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• 1 media/Key-Charles I.jpg 2016-06-28T20:14:45+00:00 Rulers and Subjects (2) 76 Challenges to Traditional Authority image_header 2018-09-19T14:50:26+00:00

  Last updated: 19 Sept. 2018 at 10:30 am
  
  Big question

  How did early modern Europeans make sense of political disunity?

  Video Introduction

   

  Learning outcomes

  At the end of this week you should be able to:
  • List several differences between Calvinist and Catholic Christians.
  • Explain how religious affiliation was also a political matter in early modern Europe.
  • Analyze similarities and differences between the views of Charles I, the Levellers, and the Diggers in 1649.

  Questions to consider, and learning activity

  The main question for discussion in this week's Forum is:
  • How did English writers justify political authority around the time of King Charles' execution in 1649? Who should rule, and what was the source of their power? God? Or something or someone else?
  • Which writers seemed to reinforce the political ideals that we learned about in the previous Lesson (i.e., the Great Chain of Being, and the estates model of society)? Which writers seemed to challenge these ideals? Provide evidence for your answers from the primary sources.
  • Which of the three primary sources do you think (or know) was written first? Why? Be aware that each of the three was written in 1649, so the challenge is to make your best guess about the order of the documents from that year. Provide reasons. Why might the order of the documents matter?
  When you make your contributions to the Forum, make sure you also continue to practice the skills of careful primary source analysis that you learned in the previous Lesson as well as the skills outlined in the Toolbox below.

  Background

  In the previous Lesson about rulers and subjects you learned about political ideals such as the estates model of society and the Great Chain of Being. For the most part these were ideals that encouraged Europeans to remain obedient to the established authorities in their churches and territorial governments. Although the ideals of obedience were strong in early modern Europe, they came under pressure from time to time.
  
  This Lesson has one main theme that we develop in two parts. The first part introduces you to the Protestant and Catholic Reformations of the sixteenth century. The second part focuses on the English Civil War of the mid seventeenth century. The connection between these two parts is the theme of protest against traditional authorities. The sixteenth-century Reformations were largely disputes about Papal authority, and the English Civil War was largely a dispute about royal authority.
  
  Reformations
  
  It’s easy to think of Christianity as a single religion, led by “a” church. That is certainly the way people often speak about “it” in everyday discussions. For historians who want to understand the very fascinating history of Christianity, it is more helpful to speak about Christianities in the plural. This is because Christians formed diverse sets of communities right from their earliest years in the ancient world.
  
  This diversity is important to emphasize in a course on the early modern world, since most of the Europeans who colonized the Atlantic world were Christians, but their Christianity came in several forms. The origins of the most important differences between Christian colonizers that we look at in this course are to be found not in the ancient world, but rather in the Reformation(s) of the sixteenth century.
  
  The early sixteenth century was a era of significant change. Not only were Europeans becoming aware of a vast and for them unexplored world across the Atlantic Ocean, but more and more of them were also gaining access to books reproduced on the printing presses that were spreading quickly across Europe. Amid these major changes, a fairly minor dispute about the Papal collection of indulgences (payments to release the souls of the dead from Purgatory) in the German province of Saxony escalated starting in 1517 into a major power struggle between supporters of the Pope’s absolute authority and those who wanted to reform the Church from within. Martin Luther, who was a young and relatively unimportant Saxon priest at the start of this controversy, and his allies used the printing press in his fight against Indulgences. The Pope insisted that Luther stop his calls for reform. Luther refused. While Luther was not originally an opponent of the Pope in 1517, he quickly turned into an enthusiastic critic of the Papacy. When Luther started to gain many wealthy and powerful allies, including many German princes who ruled territories like Saxony, the regional dispute turned into a new and permanent division among European Christians. Those who supported Luther became known as Protestants. Those who remained loyal to the Pope became known as Roman Catholics. This is useful background for the secondary reading from Kishlansky, Geary, and O’Brien, since their section on Luther is not included in the excerpted readings.
  
