1. Life in the Ancien Regime Anything before 1789 in France

2. Political situation absolute monarchies Growing bureaucracies Aristocratically led armies

3. Economic situation Scarcity of food agrarian economy slow transport low level of iron production overseas empires poor financial institutions

4. Social situation less emphasis on individual; more on group membership and its rights and privileges Population: 1700: 100-120 million; by 1850: 260 million

5. Population High Fertility and mortality rates Infant mortality rates high: at least 1/5; 1/3 in rural areas 1700—average life span: 25 years 1850—average life span: 35 years

6. Population growth Decline in death rate Fewer wars and epidemics Hygiene and sanitation improve Change in food supply More children survived into adulthood Growth took place before industrial revolution

7. What affects population? Famine as population control Diet New foods Disease: plague and cholera War Birth Control

8. Family: Extended vs. nuclear Western Households: Nuclear Family structure Married couple & their children through early teens & servants Small, 5-6 people Usually only 2 generations in home

9. High mortality rate; late marriage (men 26; women 23) Neolocalism: Early teen left home— became young servants to other families (in exchange for room, board, salary) Married eventually and formed independent households; children came soon after marriage

10. Pre-marital sex common; illegitimate births rare

11. Eastern Households Married young (men and women 20—sometimes women older than men) households consisted of between 9 and 20 members—3-4 generations once a man married, he remained in established household; did not form a new one landlords had control over marriage

12. Family Economy Everyone worked On Farms: labor went to growing food or producing ag. goods W. Europe: one family member worked elsewhere Artisans: followed pattern: wife ran business; sons learned trade; all for family survival

13. Death of father was devastating High mortality Step-children were common Elderly women relied on charity/relatives; some resorted to crime/begging

14. Eastern Europe Family economy=serfdom; landlord dominated all Size of families=desire to expand land under cultivation Dependence on land—main fact of life Fewer artisan or merchant households; less mobility

15. Children Childbirth feared Children were economic burden (led to increase in foundling hospitals) Only 10% of children lived to age of 10. Concept of childhood different Parents did love their children—many letters show parents grieving the loss of a child Child rearing strict: in many poor families, children had to work

16. Education not frequent; best in Calvinist countries: Scotland and Holland, from mid 17th Century; Also schools in Prussia from 1717 and England Literacy grew 1600-1800 1600: 1/6 literate in France and Scotland 1800: 90% in Scotland; 2/3 in France literate

17. Women women had to first maintain their parents’ household, then her own farm girls left home between ages 12 and 14 to become servants in town/city accumulate $ for a dowry; marriage—joint economic undertaking

18. women had to be part of a household to be safe; outside household=vulnerability women breastfed their children; rich women had wet nurses general oppression of women

19. Three Estates (France) Nobility, Clergy, Everyone else aristocratic elite: inherited legal privileges churches tied to state and aristocracy urban labor force (guilds) peasants paid high taxes and feudal dues

20. Aristocracy: 1-5% of population Wealthiest Most power Separate house in parliament, estates, diets Income from land Manual labor beneath nobility in most of Europe Some nobles: economic innovation All Nobles: birthright/legal privilege

21. Britain 400 families—eldest male sat in House of Lords Received rents on ¼ of British land $ invested in commerce, canals, urban real estate, mines, industrial ventures Eldest son=title and land Other sons: commerce, army, church, other professions Landowners levied and paid taxes; little legal privilege and much political power

22. France 400,000 nobles—sword and robe Divided nobility: those w/w-out favor at Versailles Court nobility held high offices, cost much $; Taille: land tax—peasant tax Corvee: labor tax—peasant tax Nobles did pay: vingtieme: 1/20th of income (income tax), but rarely paid in full

23. Eastern Europe Military tradition important Poland: szlachta exempt from taxes Made life/death decisions for all Most nobles very poor, or very rich—very rich controlled state

24. Eastern Europe Austria-Hungary: manorial courts Prussia: Junker nobility Russia: Table of Ranks & serfdom

25. Aristocratic Resurgence Protect social status threatened by monarchies Preserve exclusiveness Reserved appointments to officer corps of army, bureaucracies, gov’t ministries, church Use power of aristocratically-controlled institutions (parlements, parliament, estates, diets) against monarchies

26. Improve financial positions=more tax exemptions Collected higher rents; appealed to tradition and ancient privileges Land was the economic basis of the 18th century ¾ of Europeans lived in country— most were poor More poor in East than West

27. Open Field system: 1/3 fallow, but not in all areas Some areas had strip farming Common land for community use Enclosures in England for crop rotation=beginning of Agricultural Revolution of 18th Century; displaced many poor people Bad weather=bad harvests; weather colder until mid-1850 (Thames used to freeze)

28. Peasants and Serfs Free peasants: England (tenants) France: cultivators Struggles in West, advantageous to peasants Serfs: Germany, Austria, Russia—legally bound to the land/lord All countries: class w/most land made and executed laws; peasants seen as scarcely human

