Author: Koenraad Wolter Swart
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9401194203
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Book Description
The French Monarchy was the dominant power of the seventeenth century. The French armies were victorious on most battlefields and French political institutions were introduced into many countries. Among enemies as well as among friends French literature was admired and French manners were imi~ tated. This glorious period of French history had its seamy aspects, however. 1) France's military triumphs and cultural achievements did not imply a sound political and social structure. One of the most outstanding political abuses was the sale of public offices (venalite des offices), which had become an official institution of the State. Almost all offices, civil as well as military, from the lowest to the highest, were publicly sold either by the officials or by the King himself. Sale of offices is not just another form of corruption. It had serious political implications because it placed power in the hands of officials who were often incapable and unreliable. The bureaucracy, one of the fundamental institutions of the absolute monarchy, was thus deprived of much of its strength. Sale of offices also influenced the social structure of the country because it only gave to wealthy people the opportunity to hold office and excluded other classes. Further, the creation of new offices added to the burden of the taxpayer and had a disas~ trous effect on France's financial system. Finally, the invest~ ment of a large part of the national wealth in unproductive goods affected unfavorably the economic activity of the country.
Sale of Offices in the Seventeenth Century
Author: Koenraad Wolter Swart
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9401194203
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Book Description
The French Monarchy was the dominant power of the seventeenth century. The French armies were victorious on most battlefields and French political institutions were introduced into many countries. Among enemies as well as among friends French literature was admired and French manners were imi~ tated. This glorious period of French history had its seamy aspects, however. 1) France's military triumphs and cultural achievements did not imply a sound political and social structure. One of the most outstanding political abuses was the sale of public offices (venalite des offices), which had become an official institution of the State. Almost all offices, civil as well as military, from the lowest to the highest, were publicly sold either by the officials or by the King himself. Sale of offices is not just another form of corruption. It had serious political implications because it placed power in the hands of officials who were often incapable and unreliable. The bureaucracy, one of the fundamental institutions of the absolute monarchy, was thus deprived of much of its strength. Sale of offices also influenced the social structure of the country because it only gave to wealthy people the opportunity to hold office and excluded other classes. Further, the creation of new offices added to the burden of the taxpayer and had a disas~ trous effect on France's financial system. Finally, the invest~ ment of a large part of the national wealth in unproductive goods affected unfavorably the economic activity of the country.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9401194203
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Book Description
The French Monarchy was the dominant power of the seventeenth century. The French armies were victorious on most battlefields and French political institutions were introduced into many countries. Among enemies as well as among friends French literature was admired and French manners were imi~ tated. This glorious period of French history had its seamy aspects, however. 1) France's military triumphs and cultural achievements did not imply a sound political and social structure. One of the most outstanding political abuses was the sale of public offices (venalite des offices), which had become an official institution of the State. Almost all offices, civil as well as military, from the lowest to the highest, were publicly sold either by the officials or by the King himself. Sale of offices is not just another form of corruption. It had serious political implications because it placed power in the hands of officials who were often incapable and unreliable. The bureaucracy, one of the fundamental institutions of the absolute monarchy, was thus deprived of much of its strength. Sale of offices also influenced the social structure of the country because it only gave to wealthy people the opportunity to hold office and excluded other classes. Further, the creation of new offices added to the burden of the taxpayer and had a disas~ trous effect on France's financial system. Finally, the invest~ ment of a large part of the national wealth in unproductive goods affected unfavorably the economic activity of the country.
The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century
Author: Bernard Bailyn
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674612808
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
Based on thesis--Harvard University. Includes bibliographical references.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674612808
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
Based on thesis--Harvard University. Includes bibliographical references.
Censorship and Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England
Author: Randy Robertson
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271036559
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
Censorship profoundly affected early modern writing. Censorship and Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England offers a detailed picture of early modern censorship and investigates the pressures that censorship exerted on seventeenth-century authors, printers, and publishers. In the 1600s, Britain witnessed a civil war, the judicial execution of a king, the restoration of his son, and an unremitting struggle among crown, parliament, and people for sovereignty and the right to define “liberty and property.” This battle, sometimes subtle, sometimes bloody, entailed a struggle for the control of language and representation. Robertson offers a richly detailed study of this “censorship contest” and of the craft that writers employed to outflank the licensers. He argues that for most parties, victory, not diplomacy or consensus, was the ultimate goal. This book differs from most recent works in analyzing both the mechanics of early modern censorship and the poetics that the licensing system produced—the forms and pressures of self-censorship. Among the issues that Robertson addresses in this book are the workings of the licensing machinery, the designs of art and obliquity under a regime of censorship, and the involutions of authorship attendant on anonymity.
