Enlightened absolutism was the 18th-century phenomenon, by which absolutist monarchs promoted Enlightenment ideals in some form. Catherine the great of Russia implemented an education policy, though this did not get very far, because the children were needed at home to do jobs so their family would not starve. Catherine brought the Russian church completely under her control, which was applauded by Enlightenment members. Joseph II Holy Roman Emperor abolished one-third of the monasteries and implemented a compulsory education policy. He also reformed the legal system and abolished torture as a means of procuring information. Charles III of Spain lessened the power of the inquisition in Spain as well as bringing the church more under the control of the state. Frederick the Great of Prussia kept up a correspondence with Voltaire and was a self-proclaimed deist. He implemented Enlightenment ideas while laughing at mankind’s silly superstitions with Voltaire.

Louis XV was king of France from 1715 to 1774. He ascended the throne when he was only five years old, which allowed the nobility to take advantage of the kings youth. His advisor, Cardinal de Fleury, kept office from 1726 to 1743. He did not favor religious toleration but was good with finances which were essential to indebted France. One of his vices was that he allowed his mistresses to lead his political decisions, ending in some competent ministers being dismissed and being replaced with deficient ones. Throughout his entire reign, Louis XV tried to suppress the parlement, ignoring and replacing and imprisoning the leaders that disagreed with him. This was his greatest error being a major factor in the onset of the French revolution.

During the 18th century, the enlightenment became a major movement, and the more radical thinkers tended to reside in France. The Materialists were the most radical group of enlightenment thinkers. They were extreme atheists believing in no spiritual world whatsoever and viewed human beings as a machine and advanced kinds of animals. Therefore they did not believe in punishing criminals for crimes, just like you can’t blame a dishwasher for doing a bad job cleaning your dishes. They believed you should spend your life gratifying your impulses and pleasures since there was nothing else to life. Some of the major Materialist thinkers include La Mettrie Helvetius and Baron d’Holbach.

The primary powers in the war of Austrian succession were Prussia and Austria. Maria Theresa’s father Charles VI Holy Roman Emperor had gone to the nations of Europe asking to recognize Maria Theresa as heir and future ruler of Austria. Frederick the Great’s father Frederick William had agreed to this, but Frederick wanted to start a war with Austria in order to obtain the territory of Silesia for Prussia. So he came up with a ridiculous argument and quickly took Silesia with Prussias vast army. The war of Austrian Succession lasted for five years in multiple phases and ended with Prussia still in possession of Silesia. Silesia nearly doubled Prussias population and gave it a more densely industrialized territory. This eventually lead to the Seven Years War with Austrias attempt to reclaim Silesia, but Prussia still retained it at the end of the war.

The scientific revolution that was launched in the 17th century is often portrayed in textbooks as a struggle between backward Christians and advanced reformed scientists. However, no scholar today believes this. The church and scientists usually peacefully co-existed. In fact, the very nature of Christianity promotes the idea of a carefully ordered universe, without random chaos. Jesuits were known for a long time as the leading force in seismology, and many priests were active in scientific endeavors. Johannes Keppler stated that there was no one he liked to talk about science with more than the Jesuits. So no, the scientific revolution was not in fact a war between the Church and science but a peaceful coexistence of the two.

The Enlightenment was a school of thought, started in the 18th century, that was founded on the belief that your reason could explain all things. However, because Thomas Aquinas used reason to prove the existence of God, and the Enlightenment thinkers just didn’t think that reason could prove such a thing, some scholars have said they had less reason than they believed they did. Enlightenment thinkers were very skeptical of traditional institutions including the one of monogamous marriage. They firmly believed that science was a model for knowledge because it could give them clear definitive answers, unlike theology. Some were outright atheists some were deists and others, such as Voltaire, believed that religion was valuable because it kept the poor people in line, and from looting the rich.

Antoine Lavoisier was born in 1743 to a family of wealth and nobility. He attended the University of Paris where he had a great interest in science. He became known for his research in chemistry performing some of the first quantitative chemical experiments. He contributed greatly to the phenomenon of combustion and is commonly cited as a key contributor to the chemical revolution. At age twenty-six Lavoisier was elected to the Academy of Sciences, and around the same time bought a share in Ferme générale, a tax farming company that advanced the estimation of tax revenue to the government in return for the right to collect taxes. All his life Lavoisier spent time and money on helping the poor. He submitted a report on improving urban street lighting to the French Academy of Sciences and worked on purifying water from the Seine. He spent considerable sums on improving crop production in Sologne which had poor farming conditions. However, he concluded that although agricultural improvement was a possibility, the farmers were left with so little money after taxes it was impossible to expect them to change their traditional system. In the midst of the French Revolution, Lavoisier and all former tax farmers were arrested. He drafted their defense that refuted financial accusations, but the court believed that by condemning them and seizing their possessions they would recover huge sums of money. In 1794 Lavoisier and twenty-seven of his co-defendants were guillotined. According to popular belief, Lavoisier’s plea to continue his experiments was cut short by the judge stating, “The Republic needs neither scholars nor chemists; the course of justice cannot be delayed.”

Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, transformed his lands from the decimated ruin at the end of the Thirty Years War to one of the most powerful states in the Holy Roman Empire. As you may remember the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) was comprised of many smaller states and districts ruled over by local princes, with the Holy Roman Emperor overseeing them all, though to be emperor was mostly a title. Frederick William inherited his lands in 1640, with a very depleted population and lands ravaged by the Thirty Years War. His greatest ambition was to build a Prussian standing army in order to maintain power and to defend Prussia from Sweden. To raise money for this expensive endeavor he made a deal with the local lower nobility that controlled taxes, that if they would raise taxes he would let them reduce the population essentially to serfdom. Another one of his policies was that he extended religious toleration to his people and invited the expelled French Huguenots to settle in Prussia and in turn boost the economy with their valuable skills. He successfully rebuilt his lands and through diplomacy and his powerful military became a prominent and powerful ruler in Europe.

Peter the Great ruled Russia from 1682 – 1725. Things you might not know about him is that he forced some women he did not like into convents (including his wife) and died of gangrene in his bladder. But what he is known for is modernizing Russia, in particular the Russian army. In 1700 the Russians suffered a humiliating defeat when eight-thousand Swedes conquered forty-thousand Russians, which spurred on his zeal for reform. He created a standing army and gave high salaries for foreign military officers to come to Russia and lead and train his army. He conscripted peasants from the countryside to come work in factories that created machinery for his army, which started the slow process of Russian industrialization. In addition to a modernized military, he ordered that everyone adopt a western style of dress with taxes being put on beards and long hair for men. By the end of his life, many people wondered why he had not yet been killed as he had alienated many people in his sweeping modernization reforms. Though he is still debated by historians today, there is no denying that he changed Russia and brought it reluctantly into the modern age.

Art during this time had also changed. With the end of the Renaissance in 1527, artists moving forward wondered what they could do, since it seemed impossible to do better than the masters of the Renaissance. From this, a style we call Mannerism developed, playing on an individual’s personal strengths in painting. Characteristics include abnormally proportioned or elongated figures, clashing colors, and sometimes bizarre themes. Realistic portrayal of their subjects and landscapes was not a necessity in this style. Mannerism lasted about eighty years to the end of the 16th century. Baroque painting developed at the beginning of the 17th century and continued through the early 18th century. Baroque painting is identified by its intense emotion and drama, rich, deep color, and contrasting light and shadow. Among the most famous Baroque painters are Reubens, Vermeer, Velazquez, Caravaggio, and Rembrandt.

In the 17th century, there was an economic idea called mercantilism, that usually went along with absolutism. In a mercantilist society, the economy is run and regulated by the government. There may be special privileges and monopolies given to those the monarch favors, and exports are encouraged while imports are discouraged and may have bans or tariffs. 17th century France is an example of a mercantilist society that also had guild rules for certain crafts, which discouraged competition in business and made it hard for people to get into the trade.

The monarch in 17th century France was the infamous Louis XIV. His high taxes, absolutist tendencies, and beautiful place with a resplendent court have made him renowned. But one of the things he used the taxes for the most were his many wars. His army was becoming larger as warfare became more professionalized and he sent his seemingly invincible army on many campaigns. He waged multiple wars in the Low Countries (what is today the Netherlands) to gain defenses and territories, with his ultimate goal to reach the Rhine river. Some of these wars were held up by vague claims to foreign thrones and others for purely expansion purposes. France became a leading power in Europe with its wars focusing on aggressiveness with its large standing army. This was about to change however in the War of Spanish Succession.

The War of Spanish Succession centered around who would succeed childless Charles II of the Spanish empire, which not only included Spain but also the Netherlands, Italian territories, and territories in the new world.. France had their candidate, Phillip of Anjou, and the Holy Roman Empire had their candidate. Louis XIV attempted to negotiate some partition treaties, but both Charles II and the Holy Roman Emperor were against this. When Charles died his will stated that Phillip of Anjou was heir to the throne, though the HRE refuted this by saying that Charles was not in his right mind when he wrote it. Phillip was sent to Spain and was crowned emperor, supported by the Spanish people, but immediately Phillip gave special trading privileges to France that had once belonged to other countries. This had been Europe’s fear, that France would be the sole trader in the Spanish empire, so England, the Dutch Republic, and Austria / The Holy Roman Empire formed an alliance against France. The war would last from 1701 to 1714 with France being totally devastated from 1709. The most important battle of the war was the battle of Blenheim, which was a French defeat. Eventually, Louis could not raise more taxes because his people were starving, aggravated by a bad harvest and a harsh winter. Unable to wring any more taxes out of his subjects he tried inflation and melted down his silverware to be sold for war costs. The allies even invaded France itself but somehow France held on and managed to dispel the invaders. In 1715 the war ended with the Peace of Utrecht. Phillip V remained King of Spain, but Spanish territories were divided up amongst the other participants in the war. As for Louis XIV, he lost most of the territory he had gained in his previous campaigns and had a broke and thoroughly exhausted France when he died in 1715.