This MCQ module is based on: Political Changes, Hundred Years War & Exercises
TOPIC 12 OF 21
Political Changes, Hundred Years War & Exercises
🎓 Class 11
History
CBSE
Theory
Theme 4 — The Three Orders (Verified Full NCERT)
⏱ ~22 min
🌐 Language: [gtranslate]
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The Three Orders — Political Changes, New Monarchies and Exercises
After the demographic and economic earthquake of the fourteenth century, European kings used the new conditions — money, towns, gunpowder, professional armies — to centralise power. France, England and Spain entered the era of new monarchies; the Hundred Years' War (1338–1461) reshaped the boundaries of nation-states; and the long roads to French republic and English parliamentary monarchy were sketched out. This concluding part covers Section 4.8 of the chapter, summarises the whole theme, presents all NCERT end-of-chapter exercises with model answers, the prescribed Map work and Project work, the chronology, and a glossary of twenty key terms.
4.9 Political Changes — The Rise of the New Monarchies
Developments in the political sphere paralleled the social and economic changes already described. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries European kings strengthened their military and financial power. The powerful new states they created were as significant for Europe as the economic transformations going on around them. Historians have therefore called these rulers the "new monarchs"?.
Louis XI · France
Ruled 1461–83. Defeated rival dukes and princes; expanded royal income through standing armies.
Maximilian · Austria
Habsburg ruler who consolidated central European holdings and extended dynastic alliances.
Henry VII · England
Ruled from 1485. Ended the Wars of the Roses, founded the Tudor dynasty, expanded royal taxation.
Isabelle & Ferdinand · Spain
United Castile and Aragon. From 1474 onwards, sponsored the Spanish overseas empire after 1492.
Louis XI in France, Maximilian in Austria, Henry VII in England, and Isabelle and Ferdinand in Spain were absolutist? rulers. They began the historic process of organising standing armies, a permanent bureaucracy and national taxation; in Spain and Portugal, they began Europe's overseas expansion.
4.9.1 Why the New Monarchies Triumphed
The most important reason for the triumph of these monarchies was the social changes that had taken place in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The dissolution of the feudal system of lordship and vassalage, combined with the slow rate of economic growth in the fourteenth century, gave kings their first chance to increase control over both powerful and not-so-powerful subjects.
Rulers dispensed with the system of feudal levies for their armies. In their place they introduced professionally trained infantry equipped with guns and siege artillery (see Theme 3) — and these new troops served directly under the king's command. The resistance of the older aristocracies crumbled in the face of royal firepower. By raising taxes, monarchs got enough revenue to support large armies; with these armies they defended and expanded their frontiers and overcame internal resistance to royal authority.
The New Monarchy (NCERT chronology)
- 1461–1559New monarchs in France (Louis XI to Henry II).
- 1474–1556New monarchs in Spain (Isabella and Ferdinand to Charles V).
- 1485–1547New monarchs in England (Henry VII and Henry VIII — the early Tudor period).
4.9.2 Resistance and the Politics of Taxation
Centralisation, however, did not occur without resistance from the aristocracy. A common thread running through every type of opposition to the new monarchies was the question of taxation. In England, rebellions broke out and were put down in 1497, 1536, 1547, 1549 and 1553. In France, Louis XI (1461–83) had to wage a long struggle against dukes and princes. Lesser nobles, often members of local assemblies, resisted this royal usurpation of their powers. The "religious" wars in France in the sixteenth century were in part a contest between royal privileges and regional liberties.
4.9.3 The Tactical Survival of the Nobility
The nobility managed a clever tactical shift to ensure their survival. From being opponents of the new regimes, they quickly transformed themselves into loyalists. It is for this reason that royal absolutism has been called a modified form of feudalism. Precisely the same class of people who had been rulers in the feudal system — the lords — continued to dominate the political scene; they were given permanent positions in the administrative service. But the new regimes were different in important ways.
The king was no longer at the apex of a pyramid where loyalty had been a matter of personal dependence and trust. He was now at the centre of an elaborate courtier society and a network of patron–client relationships?. All monarchies, weak or powerful, needed the cooperation of those who could command authority. Patronage became the means of ensuring that cooperation — and patronage could be given or obtained for money. So money became an important way in which non-aristocratic groups like merchants and bankers could gain access to the court. They lent money to kings, who used it to pay the wages of soldiers. Rulers thus made space for non-feudal elements in the state system.
