History 112: World War I

For the class on the First World War, in addition to the usual reading form Norman Davies, I also assigned a piece written by Ohio State’s own Stephen Kern. Kern examines the role of the nineteenth century communications revolution, particularly the telegraph, in the breakdown of diplomacy in the summer of 1914. Kern argues that the new speed in communication encouraged an aggressive style of diplomacy built around extreme ultimatums; comply to all of our demands within the next week or we will declar war.

1. Was WWI avoidable? For example, if all these alliances hadn't been made, would it have remained a small conflict?

The interesting question is did these alliances make war inevitable. Once alliances were being made everyone had follow suit or risk being vulnerable. What we have here are a lot of good intentions gone completely to pot.


2. The July crisis seems like something that could never have happened without the new technologies allowing rapid communication, but at the same time it seems like rapid communication should allow for better negotiating due to the fact that it doesn't take days to relay messages from one side to the other. Perhaps the time delays for slower communication methods allowed for a cool down period, but they could also allow for more time to prepare for war during the process, so how significant is it really that new technology allowed increased speed of communication between the various sides? This is leaving aside the issue of more widespread and public knowledge of events which I view to be a mostly separate issue, though it does tie in of course.
3. Kern said in "July Crisis" that "this telegraphic exchange at the highest level dramatized the spectacular failure of diplomacy, to which telegraphy contributed with crossed messages, delays, sudden surprises, and the unpredictable timing," (268). How can he attribute it all to the failure of diplomacy when Germany pressured Austria to mobilize troops before the ultimatum was even sent to Serbia? If blame is going to be placed, couldn't it also be placed on Germany, who pressured Austria into war out of self-interest? Or am I getting this all wrong?

The timetable for mobilization is one of the main causes of World War I. The general staffs of all the countries involved had detailed war plans in place and everyone knew that the other side also had detailed plans. Everyone knew that victory depended on who could get the first jump, that precious day or two to get their armies in motion. This being the case no one could afford the luxury of sitting back trying to negotiate and make the good faith effort for peace.
The question of German responsibility is quite real. Part of the problem is that because the Versailles treaty went to such extremes it has become common to accept the German apology that everyone was equally responsible. Without question Germany was the aggressor in this war. Their biggest sin being that they trampled over Belgium’s neutrality; a treaty that they themselves had signed on to. Kern, if I am not mistaken, does acknowledge the aggression issue. The German high command made the decision to push for war based on the calculation that by 1917 Russia would have completed its rearmament program, making German war plans obsolete.

4. I was wondering, why are the telegram messages in our reading so short? Were all telegrams short? And if so, is there a reason for this? Perhaps they paid for telegrams based on the number of words? It seems like to me, longer messages would be more appropriate in determining whether to declare war or not!

Telegrams are electronic messages sent across wires using Morse code. The process is expensive and every word costs money. Think of telegrams as an early version of text-messaging; they encourage a similar thought process. Last I checked the consensus about texting is that it does not exactly encourage responsible behavior. Imagine Kaiser Wilhelm texting Czar Nicholas: “WTF! Y r dead cuz." At least the leaders of Europe were not sending nude pictures of themselves through telegraph wires.


5. If Russia had no commitment to side with Serbia, why did they do it? What would make a country want war, was it stimulating to their economy, as World War II was during the depression? Or were there other factors?

Russia saw itself as the “big brother” of all Slavs. So they wished to protect their Serbian “brothers” from the Germanic Austrians. The Serbs would not usually be inclined to accept such “brotherly assistance, otherwise known as a takeover, but in this case they were in desperate need of help.

6. Why were Germany and Great Britain so protective over defending the interests of Austria and Belgium, respectively?

Austria was allied with Germany. This was in large part due to the brilliant diplomacy of Bismarck, who made a point of giving Austria a very generous peace treaty after Germany defeated them. Both Germany and England had signed a treaty guarantying the neutrality of Belgium. Germany, under the very un-Bismarck like leadership of Kaiser Wilhelm decided to ignore this very inconvenient fact and invaded Belgium. Great Britain on the other hand kept to the treaty so they came to the defense of Belgium. They were helped in this matter in that they had an understanding with France about coming to their aid in the event of being attack by Germany. How much did Kaiser Wilhelm have to antagonize people to drive even the British into siding with the French.

