Key Terms: Facts of Life, 1

“Shock of the past”

- things that people displayed in the past that we don’t necessarily get; what is it like to live
in the past? they would display and be proud of things we don’t necessarily would be
proud of or display these days; the past is a foreign country.
- Cabinet of curiosities evolved into museums
- Contained objects considered marvelous expressions of human genius; objects in this
cabinet were considered precious and tremendous artistry

Hartmann Schedel / Nuremberg Chronicle

- Representation of the Creation of Heaven and Earth as represented in the book of Genesis
(1st day of creation)
- It starts history, before this event, there is no history
- Appears in the Nuremberg Chronicles (1493) (when talking about the drawing of a circle
and the hand of God)
- In 1493, the printing press was less than 50 years old
- Expensive book produced in German and Latin
- Latin- language of the intellectual life, universal language of intellectual endeavor
- Summarizes universal history

Genesis / Old Testament

- Ancient material, meant to be a universal history
- It begins with Genesis; vast majority of people were Christians

“Christian history” / “providential history”

- Christianity was the major religion back then
- Providential history: nothing happens by accident, everything happens because God
wants it to happen and intends it
- Teleological history: things are heading towards an end, there is a purpose, they are not
meaningless.

Religion from a cultural perspective / coherent, comprehensive belief system

- church as an institution; not just a spiritual organization but a very powerful, temporal
organization
- the importance of religion was present in society

Albrecht Dűrer
- Famous printer and artists who specialized in woodcut and engraving
“The Fall”
- Next important point in history: the all and expulsion from the Garden of Eden;
everything we do is our way towards redemption

Key Terms: Buildings as Books

Scrovegni/Arena Chapel (Padua, Italy)

Frescoes
- Christian history in the walls
- Incarnation: means of redemption
- They tell stories of Jesus’ life

Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337)

The Nativity

Raising of Lazarus

Crucifixion

Resurrection

The Last Judgment

- The las judgement is the end of the world, end of history (telos)
- The devil was a reality in eastern Europe; evil was objective

Cathedral of Saint Cecilia (Albi, France) – (1282-1480)

- Largest brick structure in the world; part of city walls; gothic architecture

Christian saints / cult of the saints

- Many saints are martyrs who lived in early Christian history
- The saints connected heaven and earth; the body of a saint is considered precious and the
body was cut in parts and turned into relics that were considered to have powers and
therefore be a site for pilgrimage

Saint Cecilia / early martyrs of the church

- saints become intermediaries; makes religion more human; Mary is the most important
saint
- saint Cecilia: early martyr of the Catholic Church

relics / reliquary
 - Relics are priceless

Pilgrimage
- Metaphor for all human life

Gothic architecture / stained glass / sculpture

Key Terms: Facts of Life, 2

illuminated manuscripts

Three Orders of Society

- 3 orders of society: agriculture, spirituality, knights (military) (those who pray, those who
fight and those who work; clergy, military men and peasants)
- they have different functions and they do these functions for each other

Great Chain of Being

clergy

Anti-clericalism
- Thrives during the late middle ages (1370s?)
- Hypocrisy in the church (they did not follow the expectations of Christian ideals)

knights/warriors elite/nobility
- nobles and aristocrats = knights (they were the source of those elites)
- the clergy were also frequently but not always, nobles
- protected everybody, not just themselves
- genesis of nobility in Europe, Aristocracy

peasants/commoners
- seigneurial/manorial system: peasants do not own their own land; they owe part of their
crops to their lords

early modern agriculture

- the vast majority of people in Early modern Europe were peasants who survived by the
means of agriculture

subsistence crisis
- meaning crop failure
demography / demographic crisis
- demographics: study of the structure of population
- demographic crisis is a big category that can be caused by many things, one of them
being a subsistence crisis (when you have crop failure)

Great Famine (early 14th century)

- famine is not unusual; they are usually man made; most famines are local or regional
- early in the 14th century there was The Great Famine which affected all of Europe

