Topic 3.2

Question 1

What was the divine right of kings? Who believed in this?

Answer 1

• A common claim from the middle ages that the right to rule was given to a king by God
  
  • Under this belief, the king had religious and political authority
• England’s King James I believed in this
  
  • James believed he was outside the law and to any authority and saw any challenge toward him as a challenge to God

Question 2

Who were the Justices of the peace?

Answer 2

• Justices of the Peace: officials elected by the landed gentry, their job was to maintain peace and settle legal matters and to carry out the monarch’s laws
• Their responsibilities increased during the years of Tudor rule, and they became among the most important and powerful groups in the kingdom
• Under his rule, the power of the feudal lords weakened

Question 3

What was the English Bill of Rights?

Answer 3

Assured individual civil liberties
- Signed in 1689 by William and Mary
- Guaranteed protection against tyranny of the monarchy by requiring the agreement of Parliament on matter of taxation and raising an army.

Question 4

What was Absolutism? Who used this system?

Answer 4

Directed by one source of power, the king, wish complete authority in the 17th and 18th centuries.
- France came to use this

Question 5

How did Henry IV rule under the absolute monarchy?

Answer 5

• Was of the House of Valois
• Listened to his advisor Jean Bodin, who advocated the divine right of the monarchy

Question 6

How did Louis XIII rule under the absolute monarchy?

Answer 6

• His minister Cardinal Richelieu moved to even greater centralization of the government and development of the system of intendents

Question 7

What were intendents? What were they also called?

Answer 7

Were royal officials- bureaucratic elites- sent out to the provinces to execute the orders of the central government
- Sometimes called tax farmers because they oversaw the collection of taxes

Question 8

Who was the Sun King? And how did he rule under the absolute monarchy?

Answer 8

• Louis XIV
• Espoused a theory of divine right and was a virtual dictator
• He wanted absolute power and expand French borders
• Declared that he was the state
• Combined the lawmaking and the justice system in his own person- he was absolute

Question 9

What did Louis XIV do at the palace at Versailles?

Answer 9

• He kept nobles close to him in his palace, making it difficult for them to act independently or plot against him
• His refusal to share power eventually weakened the French government

Question 10

What was the social class like in Russia?

Answer 10

• Social hierarchy in Moscow was almost static - much as it had been in Kievan Russia earlier
  1. Boyars
  2. Merchants
  3. Peasants and Serfs

Question 11

What were the roles of Serfs in Russia?

Answer 11

Were peasants who received a plot of land with protection from a noble
- In return, they were bound to that land and had very little personal freedom

Question 12

What class disagreed with Ivan IV’s efforts? What did he do about it?

Answer 12

• Boyars of Novgorod opposed his expansionist policies
• He punished them after his forces defeated Novgorod
• He wanted to keep an eye on them:
  *Confiscated their lands and forced them to move to Moscow
• Established a paramilitary force loyal to him called the oprichnina.

Question 13

Describe Ivan IV’s Oprichnina

Answer 13

• Loyal to him
• Rode on horseback
• Dressed in Black
• Drawn from merchants to defy the boyars

Question 14

What was the Romanov Dynasty?

Answer 14

Took control of Russia in 1613 after a period of turmoil following Ivan IV’s death in 1584

Question 15

What three main groups in Russia had conflicting desires?

Answer 15

1. The Church: bent on conserving traditional values and beliefs
2. The Boyars: desiring to gain and hold power
3. Members of the Tsar’s Royal Family

Question 16

How did the rise of Peter the Great represent the conflicting desires in Russia?

Answer 16

1. Had to defeat his half-sister Sophia and the Streltsy
2. Forced her to convert
3. Known as the Defender of Orthodoxy
4. Eventually lost the support of the Russian clergy because of his reforms
5. Reorganized the Russian government by creating provinces
6. Created a senate

Question 17

What was Devshirme? Who was forced to serve through this system?

