Western Civilization II / Unit 3 WC2 0221 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Prussia, Austria, and Russia Compared: Nobles, Peasants, Army, Crown
The idea
The exam's questions on the eastern monarchies are usually comparisons, and four features carry them: what the nobles got, what the peasants lost, what the army was for, and how the crown stood above the nobles. Each state answers the four differently.
In practice
Prussia: nobles got a land monopoly and their serfs in the Compromise of sixteen fifty-three; peasants lost the right to leave or inherit; the army was the state's purpose, eighty-three thousand strong under the Soldier-King; the crown stood above by taxing without noble consent. Austria: nobles got the robot, three days a week of peasant labor in Bohemia; peasants lost their labor; the army held the Turkish frontier of sixteen eighty-three; the crown stood above unevenly, strong in Bohemia and resisted in Hungary. Russia: nobles got serfs by the law of sixteen forty-nine and lost their independence to the Table of Ranks; peasants lost freedom of movement and one in twenty went to the army for life; the army took two-thirds of revenue and won the Baltic; the crown stood above by making nobility itself a form of service.
Where people slip
The common floor is serfdom: each bought its nobles with peasants. Keep the instruments distinct: the Compromise Prussian, the robot Austrian, the Table of Ranks Russian, the Great Northern War Russia's against Sweden.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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