Black Death/plague
- 1348-51 – first incursion of the plague into Europe (bubonic plague); came through the
Black Sea through the ports of Europe; decimated the population of Europe; in three
years, it wiped out 1/3 of the European population; in Florence, it was 60% of the
population
- the last time the plague appeared into Europe was 1720, never Pan-European but it keeps
occurring; The Great Plague (England)

Early modern cities

- Great engines of economic growth and activity
- Site of markets and commercial activity
- Industries even though small are no less important (weaving in the city, wool spinning in
the country side)

Nuremberg/Nuremberg Chronicle

Burghers/bourgeois

Esslingen
- during the 30-year war, there was a demographic crisis

Trade networks at end of Middle Ages

- closed system but integrated
- majority of the trade routes were through major bodies of water
- traveling through water was cheaper than transporting over land
- lot of cultural exchanges through trading
- cities are the center of these activities
- urbanism and trading are increasing through the middle ages
Geographical Locations

Padua Albi (France)

Venice Strasbourg, Holy Roman Empire
 - Totally covered with sculptures The Levant
depicting Christian history The Black Sea
Nuremberg, Holy Roman Empire The Mediterranean Sea
Holy Roman Empire The Baltic
The Alps Constantinople
The Low Countries

Class notes:

- No nation states until the 19th century

- Broad view of the different cultural perspectives in Europe
- Small Jewish communities but Christianity dominated the major part of Europe
- Some of the first people killed at the beginning of the Crusades were Jews
- Others: people define themselves against other human groups
- Cathedrals were built as an expression of civic pride
- Status of society at the end of the middle ages:
* the catastrophic 14th century
* the catholic church has a pretty poor reputation
* members of the church did not do a great job at attending people during the plague
* the Great Schism
* there was a time where there were 2 popes (one in Avignon and one in Roma; there was
one year where there were 3 popes)
* there are no universal rights in the Middle Ages
- Jonathan Dewald:
 Historian at the University of Buffalo concentration in Modern European history with
a specialty in France in the 17th century
 Renaissance was very polemical: meaning very divisive with the ultimate goal of
winning
 Middle ages as being barbarous

Key Terms: Introduction to the Italian Renaissance

“Italy”
- Happening during the 15th century
 - Concentrating in Florence
- We do not have a unified Italy
- Intense political fragmentation in the North, united political area in the South

Papal States

City-States

Oligarchies

Milan

Venice
- Closed oligarchy

Florence
- Pisa is the port of the Republic of Florence
- Open oligarchy: ruled by a few (patricians- different from nobles, usually merchants,
merchant bankers); this is where the power of the city lies: it is not a democracy; makes
for great dynamism but also a lot of social tension
Genoa

Closed oligarchies

Open oligarchies

Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1290-1348)

“The Virtues of Good Government”

“Good government”

“Bad government”

Duomo (Florence, Italy)

- Expression of civic pride in Florence

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446)

Palazzo Vecchio
- Aka City Hall
Professional structure

Gregorio Dati (1362-1435)

Key Terms: Merchants and Humanists, I:

Cosimo de’ Medici (1389-1464)

Medici family

Medici bank

bill of exchange

Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449-1492)

Humanism – a new intellectual culture for "new men" / "law school of the Renaissance"

Medici Palace (Via Cavour, Florence)

Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520)

“School of Athens” (1509) / Aristotle and Plato

Homer (8th c. BCE)

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro, 70 BCE – 19 BCE)

Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472)

Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510)

Apelles of Kos (4th c. BCE)

Key Terms: Merchants and Humanists, II

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) / The Discourses

Brutus (Lucius Junius Brutus, 6th c. BCE)

Tarquin (Sextus Tarquinius, 6th c. BCE)

Lucretia (6th c. BCE)

Roman republicanism

civic humanism

Cosimo I de’ Medici / end of republican Florence

Pitti Palace
- The Medici first lived here when they moved into the city of Florence

Uffizi

Boboli Gardens

Geographical Locations:

