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| 783450580 | ABSOLUTISM | A system of government in which the ruler claims sole and uncontestable power. Absolute monarchs were not limited by constitutional restraints. | |
| 783450581 | DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS | The idea that rulers receive their authority from God and are answerable only to God. Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, a French bishop and court preacher to Louis XIV, provided the theological justification for the divine right of kings by declaring that "the state of monarchy is the supremest thing on earth, for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself are called gods. In the scriptures kings are called Gods, and their power is compared to the divine powers." | |
| 783450582 | INTENDANTS | French royal officials who supervised provincial governments in the name of the king. Intendants played a key role in establishing French absolutism. | |
| 783450583 | FRONDE | A series of rebellions against royal authority in France between 1649 and 1652. The Fronde played a key role in Louis XIV's decision to leave Paris and build the Versailles Palace. | |
| 783450584 | ROBOT | System of forced labor used in eastern Europe. Peasants usually owed three or four days a week of forced labor. The system was abolished in 1848. | |
| 783450585 | JUNKERS | Prussia's landowning nobility. The Junkers supported the monarchy and served in the army in exchange for absolute power over their serfs. | |
| 783450586 | SCIENTIFIC METHOD | The use of inductive logic and controlled experiments to discover regular patterns in nature. These patterns or natural laws can be described with mathematical formulas. | |
| 783450587 | PHILOSOPHES | Eighteenth century writers who stressed reason and advocated freedom of expression, religious toleration, and a reformed legal system. Leading philosophes such as Voltaire fought irrational prejudice and believed that society should be open to people of talent. | |
| 783450588 | DEISM | The belief that God created the universe but allowed it to operate through the laws of nature. Deists believed that natural laws could be discovered by the use of human reason. | |
| 783450589 | GENERAL WILL | A concept in political philosophy referring to the desire or interest of a people as a whole. As used by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who championed the concept, the general will is identical to the rule of law. | |
| 783450590 | ENLIGHTENED DESPOTISM | A system of government supported by leading philosophes in which an absolute ruler uses his or her power for the good of the people. Enlightened monarchs supported religious tolerance, increased economic productivity, administrative reform, and scientific academies. Joseph II, Frederick the Great, and Catherine the Great were the best-known Enlightened monarchs. | |
| 783450591 | ENCLOSURE MOVEMENT | The process by which British landlords consolidated or fenced in common lands to increase the production of cash crops. The Enclosure Acts led to an increase in the size of farms held by large landowners. | |
| 783450592 | AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION | The innovations in farm production that began in eighteenth-century Holland and spread to England. These advances replaced the open-field agriculture system with a more scientific and mechanized system of agriculture. | |
| 783450593 | PHYSIOCRATS | Group of eighteenth-century French economists led by François Quesnay. The physiocrats criticized mercantilist regulations and called for free trade. | |
| 783450594 | INVISIBLE HAND | Phrase coined by Adam Smith to refer to the self-regulating nature of a free marketplace. |