4.10 Towards Nation-States — France and England
The later history of France and England was shaped by these changes in the power structures.
4.10.1 France and the Estates-General
In the reign of the child-king Louis XIII of France, in 1614, a meeting was held of the French consultative assembly known as the Estates-General? — with three houses representing the three estates / orders: the clergy, the nobility, and the rest. After this meeting, the Estates-General was not summoned again for nearly two centuries, until 1789, because the kings did not want to share power with the three orders. (Its summoning that year by Louis XVI sparked the French Revolution.)
4.10.2 England and the Parliament
What happened in England was very different. Even before the Norman Conquest, the Anglo-Saxons had a Great Council, which the king had to consult before imposing any tax. This developed into what was called the Parliament?. It consisted of the House of Lords (lords and clergy) and the House of Commons (representatives of towns and rural areas).
King Charles I ruled for eleven years (1629–40) without calling Parliament. When he was forced to call it, because he needed money, a section of Parliament decided to go to war against him. He was later executed, and a republic was established. This republic did not last long, and monarchy was restored — but only on the condition that Parliament would be called regularly.
Today, France has a republican form of government while England has a monarchy. This is because of the different directions that the histories of the two countries took after the seventeenth century.
4.11 The Hundred Years' War (1338–1461)
Running through the political reorganisation of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was a long, intermittent struggle between France and England. Historians call it the Hundred Years' War?, although it lasted closer to 116–123 years (NCERT dates it 1338–1461). Disputes over territory in France held by English kings, over rights to the French crown, and over commerce in Flanders, fuelled the conflict. The war saw the rise of the longbow (English archers shattered French knights at Crécy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415), the early use of gunpowder artillery, and the tax-funded standing armies that would define the new monarchies. France was finally united under Charles VII partly through the efforts of Joan of Arc; England, after losing all its French lands except Calais, turned inward and developed its own national identity. Both kingdoms emerged from the war with stronger central monarchies and a sharpened sense of nationhood.
Figure 4.7: Major events of the Hundred Years' War. The conflict overlapped with the Black Death, peasant revolts and the rise of the new monarchies.
4.12 The Decline of Feudal Society — A Summing Up
Across the long span of this chapter — from the ninth century to the sixteenth — Europe travelled from one social order to another:
- An age of warring tribes (5th–9th centuries) gave way to feudal society built around the manor (9th–13th centuries).
- That society was anchored by three orders: those who pray, those who fight, those who work.
- Climate, technology and population changed the agricultural base and produced new towns and a "fourth" urban order.
- The Crisis of the Fourteenth Century — famines, the silver crunch, the Black Death and peasant revolts — broke the old equilibrium.
- From its ruins rose the new monarchies and the early outlines of the nation-state, with standing armies, professional bureaucracies and mass taxation.
- By the seventeenth century, the political paths of France (towards republic) and England (towards parliamentary monarchy) had begun to diverge.
📚 Chapter Summary
- After the fall of Rome, Germanic peoples settled in former imperial lands; Christianity survived and the Catholic Church became a major landholder and political power.
- Feudalism, derived from the German feud ("a piece of land"), described an order of lords, vassals, peasants and serfs centred on land control. Vassalage tied nobles to kings and peasants to nobles through public oaths of loyalty.
- French priests divided society into three orders: clergy (those who pray), nobility (those who fight), and peasantry (those who work). Hildegard of Bingen articulated the divine necessity of such inequality.
- The Catholic Church, headed by the Pope in Rome, owned vast estates, levied tithes, ran parishes and convents, organised pilgrimages and the Crusades.
- Monasteries (St Benedict's, c. 529; Cluny, 910) followed the Benedictine Rule. Friars (13th century onwards) preached in towns. By the 14th century, Langland and Chaucer were beginning to mock clerical luxury.
- Knights, granted fiefs of 1,000–2,000 acres, fought in cavalry units and lived on manors that were largely (but not entirely) self-sufficient.
- Free peasants paid rent and 40 days' military service; serfs were bound to the soil and used the lord's mill, oven and wine-press by compulsion.
- England fell to William, Duke of Normandy, in 1066. The Domesday Book mapped every manor of the new Norman kingdom.
- From the 11th century, a warming climate, heavy iron ploughs, shoulder-harnesses, horseshoes, water-mills and the three-field rotation doubled food output. Population rose from 42 million (1000 CE) to 73 million (1300 CE).
