The Story of Civilization: Volume VII: The Age of Reason Begins Read online

  Table of Contents

  BOOK I: THE ENGLISH ECSTASY: 1558–1648

  Chapter I. THE GREAT QUEEN: 1558–1603

  I. The Uses of Adversity

  II. Elizabethan Government

  III. The Amorous Virgin

  IV. Elizabeth and Her Court

  V. Elizabeth and Religion

  VI. Elizabeth and the Catholics

  VII. Elizabeth and the Puritans

  VIII. Elizabeth and Ireland

  IX. Elizabeth and Spain

  X. Raleigh and Essex

  XI. The Magic Fades

  Chapter II. MERRIE ENGLAND: 1558–1625

  I. At Work

  II. In the Schools

  III. Virtue and Vice

  IV. Justice and the Law

  V. In the Home

  VI. English Music

  VII. English Art

  VIII. Elizabethan Man

  Chapter III. ON THE SLOPES OF PARNASSUS: 1558–1603

  I. Books

  II. The War of the Wits

  III. Philip Sidney

  IV. Edmund Spenser

  V. The Stage

  VI. Christopher Marlowe

  Chapter IV. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: 1564–1616

  I. Youth

  II. Development

  III. Mastery

  IV. Artistry

  V. Philosophy

  VI. Reconciliation

  VII. Post-Mortem

  Chapter V. MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS: 1542–87

  I. The Fairy Queen

  II. Scotland

  III. Mary and Knox

  IV. The Queen in Love

  V. Expiation

  Chapter VI. JAMES VI AND I: 1567–1625

  I. James VI of Scotland

  II. James I of England

  III. The Gunpowder Plot

  IV. The Jacobean Stage

  V. Ben Jonson

  VI. John Donne

  VII. James Sows the Whirlwind

  Chapter VII. THE SUMMONS TO REASON: 1558–1649

  I. Superstition

  II. Science

  III. The Rise and Fall of Francis Bacon

  IV. The Great Renewal

  V. A Statesman’s Philosophy

  VI. The Chanticleer of Reason

  Chapter VIII. THE GREAT REBELLION: 1625–49

  I. The Changing Economy

  II. The Religious Caldron

  III. The Puritans and the Theater

  IV. Caroline Prose

  V. Caroline Poetry

  VI. Charles I versus Parliament

  VII. Charles Absolute

  VIII. The Long Parliament

  IX. The First Civil War

  X. The Radicals

  XI. Finis

  BOOK II: THE FAITHS FIGHT FOR POWER: 1556–1648

  Chapter IX. ALMA MATER ITALIA: 1564–1648

  I. The Magic Boot

  1. In the Foothills of the Alps

  2. Venice

  3. From Padua to Bologna

  4. Naples

  II. Rome and the Popes

  III. The Jesuits

  1. In Europe

  2. In Partibus Infidelium

  IV. Italian Days and Nights

  V. The Birth of the Opera

  VI. Letters

  VII. Tasso

  VIII. The Coming of Baroque

  IX. The Arts in Rome

  X. Bernini

  Chapter X. GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE OF SPAIN: 1556–1665

  I. Spanish Life

  II. Philip II

  III. Philip III

  IV. Philip IV

  V. Portugal

  Chapter XI. THE GOLDEN AGE OF SPANISH LITERATURE: 1556–1665

  I. El Siglo de Oro

  II. Cervantes

  III. The Poets

  IV. Lope de Vega V. Calderón

  Chapter XII. THE GOLDEN AGE OF SPANISH ART: 1556–1682

  I. Ars Una, Species Mille

  II. El Greco

  III. Zurbarán

  IV. Velázquez

  V. Murillo

  Chapter XIII. THE DUEL FOR FRANCE: 1559–74

  I. The Rival Forces

  II. Catherine de Médicis

  III. Arbitrament of Blood

  IV. Massacre

  Chapter XIV. HENRY IV: 1553–1610

  I. Love and Marriage

  II. Henry III

  III. The Road to Paris

  IV. The Creative King

  V. The Satyr

  VI. Assassination

  Chapter XV. RICHELIEU: 1585–1642

  I. Between Two Kings

  II. Louis XIII

  III. The Cardinal and the Huguenots

  IV. The Cardinal and the Nobles

  V. The Cardinal Supreme

  VI. Epitaph

  Chapter XVI. FRANCE BENEATH THE WARS: 1559–1643

  I. Morals

  II. Manners

  III. Michel de Montaigne

  1. Education

  2. Friendship and Marriage

  3. The Essays

  4. The Philosopher

  5. The Rolling Stone

  IV. Immortals for a Day

  V. Pierre Corneille

  VI. Architecture

  VII. Many Arts

  VIII. Poussin and the Painters

  Chapter XVII. THE REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS: 1558–1648

