A Political and Social History of Modern Europe Part 8

TOWNS AND COMMERCE ABOUT 1500. Clive Day, _History of Commerce_ (1907), best brief account; W. C. Webster, _A General History of Commerce_ (1903), another excellent outline; E. P. Cheyney, _European Background of American History_ (1904) in "American Nation" Series, clear account of the medieval trade routes, pp. 3-40, of the early activities of chartered companies, pp. 123-167, and of the connection of the Protestant Revolution with colonialism, pp. 168-239; W. S. Lindsay, _History of Merchant Shipping and Ancient Commerce_, 4 vols. (1874- 1876), very detailed. The best account of sixteenth-century industry is in Vol. II of W. J. Ashley, _English Economic History and Theory_, with elaborate critical bibliographies. For town-life and the gilds: Mrs. J.

R. Green, _Town Life in England in the Fifteenth Century_, 2 vols.

(1894); Charles Gross, _The Gild Merchant_, 2 vols. (1890); Lujo Brentano, _On the History and Development of Gilds_ (1870); George Unwin, _The Gilds and Companies of London_ (1908), particularly the interesting chapter on "The Place of the Gild in the History of Western Europe." A brief view of English town-life in the later middle ages: E.

Lipson, _An Introduction to the Economic History of England_, Vol. I (1915), ch. v-ix. On town-life in the Netherlands: Henri Pirenne, _Belgian Democracy: its Early History_, trans. by J. V. Saunders (1915). On town-life in the Germanies: Helen Zimmern, _The Hansa Towns_ (1889) in "Story of the Nations" Series; Karl von Hegel, _Stadte und Gilden der germanischen Volker im Mittelalter_, 2 vols. (1891), the standard treatise in German. On French gilds: Martin St. Leon, _Histoire des corporations des metiers_ (1897). See also, for advanced study of trade-routes, Wilhelm Heyd, _Geschichte des Levantehandels im Mittelalter_, 2 vols. (1879), with a French trans. (1885-1886), and Aloys Schulte, _Geschichte des mittelalterlichen Handels und Verkehrs zwischen Westdeutschland und Italien_, 2 vols. (1900).

GENERAL TREATMENTS OF EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION. _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. I (1902), ch. i, ii; A. G. Keller, _Colonization: a Study of the Founding of New Societies_ (1908), a textbook, omitting reference to English and French colonization; H. C. Morris, _History of Colonization_, 2 vols. (1908), a useful general text; M. B.

Synge, _A Book of Discovery: the History of the World's Exploration, from the Earliest Times to the Finding of the South Pole_ (1912); _Histoire generale_, Vol. IV, ch. xxii, xxiii, and Vol. V, ch.

xxii; S. Ruge, _Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_ (1881), in the ambitious Oncken Series; Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, _La colonisation chez les peuples modernes_, 6th ed., 2 vols. (1908), the best general work in French; Charles de Lannoy and Hermann van der Linden, _Histoire de l'expansion coloniale des peuples europeens_, an important undertaking of two Belgian professors, of which two volumes have appeared--Vol. I, _Portugal et Espagne_ (1907), and Vol. II, _Neerlande et Danemark, 17e et 18e siecle_ (1911); Alfred Zimmermann, _Die europaischen Kolonien_, the main German treatise, in 5 vols. (1896-1903), dealing with Spain and Portugal (Vol. I), Great Britain (Vols. II, III), France (Vol. IV), and Holland (Vol. V). Much ill.u.s.trative source-material is available in the publications of the Hakluyt Society, Old Series, 100 vols. (1847-1898), and New Series, 35 vols. (1899-1914), selections having been separately published by E. J.

Payne (1893-1900) and by C. R. Beazley (1907). An account of the medieval travels of Marco Polo is published conveniently in the "Everyman" Series, and the best edition of the medieval travel-tales which have pa.s.sed under the name of Sir John Maundeville is that of The Macmillan Company (1900). For exploration prior to Columbus and Da Gama, see C. R. Beazley, _The Dawn of Modern Geography_, 3 vols.

(1897-1906).

