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***Updated 10-11
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Unit One- The Beginning of Modern: The Renaissance- Terms and Key Questions
Part I. Maps
 Major European regions
 Bodies of water
 The Low Countries
 Peninsula of Peninsulas, including
the names of each peninsula
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Climatic regions of Europe, the key
features of each, and the two
primary reasons for Europe’s
moderate climate
Political boundaries
Part II. The Middle Ages: Chapter 10 and Our Pedestal Lecture
Key Terms/People
Major Historical Eras- pre-history, classical/antiquity, medieval, modern  the event that
divided the 2nd and 3rd eras
Feudalism - manor system, serf, provincialism, patronage/deference, chivalry
Religious Terms- secular, monasteries/monasticism, pagan
People to know- Ptolemy, Joan of Arc, Aristotle
Other- sovereignty, burghers/bourgeoisie, vernacular, primogenitor
Key Questions/Issues
 Converting centuries to years and vice versa…
 What is feudalism? How and why did it become the dominant social and economic
system in Europe? What does it tell us about where the majority of people lived during
the Middle Ages (rural v urban)? Did Feudalism go along with a rise or fall in European
trade in general?
 What was the Great Chain of Being? What does it tell us about medieval Europeans?
What were the three broad social classes under this system? How did the nobles
originally gain their positions at the top? What was the basic structure, or hierarchy, of
the Great Chain of Being? To which ancients is the Great Chain connected? Why don’t
burghers (aka the bourgeoisie) fit neatly into this chain? How does the Shakespearean
passage from Troilus and Cressida explain the appropriateness of a chain as the key
metaphor?
 Why did the masses accept the chain?
 What is sovereignty? What does the existence of both secular and religious courts in each
area tell us about sovereignty? Who acted as the secular judge and jury under the feudal
system?
 What were guilds?
 What religion was Europe in 1500? What are the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox
churches? Understand the Roman Catholic Church’s role as both the unifying and chief
secular power prior to the Renaissance.
 What was special/notable about France and Britain when compared to the rest of Europe
in the year 1500 AD? How is this connected to the 100 Years’ War?
 What was the primary model and source of knowledge for medieval Europeans? (in
other words, what was scholasticism)
 Why was the Great Chain of Being (or the medieval world view) under strain in the 15th
century? There are several reasons, including:
- the Babylonian Captivity/Great Schism
- the Hundred Years’ War
- the Black Death
- merchants and towns
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The combatants and their aims during the Hundred Years’ War; Joan of Arc, and both
short term and long term results of the war.
What existed in Europe in place of our system of nationalism? Know the basic fact
royalty from different countries were often family relations.
What is PERSIA(M) and why is it important? Be able to deconstruct PERSIA(M) in the
year 1500 (in the parts of the world as yet untouched by the Renaissance!)
Part III. The Renaissance: Chapter 13 and Class Lectures
Key Terms/People
 People: Savonarola, Petrarch, Pico della Mirandola – Oration on the Dignity of Man, the
Medicis, the Sforzas, , Cesare Borgia, Charles VIII (France), Bruni, Valla On Pleasure
and On the False Donation of Constantine, Machiavelli, da Vinci, Michelangelo, More,
Erasmus, Rebelais, Phillip II, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain
 Books: Machiavelli’s The Prince, Castiglione’s The Courtier, Boccaccio The
Decameron, Thomas More’s Utopia
 Terms: Humanism, Renaissance, 4th crusade (to Constantinople), merchant marine,
Ciompi revolts, urban nobility, popolo, signori/despots, guilds, secular,
patrons/patronage, Papal States, Habsburg-Valois Wars, Dark Ages, individualism, the
High Renaissance, the international (artistic) style, Machiavellian, Christian Humanism,
satire, New Monarchs/Renaissance Princes, Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges and the later
Concordat of Bologna (both French), ‘1st Among Equals’, the War of the Roses, the
Royal Council (England), Court of the Star Chamber, Cortes (Spanish), hermandades,
reconquista, religious pluralism, inquisition,
 Types of Government: Oligarchies, Republics, Despots, Empire, Communes,
Key Questions/Issues
 Which two centuries were the heart of the Renaissance- (hint- quattrocento and
cinqucento)
 What was the most significant pre-condition for the sparking of the Renaissance?
