【Kings and Generals】为什么17世纪的事情如此可怕--普遍危机理论

• The 17th century was a time of chaos, war, and transformation worldwide.
• Major powers like Poland, Spain, and Britain experienced significant turmoil.
• Historians analyze these events as interconnected crises, shifting from feudalism to capitalism.
• Economic factors and climate changes contributed to societal upheaval.
• The general crisis theory presents a compelling narrative tying these global occurrences together.

The 17th century was a period of unrest, war and revolution throughout the world.
The Thirty Years War left Europe devastated, causing the death of millions via war, hunger or disease.
The largest state in Europe, the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, went through one of the worst events in its history, the deluge.
The first global empire of the world, and arguably the most powerful European state of the 16th century, Spain was on the decline, losing some of the territories belonging to the crown.

Britain saw a series of revolutions and rebellions in England, Scotland, Ireland and even its American colonies.
Russia and France were going through internal unrest too.
The monarch of England was executed after a revolution, while the Ottoman Sultan was killed after a military coup.
The most populous state of the world, China, had become ground for a bloody civil war leading to the collapse of the Ming dynasty.
The Mughal Empire, one of the richest countries of the world, also experienced a civil war leading to the killing and imprisonment of its former rulers.

While these events do not seem interconnected as they have happened in different parts of the world for seemingly unrelated reasons, some historians view these events of the 17th century as the general crisis of humankind.
In this episode, we're going to view the events of the 17th century through the lens of the theory of general crisis.

The idea to view the 17th century as an extraordinarily dramatic and destructive period emerged gradually during the mid-1950s.
In 1954, the French historian Roland Mosnier wrote about 17th century Europe, with crisis being the central theme.
The century was mere trouble, agitation, chaos.

Europe's society seemed to be headed towards anarchy, dissolution.
But the topic truly entered the mainstream historiographical discourse after the articles of the British historian Eric Hobsbawm, in which he argued that the dramatic events of the 17th century should be understood as a single transformative social crisis, comprehensively covering all aspects of European life, regardless of the country.

Five years later, British historian Hugh Trevor Roper also claimed that there were common underlying reasons behind the chaotic events of 17th century Europe, and it would be reasonable to label them as a general crisis.
Trevor Roper argued that the 17th century was a period where the conflict between monarchies and societies was reaching its high point.
The circumstances of the 17th century created ground for various incidents of confrontation between these sides in Europe.

Indeed, other historians have made similar claims that the 17th century was the period of the birth of global modernity.
The Renaissance and Reformation of the previous century had a powerful long term impact on the masses, especially the new rising bourgeoisie, which sought more power.

And power in Europe was shifting to the increasingly capitalist northern countries like the Netherlands and England at the expense of Spain.
The 17th century became the period of the birth of global modernity, as Europe was transitioning from feudalism to capitalism, from agrarian economy to industrialization.
In that sense, the general crisis of the 17th century was transformational in nature.

Hobsbawm argued that the 17th century was the key moment in history as England became the world's first bourgeois society.
Initially, the general crisis theory was Eurocentric in nature.
But British historian Geoffrey Parker added additional elements to this theory.
He described similar chaotic events outside of Europe in the same period and made the crisis theory truly global, while arguing that the Little Ice Age, the short term climate change coinciding with the 17th century was a common reason for boosting momentous societal events of the century.

Let us look at the events of the 17th century to understand why historians have called its events the general crisis.
First of all, the 17th century witnessed almost non-stop war in Europe.
The Thirty Years War raged between 1618 and 1648 and involved virtually all major European powers of the time.
But even beyond that, different conflicts took place in Europe in the six decades between 1618-1678.

Poland was at peace for only 27 years, the Netherlands for only 14, France for only 11, Spain for only three.
Beyond Europe, the Ottoman Empire had only six peaceful years while China and the Mughal Empire continuously fought external and internal wars.
The mid 17th century is the period which saw more wars than any other period until the 1940s.

