The Emergence of Modern Europe

Around 1450 the outlines of Modern Europe were emerging. In Western Europe new powerful nation-states arose under the leadership of strong monarchs, whereas in Eastern and Central Europe multi-ethnic empires coalesced under the rule of dynasties of rulers. New modern ideas and ideologies also sprung from the Italian Renaissance that was in full swing at this time.

England became a nation-state in this period. During the reign of the insane king, Henry VI (r. 1422 - 1461), chaos and unrest ensued due to the weakness of this king. Powerful Barons (the "Robber Barons') with their private armies plundered the commoners - merchants, artisans, peasants, with impunity. In 1455 Edward, the Duke of York, a direct descendant of Edward III, challenged Henry VI's claim to the English throne. In this struggle for the throne, the English aristocracy was divided between supporters of the House of York (Edward) and supporters of the House of Lancaster (Henry). This civil war became known as the War of the Roses since the white rose was the symbol of the House of York, while the red rose was the symbol of the House of Lancaster. The House of York won this war, and Edward, Duke of York, became Edward IV (r. 1461 -1483), who imprisoned Henry VI. Edward IV won the support of the common people of England, who were beginning to develop as sense of ethnic identity under the weight of oppression by the Barons. Edward created new royal officials, the Justices of the Peace, whose job was to restore law and order. The common people of England rejoiced that even powerful nobles now faced justice for their crimes. Upon the death of Edward IV, his son and heir, Edward V should have become king, but Edward V was just a boy, so his uncle Richard III (r. 1483-1485) assumed the throne and reportedly ordered the murder of his young nephew. The Barons and supporters of the House of Lancaster now rallied around Henry Tudor, the Duke of Richmond, who was a Lancaster on his mother's side and the leader of the Lancaster family after the death of Henry VI in 1471. At the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, Henry's army defeated the forces of Richard III, who died in battle. Henry Tudor now became Henry VII (r. 1485-1509). Even though Henry had won the throne with the support of the Barons, as king, he continued to appoint Justices of the Peace. He also kept the Barons in line with the creation of the Court of the Star Chamber, which was staffed by the king's close advisers. Through a network of spies, Henry discovered which powerful nobles were critical of his government. Henry arrested these nobles and tried them before the Court of the Star Chamber. Those found guilty of treason faced imprisonment and execution. The English common people supported and loved Henry VII due to his success in restoring internal peace and reining in the Barons. The English Parliament, and the House of Commons in particular, supported this king, as he rarely asked for new taxes since his government operated on a frugal budget. As king, Henry VII supported efforts to advance trade and the merchants who supported his regime. In 1497, for example Henry VII commissioned an Italian explorer, John Cabot to search for a new sea route to the Far East. Cabot didn't find this route, but he did explore the coast of Newfoundland in Modern Canada and may have explored the North American east coast as far south as New England. The Age of Discovery in European history thus began shortly before 1500 and marks the start of the Modern Era.

In France as well, monarchs united the common people. Charles VII (r. 1422-1463) summoned the Estates-General in 1439, which voted to raise taxes for the war against the English. The devastation and bloodshed brought by the English armies in the Hundred Years War fostered a strong sense of national identity among the French people, who rallied behind their king. With these tax revenues, Charles increased the size of his armies, which drove the English out of France by 1453. The finances of the French royal government were well managed under the leadership of a wealthy French merchant, Jacques Coeur, who served as Charles VII's finance minister. Louis XI (r. 1463-1481), like his father, enjoyed the support of the French common people, and the merchants in particular. Louis strengthened the power of the royal government by increasing the size of the treasury through the efficient administration of his officials, who were often recruited from the ranks of the middle class. Louis XI also earned the nickname of "The Spider" because of his reputation for setting up traps for his enemies, like spider webs, through treachery and deceit. For example, during Louis XI's reign, Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy and Flanders, encouraged the great nobles of France to resist the growing power of the royal government. Instead of directly waging war against Charles, Louis secretly provided funds for Charles' enemies. In 1477 Charles died in battle against the Swiss Confederation of towns (modern Switzerland), which was receiving support from Louis XI.