 What were the key advances in Northern Italian ship-building?
 What Italian city state was the birthplace of the Renaissance? Why this one?
 How did the Italian city-states break free from Feudalism? In what ways did the
economies in Northern Italy began to escape the economic patterns of the Middle Ages?
Why were rural nobles drawn to the city states?
 What were the three basic stages in the political evolution of the Italian city-states of the
early Renaissance? Why were the populo unable to maintain their rule? Why did the
signori maintain a ‘façade of republican government’?
 What was the importance of the princely courts in Renaissance Italy?
 What does Cesare Borgia’s life tell us about Renaissance era popes?
 What does Savonarola’s brief rise to power in Florence tell us about societal friction in
Renaissance Italy?
 What is a ‘balance of power’ and why was a balance of power pursued by the Italian citystates during the early Renaissance? How are ambassadors connected to this idea? What
were the short term and long term consequences of the balance of power policy?
 Who fought who in the Habsburg-Valois Wars and what were they fighting for? What
was the impact of these wars on the Italian Renaissance?
 How did new Renaissance thinkers view the time period between the Fall of Rome and
their own?
 What are the central intellectual hallmarks/themes of the Renaissance? How were these
themes manifested in the attitude towards artists and in the styles of art itself? (think
portraiture, realism (Giotto), nudes (Donatello, Michelangelo), perspective (Brunelleschi
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and Francesca), and an awareness of the inner psychology of the subjects), the decision of
artists to sign their paintings, and the status of the artist.
How did the Renaissance challenge scholasticism?
Be aware that the artistic explosion of the Renaissance was experienced mainly by the
elites, not the common person.
What and where was the ‘High Renaissance’? What individuals are mainly associated
with it?
What are the connections between Renaissance art and political power of patrons? Know
that the early patronage of corporate groups (guilds) were replaced in the later
Renaissance by individual patrons (often oligarchs). Understand that the increasing
wealth of the Italian city states contributed to the growth of consumerism generally.
Know the connection between the private chapel of the wealthy and the increased degree
of religious power centered ‘in private hands’.
What is the basic message of The Courtier? How did his message impact the status of
women in the Renaissance?
What is the central message of Machiavelli’s The Prince? How is his central message tied
to Renaissance themes? What was Machiavelli’s basic view of human nature? How is
The Prince distinct from earlier political works?
Social change during the Renaissance: What was the importance of the printing press and
the clock? How did Europeans improve on the basic Chinese form of printing? How did
the role of women (noble and commoner) change? Did they ‘have a Renaissance’? Does
it seem as if homosexuality was common or rare? What was the basic situation of blacks
in Europe (both before and after the 15c when the Renaissance started)?
What are the central differences between the Italian and the Northern Renaissance? How
are these differences highlighted by the ideas of Thomas More (Utopia) and Erasmus’
religious teachings?
In Utopia, what does More see as the basis of all evil? How is society to blame? What,
then, was the solution? Why are these ideals so radical?
What was Erasmus’ central life’s work? How is this reflected in his most important
publication? What was so important to Erasmus about education and about Christ’s life
itself (see- the Sermon on the Mount) as opposed to the writings about his life??
How were Rebelais’ attacks on society both different from and similar to Erasmus’ and
More’s?
What painting techniques were pioneered in the northern European states of the Northern
Renaissance?
What goals and techniques did the leaders of France, Spain, and England share in the
period after the Hundred Years’ War? Think- weakening nobles, weakening or
negotiating with the Pope, permanent armies, and the acquisition of territory through
marriage and conquest. What limits to their power existed during and prior to the HYW?
Why was their a natural alliance between the New Monarchs and townspeople (aka the
middle class)?
How did the Tudors (the English monarchs) avoid reliance on Parliament?
In what sense is it clear that Spain lacked the early nationalism developing in France and
England? Understand the form of the valuable alliance the Spanish kings forged with the
Pope? What were the reconquista and the inquisition? Who was targeted? What formerly
valuable role had Jews played in Spain? How could it be argued that the inquisition was
political rather than religious?
Understand how the struggle over the place of the ‘New Christians’ in Spain lay a
foundation for the later rise of more general and widespread racism in Europe.
What vast land holdings did Charles V inherit upon his ascension to the throne? How had
such disparate land been united?