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Chapter 14
The Renaissance in the North
14.1 The Cultural Consequences of the Reformation
Goals
Understand the circumstances that culminated in the Reformation.
Discuss the Reformation’s effects on Western culture.
Discuss the rise of Protestantism and its effects on Western culture.
Discuss the contributions of the printing press.
Discuss the Counter-Reformation’s effects on Western culture.
The political and cultural life of northern Europe was profoundly changed by the
Reformation. After centuries of domination by the Church of Rome, many northern
countries gradually switched to one of the various forms of Protestantism, whose ideas
and teachings were rapidly spread by the use of the newly invented printing press. The
consequences of this division did much to shape modern Europe, while the success of the
Reformation movement directly stimulated the Counter-Reformation of the 17th century.
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14.2 Printing and Literature
Goals
Discuss the growth of literacy and its effects in Europe.
Discuss the contributions of representative works by authors of the period.
Discuss the contributions of scientists of the period.
The growth of literacy both north and south of the Alps made possible by the easy
availability of books produced a vast new reading public. Among the new literary forms
to be introduced was that of the essay, [link to glossary] first used by Montaigne. Epic
poems [link to glossary] were also popular; the works of Lodovico Ariosto and Torquato
Tasso circulated widely and were imitated by a number of writers, including Edmund
Spenser. The revival of interest in classical drama [link to glossary] produced a new and
enthusiastic audience for plays; those written by Elizabethan dramatists like Christopher
Marlowe combined high poetic and intellectual quality with popular appeal. The supreme
achievement in English literature of the time—and perhaps of all time—can be found in
the works of William Shakespeare. Furthermore, in an age when the importance of
education was emphasized, many advances in science were made and important scientific
publications appeared. They included Vesalius’ work on anatomy and Copernicus’
revolutionary astronomical theories.
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14.3 Painting in Germany: Dürer and Grünewald
Goals
Recognize and discuss characteristics of representative artists of the period.
Discuss the role of humanism in Renaissance Europe.
Discuss the changing role of patronage in the arts.
Recognize and discuss characteristics of representative musicians of the period.
Discuss music’s changing role during the Reformation.
In the visual arts the 16th century saw the spread of Italian Renaissance ideas northward.
In some cases they were carried by Italian artists like Benvenuto Cellini, who went to
work in France. Some major northern artists, like Albrecht Dürer, actually traveled to
Italy. Dürer’s art was strongly influenced by Italian theories of perspective, proportion,
and color, although he retained the strong interest in line typical of northern art. But not
all his contemporaries showed the same interest in Italian styles. Matthias Grünewald’s
paintings do not show Renaissance concerns for humanism and ideal beauty; instead,
they draw on traditional medieval German art to project the artist’s own passionate
religious beliefs, formed against the background of the bitter conflict of the Peasants’
War.
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14.4 Painting in the Netherlands: Bosch and Bruegel
Goals
Recognize and discuss characteristics of representative artists of the period.
Discuss the changing role of patronage in the arts.
The two leading Netherlandish artists of the century, Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter
Bruegel the Elder, were also influenced by contemporary religious ideas. Elsewhere in
northern Europe artistic inspiration was more fitful. The only English painter of note was
the miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard, while in France the principal achievements were in the
field of architecture. Even in Germany and the Netherlands, by the end of the century the
Reformation movement’s unsympathetic attitude to the visual arts had produced a virtual
end to official patronage for religious art.
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14.5 Musical Developments in Reformation Europe
Goals
Recognize and discuss characteristics of representative musicians of the period.
Discuss music’s changing role during the Reformation.
Music was central to Reformation practice: Martin Luther himself was a hymn writer of
note. In England, after Henry VIII broke with Rome to form the Anglican Church, the
hymns devised by the new church generally followed Reformation practice by using texts
in the vernacular rather than in Latin. The music, however, retained the complexity of the
Italian style; as a result the religious works of musicians like Tallis and Byrd are among
the finest of northern Renaissance compositions.
Secular music also had a wide following throughout northern Europe, particularly as the
printing of music became increasingly common. The form of the madrigal [link to
glossary] originally devised in Italy, spread to France, Germany, the Netherlands, and
England. Many of the works of the leading composers of the day, including the French
Clement Janequin and the Flemish Heinrich Isaac, were intended for a popular audience
and dealt with romantic or military themes.
Thus the combination of new Renaissance artistic ideas and new Reformation religious
teachings roused northern Europe from its conservative traditions and stimulated a series
of vital cultural developments.
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