by the labour that removes it out of that common state Nature left it in, made his property who takes that pains about it. And even amongst us, the hare that any one is hunting is thought his who pursues her during the chase. For being a beast that is still looked upon as common, and no man's private possession, whoever has employed so much labour about any of that kind as to find and pursue her has thereby removed her from the state of Nature wherein she was common, and hath begun a property.
30. It will, perhaps, be objected to this, that if gathering the acorns or other fruits of the earth, etc., makes a right to them, then any one may engross as much as he will. To which I answer, Not so. The same law of Nature that does by this means give us property, does also bound that property too. "God has given us all things richly." Is the voice of reason confirmed by inspiration? But how far has He given it us—"to enjoy"? As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his labour fix a property in. Whatever is beyond this is more than his share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy. And thus considering the plenty of natural provisions there was

a long time in the world, and the few spenders, and to how small a part of that provision the industry of one man could extend itself and engross it to the prejudice of others, especi­ally keeping within the bounds set by reason of what might serve for his use, there could be then little room for quarrels or contentions about property so established.
31. But the chief matter of property being now not the fruits of the earth and the beasts that subsist on it, but the earth itself, as that which takes in and carries with it all the rest, I think it is plain that property in that too is acquired as the former. As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property. He by his labour does, as it were, enclose it from the common. Nor will it invalidate his right to say everybody else has an equal title to it, and therefore he cannot appropriate, he can­not enclose, without the consent of all his fellow-commoners, all mankind. God, when He gave the world in common to all mankind, commanded man also to labour, and the penury of his condition required it of him. God and his reason com­manded him to subdue the earth—i.e., improve it for the benefit of life and therein lay out something upon it that was his own, his labour. He that, in obedience to this command of God, subdued, tilled, and sowed any part of it, thereby annexed to it something that was his property, which another had no title to, nor could without injury take from him.
32. Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough and. as good left, and more than the yet unprovided could use. So that, in effect, there was never the less left for others because of his enclosure for himself. For he that leaves as much as another can make use of does as good as take nothing at all. Nobody could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his thirst. And the case of land and water, where there is enough of both, is perfectly the same.
33. God gave the world to men in common, but since He gave it them for their benefit and the greatest conveni-encies of life they were capable to draw from it, it cannot be supposed He meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational (and labour was to be his title to it); not to the
fancy or covetousness of the quarrelsome and contentious. He that had as good left for his improvement as was already taken up needed not complain, ought not to meddle with what was already improved by another's labour; if he did it is plain he desired the benefit of another's pains, which he had no right to, and not the ground which God had given him, in common with others, to labour on, and whereof there was as good left as that already possessed, and more than he knew what to do with, or his industry could reach to.
34. It is true, in land that is common in England or any other country, where there are plenty of people under government who have money and commerce, no one can enclose or appropriate any part without the consent of all his fellow-commoners; because this is left common by com­pact—i.e., by the law of the land, which is not to be violated. And, though it be common in respect of some men, it is not so to all mankind, but is the joint propriety of this country, or this parish. Besides, the remainder, after such enclosure, would not be as good to the rest of the commoners as the whole was, when they could all make use of the whole; whereas in the beginning and first peopling of the great common of the world it was quite otherwise. The law man was under was rather for appropriating. God commanded, and his wants forced him to labour. That was his property, which could not be taken from him wherever he had fixed it. And hence subduing or cultivating the earth and having dominion, we see, are joined together. The one gave title to the other. So that God, by commanding to subdue, gave authority so far to appropriate. And the condition of human life, which requires labour and materials to work on, neces­sarily introduce private possessions.
35. The measure of property Nature well set, by the extent of men's labour and the conveniency of life. No man's labour could subdue or appropriate all, nor could his enjoyment consume more than a small part; so that it was impossible for any man, this way, to entrench upon the right of another or acquire to himself a property to the prejudice of his neighbour, who would still have room for as good and as large a possession (after the other had taken out his) as before it was appropriated. Which measure did confine every man's possession to a very moderate

proportion, and such as he might appropriate to himself without injury to anybody in the first ages of the world, when men were more in danger to be lost, by wandering from their company, in the then vast wilderness of the earth than to be straitened for want of room to plant in.
36. The same measure may be allowed still, without prejudice to anybody, full as the world seems. For, supposing a man or family, in the state they were at first, peopling of the world by the children of Adam or Noah, let him plant in some inland vacant places of America. We shall find that the possessions he could make himself, upon the measures we have given, would not be very large, nor, even to this day, prejudice the rest of mankind or give them reason to complain or think themselves injured by this man's encroach­ment, though the race of men have now spread themselves to all the corners of the world, and do infinitely exceed the small number was at the beginning. Nay, the extent of ground is of so little value without labour that I have heard it affirmed that in Spain itself a man may be permitted to plough, sow, and reap, without being disturbed, upon land he has no other title to, but only his making use of it. But, on the contrary, the inhabitants think themselves beholden to him who, by his industry on neglected, and consequently waste land, has increased the stock of corn, which they wanted. But be this as it will, which I lay no stress on, this I dare boldly affirm, that the same rule of propriety— viz., that every man should have as much as he could make use of, would hold still in the world, without straitening anybody, since there is land enough in the world to suffice double the inhabitants, had not the invention of money, and the tacit agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced (by consent) larger possessions and a right to them; which, how it has done, I shall by and by show more at large.
37. This is certain, that in the beginning, before the desire of having more than men needed had altered the intrinsic value of things, which depends only on their use­fulness to the life of man, or had agreed that a little piece of yellow metal, which would keep without wasting or decay, should be worth a great piece of flesh or a whole heap of corn, though men had a right to appropriate by their labour, each one to himself, as much of the things of Nature as he could use, yet this could not be much, nor to
the prejudice of others, where the same plenty was still left, to those who would use the same industry.
Before the appropriation of land, he who gathered as much of the wild fruit, killed, caught, or tamed as many of the beasts as he could—he that so employed his pains about any of the spontaneous products of Nature as any way to alter them from the state Nature put them in, by placing any of his labour on them, did thereby acquire a propriety in them; but if they perished in his possession without their due use—if the fruits rotted or the venison putrefied before he could spend it, he offended against the common law of Nature, and was liable to be punished: he invaded his neighbour's share, for he had no right farther than his use called for any of them, and they might serve to afford him conveniencies of life.
38. The same measures governed the possession of land, too. Whatsoever he tilled and reaped, laid up and made use of before it spoiled, that was his peculiar right; what­soever he enclosed, and could feed and make use of, the cattle and product was also his. But if either the grass of his enclosure rotted on the ground, or the fruit of his planting perished without gathering and laying up, this part of the earth, notwithstanding his enclosure, was still to be looked on as waste, and might be the possession of any other. Thus, at the beginning, Cain might take as much ground as he could till and make it his own land, and yet leave enough to Abel's sheep to feed on: a few acres would serve for both their possessions. But as families increased and industry enlarged their stocks, their possessions enlarged with the need of them; but yet it was commonly without any fixed property in the ground they made use of till they incorporated, settled themselves together, and built cities, and" then, by consent, they came in time to set out the bounds of their distinct territories and agree on limits between them and their neighbours, and by laws within themselves settled the properties of those of the same society. For we see that in that part of the world which was first inhabited, and there­fore like to be best peopled, even as low down as Abraham's time, they wandered with their flocks and their herds, which was their substance, freely up and down—and this Abraham did in a country where he was a stranger; whence it is plain that, at least, a great part of the land lay in common, that

the inhabitants valued it not, nor claimed property in any more than they made use of; but when there was not room enough in the same place for their herds to feed together, they, by consent, as Abraham and Lot did (Gen. xiii. 5), separated and enlarged their pasture where it best liked them. And for the same reason, Esau went from his father and his brother, and planted in Mount Seir (Gen. xxxvi. 6).
39. And thus, without supposing any private dominion and property in Adam over all the world, exclusive of all other men, which can no way be proved, nor any one's property be made out from it, but supposing the world, given as it was to the children of men in common, we see how labour could make men distinct titles to several parcels of it for their private uses, wherein there could be no doubt of right, no room for quarrel.
40. Nor is-it so strange as, perhaps, before consideration, it may appear, that the property of labour should be able to overbalance the community of land, for it is labour indeed that puts the difference of value on everything; and let any one consider what the difference is between an acre of land planted with tobacco or sugar, sown with wheat or barley, and an acre of the same land lying in common without any husbandry upon it, and he will find that the improvement of labour makes the far greater part of the value. I think it will be but a very modest computation to say, that of the products of the earth useful to the life of man, nine-tenths are the effects of labour. Nay, if we will rightly estimate things as they come to our use, and cast up the several expenses about them—what in them is purely owing to Nature and what to labour—we shall find that in most of them ninety-nine hundredths are wholly to be put on the account of labour.
41. There cannot be a clearer demonstration of anything than several nations of the Americans are of this, who are rich in land and poor in all the comforts of life; whom Nature, having furnished as liberally as any other people with the materials of plenty—i.e., a fruitful soil, apt to produce in abundance what might serve for food, raiment, and delight; yet, for want of improving it by labour, have not one hundredth part of the conveniencies we enjoy, and a king of a large and fruitful territory there feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a day labourer in England.
42. To make this a little clearer, let us but trace some of the ordinary provisions of life, through their several pro­gresses, before they come to our use, and see how much they receive of their value from human industry. Bread, wine, and cloth are things of daily use and great plenty; yet notwithstanding acorns, water, and leaves, or skins must be our bread, drink and clothing, did not labour furnish us with these more useful commodities. For whatever bread is more worth than acorns, wine than water, and cloth or silk than leaves, skins or moss, that is wholly owing to labour and industry. The one of these being the food and raiment which unassisted Nature furnishes us with; the other pro­visions which our industry and pains prepare for us, which how much they exceed the other in value, when any one hath computed, he will then see how much labour makes the far greatest part of the value of things we enjoy in this world; and the ground which produces the materials is scarce to be reckoned in as any, or at most, but a very small part of it; so little, that even amongst us, land that is left wholly to nature, that hath no improvement of pasturage, tillage, or planting, is called, as indeed it is, waste; and we shall find the benefit of it amount to little more than nothing.
43. An acre of land that bears here twenty bushels of wheat, and another in America, which, with the same husbandry, would do the like, are, without doubt, of the same natural, intrinsic value. But yet the benefit mankind receives from one in a year is worth five pounds, and the other possibly not worth a penny; if all the profit an Indian received from it were to be valued and sold here, at least I may truly say, not one thousandth. It is labour, then, which puts the greatest part of value upon land, without which it would scarcely be worth anything; it is to that we owe the greatest part of all its useful products; for all that the straw, bran, bread, of that acre of wheat, is more worth than the product of an acre of as good land which lies waste is all the effect of labour. For it is not barely the plough­man's pains, the reaper's and thresher's toil, and the baker's sweat, is to be counted into the bread we eat; the labour of those who broke the oxen, who digged and wrought the iron and stones, who felled and framed the timber employed about the plough, mill, oven, or any other utensils, which

