Editing Hugh Trevor-Roper (section)

===General crisis of the 17th century===
{{Main|The General Crisis}}

A notable thesis propagated by Trevor-Roper was the "[[The General Crisis|general crisis of the 17th century]]". He argued that the middle years of the 17th century in Western Europe saw a widespread break-down in politics, economics and society caused by demographic, social, religious, economic and political problems.<ref name="robinson" /> In this "general crisis", various events, such as the English Civil War; [[The Fronde]] in France; the climax of the [[Thirty Years' War]] in Germany; [[Eighty Years' War|troubles in the Netherlands]]; and revolts against the Spanish Crown in [[Portuguese Restoration War|Portugal]], the [[Neapolitan Republic (1647–1648)|Kingdom of Naples]] and [[Reapers' War|Catalonia]]; were all manifestations of the same problems.<ref name=autogenerated4>Rabb, Theodore K., ''The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe'', New York: Oxford University Press, 1975, p. 18.</ref>

The most important causes of the "general crisis" in Trevor-Roper's opinion were conflicts between "Court" and "Country"; that is, between the increasingly powerful centralizing, bureaucratic, sovereign princely states, represented by the Court, and the traditional, regional, land-based aristocracy and gentry, representing the country.<ref name=autogenerated4 /> In addition, he said that the religious and intellectual changes introduced by the [[Protestant Reformation|Reformation]] and the [[Renaissance]] were important secondary causes of the "general crisis".<ref name="robinson" />

The "general crisis" thesis generated controversy between supporters of this theory, and those, such as the Marxist historian [[Eric Hobsbawm]], who agreed with him that there was a "general crisis", but saw the problems of 17th century Europe as more economic in origin than Trevor-Roper would allow. A third faction denied that there was any "general crisis", for example the Dutch historian Ivo Schöffer, the Danish historian Niels Steensgaard, and the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] historian [[A.&nbsp;D. Lublinskaya]].<ref>Rabb, Theodore K., ''The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe'', New York: Oxford University Press, 1975, pp. 20–21 & 25–26.</ref> Trevor-Roper's "general crisis" thesis provoked much discussion, and led experts in 17th century history such as [[Roland Mousnier]], [[John Huxtable Elliott|J.&nbsp;H. Elliott]], [[Lawrence Stone]], [[E.&nbsp;H. Kossmann]], [[Eric Hobsbawm]] and [[J.&nbsp;H. Hexter]] to become advocates of the pros and cons of the theory.

At times the discussion became quite heated; the Italian Marxist historian Rosario Villari, speaking of the work of Trevor-Roper and Mousnier, claimed that: "The hypothesis of imbalance between bureaucratic expansion and the needs of the state is too vague to be plausible, and rests on inflated rhetoric, typical of a certain type of political conservative, rather than on effective analysis."<ref>Rabb, Theodore K., ''The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe'', New York: Oxford University Press, 1975, p. 22.</ref> Villari accused Trevor-Roper of downgrading the importance of what Villari called the English Revolution (the usual Marxist term for the [[English Civil War]]), and insisted that the "general crisis" was part of a Europe-wide revolutionary movement.<ref>Rabb, Theodore K., ''The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe'', New York: Oxford University Press, 1975, pp. 22–23.</ref>

Another Marxist critic of Trevor-Roper, the Soviet historian [[A. D. Lublinskaya]], attacked the concept of a conflict between "Court" and "Country" as fiction, arguing there was no "general crisis". Instead she maintained that the so-called "general crisis" was merely the emergence of capitalism.<ref>Rabb, Theodore K., ''The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe'', New York: Oxford University Press, 1975, p. 26.</ref>