By the late 15th century, Spain and Portugal, like France and England, first emerged as a new nation-states. During the Middle Ages, the Iberian Peninsula was divided into a number of feudal kingdoms - Castile, Aragon, and Portugal. In 1212 at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa the combined armies of these kingdoms defeated the forces of the Almohad Caliph. Berber tribes in modern Morocco had united and established a Caliphate in the Maghreb (Muslim North Africa) and Spain in the 12th century. Shortly after this defeat in 1212, this Caliphate collapsed. The Arabs and Moors in Spain in the 13th century established the Emirate of Granada in southern Spain. The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa was therefore a turning point in the Reconquista (Reconquest) of Spain by Christians. After 1212, however, these Christian kingdoms suffered from a series of weak kings and civil wars by rival claimants to the throne. In this period the nobility also demanded that all new taxes be approved by the Cortes. In each region, the elected representatives of the landed nobility, the Church, the townspeople, and the knights convened as the local Cortes. In the absence of a strong royal government, the landed nobility and knights often acted above the law and robbed and pillaged the common people. During the reign of Henry IV of Castile , "The Impotent" (r. 1454 - 1474) the nobles of Castile demanded that this ineffective king recognize his younger half-sister Isabella as his successor. Isabella married her cousin, a prince of Aragon, Ferdinand. When Ferdinand became king of Aragon in 1479, this marriage united the Kingdoms of Aragon and Castile into the new Kingdom of Spain. With their combined resources, Ferdinand and Isabella reined in the great nobles with new laws and restored law and order to the country. Ferdinand also united the Spanish people by completing the Reconquista and conquering the Emirate of Granada in 1492. Afterwards Ferdinand and Isabella ordered the expulsion of all Jews and Muslims in Spain who refused to convert to Christianity. Ferdinand, who earned the nickname, "The Catholic" also won popular support with his efforts to reform the Church. During his reign, the Spanish Inquisition under the leadership of Cardinal Ximenez, the Archbishop of Toledo, worked to convert Muslims and Jews to Christianity and end corruption within the church, such as priests who engaged in sexual misconduct. In Spain the people developed a strong, national identity through their devotion to the Catholic Church and to the monarchy. Ferdinand and Isabella also won the support of the townspeople and the merchants. In 1492, these monarchs authorized an Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus to search for a new sea route to the Far East. Columbus did not find such a route, but in a series of voyages across the Atlantic, he did explore the Caribbean Islands and "discover' America. An older contemporary of Ferdinand and Isabella, Prince Henry "the Navigator" (1394-1469) served at the court of his brother and nephew who were kings of Portugal. Henry supported the merchants at the port of Lisbon who were exploring islands of the Atlantic, the Azores, and the west coast of Africa. As in Spain, the common people of Portugal , like these merchants, supported a strong monarchy. Henry's support for these merchants resulted later in the historic voyage of Vasco Da Gama in 1497 around the Horn of Africa into the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese did find a direct sea route to the India and the East and along with Columbus' voyages inaugurated the Age of Discovery. Ferdinand and Isabella as well as Prince Henry supported voyages of exploration for political and economic reasons, but at the same time, they saw these voyages as a means to advance the Christian Gospel. They still maintained a Medieval mindset at the dawn of the Modern Era.