are a vast number, requisite to this corn, from its sowing to its being made bread, must all be charged on the account of labour, and received as an effect of that; Nature and the earth furnished only the almost worthless materials as in themselves. It would be a strange catalogue of things that industry provided and made use of about every loaf of bread before it came to our use if we could trace them; iron, wood, leather, bark, timber, stone, bricks, coals, lime, cloth, dyeing-drugs, pitch, tar, masts, ropes, and all the materials made use of in the ship that brought any of the commodities made use of by any of the workmen, to any part of the work, all which it would be almost impossible, at least too long, to reckon up.
44. From all which it is evident, that though the things of Nature are given in common, man (by being master of him­self, and proprietor of his own person, and the actions or labour of it) had still in himself the great foundation of property; and that which made up the great part of what he applied to the support or comfort of his being, when invention and arts had improved the conveniences of life, was perfectly his own, and did not belong in common to others.
45. Thus labour, in the beginning, gave a right of property, wherever any one was pleased to employ it, upon what was common, which remained a long while, the far greater part, and is yet more than mankind makes use of. Men at first, for the most part, contented themselves with what unassisted Nature offered to their necessities; and though afterwards, in some parts of the world, where the increase of people and stock, with the use of money, had made land scarce, and so of some value, the several communities settled the bounds of their distinct territories, and, by laws, within themselves, regulated the properties of the private men of their society, and so, by compact and agreement, settled the property which labour and industry began. And the leagues that have been made between several states and kingdoms, either expressly or tacitly disowning all claim and right to the land in the other's possession, have, by common consent, given up their pretences to their natural common right, which originally they had to those countries; and so have, by positive agreement, settled a property amongst them­selves, in distinct parts of the world; yet there are still
great tracts of ground to be found, which the inhabitants thereof, not having joined with the rest of mankind in the consent of the use of their common money, lie waste, and are more than the people who dwell on it, do, or can make use of, and so still lie in common; though this can scarce happen amongst that part of mankind that have consented to the use of money.
46. The greatest part of things really useful to the life of man, and such as the necessity of subsisting made the first commoners of the world look after—as it doth the Americans now—are generally things of short duration, such as—if they are not consumed by use—will decay and perish of themselves. Gold, silver, and diamonds are things that fancy or agreement hath put the value on, more than real use and the necessary support of life. Now of those good things which Nature hath provided in common, every one hath a right (as hath been said) to as much as he could use, and had a property in all he could effect with his labour; all that his industry could extend to, to alter from the state Nature had put it in, was his. He that gathered a hundred bushels of acorns or apples had thereby a property in them; they were his goods as soon as gathered. He was only to look that he used them before they spoiled, else he took more than his share, and robbed others. And, indeed, it was a foolish thing, as well as dishonest, to hoard up more than he could make use of. If he gave away a part to anybody else, so that it perished not uselessly in his possession, these he also made use of. And if he also bartered away plums that would have rotted in a week, for nuts that would last good for his eating a whole year, he did no injury; he wasted not the common stock; destroyed no part of the portion of goods that belonged to others, so long as nothing perished uselessly in his hands. Again, if he would give his nuts for a piece of metal, pleased with its colour, or exchange his sheep for shells, or wool for a sparkling pebble or a diamond, and keep those by him all his life, he invaded not the right of others; he might heap up as much of these durable things as he pleased; the exceeding of the bounds of his just property not lying in the largeness of his possession, but the perishing of anything uselessly in it.
47. And thus came in the use of money; some lasting thing that men might keep without spoiling, and that, by

mutual consent, men would take in exchange for the truly useful but perishable supports of life.
48. And as different degrees of industry were apt to give men possessions in different proportions, so this invention of money gave them the opportunity to continue and enlarge them. For supposing an island, separate from all possible commerce with the rest of the world, wherein there were but a hundred families, but there were sheep, horses, and cows, with other useful animals, wholesome fruits, and land enough for corn for a hundred thousand times as many, but nothing in the island, either because of its commonness or perishableness, fit to supply the place of money. What reason could any one have there to enlarge his possessions beyond the use of his family, and a plentiful supply to its consumption, either in what their own industry produced, or they could barter for like perishable, useful commodities with others? Where there is not something both lasting and scarce, and so valuable to be hoarded up, there men will not be apt to enlarge their possessions of land, were it never so rich, never so free for them to take. For I ask, what would a man value ten thousand or an hundred thou­sand acres of excellent land, ready cultivated and well stocked, too, with cattle, in the middle of the inland parts
•of America, where he had no hopes of commerce with other parts of the world, to draw money to him by the sale of the product? It would not be worth the enclosing, and we should see him give up again to the wild common of Nature whatever was more than would supply the conveniences of life, to be had there for him and his family.
49. Thus, in the beginning, all the world was America, and more so than that is now; for no such thing as money was anywhere known. Find out something that hath the use and value of money amongst his neighbours, you shall see the same man will begin presently to enlarge his possessions.
50. But since gold and silver, being little useful to the life;
•of man, in proportion to food, raiment, and carriage, has its value only from the consent of men—whereof labour yet makes in great part the measure—it is plain that the consent of men have agreed to a disproportionate and unequal pos­session of the earth—I mean out of the bounds of society and compact; for in governments the laws regulate it; they having, by consent, found out and agreed in a way how a
man may, rightfully and without injury, possess more than he himself can make use of by receiving gold and silver, which may continue long in a man's possession without decaying for the overplus, and agreeing those metals should have a value.
51. And thus, I think, it is very easy to conceive, without any difficulty, how labour could at first begin a title of property in the common things of Nature, and how the spending it upon our uses bounded it; so that there could then be no reason of quarrelling about title, nor any doubt about the largeness of possession it gave. Right and con-veniency went together. For as a man had a right to all he could employ his labour upon, so he had no temptation to labour for more than he could make use of. This left no room for controversy about the title, nor for encroachment on the right of others. What portion a man carved to himself was easily seen; and it was useless, as well as dishonest, to carve himself too much, or take more than he needed.

OF PATERNAL POWER :
52. it may perhaps be censured an impertinent criticism in a discourse of this nature to find fault with words and names that have obtained in the world. And yet possibly it may not be amiss to offer new ones when the old are apt to lead men into mistakes, as this of paternal power probably has done, which seems so to place the power of parents over their children wholly in the father, as if the mother had no share in it; whereas if we consult reason or revelation, we shall find she has an equal title, which may give one reason to ask whether this might not be more properly called parental power? For whatever obligation Nature and the right of generation lays on children, it must certainly bind them equal to both the concurrent causes of it. And accord­ingly we see the positive law of God everywhere joins them together without distinction, when it commands the obedience of children: " Honour thy father and thy mother" (Exod.

xx. 12); "Whosoever curseth his father or his mother" (Lev. xx. 9); "Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father" (Lev. xix. 3); "Children, obey your parents " (Eph. vi. i), etc., is the style of the Old and New Testament.
53. Had but this one thing been well considered without looking any deeper into the matter, it might perhaps have kept men from running into those gross mistakes they have made about this power of parents, which however it might without any great harshness bear the name of absolute dominion and regal authority, when under the title of "paternal" power, it seemed appropriated to the father; would yet have sounded but oddly, and in the very name .shown the absurdity, if this supposed absolute power over children had been called parental, and thereby discovered that it belonged to the mother too. For it will but very ill serve the turn of those men who contend so much for the absolute power and authority of the fatherhood, as they call it, that the mother should have any share in it. And it would have but ill supported the monarchy they contend for, when by the very name it appeared that that fundamental authority from whence they would derive their govern­ment of a single person only was not placed in one, but two persons jointly. But to let this of names pass.
54. Though I have said above (2) "That all men by nature are equal," I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of "equality." Age or virtue may give men a just pre­cedency. Excellency of parts and merit may place others above the common level. Birth may subject some, and alliance or benefits others, to pay an observance to those to whom Nature, gratitude, or other respects, may have made it due; and yet all this consists with the equality which all men are in in respect of jurisdiction or dominion one over another, which was the equality I there spoke of as proper to the business in hand, being that equal right that every man hath to his natural freedom, without being subjected to the will or authority of any other man.
55. Children, I confess, are not born in this full state of equality, though they are born to it. Their parents have a sort of rule and jurisdiction over them when they come into the world, and for some time after, but it is but a tem­porary one. The bonds of this subjection are like the swad­dling clothes they are wrapt up in and supported by in the
weakness of their infancy. Age and reason as they grow up loosen them, till at length they drop quite off, and leave a man at his own free disposal.
56. Adam was created a perfect man, his body and mind in full possession of their strength and reason, and so was capable from the first instance of his being to provide for his own support and preservation, and govern his actions according to the dictates of the law of reason God had implanted in him. From him the world is peopled with his descendants, who are all born infants, weak and helpless, without knowledge or understanding. But to supply the defects of this imperfect state till the improvement of growth and age had removed them, Adam and Eve, and after them all parents were, by the law of Nature, under an obligation to preserve, nourish and educate the children they had begotten, not as their own workmanship, but the work­manship of their own Maker, the Almighty, to whom they were to be accountable for them.
57. The law that was to govern Adam was the same that was to govern all his posterity, the law of reason. But his offspring having another way of entrance into the world, different from him, by a natural birth, that produced them ignorant, and without the use of reason, they were not presently under that law. For nobody can be under a law that is not promulgated to him; and this law being pro­mulgated or made known by reason only, he that is not come to the use of his reason cannot be said to be under this law; and Adam's children being not presently as soon as born under this law of reason, were not presently free. For law, in its true notion, is not so much the limitation as the direction of a free and intelligent agent to his proper interest, and prescribes no farther than is for the general good of those under that law. Could they be happier without it, the law, as a useless thing, would of itself vanish; and that ill deserves the name of confinement which hedges us in only from bogs and precipices. So that however it may be mistaken, the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom. For liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others, which cannot be where there is no law; and is not, as we are told, " a liberty for every man to
do what he lists." For who could be free, when every other man's humour might domineer over him? But a liberty to dispose and order freely as he lists his person, actions, posses­sions, and his whole property within the allowance of those laws under which he is, and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own.
58. The power, then, that parents have over their children arises from that duty which is incumbent on them, to take care of their offspring during the imperfect state of child­hood. To inform the mind, and govern the actions of their yet ignorant nonage, till reason shall take its place and ease them of that trouble, is what the children want, and the parents are bound to. For God having given man an under­standing to direct his actions, has allowed him a freedom of will and liberty of acting, as properly belonging thereunto within the bounds of that law he is under. But whilst he is in an estate wherein he has no understanding of his own to direct his will, he is not to have any will of his own to follow. He that understands for him must will for him too; he must prescribe to his will, and regulate his actions, but when he comes to the estate that made his father a free man, the son is a free man too.
59. This holds in all the laws a man is under, whether natural or civil. Is a man under the law of Nature? What made him free of that law? what gave him a free disposing of his property, according to his own will, within the com­pass of that law? I answer, an estate wherein he might be supposed capable to know that law, that so he might keep his actions within the bounds of it. When he has acquired that state, he is presumed to know how far that law is to be his guide, and how far he may make use of his freedom, and so comes to have it; till then, somebody else must guide him, who is presumed to know how far the law allows a liberty. If such a state of reason, such an age of discretion made him free, the same shall make his son free too. Is a man under the law of England? what made him free of that law—that is, to have the liberty to dispose of his actions and possessions, according to his own will, within the per­mission of that law ? a capacity of knowing that law. Which is supposed, by that law, at the age of twenty-one, and in some cases sooner. If this made the father free, it shall make the son free too. Till then, we see the law allows the son to have no will, but he is to be guided by the will of his father or guardian, who is to understand for him. And if the father die and fail to substitute a deputy in this trust, if he hath not provided a tutor to govern his son during his minority, during his want of understanding, the law takes care to do it: some other must govern him and be a will to him till he hath attained to a state of freedom, and his understanding be fit to take the government of his will. But after that the father and son are equally free, as much as tutor and pupil, after nonage, equally subjects of the same law together, without any dominion left in the father over the life, liberty, or estate of his son, whether they be only in the state and under the law of Nature, or under the positive laws of an established government.
60. But if through defects that may happen out of the ordinary course of Nature, any one comes not to such a degree of reason wherein he might be supposed capable of knowing the law, and so living within the rules of it, he is never capable of being a free man, he is never let loose to the disposure of his own will; because he knows no bounds to it, has not understanding, its proper guide, but is con­tinued under the tuition and government of others all the time his own understanding is incapable of that charge. And so lunatics and idiots are never set free from the govern­ment of their parents: "Children who are not as yet come unto those years whereat they may have, and innocents, which are excluded by a natural defect from ever having." Thirdly, "Madmen, which, for the present, cannot possibly have the use of right reason to guide themselves, have, for their guide, the reason that guideth other men which are tutors over them, to seek and procure their good for them," says Hooker (Eccl. Pol., lib. i., s. 7). All which seems no more than that duty which God and Nature has laid on man, as well as other creatures, to preserve their offspring till they can be able to shift for themselves, and will scarce amount to an instance or proof of parents' regal authority.
61. Thus we are born free as we are born rational; not that we have actually the exercise of either: age that brings one, brings with it the other too. And thus we see how natural freedom and subjection to parents may consist together, and are both founded on the same principle. A child is free by his father's title, by his father's understanding,

