LESSON 2.5 How did the power of rulers change in Early Modern Europe?
LEARNING INTENTION By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
• examine the changes in the roles and the powers of rulers • analyse how rulers used religion to benefit from war.
Tune in In SOURCE1 , the cook, the chaplain and Mother Courage discuss the Thirty Years’ War, in which territorial rulers claimed to fight for religious reasons.
SOURCE1 Bertolt Brecht’s play Mother Courage and Her Children , written in 1939, protests the rise of the German Nazis and their role in World War II. The play is set during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48).
The Cook: It’s a war all right in one sense, what with ... murder and looting and the odd bit of rape thrown in, but different from all the other wars because it’s a war of faith.
Can you identify a modern example where people used religion to justify war and atrocities? Discuss your thoughts as a class.
2.5.1 The territorial states In western Europe, states became kingdoms, principalities and city-states. Townspeople wanted to end feudal lords’ privileges. Territorial rulers helped towns gain freedom from nobles and protected them in exchange for taxes and services, which gave the territorial rulers absolute power. Advances in war technology, like gunpowder, guns and cannons, made infantry and artillery more effective than knights. The territorial rulers replaced feudal armies with mercenaries and sought prosperous territories where they could collect taxes. They also controlled religion in their lands. We will explore how the powers of rulers changed in Germany, France, England, Spain and Russia.
SOURCE2 Soldiers plundering a farm during the Thirty Years’ War, by Sebastiaen Vrancx, 1620
2.5.2 Germany Germany had over 300 political states in the Holy Roman Empire, formed in 800 CE when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne the emperor. Centuries later, under Emperor Maximilian I, it became the Holy Roman Empire of German Nations in 1512. After the Reformation, German Catholics and Protestants
32 Jacaranda Humanities Alive 8 Victorian Curriculum Third Edition
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