- Towns grew as a "fourth order" — guilds regulated crafts; "town air makes free" let escaped serfs become legally free after a year and a day.
- The 14th-century crisis combined a colder climate (Little Ice Age), famines (1315–17), the silver-money crunch, the Black Death (1347–50) — which killed 20–40% of Europeans — and peasant revolts (Flanders 1323, France 1358, England 1381).
- From the 15th century, the new monarchs — Louis XI in France, Henry VII in England, Isabelle and Ferdinand in Spain, Maximilian in Austria — built standing armies, permanent bureaucracies and national taxation; nobles became loyalist administrators rather than independent warlords.
- France's Estates-General fell silent between 1614 and 1789; England's Parliament executed Charles I and made monarchy conditional on its consent — laying the foundations of two very different modern political systems.
4.13 Key Terms — Glossary (20 cards)
Feudalism?
Medieval social, economic and political order built on the lord–vassal–peasant chain.
Vassalage?
The bond of homage and fealty between a lord and a free man receiving a fief.
Fief?
Land of 1,000–2,000 acres or more granted to a vassal in return for military service.
Manor?
Self-sufficient feudal estate with the lord's house, fields, mill, church and woodland.
Serf?
Unfree peasant bound to the lord's land; used the lord's mill, oven and wine-press by compulsion.
Monastery?
Religious community of monks/nuns living under vows; St Benedict (529) and Cluny (910) were models.
Crusades?
Series of religious wars (1095–1291) launched by the Pope to recapture Jerusalem.
Hildegard?
12th-century German abbess, composer, theologian and natural scientist; defended social inequality as God-willed.
Tithe?
Compulsory tenth of every farmer's harvest paid to the Church.
Guild?
Town association of craftsmen or merchants regulating quality, price and sale of goods.
Domesday Book?
William I's 1086 land survey of England — the most detailed in medieval Europe.
Black Death?
Bubonic plague pandemic of 1347–50; killed 20–40% of Europeans, ending feudal labour-bargains.
Jacquerie?
1358 French peasant uprising; named after "Jacques Bonhomme", the noble nickname for a peasant.
Hundred Years' War?
England–France conflict (1338–1461); birthed standing armies and centralised monarchies.
Abbot / Abbess?
Head of a monastery; from Syriac abba meaning "father".
Friar?
Mendicant monk (Franciscan / Dominican, 13th century) who preached in towns living on charity.
Sermon?
Religious speech delivered weekly by the priest in the parish church.
New Monarchs?
15th–16th-century absolutist rulers (Louis XI, Henry VII, Isabelle & Ferdinand) who built centralised states.
Parliament?
English assembly of Lords and Commons; ultimately limited royal taxation and law-making.
Estates-General?
French consultative assembly of the three estates; not summoned 1614–1789, when its meeting sparked the Revolution.
4.14 NCERT End-of-Chapter Exercises (with Model Answers)
ANSWER IN BRIEF
1. Describe two features of early feudal society in France.
Model Answer (≈ 100 words): Two defining features of early feudal society in France were:
(i) Vassalage and the control of land. Royal authority was exercised through a chain of personal oaths. The king granted estates (fiefs) to noble vassals, who in turn parcelled out parts of their fiefs to knights. Each vassal swore loyalty and military service to his lord on the Bible; in return the lord promised protection and justice. Symbols such as a charter, a staff or a clod of earth marked the transfer of land.
(ii) The manorial estate. The economic heart of the system was the manor — a self-sufficient unit with the lord's manor-house, a parish church, peasant cottages, fields, common pasture, woodland, watermill and oven. Almost everything required for daily life was produced within it; only salt, millstones and metalware came from outside. Peasants were obliged to work three or more days a week on the lord's land in addition to their own holdings.
2. How did long-term changes in population levels affect economy and society in Europe?
Model Answer (≈ 110 words): Europe's population grew from 42 million in 1000 CE to 73 million in 1300 CE — a result of the warm climatic phase, heavy iron-tipped ploughs, shoulder-harnesses, water-mills and the three-field rotation, which doubled food output. Better food added ten years to the average lifespan, encouraged the spread of villages, supported the rise of towns and a "fourth order" of merchants and artisans, and made possible the building of cathedrals.
