1. EUROPE OF THE 18 TH CENTURY

2. SOCIETY OF THE 18 TH CENTURY

3. ANCIEN REGIME France before 1789 Hierarchical society characterized by:  Aristocratic elites with inherited legal privileges  Established churches closely associated with the state  Urban labor force usually organized into guilds  Rural peasantry subject to high taxes and feudal dues Emphasis on group over individual rights

5. ARISTOCRACY 1-5% of population British: political power through the Parliament French: “nobles of the sword” v. “nobles of the robe” Eastern European: military Resurgence  Privileges  High-ranking jobs just for nobles  Government institutions (Parliament, parlements, diets)  Tax exemptions

6. PEASANTS AND SERFS Worse off in the east France: banalities (feudal dues) & corvee (annual forced labor) Habsburg: robot (mandatory service to lord) Russia: noble wealth = number of serfs (worst)

7. FAMILY LIFE Family economy: the family was the basic unit of both production and consumption in preindustrial Europe NW Europe v. E Europe  Nuclear v. extended  Married later v. earlier  Servants Women  Worth  establish and maintain household  Marriage economic necessity  Birth control  control food supply

8. URBAN LIFE Urbanization  1500: 156 cities with more than 10,000 people; 4 with more than 100,000  1800: 363 with more than 10,000; 17 with more than 100,000  Greatest growth among capitals and ports, due to monarchical state-building and expansion of overseas trade Class System  Upper: nobles, church, government (ran city)  Middle: merchants, professional (bourgeoisie)  Enlightenment  Artisans: skilled laborers (guilds)

10. POPULATION INCREASE Before  Famine  1600 population growth outstripped food supply  Disease  typhus, smallpox, recurring plague  War  30 Years’ War (Germany) 18 th Century  Doubled in size between 1700-1835  Fewer deaths  disappearance of the plague, better public health, better food supply (absolutism)

12. ECONOMY OF THE 18 TH CENTURY

13. AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION Goal: create a stable food supply Innovations  Dutch: drain land, soil restoration  England: seed drill, crop rotation  Enclosure  replaced open-fields, small land plots consolidated, commercialization Population increase  more access to food  created a wider gap between rich and poor  movement of poor to cities for work

14. COTTAGE INDUSTRY Rural workers used hand tools in their homes to manufacture food on a large scale for sale in a market Putting-out system  Merchant capitalist and rural worker  Raw materials  finished products Textiles Women  Spinsters  Wages lower than men

15. INDUSTRIOUS REVOLUTION Shift (NWE) from self production to earning wages Women  Menial low paying jobs  Great role in household decisions Undermining Guilds  Groups that held monopolies over trade, training apprentices and hiring workers  Protected urban artisans  Membership  men, Christians, fees and masterpiece  Competition with rural workers led to slow decline of power