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO AMERICA: J. S. Ba.s.sett, _A Short History of the United States_ (1914), ch. i, ii, a good outline; Edward Channing, _A History of the United States_, Vol. I (1905), an excellent and more detailed narrative; Livingston Farrand, _Basis of American History_ (1904), Vol. II of the "American Nation" Series, especially valuable on the American aborigines; E. J. Payne, _History of the New World called America_, 2 vols. (1892-1899); John Fiske, _Colonization of the New World_, Vol. XXI of _History of All Nations_, ch. i-vi; R. G. Watson, _Spanish and Portuguese South America_, 2 vols. (1884); Bernard Moses, _The Establishment of Spanish Rule in America_ (1898), and, by the same author, _The Spanish Dependencies in South America_, 2 vols. (1914). With special reference to Asiatic India: Mountstuart Elphinstone, _History of India: the Hindu and Mohametan Periods_, 9th ed. (1905), an old but still valuable work on the background of Indian history; Sir W. W.

Hunter, _A Brief History of the Indian Peoples_, rev. ed. (1903), and, by the same author, _A History of British India_ to the opening of the eighteenth century, 2 vols. (1899-1900), especially Vol.

I; Pringle Kennedy, _A History of the Great Moghuls_, 2 vols.

(1905-1911). With special reference to African exploration and colonization in the sixteenth century: Sir Harry Johnston, _History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races_ (1899), a very useful and authoritative manual; Robert Brown, _The Story of Africa_, 4 vols. (1894-1895), a detailed study; G. M. Theal, _South Africa_ (1894), a clear summary in the "Story of the Nations" Series; J. S.

Keltic, _The Part.i.tion of Africa_ (1895). See also Sir Harry Johnston, _The Negro in the New World_ (1910), important for the slave-trade and interesting, though in tone somewhat anti-English and pro-Spanish; J. K. Ingram, _A History of Slavery and Serfdom_ (1895), a brief sketch; and W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, _The Negro_ (1915), a handy volume in the "Home University Library."

EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION COUNTRY BY COUNTRY. Portugal: C. R.

Beazley, _Prince Henry the Navigator_ in "Heroes of the Nation," Series (1897); J. P. Oliveira Martins, _The Golden Age of Prince Henry the Navigator_, trans. with notes and additions by J. J. Abraham and W. E.

Reynolds (1914); K. G. Jayne, _Vasco da Gama and his Successors_, 1460- 1580 (1910); H. M. Stephens, _Portugal_ (1891), a brief sketch in the "Story of the Nations" Series; F. C. Danvers, _The Portuguese In India_, 2 vols. (1894), a thorough and scholarly work; H. M. Stephens, _Albuquerque and the Portuguese Settlements in India_ (1892), in "Rulers of India" Series; Angel Marvaud, _Le Portugal et ses colonies_ (1912); G. M. Theal, _History and Ethnography of Africa South of the Zambesi_, Vol. I, _The Portuguese in South Africa from 1505 to 1700_ (1907), a standard work by the Keeper of the Archives of Cape Colony.

Spain: John Fiske, _Discovery of America_, 2 vols. (1892), most delightful narrative; Wilhelm Roscher, _The Spanish Colonial System_, a brief but highly suggestive extract from an old German work trans. by E. G. Bourne (1904); E. G. Bourne, _Spain in America_, 1450-1580 (1904), Vol. III of "American Nation" Series, excellent in content and form; W. R. Shepherd, _Latin America_ (1914) in "Home University Library." pp. 9-68, clear and suggestive; Sir Arthur Helps, _The Spanish Conquest in America_, new ed., 4 vols. (1900-1904). A scholarly study of Columbus's career is J. B. Thacher, _Christopher Columbus_, 3 vols. (1903-1904), incorporating many of the sources; Washington Irving, _Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus_, originally published in 1828-1831, but still very readable and generally sound; Filson Young, _Christopher Columbus and the New World of his Discovery_, 2 vols. (1906), a popular account, splendidly ill.u.s.trated; Henry Harrisse, _Christophe Colomb, son origine, sa vie, ses voyages_, 2 vols. (1884), a standard work by an authority on the age of exploration; Henri Vignaud, _Histoire critique de la grande entreprise de Christophe Colomb_, 2 vols. (1911), destructive of many commonly accepted ideas regarding Columbus; F. H. H. Guillemard, _The Life of Ferdinand Magellan_ (1890); F. A. Mac.n.u.tt, _Fernando Cortes and the Conquest of Mexico_, 1485-1547 (1909), in the "Heroes of the Nations"

Series, and, by the same author, both _Letters of Cortes_, 2 vols.

