Absolutism

Court absolutism (Höfischer Absolutismus)

 Court/ruler was the center of power

• Most pronounced in France at the court of Louis XIV (17th/18th century)

Characteristics of absolutism

• Center of power no longer with individual landlords/cities, but at the court of the sovereign

• Time of absolutism = time of courtly society

• Ruler derived his claim to power from God

• No restrictions for ruler in exercising his power

• He enacted laws, but he himself did not feel bound by them

• He united the 3 most important powers in the state on itself

• Legislative branch

• Executive branch

• Judiciary branch

• Constant taxation of the population secured income for the rulers, made him independent of
nobility and clergy

• 3rd estate (towns [traders, craftsmen etc.], peasants) bore the main burden of the taxes for the
maintenance of the court and the splendor buildings

• The state / the prince intervened in the economy in a regulating way for the first time: the
mercantilism

Mercantilism

• New form of economy according to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, which was controlled by the state.

• The goal was to produce goods cheaply at home and sell them expensively abroad - higher profits for the
state

• Import of raw materials like cotton from the colonies

• Wages of workers low

• labor in manufactures - division of labor

• Price of basic foodstuffs low

 • Good transport routes

• High tariffs on - foreign goods are not competitive

Society in France

• In 17th and 18th century society divided into 3 estates - big differences between estates

• 1st estate: leaders of the catholic church(=clergy)

• 2nd estate: nobility (= landowners)

• 3rd estate: population in cities (=commoners) and rural population (=tiers-start)

• Belonging to a state by birth " acquired " - ascent hardly possible

• The 1st and the 2nd estate did not pay taxes

France as a role model - Louis XIV.

• Called "The Sun King"

• Many wars to secure the state territory

• Pompous court as a mirror of his absolute power

• Centralized was the administration - so absolute control over state (“L'état c'est moi!”/”The state is
me!”)

• Created professional army: not dismissed after wars, but standing army, guarantor of king's and
France's position of power
 • Administration no longer by nobles, but by royal officials (mostly members of the bourgeoisie,
answerable only to the king, paid by him) and ministers

• The Catholic church as an important support of the king, the king determined the religion of his
subjects

Development and effects of absolutism

• Mercantilism brings rise of the bourgeoisie( Bürgertum)

• outbreak of "bourgeois revolutions" (French Revolution 1789)

• contributed to the emergence of the modern state:

• clearly delineated territory of rule

• Administration by civil servants

• standing army

• _____________________________ with the king/prince