El nacimiento del Estado Moderno en 15 minutos

The Modern State arose between
the 15th and 16th centuries

when the kings of Europe took
advantage of the feudal crisis to

concentrate their power by centralizing
the power over their lands.

This process was achieved by agreeing
with the feudal lords to receive

their lands in exchange for some privilege
or by conquering the territories

through bloody wars.

The kings received the support of the recently
created bourgeoisie that wanted to get rid of

the feudal lords in order to terminate
their vassalage.

The European political map that had once
resembled a multicolour political

mosaic with unstable edges,
was about to experience changes.

The number of independent kingdoms
began to shrink

and the limits began to consolidate.

This result was a consequence of the
ascension of a series of monarchs

with a certain national conscience,
who understood their rule

differently than their predecessors.

Louis XI and Francis I in France,
the Catholic kings in Spain

and later Emperor Charles V
and his son Philip II,

Henry VII and Henry VIII in England,
Christian I of Denmark,

Casimir IV of Poland, Matthias Corvinus
of Hungary, Ivan III of Russia.

They were the artifices of the appearance
of the first modern states.

These kings governed as best as they
could in order to keep the crown,

there was a kind of natural
selection that affected

the final result.

The weakest monarchies disappeared.

Those that were able to survive inaugurated
a new system of rule that would distinguish

the European political landscape
for the next three centuries.

An authoritarian system that
the historians call

the Ancien Régime.

The population belonged either to
the privileged class, clergy and nobility,

or to the unprivileged estates,
the bourgeoisie and the common people.

What was the background
for the appearance of the Modern State?

At the end of the Middle Ages, there was
an enormous crisis in Europe

with great famines.

The black plague had drastically
reduced the population,

the economic imbalances affected
all the sectors,

the vassal-lord bonds
destabilized.

But beginning in 15th Century, the effects
of the crisis began to diminish.

Europe began to experience
a kind of recovery.

The conquest of Constantinople by
the Turks meant the end of the

Eastern Roman Empire and is one
of the dates that historians use

to determine the beginning of
the Modern Age.

In Constantinople, the classics
were well-known: Plato, Seneca,

Herodotus, Horace, etc.

While during the Middle Ages
in Europe, they predominantly knew

Aristotle and, in addition, that was
through Arabic translation.

When the learned of Constantinople
who spoke Greek took refuge

in Europe, many of them in Florence,
after the fall of the city,

and brought with them all their
Graeco-Latin knowledge.

In Europe, they rediscovered
the classical philosophers.

This would radically change
the European mentality.

In the Middle Ages, the Europeans had been
overly concerned with the great beyond,

convinced that earthly life was a process
for gaining access to eternal life.

They lived in fear of God.

Man was freeing himself from these bonds
throughout the Modern Age,

and began to value
earthly pleasures.

Boccaccio’s Decameron
became a paradigm

of the sexual freedom
of the age.

Medieval theocentrism was replaced
by anthropocentrism:

Man as centre of the universe.

Humanism arose as a reaction
to the Aristotelian Scholasticism

of the Middle Ages.

Some humanists began to refer
to their own age as a period of light

that ended the long night of the past.

Boccaccio and Petrarch were two prophets
of what was to come.

Under the rule of the Medici, Florence
became the cradle of the Renaissance.

A new Athens.

Florence saw visits from
the architect Brunelleschi,

the architect and treatise writer Alberti,
the sculptor Donatello,

the painter Rafael, and two absolute
geniuses: Miguel Angel Buonarroti,

who mastered sculpure,
painting and architecture

Leonardo da Vinci, painter, architect,
scientist, inventor, musician and much more.

The Renaissance arose in Italy and
meant a rupture with the medieval

mentality and a return to the values
of the Classical Culture.

A zest for life, for the beauty
of the human body.

The Renaissance man freed himself and
turned his view toward the Classical Age,

to Greece and to Rome.

From Italy, the ideas of the Renaissance
quickly reached the rest of Europe,

producing an aesthetic of rebirth.
This new outlook was reflected

in the arts, but also in all
fields of knowledge:

science, philosophy, politics.

The invention of the printing press
in the 15th century by Johannes Gutenberg

resulted in widespread dissemination
of all the branches of knowledge.

This invention was crucial to
the propagation of knowledge.

Without a doubt, we are before
a second key tool of change

in human history.

Advances in physics, astronomy,
biology, human anatomy,

chemistry and medicine transformed
medieval visions about

nature and laid the foundations
of modern science.