7. Which side was the first to use air planes in WWI and when was the first air battle?

Airplanes were already in use before World War I. World War I certainly marked the first large scale use of airplanes. Keep in mind that airplanes had, at this point, been in existence for a little over a decade so they were still highly experimental.

8. I am a little confused, In the Davies text it says Japan declared war on Germany, and Japan was an Asian associate of the allies, but Japan had issues with China, and China joined the allies. How does this work?

For one thing China did not enter the war until much later. Countries are usually very willing to put aside long running conflicts, at least temporarily, in the face of more immediate danger. So Japan and China were willing to take a break from each other to pursue their designs on German holdings.



9. In relation to all other wars leading up to America's involvement in World War I, was this a hard decision for America to make, in terms of lives to be potentially lost, man power, and resources in general?

America, for most of the war, strongly supported neutrality. Woodrow Wilson won re-election in 1916 based on the campaign promise to keep America out of war. This failed to take into account Kaiser Wilhelm ability to antagonize the American public with his decision to wage unrestricted submarine warfare. By the time America entered the war, the American public was gripped by a xenophobic hatred of everything German to the extent that ethnic Germans were being lynched in the streets by angry mobs.

History 112: Imperialism and the New City

1. The readings on the Belgian Congo show that what was going on was freely admitted to be a horrible situation. Was anything done to change this after the printing of these two articles?

The main problem with the Congo was that it was under the personal control of King Leopold II of Belgium so he was free to do as he wished. No series action to remedy the situation is done until Leopold II was removed in 1908, several years after the pieces discussed in class.

2. Where these atrocities in Belgian Congo committed based more on orders of elected or crown-appointed officers or whether it was more of the appointed bureaucracy who carried the real responsibility for these actions?

When assigning blame for an atrocity one is usually faced with two different types of defenses, from the bottom and from the top. Those at the bottom will claim that they were just following orders. If one were to follow this logic the blame would go all the way to the top, in this case, Leopold II, and will remain solely with him. The defense from the top will claim that what happened was simply a matter of soldiers at the bottom getting out of control. The classic example of these two defenses is the Nuremberg trial with Nazi Germany. In the case of the Congo, as with Nazi Germany, there is clearly enough blame to go from top to bottom. This includes not just the European officials but the native soldiers who carried out many of the massacres as well.

3. In the Congo reports, why was so much of the abuse inflicted on women? I understand the populating factor, but is this when genital-mutilation started happening to women?

To the best of my knowledge female circumcision is a practice that goes back long before this and appears in many cultures. Women are useful targets because they are seen as defenseless. Keep in mind that a rampaging army is full of young men out to rape anything with a skirt on; that means women.

4. I was a little confused on the China situation. In the Davies text it says China wasn't sought after for control like Africa. Why was this? If they could not rule over China what were their intentions there?

China had a long history of imperial rule. The Chinese state might have been corrupt and grossly incompetent, but at least they had some sort of government that Europeans would recognize. China has a far older political tradition than any European state. Statehood is something that European governments were going to respect for self-interest if nothing else. If you are the head of a European state you do not want to send the message to your people that states with long-established political traditions could be casually overthrown. Keep in mind the long list of political revolutions that have engulfed Europe over the course of the nineteenth century.


5. Was spreading religion (i.e. Catholicism) ever part of the original plans to establish colonies?

The countries leading the new imperialism are either Protestant, as with England and Germany, or secular, like France. So spreading Catholicism does not play a major role. There is certainly a strong missionary drive, but it is not nearly comparable to the imperialism of the sixteenth century.

6. The description of Paris's endless melancholy smog is an aesthetic criticism. Was there any awareness of the environmental and public health dangers of smog? If there wasn't, when did this become a governmental concern?

During the nineteenth century there is a major scare over miasmas, pockets of bad odors, being a threat to public health. This was a major driving force behind the nineteenth century drive for cleanliness. The irony of this is that this whole panic was built around faulty science. There is nothing intrinsically dangerous about bad odors.

History 112: the French Revolution (Q&A)

1. Was there a single event or meeting that caused France to volunteer tobe on America's side of the American Revolution? Or was it just, "We hate England too.”

