O absolutism was a form of government that was established in Western Europe from the low middle age. This form of government was consolidated with the modern national state, and in it the monarch possessed broad powers over the state and its subjects. It was only with the emergence of Enlightenment ideals is that absolutism has lost its strength.
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understanding absolutism
Absolutism was a political system that developed from the XV century and which was consolidated in the Western Europe. This system manifested itself through monarchies, who defended the idea of a absolute monarch position. This meant that, within absolutist monarchies, the monarch, that is, the king, had full powers over the state. Great model of an absolutist monarch was the French king Louis XIV.
The emergence of absolutism was a phenomenon related to the emergence of
modern national state, at the end of the Late Middle Ages. It was also when the bourgeoisie began to establish itself, and, for this class, the consolidation of its mercantile interests it entailed the existence of a centralized government.This modern state with centralized power had a series of features, summarized by historian Paulo Miceli. For him, the absolutist state had “a unified legal system, a bureaucracy of officials specialized to develop and enforce administrative norms and codes, in addition to an army permanent"|1|.
absolutist economy
In the field of economics, the absolutist state was not cheap, and so many resources were needed to finance the luxuries of the king and his court as well as other expenses of the state. The collection, the sale of offices, the confiscation of goods and the assignment of trade and navigation contracts were forms of collection by the absolutist states. This wealth was amplified by the exploration of colonies, fur trade in the east and by trafficking in enslaved Africans|2|.
The absolutist economy manifested practices that became known as mercantilism and are understood by historians as a stage of transition from feudalism to the capitalism. Mercantilism was characterized by a strong State intervention in the economy and worked to unify the internal market and ensure that the state collected as many precious metals as possible.
How did absolutism come about?
As mentioned, the rise of absolutism is directly related to the formation of the modern national state. This process began in the Low Middle Ages and resulted in the emergence of a modern state that worked for delimit your borders, for consolidate a national identity, and contributed significantly to the administrative modernization.
The emergence of the national state took place in parallel with the establishment of the bourgeoisie and its interests as an emerging social class. In this class there was a considerable demand for the centralization of power and state unification, because this served their mercantile interests.
It was in this context that the decentralization of power characteristic of Middle Ages and the relationship of dependence of the king with his vassals were replaced by a relationship in which the king did not need anyone, since the power emanated from himself. With the monarch in control, all decisions came from him.
The king was responsible for organizing the laws, creating taxes, establishing justice, and for that he delegated his powers to others, who acted on his behalf. Thus was established the bureaucracy, a group of people who worked in the execution of the administrative functions of the State. The rise of bureaucracy contributed to the modernization of the national state.
Furthermore, the emergence of the modern national state is directly linked to the strengthening of national identities, since the king acted to promote a certain cultural standardization through actions such as the standardization of a language across the country, for example. This standardization was also economical, as the absolutist kings sought to reinforce their image with their face or national symbols minted on coins used in their state.
The absolutist economy, as we have seen, had a great need for resources, and that's where the taxes levied on foreign citizens and goods — a way to protect the economy national. The increase in funds raised allowed the king to have, at his disposal, a armypermanent.
This reduced the monarch's dependence on his nobility, as he no longer needed her to cede her troops to him. With a standing army at his disposal, the monarch maintained order through force and had troops available to defend against foreign threats and internal rebellions.
readmore: The figure of the merchant in the Low Middle Ages
Ideological Basis of Absolutism
During the existence of absolutist monarchies, a whole apparatusideological was formulated to justify the powers almost absolute that monarchs possessed. These justifications sought to demonstrate the power of the king as the guarantee of the “common good”, and many justified it by presenting the monarch as God's chosen.
Names such as Thomas Hobbes, Jean Bodin and Jacques Bossuet were recognized for constructing treatises that addressed this issue. However, historians cannot say to what extent these ideas were actually absorbed by the mass of peasants.
One of those intellectuals to justify real power was ThomasHobbes, in your book the Leviathan. In this book, he claims that only the power of the king is able to establish order in the world and that the king is the only one capable of guaranteeing the defense of people from foreign threats. Thus, people's submission was understood as the only way to guarantee their safety.
JeanBodin, in turn, presented the king as one of God's elect on earth, and this was reason enough for people to dedicate their obedience to the monarch. Jacques Bossuet, in the same vein, he claimed that the power of kings had been given by God so that empires on earth would be ruled by Him.
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decline of absolutism
Absolutism, as a political system, lost strength with the rise of Enlightenment ideals in France, from the 18th century. The illuminists questioned the king's accumulation of power, the privileges of the nobility and the clergy, the role of the Catholic Church, and proposed actions for the economy, science, society, etc.
The Enlightenment ideals were put into practice from 1789, when the French Revolution. Revolutionaries struggled against the privileges of the nobility and absolutism, beginning the fall of that system in the 19th century.
Grades
|1| MICELI, Paulo. modern history. São Paulo: Context, 2020, p. 99.
|2| Idem, p. 98.
Image credits
[1] JOON_T and Shutterstock