which is to govern him tuTTie hath it of his own. The free­dom of a man at years of discretion, and the subjection of a child to his parents, whilst yet short of it, are so consistent and so distinguishable that the most blinded contenders for monarchy, "by right of fatherhood," cannot miss of it; the most obstinate cannot but allow of it. For were their doc­trine all true, were the right heir of Adam now known, and, by that title, settled a monarch in his throne, invested with all the absolute unlimited power Sir Robert Filmer talks of, if he should die as soon as his heir were born, must not the child, notwithstanding he were never so free, never so much sovereign, be in subjection to his mother and nurse, to tutors and governors, till age and education brought him reason and ability to govern himself and others? The necessities of his life, the health of his body, and the in­formation of his mind would require him to be directed by the will of others and not his own; and yet will any one think that this restraint and subjection were inconsistent with, or spoiled him of, that liberty or sovereignty he had a right to, or gave away his empire to those who had the government of his nonage? This government over him only prepared him the better and sooner for it. If anybody should ask me when my son is of age to be free, I shall answer, just when his monarch is of age to govern. " But at what time," says the judicious Hooker (Eccl. Pol., lib. i., s. 6), "a man may be said to have attained so far forth the use of reason as sufficeth to make him capable of those laws whereby he is then bound to guide his actions; this is a great deal more easy for sense to discern than for any one, by skill and learning, to determine."
62. Commonwealths themselves take notice of, and allow that there is a time when men are to begin to act like free men, and therefore, till that time, require not oaths of fealty or allegiance, or other public owning of, or submission to, the government of their countries.
63. The freedom then of man, and liberty of acting ac­cording to his own will, is grounded on his having reason, which is able to instruct him in that law he is to govern himself by, and make him know how far he is left to the freedom of his own will. To turn him loose to an unrestrained liberty, before he has reason to guide him, is not the allowing him the privilege of his nature to be free, but to thrust him out amongst brutes, and abandon him to a state as wretched and as much beneath that of a man as theirs. This is that which puts the authority into the parents' hands to govern the minority of their children. God hath made it their business to employ this care on their offspring, and hath placed in them suitable inclinations of tenderness and concern to temper this power, to apply it as His wisdom designed it, to the children's good as long as they should need to be under it.
64. But what reason can hence advance this care of the parents due to their offspring into an absolute, arbitrary dominion of the father, whose power reaches no farther than by such a discipline as he finds most effectual to give such strength and health to their bodies, such vigour and rectitude to their minds, as may best fit his children to be most useful to themselves and others, and, if it be necessary to his condition, to make them work when they are able for their own subsistence; but in this power the mother, too, has her share with the father.
65. Nay, this power so little belongs to the father by any peculiar right of Nature, but only as he is guardian of his children, that when he quits his care of them he loses his power over them, which goes along with their nourishment and education, to which it is inseparably annexed, and belongs as much to the foster-father of an exposed child as to the natural father of another. So little power does the bare act of begetting give a man over his issue, if all his care ends there, and this be all the title he hath to the name and authority of a father. And what will become of this paternal power in that part of the world where one woman hath more than one husband at a time ? or in those parts of America where, when the husband and wife part, which happens frequently, the children are all left to the mother, follow her, and are wholly under her care and provision? And if the father die whilst the children are young, do they not naturally everywhere owe the same obedience to their mother, during their minority, as to their father, were he alive ? And will any one say that the mother hath a legislative power over her children that she can make standing rules which shall be of perpetual obligation, by which they ought to regulate all the concerns of their property, and bound their liberty all the course of their lives, and enforce the

observation of them with capital punishments? For this is the proper power of the magistrate, of which the father hath not so much as the shadow. His command over his children is but temporary, and reaches not their life or property. It is but a help to the weakness and imperfection of their non­age, a' discipline necessary to their education. And though a father may dispose of his own possessions as he pleases when his children are out of danger of perishing for want, yet his power extends not to the lives or goods which either their own industry, or another's bounty, has made theirs, nor to their liberty neither, when they are once arrived to the enfranchisement of the years of discretion. The father's empire then ceases, and he can from thenceforward no more dispose of the liberty of his son than that of any other man. And it must be far from an absolute or perpetual jurisdic­tion from which a man may withdraw himself, having licence from Divine authority to "leave father and mother and cleave to his wife."
66. But though there be a time when a child comes to be as free from subjection to the will and command of his father as he himself is free from subjection to the will of anybody else, and they are both under no other restraint but that which is common to them both, whether it be the law of Nature or municipal law of their country, yet this freedom exempts not a son from that honour which he ought, by the law of God and Nature, to pay his parents, God having made the parents instruments in His great design of continuing the race of mankind and the occasions of life to their children. As He hath laid on them an obli­gation to nourish, preserve, and bring up their offspring, so He has laid on the children a perpetual obligation of honour­ing their parents, which, containing in it an inward esteem and reverence to be shown by all outward expressions, ties up the child from anything that may ever injure or affront, disturb or endanger the happiness or life of those from whom he received his, and engages him in all actions of defence, relief, assistance, and comfort of those by whose means he entered into being and has been made capable of any enjoyments of life. From this obligation no state, no freedom, can absolve children. But this is very far from giving parents a power of command over their children, or an authority to make laws and dispose as they please of their lives or liberties. It is one thing to owe honour, respect, gratitude, and assistance; another to require an absolute obedience and submission. The honour due to parents a monarch on his throne owes his mother, and yet this lessens not his authority nor subjects him to her government.
67. The subjection of a minor places in the father a tem­porary government which terminates with the minority of the child; and the honour due from a child places in the parents a perpetual right to respect, reverence, support, and compliance, to more or less, as the father's care, cost, and kindness in his education has been more or less, and this ends not with minority, but holds in all parts and conditions of a man's life. The want of distinguishing these two powers which the father hath, in the right of tuition, during minority, and the right of honour all his life, may perhaps have caused a great part of the mistakes about this matter. For, to speak properly of them, the first of these is rather the privilege of children and duty of parents than any prerogative of paternal power. The nourishment and education of their children is a charge so incumbent on parents for their children's good, that nothing can absolve them from taking care of it. And though the power of commanding and chastising them go along with it, yet God hath woven into the principles of human nature such a tenderness for their offspring, that there is little fear that parents should use their power with too much rigour; the excess is seldom on the severe side, the strong bias of nature drawing the other way. And therefore God Almighty, when He would express His gentle dealing with the Israelites, He tells them that though He chastened them, "He chastened them as a man chastens his son" (Deut. viii. 5)—i.e., with tenderness and affection, and kept them under no severer discipline than what was absolutely best for them, and had been less kindness to have slackened. This is that power to which children are commanded obedi­ence, that the pains and care of their parents may not be increased or ill-rewarded.
68. On the other side, honour and support all that which gratitude requires to return; for the benefits received by and from them is the indispensable duty of the child and the proper privilege of the parents. This is intended for the parents' advantage, as the other is for the child's; though education, the parents' duty, seems to have most power,

because the ignorance and infirmities of childhood stand in need of restraint and correction, which is a visible exercise of rule and a kind of dominion. And that duty which is comprehended in the word "honour" requires less obedience, though the obligation be stronger on grown than younger children. For who can think the command, "Children, obey your parents," requires in a man that has children of his own the same submission to his father as it does in his yet young children to him, and that by this precept he were bound to obey all his father's commands, if, out of a conceit of authority, he should have the indiscretion to treat him still as a boy ?
69. The first part, then, of paternal power, or rather duty, which is education, belongs so to the father that it terminates at a certain season. When the business of education is over it ceases of itself, and is also alienable before. For a man may put the tuition of his son in other hands; and he that has made his son an apprentice to another has discharged him, during that time, of a great part of his obedience, both to himself and to his mother. But all the duty of honour, the other part, remains nevertheless entire to them; nothing can cancel that. It is so inseparable from them both, that the father's authority cannot dispossess the mother of this right, nor can any man discharge his son from honouring her that bore him. But both these are very far from a power to make laws, and enforcing them with penalties that may reach estate, liberty, limbs, and life. The power of commanding ends with nonage, and though after that honour and respect, support and defence, and whatsoever gratitude can oblige a man to, for the highest benefits he is naturally capable of be always due from a son to his parents, yet all this puts no sceptre into the father's hand, no sovereign power of commanding. He has no dominion over his son's property or actions, nor any right that his will should prescribe to his son's in all things; how­ever, it may become his son in many things, not very in­convenient to him and his family, to pay a deference to it.
70. A man may owe honour and respect to an ancient or wise man, defence to his child or friend, relief and support to the distressed, and gratitude to a benefactor, to such a degree that all he has, all he can do, cannot sufficiently pay it. But all these give no authority, no right of making laws to any one over him from whom they are owing. And it is plain all this is due, not to the bare title of father, not only because, as has been said, it is owing to the mother too, but because these obligations to parents, and the degrees of what is required of children, may be varied by the different care and kindness, trouble and expense, is often employed upon one child more than another.
71. This shows the reason how it comes to pass that parents in societies, where they themselves are subjects, retain a power over their children and have as much right to their subjection as those who are in the state of Nature, which could not possibly be if all political power were only paternal, and that, in truth, they were one and the same thing; for then, all paternal power being in the prince, the subject could naturally have none of it. But these two powers, political and paternal, are so perfectly distinct and separate, and built upon so different foundations, and given to so different ends, that every subject that is a father has as much a paternal power over his children as the prince has over his. And every prince that has parents owes them as much filial duty and obedience as the meanest of his subjects do to theirs, and can therefore contain not any part or degree of that kind of dominion which a prince or magistrate has over his subject.
72. Though the obligation on the parents to bring up their children, and the obligation on children to honour their parents, contain all the power, on the one hand, and submission on the other, which are proper to this relation, yet there is another power ordinarily in the father, whereby he has a tie on the obedience of his children, which, though it be common to him with other men, yet the occasions of showing it, almost constantly happening to fathers in their private families and in instances of it elsewhere being rare, and less taken notice of, it passes in the world for a part of "paternal jurisdiction." And this is the power men generally have to bestow their estates on those who please them best. The possession of the father being the expect­ation and inheritance of the children ordinarily, in certain proportions, according to the law and custom of each country, yet it is commonly in the father's power to bestow it with a more sparing or liberal hand, according as the behaviour of this or that child hath comported with his will and humour.

73. This is no small tie to the obedience of children; and there being always annexed to the enjoyment of land a submission to the government of the country of which that land is a part, it has been commonly supposed that a father could oblige his posterity to that government of which he himself was a subject, that his compact held them; whereas, it being only a necessary condition annexed to the land which is under that government, reaches only those who will take it on that condition, and so is no natural tie or engagement, but a voluntary submission; for every man's children being, by Nature, as free as himself or any of his ancestors ever were, may, whilst they are in that freedom, choose what society they will join themselves to, what commonwealth they will put themselves under. But if they will enjoy the inheritance of their ancestors, they must take it on the same terms their ancestors had it, and submit to all the conditions annexed to such a possession. By this power, indeed, fathers oblige their children to obedience to themselves even when they are past minority, and most commonly, too, subject them to this or that political power. But neither of these by any peculiar right of fatherhood, but by the reward they have in their hands to enforce and recompense such a compliance, and is no more power than what a Frenchman has over an Englishman, who, by the hopes of an estate he will leave him, will certainly have a strong tie on his obedience; and if when it is left him, he will enjoy it, he must certainly take it upon the conditions annexed to the possession of land in that country where it lies, whether it be France or England.
74. To conclude, then, though the father's power of com­manding extends no farther than the minority of his children, and to a degree only fit for the discipline and government of that age; and though that honour and respect, and all that which the Latins called piety, which they indispensably owe to their parents all their lifetime, and in all estates, with all that support and defence, is due to them, gives the father no power of governing—i.e., making laws and exacting penalties on his children; though by this he has no dominion over the property or actions of his son, yet it is obvious to conceive how easy it was, in the first ages of the world, and in places still where the thinness of people gives families leave to separate into unpossessed quarters, and they have
room to remove and plant themselves in yet vacant habi­tations, for the father of the family to become the prince of it;l he had been a ruler from the beginning of the infancy of his children; and when they were grown up, since without some government it would be hard for them to live together, it was likeliest it should, by the express or tacit consent of the children, be in the father, where it seemed, without any change, barely to continue. And when, indeed, nothing more was required to it than the permitting the father to exercise alone in his family that executive power of the law of Nature which every free man naturally hath, and by that permission resigning up to him a monarchical power whilst they remained in it. But that this was not by any paternal right, but only by the consent of his children, is evident from hence, that nobody doubts but if a stranger, whom chance or business had brought to his family, had there killed any of his children, or committed any other act, he might condemn and put him to death, or otherwise have punished him as well as any of his children, which was impossible he should do by virtue of any paternal authority over one who was not his child, but by virtue of that executive power of the law of Nature which, as a man, he had a right to; and he alone could punish him in his family where the respect of his children had laid by the exercise of such a power, to give way to the dignity and authority they were willing should remain in him above the rest of his family.
75. Thus it was easy and almost natural for children, by a tacit and almost natural consent, to make way for the father's authority and government. They had been accus­tomed in their childhood to follow his direction, and to
111 It is no improbable opinion, therefore, which the arch-philosopher was of, That the chief person in every household was always, as it were, a king; so when numbers of households joined themselves in civil societies together, kings were the first kind of governors among them, which is also, as it seemeth, the reason why the name of fathers continued still in them, who of fathers were made rulers; as also the ancient custom of governors to do as Melchizedec; and being kings, to exercise the office of priests, which fathers did, at the first, grew, perhaps, by the same occasion. Howbeit, this is not the only kind of regimen that has been received in the world. The inconveniencies of one kind have caused sundry others to be devised, so that, in a word, all public regimen, of what kind soever, seemeth evidently to have risen from the deliberate advice, consultation and composition between men, judging it convenient and behoveful, there being no impossibility in Nature, considered by itself, but that man might have lived without any public regimen."—Hooker (Eccl. Pol., lib. i., s. 10).

refer their little differences to him; and when they were men, who was fitter to rule them ? Their little properties and less covetousness seldom afforded greater controversies; and when any should arise, where could they have a fitter umpire than he, by whose care they had every one been sustained and brought up, and who had a tenderness for them all? It is no wonder that they made no distinction betwixt minority and full age, nor looked after one-and-twenty, or any other age, that might make them the free disposers of themselves and fortunes, when they could have no desire to be out of their pupilage. The government they had been under during it continued still to be more their protection than restraint; and they could nowhere find a greater security to their peace, liberties, and fortunes than in the rule of a father.
76. Thus the natural fathers of families, by an insensible change, became the politic monarchs of them too; and as they chanced to live long, and leave able and worthy heirs for several successions or otherwise, so they laid the foun­dations of hereditary or elective kingdoms under several constitutions and manors, according as chance, contrivance, or occasions happened to mould them. But if princes have their titles in the father's right, and it be a sufficient proof of the natural right of fathers to political authority, because they commonly were those in whose hands we find, de facto, the exercise of government, I say, if this argument be good, it will as strongly prove that all princes, nay, princes only, ought to be priests, since it is as certain that in the beginning "the father of the family was priest, as that he was ruler in his own household."