The fact that Louis XVI helped the American colonies should serve to indicate that he was not the reactionary autocrat that proponents of the Revolution made him out to be. Louis XVI was part of a generation of “enlightened despots” who viewed themselves as upholders of Enlightenment ideals. A word should also be put in for a very effective American diplomatic effort, to court French upper class opinion. The main person in this was Benjamin Franklin, an American philosophe.

2. Davies writes that "the revolution was imminent in almost all of Europe." So why exactly did it break out in France first and not somewhere else? What was unique about France's situation that caused a revolution?

This is a million dollar question that historians are still debating. It is important to realize that this very much is a question. From our teleological perspective it is very easy to take it for granted that the French monarchy was hopelessly inept and that Enlightenment thought would inevitably lead to a revolution. In truth there were things right with the French government and it could have made the necessary changes to stave off revolution.
If I were living in 1788 and was told that either England or France would have a revolution and chop their king’s head off I would have said England. England had plenty of heterodox thinkers running around, an unpopular monarch, George III, intent on increasing royal power when he was not insane and plenty of useless aristocrats lording over the populace and creating popular resentment. Most importantly England had already got rid of their king once before, during the English Civil War. So what that the French government was bankrupt and bread prices were going through the roof, there is nothing unusual about that.

3. Why did Necker getting kicked off cause such a controversy?

Jacques Necker was the finance minister, who first pointed out that the government was heading toward financial disaster and that spending cuts, particularly in the realm of the royal household budget, were needed. This lost Necker his job. He then went public with this and did the unheard of thing of publishing the government budget. Necker was not an aristocrat; he was Swiss and came from a common background. Louis XVI brought him back in 1788 precisely because he was seen as someone who commanded the public trust. Of course this did help matters when Louis XVI continued to get annoyed with Necker for saying the same things that got him fired in the first place and fired him again. If you hire the “people’s man” because he is the “people’s man” and then fire him for saying the sort of things that made him the “people’s man” in the first place the people are going to take it quite personally.

4. The French revolution in itself seems very bloody and violent. However, I am still surprised when Davies writes, "The Revolution started to devour its own children...Danton and his associates were denounced and executed in April 1794, for questioning the purpose of the terror. Robespierre, the chief terrorist, met denunciation and death on 28 July 1794. "Is there a way of explaining the seemly illogical and counter-intuitive executioner's list of the French Revolution?

The fact that the Revolution turned to such violence should not be surprising. The Revolution from the get go was built around violence the moment things moved beyond the Tennis Court Oath to the Bastille. If you build an ideology around revolution and the notion of revolution having some innate value than the revolution has to keep going. How else are you going to keep the revolution going if not by going to further extremes? If there is going to be the side of revolution than there has to be a side of "counter revolution." So one has to continuously search for “counter revolutionaries.” If you get rid of the “obvious counter revolutionaries” such as royalists and Catholic loyalist than you have to turn those who are not revolutionary “enough” and make them the new “counter revolutionaries.”

History 112: Enlightenment I (Q&A)

1. In the Davies text they spoke of Rousseau as a man that overcame a lot and as a man that was a forward thinker about equality and rights. In the excerpt online about his views on women, he sounded like a pompous jerk [for arguing that women needed to be kept in their place]. I was just curious if his views on women were acceptable back then? Was his views typical of the general public, and what about other forward thinkers, did they also agree with his view on women?
2. What were the common folk's opinion on how women should be treated? Also what was the Church's take on this? Were women of "wit" or "letters" looked down upon, as Rousseau thought they should be?
Rousseau was hardly alone in his sentiments even among Enlightenment figures. Not only did they have, by our standards, fairly negative views on women, their advocacy of freedom and reason was built around the premise that women needed to be kept in their place outside of the public sphere. (This is not all that different from Thomas Jefferson saying that “all men are created equal” and still being a slave owner.) This is not a matter of hypocrisy; they meant something very different from what we mean when we talk about freedom and liberty.
I assigned this particular sample of Rousseau’s writing precisely because it is something so offensive to the modern ear. This piece stands in stark contrast to Voltaire’s “Plea for Tolerance” which sounds very modern. Of course as we shall soon see Voltaire is also not a modern. One has to ask was Rousseau really so forward thinking and is it really meaningful to talk about people being forward thinking. You say that Rousseau sounds like a “pompous jerk.” As a product of modern liberalism, I would agree with you. People not trained in the historical method will read Rousseau and pat themselves on the back and think about how “tolerant” and “forward thinking” they are. We, as practitioners of the historical method, on the other hand see this as an opportunity to turn the question on ourselves. Why is it so obvious to us that Rousseau was a pompous jerk; might there be something that we are missing?
The Catholic Church traditionally has a rather funny relationship with women. On the one hand the Church venerates the Virgin Mary along with a slew of female saints. There is, as we have discussed, a long tradition of Catholic female visionaries such as St. Teresa de Avila. This veneration of women, though, has very little to do with real every day women and in fact may have been detrimental to women. If the Virgin Mary is the model of womanhood against which all women are judged, what woman can every hope to come out ahead.