In Central and Eastern Europe large multi-ethnic empires had arisen by 1500. In the Holy Roman Empire after the disastrous reign of Frederick II, the rulers of the different principalities of this "empire" focused on advancing their own families' dynastic interests. One of these families, the Hapsburg Family of Austria had by 1500 set the foundation for the creation of a multi-ethnic empire in Central Europe. The first Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf I (1273-1291) focused his efforts as emperor in acquiring for his family the duchies of Austria and Styria, which were inhabited by ethnic Germans and Slavic Slovenes. Rudolf fought Ottokar II, the King of Bohemia for these lands. Bohemia was inhabited by Slavic Czechs, who had converted to the Catholic faith back in the tenth century. Ottokar failed to acquire Austria, but his descendants ( The House of Luxembourg) did become Holy Roman Emperors and sought to advance their family's interests. Charles IV (1346-1378) was king of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor. In an effort to insure that his family continued to be Holy Roman Emperors, Charles in 1356 issued the Golden Bull, which set up an official process to elect a new Holy Roman Emperor. Seven princes of the Holy Roman Empire were now the "Electors" of the Holy Roman Empire, who alone chose a new emperor. Three of these seven princes were Archbishops in large German cities. Charles IV determined the Electors based on the loyalty of these princes to him and his family. One of these Electors was the King of Bohemia, which was ruled by Charles' family. Even though Charles had issued this charter to secure the position of the emperor for his family, the Golden Bull instead guaranteed that the Holy Roman Empire would remain a weak confederation of states. The House of Luxembourg was not able to sustain a long line of emperors. Charles's son Sigismund (1411-1438) was Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia. He advanced his family's interests by marrying Maria, the heiress to the throne of Hungary. The union of Sigismund and Maria, however produced no son. Sigismund's daughter, Elizabeth married Albert II, the Hapsburg duke of Austria, who was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1438. Thus the Hapsburg family through marriage obtained a claim to the thrones of Hungary and Bohemia (Czechs) which was added to their duchies of Austria (Germans) and Styria (Slovenes). Albert died young in 1440 leaving a pregnant wife. Without an heir, the Electors chose his cousin, the Hapsburg duke of Styria, Frederick as the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick III (r.1440-1493). The landed aristocracy of Bohemia and Hungary in their assemblies (Diets) chose local nobles as their kings in the 15th century such as the Hussite George of Podebrady (r.1458 -1471) in Bohemia and Matthias Corvinus (r.1443-1490) in Hungary, but the the Hapsburg family would reclaim these lands as kings in the 16th century.

The kingdom of Poland also emerged as a multi-ethnic empire under the Jagiellon Dynasty in the 15th century. The Poles were a another Slavic people. The first Polish state arose from the unification of Polish tribes under the Piast Dynasty of dukes in the 10th century, when the Poles converted to Christianity through missionaries from the western Catholic Church. In the 14th century the Piast Dynasty assumed the title, king of Poland. The last Piast ruler of Poland, Casimir III (r. 1333 -1370) died without an heir, and his nephew Lewis III, the king of Hungary also became king of Poland. Lewis had no male heirs. Upon Lewis' death in 1382, the kingdom of Poland was in crisis, and the Sejm took action. In Poland the elite, landowning nobility, the Szlachta, elected a council (Sejm), which had to approve new taxes, which the king imposed on his subjects. In 1382 this Sejm demanded that Lewis III's daughter and heir for his lands in Poland, Hedwig, marry Jagiello, the pagan Grand Duke of Lithuania, who had agreed to convert to Christianity. The Sejm contracted this deal due to the threat of the Teutonic Order of Knights to the Polish Kingdom. The Teutonic Knights were a religious order of German monks/knights, like the Knights Templar, whose original purpose was to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. In 1231 at the request of the Piast dukes, the Teutonic Knights departed Palestine and set up their headquarters along the coast of the Baltic Sea, so that they could wage war on the pagan Baltic peoples - Prussians, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians, who still practiced their ancient, polytheistic religion. The Teutonic Knights, as they advanced against these peoples, settled large number of German and Flemish colonists along the Baltic coast. In Prussia over the centuries, this colonization resulted in the disappearance of the indigenous, Prussian language and its replacement by the German language. This advance by the Teutonic Knights was a part of a historical movement known as the Drang Noch Osten or "Push to the East", which saw the migration of people from Germany into Eastern Europe. After the destructive Mongol invasion of the 13th century, the Piast dukes had encouraged Germans to settle in Poland to restore the population of the region. Among these settlers from Germany were Jews, who had inhabited the Rhine River Valley. These Jews who settled in Poland in large numbers spoke Yiddish, which is a language than combines elements from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and German languages. In 1382 the Sejm feared that the Teutonic Knights had advanced too far and threatened the territory of the Polish kingdom. The marriage of Hedwig and Jagiello united the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and this union proved effective in halting the advance of the Teutonic Knights. In 1410 at the Battle of Tannenburg, the Poles defeated the Teutonic Knights. Afterwards, the Abbot or Grand Master of the Teutonic Order of Knights agreed to become a feudal vassal of the king of Poland. The Jagiellon Dynasty of kings ruled over Poland for the next two centuries. This kingdom was quite diverse in its ethnic composition and included Poles, Germans, Jews, and diverse Baltic peoples. In addition the Grand Dukes had conquered Russian principalities, so that the Jagiellon Dynasty also ruled over the Slavic peoples of what is today Belarus and the Ukraine.

