Renaissance

Introduction

During the late Middle Ages most of Europe was devastated by the Black Death. Nearly all of the cities of Northern Europe were destroyed or depopulated. Several Italian city-states, however, managed to survive the Black Death intact. As they began to recover economically, the people who lived in these cities decided to model their civic lives after the ancient Greeks and Romans rather than the medieval ideas of their fathers. This movement to imitate and learn from the ancients has been called the Renaissance, or “re-birth.” They were determined to bypass the authority of the Middle Ages and discover for themselves the sources of European civilization (see humanism below).

The Renaissance is often understood as anti-religious or anti-superstitious. This was not the case. Much Renaissance art was inspired by religious themes. What was different was the human or down-to-earth representation of religion. People were still very much believers in the supernatural. In fact, the outbreak of witch trials and religious persecutions followed in the wake of the Renaissance.

The Cause of the Renaissance

Although the Renaissance was an event whose origins were extremely complex, historians have identified three important trends that led to this shift in mentalities:

1) The Fall of Constantinople

The scribes of Constantinople preserved Greek ideas when Europe was in the Dark Ages. They kept the scrolls of Aristotle, Socrates, and other Classical writers in libraries. In 1453 Constantinople fell due to invasions from the Muslims. The scholars fled to Western Europe with the Greek scrolls. Most of these scrolls went to Italy. About this same time one of the most important inventions was made.

2) The invention of the printing press

In 1440 the printing press was invented which allowed these old scrolls be printed. The printing press was a powerful tool. It allowed ideas to be shared and spread rapidly. The Greek and Roman writings that came in from Constantinople were printed and spread across Europe.

3) The rise of a Middle Class in Europe

What allowed the spread of these Classical ideas was the rise of the Middle Class. These people were different from the medieval way of thinking. They begin to focus more on self-improvement, the world, and education. They educated their children and had them read the Classics. Rather than emphasis the medieval idea that man is terrible and sinful, they emphasized the idea that man was created in God’s image. This was something mankind could be proud of. The middle class became the market for classical books. The Renaissance cannot be understood without them.

Beliefs and Achievements

Humanism

The most new idea to emerge from the Renaissance was something called humanism. (This word is often misunderstood because it means something very different today.) To understand this word it is important to remember the medieval view of man. The late medieval world was not a happy place. The Hundred Years War caused death, starvation and famine. The Black Death killed millions and was seen as a judgment from God. As a result, many medieval people believed this world was a painful and difficult existence full of suffering and endless toil. Man was a sinful and terrible creature; he should reject the world and wait for a better life in heaven.

The humanists of the Renaissance thought this was a bad idea. They wanted to find models to imitate that were more respectful and appreciative of human nature. They rejected the teachings about man handed down to them from the Middle Ages and found better teachings in the Greeks and Romans. Many came to believe that the information handed down through the Middle Ages had become corrupted; to get rid of this corruption they had to go to the sources themselves. Thus humanism was an educational program to discover the uncorrupted sources of European civilization (Classical Greece and Rome) in order to create an understanding of the world that gave man his deserved respect.

This is best illustrated in two famous Renaissance Humanists:

1) Lorenzo Valla

For centuries the Pope had political authority over the Papal states of Italy because Constantine (a Roman Emperor) had given his authority to the pope in the 4^th century AD. The document that recorded this was called the “Donation of Constantine.” An Italian humanist named Lorenzo Valla began to study this document historically. He found it was full of words that relate to feudalism (words like fief, vassal, etc.) when feudalism did not emerge until another 400 years in the 8^th century. This would be like finding a letter that was supposed to have been written in 1850 that talked about email and the internet. By returning to the original sources and studying them, Valla discovered a medieval corruption. The document that claimed the Pope had authority over secular leaders was a fake.

2) Erasmus

Erasmus discovered that the words in the Catholic bible that support the idea of the Trinity (that God is three) was not in the earliest copies of the Bible. He argued that the Catholic Church had added them after a famous Church Council to support the beliefs they had decided on. Once again, by returning to the original sources a medieval corruption was discovered.

Renaissance Art

Medieval art was flat and dark. Renaissance painters used mathematic and rational rules of perspective to create the illusion of depth. There was a desire to paint more realistically. Leonardo da Vinci thought the best way to paint was to observe the material world. He would dissect dead human bodies in order to learn how to paint them better.

Renaissance Writers and Literature

Because Renaissance writers were writing for the Middle Class, they wrote in the vernacular, or common language. This is one of the biggest differences between Renaissance and Medieval literature. Some famous writers were:

Petrarch the "Father of Humanism." His ideas were far ahead of his time. He was the first to write in the humanists way.

Boccocccio was known for his book "The Decameron." It was written in Italian. The story takes place in during the Dark Ages during the Black Death.