OF POLITICAL OR CIVIL SOCIETY
77. god, having made man such a creature that, in His own judgment, it was not good for him to be alone, put him under strong obligations of necessity, convenience, and inclination, to drive him into society, as well as fitted him
with understanding and language to continue and enjoy it. The first society was between man and wife, which gave beginning to that between parents and children, to which, in time, that between master and servant came to be added. And though all these might, and commonly did, meet to­gether, and make up but one family, wherein the master or mistress of it had some sort of rule proper to a family, each of these, or all together, came short of "political society," as we shall see if we consider the different ends, ties, and bounds of each of these.
78. Conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man and woman, and though it consist chiefly in such a communion and right in one another's bodies as is necessary to its chief end, procreation, yet it draws with it mutual support and assistance, and a communion of interests too, as necessary not only to unite their care and affection, but also necessary to their common offspring, who have a right to be nourished and maintained by them till they are able to provide for themselves.
79. For the end of conjunction between male and female being not barely procreation, but the continuation of the species, this conjunction betwixt male and female ought to last, even after procreation, so long as is necessary to the nourishment and support of the young ones, who are to be sustained by those that got them till they are able to shift and provide for themselves. This rule, which the infinite wise Maker hath set to the works of His hands, we find the inferior creatures steadily obey. In those vivaporous animals which feed on grass the conjunction between male and female lasts no longer than the very act of copulation, because the teat of the dam being sufficient to nourish the young till it be able to feed on grass, the male only begets, but concerns not himself for the female or young, to whose sustenance he can contribute nothing. But in beasts of prey the conjunc­tion lasts longer, because the dam, not being able well to subsist herself and nourish her numerous offspring by her own prey alone (a more laborious as well as more danger­ous way of living than by feeding on grass), the assistance of the male is necessary to the maintenance of their common family, which cannot subsist till they are able to prey for themselves, but by the joint care of male and female. The same is observed in all birds (except some domestic ones,

refer their little differences to him; and when they were men, who was fitter to rule them ? Their little properties and less covetousness seldom afforded greater controversies; and when any should arise, where could they have a fitter umpire than he, by whose care they had every one been sustained and brought up, and who had a tenderness for them all? It is no wonder that they made no distinction betwixt minority and full age, nor looked after one-and-twenty, or any other age, that might make them the free disposers of themselves and fortunes, when they could have no desire to be out of their pupilage. The government they had been under during it continued still to be more their protection than restraint; and they could nowhere find a greater security to their peace, liberties, and fortunes than in the rule of a father.
76. Thus the natural fathers of families, by an insensible change, became the politic monarchs of them too; and as they chanced to live long, and leave able and worthy heirs for several successions or otherwise, so they laid the foun­dations of hereditary or elective kingdoms under several constitutions and manors, according as chance, contrivance, or occasions happened to mould them. But if princes have their titles in the father's right, and it be a sufficient proof of the natural right of fathers to political authority, because they commonly were those in whose hands we find, de facto, the exercise of government, I say, if this argument be good, it will as strongly prove that all princes, nay, princes only, ought to be priests, since it is as certain that in the beginning "the father of the family was priest, as that he was ruler in his own household."
OF POLITICAL OR CIVIL SOCIETY
77. god, having made man such a creature that, in His own judgment, it was not good for him to be alone, put him under strong obligations of necessity, convenience, and inclination, to drive him into society, as well as fitted him
with understanding and language to continue and enjoy it. The first society was between man and wife, which gave beginning to that between parents and children, to which, in time, that between master and servant came to be added. And though all these might, and commonly did, meet to­gether, and make up but one family, wherein the master or mistress of it had some sort of rule proper to a family, each of these, or all together, came short of "political society," as we shall see if we consider the different ends, ties, and bounds of each of these.
78. Conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man and woman, and though it consist chiefly in such a communion and right in one another's bodies as is necessary to its chief end, procreation, yet it draws with it mutual support and assistance, and a communion of interests too, as necessary not only to unite their care and affection, but also necessary to their common offspring, who have a right to be nourished and maintained by them till they are able to provide for themselves.
79. For the end of conjunction between male and female being not barely procreation, but the continuation of the species, this conjunction betwixt male and female ought to last, even after procreation, so long as is necessary to the nourishment and support of the young ones, who are to be sustained by those that got them till they are able to shift and provide for themselves. This rule, which the infinite wise Maker hath set to the works of His hands, we find the inferior creatures steadily obey. In those vivaporous animals which feed on grass the conjunction between male and female lasts no longer than the very act of copulation, because the teat of the dam being sufficient to nourish the young till it be able to feed on grass, the male only begets, but concerns not himself for the female or young, to whose sustenance he can contribute nothing. But in beasts of prey the conjunc­tion lasts longer, because the dam, not being able well to subsist herself and nourish her numerous offspring by her own prey alone (a more laborious as well as more danger­ous way of living than by feeding on grass), the assistance of the male is necessary to the maintenance of their common family, which cannot subsist till they are able to prey for themselves, but by the joint care of male and female. The same is observed in all birds (except some domestic ones,

where plenty of food excuses the cock from feeding and taking care of the young brood), whose young, needing food in the nest, the cock and hen continue mates till the young are able to use their wings and provide for themselves.
80. And herein, I think, lies the chief, if not the only reason, why the male and female in mankind are tied to a longer conjunction than other creatures—viz., because the female is capable of conceiving, and, de facto, is commonly with child again, and brings forth too a new birth, long before the former is out of a dependency for support on his parents' help and able to shift for himself, and has all the assistance due to him from his parents, whereby the father, who is bound to take care for those he hath begot, is under an obligation to continue in conjugal society with the same woman longer than other creatures, whose young, being able to subsist of themselves before the time of procreation returns again, the conjugal bond dissolves of itself, and they are at liberty till Hymen, at his usual anniversary season, summons them again to choose new mates. Wherein one cannot but admire the wisdom of the great Creator, who, having given to man an ability to lay up for the future as well as supply the present necessity, hath made it necessary that society of man and wife should be more lasting than of male and female amongst other creatures, that so their industry might be encouraged, and their interest better united, to make provision and lay up goods for their common issue, which uncertain mixture, or easy and frequent solutions of conjugal society, would mightily disturb.
81. But though these are ties upon mankind which make the conjugal bonds more firm and lasting in a man than the other species of animals, yet it would give one reason to inquire why this compact, where procreation and education are secured and inheritance taken care for, may not be made determinable, either by consent, or at a certain time, or upon certain conditions, as well as any other voluntary compacts, there being no necessity, in the nature of the thing, nor to the ends of it, that it should always be for life—I mean, to such as are under no restraint of any positive law which ordains all such contracts to be perpetual.
82. But the husband and wife, though they have but one common concern, yet having different understandings, will
unavoidably sometimes have different wills too. It there­fore being necessary that the last determination (i.e., the rule) should be placed somewhere, it naturally falls to the man's share as the abler and the stronger. But this, reach­ing but to the things of their common interest and property, leaves the wife in the full and true possession of what by contract is her peculiar right, and at least gives the husband no more power over her than she has over his life; the power of the husband being so far from that of an absolute monarch that the wife has, in many cases, a liberty to separate from him where natural right or their contract allows it, whether that contract be made by themselves in the state of Nature or by the customs or laws of the country they live in, and the children, upon such separation, fall to the father or mother's lot as such contract does determine.
83. For all the ends of marriage being to be obtained under politic government, as well as in the state of Nature, the civil magistrate doth not abridge the right or power of either, naturally necessary to those ends—viz., procreation and mutual support and assistance whilst they are together, but only decides any controversy that may arise between man and wife about them. If it were otherwise, and that absolute sovereignty and power of life and death naturally belonged to the husband, and were necessary to the society between man and wife, there could be no matrimony in any of these countries where the husband is allowed no such absolute authority. But the ends of matrimony requiring no such power in the husband, it was not at all necessary to it. The con­dition of conjugal society put it not in him; but whatsoever might consist with procreation and support of the children till they could shift for themselves—mutual assistance, comfort, and maintenance—might be varied and regulated by that contract which first united them in that society, nothing being necessary to any society that is not necessary to the ends for which it is made.
84. The society betwixt parents and children, and the distinct rights and powers belonging respectively to them, I have treated of so largely in the foregoing chapter that I shall not here need to say anything of it; and I think it is plain that it is far different from a politic society.
85. Master and servant are names as old as history, but given to those of far different condition; for a free man

makes himself a servant to another by selling him for a certain time the service he undertakes to do in exchange for wages he is to receive; and though this commonly puts him into the family of his master, and under the ordinary discipline thereof, yet it gives the master but a temporary power over him, and no greater than what is contained in the contract between them. But there is another sort of servant which by a peculiar name we call slaves, who being captives taken in a just war are, by the right of Nature, subjected to the absolute dominion and arbitrary power of their masters. These men having, as I say, forfeited their lives and, with it, their liberties, and lost their estates, and being in the state of slavery, not capable of any property, cannot in that state be considered as any part of civil society, the chief end whereof is the preservation of property.
86. Let us therefore consider a master of a family with all these subordinate relations of wife, children, servants and slaves, united under the domestic rule of a family, with what resemblance soever it may have in its order, offices, and number too, with a little commonwealth, yet is very far from it both in its constitution, power, and end; or if it must be thought a monarchy, and the paterfamilias the absolute monarch in it, absolute monarchy will have but a very shattered and short power, when it is plain by what has been said before, that the master of the family has a very distinct and differently limited power both as to time and extent over those several persons that are in it; for excepting the slave (and the family is as much a family, and his power as paterfamilias as great, whether there be any slaves in his family or no) he has no legislative power of life and death over any of them, and none too but what a mistress of a family may have as well as he. And he cer­tainly can have no absolute power over the whole family who has but a very limited one over every individual in it. But how a family, or any other society of men, differ from that which is properly political society, we shall best see by considering wherein political society itself consists.
87. Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of Nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power not only to preserve his property—that is, his life, liberty, and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men, but to judge of and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he •'., persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself, in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his opinion, requires it. But because no political society can be, nor subsist, without having in itself the power to pre­serve the property, and in order thereunto punish the offences of all those of that society, there, and there only, is political society where every one of the members hath quitted this natural power, resigned it up into the hands of the com­munity in all cases that exclude him not from appealing for protection to the law established by it. And thus all private judgment of every particular member being excluded, the community comes to be umpire, and by understanding indifferent rules and men authorised by the community for their execution, decides all the differences that may happen between any members of that society concerning any matter of right, and punishes those offences which any member hath committed against the society with such penalties as the law has established; whereby it is easy to discern who are, and are not, in political society together. Those who are united into one body, and have a common established law and judicature to appeal to, with authority to decide controversies between them and punish offenders, are in civil society one with another; but those who have no such common appeal, I mean on earth, are still in the state of Nature, each being where there is no other, judge for himself and executioner; which is, as I have before showed it, the perfect state of Nature.
88. And thus the commonwealth comes by a power to set down what punishment shall belong to the several trans­gressions they think worthy of it, committed amongst the members of that society (which is the power of making laws), as well as it has the power to punish any injury done unto any of its members by any one that is not of it (which is the power of war and peace); and all this for the pre­servation of the property of all the members of that society, as far as is possible. But though every man entered into society has quitted his power to punish offences against the law of Nature in prosecution of his own private judgment, yet with the judgment of offences which he has given up