After 1300, the trend reversed. Bitterly cold summers, exhausted soils, the famines of 1315–17 and especially the Black Death (1347–50) cut population to 45 million by 1400. Labour shortages doubled wages, agricultural prices fell, lords lost income, and old labour-services collapsed — paving the way for money rents, peasant revolts and the eventual decline of serfdom in western Europe.
3. Why did knights become a distinct group, and when did they decline?
Model Answer (≈ 110 words): From the ninth century onwards, frequent local wars in Europe revealed that amateur peasant-soldiers were inadequate; what was needed was good cavalry. Knights — heavily armoured horsemen — therefore emerged as a distinct group bound to lords just as lords were bound to kings. They received a fief of 1,000–2,000 acres or more, including a house, church, watermill and wine-press. In return they paid fees and fought in war. Daily training with dummies kept their fighting skills sharp.
Knights began to decline from the late fourteenth century. The Black Death thinned their ranks; massed infantry armed with longbows defeated heavily armoured cavalry at Crécy (1346) and Agincourt (1415); and in the new monarchies of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, kings replaced feudal knightly levies with professional infantry equipped with guns and siege artillery. The mounted knight became obsolete as a battlefield decisive force.
4. What was the function of medieval monasteries?
Model Answer (≈ 110 words): Medieval monasteries (abbeys) were religious communities of monks or nuns who took vows to live in seclusion, prayer, study and manual labour. Two famous examples were St Benedict's foundation in Italy (529 CE) and the abbey of Cluny in Burgundy (910 CE). Their functions were:
- Spiritual: daily round of prayer (the Benedictine Rule prescribed eight hours of prayer); pilgrimage centres; preservation of the liturgy.
- Economic: large landed estates, often pioneering in clearing forests, draining marshes and improving agriculture.
- Educational and cultural: attached schools, colleges, hospitals; copying manuscripts; developing community singing (Hildegard of Bingen).
- Charitable: caring for the sick, sheltering travellers, distributing alms.
From the 13th century, friars (Franciscans, Dominicans) chose a different model — moving from town to town preaching and living on charity, rather than staying within abbey walls.
ANSWER IN A SHORT ESSAY
5. Imagine and describe a day in the life of a craftsman in a medieval French town.
Model Answer (≈ 250 words):
I am Jean, a master cordwainer (shoemaker) of Reims, in the year 1310. I rise at the first peal of the cathedral bell, before sunrise. After a quick breakfast of bread and small beer, I open the wooden shutters of my shop, which is the ground floor of my narrow stone house facing the cobbled street. My wife Marguerite begins to spin wool by the fire while my two apprentices — bound to me for seven years — fetch leather from the back yard. Yesterday's customers' shoes lie half-finished on my workbench.
By mid-morning I have cut three pairs of soles and stitched the uppers of a fourth. The bell of the parish church calls the angelus and I pause to pray. A burgher's wife arrives wanting boots for her husband: I take her measurements with a knotted cord. Around noon, a guild messenger brings news that the heads of the guilds will meet in the guild-hall to discuss complaints about the town tax owed to the bishop, on whose land Reims stands.
In the afternoon I attend the meeting, leaving my apprentices to finish the boots. The cathedral, slowly rising stone by stone since 1211, casts its long shadow over the square. We resolve to send a deputation to the bishop. Returning at dusk, I check my apprentices' work, share a stew of pottage and onion with my family, and join other townsmen for an hour of song at the inn. Above us, candle-light illuminates the stained glass of the cathedral, where pilgrims still come and go.
6. Compare the conditions of life for a French serf and a Roman slave.
Model Answer (≈ 250 words):
Although both the French serf and the Roman slave laboured for an aristocratic master, the legal and social differences between them were profound.
Legal status. A Roman slave was a piece of property — he could be bought, sold, freed, beaten or killed at his owner's discretion, and had no legal personality. A medieval French serf was unfree but had a legal personality: he could marry, hold a tenancy, pass it on to his children, and could not be sold separately from the land he worked.
Mobility. The slave could not leave without permission, but could be taken anywhere his master went. The serf was bound to the soil of a particular manor — he could not move without the lord's consent, but the lord likewise could not casually transplant him.
Family. The slave's family had no legal protection; children of a slave woman were the master's property. The serf's family, though subject to the lord's "marriage fee" and inheritance dues, was recognised by Church and custom; serf children inherited their father's tenancy.
