THE ABSOLUTISM

The Absolutism

The national monarchies that arose in Europe resulting from the process ofpolitical centralizationwould result in the formation of a political system characteristic of the modern age: the absolutism. Although with different characteristics in each country, some general characteristics identify absolutism. One is the lack of separation of powers, ie, the king was the supreme legislator, administrator and judge.

The relationship between the state and the governed was marked by theprinciple of fidelity. Everyone must obey the king and his representatives. So the nation over which it held the absolute power of the state was composed of citizens, as we understand today, but for subjects. In an absolutist state is the biggest crime of infidelity is the disloyalty, the lese majeste. The will of the sovereign is a principle which, by itself, justifies the measures taken by state agents.

It was in France that absolutism reached its maximum development in the Modern Age. Louis XIV, dubbed the Sun King, was the monarch that best embodied the figure of an absolute monarch.

The enormous resources that the state could raise, especially after the European colonization in America, provided the means for the strengthening of royal power. Thus, the heyday of absolutism coincides with the era ofEuropean colonialism, through which enormous wealth has been transferred to Europe.

Thus, during the Modern Age, increased revenue sources of the king. Besides receiving tributes from his dominions, as feudal lord, receiving taxes on the sale of products that were paid by the peasants, artisans and merchants.

The strengthening of the state, personified in the figure of the king, was made at the expense of the decline of the powers which they competed, the nobilityand the church. Much of the power to tax, to try and establish norms of behavior will transfer the church into the hands of the monarch, even in countries where religious reform failed to make Catholicism ceased to be the most important religion. In Spain and Portugal, for example, that countries remained essentially Catholic Church ceded much of its duties to the king.

One sign of strengthening the royal power was the state's ability to pacify their country, putting an end to the conflict between Catholics and Protestants. This conflict of a religious character had a clear conflict of classes: the Protestants were more identified with the new social and economic reality, and the Catholics, the old feudal order.

So the end of these conflicts means success in the king's political control over both the bourgeoisie and the nobility. But the character of the state was nobility, since it maintained hierarchical society and the privileges of the nobility.