Louis XIV and Religion Louis XIV was a devoted Catholic. Even so, his wish to centralize and unify France caused conflict between France and Rome. Like his ancestors before him, Louis and the clergy of France upheld the tradition of Gallicianism, control of the French church by the throne. On of the most serious of these conflicts involved Louis' claim to income from vacant positions in the French Catholic church. Out of this conflict came a document known as the Four Gallican Articles, which reaffirmed the throne's supremacy over the pope, even in doctrinal matters. At one time relations between Paris and Rome were so strained that it seemed as though the French church might break away completely from the church in Rome. Louis, however, made some concessions to Rome in order to gain the support of the Roman Catholic church against hostile Protestant forces. Louis persecuted two religious groups in particular. The first of these groups was the Jansenists, a faction of the Catholic church that believed in the doctrine of predestination. Although this group was protected by the pope, Louis believed them to be dangerous to both church and state and persecuted them severely. Another group persecuted by Louis XIV was the Huguenots. During Colbert's lifetime, this group was protected because its followers made up a large percentage of France's skilled workers and leaders in commerce, industry, and banking. After Colbert's death, however, Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes, which protected the religious freedom of the Huguenots. Huguenots were no longer free to worship as they pleased for fear of being thrown into prison as an enemy of the state. This policy proved to have a very bad effect on the French economy becaus... ... middle of paper ... .... Three times armies from the Netherlands, England, Sweden, Austria, Spain, and Germany joined forces to stop the French army at the Dutch front. The thirteen-year-long War of Spanish Succession was fought when France's neighbors once again formed an alliance to prevent the French and the Spanish thrones from uniting when Louis's grandson, Philip was made heir to the throne for Spain. Overall, Louis failed to achieve most of his military goals. Instead, he wasted thousands of French lives and emptied France's treasury. Bibliography: The European History of the World; Jerome Blum, Rondo Cameron, Thomas Barnes; Little, Brown and Company Boston, 1970; 267-293 Louis XIV, King of France Encylopedia Brittanica Intermediate http://search.ebi.eb.com The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia http://looksmart.infoplease.com Textbook
The Edict of Nantes had given Protestants, or Huguenots, in France the ability to practice their religion without fear of violence or persecution. Enacted in the late 1500s in an effort to resemble France after the destruction of the French Wars of Religion, the Edict of Nantes served as a means to unite the French population and end the violence that often accompanied religious persecution. Louis’ decision to revoke such a peace-promoting edict, in an effort to homogenize his country and align his subjects with his own beliefs, clearly illustrates his giving of priority to his own agenda, as opposed to that which would best benefit his country. However, while the claim that the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was detrimental to French society, seems to be disproven by Doc 6, which essentially asserts that the king’s revocation has resulted in the rapid conversion of “whole towns” and describes the king as “the invincible hero destined to… destroy the terrible monster of heresy”, the author’s inherently biased point of view must be addressed. This description, which could be used as evidence to support the fact that Louis did act in interest of the state, must be taken with a grain of salt as the author himself, a member of the Assembly of the Clergy, does not even have the best interest of the state in mind; rather, he is
Bartlett, Robert, ‘The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural change 950-1350’ (Penguin Books 1994)
A Comparison of the Characteristics of the Absolutist Rule of Charles I of England and Louis XIV of France
Upshur, Jiu-Hwa, Janice J. Terry, Jim Holoka, Richard D. Goff, and George H. Cassar. Thomson advantage Books World History. Compact 4th edition ed. Vol. Comprehensive volume. Belmont: Thompson Wadsworth, 2005. 107-109. Print.
When Louis the XIV began his rule in 1643, his actions immediately began to suggest and absolute dictatorship. Because of the misery he had previously suffered, one of the first things he did was to decrease the power of the nobility. He withdrew himself from the rich upper class, doing everything secretly. The wealth had no connection to Louis, and therefore all power they previously had was gone. He had complete control over the nobles, spying, going through mail, and a secret police force made sure that Louis had absolute power. Louis appointed all of his officials, middle class men who served him without wanting any power. Louis wanted it clear that none of his power would be shared. He wanted "people to know by the rank of the men who served him that he had no intention of sharing power with them." If Louis XIV appointed advisors from the upper classes, they would expect to gain power, and Louis was not willing to give it to them. The way Louis XIV ruled, the sole powerful leader, made him an absolute ruler. He had divine rule, and did not want to give any power to anyone other than himself. These beliefs made him an absolute ruler.
One example of a battle in Europe that was caused by religious conflict took place in the Netherlands, between the Dutch citizens and their ruler Phillip II of Spain. When he tried to gain control of the catholic church there, the Dutch rebelled. The Protestants began to assault the Catholics, destroy their churches, and revolt against Phillip and his strict Catholic codes in 1572. The conflict ended in 1579 with a twelve year truce, when seven of the seventeen provinces united under Calvinism and William of Orange, and formed the United Provinces. The remaining ten remained under the rule of Spain.
Duiker, William J., and Jackson J. Spielvogel. World History. 3rd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomsom Learning, 2001. 374-438.
In order to gain the power he desired as an absolute monarch, Louis used a few key techniques that were very successful. His first and most necessary step to get all control was to take all of the nobles’ power, and make it so they were completely under his control. He first did this by taking the nobles’ positions of power, and either getting rid of them by doing it himself, or giving the jobs to loyal middleclass or some nobles who were completely loyal and under his control. Louis had very simple reasoning for doing this, which was that if the nobles had any power or control, they would have a better chance of overthrowing him, and that since there can only be so much total power, the more they had, the less ...
Karl, Kenneth. Cracking the AP European History Exam New York: Princeton Review Publishing, 2004: 118-120
Absolutism describes a form of monarchical power that is unrestrained by all other institutions, such as churches, legislatures, or social elites. To achieve absolutism one must first promote oneself as being powerful and authoritative, then the individual must take control of anyone who might stand in the way of absolute power. The Palace of Versailles helped King Louis XIV fulfill both of those objectives. Versailles used propaganda by promoting Louis with its grandiosity and generous portraits that all exuded a sense of supremacy. Versailles also helped Louis take control of the nobility by providing enough space to keep them under his watchful eye. The Palace of Versailles supported absolutism during King Louis XIV’s reign through propaganda, and control of nobility.
Ellis, Elizabeth Gaynor, and Anthony Esler. World History: The Modern Era. Boston: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Print.
Beck, Roger B., Linda Black, Larry S. Krieger, Phillip C. Naylor, and Dahia I. Shabaka. World History: Patterns of Interaction. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 2009.
Ed. John Merriman and Jay Winter. "1989." Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction. Vol. 4. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006. 1874-1880. World History in Context. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
Duiker, William J. , and Jackson J. Spielvogel. World History . 6th. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Pub Co, 2010. print.
Rice, Eugene E. and Anthony Grafton. The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559. 2nd. ed. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1994.