Religion. The Roman slave shared whatever religion his masters allowed; the serf was a baptised Christian who paid the tithe, attended Sunday mass and could appeal to the moral authority of the Church.
Productive arrangements. Slaves worked alongside the master's family, often in the household or on a latifundium; serfs farmed both their own strips and the lord's demesne for three or more days a week, plus extra duties.
Both were exploited; but the serf's bondage was tempered by Christian custom and the contractual logic of feudalism, while the Roman slave was, in law, simply a thing.
MAP WORK
Bloom: L3 Apply
On an outline map of Europe, mark and label the following locations referenced in this chapter:
- The province of Gaul / France with its main rivers and the city of Reims.
- The territory of Normandy; mark the route of William the Conqueror to England in 1066.
- England — including London and Canterbury (Chaucer's pilgrim destination).
- Italy — locate Rome (the Pope's seat) and Monte Cassino (St Benedict's monastery).
- Burgundy — locate the Abbey of Cluny (founded 910 CE).
- The line of the Black Death's spread (1347–50): from Sicily and Genoa, through France and Spain, to England, Germany and Scandinavia.
- The Holy Land (Jerusalem) — destination of the Crusades.
PROJECT WORK
Bloom: L6 Create
Choose any one of the following extended projects (1500–2000 words). Use the school library, NCERT, and online encyclopaedias; cite all sources.
- The Medieval Manor in Picture and Word. Reconstruct the physical layout, social hierarchy and yearly cycle of a manorial estate. Draw a labelled diagram (or build a model) of the manor; describe its inhabitants by order; reconstruct the agricultural calendar from January to December.
- Hildegard of Bingen — Abbess, Composer, Healer. Profile her life, her three theological works, her music and her medicine. Listen to a recording of her composition O Virga ac Diadema and describe what you hear.
- The Black Death and India. Compare the European Black Death (1347–50) with the Bombay plague of 1896–1914. How did the diseases spread? How did governments and ordinary people respond? What lessons for modern pandemic responses?
- Cathedrals of France. Choose one cathedral (Reims, Chartres, Notre-Dame de Paris). Trace its construction history, architectural innovations, stained-glass programme, and modern restoration.
- Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years' War. Reconstruct her life (1412–31), her role at the siege of Orléans, her capture and trial, and her later canonisation. What does her story reveal about the conflict and about gender in late medieval France?
Theme 4 — Master Timeline
- 481 CEClovis becomes king of the Franks.
- 496 CEClovis and the Franks convert to Christianity.
- 529 CESt Benedict founds his abbey in Italy; the Benedictine Rule.
- 800 CEPope Leo III crowns Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor.
- 840 onwardsViking raids weaken Frankish authority.
- 910 CEAbbey of Cluny founded in Burgundy.
- 1066Normans defeat Anglo-Saxons; William I conquers England.
- 1086Domesday Book — survey of every manor in England.
- 1095–1291The Crusades.
- 1098–1179Life of Hildegard of Bingen.
- 1100 onwardsCathedrals built across France.
- 1209 / 1216Foundation of the Franciscan and Dominican friars.
- 1215Magna Carta limits English royal power.
- 1300Population of Europe peaks at c. 73 million.
- 1315–17Great Famine across northern Europe.
- 1323Peasants' revolt in Flanders.
- 1338–1461Hundred Years' War between England and France.
- 1347–50Black Death — 20–40% mortality.
- 1358Jacquerie peasant revolt in France.
- 1381Peasants' Revolt in England (Wat Tyler).
- 1429Joan of Arc relieves the siege of Orléans.
- 1461–83Reign of Louis XI in France.
- 1474–1556New monarchs in Spain (Isabella, Ferdinand, Charles V).
- 1485–1547Tudor "new monarchs" in England (Henry VII, Henry VIII).
- 1614Last meeting of the French Estates-General before 1789.
- 1629–40Charles I of England rules without Parliament.
📋
Competency-Based Questions (CBQ)
Case Study: In 1485 the new Tudor king Henry VII of England, having defeated Richard III at the battle of Bosworth, dismantles the private armies of his over-mighty barons, founds a permanent royal council, and begins to fund a small standing army through new taxes voted by Parliament. Across the Channel, Louis XI of France (1461–83) destroys the autonomy of the great dukes through similar means. Both kings rule in person, surround themselves with courtiers, and rely increasingly on bankers from Italy and Germany for ready cash to pay their soldiers.
