The creation of centralized states in Austria, Prussia, and Russia required cutting deals or cutting the throats of the nobility.

 Leopold I  Charles VI  Maria Theresa  Pragmatic Sanction  Frederick William, the Great Elector  Junkers  Frederick I  Frederick William I  Frederick II, the Great  Ivan the Great  Ivan the Terrible  Time of Troubles  Michael Romanov  boyars  Cossacks  Peter the Great  streltsy  Table of Ranks  Great Northern War

 In all three states, the monarchs granted nobles virtually unrestricted rights over their serfs, thus guaranteeing wealth in exchange for political power  Nobles in all three states served as the officer corps of expanding armies.

 Hungarian nobles retained their privileges, allowing Hungary some autonomy after it was conquered and absorbed into the Austrian Empire.  Many Protestant Bohemian nobles lost their lands after the Battle of White Mountain in 1620;  their lands and titles given to Catholics usually of German origin who were loyal to the throne.

 Frederick William the Great Elector forced the nobles to relinquish their traditional political rights and did not call their representative assembly, the diet, into session at all in the last thirty years of his rule.  Nobles were given greater authority over their serfs instead.  Junkers became the officer corps after Frederick William I threatened to destroy them.

 Ivan the Terrible required that all nobles serve the tsar in order to own land.  He killed many boyars in his reign of terror and gave their lands to service nobles who got their titles in return for loyalty to him and military service.  The nobles elected Michael Romanov as tsar in 1613 after a period of social disorder.  Peter the Great created new rankings for nobles, the Twelve Ranks, rewarding service to the state with higher ranking.  All nobles were expected to work their way up the rankings.  Military service was for life  Some slots were given to middles-class servants of the state  Nobles were forced by the tsar to dress in European style, become, educated, shave their beards, and build and live in fancy houses in his new capital, St. Petersburg.