3. Rousseau and Wollstonecraft provide starkly contrasting views on women and their role in society. How did the role of women differ between different social classes in the late 18th century Europe? If a woman wanted to become educated during this time period, what options did she have for doing so?
As we have seen previously “oppressive” societies are not such much oppressive as there being a system that one can play if one keeps from offending the wrong people. (For example Galileo was able to be a heliocentrist up until the moment he made fun of Pope Urban VIII.) If you are an upper class woman, while you would not have direct access to a university education, you would still be capable of getting an education, likely through private tutors and books, and even take an informal part in the public sphere. (In fact much of the Enlightenment takes place in salons hosted by upper class women.)
This was not an option for lower class women. That being said, lower class men also did not have these options either. In a sense lower class women were “freer” since there less restrictions upon them in terms of them being women.



4. How would Rousseau have responded to Mary Wollstonecraft's idea that it is better for everyone when a woman is self-sufficient?
As with most polemical debates, Rousseau and Wollstonecraft are talking past each other. For Rousseau the primary issue is not individual liberty. On the contrary the pursuit of individual liberty is a trap that leads to irrationality and tyranny. One has to submit oneself to the “General Will” and pursue the rule of reason by promoting the welfare of society. Wollstonecraft, like most people in the liberal tradition, thinks in terms of individual liberty.

5. Davies says, "Rousseau and Voltaire were as different as chalk and cheese", but from what I gathered from the reading, they seem quite similar. Rousseau believed that "since the evils of the world are overwhelming, all one can do is to put one's own affairs into order," meaning that you should practice self interest. Voltaire believed that all men should be free, no matter their station. So, in essence, Voltaire wanted common men to practice self-interest through government and Rousseau appealing to the "enlightened elite" encouraged self-interest. In essence, they have the same belief but are applying them to different socio-economic groups...Is this right, or am I missing something?

Rousseau and Voltaire had very different understandings as to the nature of progress and the nature of society. Rousseau believed that the advent of civilization, with the rise of private property, had corrupted human nature. He is the exact opposite of Thomas Hobbes; while Hobbes’ man in a state of nature is a bloodthirsty barbarian, Rousseau’s natural man is completely peaceful and lives at one with nature. Rousseau is critical of the very mechanisms of progress so beloved by the Enlightenment, reason, culture and the state. From Voltaire’s perspective Rousseau was as much an enemy of the Enlightenment as the Catholic Church.

6. How did the Classical Republic form of government not rise in the Renaissance if the Renaissance was a rediscovery of these texts? Were there advocates for this? Why did they not succeed or why weren't there any defenders for Republics?
The Renaissance has Republican governments such as Florence and Venice. And republican governments continued to exist in the eighteenth century in places like the Dutch Republic and the city states of Switzerland. The accepted consensus at the time was that republican governments worked well for small states, but that for larger states one needed a strong central power such as a Monarchy. This assumption has its roots in Aristotle who argued that democracy only works well when you only have a few thousand active participants. The success of the “American experiment” is important precisely because it showed that a republican government could work on a massive scale. This is the underlying theme of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Tocqueville was a French aristocrat who toured American during the early nineteenth century and commented on American life.

7. I did some more research on the Second Treatise and understood that it was best known for popularizing the right of revolution. Some sources also say that the Treatise influenced Thomas Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence". Do you think John Locke would be happy to see his work, his thoughts influenced another document that eventually used against his own country?
8. Reading the Locke text, it reminds me very strongly of the Declaration of Independence, especially in the first few lines and in the method for denying the rights of a king over men as being a good form of government. Being written nearly a hundred years earlier I certainly see it as possible that this document was in mind when the Declaration was written, do we have any evidence as to whether this is the case or no?

