Absolutism Webquest: Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Finnsgard. As a fictitious European country in the year 1600, we have suddenly found ourselves at the end of our royal line! Good Queen Finn has died without an heir and we need to hire a new absolute monarch! Bow your heads for a moment and mourn this stupendous ruler's passing...

Now that we have that out of the way...

In the last 50 years we have developed an empire in the New World that, through mercantilism, provides us with excellent new agricultural products and raw materials. Mercantilism is an economic philosophy that holds that wealth can be acquired from colonies, and that to prosper a country must seek to acquire gold and export more than it imports. Finnsgard has fought fiercely with its European rivals (such as Spain, France and England) in the last century and continues to compete with those rivals for influence in Europe and the New World.

In general, Finnsgardians are Catholic. Because of this, there has been some strong resistance to the new scientific ideas that are floating around Europe. It is generally felt that Finnsgard needs to embrace some of the newer technologies. In the north and west of the country, the vast majority of Finnsgardians are Catholic and the Catholic Church is a major social and economic force. In the south, however, the new ideas of Martin Luther and Protestantism have begun to take hold in a portion of the population, causing tension between the Catholics and Protestants in the south that sometimes leads to violence. In the east, there is a very small population of Jewish and Muslim people, who play a similar role in Finnsgard as they did in Spain. They tend to be educated and prosperous, although they are deeply disliked and mistrusted by other Finnsgardians because of religious different and envy of their wealth.

The social classes in Finnsgard are deeply divided. The aristocracy [the nobles or the uppermost class] or the Catholic Church owns most of the land while most Finnsgardians are poor farmers and laborers. Life for Finnsgard's lowest class is nasty, brutish and short. The lowest class has been known to riot during times of plague, hunger, or economic trouble. The aristocracy, on the other hand, has long enjoyed political and economic power. Some of the wealthier members of the aristocracy have their own small armies and command much authority in their own areas. This has produced problems for Finnsgard's monarchs, because powerful nobles often do not want to obey the monarch's command (or pay taxes!!). With the growth of the Finnsgard empire, a middle class of merchants and educated professionals (like lawyers) has begun to form.