NAME- AASTHA GUPTA

ROLL NUMBER- 210231

SEMESTER- IV
PAPER- RISE OF THE MODERN WEST II
Q. Examine the various theories accounting for the 17th
century crisis. Do you think England escaped this crisis?
Ans. The early seventeenth century in Europe has often been regarded as
a period during which a single general crisis afflicted the entire continent
to some degree, affecting the economy, demography and the political
stability of most countries. After the process of expansion and growth
experienced during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Europe found
itself in a deep crisis that lasted nearly a century.
The crisis was characterized by several factors, chief among them being
the demographic. After the late Middle Ages, population growth had
been steady, until it abruptly came to an end in the sixteenth century,
even beginning to decline in some areas. Numerous other factors, such
as hunger, conflicts, uprisings, politics, plagues, and climatic changes,
were also cited as contributing to the crisis. As the agricultural labor
force declined and the weather generally worsened, yield ratios began to
stagnate or decline with worsening harvests. The increasing burden of
tax further curbed the demand. The government, and the military in
particular, started to dominate the market as buyers, although they were
more interested in companies that catered to the needs of the military
than to domestic demand. With unemployment occurring at a time when
money was scarce due to a depressed agriculture market and high taxes,
this shift in demand gravely destabilized national economies and led to a
further decline in living conditions. The first half of the seventeenth
century saw a number of issues with the European economy as a whole,
which in many places came together to form a local crisis.
The term was first used by English Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm in
in a pair of articles he wrote for Past and Present in 1954 titled "The
Crisis of the Seventeenth Century," and it was solidified by Hugh
Trevor-Roper, one of his contemporaries, in a 1959 article titled "The
General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century" that was also published in
the same journal. While Trevor-Roper saw a deeper crisis, "a crisis in
the relations between society and the State," Hobsbawm spoke about a
European economic crisis.
Events like the English Civil War, the French Fronde, the Thirty Years'
War's culmination in the Holy Roman Empire, and uprisings against the
Spanish Crown in Portugal, Naples, and Catalonia were all
manifestations of the same issue during this general crisis. Trevor Roper
emphasized that the main causes for this crisis were religious and
political conflict. According to him, the conflict between the “Court”
and “Country”, or between the increasingly powerful centralizing,
bureaucratic, sovereign princely states represented by the court and the
traditional, regional, land-based aristocracy and gentry representing the
country, was the most significant factor contributing to the general
crisis. The Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation that brought
about intellectual and religious changes were significant secondary
causes of the "general crisis." This "crisis in the relations between
society and the State" ultimately gave rise to the Enlightenment and a
number of radical, balancing, and ambivalent political movements. Eric
Hobsbawm on the other hand argued that in the bigger picture, it was
economic and social forces that created this mid 17th century crisis and
integrated the seventeenth century crisis as a part of a much wider
transition from feudalism to capitalism.
ECONOMIC CRISIS
The seventeenth century crisis is seen by the Marxist historians,
including Hobsbawm, as the manifestation of the feudal crisis existing in
the mode of production spreading across the European economy.
Industrial capitalism took a century longer to develop in France than it
did in Poland, Spain, or Italy. Carlo Maria Cipolla made the observation
that the 17th century was a black one for France, Spain, Italy, and
Germany, and at least a grey one for Spain. Neils Steensgaard thought
that the rate of growth of the European economy had slowed. While Jan
De Vries thought that most classes experienced a sharp decline in
purchasing power due to a type of Malthusian crisis caused by
population pressure pushing up against a fixed ceiling of agricultural
prices.
Numerous factors, including the Thirty Years' War and epidemics of
typhus, bubonic plague, smallpox, and typhus, have been implicated in
the population decline. The other factors included this and a lack of
medical knowledge. Cipolla thought that late marriages, a system of
conscious family planning, and a change in moral attitude were all
contributing factors to the decline in birthrate. The agricultural prices,
production, and demographic trends all show that there was a major
problem with the European economy in the 17th century.
POLITICAL CRISIS
The English Marxist historian Christopher Hill believed that there was
an economic and political crisis all over western and central Europe in
the 17th century. The 17th century crisis, according to H.R. Trevor
Roper, was not just a constitutional crisis or an issue with the economy;
rather, it was a problem with the growth and wastefulness of a parasitic
state apparatus as well as the size and expense of the court.
This view has been modified by John Elliot and Roland Mousnier. Eliot
thought that Spain's problems were caused by the conflict between the
center and the periphery rather than a dislike of a court system that was
overburdened, whereas Mousnier emphasized that sometimes office
holders themselves rebelled against the state. Although Roper's general
crisis theory can be applied to every uprising, these uprisings were not
against a parasitic, stagnant government but rather, against an absolutist,
dynamic government whose taxation policies violated customary laws.
and posed a threat to the social order or the ability of some people to
support themselves.
Elliot and Mousnier have also emphasized on the pressures of war.
According to Vicens Vives, the 16th-century renaissance state was a
result of external conflict and domestic unrest; its most notable feature
was the standing army, which was frequently made up of mercenaries
from other countries. These historians have pointed to war, taxes, and
their various manifestations as contributing factors to the economic
hardships and social unrest of the 17th century.
AGRARIAN CRISIS
During the seventeenth century, European agriculture at many places
showed signs of exhaustion. In case of France, the French monarchs
shielded the small peasants of their meager holdings from feudal
landlords to protect its financial interests, but this policy led to long-term
agrarian stagnation. In order to pay for the massive administrative
structure and finance the continental wars, the state abused the peasants
by increasing taxes at an alarming rate. Additionally, the nobility forced
the peasants to pay high taxes that prevented investment in agriculture or
advanced technology and left the peasantry in poverty. The Swedish-
Polish War led to even more agricultural destruction. Agriculture in
Germany and Austria was on the decline. Because of the falling ground
rents, there was no longer any incentive to invest in agricultural real
estate.
ABSOLUTIST PERSPECTIVE
Most people view the establishment of absolutism in several European
states as a clear indicator of the region's economic fragility. In his
Peasant Uprisings, Mousnier recognized the link between the pressure
from taxes and the uprisings. He claims that the increased fiscal demand
affected all social classes and played a crucial role in the peasant
uprising in 17th-century France. The soviet historian Porshnev believed
that the wars were responsible for the subjection of the exploited class.
MONETARY CRISIS
The scholars Earl J. Hamilton and Pierre Channu highlight how the
Atlantic trade and Seville, a well-known Spanish port, contributed to the
financial crisis. This point of view contends that the crisis was brought
on by a declining money supply and a failure to finance the transatlantic
trade. The frequent devaluation of coinage during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries suggests a severe shortage of money. Hamilton
considers monetary factors related to the bullion imports the main reason
for the crisis. Ruggiero Romano argues that the first forty years of the
century experienced constant and at times sharp contraction in the issue
of money. Jan de Vries does not subscribe to the view that the European
economy grew or fell along the flow of precious metals. Yet, he
concedes that monetary instability played a definite role in short-term
cycles, particularly the one in 1619-22.
CLIMATIC FACTORS
Annales writings highlight the role of climatic factors. To reach the
conclusion that factors like biological and climatic changes determine
the size of the population and sustain it, the Annales school adopted
what was regarded as the "interdisciplinary" approach, i.e., study of
various disciplines - geography, history, and sciences. So, when there
was a great increase in population, and as the availability of fresh lands
ended, the fragmentation of farms took place. Lower harvests were the
result of soil exhaustion. Human life was destroyed by famines and
diseases. There was a decline in the state of the economy. Geoffrey
Parker explains the contribution of astronomical studies in locating the
non-human factors in this crisis. Some scientists describe this period as
‘the Little Ice Age’.