(1908), and _Bartholomew de las Casas_ (1909); Sir Clements Markham, _The Incas of Peru_ (1910). On the transference of colonial power from Spain to the Dutch and English, see _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. IV (1906), ch. xxv, by H. E. Egerton. England: H. E. Egerton, _A Short History of British Colonial Policy_, 2d ed. (1909), a bald summary, provided, however, with good bibliographies; W. H. Woodward, _A Short History of the Expansion of the British Empire, 1500-1911_, 3d ed.

(1912), a useful epitome; C. R. Beazley, _John and Sebastian Cabot: the Discovery of North America_ (1898); J. A. Williamson, _Maritime Enterprise, 1485-1558_ (1913); E. J. Payne (editor), _Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America_, 2 vols. (1893-1900); L. G. Tyler, _England in America, 1580-1652_ (1904), Vol. IV of "American Nation"

Series; George Edmundson, _Anglo-Dutch Rivalry, 1600-1653_ (1911).

France: R. G. Thwaites, _France in America, 1497-1763_ (1905), Vol. VII of "American Nation" Series.

ECONOMIC RESULTS OF THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION. William Cunningham, _An Essay on Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects_, Vol. II, _Mediaeval and Modern Times_ (1910), pp. 162-224, and, by the same author, ch. xv of Vol. I (1902) of the _Cambridge Modern History_; E.

P. Cheyney, _Social Changes in England in the Sixteenth Century_ (1912); George Unwin, _Industrial Organization in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries_ (1904); G. Cawston and A. H. Keane, _Early Chartered Companies_ (1896); W. R. Scott, _The Const.i.tution and Finance of English, Scottish, and Irish Joint-Stock Companies to 1720_, Vol. I (1912); C. T. Carr (editor), _Select Charters of Trading Companies_ (1913); Beckles Willson, _The Great Company_ (1899), an account of the Hudson Bay Company; Henry Weber, _La Compagnie francaise des Indes, 1604-1675_ (1904); _Recueil des voyages de la Compagnie des Indes orientales des Hollandois_, 10 vols. (1730), the monumental source for the activities of the chief Dutch trading-company.

CHAPTER III

EUROPEAN POLITICS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

THE EMPEROR CHARLES V

As we look back upon the confused sixteenth century, we are struck at once by two commanding figures,--the Emperor Charles V [Footnote: Charles I of Spain.] and his son Philip II,--about whom we may group most of the political events of the period. The father occupies the center of the stage during the first half of the century; the son, during the second half.

[Sidenote: Extensive Dominions of Charles]

At Ghent in the Netherlands, Charles was born in 1500 of ill.u.s.trious parentage. His father was Philip of Habsburg, son of the Emperor Maximilian and Mary, d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy. His mother was the Infanta Joanna, daughter and heiress of Ferdinand of Aragon and Naples and Isabella of Castile and the Indies. The death of his father and the incapacity of his mother--she had become insane--left Charles at the tender age of six years an orphan under the guardianship of his grandfathers Maximilian and Ferdinand. The death of the latter in 1516 transferred the whole Spanish inheritance to Charles, and three years later, by the death of the former, he came into possession of the hereditary dominions of the Habsburgs. Thus under a youth of nineteen years were grouped wider lands and greater populations than any Christian sovereign had ever ruled. Vienna, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, Milan, Naples, Madrid, Cadiz,--even the City of Mexico,--owed him allegiance. His t.i.tles alone would fill several pages.

Maximilian had intended not only that all these lands should pa.s.s into the hands of the Habsburg family, but also that his grandson should succeed him as head of the Holy Roman Empire. This ambition, however, was hard of fulfillment, because the French king, Francis I (1515- 1547), feared the encircling of his own country by a united German- Spanish-Italian state, and set himself to preserve what he called the "Balance of Power"--preventing the undue growth of one political power at the expense of others. It was only by means of appeal to national and family sentiment and the most wholesale bribery that Charles managed to secure a majority of the electors' votes against his French rival [Footnote: Henry VIII of England was also a candidate.] and thereby to acquire the coveted imperial t.i.tle. He was crowned at Aix- la-Chapelle in his twenty-first year.

