Chapter 7“Society and Economy under the Old Regime in the Eighteenth Century”

AP EUROPEAN HISTORYMR. RICK PURRINGTON

MARSHALL HIGH SCHOOL

I. The Old Regime

A. The life of pre-revolutionary Eu = tradition, hierarchy

1. Aristocratic elites w/ inherited legal privileges

2. Church/State linked with aristocrats

3. Urban laborers usually organized into guilds

4. Rural peasants pay high taxes

5. Little concept of “individual rights”

B.Aristocrats

1. 1%-5% of pop

2. Wealth based on land ownership

3. Manual labor considered beneath them

4. Br – small in number but strong politically

5. Fr – larger, military or church connections

6. East – larger, military tradition, power over serfs

C. Peasants and Serfs1. Lives of economic and social dependency, exploitation, vulnerability2. Power of landlords increased from west (peasants) to east (serfs)3. Ru serfs: worst off, nearly 50% of pop

a) noble wealth measured by number of serfs, not acresb) 1773 - Pugachev’s Rebellion in Rulargest 18thc. uprising, eventually

crushed

II. Agriculture in 17th + 18th C

A. Early Eu = Agrarian Society

1. 80% of W. Eu’s worked in ag

2. Food supply was never certain = starvation and food price uncertainty

3. 1690’s = massive famine in Eu

- 1696 - Finland lost 28% of pop

B. Early 1700’s - The Open Field Method

1. community farming

2. soil exhaustion was common

- a year of fallow, year of cropping

C. Mid 1700’s - Agricultural Revolution

1. New Crops

a) Elimination of fallow

b) Crop rotation with Clover, Turnips

2. New Methods and Technology

a) drainage of wetlands

b) Jethro Tull’s seed drill

c) fertilizers - manure

d) enclosure

3. Farming begins to operate with a more entrepreneurial and profit-driven spirit

4. More innovation in Western Eu, less in Eastern Eu

.Image Works/Mary Evans

Picture Library Ltd.

III. Population IncreasesA. Improved farming = larger population

1. 1800: 190 million in Eu2. 1850: 260 million in Eu

B. Impacts1. Put pressure on food prices2. Drove more ag innovation3. Ignited the Industrial Revolution

IV. The Reasons for the Population Explosion 18th C

A. Decline in mortality rates

1. Plague disappeared

2. stricter port regulations

3. improvements to water supply and sewer system

4. protection against famine

V. New Methods of Production

A. Cottage Industry

1. The bridge from rural industry to Industrial Revolution

2. putting-out system

a) agents “put-out” materials to rural workers who finished the

product for sale

VI. The Industrial Revolution in Br

A. Br Origins

1. strong agriculture = $ for commoners

2. social mobility

3. London = Eu leader in fashion and taste

4. newspaper advertisements

5. colonies =demand for goods, textiles

6. stable government, legit taxation

7. effective banking system

B. The First Factories

1. innovation needed to meet demand

- spinning jenny, Hargreaves

- water frame, Arkwright

2. only urban factories can meet the demand

3. energy needed to power factories

- steam engine, Watt

industrialization1747 © The Print Collector/Alamy

a single machine.akg-images

C. The Coming of the Railroads

1. Railroads transformed:

a) economy

- reduced cost to ship goods

b) need for unskilled labor

D. Industry and Population

1. 1860 – Br produced 20% of world’s industrial goods

2. Br’s GDP and pop increase

VII. Factory Labor

A. New factory workers

1. Harsh working conditions

- increased child labor

- long hours

B. Labor Organizes

1. Guilds – artisans try to protect their jobs from being taken over by factories

- Luddites – damaged factories

2. Unions – laborers coming together to improve poor working conditions and wages

C. The Rise of Socialism

1. Gov’t controls parts of economy to protect or help workers or industry

VIII. Growth of Cities (Urbanization)

A. In 1500:

1) 156 cities with more than 10,000 people

2) 4 with more than 100,000

B. In 1800:

1) 363 with more than 10,000

2) 17 with more than 100,000

C. Greatest growth among capitals and port cities

D. Urban Social Classes Form

1) Middle Class (bourgeoisie)

- merchants, bankers, professionals

- feared poor, envied nobility

Judaica Collection, Max Berger, Vienna, Austria. Photograph ©

Erich Lessing/ Art Resource, NY

IX. Jewish Population

A. Most Jews lived in Eastern Europe

1) Considered “nonresident aliens”

2) Usually denied citizenship privileges

3) Lived in separate communities from non-Jews

- ghettos in the city or Jewish villages in countryside

- “The age of the ghetto”—did not mix with mainstream societies

- A few Jewish bankers became famous for helping rulers finance wars, but most lived

in poverty

- Most Jews married other Jews

- Lots of mistrust, Anti-Semitism