29. Peasant obligations France: most peasants owned some land Paid feudal dues: banalities, corvee Prussia/Austria: lords completely controlled the serfs/ rabot—to lords Poland: nobility could inflict death penalty on serfs

30. Russia: worst—wealth determined by #of souls (dushi) of male serfs owned/not amount of land Serfs seen as economic commodities Barshchina —up to 6 days of labor per week Landlords could punish serfs/exile them to Siberia No legal recourse for serfs

31. SE Europe: (Ottoman Empire controlled) Peasants free/landlord absent— peasants commercially oriented/produced cotton, vegetables, potatoes, maize, sold in markets Scarcity of labor=freedom/rights in SE Europe peasants could move BUT region politically unstable: peasants sought protection from lords and refuge from rebels

32. Landlords owned housing and tools peasants required peasants had legal independence but were dependent upon landlords

33. Peasant Revolts Russia—was worst system, had horrible rebellions; Peter I gave entire villages to favored nobles Catherine II confirmed noble authority over serfs for political cooperation 1762-1769: over 50 peasant revolts occurred

34. 1773-1775: Pugachev’s Rebellion Emillian Pugachev, Don Cossack claimed to be Peter III revolt spread to Volga River basin Troops consisted of: Cossacks upset about abolition of their organization

35. Peasants angry over their worsening conditions Ethnic minorities upset about infringement on their lands by Russia Old Believers rejecting state interference in church affairs

36. Pugachev’s government alternative form of government liberate the serfs abolition of taxation and military service promised to abolish landlords

37. BUT forces inexperienced and undisciplined Early in the rebellion, Russian administrators could not react; Pugachev took Kazan, but did not attack the centers (Moscow/St. Petersburg) 1774, Russian armies moved against Pugachev successfully, and Pugachev was betrayed by his own men

38. Pugachev was transported to Moscow in a cage; brutally executed; none of his reforms were lasting Catherine II considered herself enlightened, but her legislation strengthened central control over regional administration and strengthened serfdom

39. English rural riots Targeted unfair pricing, new & increased feudal dues; changes of payments; land use; unjust officials; brutal overseers & landlords Peasant vengeance directed at property, not people

40. English Grievances: 1671-1831 Landlords held exclusive rights to hunt game animals: hare, partridge, pheasants, moor foul, deer; it was a capital offense for all others in the 18th Century

41. Who could not hunt: renters wealthy city merchants w/out land poor in cities, villages and country

42. Poaching increased By 1820, call for reform was heard 1831—new laws made

43. Growth of Towns—1500-1800 1500—only 4 cities had populations of 100,000 + (Paris, Venice, Milan, Naples) 1800—17 cities of 100,000+; 360 cities over 10,000 Development occurred near Atlantic and Mediterranean Migration from countryside main cause of population growth

44. Cities energized populations and accelerated social changes Cities become market, commercial and shipping centers, as well as having much of a country’s capital concentrated in one area

45. Classes in cities Upper class: nobles: bankers, large merchants, financiers, clergy, gov’t officials, who controlled political and economic affairs of the town Middle class—not landed money: merchants, trades people, bankers, professional people/less wealth, but much resentment of nobility; benefited from expanded trade and commerce/chief consumers of new market

46. Artisans—largest group in city: shopkeepers, wage earners, grocers, butchers, carpenters, etc. conservative values

47. class divisions no important political place for newly socially important Urban Middle Class (esp. in France and England) Peasants resented leftovers of feudal dues, leading to rebellion—Fr. Revolution Division between taxed and untaxed led to problems for governments

48. Political divisions division between Kings and subjects absolutism only works for certain very competent rulers problems even worse when country gets not just bad, but average rulers

49. Divisions between men and women/adults and children Not addressed until much later divisions between East and West Europe Led to different development: more explosive change in East in Early 20th C. + no democratic tradition

50. Jewish population: Age of the Ghetto 3 million Jews in E. Europe—Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania 1762: Catherine II excluded Jews from settling in Russia Most Jews did not enjoy rights and privileges of other subjects Lived in separate communities that were self-governing; could not and did not mix w/mainstream

51. Most lived in poverty Undesirable areas of cities Some were moneylenders; most worked in lowest occupation Religious Beliefs kept them separated from the rest of society

52. 2nd Agricultural Revolution Began in Low Countries Better dikes, drained farmland New crops—clover, turnips for animal fodder; restored soil Jethro Tull: new ideas: iron plow/seed drill Charles Townsend: fertilizer, crop rotation

53. RESULT: more food for animals and people Robert Bakewell: animal breeding=more and better animals=more and better meat Arthur Young: Annals of Agriculture Enclosure movement: Fences placed around common land This reclaimed untilled waste, transformed strips into block fields

54. Enclosure controversial then and now Pro: Extended farming & innovation Increased food production Did not depopulate countryside New soil under production Introduced capitalistic attitude of urban merchants into countryside Left peasants to the mercy of the marketplace

55. Con: Disrupted small communities Forced independent farmers off land Removed poor cottage dwellers as well

56. Industrial Revolution