  The focus of your reading from Kishlansky, Geary, and O’Brien is on Calvinists and Jesuits.  Not all Catholics were opposed to reform, and the Jesuits are a major example of Catholic reformers in the early modern era. It is also important to know that not all Protestants considered themselves followers of Luther. In our course most of the Protestants we will read about came from the tradition associated with John Calvin. These people sometimes called themselves Calvinists, or sometimes simply "the Reformed". Jesuits and Reformed Protestants are important for us because people from these branches of Christianity had a strong missionary impulse and played a major role in European expansion.
  Religion in Early Modern England
  
  Religious reforms did not only lead to conflicts on the European continent. They also divided English men and women.
  
  In the sixteenth century, Reformed missionaries made many converts in the British Isles, but others remained loyal to the Pope and the Catholic Church. To complicate matters further, England became officially Anglican under King Henry VIII, who had several Protestant reformers executed for heresy, because he thought their calls for reform went too far and were dangerous to public order. Although Henry made his Kingdom into a Protestant (Anglican) nation, one of his successors (Queen Mary) was a staunch Catholic who reconverted her Kingdom to the Papal cause and who persecuted Protestants. In the reign of the famous Queen Elizabeth, England became a Protestant nation again. In other words, religious and political concerns were closely entangled in England.
  
  Another example of the entanglement of religion and politics was the fact that church membership could change one's political rights. By the end of the sixteenth century, most Englishmen were Protestants who held strongly anti-Catholic views, and these Protestants worked to exclude Catholics from English public life. The belief that Catholicism was an aberrant faith and that the Pope was an enemy of all true Christians had been strengthened among English men and women by two famous events: the failed Spanish attempt to invade the British Isles in 1588, and by a failed Catholic plot to blow up the Parliament Building in London in 1605.
  
  While many (even most) English Protestants shared a distrust or hatred of Catholics, and while they usually considered themselves loyal subjects of their monarch, they were not always united. For us in this course, the era of the English Civil War can serve as an example. For a variety of reasons disagreements became so strong after about 1640, in fact, that some Protestants put their Protestant King on trial for treason, and executed him in 1649!!! In this era of the English Civil War religion became a very divisive subject -- a highly charged political subject.
  
  This Lesson gives you an opportunity to compare and contrast the views of King Charles, the Levellers, and the Diggers.

  Toolbox

  In last week’s Toolbox you learned about the skills of primary source analysis. The resources provided by the web tutorial “Why Historical Thinking Matters” broke down these skills into 4 main parts:
  • close reading,
  • contextualization,
  • corroboration, and
  • sourcing.
  In this week’s Toolbox, you will learn a little about a related skill that is important for primary source analysis, as well as most other aspects of historical research and thinking. That skill is chronological thinking.
  
  Historians tend to think chronologically (usually in stories or narratives). In fact, organizing evidence chronologically is crucial for effective contextualization, corroboration, and sourcing. A recent example of the importance of chronology is found is a controversy in the most recent American national election campaign. That controversy was about the timing of then-presidential-candidate Donald Trump opposition to the War in Iraq in the early 2000s. When did he first oppose the war? Did he oppose the proposed war before it started, or did he only start opposing the war after it became unpopular? This seems like a straightforward question, right? Answering it in some cases can become complicated and even politically charged. That’s why it’s good to pay attention to and become good at clear, basic chronological thinking.
  
  Most cases of historical chronology are not so controversial today, but they can be important nonetheless. For example, in this week’s Lesson we are comparing and practicing close reading of three sources from 1649. What order do you think the documents were written? The question matters, because writers in the English Civil War were responding to events and ideas that were changing quickly, and they were often responding to one another, sometimes in anger, and sometimes with charges that could lead to imprisonment or even death (e.g., King Charles I).
  
  Be aware that the answer to the “simple” question of what order these three sources was written is not so simple. You can look for dates in the documents. That can help, for sure. The problem is that each of these documents had complex histories. This means that each was written in stages.
  
  One main challenge for the Lesson is to find clues in the sources. The best clues will be passages in the sources. Dates in the text are potentially valuable, but they are not the only clues. Passages from the texts that discuss ideas or events that provide clues are also REALLY VALUABLE. Think like a detective. Ask questions about your evidence. When you do so, you are also thinking like a historian!
  