War brings death, long-term devastation of economic life, disease and a decrease in trade, causing millions to die for war-related reasons.
Popular revolts and internal conflicts also peaked in the 17th century.
Twenty-five major peasant revolts were recorded in Germany and Switzerland.
England saw two revolutions, a civil war, the beheading of the King alongside more than 50 food riots.

France witnessed two frondes civil wars where part of the aristocratic elite joined forces with the bourgeois attempting to limit the king's authorities.
In the mid 17th century in Spain, the Catalans rose against the monarchy while Portugal fought to gain its independence.
In Russia, a wave of rebellions in 1648-1649 caused significant trouble to the central government.
In China, 80 major rebellions were registered in the 1630s involving over 1 million people.

Revolts would rock the political landscape of Eurasia.
And while the majority of revolts did not result in long-term changes, the combination of their impact was leading to such a variety of results as increased mortality, more devastation and increased tension between the crown and society.

Death and destruction caused by wars, rebellions, diseases and lack of supplies caused an unprecedented increase in human mortality in the 17th century.
According to some claims, over half of the Chinese population perished in the 17th century.
Modern German historians claim that the 17th century took 20 to 45% of the German population.
The lands where the Fronde was active in France saw a decrease of about one-fifth of the population in the Mediterranean region.

Famines, plague and wars decreased the Italian population by 16% until 1650 and by 14% in Spain.
Recent estimates claim that 30 to 45% of the population in the Holy Roman Empire perished.
All in all, the population of Europe decreased by 5% since the Northern European countries like Holland and England had smaller mortality in comparison with the aforementioned European countries.

The chaos and destruction of the 17th century was expressed by Thomas Hobbes in his famous Leviathan in 1651:
"There is no place for industry because the fruit thereof is uncertain and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no arts, no letters, no society and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."

What was the reason for the general crisis?
Destruction, wars and revolts have been common occurrences throughout human history.
So what makes the events of the 17th century so special and interconnected to call it the general crisis?

Even during the 17th century, people were looking for reasons behind the widespread misery going on in the world.
As usual, many contemporaries attributed it to the wrath of divine forces due to sins committed by humankind.
The Welsh historian James Howell wrote in 1649 that "God Almighty has a quarrel lately with all mankind and given the reins to the ill spirit to compass the whole earth."

The religious sentiment was even reflected in the Parliament of the British countries as the preamble to an act passed by the English parliament in 1642 called for all possible means to appease and avert the wrath of God to end the distress, blood and civil war in England and Ireland.
The Scottish Parliament blamed the drought, war and increased prices in 1649 on witchcraft and issued some 500 commissions to persecute suspected witches in Scotland.
Their contemporaries also linked the general crisis with astrological reasons.

The Spanish almanac, published in 1640, blamed eclipses and comets for the disasters, while prophesying that the solar eclipse of 1639 was going to produce political instability and misery for ordinary people.
But other contemporaries blamed the poor weather and economic problems coming with it for the dramatic events of the discussed period, an argument developed by modern historians as well.

To explain the general crisis with climate change and economic reasons, English philosopher Francis Bacon called people to pray for good weather to overcome the problems experienced by government and society.
In his essay titled Of Seditions and Troubles in Spain, statesman Juan Chimothero blamed the lack of bread in Madrid on rain making the road to the capital impossible to pass and to bring more flour.

He blamed the weather on hunger and poverty running rampant in Spain.
The Ottoman traveler in Egypt complained of the weather and lamented the need to wear furs because of the cold.
In Ireland, judges took depositions from the population regarding the killings of Protestants and it was said that three failed harvests caused Catholics to harass, rob and kill their Protestant neighbors.

This demonstrates how bad weather and failed harvests ignited the existing enmities and grievances from mere complaining and distrust into large-scale chaos.
Indeed, the climate of the 17th century was unfavorable.

Telescopes in France observed only 100 sunspots for 8,000 days during the reign of Louis XIV.
In comparison, it is fewer than a single year average of the 20th century.
Later in the 20th century, a solar physicist, Jack Eddy, stated that there had been virtually no sunspots between 1645 and 1715.

