3.2: War and the Gunpowder Revolution

The European monarchies were originally the product of the Germanic conquests at the end of the Roman period. Political loyalty was to the king one served, not the territory in which one lived. Likewise, territories were won through war or marriage, so they did not necessarily make sense on a map. Many kings ruled over a patchwork of different regions that were not necessarily adjacent, i.e. they did not physically abut one another. Kings fought wars to glorify their dynasties and seize territory. Kings and nobles alike trained in war constantly, organized and fought in tournaments, and were absolute fanatics about hunting. For example, Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547) of England spent about two-thirds of his “free” time hunting.

Developed in China, and first used militarily in the Middle East, gunpowder arrived in Europe in the fourteenth century. By the fifteenth century, it was increasingly widespread in war. Early gunpowder weapons were ridiculously inaccurate and dangerous (to the user) by later standards. They frequently exploded, were grossly inaccurate, and took a long time to reload. They were also both lethal and relatively easy to use.

Thus, by the later part of the fifteenth century, the king and his elite noble knights still rode on horseback, but the actual tactical utility of cavalry charges started to fade. Instead, squares of pikemen (i.e. soldiers who fought with long spears called pikes) supplemented by soldiers using primitive muskets neutralized the effectiveness of knights. In turn, these new units tended to be made up of professional soldiers for hire, mercenaries, who fought for pay instead of honor or territory.

Figure 5.3.1: Illustration of a siege during the 100 Years’ War. Cannons were introduced by the second half of the war, but note the fact that most of the soldiers remain armed with bows and pikes - the gunpowder “revolution” took the better part of a century.

Another change in military technology, cannons completely undermined the efficacy of castles. The ability to build, maintain, and operate cannons required advanced metallurgy and engineering, which in turn required highly skilled technicians (either royal ones or mercenaries for hire). The most famous example of superiority was the Turkish siege of Constantinople in 1453, which spelled the end of the Byzantine Empire. The artillery revolution cussed fortresses and walls to be redesigned and rebuilt quite literally from the ground up, a hugely expensive undertaking that forced monarchs and nobles to seek new sources of revenue.

Financial Consequences

Gunpowder inaugurated a long-term change in how wars were fought. In the process, states were forced to come up with enormous amounts of revenue to cover the costs of guns, mercenaries, and new fortifications. Even larger kingdoms like France were constantly in need of additional sources of wealth, leading to new taxes to keep revenue flowing in. Royal governments also turned to officials drawn from the towns and cities, men whose education came to resemble that of the humanist schools and tutors of Italy. Most of these new royal officials were not of noble birth; they were often from mercantile families.

The practical nature of humanistic education ensured that this new generation of bureaucrats was more efficient and effective than its predecessors. Whereas members of the nobility believed that they owned their titles and authority, royal officials did not – they were dependent on their respective kings. Kings could not fire their nobles, but they could fire their officials. Thus, this new breed of educated bureaucrats had to be good at their jobs, as they had no titles to fall back on.

The new royal officials expanded the crown’s reach. They targeted both the nobles and the church, which was the largest and richest institution in Europe. One iconic example was the French crown's almost complete control of the French church, which included directly appointing French bishops. In turn, those bishops often served the state as much as they did the church.

The idea of the right of a government (aka the king) to levy taxes across an entire territory under its control dates from this period. Starting in the fourteenth century, the kingdoms of Europe levied taxes on commodities, like salt that was needed by everyone, and on people just for being there (a head tax or a hearth tax). The medieval king was supposed to live on the revenues from his own estates. The Renaissance king promoted the right to levy taxes across the board.

That being noted, nowhere did kings succeed in simply levying taxes without having to make concessions to their subjects. Different forms of representative bodies from the nobility, the church, and (typically) the cities had the right to approve new taxes. However, kings were able to secure approval by rewarding loyalty with additional titles, gifts, land, and promises of no future changes to taxation. An institution of this type was the English parliament, which strongly asserted its control over taxation, a role played in France by several different parlements distributed across the kingdom.