By the end of the 15th century, a Russian empire had arisen to the east of the Polish kingdom. By the 11th century, Russia was divided into a number of independent principalities. These princes were all descended from Rurik, a 9th century Rus warlord. The number of principalities continued to multiply over time since these princes divided up their lands equally among their sons. In 1240 the Mongols conquered these principalities. The Mongols settled along the north coast of the Caspian Sea and established the Khanate of the Golden Horde. Among these Mongols were large numbers of Turkish tribesmen (the Tatars or Tartars) who had joined the Mongol forces. The Muslim Mongols and Tatars imposed heavy tribute on the Orthodox Christian, Russian princes, whom the Khans allowed to govern their own lands. After 1240, the princes of Moscow or Muscovy, which was one of these principalities, became responsible for collecting this tribute for the Khan. Moscow also with the support of the Khan became the seat of the Patriarch or head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Even though these princes of Moscow began as lapdogs of the Khans, the prince of Moscow, Ivan III ( r. 1462-1505) led the Russian princes in a revolt against the Khan, and the Russians won their independence. The Russian princes all recognized Ivan III as the first Tsar (or Czar), which was the Russian word for "Caesar", the traditional title of Roman and later Byzantine emperors. Since the Russians' conversion to the Orthodox Christian faith in the 10th century, Byzantine culture had deeply influenced Russian culture. Due to the conquest of Constantinople by the Muslim Ottoman Empire in 1453, the Czar Ivan III and the Russians claimed to be the successor to the Byzantine Empire and the head of the Orthodox Church. Moscow was therefore the "Third Rome"" (Rome -Constantinople-Moscow).

In southeastern Europe in the Balkans, another multi-empire had arisen under the Ottoman Dynasty of Turkish Sultans. Around 1300 Othman, the founder of the Ottoman Dynasty, was a Turkish warlord in northwestern Asia Minor, who broke away from the Sultan of Rum and became an independent Sultan. The Ottoman Sultans of this dynasty recruited large numbers of Turkish tribesmen in Central Asia to join them in a Jihad against the Byzantine Empire and the Christian kingdoms in the Balkans. Among the Turkish tribes, large numbers of young, unmarried men known as Ghazi devoted themselves to jihad. These Ghazi enthusiastically joined the armies of the Ottoman Sultans as mounted horsemen (Sipahi). Ottoman Sultans also increased their military effectiveness by creating infantry units known as Janissaries. As Ottoman armies advanced into the Balkans, the Sultans enslaved young boys from Christian homes and raised these boys in their household to be infantry soldiers who were fanatically loyal to the Sultan and to the Islamic faith. These Janissaries also became expert gunmen. The Ottoman armies adopted and improved firearms, which had made their way from China through the Eurasian Steppe. The Sultans also trained and educated bright and intelligent young men among the Janissaries to become administrators and bureaucrats in their growing empire. In 1389 Ottoman forces crushed the Serbian kingdom in the Battle of Kosovo. The advance of these Muslim armies concerned Christian Europe and in 1396 and 1444, the Pope called for a Crusade against the Turks. But Ottoman forces defeated these Crusaders, who were primarily Poles and Hungarians, at the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396 and the Battle of Varna in 1444,which were both fought in what is today Bulgaria. In 1453 Ottoman forces under the command of the Sultan, Mohammed II conquered Constantinople, which as Istanbul became the new capital of the Ottoman Empire. In the Balkans the Sultans rewarded the mounted warriors or Sipahis with lands for their military service and the labor of Christian serfs on these lands. The Sultans also imposed heavy taxes on all non-Muslims (the Jizya). Converts to Islam became automatically exempt from these taxes, and the Sultans offered new converts to Islam from prominent Christian families positions in the Ottoman government. In the Balkans many Bosnians and Albanians did convert to Islam even though the majority of the Sultan's subjects here remained Christian.

