Chapter 1 : Introduction: Transition to Modern Europe and Schools of History

Introduction: Transition to Modern Europe and Schools of History

The Transition from Mediaeval to Modern Europe (16th–18th Centuries)

This period represents a crucial phase of transition from the mediaeval to the modern world, often described by scholars as 'pre-modern' or 'early modern'. Crises in centuries-old traditional values developed and created an atmosphere for change, allowing one to observe the seeds of modernity germinating at different levels.

Key Transformations

The sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries witnessed the transformation of European society: feudal order → merchant and monetary society → industrial capitalism.

• Ideological Shift: A blind faith in religion was gradually replaced by a rational approach and scientific questioning.
• Geographical Expansion: Explorations resulted in the physical expansion of the world and the creation of early colonial empires.
  • Columbus discovered new sea trade routes towards the west.
  • Vasco da Gama discovered new sea trade routes towards the east.
  • These discoveries marked the beginning of the European colonial empires in the far-flung territories of the globe.
• Military Revolution: The discovery of gunpowder completely changed warfare, allowing Europeans to subjugate the New and Old Worlds.
• Scientific Revolution: Speculative studies gave way to experimentation. Astronomical studies and new instruments replaced centuries-old explanations with a modern scientific attitude based on mathematics and physics.
  • The publication of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium in 1543 marked the beginning of the modern scientific age.
• Industrial Dawn: Technology progressed from windmills → steam-driven machines for mass production.
• Political Consolidation: Decentralized fragmented units → strong centralized states characterized by:
  • Bureaucratic structure
  • Reformed judiciary
  • Improved military and naval organization
  • Centralized taxation
  • Unified market structure
• Social Change: Progressive urbanization and market expansion promoted the middle classes, challenging feudal social organization. The loss of ecclesiastical unity brought secular literature and science-based philosophies. The economic progress caused vast social and cultural changes.

Chronological and Thematic Developments

The historical developments across these three centuries encompass several major events, movements, and historiographical debates.

Key Terms

📌 Exam Tidbits

• Transition Chain: feudal order → merchant and monetary society → industrial capitalism.
• Key Text: Copernicus's De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (1543) marks the dawn of the modern scientific age.
• Geographical Shift: The 16th century saw the economic rise of western Europe along the Atlantic coast and the decline of Southern States along the Mediterranean Sea.
• English Political Chain: English Civil War (1642) → Revolution of 1688 → triumph of the bourgeoisie.
• Debate: Historians debate whether Absolutist States emerged within the parameters of feudalism or as an outcome of the rise of capitalism.
• Debate: The relationship between Protestant ethics and the rise of capitalism.

Schools of History: The Marxist Approach

The Marxist approach introduced a socio-economic explanation to history that was virtually non-existent in earlier writings. Friedrich Engels credits Karl Marx with starting this new theory. Materialist interpretation and class-struggle explanation has helped historians to see political institutions and social protests in their broader social context.

Core Concepts of Historical Materialism

The theory is known as the 'materialist conception of history' or 'historical materialism'.

For Marx, the most important factors shaping human history are:

1. The economic level of development of society
2. Changes in the mode of production
3. Social divisions within the society
4. The nature or stage of class struggle

Marx attached great importance to production, which was seen as a collective act that led to the conclusion that man as an individual has little role in human history.

Base and Superstructure (Elaborated in The German Ideology):

• Base (Substructure): The economic structure of society, constituted by the totality of the relations of production.
• Superstructure: Built upon the base; represents law, politics, philosophy, religion, culture, state, and 'definite forms of social consciousness'.
• Mechanism: The economically dominant class becomes the politically dominant class and uses the state as its instrument.
• Exception: Marx and Engels conceded that the state may occasionally attain a degree of independence from the propertied ruling class (e.g., the absolutist states of early modern Europe).