  
  About accessing the sources below: Remember to make sure that you are signed into Sakai in a tab in the same web browser that you are using to read this e-textbook.

  Primary sources

  • Charles I, and others, Eikon Basilike, Or, the Kings Book, ch. 15 (1649).
  • The Agreement of the People (1649).
  • Gerrard Winstanley, A Declaration from the Poor Oppressed People of England (1649)

  Secondary Sources

  • Mark Kishlansky, Patrick Geary, and Patricia O'Brien, Civilization in the West​, 7th edition, volume B: From 1350 to 1850 (New York: Pearson Longman, 2008), pp. 393-407, and 481-487. (This is a large file; please be patient and wait for it to upload.)
  • Tony Benn, "The Levellers and the Tradition of Dissent," BBC History website, 17 February 2011.

  Supplemental material

  If you are interested in learning more about the themes in this Lesson, you might consider taking Brock University history courses such as:
  • HIST 2P91, Europe's Reformations; or
  • HIST 3P94, Historians and the Age of Religious Wars, 1559-1715.
• 1 media/Historical Thinking Logo.png 2017-02-04T12:15:37+00:00 NEW: Toolbox Overview 30 Updated: Jan. 2019 image_header 2019-01-23T15:00:34+00:00

  This page collects the Toolbox entries from the individual course lessons in one spot for easier review.

  From "Introductory Week"

  This course teaches you not only about the history of certain times and places, but also about the practice of history. To practice a trade, you need tools. Under this heading we will provide you with tools or exercises that will help you improve your reading, writing, inquiring and thinking in this course -- and we hope also in your life beyond the course.
  
  This week (the Introductory Week) we will get you to acquire an overview of the principles of thinking historically. Historical thinking is a variation on critical thinking. To start learning about it, you should read the following introductions from The Historical Thinking Project (click on the links):

  • The general introduction to the 6 components of historical thinking;
  • The introductions to the concepts of perspective and evidence in historical thinking.

  One of the purposes of the Forum exercise this week is to get you to think about your perspective as an interpreter of evidence about and from the past.

  Module 1

  From "Rulers and Subjects (1)"

  Probably the most basic and important skill all historians practice is the analysis of primary source evidence. Therefore, if you've ever taken a history course in university before, you've probably already had some good practice with this skill.
  
  This week you should think some more about use of sources and about the overall goal of a history education when you watch the following web video. Click here to start the video in a new window.
  
  The webcast is by Sam Wineburg, an excellent educational psychologist in the United States. Wineburg is the author of a book with the intriguing title Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts. In order to move beyond naive readings of source materials, Wineburg and many other educators recommend that you pay careful attention to the following additional skills when reading primary sources:

  • close reading,
  • contextualization,
  • corroboration, and
  • sourcing.

  The webcast introduces these skills and explains their relevance to the process of historical interpretation. Watch the webcast before you post in the Forum this week, and make sure to take notes. When you read sources for this week's Lesson -- and for all remaining Lessons -- make sure that you pay attention to these dimensions of source analysis.

  Note that a student at the beginning of the webcast refers to AP History, which is an American "advanced placement" exam that many high school students take.

  From "Rulers and Subjects (2)"

  In last week’s Toolbox you learned about the skills of primary source analysis. The resources provided by the web tutorial “Why Historical Thinking Matters” broke down these skills into 4 main parts:
  • close reading,
  • contextualization,
  • corroboration, and
  • sourcing.

  In this week’s Toolbox, you will learn a little about a related skill that is important for primary source analysis, as well as most other aspects of historical research and thinking. That skill is chronological thinking.
  
  Historians usually think chronologically (usually in stories or narratives). In fact, organizing evidence chronologically is crucial for effective contextualization, corroboration, and sourcing. A current example of the importance of chronology is found is the controversy in the American election campaign about when presidential candidate Donald Trump started opposing the War in Iraq in the early 2000s. What happened when? This seems like a straightforward question, right? Answering it in some cases can become complicated and even politically charged. That’s why it’s good to pay attention to and become good at clear, basic chronological thinking.
  