The line “life, liberty and property” end up in the Declaration of Independence as “life, liberty ad the pursuit of happiness.” The Constitution puts the word “property” back in. John Locke died decades before the American Revolution. He actually took an active interest in the American colonies and even helped write the constitution for the Carolinas. I must confess that I myself find the use of Locke by the Declaration of Independence to be remarkably unconvincing. (Read past the opening passage of the text and judge for yourself) I doubt if Locke would have found it convincing. This may sound very unpatriotic, but if I had been alive during the Revolution I would have been a Tory, like a third of Americans back then, and would have supported the British. I am a big Anglophile and I consider it rather unfortunate that we separated from England.


9. Norman Davies mentions briefly that "Differences between Western and Eastern Europe were growing" but did not go into details. Can you discuss more about these differences in class?

Davies is actually a specialist in Eastern European history, particularly Poland. So while most textbooks ignore Eastern Europe, he actively tries to incorporate it. Hopefully from reading Davies you will get a picture of Poland that moves beyond the Pollack jokes that we have all grown up with. Over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries England, France and Prussia (which will eventually come to form Germany) are going to industrialize in ways that other countries such as Spain, the Italian states and Russia do not. As such England, France and Prussia are going to take this tremendous leap forward at the expense of other European countries and eventually much of the world. Why this happens is an open question that I hope to discuss in future lectures.

History 112: Some Thoughts on the English Civil War Readings

The ETEP module “The English Revolution” has been put together by Ohio State’s own David Cressy, who along with Geoffrey Parker forms the foundation of one of the strongest early modern history departments in the country. You would be very hard pressed to find a non Ivy league school with a stronger history department than the one at Ohio State so I encourage all students to take advantage of it. Cressy offers the provocative title of “English Revolution” instead of the traditional term “English Civil War.” I suspect that this is an attempt to plant the English Civil as an event of historical importance on par with the French Revolution. That the English Civil War, despite the fact that ultimately the monarchy would return, brought about certain fundamental shifts in European thought.

In the secondary source reading, Keith Lindley offers a comparison of the Whig, Marxist, Revisionist and Post Revisionist views. The Whig narrative emphasizes the progress toward liberal democracy. It features Parliament as the good guys fighting for freedom and Democracy against the autocratic Charles I, who wanted to return England to Catholic “superstition.” The Marxist narrative emphasizes class struggle. Parliament represents the rise of the bourgeoisie class and their victory represents the victory of the bourgeoisie over the aristocracy of Charles I. This victory has the unintended side effect of helping to create a new conscious working class which then comes to challenge the bourgeoisie Parliament. The Revisionist narrative rejects any claims of meta-narrative and sees the English Civil as simply a series of happen chance events. The Post Revisionists are Revisionists who are attempting to bring back long term causes into the narrative.

We have already discussed the Whig narrative in class (as well as on this blog) at length. This can no longer be considered a legitimate school of historical narrative. The only legitimate reasons for discussing it are that it exerted a tremendous influence during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and it continues to exert a powerful hold on the public conception of history. The English Civil War was a lot more complex than simply Parliament good Charles I bad. Hopefully from reading some of the things that Charles I wrote you have seen that Charles I was a thoughtful and sophisticated individual who did not run around claiming that he ruled by divine right and could therefore act as he pleased.

When dealing with the Marxist narrative it is important to distinguish Marxist historiography from Marxist politics. You should not Marxist history and think Communism or even Liberalism. One can subscribe to the Marxist historical narrative and emphasize the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy without believing that the working class is going to rise and overthrow the bourgeoisie and establish Socialism. One can be a Marxist historian and decide that Capitalism is the greatest promoter of freedom and the public welfare ever created and be a dyed in the wool Republican. I recently took a Facebook quiz to find out what kind of historian I am and the answer I got was Marxist. I do not think of myself as a Marxist historian though that is the one aspect of Marxism that I admire. It was Marxists who played a leading role in moving history away from war and politics in helped bring in the lower classes to the historical narrative. Cressy lists Christopher Hill as an example of a Marxist historian. I have already recommended to you Hill’s Antichrist in Seventeenth Century England. So, if being a Marxist means being like Hill, than I will take the label. Hill unlike traditional Marxist historiography is willing to discuss religion in a serious and non polemical fashion.