Milan Siena Barcelona

Venice Naples Castile
Florence Valencia Aragon
Genoa Seville Bruges

Class Notes:
- People had corporate rights, not universal rights
- 5 legal and unequal orders during the early modern Europe cities
- catasto- inventory the work of the Republic for taxation because of war; item produced
for taxation purposes
- war was the biggest motive for taxation in early modern Europe

Class Notes:
- How do you know? is the big question
- Textiles: basic industry of the early modern world, the production of cloth is a basic
manufacture item, it is a very important industry in the early middle ages. Linen-comes
from a plant
- Silk is an intensely valuated product
- Dyers- the most esteemed of artisan guilds because of the difficult and very specific
technique
- First industry to be industrialized
Class Notes:
- the advancement of social status in a family is generational
- the domestic spaces are Lapo’s most important acquisitions
- women who brought male children into the world and their husbands die, the children
would belong to the husband’s family and not hers (really?)
- affinal: family members that you acquire through marriage (e.g. brother-in-law, mother-
in-law, etc. etc. etc.)
- historiography
- patronage/clientage

Class Notes:
- The challenge is not just intellectual but it is also about emotionally trying to engage with
the past
- They felt differently than how we feel today and therefore wrote different than we do
about those feelings
- Cosimo de Medici never presented himself in anything more grand and more dignified
than the red robes of a citizen (emblematic of the republic of Florence).

Key Terms for Lectures: Religious Reform and Conflict in Early Modern Europe

Establishing causation in history: Why did Martin Luther, quite unwittingly at first, manage to
destroy the unity of the Catholic Church when the Church had proved itself strong enough to
weather just about any challenge, any threat? Why, when he tacked his 95 theses to the door of
Wittenburg Cathedral in 1517, did he spark a series of events that would leave the unity of the
Church shattered and Europe in the throes of religious wars?

Printing technology:

metallurgy / moveable type

papermaking / vellum / rag paper
olive / grape / printing press
artisanal production / books as handicraft (Jobst Amman / Hans Sachs)
Impacts:
fixity of text [?] / continuation of oral, manuscript tradtions
literacy rates
(Mis?)Information Age
Giant Bible of Mainz
scribal hand
folio / small format / broadside
Erasmus (1496?-1536) / Christian humanism / antecedents of the Reformation
Lorenzo Valla
Johannine comma
Jan Hus (1372-1415) / Luther: "We are all Hussites!"
“Germany”
Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Emperor
Hapsburgs
Electors
City State of Nuremberg (Nürnberg) – center of fine printing, center of Reformation
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)
Hans Sachs (1494-1576)
Martin Luther
Reformation in the cities / Reformation in the countryside
Impacts of German Reformation:
Destruction of the religious orders, cult of the saints, several of the Church sacraments (e.g.,
auricular confession)
Iconoclasm: destroyed how religion looked; the "word", not "graven images"
Transformation in religious services: the increased emphasis on preaching
Accelerates literacy
Crisis in religious authority: When all can claim the right to interpretation, who determines
which interpretations are correct? An impossible question!
"Fissioning" of Reformation: Calvinism, Anabaptism
Religious violence:
Religious wars (Peace of Augsburg, 1555)
Martyrdom / Salvation at Stake
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
"Counter Reformation" vs. "Catholic Reformations" (reactive / proactive)
Medici popes, Leo X (1513-1521) & Clement VII (1523-24), unprepared for crisis

Defense: Roman Inquisition; Index of Prohibited Books (1549)