  I. Mise-en-Scène

  II. Margaret of Parma

  III. Alva in the Netherlands

  IV. Requeséns and Don Juan

  V. Parma and Orange

  VI. Triumph

  Chapter XVIII. FROM RUBENS TO REMBRANDT: 1555–1660

  I. The Flemings

  II. Flemish Art

  III. Rubens

  IV. Vandyck

  V. The Dutch Economy

  VI. Dutch Life and Letters

  VII. Dutch Arts

  VIII. Frans Hals

  IX. Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn

  Chapter XIX. THE RISE OF THE NORTH: 1559–1648

  I. Denmark as a Great Power

  II. Sweden

  1. The Rival Faiths

  2. Gustavus Adolphus

  3. Queen Christina

  III. Poland Goes to Canossa

  1. The State

  2. The Civilization

  IV. Holy Russia

  1. The People

  2. Boris Godunov

  3. “Time of Troubles”

  Chapter XX. THE ISLAMIC CHALLENGE: 1566–1648

  I. The Turks

  II. Lepanto

  III. Decline of the Sultans

  IV. Shah Abbas the Great

  V. Safavid Persia

  Chapter XXI. IMPERIAL ARMAGEDDON: 1564–1648

  I. The Emperors

  II. The Empire

  III. Morals and Manners

  IV. Letters and Arts

  V. The Hostile Creeds

  VI. The Thirty Years’ War

  1. The Bohemian Phase

  2. Wallenstein

  3. Gustavus’ Saga

  4. Degradation

  VII. The Peace of Westphalia

  BOOK III: THE TENTATIVES OF REASON: 1558–1648

  Chapter XXII. SCIENCE IN THE AGE OF GALILEO: 1558–1648

  I. Superstition

  II. The Transmission of Knowledge

  III. The Tools and Methods of Science

  IV. Science and Matter

  V. Science and Life

  VI. Science and Health

  VII. From Copernicus to Kepler

  VIII. Kepler

  IX. Galileo

  1. The Physicist

  2. The Astronomer

  3. On Trial

&
nbsp; 4. The Patriarch

  Chapter XXIII. PHILOSOPHY REBORN: 1564–1648

  I. Skeptics

  II. Giordano Bruno

  III. Vanini and Campanella

  IV. Philosophy and Politics

  1. Juan de Mariana

  2. Jean Bodin

  3. Hugo Grotius

  V. The Epicurean Priest

  VI. René Descartes

  PHOTOGRAPHS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  NOTES

  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL GUIDE

  INDEX

  TO OUR BELOVED DAUGHTER

  ETHEL

  To the Reader

  I HAD hoped to conclude my sketch of the history of civilization with a seventh volume to be called The Age of Reason, which was to cover the cultural development of Europe from the accession of Elizabeth I to the outbreak of the French Revolution. But as the story came closer to our own times and interests it presented an ever greater number of personalities and events still vitally influential today; and these demanded no mere lifeless chronicle, but a humanizing visualization which in turn demanded space. Hence these reams. What had begun as a final volume has swollen into three, and one of the present authors, at an unseemly age, becomes a prima donna making a succession of farewell tours.

  Two of these three volumes have been completed in their first draft; one has been rewritten, and it here ventures into print. It proposes to cover the history of economic life, statesmanship, religion, morals, manners, music, art, literature, science, and philosophy in all the countries of Europe, and in the Islam of Turkey and Persia, from the accession of Elizabeth I (1558) and the births of Bacon (1561) and Shakespeare (1564) to the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) and the deaths of Galileo (1642) and Descartes (1650). In this period the basic developments were the rise of murderous nationalisms and the decline of murderous theologies.