Most historians have a contrary streak to them. The natural inclination for a historian is to attempt to take a text take it in the opposite direction of the author’s intent. Revisionist historians are the extreme end of this. The Revisionist historian strives to take the popular understanding of history and show that not only is it wrong but that it is really just the opposite. This is usually put into practice by challenging the existence of any sort of narrative. Norman Davies is an example of this sort of revisionism. I specifically chose him for a textbook because he makes the effort to give the “other side of the story” from what most history textbooks give and he offers a very readable non narrative form of history. I believe that it is particularly important to expose students to this form of history precisely because it is the sort of history that they are not likely to encounter otherwise.

History 112: English Civil War (Q&A)

1. What do you think about Nostradamus' predictions? Wasn't Marie de' Medici the slightest bit angry/suspicious when he predicted her husband and son's death? Are these predictions simply vague enough that they could have applied to anything? Also how did he not get put to death for this kind of stuff?

Predicting the death of ruler was a common practice in astrology and prophecy. Many rulers, such as Urban VIII (the Pope who went after Galileo), had laws against predicting his death. This was part of the political culture of the day. If you are interested in the topic I suggest you look at Keith Thomas’ Religion and the Decline of Magic. The idea that astrological predictions are vague can easily be worked into the system of astrology itself. Astrology deals with the motion of the planets so it makes sense that it should only effect things in a very general way and that other factors (such as free will, prayer, or divine intercession) can play a role. A “scientific” astrologer will thus be very “skeptical” of the power of astrology and openly admit its limitations.


2. Having previously read "Leviathan" for a Political Theory class, both times I read the work, I got the sense that Hobbes considers the social contract to be all but completely necessary for human existence. How then is it said that he is an important architect of the social contract? One of the main features of social contract theory is the ability to void the contract by either party, government or people, and live by other means, as I have understood it.

Hobbes does not deny that people are physically capable of breaking the social contract. Hobbes could point to the English Civil as an example of the social contract breaking down. Hobbes would likely tell you that much of the world lives in barbarism without the social contract. While one could live without the social contract a person who chose not to would have to be insane, wicked or unbearably ignorant to do so. Wouldn’t you rather live under a Hobbesian police state than in 1994 Rwanda?

3. In Davies' book, it says that the Welsh had a much easier transition to becoming part of the greater British empire, and it makes no mention of opposition from the Welsh, so why was it so much easier for the nation of Wales to merge with England than it was for Ireland or Scotland to merge with England?

To this day Wales remains culturally very distinct from England. There is a Welsh language (it is part of the Celtic family of languages and is related to Gaelic, which is spoken in Ireland.) that is still in use, particularly in the rural parts of Wales. This culture clash goes all the way back to the early Middle Ages. The ancestors of the present day Welsh were the Britons, the ancient inhabitants of the land. Starting around the sixth century or so, Briton was invaded by a group of Germanic tribes known as the Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxons chased the Britons out of the eastern parts of the Island. From the Anglo-Saxons we get the name England (Anglo-land) and the Anglo-Saxon language became the ancestor of our English language. For more about Wales see John Davies’ Wales: a History.
Why did Wales not cause the same sort of problems for England that Ireland or even Scotland caused? The main reason for this is that Wales had no history of self government. Unlike Ireland and Scotland, there never was a country called Wales. Also Wales did not have the sort of religious clash with England that Ireland and Scotland had. Scotland was Presbyterian (Calvinist) so they had some difficulties with the Church of England and even fought some wars with it. Ireland is Catholic so they have been fighting the English up until the present day.

4. In sum, what were the major outcomes of the Glorious Revolution? I found Davies answers a little confusing.

The Glorious Revolution brought William and Mary to the throne and removed Mary’s father James II. Parliament did not like James II, mainly because he was Catholic, so they contacted James’ daughter, Mary, and son in law, the very Protestant Duke William of Orange and essentially told them that if they so chose to invade England from the Netherlands they would not object. William and Mary showed up in England with their army. (If you look on a map you will see that the Netherlands are just across the English Channel. You can get there in a row boat in good weather.) Parliament welcomed their Protestant saviors from the Netherlands. James II took a good look at the situation and fled to France where he died in exile. (I imagine that the family did not have too many Christmas get togethers after this.) William and Mary rule as king and queen though parliament has set a danger precedent; they have shown that they can and will remove monarchs as it suits their purpose. So, in essence, the true victor of the Glorious Revolution was Parliament.