Mode of Production and Class Conflict

Marxist writings periodize history based on the 'mode of production' (evolving relations between material production, division of labour, and social structure): ancient/slave mode → feudal mode → capitalist mode.

• Technological Determinism Quote: As Marx put it, "the hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord while the steam-mill makes the industrial capitalist."
• Class Struggle Quote: In the Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle."
• Revolutionary Situation: Occurs due to incompatibility between:
  • Forces of production: technology, raw materials, sources of energy, land utilization, skill of workforce.
  • Relations of production: relations of property/social relations between direct producers and owners of the means of production.
• Mechanism of Change: increasing exploitation → dominant class develops its opposite → class struggle → new ruling class emerges → eventual classless society. Although the idea of class war had been there in the writings of the French scholars St Simon and Giuzot, Marx applied it in union with Hegel's Dialectic.
• Example: Rise of bourgeoisie in feudal mode → overthrow of feudal nobility via bourgeois revolution → capitalist mode of production.

Historiographical Qualification: The concept of class holds a special place in Marxist theory, but it was mainly applied to the capitalist society. Furthermore, this is not to say that men act only from economic motive. It is only to suggest that while other motives exist they are subordinate to economic factors. Nor does it mean that religious, metaphysical, ethical or literary ideas have no role whatsoever and all these are completely reducible to economic motives.

Divergent Views and Debates within Marxism

In the twentieth century, different variants of Marxism emerged. Divergent views have emerged within the Marxist framework due to ambiguities left by Marx. This is evident in the Marxist explanations of the nature of the absolutist states, of the English revolution, and the decline of feudalism:

• Role of Productive Forces: Present-day Marxists like Christopher Hill and Robert Brenner reflect different approaches, sometimes not accepting the dominant role of productive forces.
• Origins of Capitalism: Intense debate exists on the role of foreign commerce. Marx himself emphasized the influx of gold and silver from South America, exploitation of Asian societies, and the slave trade as contributing to capitalist development.
• Base and Superstructure: Critics argue it is impossible to locate a pure economic level separate from politics/law. They are no longer seen as separate institutions.
• French Revolution: Marxists like Régine Robin and Althusser have modified the class-conflict explanation, raising doubts about the existence of class conflict in eighteenth-century French society.

Notable Marxist Historians: Maurice Dobb, Rodney Hilton, Christopher Hill, George Rudé, Eric Hobsbaum, E.P. Thompson, Robert Brenner, J.S. Cohen, P. Anderson.

Key Terms

📌 Exam Tidbits

• Verbatim Quote: "the hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord while the steam-mill makes the industrial capitalist." (Karl Marx)
• Verbatim Quote: "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle." (Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto)
• Text: The German Ideology by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels elaborated the materialist interpretation of history (Base vs Superstructure).
• Exception to Base/Superstructure: Marx and Engels conceded that absolutist states in early modern Europe attained a certain degree of independence from the propertied ruling class.
• Causal Chain of Revolution: forces of production mature → existing relations of production become 'fetters' → revolutionary situation → class war → new mode of production.
• Historiographical Shift: Régine Robin and Althusser raised doubts about class conflict in 18th-century French society, modifying traditional Marxist views.

Schools of History: The Annales School

The Annales School developed in France and dominated historical research from the 1930s to the 1970s. It introduced a novel, interdisciplinary approach called La nouvelle histoire (the New History), bringing economic and social sciences together. The seventeenth-century crisis can be better understood with the study of Annales literature.

Origins and Key Figures

• Foundation: Named after the journal Annales d'histoire ecomique et sociale, founded in 1929 by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre.
• Editorship: Lucien Febvre (until his death in 1956) → Fernand Braudel (editor until 1969).
• Other prominent scholars: Jacque Le Goff, Immanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Marc Ferro, Pierre Chaunu, Pierre Nora, Mona Ozouf.

Major Works and Methodologies

Marc Bloch (Founder of Annales School): Believed history must be problem-based, drawing from geography, collective psychology, and sociology.

