§ Expulsion of Jews from Spain & Portugal

The Spanish Inquisition

• Fernando and Isabel founded the Spanish Inquisition in 1478

• they obtained papal license to operate the institution as a royal agency.

• Its original task was to ferret out those who secretly practiced Judaism or Islam

• Charles V charged it with responsibility also for detecting Protestant heresy in Spain.

Application

• Inquisitors usually observed rules of evidence, and they released many suspects after investigations turned up no sign of heresy.

• If they detected the scent of heresy, inquisitors could be ruthless.

  • • They sentenced hundreds of victims to hang from the gallows or burn at the stake and imprisoned many others in dank cells for extended periods of time.

• The inquisition deterred nobles from adopting Protestant views out of political ambition

§ Acceptance of Jews within the Ottoman Empire

• dhimmi (“protected people”)

• In return for their loyalty and payment of a special tax known as jizya, dhimmi communities retained their personal freedom, kept their property, practiced their religion, and handled their legal affairs.

• The millet system-Christians and Jews were allowed religious toleration and mixed marriages

  • Orthodox Christian millet was established in 1454

  • Orthodox Christian, Armenian Christian, Jewish and other millets existed.

  • Minority communities given a limited amount of power to regulate their own affairs (social and administrative functions in matters concerning birth, marriage, death, health, and education) - under the overall supremacy of the Ottoman administration.

• Special taxes for non-Muslim subjects (ie. devshirme, dhimmis)

• Tanzimat Reforms of 1839 and 1856 will bring legal equality

§ restrictive policies against Han Chinese in Qing China

• The majority of Qing officials, soldiers, merchants, and farmers were ethnically Chinese

• Manchus were careful to preserve their own ethnic and cultural identity

  • • outlawed intermarriage between Manchus and Chinese

    • forbade Chinese from traveling to Manchuria and from learning the Manchurian language

    • forced Chinese men to shave the front of their heads and grow a Manchu-style queue as a sign of submission to the dynasty

• Qing rulers usually appointed Manchus to the highest political posts, they relied on the same governmental apparatus that the Ming emperors had established.

  • • Day-to-day governance of the empire fell to scholar-bureaucrats appointed by the emperor

    • civil service examinations continued to be the gateway to the scholar-gentry

    • During the Qing dynasty the empire’s one million degree holders competed for twenty thousand official civil service positions

      • • the system did not erect social barriers before its recruits, it provided an avenue for upward social mobility

§ Varying status of different classes of women within the Ottoman Empire

Even though Muslim theorists universally agreed that women should have no role in public affairs and decried the involvement of women in politics as a sure sign of decadence, women played important roles in managing the Islamic empires

Ottoman “rule of women”

• Süleyman the Magnificent became infatuated with Hürrem Sultana (also known as Roxelana), a concubine of Ukrainian origin.

• Süleyman elevated her to the status of a legal wife, consulted her on state policies

• deferred to her judgment even to the point of executing his eldest son for treason when Hürrem wanted him eliminated to secure the succession of her own child.

• After Hürrem’s death, Süleyman constructed a mausoleum for her next to his own in the courtyard of the great mosque in Istanbul.

Safavid Persia

• Mahd-e Olya, the wife of one shah, was the de facto ruler.

• Her efforts to limit the power of the qizilbash so enraged them that they murdered her.

• The aunt of another shah scolded the ruler for neglecting his duties and used her own money to raise an army to put down a revolt.

Mughal India

• emperor Jahangir was content to let his wife Nur Jahan run the government

• devout Muslim Aurangzeb listened to his daughter’s political advice.

§ Ming and Qing dynasties and Jesuits

Ming Loosening of Isolation

• 1517-first Portuguese embassy in China

• 1557-Portuguese gained right to trade from Macao

• Jesuits-Matteo Ricci (1552-1610)

  • Syncretism-attempted to adapt Confucian beliefs with Roman Catholic teachings.

  • Introduced European scientific accomplishments to China

    • Cartography

    • astronomy

Jesuit presence in China under Kangxi

• European maps, technological, scientific, and cultural developments continued to be brought to China

• European medicine

  • Illustrated anatomical books

  • Pharmaceutical knowledge

    • Kangxi fell ill with malaria, Jesuits aided his recovery with quinine.