5. The booked talked about the Glorious Revolution as being not so glorious and revolutionary. If that is the case then why is it called the Glorious Revolution?

The important question to ask is not whether the Glorious Revolution was glorious and revolutionary or not but who thought it was glorious and revolutionary and who did not. James II certainly did not think that this was glorious; he was betrayed by his own daughter and had his throne usurped from him. Catholics in England did not think that this was glorious; just when it seemed that a new dawn was breaking for them and they would finally be treated equally a new government has violently seized power on the platform of persecuting them. (Imagine how homosexuals in this country would feel if the Republicans were to run in 2010 on a platform of banning sodomy and win.) Of course if you are an English Protestant and a supporter of Parliament this is certainly a very Glorious Revolution. Things have “revolved” back to how they are “supposed” to be. Parliament is in power, there is a pair of Protestants on the throne and Catholics are having to flee back into the closet.
The dominant view that has come down to us has been that of the English Protestants hence we are in the habit of calling it the Glorious Revolution. As historians we have to recognize that the opinions of Catholics have equal validity. So when we talk about the Glorious Revolution we have to recognize that it was a “Glorious Revolution;” glorious for some people. Norman Davies, as a responsible historian, is bending over backwards to make sure that readers get the other side that has been neglected in traditional history.

6. In the Davies book it mentions the 'Whiteboy' gangs, what exactly where the Whiteboy gangs?

They were Irish radical groups in the eighteenth century, who defended rural farmers. The situation in Ireland is not good; the English are openly trying to stick to the Catholic majority and keep them down in every way possible.

History 112: Renaissance and Reformation (Q&A)

The new quarter has started and my new History 112 class is coming along quite remarkably. I seem to have been given a remarkably strong group of students. Following in the footsteps of Professor Louis Feldman, I am having my students email me questions before class which I then use for my lecture. As part of my effor to continue to post material from my classes in order to give those who cannot be present a chance to take part in my class I thought to post some of these questions and my responses.

1. The text mentions to different sets of writings on the subject of the renaissance, these being writing on the smaller movements associated with change due to humanism on one hand which it says are really only affecting a small portion of society and then a changeover to writing about the lives and lifestyles of the people themselves in a broader context, is there also an element where both of these topics are written about at the same time (other than our book, so is it a large element of scholarship)? Along with this, I see no real reason to split them unless dealing with a very specific region where the prior was not occurring to any significant degree, so was this change in scholarship done because of a feeling that too little was being covered or was it perhaps a feeling that effort could be better spent on the latter topic?

I would say that the most important development in historiography over the past few decades has been the “discovery” of regular people. Traditionally history has been about wealthy male elites who were either literate themselves who could pay someone to write for them. There were certain ideological reason for this, but also pragmatic ones as well; as historians we are slaves or our source material and that usually means written texts. That creates a bias in favor of those who could write. Since in pre modern times most people were illiterate this is a problem. One of the major revolutionary books in this new movement, which Davies refers to, is Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worm (It is on the recommended list for paper topics.). This book is about a miller, Menocchio, with some fairly heterodox ideas. He believed that the universe and God with it came into existence through a process of fermentation not unlike that of cheese and he denied Original Sin. This brought him in front of the Inquisition. Unfortunately for Menocchio, but fortunately for us, Menocchio seems to have had some serious difficulties in keeping his mouth shut. This resulted in the demise of poor Menocchio and several volumes of Inquisition files just waiting for a modern, scholar such as Carlo Ginzburg, to find. Thanks to the Inquisition we now know all about this relatively normal person, Menocchio, the story of his life and of his beliefs even though he was not a member of the aristocracy, a high ranking church official or some great philosopher.
As Davies indicates there is now a tension between the traditional mode of history and this new form. On the one hand we have our traditional history of kings and popes and we have this new history of millers, shopkeepers, healer women/witches etc. They are both operating within their own spheres. One of the big questions facing historians today is how to integrate these two histories; we know that our millers, shopkeepers and healer women were living on the same planet as our kings and popes. I would agree with you that these things should be put together. Considering the nature of present day scholarship it is somewhat difficult.

2. What was the people's reaction to Luther's theses? Did they encourage others to act out their frustrations with the Church as well?

