Absolutism, also absolute monarchy, is a form of domination in monarchies. The monarchy means a form of government in which an aristocrat is the head of the state and thus occupies the head of the hierarchy of hierarchies within the state and represents the state externally and internally. This office is held by the nobility during his lifetime, or until his abdication, either by birth or election. There are various forms of the monarchy which determine the powers of the head of state: in a parliamentary monarchy the power is very small, since the essential state transactions are conducted by the parliament; in a constitutional monarchy, the power of the monarch is limited by a constitution; in an absolute monarchy, all the affairs of the state are guided by the noble, which is why his power can be described as complete, and not limited by any statutory or democratic institutions. In absolutism, therefore, a single person is the bearer of the state power, whose power is not controlled by any other person. Between the end of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) and the French Revolution (1789), absolutism was the most common form of rule in Europe.The form of domination thus crystallized mainly between the transition from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period (cf. Renaissance) and is then the dominant form of rule, particularly in the Baroque and the Enlightenment, although it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the monarchies in the Middle Ages from the following Absolutism, since individual elements differed in different ways.
The main difference is that the Late Middle Ages was characterized by feudalism. In feudalism a landowner of a higher nobility received a piece of land (including the inhabitants) and owed the nobility military service: he thus became the vassal of the noble. The landlord was granted the economic rights of exploitation, whereby the inhabitants, who were allowed to “farm” the land, were obliged to pay labor (Fron) and to submit the goods (Zehnt).
The monarch stood at the head of this feudal system: he gave land to the Crown Vassals, which then divided it into sub-vassals, which they were again allowed to work by unfree peasants. The King himself was a vassal, following the understanding of the Middle Ages, as he was unorganized to God, and so he was the head of all the other vassals, but had no immediate access to his subjects who depended on their own founders and swore fidelity to him ,
Furthermore, the land of the vassals was no longer derived from the feudal lords, but was administered by their successors, which in effect became the hereditary possession of the vassals. This means that the feudal system gradually led to the decay of the royal power: a crown vasaw of the faithfulness of his sub-vassals was certain, and he could dispose of the land independently of the king. Thus the monarchs lost power to the nobility. That changed in absolutism.
In absolutism, the monarch claims all power for himself. He is not subject to a supervisory authority, and is thus even beyond the laws which he himself adopts, whereby – as is the case in feudalism – no interests of the nobility had to be considered. As a result, the nobility could not exert any power on the king. In order to guarantee ebendies, the nobility lived at the court, whereby it could be controlled and any noble power claims neutralized.
Formation of Absolutism
In its full form, absolutism developed in France of the seventeenth century, thereby completely eliminating the described feudal system. The power was concentrated on the monarchs, while the influence of the nobility was gradually curtailed and then completely neutralized. These changes were made step by step rather than abruptly.
As an example of the absolute ruler is usually led by Louis XIV, whose ministers and predecessors prepared absolutism in France and who turned him into a monarch. Louis XIV shaped the image of absolutism for more than sixty years, and numerous European rulers imitated him. Consequently, according to the French model emerged in the rest of Europe absolute monarchies, but all were not as comprehensive as French absolutism.
Ludwig XIV .: an absolute ruler
Louis XIV was born on September 5, 1638, and he inherited the throne as early as 1643, when his father Louis XIII. died. However, he was initially under the rule of his mother Anna of Austria. This, however, immediately confirmed Cardinal Jules Mazarin as Prime Minister of France, who oversaw the government of the country