Absolutism Essay

Absolutism is when the sovereign power and the divine right are given to a single ruler. In an absolutistic government, one ruler controls all aspects of government body. The prominence of Absolutism came about in seventeenth and though eighteenth century. The idea was as radical as it sounds but much of the causes for the rise of the Absolutism in Western Europe were primarily due to the social aspect, economic aspect and political aspect of seventeenth and early eighteenth century.

The origin of the rise of absolutism goes as far back as the Crusades. It was a holy war between Muslims and Christians when Turks started to charge money and mistreat Christians in their holy land of Jerusalem. Anyways, without the Crusades, absolutism in the Western Europe could have been improbable because it was during the crusades when the ideals of the eastern part of Europe spread through the Western part of Europe. The idea of one ruler controlling all aspects of the government was not

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After the medieval age, Western Europe was left barren and wasted. A British historian states in his book, Lineages of the Absolutist State, that

“The long crisis of European economy and society during the 14th and 15th centuries marked the difficulties and limits of the feudal mode of production in the late medieval period. What was the final political outcome... the Absolutist State... The centralized monarchies of France, England, and Spain represented a decisive rupture with the pyramidal, parcellized sovereignty of the medieval social formations, with their estates and their leige systems...” (Perry 15)

People w...

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...ious business.

This radical form of the government was also possible because of the transformation of the minds of the people after the Renaissance. During the

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Renaissance, people thought in a new sporadic ways that no one had ever thought of. They also studied classic literatures such as Greek and Latin and excelled in self-improvement. Perhaps, the absolutist monarchs hoped to follow the guide to become the true “Renaissance man”.

Absolutism in Western Europe was a huge part of Europe’s development. Although it had downsides, much of Europe had been completely different if it weren’t for Absolutism. The combination of people’s struggle for peace and order, the rise and fall of the power of nobility, inundation of new ideals from the Eastern Europe and finally the ambition of Absolutist Monarchs contributed to the rise of Absolutism in Western Europe.