The Reformation and the Rise of the Nation State
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TM – So you don’t believe that the long ‘wars of religion’ in France and the suppression of Protestantism were major factors handicapping the development of capitalism and bourgeois ideology? Is this not one of the reasons that the capitalist class turned to the enlightenment as an ideology that promoted their revolutionary cause? The capitalism that existed in many Catholic countries was merchant capitalism which only evolved into industrial capitalism and the procurement of surplus value in England. This was helped or, indeed, caused by the favorable legal and financial systems that came about after the English Revolution of the 1640s.
Definitely the breaking of the royal monopoly in England was of benefit to those capitalists of the ports and towns heavily invested in foreign trade, including spices and slaves. It is wrong to call it the English Revolution, as if it stood alone. It was a political, economic and financial victory for the urban bourgeoisie over the Henrician (still capitalist) aristocracy whose interests lay with the monarch. The English Revolution had begun with the decimation of population brought by the Black Death and then a century later by the victory of Henry VII at Bosworth, continuing through the turmoil of the 16th century enclosures and further consolidation of central state power. The civil war was part of the process of revolution. It did not stand alone and the revolution was not completed until the final settlement of 1688.
As for France and the Wars of Religion, you seem to think that all the bourgeoisie were Huguenots. This would fit with your over-simplistic view of Catholic = feudal and Protestant = bourgeoisie. There is no doubt that Calvinism’s appeal was to the bourgeoisie, but nobles also supported Henri IV, a eulogy to whom became the state anthem of the Kingdom of France for the next 200 years.
No doubt the Wars of Religion did, by their disruptive nature, delay things in France, supposing, as your anglocentrism would have it, that England is the yardstick of social development which all must have necessarily followed; but France followed Henri’s victory with a century of state and church centralisation, cowering its regional feudals into compliance, and further establishing itself as a world power.As to the 18th century Enlightenment, I could quote the French Revolution’s most famous spokesman, Robespierre, with regard to a scientist he sent to the guillotine, “The Revolution has no need of scientists!” Likewise of poets (Chenier), philosophers (Sade), fellow revolutionaries (Tom Paine), &c., all condemned to die.
TM – ‘As for France and the Wars of Religion, you seem to think that all the bourgeoisie were Huguenots. This would fit with your over-simplistic view of Catholic = feudal and Protestant = bourgeoisie.’
I really wish that you’d stop creating these straw men – when did I say or even intimate what you’re claiming here? I’m well aware of the complexities and changing alliances of the Reformation. If you don’t stop doing this, as my patience has its limits, I will have to stop my part in this debate – and that would be a shame since I’m really enjoying it..The Puritans were also a tiny minority of the English population during and after the Civil War.
Most English folk continued to follow the rites of the banned Anglican Church in their homes. Catholics used theirs.Had any of the great French Enlightenment Encyclopédistes lived beyond 1791, they would have been guillotined, or torn to shreds by Danton’s thugs.
So no apology then? Only to be expected I suppose. Don’t you realize how you alienate so many in this forum by your behavior? As I’ve repeatedly stated that in terms of the ideology of the bourgeoisie the Reformation is interesting but that the underlying class conflict was inevitable whatever ideology was used.
“The European Reformation, where the protestant cause became the ideology of the revolutionary bourgeoisie” Max Weber also wrote about that, toohttps://medium.com/@s-blog/how-protestant-ethics-shaped-modern-capitalism-5e8c600d8956. How protestants shaped modern capitalism
Max Weber’s work “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” (1905) presents a causal mechanism that connects religious beliefs, particularly the Protestant Reformation, with the emergence and development of modern capitalism. To understand how Weber’s mechanism can be explained using the Macro-Micro-Macro model, we must analyse the relationship between social structures (macro), individual behaviour (micro), and the resulting societal consequences (macro). Overall, Weber challenges the Marxist materialist analysis and instead highlights how ideas, viewed through a sociological perspective on religion, contribute to the development towards modern capitalism.
There is a stubbornness among Marxists which leads them to ignore advances in historical knowledge that don’t accord with their strict 19th and early 20th century bourgeois progressivism.
The “obscurity of the Middle Ages” reveals this prejudice, and the prejudice ignores argument and evidence when it is presented.
This is their own wilful obscurantism. Let nothing interfere with one’s outdated narratives.
(Good job William Morris wasn’t one of those type of Marxists!)I take it you never learned of the 12th century renaissance? Nor of the many women literati who thrived then, before the 15th century “Renaissance” crushed such expressionism and invented witch-burning.
I recommend the writings of the late Terry Jones and other modern medievalist historians, as well as primary sources and the lights of Persia and Arabia too. The Silk Road of the 12th and 13th centuries took many travellers too in both directions between the Far East and Europe and into Africa; European travellers with humility and respect, not the colonial, conquering, bigoted braggarts of later “more enlightened” centuries.
Obscurity indeed!
Before protestantism.
(Google): ” Medieval capitalism emerged between the 12th and 14th centuries as a shift from feudal self-sufficiency to market-based trade, centered in rapidly growing cities. It was characterized by early merchant capitalism, capital accumulation, and banking. This period saw the rise of a “merchant class” specializing in trade, property speculation, and the beginnings of wage labor.
