31.3 Europe: a.d. 1601 to 1700  (Page 5/30)

Following the Treaty of Westphalia the histories of Germany and Austria definitely diverge, with various German states remaining definitely independent, although soon to be dominated by Prussia. The Habsburgs confined their interests and power to the soon to be formed Austrio-Hungarian Empire. The war had cut the population of Germany from 20,000,000 to 13,500,000 and there was a dearth of men. At the Congress of Franconia in Nuremberg in 1650 a resolution was adopted that every man should be allowed two wives and every male should be so reminded from the pulpits. Taxes were imposed upon unmarried women. By 1700 equality of the sexes had been restored and there were again 20,000,000 Germans.

The many Jews in Germany led a precarious existence in this century. In Frankfort in 1614 a Christian crowd forced entry into a ghetto and after a night of plunder and destruction, compelled 1,380 Jews to leave the city. In general the higher classes of people and clergy were tolerant, but the lower clergy and masses were easily stirred to a frenzy of hate. After the Thirty Years War persecution lessened and the Jewish settlements expanded rapidly.

The second half of the 17th century after the Treaty of Westphalia presents an entirely new picture in Central Europe and we shall now examine that situation in more detail.

Germany

Although still divided into many separate states, overall the peasants of Germany occupied a middle ground between the serfs of the east and the freer life to the west. Their slow emancipation was an important reason for the slow appearance of the industrial revolution in Germany. The food situation was helped greatly as the potato, yielding 4 times as much carbohydrate per acre as wheat, reached even eastern Germany in this century. (Ref. 8 ) Drunkenness became a universal German characteristic, perhaps fueled by various strong spirits developed by the Dutch. (Ref. 270 ) The Fuggers had gone bankrupt in 1627; the Hanseatic League, with their trade taken over by Holland, was dissolved in 1669. (Ref. 8 ) Since prior to that wage-earners had begun to make up at least 50% of the Hanseatic town populations, this probably meant considerable change in life styles. (Ref. 292 ) German intellectual power could not be denied. Gottfred Wilhelm Leibniz, man of the world, intimate with statesmen and courts, accepting both Protestantism and Catholicism, writing 50 treatises and embracing God and the world with desperate optimism, was the great philosopher of Central Europe, living and working at various times in Leipsig, Jena, Altdorf, Mainz and finally Berlin, where he was the first president of the Berlin Scientific Society. He published an infinitesimal calculus in 1684, 3 years before Newton's similar work. (Ref. 52 , 38 ) (Continue on page 948)

It may help to clarify the rather confusing situation in Germany if we discuss some of the more important divisions, separately.

Brandenburg - prussia

After 1618 these two states were united by marriage of two branches of Hohenzollerns and were under the same ruler. This was the third largest state in Germany, behind only Bavaria and Saxony in size. (Ref. 8 ) During the Thirty Years War the area had been devastated by the Swedes, but the accession of Frederick William Hohenzollern, the Great Elector, in 1640, led to an astonishingly rapid recovery in economy, prestige and power. He organized a central government with a civil service, a postal system and a graduated income tax, along with improved roads and a canal system which permitted the growth of Berlin. Because the state was in the path of the Swedish armies in another of their attempts to conquer Poland (First Northern War of 1655-1660), Frederick was inevitably drawn in, but in the end he did gain full sovereignty over East Prussia. In 1680 his warships even defeated the Spanish navy off the Portuguese coast and by 1688 he had a modern standing army of 30,000 men to protect his 1,000,000 people. (Ref. 131 )