  Most cases of historical chronology are not so controversial today, but they can be important nonetheless. For example, in this week’s Lesson we are comparing and practicing close reading of three sources from 1649. What order do you think the documents were written? The question matters, because writers in the English Civil War were responding to events and ideas that were changing quickly, and they were often responding to one another, sometimes in anger, and sometimes with charges that could lead to imprisonment or even death (Charles I!!!).
  
  Be aware that the answer to the “simple” question of what order these three sources was written is not so simple. You can look for dates in the documents. That can help, for sure. The problem is that each of these documents had complex histories. This means that each was written in stages.
  
  One main challenge for the Lesson is to find clues in the sources. The best clues will be passages in the sources. Dates in the text are potentially valuable, but they are not the only clues. Passages from the texts that discuss ideas or events that provide clues are also REALLY VALUABLE. Think like a detective. Ask questions about your evidence. When you do so, you are also thinking like a historian!

  From "Agricultural Revolutions"

  The main skill to practice this Lesson is the analysis of secondary sources. In effect, you'll be learning an important of source analysis that is related to historical thinking. We could call this "historiographical thinking". The section above provide you with more details about historiography.
  
  A historical thinking skill that is related closely to historiographical thinking is the recognition and analysis of perspective. Not only can we analyze differing perspectives in primary sources from the past, but we can also recognize how people's perspectives (including our own) are complex and varied "today". This is of course also true of the writings of historians who try to make sense of the past. In this course (and in all your other history courses -- or courses on other subjects) practice comparing perspectives in all the sources you examine.
  
  One further aspect of historical thinking that is worth reviewing for this Lesson is the skill of identifying continuity and change. After all, it is the issue of change that Kerridge and Overton discuss in their related but importantly different interpretations of British agricultural history. Note that continuities and changes can take place in the short, medium, or long term. In other words, our view of change depends on the perspective that we take. This is one of many examples of how the elements of historical thinking are interrelated with one another.
  
  Follow the links in the two paragraphs above to read more about perspective, and continuity and change.
  
  You can use the chart below as a rough guide to aspects of European and Atlantic World history. These chronological categories can help you think in general terms about continuity and change. Please be aware that the periods outlined on the chart are not "facts" but rather generally agreed upon headings for periods. In a way, they are short-hand for interpretations of lots and lots of sources.
  

  Module 2

  From "Tranfcribing (!) Early Modern Sources"

  • There was no Toolbox entry for this week.

  From "Europe's Empires Expand"

  Before you read this Lesson's sources, make sure you review the Toolbox entries from the three Lesson's of Module 1. In the First Module you practiced the effective analysis of primary and secondary sources, and you also learned about the importance of paying attention to the different perspectives historians take when they analyze sources. Don't forget what you've learned in these Lessons. Your goal should be to build on your skills throughout the course.
  
  In your Forum entries for this week's Lesson, you will continue to practice the analysis of primary sources. Pay particular attention to the perspectives in each document. In a way similar to historians having different interpretations of the same questions, so too did people in the past have different interpretations of their worlds. You can consider questions such as:

  • Who was the author and what economic or social or religious or political interests did that person have?
  • When did he or she create the source?
  • What is the source about and what did the author think about that subject?

  You can probably think of other general questions that will help you to think about the perspective in any source. These are questions that are related to the skills of "sourcing" that you learned about in Module 1. To find our more about the general kinds of questions you should always have in mind when you consider a source's perspective, see the two Historical Thinking worksheets available through the link. The particular questions to think about for this week (in the Lesson above) will also help. Together, these general and particular questions will guide you as you look for differences (and similarities) in the perspectives of each primary source.

  From "Early Modern Africa"

  Because our focus for this Lesson is what, if anything, we can learn about early modern Africa from European sources, it is appropriate that we revisit the historical thinking skills that we practiced last week: the analysis of primary source evidence, and the careful attention to people's perspectives in the past. Another reason for revisiting these skills is that the links from the Historical Thinking Project website are working again. Please pay special attention to those links. Note that the text below is largely the same as last week's. Review is always important, and these skills are crucial for you to master.
  
