RENAISSANCE Made possible by recovery of trade and commerce after the chaos of Late Middle Ages...
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Transcript of RENAISSANCE Made possible by recovery of trade and commerce after the chaos of Late Middle Ages...
RENAISSANCE
• Made possible by recovery of trade and commerce after the chaos of Late Middle Ages
• Began roughly around 1400 AD, first in northern Italy and then gradually throughout the rest of Western Europe
• Means “rebirth”• Revival of wisdom and achievements of ancient Rome• Saw Middle Ages as a bleak period of ignorance and
superstition, presided over by a Church which stifled creativity and freedom of expression – “Dark Ages”
• Looked to Ancient World for inspiration• Humanism – emphasis in art and philosophy on man
and his aspirations, thoughts, desires, and achievements
HUMANISM• Niccolo Machiavelli• Fused knowledge of ancient Rome
with his practical experience as diplomat from Florence
• Wrote The Prince –advice book for rulers
• Moral and religious considerations of “right” and “wrong” had no place in politics
• All that counted was whether an action benefited a ruler and his state
• Ends justified the means• Brutally realistic but good example
of humanistic emphasis on man
RENAISSANCE ART• Derivative in some ways
(architects merely copied Roman styles)
• Truly original in painting.• Why?• Desire to be realistic, to recreate
on canvas what the eye actually saw
• Developed new techniques to accomplish this– Preliminary sketches– Attention to shadow and light– Attention to pose, costume,
and setting– Perspective– Anatomically accurate figure
drawing
RENAISSANCE WRITERS• Vernacular literature (writing in a
spoken language instead of Latin)– New literary forms– New stylistic devices– Growth of national literatures
• William Shakespeare– Greatest national writer– Author of sonnets– Author of numerous plays
• Midsummer’s Night Dream• Hamlet• Romeo and Juliet• MacBeth
RENAISSANCE RULERS
• Continued process of creating strong centralized states
• Effective because of their ruthlessness
• Provided Machiavelli with his model
• FRANCE– Louis XI– Francis I
RENAISSANCE RULERSENGLAND
• War of the Roses
• Henry VII founds Tudor Dynasty
• Henry VII – destroys power of the Catholic Church
• Elizabeth I – destroys power of the nobility
RENAISSANCE RULERSSPAIN
• Ferdinand of Aragon marries Isabella of Castille
• Together they drive out the Moslems to create unified Christian kingdom of Spain
• Grandson Charles V• Great grandson Philip II• Spain becomes greatest
power in Europe (thanks mainly to treasure from New World)
REFORMATION
• Upheaval in Christian Church– Produced powerful new
religious ideas– Created a number of
new Christian denominations (Protestants)
– Sparked Catholic Counter-Reformation
– Unleashed wave of terrible religious wars
– Europe’s last great age of faith
PROBLEMS WITH THE CHURCH
– Had become corrupt, distracted from original mission and influenced by humanistic ideas
– Popes more concerned with art, literature, politics, and luxury than religion
– Alexander VI – Borgia pope with illegitimate children, mistresses. Engaged in military campaigns and murders.
ABUSES
– Simony (selling church offices)
– Pluralism (holding more than one church office at a time)
– Clerical immorality
– Clerical ignorance
RELIGIOUS DISSENT
– Abuses strongly contrasted with traditional image of the Church
– Jan Hus of Bohemia and John Wycliffe of England both protested abuses within the Church and paid for their dissent with their lives
MARTIN LUTHER I• 1483-1546 Born into middle-
class family• Supposed to go to law school
but defied father and went to seminary to become monk
• Suffered from intense personal religious crisis– Personal salvation– Church taught that faith in
Jesus plus good works earned salvation
– Luther performed good works but did not feel he was saved
MARTIN LUTHER II• Became professor of theology at
University of Wittenburg• Bothered by sale of indulgences
– Permission not to do penance for forgiveness of sins
– Pieces of paper sold by Church
– People believed they could buy their way into Heaven
• Hit on new doctrine of salvation while preparing a lecture on epistles of St. Paul– A person is saved by faith in
Jesus alone
LUTHER GOES PUBLIC• Posted “95 Theses” on door of
local cathedral to start debate on issue of indulgences
• Church won’t debate and forces Luther to take increasingly extreme positions– Pope had no power over
Christians– He was a fraud
• Excommunicated in 1520• Condemned by Diet of Worms
– Held by Charles V– “Here I stand. I cannot do
otherwise”– Declared “outlaw of the Empire”
ATTRACTIONS OF LUTHERANISM
• Ordinary people found comfort in his religious message
• Rulers often had political and economic motives– Opportunity to seize wealth of
Catholic Church– Way to oppose centralizing
policies of Charles V
• Spread throughout northern Germany and Scandinavia
HENRY VIII AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
• Motivated by personal and political reasons– Wanted to divorce Catherine of
Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn– Pope refused
• Pulled England out of Catholic Church in 1534 and created Church of England
• Kept most traditional Catholic practices and doctrines– Only difference was that Church
answered to king, not pope– Opened way for gradual
“Protestantization” of England
JOHN CALVIN• French • Controlled Swiss city of Geneva• Doctrine
– Stressed overwhelming power of God and insignificance of man
– Predestination• God is all-knowing• He therefore knows everything we will do in
our life before we do it• Knew from the beginning of time whether an
individual would be saved or not• No human being deserves salvation• God, for unknown reasons, has decided ti
save some. They will be notified.• People must behave in certain way to show
gratitude for salvation
CALVINISTS
• Followers– Puritans in
England– Presbyterians in
Scotland– Huguenots in
France– Dutch Reformed
Church
COUNTER-REFORMATION
• Organized by Pope Paul III
• Established new missionary and teaching orders– Society of Jesus
(Jesuits)– Ignatius Loyola– Improve
educational and spiritual care of lay people
COUNCIL OF TRENT– 1545-1563– Ended simony and pluralism– Ended sale of indulgences– Established severe
punishments for immorality and corruption
– Established new seminaries– Reaffirmed traditional
Catholic views on theological points challenged by Protestants
• set stage for Age of Religious Wars
AGE OF RELIGIOUS WARS• Revolt of the Netherlands• Wars of Religion in France• Anglo-Spanish Naval War• Thirty Years War• All characterized by individual and
mob violence– Vandalizing, looting, and burning
churches– Ambushing people as they left
church– Street attacks– Attacks on homes and businesses– Mutilation of victims and corpses– All in the name of Christianity