[Sidenote: Character of Charles]

Never have greater difficulties confronted a sovereign than those which Charles V was obliged to face throughout his reign; never did monarch lead a more strenuous life. He was the central figure in a very critical period of history: his own character as well as the painstaking education he had received in the Netherlands conferred upon him a lively appreciation of his position and a dogged pertinacity in discharging its obligations. Both in administering his extensive dominions and in dealing with foreign foes, Charles was a zealous, hard-working, and calculating prince, and the lack of success which attended many of his projects was due not to want of ability in the ruler but to the multiplicity of interests among the ruled. The emperor must do too many things to allow of his doing any one thing well.

[Sidenote: Difficulties Confronting Charles]

Suppose we turn over in our minds some of the chief problems of Charles V, for they will serve to explain much of the political history of the sixteenth century. In the first place, the emperor was confronted with extraordinary difficulties in governing his territories. Each one of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands--the country which he always considered peculiarly his own--was a distinct political unit, for there existed only the rudiments of a central administration and a common representative system, while the county of Burgundy had a separate political organization. The crown of Castile brought with it the recently conquered kingdom of Granada, together with the new colonies in America and scattered posts in northern Africa. The crown of Aragon comprised the four distinct states of Aragon, Valencia, Catalonia, and Navarre, [Footnote: The part south of the Pyrenees. See above, p. 8.]

and, in addition, the kingdoms of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, each with its own customs and government. At least eight independent cortes or parliaments existed in this Spanish-Italian group, adding greatly to the intricacy of administration. Much the same was true of that other Habsburg group of states,--Austria, Styria, Carniola, Carinthia, the Tyrol, etc., but Charles soon freed himself from immediate responsibility for their government by intrusting them (1521) to his younger brother, Ferdinand, who by his own marriage and elections added the kingdoms of Bohemia [Footnote: Including the Bohemian crown lands of Moravia and Silesia.] and Hungary (1526) to the Habsburg dominions.

The Empire afforded additional problems: it made serious demands upon the time, money, and energies of its ruler; in return, it gave little but glamour. In all these regions Charles had to do with financial, judicial, and ecclesiastical matters. He had to reconcile conflicting interests and appeal for popularity to many varied races. More than once during his reign he even had to repress rebellion. In Germany, from his very first Diet in 1521, he was face to face with rising Protestantism which seemed to him to blaspheme his altar and to a.s.sail his throne.

The emperor's overwhelming administrative difficulties were complicated at every turn by the intricacies of foreign politics. In the first place, Charles was obliged to wage war with France throughout the greater part of his reign; he had inherited a longstanding quarrel with the French kings, to which the rivalry of Francis I for the empire gave a personal aspect. In the second place, and almost as formidable, was the advance of the Turks up the Danube and the increase of Mohammedan naval power in the Mediterranean. Against Protestant Germany a Catholic monarch might hope to rely on papal a.s.sistance, and English support might conceivably be enlisted against France. But the popes, who usually disliked the emperor's Italian policy, were not of great aid to him elsewhere; and the English sovereigns had domestic reasons for developing hostility to Charles. A brief sketch of the foreign affairs of Charles may make the situation clear.

[Sidenote: Francis I of France and the Reasons for his Wars with the Emperor Charles V]

Six years older than Charles, Francis I had succeeded to the French throne in 1515, irresponsible, frivolous, and vain of military reputation. The general political situation of the time,--the gradual inclosure of the French monarchy by a string of Habsburg territories,-- to say nothing of the remarkable contrast between the character of Francis and that of the persevering Charles, made a great conflict inevitable, and definite pretexts were not lacking for an early outbreak of hostilities. (1) Francis revived the claims of the French crown to Naples, although Louis XII had renounced them in 1504. (2) Francis, bent on regaining Milan, which his predecessor had lost in 1512, invaded the duchy and, after winning the brilliant victory of Marignano in the first year of his reign, occupied the city of Milan.