  In your Forum entries for this week's Lesson, you will continue to practice the analysis of primary sources. Pay particular attention to the perspectives in each document. Just as historians have different interpretations of the same questions, so too did people in the past have different interpretations of their worlds. You can consider questions such as:
  • Who was the author and what economic or social or religious or political interests did that person have?
  • When did he or she create the source?
  • What is the source about and what did the author think about that subject?

  You can probably think of other general questions that will help you to think about the perspective in any source. These are questions that are related to the skills of "sourcing" that you learned about in Module 1. To find our more about the general kinds of questions you should always have in mind when you consider a source's perspective, see the two Historical Thinking worksheets available through the link.

  From "The Slave Trade"

  In past weeks we have introduced you to several of the concepts of historical thinking, and in particular, you have focused on the skills of working with sources. In addition to these tools for historical thinking, you should also understand the challenges of thinking about the ethical dimensions of historical analysis. The authors of the introduction to ethical thinking in history highlight what they call a "difficult paradox": historians try to understand the past lives of people in terms that are fair to those people, but at the same time the accounts of the past that historians create do make moral judgements about past people's actions and beliefs.

  Read the short introduction to ethical dimensions of historical analysis. While you should not forget about "the depths to which humanity can sometimes fall" (as we acknowledge in our introduction above), your challenge for your writing and learning this week is to practice understanding slave owners and traders in their own terms. In other words, you have to try to avoid imposing today's values and beliefs on them, even though we cannot agree with what they did or believed.

  From "The Columbian Exchange"

  • There was no Toolbox entry for this week.

  Module 3

  From Workshop Introducing Voyant Tools

  • There was no Toolbox entry for this week.

  From "Indigenous Cultures," "Missionaries," and "Colonial Societies"

  • The Toolbox entries for these weeks required you to review previous Toolboxes from Modules 1 and 2.

  From "Settler Societies and Commercial Expansion"

  This week's Toolbox entry introduces you to an important skill related to thinking historically: drawing inferences. 
  
  Inferences are the best guesses that we can make, based on the available evidence. They are necessary, because we NEVER have complete and perfect knowledge of the past. In fact, most of our knowledge of the past is based on very fragmentary evidence. Like detectives, historians have to collect whatever evidence they can in the search for answers to questions that interest them, and once they collect the evidence they have to piece its meaning together like judges or storytellers.
  
  How do you make strong inferences as opposed to plain and flimsy guesses? You use the skills of source analysis that we learned about earlier in the course ("Rulers and Subjects [1]"): close reading, corroboration, sourcing, and contextualization.
  
  Before you post to the Forum this week, make sure you review these skills, and when you post you should try to practice making strong inferences. We're including them below for your convenience:

  Probably the most basic and important skill all historians practice is the analysis of primary source evidence. Therefore, if you've ever taken a history course in university before, you've probably already had some good practice with this skill.

  This week you should think some more about use of sources and about the overall goal of a history education when you watch the following web video.

  Click here to start the video in a new window.

  The webcast is by Sam Wineburg, an excellent educational psychologist in the United States. Wineburg is the author of a book with the intriguing title Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts. In order to move beyond naive readings of source materials, Wineburg and many other educators recommend that you pay careful attention to the following additional skills when reading primary sources:

  • close reading,
  • contextualization,
  • corroboration, and
  • sourcing.

  The webcast introduces these skills and explains their relevance to the process of historical interpretation. Watch the webcast before you post in the Forum this week, and make sure to take notes. When you read sources for this week's Lesson -- and for all remaining Lessons -- make sure that you pay attention to these dimensions of source analysis.

  Note that a student at the beginning of the webcast refers to AP History, which is an American "advanced placement" exam that many high school students take.

  From "The Seven Years War"

  Like last week, this week's Toolbox is about drawing inferences. The skills of inference drawing are really important, and each of you can improve your work in this area.