Dante was famous for "The Divine Comedy." It is basically a tour of the afterlife. When touring hell, the main character wants to see who is in the lowest part of hell that is reserved only for the worst sinners. There were only 2 people there: Brutus (betrayed classical civilization) and Judas (betrayed Christianity). This shows that Renaissance thinkers valued Classical culture and Christianity.

Shakespeare proved that the English language could be used for beautiful works of literature (before Shakespeare English was considered a barbaric language.)

Machiavelli wrote The Prince. This work argues that honest people don’t make the best rulers. The most successful rulers are those who do whatever needs to be done, regardless of whether its right or wrong.

The Reformation

Origin

When the humanism of the Renaissance spread to northern Europe it combined with Christianity to form Christian humanism. Remember that humanists distrusted the traditions handed down to them from the Middle Ages and wanted to examine the sources directly for themselves. It was in this spirit of Christian humanism that Martin Luther called into question the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church and went to the original source (the Bible) to see where he thought the Church went wrong.

In the early 1500s most all Catholics recognized the need to reform the Church. Many bishops got rich off of their people. It was not uncommon for priests to kept concubines around. Priests were exempt from taxes. People resented this the most when there were famines. And if a clergy committed a crime they did not have to go to a secular court but a church court in which punishments were not harsh at all. The Church routinely used the power of excommunication to threaten people. There was a push or urge for a reform in the Roman Catholic Church and there was an intense desire amongst the people for a reform.

Martin Luther

The Reformation began when Martin Luther protested the sale of indulgences by the Roman Catholic Church. He wrote his 95 Theses mainly to protest them. People who followed Luther were called “Protestants” because they protested the Roman Catholic Church. When Luther would not change his mind the Pope reacted by excommunicating him.

Luther had several beliefs that were different from Catholics

1) he believed the Bible was the Christian’s only source of authority

2) he believed a person was saved by faith, not by the sacraments

3) he believed that each Christian was his own priest and could pray directly to God

One important follower of Luther was John Calvin. Calvin believed that God chose all the people who would go to heaven long before anyone was ever born. This belief is called predestination.

The Catholic Church believed Luther was wrong. They argued that if any Christian can interpret the Bible anyway he wanted to, Christianity would constantly split up into many groups who do not see the Bible in the same way. They were right.

In the 1520 a group of peasants revolted against their lords in the name of Luther. They claimed that since he said all are equal before God we must also be equal before men. Luther denounced the revolt and urged government leaders to put it down at any cost. 100,000 of them died. This shows that Luther did not want his ideas to bring any major change to society or politics.

One group of Protestants was furious at how the peasants were treated. Because they believed than only adults should get baptized they were called Anabaptists. They baptized adults (not infants. Another important distinction about the Anabaptist was their distrust of government. After seeing Luther side with the German princes in the peasant revolt, they began to advocate a separation of government from religion. Their modern descendants remain very suspicious of government.

The Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation

In order to deal with the reformation and reform itself, the Roman Catholic Church called a meeting called the Council of Trent. They made some important decisions for the future of the Roman Catholic Church:

1) they decided that the Bible AND the Church were the believer’s authority

2) they decided that faith AND works were needed for salvation

3) they reformed the church and ended a great deal of corruption

4) they decided that indulgences could no longer be sold (only given)

Catholics also began the Counter-Reformation to resist the spread of Protestantism. They did several things:

1) they created the inquisition to stop heresy

2) they created the Index, a list of forbidden books

3) they created the Jesuits, a group of priest to take the Catholic religion to the New World

Effects of the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment

All of the movements invoked changes in popular mentality that affected political organization. The Northern Renaissance attacked the authority of the church and allowed the state to control the church, increased interest in pomp and ceremony, and produced greater interest in military conquest and exploration. The Reformation included a concept of shared authority; thus Protestant regions were less likely to develop absolute monarchies and tended to form parliamentary governments. The success of the Reformation allowed Protestant rulers break free from the power of the Church and to seize control of the Church’s possessions. In censorship of the Church did not apply to Protestant countries; hence Newton could practice science and publish his opinions without the obstacles faced by Galileo. The Enlightenment implied the ability of the state to intervene to benefit all citizens; it contributed the concept of progress and improvement. In politics it led to enlightened despotism, particularly in Eastern Europe where Prussia and Austria-Hungary sponsored state reforms. It also coincided with the development of more centralized governments with more all‑encompassing powers.

This period saw important economic effects as well. Initially, kings sponsored voyages of exploration but soon private investors began to form joint-stock companies to pull resources together. They split the risk and divided the profits. Because private money was at stake, these enterprises were conducted in a much more efficient way; wasteful practices were streamlined, profits rose. Individuals who invested gained at the expense of others who simply possessed property. The bourgeoisie was rising in influence and wealth while the power of aristocracies was challenged. It is not surprising that during this period the English and the Dutch (Protestant and capitalistic economies) jumped ahead of the Spanish and Portuguese (Catholic with command economies) in the colonization of the New World.