World Economic History�

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Topic 5: Reformation and the Protestant Ethics

Altuğ Yalçıntaş, Ankara University, PolEcon

2025/2026 Academic Year

The Economic Revolution (a la Heilbroner)

The Renaissance (from the 1300s to the 1600s)

The Reformation (from 1517 to 1648)

The Enlightenment (from the 1620s to 1789)

1492

* Dates may vary according to authors.

The Conquest of Constantinople (1453)

The Economic Revolution (a la Heilbroner)

The Renaissance (from the 1300s to the 1600s)

The Reformation (from 1517 to 1648)

The Enlightenment (from the 1620s to 1789)

1492

* Dates may vary according to authors.

The Conquest of Constantinople (1453)

The emergence of the worldly philosophy

The Renaissance

• Renaissance: re-birth or re-emergence
• 14^th and 17^th centuries
• European countries, especially Italy
• Humanism, rationalism, and empiricism
• Rethinking the Greek and Roman art, literature, and philosophy
• Also architecture, engineering, and science
• Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Michelangelo (1475-1564), Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), Thomas More (1478-1535) etc.

The Reformation and the Protestantism

• 1517 and later, Martin Luther’s “95 Theses”
• A protest against the indulgences paid to the Roman Catholic Church and the privileges that the Church have had over the European peoples
• In Germany, Martin Luther (1483-1546)
• In France and Switzerland, Jean Calvin (1509-1564) and Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531)
• Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1468)
• The printing machine
• The German translation of the Bible and its distribution among the German reading peoples and other Europeans

Max Weber (1864-1920)

• Individualism, the birth of nation states, and the “spirit” of capitalism
• “Calling” or “vocation” and the emergence of work ethics
• the end of wasteful behaviour and extravagance, incentives to save 🡪 capital accumulation
• Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, Scandinavian countries, and the US.

Source: https://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=8069 [Accessed March 2019]

The Enlightenment

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• The 17^th Century Scientific Revolution
• Tolerance, progressivism, secularism, and rationalism
• “Enlightenment” as a metaphor
• The critique of the Enlightenment and anti-enlightenment ideologies today (such as post-modernism and religious fundamentalism)

Enlightenment as a metaphor

ENLIGHTENED

DARKNESS

Traditions of the Enlightenment

• The French Enlightenment: Rene Descartes (1596-1650), François-Marie Arout Voltaire (1694-1778), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) etc.
• The Scottish Enlightenment: David Hume (1711-1776), Adam Smith (1723-1790) [Also: John Locke (1632-1704), Isaac Newton (1642-1726)] etc.
• The German Enlightenment: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), I. Kant (1724-1804), F. Hegel (1770-1831), Karl Marx (1818-1883) etc.
• The American Enlightenment: 1776, the establishment of the US and later (Thomas Pain, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin etc.)
• The Turkish Enlightenment: 1923, the establishment of the Turkish Republic and later (Ziya Gökalp, Ömer Seyfettin, Fuad Köprülü etc.)

The Embarrassment of Riches

Simon Schama (1982)

The Embarrassment of Riches

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• Impact of Protestantism in formation of the Dutch culture
• Abundance and prosperity in the 17^th century Netherlands
• Arts (esp. painting) as an expression of wealth
• The emergence of bourgeois society

An AI reconstruction of Amsterdam, the 1600s

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZrEUyIqC2Y [Accessed December 2025]

Anno 1800 (Ubisoft Connect)

Bourgeois, bourgeoisie

Bourgeois, Lexico (Oxford Dictionary) definition

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• “The middle class, typically with reference to its perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes.”
• Origin: “Mid 16th century from French, from late Latin burgus ‘castle’ (in medieval Latin ‘fortified town’), ultimately of Germanic origin and related to borough. Compare with burgess.”
• In Turkish: kent-soylu (versus köy-soylu)
• Also consider: burç, Burgaz Ada, Sur in Diyarbakır etc.

Bourgeoisie and urbanisation

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• Bourg 🡪 Bourgeoisie (kent soylu)
• Strasbourg, Edinburg, Hamburg,
• In Turkish: Burç, Burgaz Ada etc.

Amsterdam in the 17^th century. Source: http://www.amsterdamology.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/amsterdam1.jpg [Accessed October 2019].

Bourgeoisie and urbanisation

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• Bourg 🡪 Bourgeoisie (kent soylu)
• Strasbourg, Edinburg, Hamburg,
• In Turkish: Burç, Burgaz Ada etc.

Amsterdam today. Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/514606694902067789/ [Accessed October 2019].

Bourgeoisie and urbanisation

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• Bourg 🡪 Bourgeoisie (kent soylu)
• Strasbourg, Edinburg, Hamburg,
• In Turkish: Burç, Burgaz Ada etc.

Paris, 1615. Source: http://www.oldmapsofparis.com/map/1615

[Accessed October 2019].

Bourgeoisie and urbanisation

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• Bourg 🡪 Bourgeoisie (kent soylu)
• Strasbourg, Edinburg, Hamburg,
• In Turkish: Burç, Burgaz Ada etc.

Brugge, today. Source: http://lh5.ggpht.com/_hVOW2U7K4-M/SmFRFj1VfcI/AAAAAAABDbE/4khfXlhK3sw/s720/23r2t5tg5gtgt.jpg

[Accessed October 2019].

An economic history of the NL (cont)

Tracy Chevalier (1982)

Girl with a Pearl Earring

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• Novel: 1999. Movie: 2003
• Johannes Vermeer, bourgeois ethics and

Protestant ethics in the NL

• Other 17^th c. Dutch painters: Rembrandt

van Rijn, Frans Hals, Pieter Codde, van de Velde

Werner Sombart (1863-1941)

• An historical economist
• Coined terms such as «late capitalism» and «creative destruction»

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Luxury and Capitalism (1913, in German):

• Role of luxury in the development of capitalism
• Private spending on arts and luxury goods 🡪 Accumulation of wealth

Capitalism and luxury: �Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675)

Capitalism and luxury:�Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669)