A scientific Revolution occurred
that began with Nicholas Copernicus

and his heliocentric theory.

Later, an enthusiast of the ideas
of Copernicus, Johannes Kepler,

defined the elliptical orbits
that the planets followed

around the Sun.

For nearly five millennia
the geocentric model of the Earth

as centre of the universe was accepted
by practically the entire world.

The heliocentric model, which states that
the Earth and the planets move

around the Sun, meant an authentic
revolution and shook the foundations

upon which all knowledge rested.

The bold heliocentric hypothesis
clashed

with the Holy Scriptures.

The Court of the Holy Inquisition
investigated Galileo for defending

the claims of Copernicus
and it nearly cost him his life.

The scientific Revolution culminated
with Isaac Newton.

In 1687, he published his
most important work:

Mathematical Principles
of Natural Philosophy.

In this work, he presented
the theory of gravity,

inspired by an event that occurred
years before while he was meditating

under the shade of an apple tree
when a fruit fell from the tree.

Humanism and the invention of the
printing press were the first two tools

of change, activated by the Modern
Age, and they brought with them

the Renaissance and
a scientific Revolution.

The third tool was the discovery
of America in 1492.

Christopher Columbus, in his desire to
find a new route

. to the Indies, ran into
a new continent, unknown

to the eyes of Europe: America.

This event entailed the encounter
of two worlds that had evolved

in isolation.

An era of conquests began
in the name of the Catholic faith.

A small group of Spaniards
put the Aztec Empire in check

with Hernán Cortés at the front.
The Spaniards allied themselves

with the local tribes that
the great Moctezuma had subjugated.

Cortés brought horses and vastly superior
weapons, but the most powerful

weapon that his men brought
with them was invisible to the human eye:

smallpox and other illnesses.

The Europeans were already immune to these
pathogenic agents;

however, the indigenous people were not.

When Pizarro arrived to Peru,
the illnesses had already arrived

to the region and had decimated
the population.

Smallpox really was the biological
weapon that conquered America.

To begin with, the Spaniards
and Portuguese portioned out

the New World in
the Treaty of Tordesillas.

But the remaining European nations
wanted a piece of that pie

and later also took
to the conquest.

Gold and silver fever hit.

All of Europe grew enormously, thanks
to the riches of America. In addition

to gold and silver, the conquest
gave rise to the importation of new

agricultural products unknown
in Europe, such as the tomato, maize,

the potato, cacao and tabacco,
which had a great impact

upon the economy and European habits.

The commercial and financial bourgeoisie
benefitted from mercantilism

and the European expansion subsequent to
the Age of Discovery.

During the Modern Age,
this would result in

a transition
from feudalism to capitalism.

The opening of the world to the Europeans
with the Era of Discovery

brought with it the first
world economy.

The first Stock Markets appear
such as those in Amsterdam and London.

The Amsterdam Stock Market was
founded in 1602 by

the Dutch East India Company

and operated with stocks and bonds,
and published a weekly bulletin

that was used as a reference
when executing

purchase orders.

The privileged companies took
monopolistic control of routes

and products, and the commercial and
financial classes were strengthened

with the birth of the Modern State.

mainly in those with a protestant
mentality, as we’ll see later.

The fourth tool of change that
enormously affected the course

of events and the advances of
the age was the Protestant Reformation

initiated by Luther. During the
final years of the Medieval Age,

a great crisis had emerged
in the Catholic Church

due to numerous accusations
of ecclesiastical corruption

and a lack of religious piety.

To finance the construction of
the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome

the sale of indulgences took off.
Indulgences didn’t pardon sin

but they reduced the years that the sinners
had to spend in purgatory

before entering the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Catholic Church began to traffic
with the sentiments of the faithful.

In 1517, a German monk, Martin Luther,
hung a document on the door of

Wittenberg Palace Church, in which
he presented theses against the Catholic

doctrine of the indulgences.
Although such a heroic act is not so clear.

The result was a debate
that turned Christianity on its ear.

The reaction from Rome was swift;
the Pope firmly condemned Luther's

theses with a counterproductive
effect that only resulted in

. more publicity for the German.
He clashed not only with the Pope,

but also with the recently crowned Emperor.
Charles V also wanted to put affairs in order

with Luther. The Emperor
demanded that Luther

retract his doctrines, but Luther
only acknowledged the word of the

Holy Scriptures. He made
the Bible the only

criterion for determining any
matter related to faith.