At the same time, contemporaries complained of dust veils in the skies due to increased volcanic activity, and the dust arising from it blocked the sunshine.
In 1651, a shopkeeper from Barcelona complained of the sun not shining for a year.
In Korea, royal astronomers reported that "the skies all around are darkened and grey, as if some kind of dust had fallen."

Twelve major volcanic eruptions happened around the Pacific between 1638 and 1644, causing volcanic dust to rise to the skies.
Lack of sunshine caused an average decrease in temperature by at least 0.5 Celsius, causing bad harvests and famine.

It is difficult to see a direct link between some of the events of the 17th century, like the Thirty Years War, for example, where religious factors at first and then the political and economic motivations of the states and ruling dynasties played a key role.
It is doubtful that we can explain the revolutions and rebellions in England, Scotland and Ireland by merely blaming the Little Ice Age and the harsh weather it brought with it as the reason.

Yet in numerous cases we see a direct link between the weather and events.
The rebellion in the south of Portugal in 1637 started mostly due to a severe increase in bread prices due to drought.
The drought was one of the main reasons behind the 1640 Catalonia revolt.

The first urban riots of Tokugawa era Japan started with rice shortages in Osaka, the kitchen of Japan.
Three disastrous harvests preceded the Irish Rebellion in 1641.
Similarly, extremely bad harvests of 1647 and 1648 played a major role in revolts in Sicily, central Italy, Poland and Russia.

The worst harvest of the century in Sweden in 1650 caused various societal forces in Sweden to demand more autonomy from the monarchy.
But while the climate change of the 17th century had a direct causation with bad harvests, droughts, increased poverty and hunger, and the rise of prices for bread and other food products, the worsened life standards moved people towards rebellion, revolution, or another type of political activity.
It would be extremely simplistic to overlook other underlying political and economic factors.

But Geoffrey Parker, the main proponent of the general crisis theory, does not claim that the climate was the sole or most significant reason for the political upheavals of the 17th century, rather arguing that the Little Ice Age was a common underlying factor exacerbating existing grievances related to human activities.

Another, more Eurocentric explanation of the 17th century's events is related to economic events of the age.
Spain was the economic and political powerhouse of the previous century, rising to the pedestal of European power thanks to its shipments of gold, silver and other precious metals from the New World into Europe through Seville.

But gold and silver imports caused inflation in Spain.
In the early 17th century, Spain started experiencing problems with decreased silver shipments, increasing taxation due to the wars it was fighting, and the loss of its entire silver fleet to the Dutch West India Company which forced Spain to devalue its currency.

This chain of events led to the collapse of the Genoa centered banking system.
The economic decline, the demand decline due to weakened purchasing capacity in the Mediterranean region, and coupled with the disruption of European trade routes due to the ongoing wars hit the northern and central Italian industrial activity and commercial leadership hard, gradually forcing it to lose industrial and commercial leadership to Northern Europe, the Netherlands and England.

These drastic changes were transformational in nature.
European economic power was shifting from the south to the north as gradually capitalistic economic relationships started prevailing over the feudal.
This process could not have been peaceful and manifested itself in wars, political upheavals, revolutions and revolts.

The theory of the general crisis is not universally agreed upon.
Many argue that the events in Spain, Scotland and China could not have had the same underlying reasons.
The Little Ice Age obviously had a global impact, but it was merely a factor exacerbating the existing grievances and processes.
Therefore it cannot serve as the common underlying cause.

Others argue that the doom and gloom of the 17th century are exaggerated as history is full of other periods with as many wars, revolutions and other transformational events.
For example, despite the increased mortality in the mid-17th century mainly attributed to 30 years war related consequences, overall the European population declined by merely 5% due to the population growth in northern Europe.

Nevertheless, the events of the 17th century indeed seem transformational as Europe was transitioning from feudalism to capitalism, from dynastic monarchies to nation states and the Theory of the General Crisis is an ambitious and compelling work trying to tie all these global events with a common narrative.

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