The 15th century was also the high point (the Quattrocento) of the Italian Renaissance. This period witnessed a "rebirth" or renaissance of the Classical civilization of ancient Greece and Rome. Renaissance artists and writers, the Humanists , hoped to recreate the art and literature of Greek and Roman sculptors, architects, poets, historians, and philosophers. Humanists collected ancient art works and manuscripts. The poet, Petrarch in around 1350 was a priest and scholar, who first engaged in th activities and has been hailed as the "Father of the Humanists". The fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks resulted in many Byzantine scholars migrating to Italy along with their manuscripts of ancient Greek writers, which had not been available in Western Europe before. This same period also saw the invention of the printing press. The first printed book was the Bible, which was published by Johannes Gutenburg in Germany in 1453. The printing press enabled Humanist scholars to publish their manuscripts and made the works of ancient Greek and Roman writers more accessible to a wider audience. The science, mathematics, philosophy, poetry, and historical works of these ancient writers were now more available for study by an ever increasing number of educated people.

Historians attribute this new spirit and love for Classical civilization to the new emerging culture of the independent city-states of Renaissance Italy. By the 14th century, these states were completely free and autonomous due to the weakening of the Holy Roman Empire. Moreover,the 1356 Golden Bull did not include Italy at all in the election of emperors. In these Italian states such as Venice, Genoa, Florence, and Milan, the middle class, and merchants in particular, were in power and no longer subservient to the landowning nobility. These city-states were republics, whose citizens identified with the ancient city- states of Greece and especially the Roman Republic. In these city-states rival factions often competed for power in the city council such as the Signoria in Florence. In these city- states powerful men seized power and ran these cities as dictators. For example, Cosimo de Medici (1384-1464) was a cloth merchant and banker in Florence, who with the support of the artisan guilds ran the city. In Milan, the general (Condottiere) of the city's mercenary army, Francesco Sforza, in 1450 won control of the city with broad popular support. In these cities, these strong men became major patrons of artists, philosophers, and scientists. The strong men saw such support as a way to earn eternal fame and glory for themselves.For example Lorenzo de Medici (1449-1492) the grandson of Cosimo, was known as "The Magnificent" and financed many of the artists and philosophers in Florence. The worldly "Renaissance Popes" of this period also acted as such strong men and patronized the arts and literature as well. The Pope Nicholas V (r, 1447-1455) was a Humanist and collected ancient manuscripts in what would become the Vatican Library. The rough and tumble world of Renaissance politics inspired one of the most influential works of literature, The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), who was a diplomat for the republic of Florence. In this work, Machiavelli maintained that a ruler must use violence, terror, deceit, and treachery, if necessary, to create a strong and stable state. This noble end or goal justified the immoral means or way that this goal was achieved. Machiavelli reportedly based his findings on his observation of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) who during his time as Pope (1492-1503) helped his son, Cesare's unsuccessful efforts to create his own domain in the Papal States of central Italy. However, the ruthless and brutal tactics that Machiavelli endorsed as a means to seize and maintain political power, were the practices of many political figures besides Cesare Borgia in this tumultuous period.