to the legislative, in all cases where he can appeal to the magistrate, he has given up a right to the commonwealth to employ his force for the execution of the judgments of the commonwealth whenever he shall be called to it, which, indeed, are his own judgments, they being made by himself or his representative. And herein we have the original of the legislative and executive power of civil society, which is to judge by standing laws how far offences are to be punished when committed within the commonwealth; and also by occasional judgments founded on the present cir­cumstances of the fact, how far injuries from without are to be vindicated, and in both these to employ all the force of all the members when there shall be need.
89. Wherever, therefore, any number of men so unite into one society as to quit every one his executive power of the law of Nature, and to resign it to the public, there and there only is a political or civil society. And this is done wherever any number of men, in the state of Nature, enter into society to make one people one body politic under one supreme government: or else when any one joins himself to, and incorporates with any government already made. For hereby he authorises the society, or which is all one, the legislative thereof, to make laws for him as the public good of the society shall require, to the execution whereof his own assistance (as to his own decrees) is due. And this puts men out of a state of Nature into that of a commonwealth, by setting up a judge on earth with authority to determine all the controversies and redress the injuries that may happen to any member of the commonwealth, which judge is the legislative or magistrates appointed by it. And wherever there are any number of men, however associated, that have no such decisive power to appeal to, there they are still in the state of Nature.
90. And hence it is evident that absolute monarchy, which by some men is counted for the only government in the world, is indeed inconsistent with civil society, and so can be no form of civil government at all. For the end of civil society being to avoid and remedy those inconveniencies of the state of Nature which necessarily follow from every man's being judge in his own case, by setting up a known authority to which every one of that society may appeal upon any injury received, or controversy that may arise, and which
every one of the society ought to obey.1 Wherever any persons are who have not such an authority to appeal to, and decide any difference between them there, those persons are still in the state of Nature. And so is every absolute prince in respect of those who are under his dominion.
91. For he being supposed to have all, both legislative and executive, power in himself alone, there is no judge to be found, no appeal lies open to any one, who may fairly and indifferently, and with authority decide, and from whence relief and redress may be expected of any injury or incon-veniency that may be suffered from him, or by his order. So that such a man, however entitled, Czar, or Grand Signior, or how you please, is as much in the state of Nature, with all under his dominion, as he is with the rest of mankind. For wherever any two men are, who have no standing rule and common judge to appeal to on earth, for the determination of controversies of right betwixt them, there they are still in the state of Nature, and under all the inconveniencies of it, with only this woeful difference to the subject, or rather slave of an absolute prince.2 That whereas, in the ordinary state of Nature, he has a liberty to judge of his right, according to the best of his power to maintain it; but when­ever his property is invaded by the will and order of his
1 " The public power of all society is above every soul contained in the same society, and the principal use of that power is to give laws unto all that are under it, which laws in such cases we must obey, unless there be reason showed which may necessarily enforce that the law of reason or of God doth enjoin the contrary."—Hooker (Eccl. Pol., lib. i., s. 16).
* "To take away all such mutual grievances, injuries, and wrongs— i.e., such as attend men in the state of Nature, there was no way but only by growing into composition and agreement amongst themselves by ordaining some kind of government public, and by yielding them­selves subject thereunto, that unto whom they granted authority to rule and govern, by them the peace, tranquillity, and happy estate of the rest might be procured. Men always knew that where force and injury was offered, they might be defenders of themselves. They knew that, however men may seek their own commodity, yet if this were done with injury unto others, it was not to be suffered, but by all men and all good means to be withstood. Finally, they knew that no man might, in reason, take upon him to determine his own right, and according to his own determination proceed in maintenance thereof, in as much as every man is towards himself, and them whom he greatly affects, partial; and therefore, that strifes and troubles would be endless, except they gave their common consent, all to be ordered by some whom they should agree upon, without which consent there would be no reason that one man should take upon him to be lord or judge over another."—Hooker (ibid., s. 10).

monarch, he has not only no appeal, as those in society ought to have, but, as if he were degraded from the common state of rational creatures, is denied a liberty to judge of, or defend his right, and so is exposed to all the misery and in-conveniencies that a man can fear from one, who being in the unrestrained state of Nature, is yet corrupted with flattery and armed with power.
92. For he that thinks absolute power purifies men's blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need read but the history of this, or any other age, to be con­vinced to the contrary. He that would have been insolent and injurious in the woods of America would not probably be much better on a throne, where perhaps learning and religion shall be found out to justify all that he shall do to his subjects, and the sword presently silence all those that dare question it. For what the protection of absolute mon­archy is, what kind of fathers of their countries it makes princes to be, and to what a degree of happiness and security it carries civil society, where this sort of government is grown to perfection, he that will look into the late relation of Ceylon may easily see.
93. In absolute monarchies, indeed, as well as other governments of the world, the subjects have an appeal to the law, and judges to decide any controversies, and restrain any violence that may happen betwixt the subjects them­selves, one amongst another. This every one thinks neces­sary, and believes; he deserves to be thought a declared enemy to society and mankind who should go about to take it away. But whether this be from a true love of mankind and society, and such a charity as we owe all one to another, there is reason to doubt. For this is no more than what every man, who loves his own power, profit, or greatness, may, and naturally must do, keep those animals from hurt­ing or destroying one another who labour and drudge only for his pleasure and advantage; and so are taken care of, not out of any love the master has for them, but love of himself, and the profit they bring him. For if it be asked what security, what fence is there in such a state against the violence and oppression of this absolute ruler, the very question can scarce be borne. They are ready to tell you that it deserves death only to ask after safety. Betwixt subject and subject, they will grant, there must be measures,
laws, and judges for their mutual peace and security. But as for the ruler, he ought to be absolute, and is above all such circumstances; because he has a power to do more hurt and wrong, it is right when he does it. To ask how you may be guarded from harm or injury on that side, where the strongest hand is to do it, is presently the voice of faction and rebellion. As if when men, quitting the state of Nature, entered into society, they agreed that all of them but one should be under the restraint of laws; but that he should still retain all the liberty of the state of Nature, in­creased with power, and made licentious by impunity. This is to think that men are so foolish that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by polecats or foxes, but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions.
94. But, whatever flatterers may talk to amuse people's understandings, it never hinders men from feeling; and when they perceive that any man, in what station soever, is out of the bounds of the civil society they are of, and that they have no appeal, on earth, against any harm they may receive from him, they are apt to think themselves in the state of Nature, in respect of him whom they find to be so; and to take care, as soon as they can, to have that safety and security, in civil society, for which it was first instituted, and for which only they entered into it. And therefore, though perhaps at first, as shall be showed more at large hereafter, in the following part of this discourse, some one good and excellent man having got a pre-eminency amongst the rest, had this deference paid to his goodness and virtue, as to a kind of natural authority, that the chief rule, with arbitration of their differences, by a tacit consent devolved into his hands, without any other caution but the assurance they had of his uprightness and wisdom; yet when time giving authority, and, as some men would persuade us, sacredness to customs, which the negligent and unforeseeing innocence of the first ages began, had brought in successors of another stamp, the people finding their properties not secure under the government as then it was x (whereas government has
*" At the first, when some certain kind of regimen was once ap­pointed, it may be that nothing was then further thought upon for the manner of governing, but all permitted unto their wisdom and discre­tion which were to rule till, by experience, they found this for all parts very inconvenient, so as the thing which they had devised for a remedy


no other end but the preservation of property), could never be safe, nor at rest, nor think themselves in civil society, till the legislative was so placed in collective bodies of men, call them senate, parliament, or what you please, by which means every single person became subject equally, with other the meanest men, to those laws, which he himself, as part of the legislative, had established; nor could any one, by his own authority, avoid the force of the law, when once made, nor by any pretence of superiority plead exemption, thereby to license his own, or the miscarriages of any of his dependants. No man in civil society can be exempted from the laws of it. For if any man may do what he thinks fit and there be no appeal on earth for redress or security against any harm he shall do, I ask whether he be not perfectly still in the state of Nature, and so can be no part or member of that civil society, unless any one will say the state of Nature and civil society are one and the same thing, which I have never yet found any one so great a patron of anarchy as to affirm.1

OF THE BEGINNING OF POLITICAL SOCIETIES
95- men being, as has been said, by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent, which is done by agreeing with other men, to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living, one amongst another, in a secure enjoy­ment of their properties, and a greater security against any that are not of it. This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left, as they were, in the liberty of the state of Nature. When any number
did indeed but increase the sore which it should have cured. They saw that to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery. This constrained them to come unto laws wherein all men might see their duty beforehand, andTrnow the penalties of transgressing them." —Hooker (Eccl. Pol., lib. i., s. 10).
1" Civil law, being the act of the whole body politic, doth there­fore overrule each several part of the same body."—Hooker (ibid.).
of men have so consented to make one community or govern­ment, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest.
96. For, when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority. For that which acts any community, being only the consent of the individuals of it, and it being one body, must move one way, it is necessary the body should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority, or else it is impossible it should act or continue one body, one community, which the con­sent of every individual that united into it agreed that it should; and so every one is bound by that consent to be concluded by the majority. And therefore we see that in assemblies empowered to act by positive laws where no number is set by that positive law which empowers them, the act of the majority passes for the act of the whole, and of course determines as having, by the law of Nature and reason, the power of the whole.
97- And thus every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation to every one of that society to submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded by it; or else this original compact, whereby he with others incorporates into one society, would signify nothing, and be no compact if he be left free and under no other ties than he was in before in the state of Nature. For what appear­ance would there be of any compact? What new engage­ment if he were no farther tied by any decrees of the society than he himself thought fit and did actually consent to? This would be still as great a liberty as he himself had before his compact, or any one else in the state of Nature, who may submit himself and consent to any acts of it if he thinks fit.
98. For if the consent of the majority shall not in reason be received as the act of the whole, and conclude every individual, nothing but the consent of every individual can rnake anything to be the act of the whole, which, consider-Hig the infirmities of health and avocations of business, which in a number though much less than that of a common-


CIVIL GOVERNMENT
wealth, will necessarily keep many away from the public assembly; and the variety of opinions and contrariety of interests which unavoidably happen in all collections of men, it is next impossible ever ,to be had. And, therefore, if coming into society be upon- such terms, it will be only like Cato's coming into the theatre, tantum ut exiret. Such a constitution as this would make the mighty leviathan of a shorter duration than the feeblest creatures, and not let it outlast the day it was born in, which cannot be supposed till we can think that rational creatures should desire and constitute societies only to be dissolved. For where the majority cannot conclude the rest, there they cannot act as one body, and consequently will be immediately dissolved again.
99. Whosoever, therefore, out of a state of Nature unite into a community, must be understood to give up all the power necessary to the ends for which they unite into society to the majority of the community, unless they ex­pressly agreed in any number greater than the majority. And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one political society, which is all the compact that is, or needs be, between the individuals that enter into or make up a commonwealth. And thus, that which begins and actually constitutes any political society is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of majority, to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and that only, which did or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world.
100. To this I find two objections made: i. That there are no instances to be found in story of a company of men, independent and equal one amongst another, that met to­gether, and in this way began and set up a government. 2. It is impossible of right that men should do so, because all men, being born under government, they are to submit to that, and are not at liberty to begin a new one.
101. To the first there is this to answer: That it is not at all to be wondered that history gives us but a very little account of men that lived together in the state of Nature. The inconveniencies of that condition, and the love and want of society, no sooner brought any number of them together, but they presently united and incorporated if they designed to continue together. And if we may not suppose men ever to have been in the state of Nature, because we hear not much of them in such a state, we may as well sup­pose the armies of Salmanasser or Xerxes were never chil­dren, because we hear little of them till they were men and embodied in armies. Government is everywhere antecedent to records, and letters seldom come in amongst a people till a long continuation of civil society has, by other more necessary arts, provided for their safety, ease, and plenty. And then they begin to look after the history of their founders, and search into their original when they have outlived the memory of it. For it is with commonwealths as with parti­cular persons, they are commonly ignorant of their own births and infancies; and if they know anything of it, they are beholding for it to the accidental records that others have kept of it. And those that we have of the beginning of any polities in the world, excepting that of the Jews, where God Himself immediately interposed, and which favours not at all paternal dominion, are all either plain instances of such a beginning as I have mentioned, or at least have manifest footsteps of it.
102. He must show a strange inclination to deny evident matter of fact, when it agrees not with his hypothesis, who will not allow that the beginning of Rome and Venice were by the uniting together of several men, free and independent one of another, amongst whom there was no natural superi­ority or subjection. And if Josephus Acosta's word may be taken, he tells us that in many parts of America there was no government at all. "There are great and apparent con­jectures," says he, "that these men (speaking of those of Peru) for a long time had neither kings nor commonwealths, but lived in troops, as they do this day in Florida—the Cheriquanas, those of Brazil, and many other nations, which have no certain kings, but, as occasion is offered in peace or war, they choose their captains as they please" (lib. i. cap. 25). If it be said, that every man there was born subject to his father, or the head of his family, that the subjection due from a child to a father took not away his freedom of uniting into what political society he thought fit, has been already proved; but be that as it will, these men, it is evident, were actually free; and whatever superiority some politicians now would place in any of them, they themselves claimed it not; but, by consent, were all equal, till, by the same