• 1689-Treaty of Nerchinsk

• Russian CHinese border established at Amur River

• Jesuit missionaries were interpreters

• Significance:

  • Control of North Asia’s Pacific coast

  • Russian access to fur, timber and mineral rights in Siberia

Jesuits and Rome

• Tolerated Confucian ancestor worship

  • This issue upset other christian monastic groups in China, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans

  • 1690-the Pope sided against the Jesuits

• Kangxi wrote a letter to Rome supporting the Jesuits to no avail.

• The disagreement led to Kangxi expelling all missionaries who disagreed with his position. Most Jesuits signed and remained.

• later Qing emperors would persecute Christians

§ Mughal suppression of diversity or limited certain groups’ roles

Toleration--CCoT

• Akbar (reigned 1556-1605)

  • • pursued a policy of religious toleration that he hoped would reduce tensions between Hindu and Muslim communities in India.

    • Millets-existed through much of the Mughal period.

      • Protected religious communities

      • Retained their laws, traditions, and language

• Aurangzeb (reigned 1659-1707)

  • • Aurangzeb was a devout Muslim, and he broke with Akbar's policy of religious toleration.

    • He demolished several famous Hindu temples and replaced them with mosques.

    • 1675-Aurangzeb’s most controversial state killing is his execution of Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh guru

    • 1679-imposed a jizya (tax on non-Muslims) on Hindus in an effort to encourage conversion to Islam.

      • • when that project failed he slaughtered millions of Hindus (this is contested by historians)

    • provoked deep hostility among Hindus and enabled local leaders to organize movements to resist or even rebel against Mughal authority.

    • Throughout his rule, he maintained ties with Sufi communities known for their exuberant mystical practice of Islam

      • • buried at a Sufi shrine

    • Some historians argue that the negative view of Aurangzeb was fostered by the British

      • • 1672--a recall of endowed lands given to Hindus

        • enlarged by 50 per cent the proportion of Hindus in the Mughal nobility

        • Plentiful evidence attests that Aurangzeb issued orders protecting Hindu and Jain temples, and granted temple associates land and other favors.

§ Ottoman timars

Suleiman the Magnificent reestablished a land grant system in exchange for military service

• • Similar to the Theme system established in the Byzantine empire

Anatolian Revolts ended in 1610 led to tax reform

• Tax Farming/”timars” in Turkish-tax farmers paid specific taxes, such as customs duties, in advance in return for the privilege of collecting greater amounts from actual tax payers.

• If a timar could not pay his tax for a number of years in a row, the timar was taken away from him and given to someone else

  • Ends hereditary landowning aristocracy

Peasants could appeal to the Sharia courts (staffed by the ulama which required lengthy training) if they believed they were being over taxed

The timar system lasted until the Tanzimat Reforms (1839)

§ Russian boyars

Peter the Great's "Westernization" reforms centralized authority within Russia and challenged the boyars culturally, socially, economically, and politically

• Long Beards Banned (or pay a large tax)

• dress

  • • Prohibitted:

      • • long robes

        • Russian boots

        • long Russian knives

    • must wear Hungarian or German-style caftans

    • men must wear waistcoats, breeches, gaiters, boots, and a hat in the French or German style

    • women must wear petticoats, skirts, bonnets, and Western shoes.

• Ended arranged marriages

• Table of Ranks

  • • jobs based on merit, not birth

    • imposed obligatory lifelong state service on all ranks of the nobility

    • established 14 equivalent grades in the military, navy, and civil service

      • • required princes from ALL Boyar families begin at the lowest grade and work their way up the ladder

• offered the privileges of nobility to anyone who performed state service and made service to the state the principal basis for privilege

§ European nobility

During the period 1450-1750, aristocratic privileges and independence were under attack on numerous fronts, but the degree of the loss of privileges varied depending on the degree of centralization achieved within the various states in Europe. Challenges to the power of the nobility included

Standing armies:

• The French and Spanish monarchs also maintained standing armies that vastly increased their power with respect to the nobility

  • • Their armies with thousands of infantrymen were too large for individual nobles to match, and they equipped their forces with cannons that were too expensive for nobles to purchase

Centralized Legal Systems:

• England and royal justice -- increased their power with respect to the nobles by subjecting them to royal justice and forcing them to comply with royal policy

Constitutional States

• kingdom of England and the maritime Dutch republic

• enabled merchants to flourish as never before in European experience

Absolute Monarchies (France after Louis XIII)

• destroyed nobles’ castles

• prohibbited walled cities

• Louis XIV strongly encouraged nobility to live at Versailles, where he and his staff could keep an eye on them