Charles subsequently insisted, however, that the duchy was a fief of the Holy Roman Empire and that he was sworn by oath to recover it. (3) Francis a.s.serted the claims of a kinsman to the little kingdom of Navarre, the greater part of which, it will be remembered, had recently [Footnote: In 1512. See above.] been forcibly annexed to Spain. (4) Francis desired to extend his sway over the rich French-speaking provinces of the Netherlands, while Charles was determined not only to prevent further aggressions but to recover the duchy of Burgundy of which his grandmother had been deprived by Louis XI. (5) The outcome of the contest for the imperial crown in 1519 virtually completed the breach between the two rivals. War broke out in 1521, and with few interruptions it was destined to outlast the lives of both Francis and Charles.

[Sidenote: The Italian Wars of Charles V and Francis I]

Italy was the main theater of the combat. In the first stage, the imperial forces, with the aid of a papal army, speedily drove the French garrison out of Milan. The Sforza family was duly invested with the duchy as a fief of the Empire, and the pope was compensated by the addition of Parma and Piacenza to the Patrimony of Saint Peter. The victorious Imperialists then pressed across the Alps and besieged Ma.r.s.eilles. Francis, who had been detained by domestic troubles in France, [Footnote: These troubles related to the disposition of the important landed estates of the Bourbon family. The duke of Bourbon, who was constable of France, felt himself injured by the king and accordingly deserted to the emperor.] now succeeded in raising the siege and pursued the retreating enemy to Milan. Instead of following up his advantage by promptly attacking the main army of the Imperialists, the French king dispatched a part of his force to Naples, and with the other turned aside to blockade the city of Pavia. This blunder enabled the Imperialists to reform their ranks and to march towards Pavia in order to join the besieged. Here on 24 February, 1525,--the emperor's twenty-fifth birthday,--the army of Charles won an overwhelming victory. Eight thousand French soldiers fell on the field that day, and Francis, who had been in the thick of the fight, was compelled to surrender. "No thing in the world is left me save my honor and my life," wrote the king to his mother. Everything seemed auspicious for the cause of Charles. Francis, after a brief captivity in Spain, was released on condition that he would surrender all claims to Burgundy, the Netherlands, and Italy, and would marry the emperor's sister.

[Sidenote: The Sack of Rome, 1527]

Francis swore upon the Gospels and upon his knightly word that he would fulfill these conditions, but in his own and contemporary opinion the compulsion exercised upon him absolved him from his oath. No sooner was he back in France than he declared the treaty null and void and proceeded to form alliances with all the Italian powers that had become alarmed by the sudden strengthening of the emperor's position in the peninsula,--the pope, Venice, Florence, and even the Sforza who owed everything to Charles. Upon the resumption of hostilities the league displayed the same want of agreement and energy which characterized every coalition of Italian city-states; and soon the Imperialists were able to possess themselves of much of the country. In 1527 occurred a famous episode--the sack of Rome. It was not displeasing to the emperor that the pope should be punished for giving aid to France, although Charles cannot be held altogether responsible for what befell. His army in Italy, composed largely of Spaniards and Germans, being short of food and money, and without orders, mutinied and marched upon the Eternal City, which was soon at their mercy. About four thousand people perished in the capture. The pillage lasted nine months, and the brigands were halted only by a frightful pestilence which decimated their numbers. Convents were forced, altars stripped, tombs profaned, the library of the Vatican sacked, and works of art torn down as monuments of idolatry. Pope Clement VII (1523-1534), a nephew of the other Medici pope, Leo X, had taken refuge in the impregnable castle of St. Angelo and was now obliged to make peace with the emperor.

[Sidenote: Peace of Cambrai, 1529]

The sack of Rome aroused bitter feelings throughout Catholic Europe, and Henry VIII of England, at that time still loyal to the pope, ostentatiously sent aid to Francis. But although the emperor made little headway against Francis, the French king, on account of strategic blunders and the disunion of the league, was unable to maintain a sure foothold in Italy. The peace of Cambrai (1529) provided that Francis should abandon Naples, Milan, and the Netherlands, but the cession of Burgundy was no longer insisted upon. Francis proceeded to celebrate his marriage with the emperor's sister.