consent, they set rulers over themselves. So that their politic societies all began from a voluntary union, and the mutual agreement of men freely acting in the choice of their governors and forms of government.
103. And I hope those who went away from Sparta, with Palantus, mentioned by Justin, will be allowed to have been freemen independent one of another, and to have set up a government over themselves by their own consent. Thus I have given several examples out of history of people, free and in the state of Nature, that, being met together, incorporated and began a commonwealth. And if the want of such instances be an argument to prove that government were not nor could not be so begun, I suppose the contenders for paternal empire were better let it alone than urge it against natural liberty; for if they can give so many instances out of history of governments began upon paternal right, I think (though at least an argument from what has been to what should of right be of no great force) one might, with­out any great danger, yield them the cause. But if I might advise them in the case, they would do well not to search too much into the original of governments as they have begun de facto, lest they should find at the foundation of most of them something very little favourable to the design they promote, and such a power as they contend for.
104. But, to conclude: reason being plain on our side that men are naturally free; and the examples of history showing that the governments of the world, that were begun in peace, had their beginning laid on that foundation, and were made by the consent of the people; there can be little room for doubt, either where the right is, or what has been the opinion or practice of mankind about the first erecting of governments.
105. I will not deny that if we look back, as far as history will direct us, towards the original of commonwealths, we shall generally find them under the government and adminis­tration of one man. And I am also apt to believe that where a family was numerous enough to subsist by itself, and continued entire together, without mixing with others, as it often happens, where there is much land and few people, the government commonly began in the father. For the father having, by the law of Nature, the same power, with every man else, to punish, as he thought fit, any offences
against that law, might thereby punish his transgressing children, even when they were men, and out of their pupil­age; and they were very likely to submit to his punishment, and all join with him against the offender in their turns, giving him thereby power to execute his sentence against any transgression, and so, in effect, make him the law-maker and governor over all that remained in conjunction with his family. He was fittest to be trusted; paternal affection secured their property and interest under his care, and the custom of obeying him in their childhood made it easier to submit to him rather than any other. If, therefore, they must have one to rule them, as government is hardly to be avoided amongst men that live together, who so likely to be the man as he that was their common father, unless negli­gence, cruelty, or any other defect of mind or body, made him unfit for it? But when either the father died, and left his next heir—for want of age, wisdom, courage, or any other qualities—less fit for rule, or where several families met and consented to continue together, there, it is not to be doubted, but they used their natural freedom to set up him whom they judged the ablest and most likely to rule well over them. Conformable hereunto we find the people of America, who— living out of the reach of the conquering swords and spread­ing domination of the two great empires of Peru and Mexico —enjoyed their own natural freedom, though, cateris paribus, they commonly prefer the heir of their deceased king; yet, if they find him any way weak or incapable, they pass him by, and set up the stoutest and bravest man for their ruler.
106. Thus, though looking back as far as records give us any account of peopling the world, and the history of nations, we commonly find the government to be in one hand, yet it destroys not that which I affirm—viz., that the beginning of politic society depends upon the consent of the individuals to join into and make one society, who, when they are thus incorporated, might set up what form of government they thought fit. But this having given occasion to men to mis­take and think that, by Nature, government was monarchi­cal, and belonged to the father, it may not be amiss here to consider why people, in the beginning, generally pitched upon this form, which, though perhaps the father's pre-enunency might, in the first institution of some common­wealths, give a rise to and place in the beginning the power

in one hand, yet it is plain that the reason that continued the form of government in a single person was not any regard or respect to paternal authority, since all petty monarchies— that is, almost all monarchies, near their original, have been commonly, at least upon occasion, elective.
107. First, then, in the beginning of things, the father's government of the childhood of those sprung from him having accustomed them to the rule of one man, and taught them that where it was exercised with care and skill, with affection and love to those under it, it was sufficient to pro­cure and preserve men (all the political happiness they sought for in society), it was no wonder that they should pitch upon and naturally run into that form of government which, from their infancy, they had been all accustomed to, and which, by experience, they had found both easy and safe. To which if we add, that monarchy being simple and most obvious to men, whom neither experience had in­structed in forms of government, nor the ambition or insolence of empire had taught to beware of the encroachments of pre­rogative or the inconveniencies of absolute power, which monarchy, in succession, was apt to lay claim to and bring upon them; it was not at all strange that they should not much trouble themselves to think of methods of restraining any exorbitances of those to whom they had given the authority over them, and of balancing the power of govern­ment by placing several parts of it in different hands. They had neither felt the oppression of tyrannical dominion, nor did the fashion of the age, nor their possessions or way of living, which afforded little matter for covetousness or ambition, give them any reason to apprehend or provide against it; and, therefore, it is no wonder they put them­selves into such a frame of government as was not only, as I said, most obvious and simple, but also best suited to their present state and condition, which stood more in need of defence against foreign invasions and injuries than of multi­plicity of laws where there was but very little property, and wanted not variety of rulers and abundance of officers to direct and look after their execution where there were but few trespassers and few offenders. Since, then, those who liked one another so well as to join into society cannot but be supposed to have some acquaintance and friendship together, and some trust one in another, they could not but have greater apprehensions of others than of one another; and, therefore, their first care and thought cannot but be supposed to be, how to secure themselves against foreign force. It was natural for them to put themselves under a frame of government which might best serve to that end, and choose the wisest and bravest man to conduct them in their wars and lead them out against their enemies, and in this chiefly be their ruler.
108. Thus we see that the kings of the Indians, in America, which is still a pattern of the first ages in Asia and Europe, whilst the inhabitants were too few for the country, and want of people and money gave men no temptation to en­large their possessions of land or contest for wider extent of ground, are little more than generals of their armies; and though they command absolutely in war, yet at home, and in time of peace, they exercise very little dominion, and have but a very moderate sovereignty, the resolutions of peace and war being ordinarily either in the people or in a council, though the war itself, which admits not of pluralities of governors, naturally evolves the command into the king's sole authority.
109. And thus, in Israel itself, the chief business of their judges and first kings seems to have been to be captains in war and leaders of their armies, which (besides what is signi­fied by "going out and in before the people," which was, to march forth to war and home again at the heads of their forces) appears plainly in the story of Jephtha. The Am­monites making war upon Israel, the Gileadites, in fear, send to Jephtha, a bastard of their family, whom they had cast off, and article with him, if he will assist them against the Ammonites, to make him their ruler, which they do in these words: "And the people made him head and captain over them" (Judges xi. n), which was, as it seems, all one as to be judge. "And he judged Israel" (Judges xii. 7)—that is, was their captain-general—"six years." So when Jotham upbraids the Shechemites with the obligation they had to Gideon, who had been their judge and ruler, he tells them: "He fought for you, and adventured his life for, and deli­vered you out of the hands of Midian" (Judges ix. 17). Nothing mentioned of him but what he did as a general, and, indeed, that is all is found in his history, or in any of the rest of the judges. And Abimelech particularly is called

king, though at most he was but their general. And when, being weary of the ill-conduct of Samuel's sons, the children of Israel desired a king, "like all the nations, to judge them, and to go out before them, and to fight their battles" (i Sam. viii. 20), God, granting their desire, says to Samuel, "I will send thee a man, and thou shalt anoint him to be captain over my people Israel, that he may save my people out of the hands of the Philistines". As if the only business of a king had been to lead out their armies and fight in their defence; and, accordingly, at his inauguration, pouring a vial of oil upon him, declares to Saul that "the Lord had anointed him to be captain over his inheritance". And therefore those who, after Saul being solemnly chosen and saluted king by the tribes at Mispah, were unwilling to have him their king, make no other objection but this, "How shall this man save us?", as if they should have said: "This man is unfit to be our king, not having skill and conduct enough in war to be able to defend us." And when God resolved to transfer the govern­ment to David, it is in these words: "But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought Him a man after His own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over His people". As if the whole kingly authority were nothing else but to be their general; and therefore the tribes who had stuck to Saul's family, and opposed David's reign, when they came to Hebron with terms of submission to him, they tell him, amongst other arguments, they had to submit to him as to their king, that he was, in effect, their king in Saul's time, and therefore they had no reason but to receive him as their king now. "Also," say they, "in time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel, and the Lord said unto thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel."
no. Thus, whether a family, by degrees, grew up into a commonwealth, and the fatherly authority being continued on to the elder son, every one in his turn growing up under it tacitly submitted to it, and the easiness and equality of it not offending any one, every one acquiesced till time seemed to have confirmed it and settled a right of succession by prescription; or whether several families, or the descendants of several families, whom chance, neighbourhood, or business brought together, united into society; the need of a general whose conduct might defend them against their enemies in war, and the great confidence the innocence and sincerity of that poor but virtuous age, such as are almost all those which begin governments that ever come to last in the world, gave men one of another, made the first beginners of commonwealths generally put the rule into one man's hand, without any other express limitation or restraint but what the nature of the thing and the end of government required. It was given them for the public good and safety, and to those ends, in the infancies of commonwealths, they com­monly used it; and unless they had done so, young societies could not have subsisted. Without such nursing fathers, without this care of the governors, all governments would have sunk under the weakness and infirmities of their in­fancy, the prince and the people had soon perished together. in. But the golden age (though before vail* ambition, and amor sceleratus habendi, evil concupiscence had corrupted men's minds into a mistake of true power and honour) had more virtue, and consequently better governors, as well as less vicious subjects; and there was then no stretching prerogative on the one side to oppress the people, nor, consequently, on the other, any dispute about privilege, to lessen or restrain the power of the magistrate; and so no contest betwixt rulers and people about governors or govern­ment.1 Yet, when ambition and luxury, in future ages, would retain and increase the power, without doing the business for which it was given, and aided by flattery,% taught princes to have distinct and separate interests from their people, men found it necessary to examine more carefully the original and rights of government, and to find out ways to restrain the exorbitances and prevent the abuses of that power, which they having entrusted in another's hands, only for their own good, they found was made use of to hurt them.
1" At the first, when some certain kind of regimen was once approved, it maybe that nothing was then further thought upon for the manner of governing, but all permitted unto their wisdom and discretion, which were to rule till, by experience, they found this for all parts very incon­venient, so as the thing which they had devised for a remedy did indeed but increase the sore which it should have cured. They saw
*oat to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery.
A"1? constrained them to come unto laws wherein all men might see
neir duty beforehand, and know the penalties of transgressing them."
—Hooker (Eccl. Pol., lib. i., s. 10).