Alliance Manchester Business School
Alliance Manchester Business School
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Key components of the development of medieval capitalism include:
Urban Growth and Trade: Markets expanded beyond subsistence, with cities developing as hubs for manufacturing, banking, and trade, particularly in cloth, metals, and agricultural goods.
The Guild System: Artisans in towns formed guilds to regulate production, set prices, and control quality, which for a time regulated the market before capitalist expansion began to break them down.
Financial Innovation: From the 13th to 16th centuries, the rise of a monetary economy brought the establishment of banks and the widespread use of credit.
Property Rights: A formal, legal system for buying and selling property developed, which was crucial for capitalist expansion, especially in towns where “burgess” landowners operated, as mentioned in.
The Rise of Commercialism: The 13th century in particular saw high levels of commercialism, particularly in England, which included property speculation.
The Decline of Feudalism: The 14th-century crisis (famine, Black Death) disrupted the traditional manorial, or feudal, system. This facilitated a shift towards a more market-driven economy, as described in.
Merchant Capitalism: Early forms of merchant capitalism were apparent as early as the 9th century in the Islamic world and by the 12th century in Europe, leading to the development of early wage labor.
“Compassionate” Capitalism: In some places, such as 13th-century Cambridge, wealth generated by early commerce was often reinvested into the local community (e.g., in church and charity projects).
Impact of the Black Death: The crisis of the 14th century, which included the Black Death, undermined the feudal system, which then opened up opportunities for capitalist development.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia
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In essence, medieval capitalism was an early form of commercialism, which was eventually superseded by a more market-oriented system following the crises of the 14th century. ”
Wikipedia
Wikipedia
+3In China capitalism was also developing during the Sung dynasty – before halted by the Mongol conquest.
TM – Thanks. We know that merchant capitalism has been around for centuries but what makes the English revolution unique is that it allowed the evolution of Industrial Capitalism with wage labour and the accumulation of surplus value. Would you agree with that?
CDM – ‘What was the main purpose of the Renaissance? Wasn’t it a scientific, philosophical and artistic rebirth from the obscurity created by Feudalism?’
Historians have debated that ad nauseam but the rediscovery of ancient culture, much of which had been lost in western Europe, had a stimulating effect on the intelligentsia of the time. The fall of Constantinople meant that many scholars fled the city and shared what they knew with the Catholic west, especially Italy. I think Marx acknowledged that political/cultural evolution wasn’t necessarily a smooth passage (a fact that some philosophers mention in their critique of Marx’s work) but it does appear that much material culture was lost after the fall of the western Roman Empire for many centuries. Most historians don’t use the term ‘the dark ages’ anymore but it does seem appropriate to me – what do you guys think? You could make a case for the 20th century being a dark age for socialism because during all of the carnage the Bolsheviks appropriated the term and we still live with the consequences of the Marxian knowledge that was subsumed and subverted by these gangsters.I completely disagree with the term “Dark Ages” and refer you to the book and TV series “Dark Ages, Age of Light.”
It was an age (before 1066) when, in western Europe, the Romance languages were evolving: French, Castilian, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Occitan. Latin was also being played with, literally: not only changing colloquially and evolving into the new vernaculars, but also being misused for amusement by both literati and commoners. It was an era – which continued into the High Middle Age (1066-1250) – of linguistic play as well as evolution.
In Spain the Visigoths created unique architectural forms; later, in Sicily, Normans, Muslims and Greeks co-operated in building cathedrals of splendour: the Muslims contributing with Islamic design, the Catholics with paving and the Greeks with murals.
The Vandals were builders and erectors, not destroyers, and we have them to thank for the abolition of the vicious Roman gladiatorial shows, which disgusted them. The Goths were peaceful migrants, and the sacking of Rome never happened (it is a lie fabricated by St. Jerome). Why do we believe the opposite to all of this? Because of Roman lies about “barbarians” – when the Romans were the real barbarians!
The book and TV series by Terry Jones, “Barbarians” explains all this and researches the cultures of the interesting peoples that Roman propaganda dismissed as “barbarian.”Arabic, Persian, African and other Asian knowledge was absorbed both by the Crusades and from Moorish Spain through Provence and into Italy from the West during the 12th century renaissance.
Far from being “dark”, these centuries, in spite of obvious horrors and wars, were a golden age, with movement across the continents. Franciscans reached Vietnam and Borneo in the 1300s. Khanbalik (Beijing) had a Catholic archbishop by the early 1200s. Marco Polo was only one of numerous west European travellers and traders of the 13th century, before the Ming closed the Silk Road in 1368 and expelled foreigners. Chinese travellers reached Rome. One met both the Pope and the Kings of England and France. In Aquitaine and Provence the troubadours took Occitan culture and language to Henry II’s court in England. The Occitan fiefdoms turned the south of France in the 1100s into the cultural garden and melting pot of Christendom, providing a haven for Cathars and Jews and Muslims which stretched into Catalonia and the court of Alfonso the Wise, where all religions and cultures were welcome.
“Dark” Age can only refer to our long ignorance of these centuries, not their nature.
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