The clerical caste thus lost
its role as intermediary between

God and man.
Luther was a heretic, and as such,

was declared an outcast. The printing
press was the secret to the success

of Protestantism.
In Europe, millions of copies of

the reformists ideas were
produced annually.

Luther was the most prolific author, but
there were more Protestant writers.

Europe would suffer a radical religious
transformation and the power of the Church

would be divided among different
Protestant denominations.

The evidence demonstrates that Luther
did not destroy the Church, but rather

created another. Luther neither stopped being
a cleric, nor reduced their numbers,

he simply created a new
priestly body, except now

that body of pastors only served
the lord of the territory,

who gave them food, and not
to a foreign Pope or to an Emperor

with similar interests.
The new modern states demanded

more independence from the
Roman Catholic Church.

The king of England, Henry VIII,
also severed his ties with Rome

and founded the Anglican Church. The
reason was that the king wanted to annul

his marriage to Catalina
of Argon, daughter of the Catholic kings

and aunt to Charles V.
The Pope of Rome, Clemente VII, opposed

the annulment of their marriage.
The monarch’s response was

to break with Catholicism and establish
himself as supreme leader of a new church.

The Church of England.

The Anglican Church shares many
similarities with the Catholic Church,

but it does not depend on Rome.

After the death of Luther, the thought
of John Calvin gained momentum and

became predominant among reformists.
Calvin was a follower of the ideas

of Luther and converted the city of Geneva

into a theocratic and totalitarian state.

The pastors became the morality
police and the travellers were

amazed to find that the city
had no theft, nor prostitutes,

nor murders, nor luxuries, nor alcohol,
nor dances, nor vices of any kind.

It’s necessary to remember at this point
that the Catholic Church strongly

condemned the charging of interests,
censuring this practice with the name

of usury. In Catholic Spain,
in fact, manual

labour was something dishonourable, for
lesser folk, the men of honour

only bloodied their hands in the war.
For that reason, many noblemen preferred poverty

over having to work.

However, in the countries of northern
Europe, where

Calvinist morality extended to, work
dignified man.

And merchant or lender ended up
being an honourable occupation,

a morality consecrated to the capital.
Thus, these countries prospered

and became rich.
And it’s not unreasonable to say that

for this reason, the Protestant countries
are more hard-working, more austere

and thriftier than the Catholic countries.

Calvinism extended not only
throughout Europe, but migratory

movements also took Calvinism to
North America.

The English puritans who travelled
on the Mayflower,

the French Huguenots, the
Dutch colonists of New Amsterdam,

later called New York,
and the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians

from the Appalachian mountains.
The Calvinist colonists were also

the first Europeans that colonized
South Africa, later

known as Boers or Afrikaners.

The Protestant Reformation led by
Lutherans, Calvinists and Anglicans

had unleashed a European schism that
translated into bloody religious wars

In France, Calvinists Huguenots
were persecuted.

On the night of Saint Bartholomew, in Paris,
the French king had more than

3,000 Huguenots executed. The killings
spread throughout the country

In a few days, the Catholic Church had claimed
more victims than were claimed by

the Court of the Holy Inquisition
in its entire history.

Tensions between Catholics and Lutherans
also unleashed

the Thirty Years' War, which
in principle had a religious

trigger and ended up becoming
a European war in which

. the great powers tried
to find their hegemony.

The European Catholic congregation
had been drastically reduced.

The damage caused by the Reformation
was enormous. The Catholic Church needed

a Counter-Reformation that would bring order
and put a stop to the coming calamities

committing for some time and that would
provide an answer to the Protestant Reformation.

In the city of Trent, a Council
was held that implied a kind of catharsis

for the church.
The clergy was put to rights,

. some abuses were eliminated and
the administration was reformed.

In addition, forms of propaganda were devised
to attract the faithful and propagate the faith.

Art was used as a vehicle
of expression for the greater glory of God

and of the church. Baroque art was born.
A twisted, dramatic, exaggerated art

that abuses ornament. Baroque art
triumphed throughout Europe, even in the

Protestant area, and proved to be
an attractive mechanism of propaganda

and ideological control.

We have clearly seen that the Modern
State had identity, it was organized,

structured and authoritarian. The power
was centralized and was politically

recognized. Authoritarianism put an end
to the civil wars, guaranteeing

an internal peace that favoured
economic progress, with the

expansion of new markets
and commercial routes that opened

after the encounter with the new continent.
A new mentality also flourished,

a more open, and definitely
more modern concept,

that would culminate in the 18th Century
with the Illustration.