Answer 17

To ensure their control over large areas, the Ottoman sultans used a selection called devshirme to staff their military and their government.
- Through this system, Christian boys who were subjects of the empire were recruited by force to serve in the Ottoman government

Question 18

Describe the treatment of Christian Boys?

Answer 18

• Boys ages 8 to 20 were taken each year from conquered Christian lands
• Since Islamic law prohibited enslavement of ‘people of the book’, Christian boys were forcibly removed from their families, especially from Balkan territories.
• Taught skills in politics, the arts, and the military
• Had to be loyal to the sultan

Question 19

Who were the Janissaries?

Answer 19

The most famous group of Christian boys which formed elite forced in the Ottoman Empire.
- Becoming a Janissary provided a path of upward mobility in the Ottoman Empire, even though the Janissaries continued to be called ‘slaves of the state’

Question 20

What was the Ming Dynasty’s goal? How did they achieve it?

Answer 20

• They wanted to rid the empire of all Yuan influence
• To accomplish this the Ming:
  
  1. Brought back the civil service exam
  2. Improved education by establishing a national school system
  3. Reestablished the bureaucracy, which had fallen into disuse under the Mongols

Question 21

What happened to the Chinese bureaucracy during the Qing Dynasty? How did they remain in control?

Answer 21

• Became corrupt, levying high taxes on the people
• Used harsh military control to put down a rebellion against these developments and maintain their authority

Question 22

What were military leaders in Japan called?

Answer 22

Shoguns

Question 23

What left Japan in disarray?

Answer 23

A conflict between landholding aristocrats called daimyo

Question 24

How were Samurais paid?

Answer 24

Salaried, paid first in rice and later in gold, which gave them significant economic power

Question 25

Which three powerful daimyo used gunpowder weapons to help unify Japan?

Answer 25

Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu

Question 26

How did Oda Nobunaga help unify Japan?

Answer 26

- Armed with muskets, him and his samurai took over Kyoto in 1568 - Then, he began to extend his power, forcing daimyo int the lands around to submit - Unified one-third of what is today Japan when he was assassinated in 1582

Question 27

How did Toyotomi Hideyoshi unify Japan?

Answer 27

- Nobunaga's successor - Continued expanding the territory until most of what we now know as Japan was under his control

Question 28

How did Tokugawa Ieyasu unify Japan?

Answer 28

- After Hideyoshi's death, the center of power shifted to the city of Edo, controlled by Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was declared shogun in 1603. - His successors would continue to rule Japan into the mid-19th century, in an era known as the Period of Great Peace

Question 29

What was the Tokugawa Shogunate?

Answer 29

- Set about reorganizing the governance of Japan in order to centralize control over what was essentially a feudal system. - Was divided into 250 hans or territories who were controlled by a daimyo

Question 30

What did the Tokugawa Shogunate require daimyo to do?

Answer 30

- Required that daimyo maintain residence in their home territory and also in the capital - If he was visiting his home country, his family had to stay in Tokyo, essentially as hostages. - This kept the daimyo under the control of the shogunate.

Question 31

Describe Akbar's rule of the Mughal Power

Answer 31

- Proved to be the most capable of the Mughal rulers. - He defeated Hindu armies and extended his empire southward and westward - His fame spread, and men from many parts of Central Asia came to serve him * they helped him create a strong, centralized government and an effective civil service

Question 32

What did Akbar establish in Delhi? (his capital)

Answer 32

- Akbar established an efficient government and a system of fairly administered laws.

Question 33

Who were Zamindars? How were they paid?

Answer 33

- Paid government officials who were in charge of specific duties, such as taxation, construction, and the water supply. - They were given grants instead of salaries but were permitted to keep a portion of the taxes paid by local peasants, who contributed one-third of their produce to the government. - The system worked well under Akbar. - Under the rulers after him though, the zamindars began to keep more of the taxes than they collected

Question 34

How did Europe Legitimize power through art and religion?