• The Royal Touch: A seminal work of historical anthropology and comparative history. Deals with the popular mediaeval belief in France and England that the king could cure scrofula (the king's evil). Contributed to religious psychology and the study of collective illusions.
• French Rural Studies: Pathbreaking work on long-term developments (13th–18th century) using new sources.
• The Feudal Society: His most well-known work covering four centuries. Presents an intra-class approach (explaining interrelationships of groups, individuals, state, and peasants as a totality), contrasting sharply with the Marxist class analysis based on economic exploitation. It covers a wide range of topics like servitude, liberty, economy, social organization, and the entire culture of feudalism.

Lucien Febvre:

• Also worked on historical geography.
• Religion of Rabelais: Studied the problem of unbelief in the 16th century, presenting the history of collective mentality.

Other Notable Annales Contributions:

• Immanuel Le Roy Ladurie: Peasants of Languedoc and The Territory of the Historian (rural histories and climatic changes).
• Pierre Goubert: Study on Beauvais.
• Christiane Klapisch, Michèle Perrot, Georges Duby: Studies on family life and women.
• Mona Ozouf: Study of festivals.
• Gordon Manley: Presented three centuries of climatic readings in thermometric series.

Fernand Braudel's Tripartite Model

Fernand Braudel is celebrated for his extraordinary contributions, particularly his tripartite model of historical explanation based on different 'durations' (durée). According to Lynn Hunt, Braudel's real originality can be seen in his study of relationships shaping structures of longue durée, climate, biology, and demography as fundamental determinants of society.

Work 1: The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II Described by Peter Burke as an 'extraordinary book', many consider it as the most remarkable historical work to have been written in the twentieth century. It divides history into three units of time:

Work 2: Civilization and Capitalism An exhaustive three-volume economic and social history of the world from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution. It was hailed as 'a revolutionary work that best encapsulated the aims and the spirit of Annales' by Febvre and many others.

New Tools and Criticisms of the Annales School

The Annales School adopted regressive, interdisciplinary, global, and comparative studies. The use of quantification method and structural method has helped in the preparation of demographic studies on a scientific basis.

Scientific Tools Adopted:

Criticisms of the Annales School:

1. Reduction of Human Agency: In Braudel's conception (space, time, man), Annales writings turned man into a mere vehicle for long-standing repetitive interactions between space and time, making his role negligible. (Criticized for presenting static geo-history rather than dynamic economic history).
2. Overemphasis on Statistics: Turned historians into mere gatherers of quantifiable information, causing historical change (the very purpose of history) to be ignored or go unexplained.
3. Ambiguity with Social Science: The relationship between social science and history became blurred, with the historian's role becoming that of a "programmer" (in the language of Ladurie).

Key Terms

📌 Exam Tidbits

• Journal Foundation: Annales d'histoire ecomique et sociale was founded in 1929 by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre.
• Marxist vs Annales Contrast: While Marxism insisted on the primacy of economy/society over political/cultural formations, Annales emphasized change, conflict, and rupture in long-term tendencies, utilizing geography and climate.
• Bloch vs Marx Contrast: Marc Bloch's The Feudal Society uses an intra-class approach expressing the totality of feudal experience, directly contrasting with Marxist class analysis based on exploitation.
• Text: The Royal Touch by Marc Bloch studies the belief that kings could cure scrofula (the king's evil).
• Text: Religion of Rabelais by Lucien Febvre studies the problem of unbelief in the 16th century (collective mentality).
• Scholar Quote: Lynn Hunt observed that no other group made a more valuable contribution to historiography and historical method than the Annales School, though noting Braudel combined institutional and intellectual influence extraordinarily.

Quick-Recall Box

1. Transition to Modernity and Early Modern Developments

2. Marxism and Historical Materialism

3. Annales School: Foundation and Major Historians

4. Major Works of the Annales School

5. Later Annales Historians and New Areas of History