Defensive/offensive: Council of Trent (1545-1563)
Offensive:
-- Catholic Reformation bishop
-- Educating believers
--Reform / new foundings of religious orders
--The Baroque / fervent piety
Geographic Locations:
Wittenberg
Nuremberg Kingdom of Poland
Rome
Trent Constance
Geneva
Bohemia Kingdom of Scotland
Class Notes:
- The Church has enormous wealth
- All hell broke loose when Martin Luther tacked his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral in
1517
- Martin Luther was a monk, lawyer and college professor
- Cult of the saints: intermediaries between God and people; intimately connected to one of the things of
the Reformation: the practices of indulgences
- Saints were so holy that they built in Heaven the Treasury of Grace, an indulgence is a withdrawal of
that treasury; an indulgence shortens your time in purgatory
- Purgatory: post classical edition; were you go if you have not been a very good Christian
- Low countries (today Belgium and the Netherlands) gave birth to a different form of piety: the brothers
and sisters of common life
- Rise of new religious orders in the church (San Francisco de Assis) accumulated a lot of followers and
there was also the women group, the Clares. He advocated for a very simple life, a life of poverty (an
active vocation) (this happened around the 13th century
- Cathars in southwestern France (also occurring in the 13th century) no idea what the Cathars believed in
since the only records in existent were made under duress
- The Cathars did believe in church hierarchy; they were a threat, deemed to be heretics which are much
worse than a pagan because heretics already knew Christian values and beliefs.
- Albigensians (Albi was a Cathar stronghold)
- The bible, church traditions (believed to have begun with the conversations of Jesus with his disciples
and passed down through oral traditions)
- Printing was a game changer for Martin Luther (created around 1453)
- The printing press was a wonderful metaphor for Martin Luther
- Martin Luther does not invent anything; all the elements of Luther’s ideas are out there but he was the
one to put them together
- He wrote it in Latin, an invitation for somebody to come and debate, it was a scholarly article
- Vellum: sheep skin, really expensive
- Books were very expensive because they were a custom good, made out of vellum and written by hand
by monks in monasteries.

Class Notes:
- Civic humanism
- Christian humanism
- Edition – best educated guess
- Lorenzo de Medici collected Manuscripts
- Interpolation
- Johannine coma
- The bible
- Burning of Jan Haus at the stake in 1414, executed almost a century before Martin Luther published his
95 theses. He was a very outspoken person about the church, he condemned the sail of indulgences, he
believed that the bible should have been written in German and Latin, he rejected church hierarchy and
wanted a more democratic system of the church. Every single one of his positions was Luther’s ideals
too. This movement started in Bohemia. At the council of consulates. He was charged by the church.
- St. Augustine  theology of grace

Class Notes:
- Grace is essential to salvation, absolutely fundamental to Christianity
- If a man does what he can, God will grant him grace
- He was always hearing no, he thought he was damned for eternity
 - Luther had a revelation while preparing for one of his lectures
- God is perfectly just
- God is also merciful, while everybody deserves to burn, God will save some
- There is nothing you can do to effect god’s decision making when it came to granting grace
- If a person is saved, it was because God’s freely of his own fruition, granted that person salvation
- The notion that you could buy a piece of paper from the pope is complete and utterly nonsensical, this is
a wedge that goes right to the heart of Catholic belief
- Luther is very much a genius but it was not an original idea. Luther was not a humanist scholar
- he wrote one of the most anti-Semitic writings out there
- wonderful encapsulation of Luther’s theology of Grace, Hans Sachs’ poem “the Wittenburg Nightingale”
- seal of indulgences: used for St. Peter’s Basilica (which was very, very, very expensive)
- part of the money was for the basilica, and the other part was for a bishop which was the bishop that
Luther was against?
- The Italians believed that they were culturally superior than the Germans (Germany did not exist; we
call it German lands)
- People start to see Protestantism as a way to extend their power over the holy roman emperor’s power
- The Duke of Saxony protected Luther hence the fact that he was never tried and executed
- All these factors contributed to the reformation being spread like wildfire through Europe. If Luther
wanted to get his message out he needed to print it and he needed to write it in German. He intended his
writing to be available to all people.
- In the Catholic church there is a resistance of publishing in the vernacular tongue
- The Catholic church was in a hard rock place
- Latin was very important to Luther, he never stopped writing in Latin
- Memingen is not an imperial city, basically led by an oligarchy, town council
- Canon law: the law of the church
- Sola scriptura: if it’s not in the bible, it is not Christian belief, sola fide: by faith alone
- Tithe?
- Iconoclasm: critique of all this decoration as being invitation to idolatry

