HIST 343 - War and Society in Early Modern Europe

Credit Hours: 3

War was a chronic condition of western Europe from the fourteenth century through the seventeenth. It was also a fundamental cultural institution and big business. This course examines war as a social, cultural, and economic construct in Early Modern Europe. While the course will hardly ignore such topics as weapons, tactics, and combat operations, these are not its primary concerns. Rather, it focuses upon military culture and military institutions, and how they were determined by - and in turn determined - broader religious, political, social, and economic trends. Special attention will be paid to mercenary companies and their captains as both products and drivers of early capitalism, particularly in Italy, and to the experience of chronic war in the Low Countries in the latter half of the sixteenth century, as the formidable Army of Flanders struggled to quell Dutch revolt against Spanish rule.