Absolutism, Science, and Enlightenment Flashcards

Which action by Louis XIV most directly reversed the policy of limited religious toleration that Henry IV had established in France?

Answer: Issuing the Edict of Fontainebleau, which revoked the Edict of Nantes

The 1685 Edict of Fontainebleau revoked the Edict of Nantes (1598), outlawing Protestant worship in France. Louis XIV wanted religious uniformity to support his absolutist claim of 'one king, one law, one faith.'

Peter the Great's creation of the Table of Ranks (1722) is best understood as an effort to

Answer: tie noble status and advancement to service to the state rather than to birth alone

The Table of Ranks organized military and civil positions into a hierarchy in which promotion depended on service. This bound the nobility to the state and increased the tsar's control.

Which was a direct result of the Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689 in England?

Answer: The Bill of Rights established that the monarch could not levy taxes or maintain a standing army in peacetime without Parliament's consent

After James II fled, William and Mary accepted the Bill of Rights (1689), which limited royal power and affirmed Parliament's control over taxation and the military. This created a constitutional monarchy.

How did Johannes Kepler modify the Copernican model of the universe?

Answer: He demonstrated that planets move in elliptical rather than perfectly circular orbits around the Sun

Using Tycho Brahe's observational data, Kepler showed that planetary orbits are ellipses with the Sun at one focus. This corrected Copernicus's assumption of circular orbits.

Galileo's telescopic observation of moons orbiting Jupiter challenged which traditional belief?

Answer: That all celestial bodies revolve around the Earth

Moons clearly orbiting Jupiter showed that not everything in the heavens circles the Earth, which undermined the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic geocentric view. It supported the Copernican alternative.

Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica (1687) was a landmark of the Scientific Revolution primarily because it

Answer: used a single set of mathematical laws, including universal gravitation, to explain both earthly and celestial motion

Newton showed that the same laws of motion and gravitation govern falling objects on Earth and the orbits of planets. This unified physics and presented the universe as a rational, mathematically ordered system.

In his Two Treatises of Government, John Locke argued that

Answer: people have natural rights to life, liberty, and property, and may overthrow a government that violates them

Locke held that government rests on the consent of the governed and exists to protect natural rights. If rulers violate that trust, the people have the right to replace them.

Which idea did Montesquieu advance in The Spirit of the Laws as a safeguard against despotism?

Answer: Government power should be divided among separate branches that check one another

Montesquieu argued that dividing power among separate branches, with each limiting the others, protects liberty. This idea of separation of powers influenced later constitutions, including that of the United States.

Which Enlightenment-era ruler's policy is the clearest example of 'enlightened absolutism'?

Answer: Joseph II of Austria, who issued an Edict of Toleration extending limited worship rights to Protestants and Orthodox Christians

Joseph II used his absolute authority to impose reforms inspired by Enlightenment ideas, including limited religious toleration and the Serfdom Patent. Enlightened absolutists sought to improve the state from above rather than share power.

In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes used the idea of a 'state of nature' to argue that

Answer: life without government would be a war of all against all, so people should submit to a strong sovereign

Hobbes believed that without a central authority, life would be 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.' He concluded that people should enter a social contract and give up their rights to an absolute sovereign for security.