The Age of Enlightenment was an 18th century intellectual movement. While it spawned the "science of man" (the beginnings of the social sciences such as sociology and anthropology), its impact was even more profound in its ideas of new human freedoms and rights. The Enlightenment was the intellectual driving force of the American and French revolutions and the rise of constitutional democratic-representative government (modern republics).
The Enlightenment was preceded intellectual changes including Renaissance humanism and the Age of Discovery (c. 1450), the Protestant Reformation (b. 1517), and the Scientific Revolution (b. 1543). The 17th century saw many "pre-Enlightenment" philosophers including Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, and John Locke who challenged existing notions of Biblical authority, the Divine Right of kings, and who advocated for religious tolerance and government by the consent of the people.
Yet, by 1700, most European countries were ruled by absolute monarchs, with only England's monarchy recently restrained by a parliament. The masses of Europe were still extremely poor and the rising middle class of bankers and merchants who had been gaining in numbers still were "commoners" who lacked the privileges of European aristocrats. The churches of Europe, especially the Catholic Church, were still tied to national governments and were able to tax the people directly. Additionally, until late in the 18th century (and in Spain until 1836), the Church was allowed to imprison and even execute people for religious "heresy." Even in Protestant countries such as the Dutch Republic, churches pressured governments into banning books that threatened their authority.
Enlightenment philosophers argued for ending Church authority and advocated for freedom of conscious and speech, the end of aristocratic privilege, and either constitutional monarchy or representative democracy and also new economic freedoms. Their overall thought was classical and focused on reason and empiricism. But a few thinkers, including David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, emphasized emotions and the human will over reason. In these thinkers can be found roots of 19th century romanticism.
Enlightenment thought led to the American revolution and the formation of the federal government under the U.S. Constitution. There were no restrictions on participating in government based on a title of nobility as there was throughout Europe.
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The French Revolution, which began in 1789 when Beethoven was 18 years old, attempted more thoroughgoing reforms, such as the abolition of feudalism, slavery, and church taxation. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen was published adopted in August.
At first, a constitutional monarchy was implemented, but by September 22, 1792 the monarchy was abolished and the First French Republic was established. Louis VXI went to the guillotine on January 21, 1793.
In 1792, the French revolutionaries took the revolution "on the road," sending armies to bring about reforms in other European countries. The monarchs of Europe responded with their own armies and twenty two years of war, with two short breaks, ensued.
Internally, the revolution fell into disrepair in 1793 when a group of revolutionaries under Maximilian Robespierre seized the revolution and instituted an authoritarian "Reign of Terror" whose victims included the most democratic of the revolutionaries. 16,000 people died in summary executions in the coarse of one year, including many of the other revolutionaries. By July, 1794, the National Convention became fearful that Robespierre would come for them and they had Robespierre executed.
An early hero of the French revolutionary wars was general Napoleon Bonaparte who seized power in France in late 1799 and by 1804 had himself declared Emperor of France.
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Beethoven was educated as a child in Enlightenment values. As a commoner, he particularly embraced the idea that a person should be able to rise up in society by his talent and ambition. Early on, he was enamored with the commoner Napoleon who had risen to power on his talent and ambition (Beethoven's infatuation with Napoleon would change).
Beethoven's religious beliefs mirrored many of the Enlightenment thinkers who believed that God had created the universe inserting into it laws of nature (physics) and morality, but did not intercede in the affairs of human beings through revelation of miracles. Baptized a Catholic, there is no evidence that Beethoven attended church. His overall belief was that it was everyone's duty to God to do good for all of humanity, and that his music was his role in doing that.
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