  Barring some lethal surprise to the authors or to civilization, Volume VIII, The Age of Louis XIV, should be ready in 1963; and if decay permits, a final volume, The Age of Voltaire, will appear in 1965. The unifying theme of all three volumes will be the growth of reason.

  There is no attempt, in these volumes or their predecessors, to rely predominantly upon contemporary sources and documents for political or economic or military history; to do this for all the nations of Asia and Europe through all their generations and all their activities would have been physically impossible in one lifetime. But in cultural history, which is the primary concern of this record, there has been an almost complete resort to the original sources: every major religion has been studied in its main habitat, every major work of literature has been read or reread, every major work of art has been visited, every important contribution to philosophy has been explored.

  Since the great debate between religion and science is the main current in the stream of modern thought, it will be recorded in these pages more frankly than may seem wise to men of the world. These have long since concluded that religious beliefs fill too vital a function in sustaining individual morality and morale, and social order and control, to justify their disturbance by public discussion. Much can be said for this point of view, and we shall find some of our dramatis personae expressing it; but obviously it cannot release the historian from his obligation to find and describe the fundamental processes in the cultural history of modern Europe. It can, however, obligate him to impartiality in selecting and presenting the facts and personalities according to their influence in shaping events and results. We shall hear Pascal and Bossuet as well as Spinoza and Voltaire.

  Grateful acknowledgment is due to our daughter Ethel, who typed with patient care and skill the hardly legible second draft and corrected some of my errors; to Dr. C. Edward Hopkin, and to Flora, Sarah, Mary, and Harry Kaufman, for help in classifying the material.

  Mrs. Durant’s part in these concluding volumes has been so substantial that our names must be united on the title page.

  WILL DURANT

  Los Angeles, May 1961

  NOTES ON THE USE OF THIS BOOK

  1. Dates of birth and death are usually omitted from the narrative, but will be found in the Index.

  2. Monetary equivalents as between past and present are guesswork, made doubly hazardous by periodic inflation. We note that an able seaman’s pay per day in the England of 1540 was sixpence, and in 1880 six shillings—a twelvefold increase (Froude, The Reign of Elizabeth, V, 385). Hume calculated that prices had risen threefold in England between 1492 and 1740 (Essays, 175); we may conservatively reckon prices to have risen another threefold between 1740 and 1960, and therefore nine times since 1492. We may in general assume that coins had, in seventeenth-century Europe, approximately ten times their present purchasing power. The reader may use the following rough equivalents, as between 1600 and 1960, in terms of the currency of the United States of America:

  crown, $12.50

  gulden, $10.50

  pound, $50.00

  ducat, $12.50

  livre, $12.50

  reale, $.50

  écu, $8.00l

  louis gold, $50.00

  ruble, $10.00

  florin, $12.50

  maravedi, $.015

  scudo, $1.16

  franc, $2.50

  mark, $33.33

  shilling, $2.50

  guilder, $10.50

  penny, $.20

  thaler, $10.00

  guinea, $52.50

  3. The location of works of art, when not indicated in the text, will usually be found in the Notes. In allocating such works, the name of the city will imply its leading gallery, as follows:

  Amsterdam—Rijksmuseum

  Ferrara—Galleria Estense

  Berlin—Staatsmuseum

  Frankfurt—Städelsches Kunstinstitut

  Bologna—Accademia di Belle Arti

  Geneva—Musée d’Art et d’Histoire

  Brussels—Museum

  Haarlem—Frans Hals Museum

  Budapest—Museum of Fine Arts

  The Hague—Mauritshuis

  Cassel—Museum

  Kansas City—Nelson Gallery

  Chantilly—Musée Condé

  Leningrad—Hermitage

  Chatsworth—Duke of Devonshire Collection

  Lisbon—National Museum

  London—National Gallery

  Chicago—Art Institute

  Madrid—Prado

  Cincinnati—Art Institute

  Milan—Brera

  Cleveland—Museum of Art

  Minneapolis—Institute of Arts

  Detroit—Institute of Art

  Munich—Haus der Kunst

  Dresden—Gemälde-Galerie

  Naples—Museo Nazionale

  Dulwich—College Gallery

  New York—Metropolitan Museum of Art

  Edinburgh—National Gallery

  Nuremberg—Germanisches Nationalmuseum

  Philadelphia—Johnson Collection

  Sarasota, Fla.—Ringling Museum of Art

  Seville—Art Museum

  Rouen—Musée Municipale

  Stockholm—National Museum

  St. Louis—Art Museum

  Vienna—Kunsthistorisches Museum

  San Diego—Fine Arts Gallery

  Washington—National Gallery

  San Francisco—De Young Museum

  4. Passages in reduced type are especially dull and recondite, and are not essential to the general picture of the age.

  List of Illustrations

  THE page numbers in the captions refer to a discussion in the text of the subject or the artist, sometimes both.

  Part I. This section follows page 46

  FIG. 1—ANONYMOUS:Queen Elizabeth

  FIG. 2—ATTRIBUTED TO ZUCCARO:Sir Walter Raleigh

  FIG. 3—ANONYMOUS:Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex

  FIG. 4—ANONYMOUS:William Cecil, First Lord Burghley

  FIG. 5—Burghley House, Stamford, England

  FIG. 6—ANONYMOUS:Sir Philip Sidney

  FIG. 7—Mi
ddle Temple Hall, London

  FIG. 8—The Signatures of Shakespeare

  FIG. 9—ATTRIBUTED TO P. OUDRY:Mary, Queen of Scots

  FIG. 10—CORNELIS BOEL:Title Page of the King James Bible, 1611

  FIG. 11—CORNELIUS JANSSEN:Sir William Harvey

  FIG. 12—ANONYMOUS:Benjamin Jonson

  FIG. 13—PAUL VAN SOMER:Francis Bacon

  FIG. 14—SIMON VAN DE PASSE:Title Page of Bacon’s “Instauratio Magna,” 1620

  FIG. 15—ANTHONY VANDYCK:King Charles I

  FIG. 16—ALESSANDRO ALLORI:Torquato Tasso

  FIG. 17—SASSOFERRATO:Pope Sixtus V

  FIG. 18—GUIDO RENI:St. Joseph

  FIG. 19—BERNINI:Tomb of Pope Urban VIII

  FIG. 20—TITIAN:Philip II

  FIG. 21—The Escorial, Spain

  FIG. 22—JUAN DE JUAREGUI:Cervantes

  FIG. 23—VELAZQUEZ:Philip IV of Spain

  FIG. 24—EL GRECO:Burial of Count Orgaz

  FIG. 25—EL GRECO:The Assumption of the Virgin

  Part II. This section follows page 206

  FIG. 26—VELÁZQUEZ: Pope Innocent X

  FIG. 27—VELÁZQUEZ:Las Meninas

  FIG. 28—VELÁZQUEZ: Self-portrait. Detail from Las Meninas

  FIG. 29—MURILLO:A Beggar Boy

  FIG. 30—AFTER CLOUET:Charles IX

  FIG. 31—SCHOOL OF CLOUET:Catherine de Médicis

  FIG. 32—CLOUET:Admiral Coligny

  FIG. 33-Death Mask of Henry IV

  FIG. 34—Michel de Montaigne

  FIG. 35—POUSSIN:Et Ego in Arcadia

  FIG. 36—PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE:Cardinal Richelieu

  FIG. 37—ATTRIBUTED TO WILLEM KEY:Duke of Alva

  FIG. 38—MICHIEL JANSZOON VAN MIEREVELT:William the Silent

  FIG. 39—SCHOOL OF RUBENS:Ambrogio Spinola

  FIG. 40—RUBENS:Rubens and Isabella Brandt

  FIG. 41—FRANS HALS: the Laughing Cavalier

  FIG. 42—FRANS HALS:The Women Regents

  FIG. 43—ANTHONY VANDYCK:Self-portrait

  FIG. 44—REMBRANDT:The Artist’s Father

  FIG. 45—REMBRANDT:The Artist’s Mother

  FIG. 46—REMBRANDT:Self-portrait

  FIG. 47—REMBRANDT:Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp

  FIG. 48—Queen Christina of Sweden

  FIG. 49—BASED ON A SKETCH BY VANDYCK:Gustavus Adolphus

  Part III. This section follows page 462

  FIG. 50—JAN MATEJKO:King Stephen Bathory of Poland