Thomas_More
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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.
https://share.google/2JGZbEx7xecRAEI42 Dark Ages An Age of Light.
Life wasn’t in limbo for a millenium, waiting for protestantism and capitalism to give people reasons to live.
Google: ” The “Brilliant” or “Bright” Middle Ages (approx. 11th–14th centuries) refer to a vibrant, transformative era often overshadowed by the “Dark Ages” myth. It was characterized by intellectual rebirth, including the birth of universities, Gothic architecture, flourishing art, and significant technological innovations like eyeglasses, mechanical clocks, and printing.
English Heritage
English Heritage
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Key Aspects of the “Brilliant” Middle Ages:
The 12th-Century Renaissance: Far from being intellectually stagnant, this period saw a massive influx of classical learning. Works by Aristotle and other Greek thinkers were re-introduced to Europe through translation, often via Arab scholars, sparking philosophical debates.
The Rise of Universities: Knowledge moved from purely monastic settings to city schools, leading to the establishment of the first universities, including Bologna, Oxford, and Paris, which created a new class of intellectuals.
Invention and Innovation: Medieval ingenuity produced lasting technology, including mechanical clocks, spectacles, improved agricultural techniques, advancements in shipbuilding, and the introduction of paper, culminating in the printing press in the 1430s.
Artistic and Architectural Splendor: Gothic cathedrals arose across Europe, featuring innovative architecture (flying buttresses, stained glass) that combined religious devotion with engineering prowess.
Cultural Flourishing: Literature flourished in vernacular languages, moving beyond Latin to produce epic poetry like The Song of Roland, courtly romances, and later, masterworks like Dante’s Divine Comedy and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
Urban Expansion: The High Middle Ages experienced economic growth, trade expansion, and the resurgence of cities, fostering a growing bourgeoisie or middle class, particularly in Italy and France.
catholic-link.org
catholic-link.org
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Key Periods of High Medieval Brilliance:
The High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1300): A period of stability, population growth, and the peak of the medieval “renaissance”.
The Norman Influence: The 11th century brought expansion and cultural exchange, from the Norman Conquest of England to connections with Sicily and the Mediterranean.
YouTube
YouTube
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Far from being dark, this era was a dynamic bridge that laid the foundations for the modern world through intellectual curiosity, artistic experimentation, and social change.
BBC
BBC
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Did You Know That the Middle Ages Were in Fact “Brilliant”? 8 …I don’t admire the “work ethic” and I don’t admire the bourgeoisie. Centuries since the Renaissance have pushed the narrative of the Renaissance and capitalism saving mankind from useless “medieval” (“a period of intermission”) centuries, but historians have learned much since that exposes this bourgeois progressivist narrative as false.
Protestant work ethic getting people doing things? Hadn’t people always been doing things? Doesn’t he mean robbing them to make them propertyless so that they have no option but to sell you their labour power?
The old clichéd view that it took capitalism to shock people alive and active and to wake from centuries of “medieval stagnation” is bourgeois crap.
Capitalism had been present a long time in the Catholic Mediterranean in a nascent form. Its birthplace was there.
Capitalism continued to grow in Catholic countries as well as Protestant, and the Catholic Church organised its own Reformation equipping it for a changing society.Still not attacked Europe? Here goes! Like this?
This is even crazy in capitalist terms, isn’t it? I can’t see why they’re doing it.
The aristocracy may have held on to the state in France before its bourgeois POLITICAL REVOLUTION, but the Kingdom of France was not medieval. The noblesse d’épée, which was the element that was expropriated by the Revolution and which was unable to join it, was the impoverished section of the aristocracy, dependent on marriage with the noblesse de robe, who were haute bourgeoisie. France was already a capitalist and colonial power, still semi-feudal at home, but heavily invested in the African slave trade and global ventures.
I never heard of the Mayflower gang being called communists!
They weren’t inclusive of anyone btw. They were persecuting and torturing each other and anyone different right from the start.The US exaggerates their importance ludicrously. They were by no means the first English settlers.