Class Notes:
- Faithfull; false confidence in their faith; evil ones; ones that have to be motivated to do things

Key Terms – Europe Goes Global: The Portuguese Seaborne Empire

Mendes Pinto’s Very Excellent Adventure (Peregrinação)

The Portuguese Seaborne Empire – why it matters

A Short History of European Expansionism before the Early Modern Period

The Crusades

The German push to the east

The Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula

The “exceptional individual” view of Portuguese expansionism

i. Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) and national history

 ii. Henry the Navigator and “triumphalist” history of European discoveries
iii. Henry the Navigator and the dangers of anachronism

Portuguese expansion into North Africa:

1415: Conquest of Ceuta

1471: Conquest of Tangier

Commemoration in the Pastrana Tapestries

Dom João I: “far-sighted imperialist who had a veritable passion for Africa and its products.”

What did Europeans know about Africa – or anywhere else, for that matter?

What maps tell us: T-O maps, mappa mundi, recovery of Ptolemy

Medieval preconceptions: From ancient sources (Pliny) and medieval (Marco Polo, Travels of Sir John
Mandeville)

Chief motivations for explorations: : crusade against the Muslims, desire for Guinea gold, the quest for Prester
John, and the search for oriental spices

a. Economic AND religious

b. The “mix” changes over time

European trade routes at the end of the Middle Ages

a. Cutting out the middle man

Indian Ocean

Sub-Saharan Africa

b. The lure of spices

Alfonso de Albuquerque, “chief architect” of the Estado da India, the Portuguese trading empire in the Indian
Ocean

The myth of overwhelming technological superiority

Christianizing / Jesuit missionaries

a. St. Francis Xavier

b. Persecution / Martyrdom
c. Religious imagery / Cultural syncretism

The Collection of Knowledge: Garcia de Orta

Colóquios dos Simples e Drogas he Cousas Medicinais da India… (Goa, 1563)

Carolus Clusius, 1526-1609. Aromatum, et simplicium aliquot medicamentorum apud Indos nascentium
historia :ante biennium quidem Lusitanica linqua per dialogos conscripta (Antwerp, 1567)
Cosmopolitan Capital / On Top of the World?

Geographical Locations:
 Ceuta

Tangier

Portugal

Lisbon

Hormuz

Goa

Jerusalem

Red Sea

Indian Ocean

Cape of Good Hope

Macao

Johor

Class notes:

- The power of the press

- The council of Trent
- Emphasis on the church in educating believers; catechism emerges and women are in charge of the
first religious education of their children
- Catholic reformation bishop: he is the key of the reformation in Europe
- Jesuits: Ignacio Loyola (founder), order that is completely under the command of the pope; their
commitment is to take back protestant Europe. (part of the Catholic Reformation)
- Henry de Navigator, Vasco de Gama
- 1492: Spain expulses the Jews from Spain, The finding of a new world, Something about the
Muslim people

Class Notes:

- HOMEWORK!!! Verb Tenses (Number 2) Write 3 sentences correctly and incorrectly.

- The Portuguese were the first people to travel to Asia and “go global”
- The crusades leave Europe to “re-conquer” a formerly Christian area to bring Christianity back
again.
- Germans pushing east into Slavic lands
- Between the 12th and 13th century, Europe begins to expand
- Europe was very vulnerable before their expansion into Europe and the world
- 1492 that the very last Muslim Kingdom in Spain falls
- You don’t have a united Spain until the marriage of Fernando e Isabel but you do have a united
Portugal.
- Portugal: was a united kingdom, it is not at war with other kingdoms
 - Henry the Navigator: renaissance, man of science, tremendously important, was very much a man
of his kind, his motivations came from the crusade spirit instead of being a man of science.
- The ottoman Turks was a Muslim power at the other end of the Mediterranean.
- Belgium production of tapestries (one of the preeminent places)
- John the II (1481)
- What did Europeans think they knew about the outside world? Not much
- “History, it’s a terrible thing”
- Jerusalem was considered the navel of the world (the center of the world)
- Ptolemy: knew that the world was spherical and figured out a way of representing a spherical
surface into a two dimensional surface. (longitude and latitude)  an ancient concept
- His maps did not survive but the concept of latitude and longitude and the list of places with its
longitude and latitude. He can be considered as the father of the modern map.
- Portolans
- The gold florin was made of African gold
- The slave trade helped to finance the Portuguese voyages
- Plantation complex: The Portuguese began this kind of agricultural production, most of the
products traded were not products made in Portugal. They were producing very little and they
were connecting people according to what other places had in terms of products.
- The Portuguese Empire in Africa was not territorial, they managed to established ports for trade
but were too weak to go inland.
- Spices were used for embalming human bodies
- Spices were important for medicine in Europe
- Estado da India
- Portuguese were very good at exploiting local tensions.
- Everywhere the Portuguese went, so did the Jesuits.
- New Christians: Jews that converted to Christianity