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271036559
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
Censorship profoundly affected early modern writing. Censorship and Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England offers a detailed picture of early modern censorship and investigates the pressures that censorship exerted on seventeenth-century authors, printers, and publishers. In the 1600s, Britain witnessed a civil war, the judicial execution of a king, the restoration of his son, and an unremitting struggle among crown, parliament, and people for sovereignty and the right to define “liberty and property.” This battle, sometimes subtle, sometimes bloody, entailed a struggle for the control of language and representation. Robertson offers a richly detailed study of this “censorship contest” and of the craft that writers employed to outflank the licensers. He argues that for most parties, victory, not diplomacy or consensus, was the ultimate goal. This book differs from most recent works in analyzing both the mechanics of early modern censorship and the poetics that the licensing system produced—the forms and pressures of self-censorship. Among the issues that Robertson addresses in this book are the workings of the licensing machinery, the designs of art and obliquity under a regime of censorship, and the involutions of authorship attendant on anonymity.
Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700
Author: Miles Pattenden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192517988
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326
Book Description
Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700 offers a radical reassessment of the history of early modern papacy, constructed through the first major analytical treatment of papal elections in English. Papal elections, with their ceremonial pomp and high drama, are compelling theatre, but, until now, no one has analysed them on the basis of the problems they created for cardinals: how were they to agree rules and enforce them? How should they manage the interregnum? How did they decide for whom to vote? How was the new pope to assert himself over a group of men who, until just moments before, had been his equals and peers? This study traces how the cardinals' responses to these problems evolved over the period from Martin V's return to Rome in 1420 to Pius VI's departure from it in 1798, placing them in the context of the papacy's wider institutional developments. Miles Pattenden argues not only that the elective nature of the papal office was crucial to how papal history unfolded but also that the cardinals of the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries present us with a unique case study for observing the approaches to decision-making and problem-solving within an elite political group.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192517988
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326
Book Description
Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700 offers a radical reassessment of the history of early modern papacy, constructed through the first major analytical treatment of papal elections in English. Papal elections, with their ceremonial pomp and high drama, are compelling theatre, but, until now, no one has analysed them on the basis of the problems they created for cardinals: how were they to agree rules and enforce them? How should they manage the interregnum? How did they decide for whom to vote? How was the new pope to assert himself over a group of men who, until just moments before, had been his equals and peers? This study traces how the cardinals' responses to these problems evolved over the period from Martin V's return to Rome in 1420 to Pius VI's departure from it in 1798, placing them in the context of the papacy's wider institutional developments. Miles Pattenden argues not only that the elective nature of the papal office was crucial to how papal history unfolded but also that the cardinals of the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries present us with a unique case study for observing the approaches to decision-making and problem-solving within an elite political group.
The Sinews of Power
Author: John Brewer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113499852X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
First published in 1989. `The book is a distinguished work - of importance to students of governmental development generally. It is written in a fluent, non-technical manner that should reach a wide audience.' American Historical Review.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113499852X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
First published in 1989. `The book is a distinguished work - of importance to students of governmental development generally. It is written in a fluent, non-technical manner that should reach a wide audience.' American Historical Review.
The Culture of Merit
Author: Jay M. Smith
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472096381
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
A study of the paradoxical position of French nobility just before the French Revolution
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472096381
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
A study of the paradoxical position of French nobility just before the French Revolution
Patrons, Brokers, and Clients in Seventeenth-Century France
Author: Sharon Kettering
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195365100
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Book Description
A bold new study of politics and power in 17th-century France, this book argues that the French Crown centralized its power nationally by changing the way it delegated its royal patronage in the provinces. During this period, the royal government of Paris gradually extended its sphere of control by taking power away from the powerful and potentially disloyal provincial governors and nobility and instead putting it in the hands of provincial power brokers--regional notables who cooperated with the Paris ministers in exchange for their patronage. The new alliances between the Crown's ministers and loyal provincial elites functioned as political machines on behalf of the Crown, leading to smoother regional-national cooperation and foreshadowing the bureaucratic state that was to follow.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195365100
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Book Description
A bold new study of politics and power in 17th-century France, this book argues that the French Crown centralized its power nationally by changing the way it delegated its royal patronage in the provinces. During this period, the royal government of Paris gradually extended its sphere of control by taking power away from the powerful and potentially disloyal provincial governors and nobility and instead putting it in the hands of provincial power brokers--regional notables who cooperated with the Paris ministers in exchange for their patronage. The new alliances between the Crown's ministers and loyal provincial elites functioned as political machines on behalf of the Crown, leading to smoother regional-national cooperation and foreshadowing the bureaucratic state that was to follow.
Spanish Seaborne Empire
Author: John Horace Parry
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307822850
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 571
Book Description
The Spanish empire in America was the first of the great seaborne empires of western Europe; it was for long the richest and the most formidable, the focus of envy, fear, and hatred. Its haphazard beginning dates from 1492; it was to last more than three hundred years before breaking up in the early nineteenth century in civil wars between rival generals and "liberators." Parry presents a broad picture of the conquests of Cortès and Pizarro and of the economic and social consequences in Spain of the effort to maintain control of vast holdings. He probes the complex administration of the empire, its economy, social structure, the influence of the Church, the destruction of the Indian cultures and the effect of their decline on Spanish policy. As we approach the quincentenary of Columbus's arrival in the Americas, Parry provides the historical basis for a new consideration of the former Spanish colonies of Latin America and the transformation of pre-Columbian cultures to colonial states.