112. Thus we may see how probable it is that people that were naturally free, and, by their own consent, either submitted to the government of their father, or united together, out of different families, to make a government, should generally put the rule into one man's hands, and choose to be under the conduct of a single person, without so much, as by express conditions, limiting or regulating his power, which they thought safe enpugh in his honesty and prudence; though they never dreamed of monarchy being jure Divino, which we never heard of among mankind till it was revealed to us by the divinity of this last age, nor ever allowed paternal power to have a right to dominion or to be the foundation of all government. And thus much may suffice to show that, as far as we have any light from history, we have reason to conclude that all peaceful be­ginnings of government have been laid in the consent of the people. I say "peaceful," because I shall have occasion, in another place, to speak of conquest, which some esteem a way of beginning of governments.
The other objection, I find, urged against the beginning of polities, in the way I have mentioned, is this, viz.:
113. "That all men being born under government, some or other, it is impossible any of them should ever be free and at liberty to unite together and begin a new one, or ever be able to erect a lawful government." If this argu­ment be good, I ask, How came so many lawful monarchies into the world? For if anybody, upon this supposition, can show me any one man, in any age of the world, free to begin a lawful monarchy, I will be bound to show him ten other free men at liberty, at the same time, to unite and begin a new government under a regal or any other form. It being demonstration that if any one born under the dominion of another may be so free as to have a right to command others in a new and distinct empire, every one that is born under the dominion of another may be so free too, and may become a ruler or subject of a distinct separate government. And so, by this their own principle, either all men, however born, are free, or else there is but one lawful prince, one lawful government in the world; and then they have nothing to do but barely to show us which that is, which, when they have done, I doubt not but all mankind will easily agree to pay obedience to him. 114. Though it be a sufficient answer to their objection to show that it involves them in the same difficulties that it doth those they use it against, yet I shall endeavour to discover the weakness of this argument a little farther.
"All men," say they, "are born under government, and therefore they cannot be at liberty to begin a new one. Every one is born a subject to his father or his prince, and is therefore under the perpetual tie of subjection and alle­giance." It is plain mankind never owned nor considered any such natural subjection that they were born in, to one or to the other, that tied them, without their own consents, to a subjection to them and their heirs.
115. For there are no examples so frequent in history, both sacred and profane, as those of men withdrawing themselves and their obedience from the jurisdiction they were born under, and the family or community they were bred up in, and setting up new governments in other places, from whence sprang all that number of petty common­wealths in the beginning of ages, and which always multi­plied as long as there was room enough, till the stronger or more fortunate swallowed the weaker; and those great ones, again breaking to pieces, dissolved into lesser domi­nions; all which are so many testimonies against paternal sovereignty, and plainly prove that it was not the natural right of the father descending to his heirs that made gov­ernments in the beginning; since it was impossible, upon that ground, there should have been so many little king­doms but only one universal monarchy if men had not been at liberty to separate themselves from their families and their government, be it what it will that was set up in it, and go and make distinct commonwealths and other govern­ments as they thought fit.
116. This has been the practice of the world from its first beginning to this day; nor is it now any more hindrance to the freedom of mankind, that they are born under con­stituted and ancient polities that have established laws and set forms of government, than if they were born in the woods amongst the unconfined inhabitants that run loose in them. For those who would persuade us that by being born under any government we are naturally subjects to it, and have no more any title or pretence to the freedom of the state of Nature, have no other reason (bating that of


paternal power, which we have already answered) to pro­duce for it, but only because our fathers or progenitors passed away their natural liberty, and thereby bound up themselves and their posterity to a perpetual subjection to the government which they themselves submitted to. It is true that whatever engagements or promises any one made for himself, he is under the obligation of them, but cannot by any compact whatsoever bind his children or posterity. For his son, when a man, being altogether as free as the father, any act of the father can no more give away the liberty of the son than it can of anybody else. He may, in­deed, annex such conditions to the land he enjoyed, as a subject of any commonwealth, as may oblige his son to be of that community, if he will enjoy those possessions which were his father's, because that estate being his father's pro­perty, he may dispose or settle it as he pleases.
117. And this has generally given the occasion to the mistake in this matter; because commonwealths not per­mitting any part of their dominions to be dismembered, nor to be enjoyed by any but those of their community, the son cannot ordinarily enjoy the possessions of his father but under the same terms his father did, by becoming a member of the society, whereby he puts himself presently under the government he finds there established, as much as any other subject of that commonweal. And thus the consent of free men, born under government, which only makes them members of it, being given separately in their turns, as each comes to be of age, and not in a multitude together, people take no notice of it, and thinking it not done at all, or not necessary, conclude they are naturally subjects as they are men.
118. But it is plain governments themselves understand it otherwise; they claim no power over the son because of that they had over the father; nor look on children as being their subjects, by their fathers being so. If a subject of England have a child by an Englishwoman in France, whose subject is he? Not the King of England's; for he must have leave to be admitted to the privileges of it. Nor the King of France's, for how then has his father a liberty to bring him away, and breed him as he pleases; and who­ever was judged as a traitor or deserter, if he left, or warred against a country, for being barely born in it of parents that were aliens there? It is plain, then, by the practice of governments themselves, as well as by the law of right reason, that a child is born a subject of no country nor government. He is under his father's tuition and authority till he come to age of discretion, and then he is a free man, at liberty what government he will put himself under, what body politic he will unite himself to. For if an Englishman's son born in France be at liberty, and may do so, it is evident there is no tie upon him by his father being a subject of that kingdom, nor is he bound up by any compact of his an­cestors ; and why then hath not his son, by the same reason, the same liberty, though he be born anywhere else? Since the power that a father hath naturally over his children is the same wherever they be born, and the ties of natural obligations are not bounded by the positive limits of kingdoms and commonwealths.
119. Every man being, as has been showed, naturally free, and nothing being able to put him into subjection to any earthly power, but only his own consent, it is to be considered what shall be understood to be a sufficient declaration of a man's consent to make him subject to the laws of any government. There is a common distinction of an express and a tacit consent, which will concern our present case. Nobody doubts but an express consent of any man, entering into any society, makes him a perfect member of that society, a subject of that government. The difficulty is, what ought to be looked upon as a tacit consent, and how far it binds—i.e., how far any one shall be looked on to have consented, and thereby submitted to any government, where he has made no expressions of it at all. And to this I say, that every man that hath any possession, or enjoyment of any part of the dominions of any govern­ment doth hereby give his tacit consent, and is as far forth obliged to obedience to the laws of that government, during such enjoyment, as any one under it, whether this his pos­session be of land to him and his heirs for ever, or a lodging °nly for a week; or whether it be barely travelling freely on the highway; and, in effect, it reaches as far as the very being of any one within the territories of that government.
120. To understand this the better, it is fit to consider that every man when he at first incorporates himself into any commonwealth, he, by his uniting himself thereunto,

CIVIL GOVERNMENT
annexes also, and submits to the community those pos­sessions which he has, or shall acquire, that do not already belong to any other government. For it would be a direct contradiction for any one to enter into society with others for the securing and regulating of property, and yet to sup­pose his land, whose property is to be regulated by the laws of the society, should be exempt from the jurisdiction of that government to which he himself, and the property of the land, is a subject. By the same act, therefore, whereby any one unites his person, which was before free, to any commonwealth, by the same he unites his possessions, which were before free, to it also; and they become, both of them, person and possession, subject to the government and dominion of that commonwealth as long as it hath a being. Whoever therefore, from thenceforth, by inherit­ance, purchases permission, or otherwise enjoys any part of the land so annexed to, and under the government of that commonweal, must take it with the condition it is under— that is, of submitting to the government of the common­wealth, under whose jurisdiction it is, as far forth as any subject of it.
121. But since the government has a direct jurisdiction only over the land and reaches the possessor of it (before he has actually incorporated himself in the society) only as he dwells upon and enjoys that, the obligation any one is under by virtue of such enjoyment to submit to the government begins and ends with the enjoyment; so that whenever the' owner, who has given nothing but such a tacit consent to the government will, by donation, sale or otherwise, quit the said possession, he is at liberty to go and incorporate himself into any other commonwealth, or agree with others to begin a new one in vacuis locis, in any part of the world they can find free and unpossessed; whereas he that has once, by actual agreement and any express declaration, given his consent to be of any commonweal, is perpetually and indispensably obliged to be, and remain unalterably a subject to it, and can never be again in the liberty of the state of Nature, unless by any calamity the government he was under comes to be dissolved.
122. But submitting to the laws of any country, living quietly and enjoying privileges and protection under them, makes not a man a member of that society; it is only a local protection and homage due to and from all those who, not being in a state of war, come within the territories belonging to any government, to all parts whereof the force of its law extends. But this no more makes a man a member of that society, a perpetual subject of that commonwealth, than it would make a man a subject to another in whose family he found it convenient to abide for some time, though, whilst he continued in it, he were obliged to comply with the laws and submit to the government he found there. And thus we see that foreigners, by living all their lives under another government, and enjoying the privileges and protection of it, though they are bound, even in conscience, to submit to its administration as far forth as any denizen, yet do not thereby come to be subjects or members of that commonwealth. Nothing can make any man so but his actually entering into it by positive engagement and express promise and compact. This is that which, I think, concerning the beginning of political societies, and that consent which makes any one a member of any commonwealth*

OF THE ENDS OF POLITICAL SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENT
123. if man in the state of Nature be so free as has been said, if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest and subject to nobody, why will he part with his freedom, this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and control of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of Nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very un­certain and constantly exposed to the invasion of others; for all being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very insecure. This makes him willing to quit this condition which, however free, is full of fears and continual dangers; and it is not without reason that he seeks out and is Willing to join in society with others who are already united,

or have a mind to unite for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name—property.
124 The great and chief end, therefore, of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under govern­ment, is the preservation of their property; to which in the state of Nature there are many things wanting.
Firstly, there wants an established, settled, known law, received and allowed by common consent to be the standard of right and wrong, and the common measure to decide all controversies between them. For though the law of Nature be plain and intelligible to all rational creatures, yet men, being biased by their interest, as well as ignorant for want of study of it, are not apt to allow of it as a law binding to them in the application of it to their particular cases.
125. Secondly, in the state of Nature there wants a known and indifferent judge, with authority to determine all differ­ences according to the established law. For every one in that state being both judge and executioner of the law of Nature, men being partial to themselves, passion and re­venge is very apt to carry them too far, and with too much heat in their own cases, as well as negligence and uncon-cernedness, make them too remiss in other men's.
126. Thirdly, in the state of Nature there often wants power to back and support the sentence when right, and to give it due execution. They who by any injustice offended will seldom fail where they are able by force to make good their injustice. Such resistance many times makes the punishment dangerous, and frequently destructive to those who attempt it.
127. Thus mankind, notwithstanding all the privileges of the state of Nature, being but in an ill condition while they remain in it are quickly driven into society. Hence it comes to pass, that we seldom find any number of men live any time together in this state. The inconveniencies that they are therein exposed to by the irregular and uncertain exercise of the power every man has of punishing the transgressions of others, make them take sanctuary under the established laws of government, and therein seek the preservation of their property. It is this makes them so willingly give up every one his single power of punishing to be exercised by such alone as shall be appointed to it amongst them, and by such rules as the community, or those authorised by them to that purpose, shall agree on. And in this we have the original right and rise of both the legislative and exe­cutive power as well as of the governments and societies themselves.
128. For in the state of Nature to omit the liberty he has of innocent delights, a man has two powers. The first is to do whatsoever he thinks fit for the preservation of himself and others within the permission of the law of Nature; by which law, common to them all, he and all the rest of mankind are one community, make up one society distinct from all other creatures, and were it not for the corruption and viciousness of degenerate men, there would be no need of any other, no necessity that men should separate from this great and natural community, and asso­ciate into lesser combinations. The other power a man has in the state of Nature is the power to punish the crimes committed against that law. Both these he gives up when he joins in a private, if I may so call it, or particular political society, and incorporates into any commonwealth separate from the rest of mankind.
I29- The first power—viz., of doing whatsover he thought fit for the preservation of himself and the rest of mankind, he gives up to be regulated by laws made by the society, so far forth as the preservation of himself and the rest of that society shall require; which laws of the society in many things confine the liberty he had by the law of Nature.
130. Secondly, the power of punishing he wholly gives up, and engages his natural force, which he might before employ in the execution of the law of Nature, by his own single authority, as he thought fit, to assist the executive power of the society as the law thereof shall require. For being now in a new state, wherein he is to enjoy many con-veniencies from the labour, assistance, and society of others m the same community, as well as protection from its whole strength, he is to part also with as much of his natural liberty, m providing for himself, as the good, prosperity, and safety pf the society shall require, which is not only necessary but Just, since the other members of the society do the like.
131. But though men when they enter into society give UP the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of Nature in the hands of the society, to be so far

CIVIL GOVERNMENT
disposed of by the legislative as the good of the society shall require, yet it being only with an intention in every one the better to preserve himself, his liberty and property (for no rational creature can be supposed to change his condition with an intention to be worse), the power of the society or legislative constituted by them can never be supposed to extend farther than the common good, but is obliged to secure every one's property by providing against those three defects above mentioned that made the state of Nature so unsafe and uneasy. And so, whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees, by indifferent and upright judges, who are to decide controversies by those laws; and to employ the force of the community at home only in the execution of such laws, or abroad to prevent or redress foreign injuries and secure the community from inroads and invasion. And all this to be directed to no other end but the peace, safety, and public good of the people.
think good. And if the legislative power be at first given by the majority to one or more persons only for their lives, or any limited time, and then the supreme power to revert to them again, when it is so reverted the community may dispose of it again anew into what hands they please, and so constitute a new form of government; for the form of government depending upon the placing the supreme power, which is the legislative, it being impossible to con­ceive that an inferior power should prescribe to a superior, or any but the supreme make laws, according as the power of making laws is placed, such is the form of the commonwealth. 133. By "commonwealth" I must be understood all along to mean not a democracy, or any form of govern­ment, but any independent community which the Latins signified by the word civitas, to which the word which best answers in our language is "commonwealth," and most properly expresses such a society of men which "commu­nity" does not (for there may be subordinate communities in a government), and "city" much less. And therefore, to avoid ambiguity, I crave leave to use the word "common­wealth" in that sense, in which sense I find the word used by King James himself, which I think to be its genuine signification, which, if anybody dislike, I consent with him to change it for a better.