[Sidenote: Habsburg Predominance in Italy]

Eight years of warfare had left Charles V and the Habsburg family unquestionable masters of Italy. Naples was under Charles's direct government. For Milan he received the homage of Sforza. The Medici pope, whose family he had restored in Florence, was now his ally.

Charles visited Italy for the first time in 1529 to view his territories, and at Bologna (1530) received from the pope's hands the ancient iron crown of Lombard Italy and the imperial crown of Rome. It was the last papal coronation of a ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.

The peace of Cambrai proved but a truce, and war between Charles and Francis repeatedly blazed forth. Francis made strange alliances in order to create all possible trouble for the emperor,--Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, the Ottoman Turks, even the rebellious Protestant princes within the empire. There were spasmodic campaigns between 1536 and 1538 and between 1542 and 1544, and after the death of Francis and the abdication of Charles, the former's son, Henry II (1547-1559), continued the conflict, newly begun in 1552, until the conclusion of the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis in 1559, by which the Habsburgs retained their hold upon Italy, while France, by the occupation of the important bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, extended her northeastern frontier, at the expense of the empire, toward the Rhine River.

[Footnote: It was during this war that in 1558 the French captured Calais from the English, and thus put an end to English territorial holdings on the Continent. The English Queen Mary was the wife of Philip II of Spain.]

[Sidenote: Results of the Wars between Charles V and Francis I]

Indirectly, the long wars occasioned by the personal rivalry of Charles and Francis had other results than Habsburg predominance in Italy and French expansion towards the Rhine. They preserved a "balance of power"

and prevented the incorporation of the French monarchy into an obsolescent empire. They rendered easier the rise of the Ottoman power in eastern Europe; and French alliance with the Turks gave French trade and enterprise a decided lead in the Levant. They also permitted the comparatively free growth of Protestantism in Germany.

[Sidenote: The Turkish Peril]

More sinister to Charles V than his wars with the French was the advance of the Ottoman Turks. Under their greatest sultan, Suleiman II, the Magnificent (1520-1566), a contemporary of Charles, the Turks were rapidly extending their sway. The Black Sea was practically a Turkish lake; and the whole Euphrates valley, with Bagdad, had fallen into the sultan's power, now established on the Persian Gulf and in control of all of the ancient trade-routes to the East. The northern coasts of Africa from Egypt to Algeria acknowledged the supremacy of Suleiman, whose sea power in the Mediterranean had become a factor to be reckoned with in European politics, threatening not only the islands but the great Christian countries of Italy and Spain. The Venetians were driven from the Morea and from the aegean Islands; only Cyprus, Crete, and Malta survived in the Mediterranean as outposts of Christendom.

[Sidenote: Suleiman the Magnificent]

Suleiman devoted many years to the extension of his power in Europe, sometimes in alliance with the French king, sometimes upon his own initiative,--and with almost unbroken success. In 1521 he declared war against the king of Hungary on the pretext that he had received no Hungarian congratulations on his accession to the throne. He besieged and captured Belgrade, and in 1526 on the field of Mohacs his forces met and overwhelmed the Hungarians, whose king was killed with the flower of the Hungarian chivalry. The battle of Mohacs marked the extinction of an independent and united Hungarian state; Ferdinand of Habsburg, brother of Charles V, claimed the kingdom; Suleiman was in actual possession of fully a third of it. The sultan's army carried the war into Austria and in 1529 bombarded and invested Vienna, but so valiant was the resistance offered that after three weeks the siege was abandoned. Twelve years later the greater part of Hungary, including the city of Budapest, became a Turkish province, and in many places churches were turned into mosques. In 1547 Charles V and Ferdinand were compelled to recognize the Turkish conquests in Hungary, and the latter agreed to pay the sultan an annual tribute of 30,000 ducats. Suleiman not only thwarted every attempt of his rivals to recover their territories, but remained throughout his life a constant menace to the security of the hereditary dominions of the Habsburgs.

[Sidenote: Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire.]

[Sidenote: Possibility of transforming the Empire into a National German Monarchy]