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For Stability in Early Modern Europe THE STRUCCLE FOR STABILITY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE THEODORE K. RABB Princeton University New York OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 7975 For Susannah, lonatbdn, and leremy prinring, last digit: 20 19 l8 l7 16 15 Copy¡ight @ ry7sby Oxford'Universþ Press, Inc. LibräÛ õf Congress Catalogue Cerd Numbert 75-420? Printed in the United States of America e¿,? PREFACE This essay was written in response to an appârentþ growing need. During the last half-dozen yeers, my classes in Early Modern His- tory have made me increasingly aware that the "general crisis of the seventeenth centuty" thesis, about which so much has been written, and whose importance as a problem in cur¡ent research seems solidly established, frequently confuses rather than enlightens. Even advanced students come away from a reading of the articles pub- lished in Past ds Present and the related literatu¡e with the impres- sion that chaos reigns, that there is no way of reaching fi.rm con- clusions or imposing a coherent framework on so contentious e subject. Nor have the scholars who have produced these works of- fered much solace. Although meny resort to the term "crisis," and it has become a standby in introductory textbooks, hardly any two treetments agree in the meaning of the word, let alone its implica- tions for an understanding of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- turies. For students above all, but also for specialists, it may well be time to call a halt; to examine what has beèn accomplished, and to see if a cornprehensive assessment is now:possible. What follows is an elaboration, and more detailed statement, of an interpretation-in part a re ials, in part an ettempt to find new conne be of some benefit tô uncertain students number of colleagues in the field. There is the additional ing it to a wider audience that the two centu t\peen Reforrnation and Enlightenn'lent heve most shapeless in European history. Indeed, as we will see, it was precisel¡ because of the fragmented scholarship produced before Wo¡ld War II that the "crisis" thesis could have such an impact. Un- dis- * r¡+Ts*,¡å#nc vrypç, ¡gqn fortunately, the divisions and perplexities it aroused quickly solved its role âs the creetor of a new meens of organizing the lvül viìi pref ace # CONTENTS To establish the contexr, the fi¡st few sections review the histori- If such raþid ro put it mildly, I so aptly volunteere es, inThe Comedy of Surviødl: A \gp¡less ettempr to see things whole is at least as worthy as the equally hopeless task of isolating fragments for intensive study. He continues, "and much more interesting," but I am willing to let I: The Problem, 3 the case rest without flinging down that additional gauntlet.- II: Scholarly Fragmentation and the Origins of the "Crisis" Thesis, T III: Proponents and Critics of the "Crisis," r 7 IV: DefiningTerms, z9 V: Beginningp and Cultural Malaise, 35 . VI: The First Response: Caution, Escape, and Control,49 VII: Domestic Politics, óo some use for others who smdy or teech the If I cannot þeriod. VIII: International Relations and the Force of Religion, record ¿ll the reâders, I must convey my appreciation to those who 74 encoura,ged or rec.ggr{zably influenced the pages that IX: Economics, Demography, and Social Relations, 83 ¡tg_þarahona, Bþilip Benedict, Theodore Brown, John X: Resolution in Aesthetics, roo 'War, {pphg1,{r!9{+"^hg,, Çþ-lo Gpolgq, James Henretta, XI: Possible Explanations: The Effects of r 16 Orest Ranum, lrg;!avþ, John XII: Implications fo¡ the Future, 147 Bibliographic Appendix, r53 Index of Authors Cited, r59 T.K.R. Index, 165 lixl èg,ô- ILLUSTRATIONS r. El Greco, Laocoön,42 z. Bronzino, Allegory, 43 3. Titian, Pietà,44 4. Michelang elo, C b ar on' s B o at (detall from T h e La st J ud gtne?ìt), +j 5. Titian, Baccbanal, 46 ó. Rubens, The Apotheosis of Jdmes I, 56 7. Rubens, The Marriage of Henry IV and Marie de' Medici,57 8. Le Brun, Chdncellor Ségu,ier, rc5 9. Claude, The Angel Appearing to Hagar, ro9 ro. Claude, The Sermon on tbe Moant, rog r r. Titian, Chdrles V at Mühlberg, tz5 rz. Brueghel ,The Triumph of Death, tz6 r3. Brueghel,The Massacre of tbe Innocents, tz7 14. Rubens, Decius Mus Addressing the Legions, t3o r5. Rubens, Peace and War, t3z ró. Rubens, The Horrors of War, r33 [ri] xä lllustrations t7. Yelíøquez, Equestian Portrait of Bahasar Carlos, 136 r8. Yelâzquez,Tbe Sutrender of Breda, ry7 -@^ 9¿¡? t9. Yelázquez, Mars, r3B 2o. Calloq The Siege of Bredø (detail), r4o "The road to resolution lies by doubt: 2t. Callot, The Hanging (from The Miseries of War), r4r The next way home's the fa¡thest way