Q1. Henry VII and Louis XI are both classified by historians as:
L3 ApplyAnswer: (C) — NCERT explicitly groups Louis XI of France, Henry VII of England, Maximilian of Austria, and Isabelle and Ferdinand of Spain as "new monarchs" who began to organise standing armies, permanent bureaucracies and national taxation.
Q2. Why has royal absolutism in this period been described as "a modified form of feudalism"? (4–5 sentences)
L4 AnalyseModel Answer: The same noble class that had ruled the feudal countryside continued to dominate the new states — except now they did so as the king's loyal courtiers and administrators, not as independent vassals. Their power rested not on their fiefs but on royal patronage, salaries and offices. Yet the nobility's social predominance and many of its privileges (tax exemption, control of land, the cultural ethos of chivalry) survived. So although feudal levies were replaced by paid armies and personal vassalage by bureaucracy, the aristocratic core of the political order persisted in modified form.
Q3. Evaluate why France ended up with a republic and England with a parliamentary monarchy, given that both began the 16th century with similar "new monarchies". (5–6 sentences)
L5 EvaluateModel Answer: Both countries built strong central monarchies in the late 15th and 16th centuries, but their constitutional traditions differed sharply. England inherited an Anglo-Saxon Great Council, which by the 13th century had become the bicameral Parliament — a body that the king had to summon to grant taxes. When Charles I tried to rule without Parliament from 1629–40, that Parliament went to war, executed him in 1649 and imposed a republic. After the monarchy was restored in 1660, kings ruled only on the condition that Parliament would meet regularly. France, by contrast, had a much weaker representative tradition: the Estates-General met in 1614 and was not summoned again for 175 years; absolute monarchy under Louis XIV bypassed it entirely. When the Estates-General finally met in 1789, it produced a Revolution that abolished the monarchy and laid the foundations of the French republican tradition. Different balances between crown and assembly therefore led to different modern outcomes.
HOT Q. You are a chronicler in 1500 reflecting on the centuries since 1066. Compose (8–10 lines) a short paragraph that captures the most important changes in European society. Then explain in 3 sentences which transformations you chose to highlight and why.
L6 CreateHint: A strong paragraph would mention: the Norman conquest of England (1066) and its mapping in the Domesday Book; the rise of cathedrals after 1100; the doubling of food output through three-field rotation; the population peak of 73 million in 1300; the catastrophe of the Black Death (1347–50); peasant revolts (1358 and 1381); the Hundred Years' War (1338–1461); and the rise of the new monarchies (Louis XI, Henry VII, Isabelle & Ferdinand). Your literary choices: a balanced narrative that links demographic, agricultural, religious and political threads, avoiding triumphalism. You highlight these because together they explain how a fixed three-order society of 1066 became, by 1500, a money-and-state-based society moving towards modernity.
⚖️ Assertion–Reason Questions
Options:
(A) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A.
(B) Both A and R are true, but R is NOT the correct explanation of A.
(C) A is true, but R is false.
(D) A is false, but R is true.
(A) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A.
(B) Both A and R are true, but R is NOT the correct explanation of A.
(C) A is true, but R is false.
(D) A is false, but R is true.
Assertion (A): The new monarchs of the 15th and 16th centuries replaced feudal levies with professional infantry.
Reason (R): Guns and siege artillery had made the heavily armoured cavalry of the feudal nobility militarily obsolete.
Answer: (A) — Both true, and R is the correct explanation. NCERT explicitly notes that aristocratic resistance "crumbled in the face of the firepower of the kings" — the same theme treated more fully in Theme 3 of the textbook.
Assertion (A): The French Estates-General was not summoned between 1614 and 1789.
Reason (R): French kings did not want to share power with the three orders.
Answer: (A) — Both true, and R is the correct explanation. NCERT states this directly: after 1614, kings did not want to share power with the three estates and so simply stopped summoning the assembly for 175 years.
Assertion (A): Royal absolutism in the 16th century has been called "a modified form of feudalism".
Reason (R): The same class of nobles who had been the rulers in feudal society continued to dominate the political scene as courtiers and administrators.
Answer: (A) — Both true, and R is the correct explanation. NCERT itself uses this phrase. The aristocracy made a "tactical shift" from being opponents of the new regimes to being loyalists, securing permanent positions in the royal administrative service.
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Class 11 History — Themes in World History
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