Political History - AP European History

The female suffrage movement really took off in the middle of the nineteenth century, but was unable to gain much ground in European society until early in the twentieth century. The turning point was the outbreak of World War One, when so many men were forced away from their workplaces to fight, and die, on the battlefield. After the women of this time period were given new responsibilities, they demanded new rights to go with them, and many governments found that they no longer could withhold the right to vote from women. The majority of European governments extended the right to vote to women either during or shortly after World War One; however, notable late adopters include France in 1944, Italy in 1947, and Switzerland in 1971.

Under Napoleon’s Civil Code, the gains made by the previous generations of women were reversed and women were deprived of many of the rights they had temporarily enjoyed, such as the right to freely divorce and own property. France returned to the extremely patriarchal society of the Ancien Regime.

Throughout 1848, revolutions spread through France, the German States, Poland, Austria, Hungary, and Denmark. While all stemming from different internal causes, the revolutionaries were largely arguing for universal suffrage, liberal governments, and widespread democratic ideals. The revolutions ended a number of monarchies and enacted some reforms, but were largely reversed by reactionary movements within just a few years.

All of these theories emerged during the Enlightenment except for the Divine Right of Kings, which had its origins in the autocratic monarchies of the centuries that preceded the Enlightenment. The Divine Right of Kings stated that the right of the king to rule was divinely ordained by God and that to resist the king was therefore to resist the will of God.

Deism is the belief in a “watchmaker god,” a god who created the universe with a series of natural laws and then sat back and allowed the development of the universe to unfold. Deism emerged during the Enlightenment as a theocratic application of Enlightenment theories on natural law. It was widely embraced by Enlightenment thinkers, including Newton, Thomas Jefferson, and Voltaire and involved the rejection of the established Christian order in Europe.

The above quotation is the most famous quotation attributed to the French Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract. It reflects his belief that man is born free in a state of nature, but is corrupted and imprisoned by the constructs and constraints of society.

Quotation adapted from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jaques Rousseau (1762; 1920 J. M. Dent & Sons ed.)

Marquis de Condorcet was a French Enlightenment thinker and writer who is popularly remembered for his writings advocating for equal rights for women and minorities. He remains an influential early feminist writer as well as influential in other areas of philosophy and political theory.

The feminist movement emerged for the first time in Europe during the Enlightenment. Female writers like Mary Wollstonecraft did a great deal to advance the cause of female independence, and women made slow progress during the Enlightenment period. It was the first time that Europeans began to collectively consider the role and subjugation of women in European society.

Thomas Hobbes was an Enlightenment philosopher who is usually contrasted against John Locke. Both men wrote extensively on the state of nature, the social contract, and the role of the state, but came to very different conclusions. While Locke believed the role of the state was to preserve each individual’s right to life, liberty, and property ownership, Hobbes believed that the role of the state was to protect each individual from the aggression of other individuals. Hobbes had little faith in mankind in its natural state and believed the state existed to prevent people from killing one another and stealing from one another.

During the Renaissance, the status of upper- and middle-class women suffered dramatically. Women’s minds were considered inadequate for higher learning, and women’s bodies were considered to be owned by their father or husband. Noticeably, the standard punishment for rape across Europe changed dramatically from the Medieval period (castration or death) to the Renaissance period (a fine payable to the father or husband). The status of peasant women remained relatively stable during the transition from the Medieval period to the Renaissance period.

During the Renaissance period, the Spanish government enforced a strict religious orthodoxy that prevented the spread of Renaissance ideals like individualism and faith in the ability of humans. Furthermore, the Jews and the Muslims, who made up much of Spain's middle classes, were forced to leave the country, taking with them the resources and inclination that might have spread Renaissance values in Spain.

Cromwell defeated the Scottish forces during the English Civil War, which allowed him to take full control over Parliament. You might not have known the correct answer, but you should know that Scottish Calvinists were called Presbyterians, and that if Cromwell defeated the Scottish, he would be able to force the Scottish religious group out of Parliament. After he took control of Parliament, it voted to execute King Charles for treason.

Mary Wollstonecraft is most famous for her Enlightenment feminist work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; however, she was also a notable advocate for republicanism and a supporter of the French Revolution. In A Vindication of the Rights of Men, Wollstonecraft attacks the conservative arguments that Edmund Burke had made in Reflections of the Revolution in France.

Thomas Hobbes was a famous Enlightenment-era thinker whose opinion that the life of people in an ungoverned state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” is usually contrasted against John Locke’s belief in natural human rights. Hobbes would contend that people only have the right to that which they can protect for themselves.

Quotation adapted from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651; ed. A. R. Waller, 1904 ed.)

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy was adopted by the National Assembly in 1790, during the first state of the French Revolution. It established that all clergymen were to be elected by the population and were prohibited from owing allegiance to the authority of the Vatican.

For centuries, Spain had been a region divided into various kingdoms, and had a famously wealthy polyglot society. Beginning with the reign of Isabella and Ferdinand over a united Spain, however, the Jews and Muslims were persecuted and forced to flee the country. The primary motivation was to centralize power under the new Spanish monarchs and develop a cohesive Spanish national identity that was centered around Catholicism.

King Louis XIV’s many wars and extravagant building works (like the palace at Versailles) contributed to the “golden era” of France, but they also mired the whole country in exorbitant debt. In French society in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, only the Third Estate (the peasantry and the lower middle class) was subject to taxation. As the debt kept climbing, so did the rate of taxation of the poorest in French society. This would directly contribute to the outbreak of the French Revolution.

During the English Civil War, the Irish forces primarily supported the crown, the nobility, and Catholicism. In trying to suppress this support, Cromwell and his forces committed numerous atrocities and massacres in Ireland that would have dramatic ramifications in the next three hundred years of British-Irish relations. Some historians would contend that these atrocities are still very influential today.

The Declaration of Rights, sometimes called the English Bill of Rights, was enacted into law in 1689 following the Glorious Revolution and the accession of William and Mary to the throne. It was designed to ensure the continued supremacy of Parliament over the Crown indefinitely and to provide certain inalienable rights. All of these rights were included except for the universal right to free speech. Only members of Parliament had the absolute right to free speech; the common people were excluded.