Class Notes:
- T-O map: theological map because Jerusalem is in the center; 3 continents that were known in
antiquity: Asia, Europe and Africa.
- Noah’s three sons: they dispersed and repopulated the world: Japheth-Europe, Ham-Africa, and
Shem-Asia; the sons are another reason the map is theological; accounts for human diversity
- Tapestries that serves as royal propaganda, triumphant view of the Portuguese experience.
Portugal is signaled as the center of the world in the tapestry of the Zeus and Hera portrayal.

Key Terms: Slavery and the Making of the Atlantic World

Introduction: Thomas Thistlewood, Jamaican overseer and slaver owner between 1750-1786
Historiographic considerations:
- The Williams Thesis
- New times, new information, new questions
-- Slave Trade Database
-- The impact of non-economic forces on the development of slave trade, New World slavery
Following a French Slaving Voyage during the 18th century:
- "armateur" or outfitter; captain; pilot
- Expenses and other difficulties
- The Middle Passage
- Lives of slaves after arrival
- Demographics of Caribbean slave societies
From shoot to sugar on a 17th-century English plantation:
- The planter, a large-scale entrepreneur, both farmer and manufacturer
- “Industrial” agriculture
- Dangers to labor
- Profits
-- Social hierarchy of Caribbean slave society
-- A "frontier" culture
Slave Resistance and Revolts
Conclusion: Thomas Thistlewood and slaveholders’ fears

Class notes:
- Paris was a big city for the time; London was the biggest city at the time
- There was a population increase in the city ports and trading port of France
- It was extremely expensive to finance an expedition
- Pilot- guides the ship, captain is the one in charge, there is nothing egalitarian about the
ship
- 3 to four months to get to Africa; they get the cargo, go to San Tomah and leave to the
Caribbean
- middle passage as little as 3 months and as long as half a year; the longer it took to get
from Africa to the Caribbean the more slaves died.
- Usually landed first on Martinique
- Who bought the slaves? Plantation owners bought the most, the richest whites bought
slaves
 - 1750s large population of free people of color. Those free people of color also owned
slaves
- Saint Domingue specialized in sugar; coffee became really important but sugar eclipsed
all of the other crops (indigo and cotton included)
- Commercial agricultural complex, a luxury commodity that was going to be exported for
profit
- Prices of slaves rise a lot during the 18th century
- Taking poor care of the slaves came to an economic benefit for slave owners
- Powered by water or by animals
- There are a variety of ways that slaves could earn their freedom
- By the end of the 17th century, Barbados had 40,000 slaves, 2,300 servants and 1,200
freed men

