Absolute monarchs are seen by historians as the ultimate cause of political revolutions around the world. Their unbridled power gave them the ability to oppress people and suppress any voices that criticized the monarchy. Enlightenment philosophers viewed their government as unjust and dutifully advocated for change. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Questioning authority began during the dark ages. A great decline in all aspects of life and a virtual isolation of Europe from the rest of the world were the result of the fall of the Roman Empire. From this time the church controlled the state but no changes occurred until the bubonic plague. The bubonic plague killed a third of Europe's population, but this great death was ultimately what brought Europe out of the Dark Ages. The bubonic plague had major socioeconomic consequences, cultural changes, increased social mobility, and the decline of the nobility. However, the plague also had profound religious consequences; people believed that the plague was a punishment, many monks and priests died and this led to a shortage. This shortage led the church to hastily train monks and priests to serve the spiritual needs of the church and its people, but this led to unsuitable people becoming clerics, which in turn led to a decline in quality among these clerics and to a corrupt church that quickly lost the trust of its people. The plague also changed the view of the world. Once people thought the world was fixed and ordered by God, now people were unwilling to accept the status quo. This was crucial at the beginning of the Renaissance. The Renaissance was not only a rebirth of European intelligence and culture, but a vibrant birth of logic and reason above blind faith. People who once uncritically accepted what they were told no longer explicitly accepted it. Humanism began in this period; rather than focusing on divine entities, humanists focused on the wonders of man and self-discovery. This era also brought with it greater questioning of government and authority. Books such as The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli were even considered a direct threat to Roman Catholic authority due to its political positions and were banned. The Scientific Revolution also caused a surge in the use of logic and reason, as well as major mathematical and scientific discoveries. Galileo Galilei understood the essence of the scientific revolution. He challenged the unfounded geocentric model of the Church Earth with a heliocentric one supported by mathematical proof. This discovery and the long "battle" between the church, the church's believers, Galileo and his believers, ended with Galileo's arrest, but people continued to question and challenge the Church. Due to the reorientation of ideas and philosophy, questioning oppressive authorities and new perspectives, enlightenment began. Philosophers such as John Locke and Voltaire established the most influential ideologies of the Enlightenment that caused revolutions around the world and were instrumental in the French Revolution. John Locke's theories had a profound impact on French thinkers and the revolution. Locke believed that the goals of a government should be to protect the individuals within that government, a clean slate that went completely against the theory of divine right, and that power should be separated because if power were all concentrated in one rights are the only place,.