What is central to American puritanism via the “Pilgrims” is that they had the bigotry and prejudices of their European co-religionists but had removed themselves from the social realities of 17th century England and had exiled themselves to what they saw as a “barbarous wilderness” worthy of the Old Testament Prophets. Whereas English puritanism developed further into various social, non-religious movements, American puritanism remained biblical and produced the millenarian-evangelism of the US today.
I don’t know anything about Max Weber.
France had to wait for its overthrow of the Ancien régime, but monarchical centralisation was completed by Richelieu and Mazarin in the 17th century. In England monarchical centralisation was achieved by the Tudors. There were different elements within the bourgeoisie. You don’t have feudalism on Tuesday and wake up to capitalism Wednesday morning.The English Civil War was the struggle of the elements of the bourgeoisie who were tired of the royal monopoly on trade and royal restrictions, as they saw it, on their profiteering. The French Revolution was the equivalent of this, but with the feudal aristocracy still a hindrance, though servile to the king. The aristocracy was filled with bourgeois upstarts from the time of Louis XIV, called noblesse de la robe. These married into families of the feudal aristocracy, the noblesse d’épée, to secure titles, and some of these were to share the fate of the king come the Revolution. Most of the bourgeoisie however, being the Third Estate, wanted the aristocracy’s hold on land and the state out of the way. Even so, 80% of the guillotined were labourers, only 6% aristocrats, and the rest men and women of letters and miscellaneous proletarians.
But France wasn’t “waiting”; it had different circumstances and disputes of its own. Its intervening century was alive with ideas and as vital as in England.
More was a devout Catholic, and martyrdom for the faith is part and parcel of that. Because of his psychology he could not possibly have sworn to the Oath of Supremacy.
Winstanley and the others had no such religious commitment or way of thinking for sacrificing their lives.“Politically ahead” … The political reflects the material conditions. But you are being unfair to France if you don’t take into account the intellectual upheavals happening there in the 16th century.
The Wars of the Roses in England had left Henry VII Tudor and his family sole autocrats. There was no feasible feudal opposition left, even though his reign was beset by lords putting up pretenders. Henry defeated them all, abolished feudal liveries and demanded sole loyalty to Tudor centralised power. Under his successor land enclosures exploded as never before: a grand theft traumatising the people and rupturing the social fabric of centuries. The Reformation in England, spilling over into Scotland and Wales, was the ideological expression of this social and agrarian revolution. This is what overturned English society, beginning a century before the Civil War.
In France Louis XI had failed, unlike Henry VII of England, in his own struggle for monarchical centralisation of power against the feudality headed by the Duke of Burgundy. Even so, centralisation was to proceed tentatively, and in the face of powerful feudal resistance, throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. The tolerant and progressive Francis I. presided over a vibrant intellectual scene, permitting religious debates which would enable many French reformists to remain within the Catholic Church. The Wars of Religion at the close of the 16th century resulted in the victory of Henri IV, a Huguenot and survivor until he became king of a lifetime of assassination attempts. Under his rule the Edict of Nantes would grant the protestants freedom of religion for nearly a century.
The Reformation in France was not a failure. It was able to take place within the Catholic Church via Gallicanism – autonomy from Rome without separation. Much was the same for the Church in Spain. In both countries the monarchs took precedence over Church affairs, without the need to separate from Rome.I don’t think we can blame Winstanley, Coppe, or anyone for keeping a low profile in later years. What sense is there in martyrdom?
Well yes, it is all political. I don’t think William, or Robert, Cecil feared much, but they knew the value of demonising Catholicism. At school we were told of a book at the time (1970s; I haven’t been able to locate it) presenting the Gunpowder Plot as a set-up. It certainly benefited the authorities.
Popophobia 😀 didn’t prevent Cromwell making war on the Dutch Republic, the strongest Protestant power in the world. Nor was the English crown deterred from fighting on Richelieu’s side in the Thirty Years War.
Like today, ideology/religion takes a back seat where economic gain is concerned.
