15.3.4

  1. I.                   The Great Northern States
    Baltic Sea
    • a.      Baltic Sea important to lands
    •                                                               i.      Sweden broke ties with Denmarkà independent state
    • Still in constant rivalry over territory
  2. I.                   The Great Northern States
    Denmark
    •                                                               i.      Christian IV
    • 1.      Little success for expansion
    • a.      System of electing monarchs forced kings to share power with Danish nobility, who exercised strict control over the peasants who wrked their lands
    • b.      Danish ambitions for ruling the Baltic were severely curtailed by looses they sustained in Thirty Years War and later in Northern War with Sweden
  3. I.                   The Great Northern States
    Denmark--> Military Losses
    • 1.      Military lossesà constitutional crisis in which a meeting of Demark’s Estates brought to pass a bloodless revolutionin 1660
    • a.      Nobility’s power was curtailed and a hereditary monarchy was reestablished, and a new absolutist constitution was proclaimed in 1665
  4. I.                   The Great Northern States
    Christian V
    1.      Centralized administration was instituted with the nobility as the chief officeholders
  5. I.                   The Great Northern States
    Sweden
    •                                                               i.      Poor and weak economy
    •                                                             ii.      Monarchy vs. powerful Swedish nobility
    • 1.      Gustavus Adolphus was persuaded by Axel Oxenstierna, his chief minister, to adopt a new policy in which the nobility formed a “first Estate” occupying the bureaucratic positions of an expanded central government
    • a.      Created a stable monarchy and freed the king to raise a formidable army and participate in the Thirty Years War, hwere he was killed
  6. I.                   The Great Northern States
    Political crisis
    •                                                               i.      Political crisis after death of Adolphus
    • 1.      Daughter Christina more interestend in philosophy and religion than ruling
    • a.      Favored interests of nobilityà other estates of Riksdag, Sweden’s parliament—the burghers, clergy, and peasants—protested
    •                                                                                                                                       i.      Tired of ruling and wanting to become Catholic (forbidden there), she abdicated in favor of cousinà King Charles Xà peasant revolt against nobility
  7. I.                   The Great Northern States
    Charles X and Charles XI
    •                                                               i.      Charles X
    • 1.      Reestablished domestic order
    •                                                             ii.      Charles XI
    • 1.      Moved Swedish monarchy towards absolutism
    • a.       Retook control of crown lands and revenues attached to them from nobilityà he weakened independent power of the nobles
    • 2.      Built up bureaucracy, subdued both the Riksdag and the church, improved the army and navy, and left son Charles XII, a well organized Swedish state that dominated northern Europe
    • 3.      1693: He and his heirs were acclaimed as absolute sovereign kings 
  8. I.                   The Great Northern States
    Charles XII
    • 1.      Interested in military affairs and brilliant general with great plans and strategies (Sweden in conflict with Poland, Denmark, and Russiaà Sweden’s undoing
    • 2.      Death in 1718: much of Sweden’s northern empire to Russia lost and status as first-class northern power ended
Author
DesLee26
ID
193642
Card Set
15.3.4
Description
State Building and the Search for Order in the 17th Century
Updated