OF THE FORMS OF A COMMONWEALTH
132. the majority having, as has been showed, upon men's first uniting into society, the whole power of the com­munity naturally in them, may employ all that power in making laws for the community from time to time, and executing those laws by officers of their own appointing, and then the form of the government is a perfect democracy; or else may put the power of making laws into the hands of a few select men, and their heirs or successors, and then it is an oligarchy; or else into the hands of one man, and then it is a monarchy; if to him and his heirs, it is a here­ditary monarchy; if to him only for life, but upon his death the power only of nominating a successor, to return to them, an elective monarchy. And so accordingly of these make compounded and mixed forms of government, as they

OF THE EXTENT OF THE LEGISLATIVE POWER
134. the great end of men's entering into society being the enjoyment of their properties in peace and safety, and the great instrument and means of that being the laws established in that society, the first and fundamental positive law of all commonwealths is the establishing of the legis­lative power, as the first and fundamental natural law which is to govern even the legislative. Itself is the preser­vation of the society and (as far as will consist with the pub-"c good) of every person in it. this legislative is not only the supreme power of the commonwealth, but sacred and

CIVIL GOVERNMENT
unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it. Nor can any edict of anybody else, in what form soever conceived, or by what power soever backed, have the force and obligation of a law which has not its sanction from that legislative which the public has chosen and ap­pointed; for without this the law could not have that which is absolutely necessary to its being a law, the consent of the society, over whom nobody can have a power to make laws1 but by their own consent and by authority received from them; and therefore all the obedience, which by the most solemn ties any one can be obliged to pay, ultimately terminates in this supreme power, and is directed by those laws which it enacts. Nor can any oaths to any foreign power whatsoever, or any domestic subordinate power, discharge any member of the society from his obedience to the legislative, acting pursuant to their trust, nor oblige him to any obedience contrary to the laws so enacted or farther than they do allow, it being ridiculous to imagine one can be tied ultimately to obey any power in the society which is not the supreme.
35- Though the legislative, whether placed in one or more, whether it be always in being or only by intervals, though it be the supreme power in every commonwealth, yet, first, it is not, nor can possibly be, absolutely arbitrary over the lives and fortunes of the people. For it being but the joint power of every member of the society given up to that person or assembly which is legislator, it can be no more than those persons had in a state of Nature before they entered into society, and gave it up to the community.
1" The lawful power of making laws to command whole politic societies of men, belonging so properly unto the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate, of what kind soever upon earth, to exercise the same of himself, and not by express commission imme­diately and personally received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their consent, upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny. Laws they are not, therefore, which public approbation hath not made so."—Hooker (Eccl. Pol., lib. i., s. 10). "Of this point, therefore, we are to note that such men naturally have no full and perfect power to command whole politic multitudes of men, therefore utterly without our consent we could in such sort be at no man's commandment living. And to be commanded, we do consent when that society, whereof we be a part, hath at any time before consented, without revoking the same after by the like universal agreement.
" Laws therefore human, of what kind soever, are available by consent."—Hooker (Eccl. Pol.).
TRUE END OF GOVERNMENT
For nobody can transfer to another more power than he has in himself, and nobody has an absolute arbitrary power over himself, or over any other, to destroy his own life, or take away the life or property of another. A man, as has been proved, cannot subject himself to the arbitrary power of another; and having, in the state of Nature, no arbitrary power over the life, liberty, or possession of another, but only so much as the law of Nature gave him for the preser­vation of himself and the rest of mankind, this is all he doth, or can give up to the commonwealth, and by it to the legislative power, so that the legislative can have no more than this. Their power in the utmost bounds of it is limited to the public good of the society.1 It is a power that hath no other end but preservation, and therefore can never have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly to impoverish the subjects; the obligations of the law of Nature cease not in society, but only in many cases are drawn closer, and have, by human laws, known penalties annexed to them to enforce their observation. Thus the law of Nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they make for other men's actions must, as well as their own and other men's actions, be comformable to the law of Nature—i.e., to the will of God, of which that is a declaration, and the fundamental law of Nature being the preservation of mankind, no human sanction can be good or valid against it.
136. Secondly, the legislative or supreme authority cannot assume to itself a power to rule by extemporary arbitrary decrees, but is bound to dispense justice and decide the rights of the subject by promulgated standing
1" Two foundations there are which bear up public societies; the one a natural inclination whereby all men desire sociable life and fellowship; the other an order, expressly or secretly agreed upon, touching the manner of their union in living together. The latter is that which we call the law of a commonweal, the very soul of a politic body, the parts whereof are by law animated, held together, and set on work in such actions as the common good requireth. Laws politic, ordained for external order and regimen amongst men, are never framed as they should be, unless presuming the will of man to be inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedience to the sacred laws of his nature; in a word, unless presuming man to be in regard of his depraved mind little better than a wild beast, they do accordingly provide notwithstanding, so to frame his outward actions, that they be no hindrance unto the common good, for which societies are instituted. Unless they do this they are not perfect."—Hooker (Eccl. Pol., lib. i., s. 10.). laws,1 and known authorised judges. For the law of Nature being unwritten, and so nowhere to be found but in the minds of men, they who, through passion or interest, shall miscite or misapply it, cannot so easily be convinced of their mistake where there is no established judge; and so it serves not as it aught, to determine the rights and fence the properties of those that live under it, especially where every one is judge, interpreter, and executioner of it too, and that in his own case; and he that has right on his side, having ordinarily but his own single strength, hath not force enough to defend himself from injuries or punish delinquents. To avoid these inconveniencies which disorder men's properties in the state of Nature, men unite into societies that they may have the united strength of the whole society to secure and defend their properties, and may have standing rules to bound it by which every one may know what is his. To this end it is that men give up all their natural power to the society they enter into, and the community put the legis­lative power into such hands as they think fit, with this trust, that they shall be governed by declared laws, or else their peace, quiet, and property will still be at the same uncertainty as it was in the state of Nature.
137. Absolute arbitrary power, or governing without settled standing laws, can neither of them consist with the ends of society and government, which men would not quit the freedom of the state of Nature for, and tie themselves up under, were it not to preserve their lives, liberties, and fortunes, and by stated rules of right and property to secure their peace and quiet. It cannot be supposed that they should intend, had they a power so to do, to give any one or more an absolute arbitrary power over their persons and estates, and put a force into the magistrate's hand to execute his unlimited will arbitrarily upon them; this were to put themselves into a worse condition than the state of Nature, wherein they had a liberty to defend their right against the injuries of others, and were upon equal terms
1 " Human laws are measures in respect of men whose actions they must direct, howbeit such measures they are as have also their higher rules to be measured by, which rules are two—the law of God and the law of Nature; so that laws human must be made according to the general laws of Nature, and without contradiction to any positive law of cripture, otherwise they are ill made."—Hooker (Eccl. Pol., lib. iii., s. 9). '' To constrain men to anything inconvenient doth seem unreason­able."—Ibid., i., 10.) of force to maintain it, whether invaded by a single man or many in combination. Whereas by supposing they have given up themselves to the absolute arbitrary power and will of a legislator, they have disarmed themselves, and armed him to make a prey of them when he pleases; he being in a much worse condition that is exposed to the arbitrary power of one man who has the command of a hundred thousand than he that is exposed to the arbitrary power of a hundred thousand single men, nobody being secure, that his will who has such a command is better than that of other men, though his force be a hundred thousand times stronger. And, therefore, whatever form the common­wealth is under, the ruling power ought to govern by de­clared and received laws, and not by extemporary dictates and undetermined resolutions, for then mankind will be in a far worse condition than in the state of Nature if they shall have armed one or a few men with the joint power of a multitude, to force them to obey at pleasure the exorbi­tant and unlimited decrees of their sudden thoughts, or unrestrained, and till that moment, unknown wills, without having any measures set down which may guide and justify their actions. For all the power the government has, being only for the good of the society, as it ought not to be arbi­trary and at pleasure, so it ought to be exercised by estab­lished and promulgated laws, that both the people may know their duty, and be safe and secure within the limits of the law, and the rulers, too, kept within their due bounds, and not be tempted by the power they have in their hands to employ it to purposes, and by such measures as they would not have known, and own not willingly.
138. Thirdly, the supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent. For the preservation of property being the end of government,, and that for which men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and requires that the people should have property,, without which they must be supposed to lose that by entering into society which was the end for which they entered into it; too gross an absurdity for any man to own. Men, there­fore, in society having property, they have such a right to the goods, which by the law of the community are theirs, that nobody hath a right to take them, or any part of them, from them without their own consent; without this they

have no property at all. For I have truly no property in that which another can by right take from me when he pleases against my consent. Hence it is a mistake to think that the supreme or legislative power of any commonwealth can do what it will, and dispose of the estates of the subject arbi­trarily, or take any part of them at pleasure. This is not much to be feared in governments where the legislative consists wholly or in part in assemblies which are variable, whose members upon the dissolution of the assembly are subjects under the common laws of their country, equally with the rest. But in governments where the legislative is in one lasting assembly, always in being, or in one man as in absolute monarchies, there is danger still, that they will think them­selves to have a distinct interest from the rest of the com­munity, and so will be apt to increase their own riches and power by taking what they think fit from the people. For a man's property is not at all secure, though there be good and equitable laws to set the bounds of it between him and his fellow-subjects, if he who commands those subjects have power to take from any private man what part he pleases of his property, and use and dispose of it as he thinks good. 139. But government, into whosesoever hands it is put, being as I have before showed, entrusted with this condition, and for this end, that men might have and secure their properties, the prince or senate, however it may have power to make laws for the regulating of property between the subjects one amongst another, yet can never have a power to take to themselves the whole, or any part of the subjects' property, without their own consent; for this would be in effect to leave them no property at all. And to let us see that even absolute power, where it is necessary, is not arbitrary by being absolute, but is still limited by that reason, and confined to those ends which required it in some cases to be absolute, we need look no farther than the common practice of martial discipline. For the preservation of the army, and in it of the whole commonwealth, requires an absolute obedience to the command of every superior officer, and it is justly death to disobey or dispute the most dangerous or unreasonable of them; but yet we see that neither the sergeant that could command a soldier to march up to the mouth of a cannon, or stand in a breach where he is almost sure to perish, can command that soldier to give him one
penny of his money; nor the general that can condemn him to death for deserting his post, or not obeying the most desperate orders, cannot yet with all his absolute power of life and death dispose of one farthing of that soldier's estate, or seize one jot of his goods; whom yet he can command anything, and hang for the least disobedience. Because such a blind obedience is necessary to that end for which the commander has his power—viz., the preservation of the rest, but the disposing of his goods has nothing to do with it.
140. It is true governments cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit every one who enjoys his share of the protection should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own consent—i.e., the consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves or their representatives chosen by them; for if any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people by his own authority, and without such consent of the people, he thereby invades the fundamental law of property, and subverts the end of government. For what property have I in that which another may by right take when he pleases to himself?
I4I- Fourthly. The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands, for it being but a dele­gated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others. The people alone can appoint the form of the commonwealth, which is by constituting the legislative, and appointing in whose hands that shall be. And when the people have siad, "We will submit, and be governed by laws made by such men, and in such forms," nobody else can say other men shall make laws for them; nor can they be bound by any laws but such as are enacted by those whom they have chosen and authorised to make laws for them.
142. These are the bounds which the trust that is put in them by the society and the law of God and Nature have set to the legislative power of every commonwealth, in all forms of government. First: They are to govern by pro­mulgated established laws, not to be varied in particular cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for the favourite at Court, and the countryman at plough. Secondly: These laws also ought to be designed for no other end ultimately but the good of the people. Thirdly: They must not raise

THE LEGISLATIVE, EXECUTIVE, AND FEDERATIVE POWER OF THE COMMONWEALTH
143. the legislative power is that which has a right to direct how the force of the commonwealth shall be employed for preserving the community and the members of it. Be­cause those laws which are constantly to be executed, and whose force is always to continue, may be made in a little time, therefore there is no need that the legislative should be always in being, not having always business to do. And because it may be too great temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for the same persons who have the power of making laws to have also in their hands the power to execute them, whereby they may exempt themselves from obedience to the laws they make, and suit the law, both in its making and execution, to their own private advantage, and thereby come to have a distinct interest from the rest of the community, contrary to the end of society and government. Therefore in well-ordered common­wealths, where the good of the whole is so considered as it ought, the legislative power is put into the hands of divers persons who, duly assembled, have by themselves, or jointly with others, a power to make laws, which when they have done, being separated again, they are themselves subject to the laws they have made; which is a new and near tie upon them to take care that they make them for the public good.
144. But because the laws that are at once, and in a short time made, have a constant and lasting force, and need a perpetual execution, or an attendance thereunto, therefore it is necessary there should be a power always in being which should see to the execution of the laws that are made, and remain in force. And thus the legislative and executive power come often to be separated.
145. There is another power in every commonwealth which one may call natural, because it is that which answers to the power every man natura