ENGLAND AND THE CRISIS

The “General Crisis” in 17th century spread throughout Europe buts its
impact, nature and severity differed from place to place. Although
England overcame the crisis comparatively faster and crossed the
obstacles to become the first industrial capitalist society, it too couldn’t
escape the crisis altogether.
The crisis in England was due to a conflict between the Puritan minded
opposition, and a parasitical bureaucracy created by the renaissance
state. The parasitic and overburdened central governments led to an
increase in resentment among those excluded from the favored group as
they grew in size. As long as there was prosperity, they were tolerated.
A significant gulf between the court and the people was however created
in the second quarter of the 17th century by a new puritanism, which
was not a religious doctrine but rather an ascetic distaste for court
extravagances. Eric Hobsbawm’s theory states that the 17th century
crisis was the catalyst for the transition from feudal society to capitalism
in England and ultimately the genesis of the industrial revolution.
Hobsbawm argues that it was the crisis of the 17th century, particularly
the Puritan Revolution, which enabled capitalism to escape the confines
of feudalism and flourish as the dominant ideology in England.
Successful societies like those of England adjusted to the situation by
increasing their economic resources, partially by the application of
mercantilist ideas. The crisis of production was general in Europe, but it
was only in England that the forces of capitalism, owing to their greater
development and representation in the parliament, were able to triumph.
Consequently, while other countries made no immediate advance
towards modern capitalism, in England, the old feudal structure was
shattered, and a new form of economic organization was established.
Scholars also suggest that it was the improved technology of England
that enabled it to overcome the problem of low prices and make
substantial economic progress. By the end of the crisis, England had
taken over the economic leadership of Europe.
Thus, it can be concluded that while the timing of crisis varied across
nations, it lasted for a very long time. Different national circumstances,
which in turn have been examined in relation to social and political
structures as well as religious institutions and beliefs, influenced how
this crisis originated and responded to in different countries. It
affected countries unequally and while some never recovered,
others suffered temporary setbacks. There is still disagreement regarding
many empirical and theoretical aspects of the crisis in the seventeenth
century. Both Trevor-Roper's court/country distinction and Hobsbawm's
Marxist teleological stage theory of economic development are no
longer widely accepted. But the idea still inspires new studies and fresh
interpretations of the data that already exists. As a result, the outlines of
a new interpretation are beginning to appear as there is still room for
more discovery and areas that require more clarity.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Hobsbawm, Eric. "The General Crisis of the European Economy in

the 17th Century." Oxford Journals, (1954): 33-53. Accessed
March 27, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/649822.
• Roper, Hugh T. 1967. The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century.
Indiana: Liberty Fund. https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/roper-the-
crisis-of-the-seventeenth-century.
• Sinha, Arvind. "SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ‘EUROPEAN
CRISIS’." IGNOU The People's University.
https://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/77517/1/Unit-1.pdf
• Vries, Jan D. "The Economic Crisis of the Seventeenth Century
after Fifty Years." Journal of Interdisciplinary History, (2009):
151–194. https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh.2009.40.2.151.
• Class Notes