🇪🇺AP European History
1. Evaluate the extent to which state authorities in England and France were successful in using their power to regulate the social, cultural, and religious practices of their subjects in the period 1500-1800.
Respond to the prompt with a historically defensible thesis or claim that establishes a line of reasoning.
Describe a broader historical context relevant to the prompt.
Support an argument using at least four of the provided documents.
Use at least one additional piece of specific historical evidence beyond the documents.
For at least two documents, explain how or why the document's point of view, purpose, historical situation, or audience is relevant.
Demonstrate a complex understanding through sophisticated argumentation and/or effective use of evidence.
Document 1
Source: Abbé Sieyès, in response to Committee of Public Instruction’s proposal for a new calendar, 1793.
The time hasn’t yet come to make changes in the divisions of the year. Our customary practices, the many connections we have with the practices of peoples in neighboring countries, and the centuries immediately preceding our own, all combine, in this respect, to make an obstacle too imposing to overcome.
Document 2
Source: François-Sebastien Letourneux, Minister of Interior, circular to all départements and municipalities, November 9, 1797.
After having been the calendar of all Frenchmen for several years, the republican calendar is at present only that of the public officials. The enemies of the Republic attack it furiously. They say that the interval between days of rest is too long, that the artisan and farmer cannot work nine days in a row. This objection must be welcomed by the lazy. Industrious and active citizens are grateful to their legislators for having reduced the number of days spent in rest. Our enemies also say, either in bad faith or great ignorance, that the new division of time is contrary to that of nature. Yet the new calendar was the work of our most skilled astronomers, and was conceived only to correct the vices and errors of the old.
Document 3
Source: The French Constitution, ratified by the National Assembly, September 1791
The constitution guarantees as natural and civil rights: 1. that all citizens are admissible to offices and employments without any other distinction than that of virtues and talents; 2. that all taxes shall be borne equally by all citizens in proportion to their resources; 3. that like crimes shall be punished by like penalties without any distinction of persons. The constitution guarantees likewise as natural and civil rights freedom to every man to come and go or remain without being arrested or detained except in accordance with the forms determined by the constitution. [The constitution guarantees every man the right] to practice the religious faith which he accepts, freedom to citizens to assemble peaceably and without arms in accordance with police regulations. Furthermore, the legislature may not make any law which interferes with or hinders the exercise of the natural and civil rights guaranteed by the present constitution.
Document 4
Source: Voltaire, French writer, Letters on the English, 1726–1729
The English are the only people upon earth who have been able to prescribe limits to the power of kings by resisting them; and who, by a series of struggles, have at last established that wise Government where the Prince is all powerful to do good, and, at the same time, is restrained from committing evil; where the nobles are great without insolence, though there are no vassals; and where the people share in the Government without confusion. . . . The English have doubtless purchased their liberties at a very high price, and waded through seas of blood to drown the idol of arbitrary power.
Document 5
Source: The Second Book of Homilies, produced by bishops of the Church of England, authorized by Elizabeth I, 1562.
The husband ought to be the leader and author of love in cherishing and increasing concord. . . . But as for wives, they must obey their husbands, and cease from commanding, and perform subjection. For this surely doth nourish concord very much, when the wife is ready at hand at her husband's commandment . . . .
Document 6
Source: Report by royal officials accusing a group of Anabaptists of meeting secretly in a private house, 1641
The accused being brought before Sir John Lenthall, he demanded why they would not go and resort to their parish church, according to the law of 35 Elizabeth.* They answered: 1. That the law of 35 Elizabeth was not a true law, because it was made by the bishops; and that they would not obey it. 2. That they would not go to their parish churches. That those churches were not true churches; and that there was no true church but where the faithful met. 3. That the king could not make a perfect law, because he was not a perfect man. 4. That they ought not to obey the king except in civil things. *the 1593 act enforcing attendance at Anglican parish churches
Document 7
Source: Newspaper obituary for Antoine de Montchrestien, Paris, 1621.
He studied, devoted himself to French poetry, and succeeded in writing some good verses. Then, at the age of twenty, he learned fencing and horseback riding from masters. While keeping company with nobles, he played the noble, the gallant one, the hardy one, the quarrelsome one, so as to fight a duel. He called himself the Baron of Vatteville, but in fact there was no land or estate of Vatteville.
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