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307822850
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 571
Book Description
The Spanish empire in America was the first of the great seaborne empires of western Europe; it was for long the richest and the most formidable, the focus of envy, fear, and hatred. Its haphazard beginning dates from 1492; it was to last more than three hundred years before breaking up in the early nineteenth century in civil wars between rival generals and "liberators." Parry presents a broad picture of the conquests of Cortès and Pizarro and of the economic and social consequences in Spain of the effort to maintain control of vast holdings. He probes the complex administration of the empire, its economy, social structure, the influence of the Church, the destruction of the Indian cultures and the effect of their decline on Spanish policy. As we approach the quincentenary of Columbus's arrival in the Americas, Parry provides the historical basis for a new consideration of the former Spanish colonies of Latin America and the transformation of pre-Columbian cultures to colonial states.
Trust and Distrust
Author: Mark Knights
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198796242
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 505
Book Description
Mark Knights offers the first overview of Britain's history of corruption in office in the pre-modern era, 1600-1850. Drawing on extensive archival material, Knights shows how corruption in the domestic and imperial spheres interacted, and how the concept of corruption developed during this period, changing British ideas of trust and distrust.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198796242
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 505
Book Description
Mark Knights offers the first overview of Britain's history of corruption in office in the pre-modern era, 1600-1850. Drawing on extensive archival material, Knights shows how corruption in the domestic and imperial spheres interacted, and how the concept of corruption developed during this period, changing British ideas of trust and distrust.
The Imperial Nation
Author: Josep M. Fradera
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691217343
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414
Book Description
How the legacy of monarchical empires shaped Britain, France, Spain, and the United States as they became liberal entities Historians view the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as a turning point when imperial monarchies collapsed and modern nations emerged. Treating this pivotal moment as a bridge rather than a break, The Imperial Nation offers a sweeping examination of four of these modern powers—Great Britain, France, Spain, and the United States—and asks how, after the great revolutionary cycle in Europe and America, the history of monarchical empires shaped these new nations. Josep Fradera explores this transition, paying particular attention to the relations between imperial centers and their sovereign territories and the constant and changing distinctions placed between citizens and subjects. Fradera argues that the essential struggle that lasted from the Seven Years’ War to the twentieth century was over the governance of dispersed and varied peoples: each empire tried to ensure domination through subordinate representation or by denying any representation at all. The most common approach echoed Napoleon’s “special laws,” which allowed France to reinstate slavery in its Caribbean possessions. The Spanish and Portuguese constitutions adopted “specialness” in the 1830s; the United States used comparable guidelines to distinguish between states, territories, and Indian reservations; and the British similarly ruled their dominions and colonies. In all these empires, the mix of indigenous peoples, European-origin populations, slaves and indentured workers, immigrants, and unassimilated social groups led to unequal and hierarchical political relations. Fradera considers not only political and constitutional transformations but also their social underpinnings. Presenting a fresh perspective on the ways in which nations descended and evolved from and throughout empires, The Imperial Nation highlights the ramifications of this entangled history for the subjects who lived in its shadows.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691217343
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414
Book Description
How the legacy of monarchical empires shaped Britain, France, Spain, and the United States as they became liberal entities Historians view the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as a turning point when imperial monarchies collapsed and modern nations emerged. Treating this pivotal moment as a bridge rather than a break, The Imperial Nation offers a sweeping examination of four of these modern powers—Great Britain, France, Spain, and the United States—and asks how, after the great revolutionary cycle in Europe and America, the history of monarchical empires shaped these new nations. Josep Fradera explores this transition, paying particular attention to the relations between imperial centers and their sovereign territories and the constant and changing distinctions placed between citizens and subjects. Fradera argues that the essential struggle that lasted from the Seven Years’ War to the twentieth century was over the governance of dispersed and varied peoples: each empire tried to ensure domination through subordinate representation or by denying any representation at all. The most common approach echoed Napoleon’s “special laws,” which allowed France to reinstate slavery in its Caribbean possessions. The Spanish and Portuguese constitutions adopted “specialness” in the 1830s; the United States used comparable guidelines to distinguish between states, territories, and Indian reservations; and the British similarly ruled their dominions and colonies. In all these empires, the mix of indigenous peoples, European-origin populations, slaves and indentured workers, immigrants, and unassimilated social groups led to unequal and hierarchical political relations. Fradera considers not only political and constitutional transformations but also their social underpinnings. Presenting a fresh perspective on the ways in which nations descended and evolved from and throughout empires, The Imperial Nation highlights the ramifications of this entangled history for the subjects who lived in its shadows.