Luther was certainly very popular among the common people in Germany and he even managed to gain the protection of the Elector of Saxony. This is a good example of the importance of low history as opposed to the traditional history of the elites. In many respects the really important story is not Martin Luther but the thousands of regular people who joined him and made it a movement.
Luther, left to his own devices, was not much of a revolutionary. He was just a young theologian with some mildly radical ideas. In the 95 Theses he is still very Catholic. At this point he still believed in the papacy, confessions, the full list of sacraments and even in the value of works. Hand him thousands of followers and all of a sudden you have something far more extreme than just a debate over indulgences or papal power; you have a Protestant movement.



3. Who are "the Canons" that was mentioned in Luther's document? I assumed it was the Church, but not sure.

This is a good question to ask. There are going to be terms in the reading that are going to be unfamiliar. You should not be ashamed to ask. You have every legitimate reason not to know. In thesis five Luther states: “The pope does not intend to remit, and cannot remit any penalties other than those which he has imposed either by his own authority or by that of the Canons.” Canon refers to the Church legal structure. For example we talk about Canon Law and Canon Lawyers. This is important because it is clear that at this point, in 1517, Luther is still committed to working within the Church structure. While he may be on the side for less power to the Pope, he assumes that power lies in the hands of the body of the Church structure; we are talking about elite officials here and not lay believers. Luther is in no way handing people a blank check to simply pursue the dictates of their own Christian consciousness.

4. I am a little confused on how both, Luther and Calvin both contributed to the development of Protestantism. … So I guess for my question, could elaborate on how the two men placed such different ideals into the same religion without creating chaos?


The truth of the matter is that there really is no such thing as a Protestant religion. Protestant is just a convenient term for Christian movements in the Western tradition that are outside of the Catholic Church. (Mormons are in their own category.) Luther and Calvin were very different so there are very good reasons to put them in their own separate categories. Since they were both operating around the same time and were both fighting the Catholic Church we tend to group them together. As we shall see the major religious groups in Europe are going to be Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed (Calvinist).


5. I don't understand why Luther didn't support the peasant political revolts. From what I gathered from the reading assignments, he was challenging the greed of the Church that was manifesting itself through the selling of indulgences. But I thought this kind of greed was also brewing in the ruling elite, so I don't quite understand why Luther wouldn't support a peasant revolt challenging that. My only guess is that it has something to do with Luther's prince. … Luther has been immortalized for challenging the Catholic Church and laying the egg that hatched the Protestant religion and the belief that a personal relationship with God can be attained without needing some sort of middle man. But were his sentiments really genuine? Or was he getting some extra incentive from his prince for challenging something he had banned? Why wouldn't he support a political revolt that challenged exactly the same kind of corruption, just in a different sphere of life? … I just feel like this seemingly insignificant refusal of Luther to support the peasants might be responsible for the later tendency of princes to embrace Luther's ideas.

You have hit the nail on the head. Again we see that Luther was not some revolutionary out to overturn the system. He was very much part and parcel of the established order. This is not to say that Luther was wrong for not supporting the peasants. We have to be careful and refrain from making personal judgments. One also needs to keep in mind that Luther was dependent on the Elector of Saxony. A major part of Luther’s success is that he is able to get support in all the right places. He has the political and popular support to make him untouchable. Unlike with most of the many radical preachers of the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church was never in a position to eliminate Luther.


6. Why did the Christian sects have to fight instead of coexisting? Faith is based on personal choice not force.

In one sense this is a very bad question as it goes outside of the historical method and judges the past by our present day standards. We think of faith as a personal choice. People in the sixteenth century did not. They had their way of thinking, we have ours. That being said this is actually a very useful question when put in the right light. We take it as obvious that faith is a matter of personal choice and that it is not particularly beneficial to have full scale wars over the nature of the Eucharist or things of that nature. Why was this not obvious to them? Keep in mind that Luther, Leo X, and John Calvin were all very smart people; they probably had higher IQs than you or I. So why did they not get it? We will be exploring this issue in future classes. One thing that I will say here is that we think the way we do in large part because Europeans managed to make such a mess out of religion during this time period. For example when the Founding Fathers were writing our Constitution one of the major things that was on the back of all of their minds was we do not want to repeat what happened in Europe here in America so let us figure out some alternatives. So it is not that we are more “enlightened” than they were; we have the benefit of being able learn from their experience.