Most of the hostility aimed at the Avignon papacy complained of the use and abuse of money. The decline in revenues from the Papal States in Italy had brought the papal court to bankruptcy. To replace these funds and raise new ones, the Avignon popes resorted to a host of moneymaking schemes, some old, some new. There were fees for this privilege and taxes for that. For example, the popes introduced the rule that whenever a bishop was appointed, the first year’s income—called an annat—should go to the pope. To fill a vacancy, popes often transferred a bishop from another city and thus created more annates. Or perhaps the pope delayed the appointment and received all the income in the interim. This was called a reservation. The most lucrative practice, however, was the granting of indulgences. These were dispensed for the most minor reasons—from building bridges to waging war—and extravagant claims of their spiritual benefits mounted with each generation.
Fransa
Fransız Devrim Ordusunun Dönüşümü
There could be no question, after 1794, of demobilizing these immense armies: to so do would have been to create chaos within France. But there could equally be no question of their subsisting on French territory. So the war which had begun as one for the defence of France and her Revolution was transformed into one first of plunder and then of conquest. The Directory did not much care where the French armies went so long as they and their generals stayed abroad. The young Bonaparte led his starving and ragged forces into Italy in 1796 with a simple promise of plunder, thereby initiating a course of conquest which acquired an impetus of its own. If we ask why Napoleon’s armies were to follow him not only into Italy but to Egypt, to Germany, to Poland, and ultimately to Russia, and recognize that an increasing number of the wretched young conscripts did so because they had no alter- native and would far rather have stayed at home, we find that part of the answer lies in the prospects of loot, part in the hopes of promotion on the field—for the Napoleonic armies were most effective vehicles of social mobility—and part in a quest for adventure; all of which could be summed up in the concept of la Gloire, Glory.
Fransa’da Feodalitenin Doğuşu
Charlemagne, who reigned from 768 to 814, combined his astonishing record of military conquest with a knack for innovative governmental experimentation that has shaped European political life down to the present day. Since he could not personally govern the diverse sprawl of territories that he had annexed to Francia, he adopted the long-standing division of the realm into regions each ruled by a nobleman called a count (from the Latin word comes, meaning a trustworthy companion). Charlemagne’s counts were supervised by men sent out to keep them accountable, and they could be reassigned or recalled in case of rebellion or ineptitude. But, as time went on and the empire lost coherence under Charlemagne’s successors, ‘counties’ tended to become inherited possessions belonging to great aristocratic families who ruled them quasi-independently.
Fransa’da Kanlı Bartholomew Günü
the king decided he could no longer remain above the fray. Instead, he tried to eliminate the Protestant leadership at a stroke. Before dawn on Sunday, August 24, 1572, St. Bartholomew’s Day, royal soldiers murdered the wounded man and several other Protestant dignitaries in their beds. It was intended as a surgical strike, but the people of Paris could read the signals. Crying, “The king wills it,” Catholic mobs set out on an unprecedented orgy of destruction. In three days, some three thousand Protestants were killed, along with any Catholics who defended them. Over the following month, this massacre was echoed in a dozen French cities with histories of bitter interreligious tension; perhaps a further six thousand died.11 The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre was the defining moment of the French religious wars. It was not exactly premeditated, nor did the perpetrators try to disown it. Pope Gregory XIII struck a medal in celebration of the massacre and commissioned commemorative frescoes. And not without reason: the massacre achieved something that individual trials and executions could not. It broke the bravado of Protestantism’s martyr complex. The scale and speed of the killing dazed Protestants, who now questioned whether God was really on their side.
Adım adım Fransız İhtilalinin başlaması
Çıkan karışıklıklar eski moda ekmek isyanlarından ibaretti; ama Genel Meclis’in toplanmak üzere olduğu zamana denk gelmişti. Başkente tahıl ithal etmek için acil önlemleri yürürlüğe sokan, halkın sevdiği reformist bakan Jacques Necker’in kral tarafından azledilmesiyle patlayan siyasi olaylar, karışıklıkları gölgede bıraktı. 12 Temmuz’da Necker makamından ayrıldı. İki gün sonra Bastille Baskını düzenlendi.
Ekmek isyanları ile yersiz yurtsuz serserileri Paris’ ten ve diğer merkezlerden dışarı atmaya yönelik sıkı güvenlik girişimleri, endişeyi körüklemişti. Herkes aristokratların haydutlarla bir ittifak kurup yoksullara savaş açacağına inanıyordu. Aslında söz konusu ittifak, her şeyde bir aristokrat komplosu arayan devrimcilerin yaydığı bir söylentiden ibaret olsa da; ülkenin her yerinde köylü gruplarının silahlanmasıyla sonuçlandı. 1789’daki taşra krizinin itici gücü açlık, umut ve korkuydu. Ama bu krizi daha öncekilerden ayıran şey, yaklaşmakta olan vekil seçimlerinin yarattığı siyasi beklentilerdi. Ancak hiçbir şey olmayınca, köylüler vergileri ve feodal aidatları ödemeyi reddetmeye başladı. İsyancılar zahire ambarlarının ve özellikle feodal hakları meşrulaştıran resmi belgelerin peşine düştüler; belgeleri bulur bulmaz yakıyorlardı.
Fransız ihtilalinin ekonomik sebepleri
Ülke dışındaki siyasal durum istikrarsızdı; zira Türkiye kısa süre önce bir Avusturya ve Rusya ittifakına savaş ilan etmişti. İsveç ve diğer ülkeler de katılmaya hazırlanıyordu; bu durum Ballık bölgesinde gemi taşımacılığı için güvensiz koşullara ve kritik bir zamanda tahıl ithalahnda düşüşe yol açmıştı. Neredeyse eş zamanlı olarak, İspanya Fransız kumaşlarının ithalahnı yasaklayarak yüzlerce dokumacıyı işsiz bırakmıştı. Bunun üzerine kadınların giyim tarzları değişmişti. İpekli kumaşların modası geçmiş, ince keten modası başlamıştı; ki bu Lyons’daki ipek üreticilerinin felaketi demekti.
1776′ da Fransa İngiltere ile kendi aleyhine bir ticaret antlaşması imzalamıştı. Antlaşma, İngiliz malları üzerindeki ithalat vergilerini düşürmüştü; böylece artan rekabet karşısında, Fransız imalatçıları üretimde makineleşmeye teşvik etmek hedefleniyordu. Ancak Manş Denizi’nin karşı yakasından ülkeye sel gibi akan ucuz ithal mallar, kumaş endüstrisini ezip geçti.
1788’de, Fransa’ da siyasi gündem pek çok konuyla dolup taşıyordu; ancak siyaset yoksulların umurunda değildi, onların tek bir derdi vardı: ekmek.