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👑 Unit 3 · Absolutism and Constitutionalism 🗂 Flashcards 🗺 Cheat Sheet ⭐ Essentials 🎨 Visual Review 📝 MC Practice ✍️ SAQ Practice

AP European History Unit 3 Essentials

The must-know terms and big ideas for Unit 3: Absolutism and Constitutionalism. Every vocabulary word and concept you need to master.

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SP — States & Other Institutions of Power
Absolutist rulers centralized political authority by limiting the power of nobles and representative bodies
Louis XIV's France is the textbook case: by requiring nobles to live at Versailles under royal supervision, sidelining the Estates-General, and claiming divine right, Louis concentrated political authority in the monarchy itself. Similar projects unfolded in Habsburg Austria, Hohenzollern Prussia, and Romanov Russia, where rulers built standing armies and loyal bureaucracies that bypassed or co-opted traditional noble power.
Louis XIV Divine Right Versailles
SP — States & Other Institutions of Power
England developed an alternative constitutional model that limited monarchical power through parliamentary supremacy
The English Civil War, the execution of Charles I, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 established that English monarchs ruled with — not above — Parliament. The English Bill of Rights (1689) made this legal: monarchs needed parliamentary consent for taxation and a standing army, offering a clear alternative to French-style absolutism.
Glorious Revolution English Bill of Rights Constitutionalism
ECD — Economic Development
Mercantilist economic policy tied state power to colonial trade and the accumulation of wealth
Mercantilism held that national power depended on accumulating gold and silver through a favorable balance of trade. Colbert's policies in France and the chartering of joint-stock companies like the Dutch and English East India Companies show how European states used trade regulation and colonial expansion as direct instruments of state power, not just private commerce.
Mercantilism Colbert Joint-Stock Companies
CID — Cultural & Intellectual Developments
Baroque art and architecture were used as tools of political legitimacy and absolutist propaganda
The grandeur and drama of Baroque style — visible in Versailles's scale, ornamentation, and royal portraiture — was a deliberate political tool. By commissioning art that emphasized power, divine favor, and magnificence, absolutist rulers like Louis XIV reinforced the ideological claims behind divine right monarchy.
Baroque Art Versailles Political Propaganda
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Divine Right of Kings
The doctrine that a monarch's authority comes directly from God rather than from the consent of the people or nobility, making the king answerable to God alone — the ideological foundation of absolutism.
Absolutism
Louis XIV & Versailles
The French king (r. 1643–1715) who built the Palace of Versailles as both his court and a tool of political control, requiring nobles to live there under royal supervision while using Baroque grandeur to project absolute power.
Absolutism
Mercantilism
An economic theory holding that national wealth and power depended on accumulating gold and silver through a favorable balance of trade, encouraging colonial expansion and state-regulated manufacturing.
Economics
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Louis XIV's finance minister who implemented mercantilist policy in France, promoting domestic manufacturing and expanding colonial trade to strengthen French state power.
Economics
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685)
Louis XIV's decision to revoke the toleration previously granted to French Protestant Huguenots, enforcing religious uniformity as part of his absolutist vision and prompting many Huguenots to flee France.
Absolutism
Peter the Great & Westernization
The Russian tsar (r. 1682–1725) who forcibly modernized Russia's military, bureaucracy, and culture along Western European lines, founding St. Petersburg and subordinating the Orthodox Church to state control.
Eastern Europe
Catherine the Great
A Russian empress (r. 1762–1796) who continued Peter the Great's absolutist and westernizing project, expanded Russian territory, and corresponded with Enlightenment thinkers while reinforcing serfdom.
Eastern Europe
English Civil War & Oliver Cromwell
The 1642–1651 conflict between King Charles I and Parliament that ended in Charles's execution and the establishment of a republican Commonwealth, eventually led by Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector.
England
Glorious Revolution (1688)
The largely bloodless overthrow of King James II, replaced by William and Mary, who accepted Parliament's authority and the English Bill of Rights as conditions of taking the throne.
England
English Bill of Rights (1689)
Legislation requiring the monarch to seek Parliament's consent for taxation and standing armies, guaranteeing free elections and parliamentary debate — cementing constitutional, parliamentary limits on royal power.
Constitutionalism
Constitutionalism
A system of government in which the ruler's power is limited by law and shared with representative institutions, contrasting with absolutism's concentration of authority in the monarch alone.
Constitutionalism
Dutch Republic & Joint-Stock Companies
The Dutch Republic combined decentralized politics with enormous commercial success, built on overseas trade and joint-stock companies like the Dutch East India Company, proving prosperity didn't require absolutism.
Economics