How could european kings amass such centralized power...

Wtf are you talking about? During the reign of Charles VI every duke was spoiling the royal arcs for themselves. The dukes of burgundy built their own state robbing the kings of France, and even allied with the english to gain territory.

That's not the point
The point is that the English kings were rather the "English" kings and that their French territories were their ancestral lands (with England being the colony) rather that conquered lands

Absolutism came about predominantly in the 17th century, with the primary absolutist states being France and Russia. Louis XIV and Peter the Great. Both had nobles forcibly submit to the rule of law, with Louis XIV personally handing out trials and punishments to marquis that abused their power. He had the nobility forcibly relocated to Versailles where they could be kept in check and in close proximity to the king. He stylized himself as truly divine, the sun king and the center of the universe.

What's important to know is that absolutism was not a one-sided stripping of power from the gentry. There was an exchange of privileges and rights. Louis XIV's reign came with a bureaucratization that had upper class men come in and assume roles as ministers, advisers, generals, etc. Peter the Great had the same done in introducing a flexible series of social strata that valued merit and allowed for class mobility.

What directly inspired these absolutist trends was a clamoring for order and stability in the wake of the iron century that was the 1600's, a period of immensely devastating war, civil strife, and general chaos. Louis XIV also had a personal stake against the nobles after a childhood incident in which rebelling nobles broke into his bed chambers and terrified him.

The reformation helped out, the church lost their power.

Development og the capital economy, the king relied om new wages and could have their own standing armies and mercenaries.

This helped a lot of states confirming dynastic monarcies instead of election.

See Louis VI of France, under the threat of a German invasion, all the vassals of kingdom came to stop it.

>DUKES of burgundy
You said it yourself, if they truely tried to undermine the kingdom they would have titled themselves "King"

So, absolutist kings simply paid off the nobles and kept them as ministers? They let go of their privileges without any revolts?

Cannons beat castles

They tried on several occassions, but to do so wasn't so easy back then. You see, the territories of the house of Valois-bourgogne extended into imperial lands, so to crown themselves as kings of Burgundy (or Lotharingia) they would need to be granted the crown by the Roman Emperor himself. Charles the bold almost succeeded in that when he betrothed his daughter to Maximilian I, but he ran away without making concessions.

Louis XIV's dad cleaned out a couple of noble rebellions before Louis could come to power, and left behind a bunch of GOAT ministers for his son to use. Louis had great ministers from childhood all the way to the end, and they were more than willing to do whatever it takes to consolidate power for the king.
Also Louis knew that a lot of the nobles were fucking retarded and only cared about having parties so he invited a bunch of nobles to come to Versailles and just party every day.

In Peter's case he began to draw the ire of his nobles toward the end of his reign, with his son and heir being implicated in a conspiracy against him and subsequently killed (not executed, expired during torture). This didn't really have much to do with the nobles desiring power as much as it had to do with their general dissatisfaction with some of Peter's decisions and policies, and following his death his ministers, the "new men", stepped up and took on more of a role in the empire alongside Catherine I. As for Louis XIV, I do believe there were actual revolts, but they were summarily crushed.

What you've got to understand is that, as mentioned before in this thread, there was a general desire for stability and internal order that presided over personal desires and potential gains. The period of 1550-1660 was damn-near apocalyptic for much of Europe. What do nobles lose in foregoing the ability to ride upon their land and fuck over peasants with impunity if it means they get to live lavishly at Versailles, surrounded by their peers and living in close proximity to Louis himself? Louis also made it so that these nobles were no longer subject to taxation, and installed reforms that VASTLY improved the amount of taxes actually collected and brought before the crown. They were all richer.

There were, however, many peasant revolts. Under absolutism things became very hard for the little guy, especially in Russia, in which they literally became property of the Tsar.

Well the truth is that relative to other places on the planet the European kings could use very little of their nations military until the 19th century. It is just that the relatively centralized monarchs had much wealthier and powerful nations to take a percentage of.
The British consistently had more wealth pulled fron society for goverment and war after the glorious revolution.

...

The French crown was arguably more undermined by vassals than the King of England. One of them was the King of England himself! A vassal more powerful than his overlord, imagine that!

By being the state.

how did anyone ever take them seriously when they looked like such complete faggots?

Seriously French aesthetics were so faggy and lame. Spaniards on the other hand, they were manly as fuck.

...

Gotem,noyce

>Spaniards on the other hand, they were manly as fuck

>beards and mustaches
>that flair
>no makeup

Chad as fuck, how can frogs even compete

Permanent national armies and mercantilism. The surging of the nation-state.

Countries now needed a central administration capable of armonizing the economy, the overseas enterprises, domestic order, support of national interests in face of other powers, etc. There was a need of integration and accumulation of power in one single structure with various branches but ultimately governed by what would become to be known as 'the state'.

In the case of France the architects of the French State were Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarino. The territorial nobility was cucked. Some opted for joining the structures of the States in some manner, others revolted in what was known 'La Fronde des Princes' led by the Condé, Duke d'Enghien, and were eventually defeated and pardoned by the king.

How can gabachos even compete, Spaniards are SOOO manly...