Notes on Absolutism

Absolutism is a form of government where those in charge have complete or absolute power over their people. An absolute Monarchy is a king who has this type of power.

Traditionally there have been two main things that have limited the power of kings in European history:

1) a Constitution—a constitution is a written set of rules that outline how a government works, what it can do and what it can’t do. Constitutions are rules about government that even kings must obey.

2) a Representative Body—this is a group of representatives elected by the people to make laws. (In England it is called Parliament, in the US it is called the Congress, in France the Estates General.) Because a representative body makes laws, the king is weakened because he can no longer create whatever laws he wants.

When these and other limitations on a king are removed, an absolute monarchy exists. The most famous example of absolutism in European history was Louis XIV.

Louis XIV

Before Louis XIV, kings shared power with their powerful ministers, or advisors, who made many decisions for the king. When Louis became king at the age of 5, Mazarin was appointed to be his minister and help the young king make most of the decisions in the kingdom.

 Louis XIV decided to build a new home and live outside of Paris. His new castle was called Versailles and Louis spared no cost in building it. He built fountains and re-routed rivers to power them. He hired 500 chiefs to cook the food. The famous “Hall of Mirrors” had pure gold decorations. Versailles became the envy of every European king. Because Louis gave the French so much pride and seemed to care about the ordinary people, most citizens of France did not mind him running up such large debts and gaining such power for himself.

 Absolutism in England

England has a long tradition of granting power to Parliament. This prevented the rise of absolutism in England. This tradition goes back to the year 1215. In that year, King John of England was forced by his nobles to sign the Magna Carta. This is one of the most important documents in English history. The Magna Carta was an agreement that Parliament would have the power to make laws in England and even the king had to obey them. This power given to Parliament made English kings weaker than French absolute kings.

Other Absolute Monarchs in Europe

Louis XIV and his government soon became a model for other European kings. Absolutism came to other countries as well.

 In Austria, Maria Theresa set up an absolute form of monarchy. She remodeled her palace to look like Versailles and improved the capital of Vienna. She also made life better for peasants. This was important for the survival of absolute governments: if the monarch brought pride or better conditions to the people, they would put up with it. If not, the people would rebel.

 In Prussia, Frederick the Great set up absolutism.

 In Russia Peter the Great ruthlessly took absolute power and tried to bring his backwards country up to the standards of Europe. He visited Europe and came back determined to make Russia modern. To escape the hold of the Russian Orthodox Church, he moved the capital out of Moscow. Peter built a brand new European style city called St. Petersburg. The other important absolute ruler in Russia was Catherine the Great. She also tried to imitate the west. Catherine imported thousands of works of art to St. Petersburg and built new western-style buildings.