about." Callot, The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, r4z 23. Callog The Execution (fromThe Miseries of War),-t4z -Francis Q:uarles, Em blents (r$ 5), Book IV, No. z, Epigram.z. 24. Calloq The Temptøtion of St. Antbony (detail), r43 25. Wattèau (after), Tbe Encørnpnent, t44 I +& THE PROBLEM Momus (pointing to Mars): Thy'Wars brought nothing âbout. Jarru.s;'Tiswell an Old Age is out, Cl¡ronos: Andtime to begin a New. -John Dryden, The Seculør Masque ftom T he P ilgrim, lines 889r. A historian must take pause when in th¡ee short lines e poet distills the argument of many, many peges. Yet Dryden's oft-quoted ob- servetion, put in the mouttn of iconographically well.chosen Greek and Romen gods, does describe in a few words a development which thir essay will attempt et some length to describe and explain. My only disagreement with Dryden is that I believe the wa¡s did bring something about. But the sense thet en age is passing, which is so strong not only in his writing but throughout the culture of his times, is central to the understanding of the late seventeenth century that I wish to propose. What I will be trying to demon- suate is that Europe entered e nerv erâ very roughly during the middle third of the century, and that the best indication of this profound transfo¡metion is the very different atmosphere that reþed in the succeeding decades. Between, sey, the early ró3o's end the early ró7o's (though it would be foolish to insist on crisp cut-off points in so far-reaching a process) there was a change in direction more dramatic artd decisive than any tliat occurred in a ltl 4 Struggle for Stabili.ty in Early Modern Europe The Problenz t forqy-year period between the beginnings of the Reformation and was P¿ul IJaz;lrd, whose classic Ld Crise de la conscience euro- the French Revolution. And it is precisely by recognizing how dif- was published neatly half a century then, many þéenne ^go.'Since fe¡ent Europe's situation was in the aftermøtå of these events than it historians have purported to see a "crisis" taking place somewhat had been during, or immediately preceding, the great shift that we earlier than Haza¡d's opening date of 168o, and on the whole thei¡ can come to appreciate the extent of the alteration that had been chronology seems more appropriate to my schema.2 But they, on wrought. As in modern physics, the existence of the phenomenon the other hand, have given almost no attention to the period with itself can become more perceptible when one focuses on its conse- which Hazard was in fact dealing, and which this essay will be stressing. Indeed, the emphases of the present are such that quences.- work A quick, of the new sensibility and of it might well be characterized as a "posr-crisis" interpretation-a the new so ips, is revealed by a number desþation that has a double justification, both chronological and of obvious e of Rubens and the taste of historiographical. It denotes, first, the view that the changed cir- Claude; between the commitments of Milton and the cominitments cumstences of the end of. the seventeenth century, that is, in the of Dryden; berween the asphations of Charles I and those of his "post-crisis" era, provide the best evidence for the belief that a son, Charles II; between the ambitions of Condé in the ró4o's (not genuine and significant transformation had taken place at mid- unlike those held by his father or great-grandfather in the I6Io's century. Second, it indicates en eftempt to go beyond the literarure and r56o's) and then during the last few years before his death in on the "crisis," to provide a new perspective on the themes that his- r686; berween the career of Wallenstein and the caree¡ of Eugène; torians have studied so extensively during the past twenty years, between the reception of Gelileo and the reception of Newton; be- since Eric Hobsbawm first wrote of a "general crisis."3 In other tween the angst-ridden striving for order of a Desca¡tes or e words, by highlighting the later period this essay also seeks to re- Hobbes and the confidence of a Locke; between the image of Gus- formulate and reshape a scholarly controversy: to confront a tavus Adolphus, "the champion of Protestantism," and Charles XII, "struggle for stability" both in Early Modern Europe and among the defender of Sweden's "great-power position"; between the pol- its recent students. icies of Paul V and Innocent XI; between a society vulnerable and Before any such enterprise can be undertaken, however, we then relatively impervious to witchcraft panics. In all these cases must first examine (as we will in sections II and III) the back- the years around r Toci appear more ordered, more assured about ac- ground out of which the reassessment arises.
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