Answer 34

1. European governments sought to legitimize the authority of the monarch through the idea of the divine right of monarchy 2. They also built impressive structures, such as the Palace of Versailles in France, to demonstrate their power and glory 3. Governments in other parts of the world followed similar patterns to consolidate and legitimize their authority.

Question 35

How did Peter the Great use St. Petersburg?

Answer 35

- When Peter the Great seized lands on the Baltic Sea from Sweden, the conquest gave Russia its own warm-water port on the Baltic -> St. Petersburg - Moved the Russian capital to St. Petersburg so he could keep watch on the boyars there. - Became a testament to Peter's determination to have his own capital - Built the Winter Palace-> designed in a European way

Question 36

Who were the three rulers that wanted to keep the nobles close to them?

Answer 36

Louis XIV, Ivan IV, and Peter the Great

Question 37

Who was Askia the Great?

Answer 37

- Came to power in 1493 - He claimed his predecessor, Sunni Ali, was not a faithful Muslim

Question 38

How did Askia the Great rule?

Answer 38

- Askia the Great promoted Islam throughout his kingdom and made and elaborate pilgrimage to Mecca - Under his leadership, Songhai became the largest kingdom in its day - Supported an efficient bureaucracy to bring the empire together

Question 39

What did Mughal India produce? What did Shah Jahan build?

Answer 39

- Produced a number of magnificent architectural accomplishments, including the Taj Mahal, built by Shah Jahan as a tomb for his wife. - All accomplishments showed the power of the rulers.

Question 40

What legitimized the rule of the Ottomans?

Answer 40

- The arts, the culture, and the economy showed continuities, though they now legitimized the rule of the Ottomans

Question 41

How was Istanbul important?

Answer 41

Remained the western end of the Silk Roads, and the Grand Bazaar there continued to be full of foreign imports

Question 42

What was the Topkapi Palace? Who built it?

Answer 42

- Mehmed II began to build it - It is a famous landmark that was the royal residence of the sultans.

Question 43

What did Sulieman I do with architecture?

Answer 43

- Ordered many mosques, forts, and other great buildings constructed in the cities under his control.

Question 44

What were the cultural contributions of the Ottoman Empire?

Answer 44

- Cultural contributions of the Ottomans included the restoration of some of the glorious buildings of Constantinople, most notably the cathedral of Saint Sophia

Question 45

French Architecture

Answer 45

- The spacious and elegant palace at Versailles became a political instrument - Louis XIV entertained the nobles there and kept them from conducting business elsewhere, such as fermenting rebellion in their home provinces - Helped legitimize his power

Question 46

How was maintaining financial stability a key endeavor?

Answer 46

In all of the world's empires, raising money to fund the goals of imperial expansion and extend state power was a key endeavor

Question 47

Describe taxation in Russia

Answer 47

- Peter the Great and built shipyards, iron mines, encouraged private industries - Yet, he could not afford his military ventures so he increased taxes and began to compel workers to work in the ship yards - Serfs became more oppressed than ever.

Question 48

Describe Ottoman and Mughal Taxation

Answer 48

- To finance the economy backed by a powerful military, the Ottomans levied taxes on the peasants and used tax farming to collect it. - The tax farmers grew corrupt from skimming money from the taxes, like the zamindars in the Mughal Empire - The burden of taxes and the military would eventually contribute to the economic decline of the empire.

Question 49

Describe the Tax Collection in the Ming Dynasty

Answer 49

- In Ming China, tax collection was the responsibility of private citizens - Wealthy families, each seeing to the collection of land taxes in their area of the countryside - The rates tended to be low - After 1580, wars, extravagant imperial spending, and the repression of rebellions left the dynasty in bankruptcy.

Question 50

Describe the Tributary System

Answer 50

- Empires collected tributes from other states as a way to demand recognition of their power and authority - Typically as a form of wealth, tributes were given as a sign of respect, submission, or allegiance - The Mexica, The Songhai Empire, Aztecs, Niger Valley