Class Notes:
- She will haunt you if you say: Commoners rising against the royalty, the enlightenment
caused the French Revolution
- Privilege: rank in society (status), your rights come from the fact that you are part of a
group of people
- Smaller groups that have privileges: merchants, peasants might have some degree of
privilege but not much; guilds
- Palais Royal was owned by a noble and was a market in the 18th century (does not exist
anymore, it was torn down)
- Taille: direct taxes, gaballe: indirect taxes
- The higher the social status, the less taxes you pay
- Social mobility: slow and steady
- Distribution of land: France is still a very traditional country and remains a lush
environment
- The clergy and the nobility have a lot of land; the bourgeoisie are commoners but
landowners
- Income disparity; the problem for the kingdom is that they needed money but they were
not efficient in the collection of taxes and ended up taxing the less affluent people
- The closest thing to the parliament that the French had was the Estates General (it had not
met since 1614
- Montesquieu: The spirit of law; in order to prevent a monarchy to becoming disbodied,
you need someone who would protect the liberty of its subjects
- Lit de justice
- 1763: 7 years’ war; the French lost (sad?); it was really expensive
- 1770: Maupeou Revolution: an act of despotism of tyranny, tremendous public uproar
- Louis the XVI said that he wanted to be loved and he wanted to make friends with the
people whom his father alienated; he restored the parliament.
- The sublime; the ridiculous is not really ridiculous; lèse-majesté
- Arcana imperium: the business of state
 - The mistresses of louis XVwere the source of scandals in Paris, he was not the most
pious and devout king, he had a scandalous reputation; people wrote books about his
mistresses a lot of which is complete bunk
- Madame Dubary were powerful within the French court, she had extremely good
connections within the financial class (and those people were hated); secret government
of women
- Louis the XVI never had a mistress as far as we know; he was always devoted to his
wife; the problem with him was his wife, Marie Antoinette
- The French did not like foreign rulers on their throne; She was tone deaf when it came to
hearing the voice of her people, she had no idea of how the people of her kingdom
actually lived; she had one very important affair but was not particularly promiscuous. It
is said that she loved her husband deeply but she had a very bad reputation. Everything
bad that you could do, Marie Antoinette was said that she did, but actually did not.
- The diamond necklace affair; Marie Antoinette had nothing to do with it; people said that
MA had a lot of influence over Louis XVI but that is not true. Louis tried to keep her
away from all monarchical business
- Only the Estates General (1787) can vote you what you need to save the kingdom’s
finances
- Cahiers de doleances

Class Notes:
- The French state was about to default to their debt because:
 The American Revolutionary War
 War was the single most expensive thing they got themselves into
- The debt in England was a public debt; in France the debt is considered to be the business
of government and not the business of everybody else
- Taxes and the social political order in France
- The third estate was an extremely varied sector; most of them were peasants
- The largest group of the third estate are peasants
- Merchants are also in the third estate
- The clergy is not taxed but rather give a “free gift”
- Louis XV wants to reform but he can’t but why? The parliament of Paris stopped every
one of his efforts; if you tax the nobles you are violating their privileges
- The issue of voting by head or by order
- Embourgeoisement

Class notes:
- Liberal nobility
- Encourages spirit of questioning; there is no enlightenment consensus
- Liberal nobility that believed that everyone should have the ability to pursue their
happiness
- Marquis de La Fayette: very important figure in the beginnings of the French Revolution;
had a bloodline going back for hundreds of years; came from one of the most famous and
oldest families in France
- You do not walk into a meeting without knowing what you want out of that meeting
- Military
 - Lawyers (or people who received legal knowledge) were the major group that represented
the Third Estate

Class notes: French Revolution

- The bastille stood as a symbol of monarchical despotism
- Revolutionary violence is present since the beginning
- Memoires of the Bastille
- The prison was an empty symbol that became an iconic representation of the revolution
- The Fall of the Bastille
- August 4 1789: meeting of the national assembly that was a set up; people started to
denounce their privileges for the good of the nation; it was an emotional night and people
were weeping; sincere feeling of national unity by sacrificing their privileges.
- Peasant uprisings do not kill people; they tend to burn things down but never kill people.
- August 6, declaration of the rights of man and the citizen
- All of these happened in the span of four months and at the end of those four months, the
old regime was gone.
- Buckler (used to hold the cloaks): you have in your chest the symbol of the new nation (it
was worn by the national guard)
- The three penny opera: “such a wonderful lot of terrible things that happened” perfect
description of the French Revolution
- Revolutionary optimism