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The Renaissance
(1300 –1500)
The Renaissance provides an overview of the years from the Late
Middle Ages through the Renaissance. Special emphasis is given to the
natural and political disasters that ravaged 14th century Europe, as well
as the unprecedented intellectual, cultural, and artistic flourishing of
the 15th and 16th centuries. The Black Death, The Hundred Years’ War,
the invention of the printing press, the birth of humanism, and the life
of Leonardo da Vinci are among the dramatic events vividly documented
in this richly illustrated text. Challenging map exercises and provocative
review questions encourage meaningful reflection and historical analysis.
Tests and answer keys included.
MP3398 The Renaissance
Written by: Tim McNeese
Illustrated by: Joan Waites
Page Layout & Editing: Lisa Marty
Cover Design: Jon Davis
Managing Editor: Kathleen Hilmes
Cover Art: Detail from the Mona Lisa
Leonardo da Vinci
Copyright © 1999
Milliken Publishing Company
11643 Lilburn Park Drive
St. Louis, MO 63146
www.millikenpub.com
Printed in the USA. All rights reserved.
Permission to reproduce pages extends only to teacher-purchaser for individual classroom use,
not to exceed in any event more than one copy per pupil in a course. The reproduction of any
part for an entire school or school system or for commercial use is strictly prohibited.
Table of Contents
The Later Middle Ages ....................................................................................1
The Black Death, Part I ....................................................................................2
The Black Death, Part II ..................................................................................3
Map of the Black Death....................................................................................4
Impact of the Black Death................................................................................5
New Trials for the Church ................................................................................6
The Hundred Years’ War ..................................................................................7
The Hundred Years’ War Continues ................................................................8
Challenges to England’s Kings ........................................................................9
France in the Later Middle Ages ....................................................................10
Ferdinand and Isabella Unite Spain................................................................11
15th-Century Eastern Europe ........................................................................12
Map of 15th-Century Europe..........................................................................13
Test I (Worksheets 1–13) ................................................................................14
The Early Renaissance....................................................................................15
The Italian City-States ....................................................................................16
Life in Renaissance Florence..........................................................................17
The Birth of Humanism..................................................................................18
The Prince and The Courtier ..........................................................................19
The World of Leonardo Da Vinci ..................................................................20
Italian Renaissance Art, Part I ........................................................................21
Renaissance Map of Italy ..............................................................................22
Italian Renaissance Art, Part II ......................................................................23
The Northern Renaissance..............................................................................24
Home Life During the Renaissance................................................................25
The Printing Press ..........................................................................................26
Europe Discovers the World ..........................................................................27
Test II (Worksheets 15–27) ............................................................................28
Answer Key ..............................................................................................29-30
© Milliken Publishing Company
i
MP3398
The Later Middle Ages
By 1300, the High Middle Ages was coming to
an end. For 200 years, Europeans experienced
much change and progress. Agricultural expansion
made food more abundant and allowed for more
trade, both within Europe and the Orient. Warm
weather patterns frequently insured good harvests
of grains and vegetables.
The population expanded, and new towns and
cities dotted the landscape from England to
Poland. Great Gothic cathedrals were constructed,
as well as universities and schools of higher
learning. Wars were kept to a minimum. It was a
time of peace, security, and an expanding economy.
Even the peasants experienced the best of
times. With the expanding economy of the High
Middle Ages, many peasants were able to buy their
freedom from their lords, and become landowners
themselves. In France, King Louis X freed all the
serfs (after they paid him for the right first).
But a storm was gathering over Europe with
the coming of the new century. The 14th century
would soon usher in 150 years of problems and
peril, plagues and peace-breaking. Until about
1450, Europe—especially western Europe—
suffered from increasing economic depression.
This downturn was aggravated by widespread
financial chaos, wars of rivalry, revolution,
peasant riots, international rivalries with the
Church, famines, and, perhaps worst of all, a series
of disastrous plagues. Often called the Black
Death, these plagues brought about the deaths of
one-fourth to one-third of the population of
medieval Europe.
What caused this 180 degree turnaround in
Europe? Why did the prosperity and security of
one age suddenly give way to an age of
destruction, dismay, disease, and death? There are
many reasons.
To begin, Europe’s population had increased
rapidly and dramatically. With more people,
available farmland was divided between the
knights and the peasants into inevitably smaller
and smaller holdings. This left many landowners
without enough land to support themselves and
depleted crop surpluses for trade.
This trade restriction was made worse later in
© Milliken Publishing Company
the 1300s when, in the Far East, the Chinese experienced an imperial collapse, bringing new leaders
into power under the Ming Dynasty. These
powerful rulers did not trust foreigners, and they
closed many trade doors to the Europeans. Any
future trade with the Orient was controlled by
Moslem middlemen in Egypt and the Near East,
who charged the Europeans extremely high prices
for Eastern goods.
To make things worse, the European climate
began to turn colder around 1300. Glaciers in the
mountains and in the north advanced across farm
land. Thousands of northern European villages
were abandoned, unable to sustain themselves.
Such bad weather patterns brought on repeated
droughts, resulting in serious crop failures.
Between 1302 and 1348, poor harvests occurred
during 20 seasons. This, in turn, caused famines.
In the famine of 1315–1317, tens of thousands
died. France faced destructive famines in 1351,
1359, and 1418. (According to legend, 100,000
people died during the 1418 famine in Paris
alone.) Desperate for food, people ate cats, dogs,
even rats.
All these natural and international disasters
wrecked life for many in Europe. Wars of competition over natural resources developed. The peasants—caught in the economic squeeze and starving
to death—brought about revolts, demanding higher
wages and greater security from roaming bands of
soldiers, knights, and drifters who looted, burned,
and raped their way across the sorrowful
landscape.
Despite all these problems, the great scourge of
the period was the Black Death.
Review and Write
1. Identify some of the positive aspects of life
during the High Middle Ages.
2. Describe some of the negative aspects of life
during the Later Middle Ages.
1
MP3398
The Black Death, Part I
In October 1347, the people of Messina, a port
on the northeastern shores of the Mediterranean
island of Sicily, experienced an unforgettable sight.
A convoy of a dozen Italian trading ships sailed
into the harbor with dead and dying men at the oars.
Those still barely alive had a hideous look about
them. Black, egg-sized lumps, oozing blood and pus,
formed in the armpits and groins of afflicted men.
Boils and blackened spots dotted their bodies.
Everything about them smelled foul: their wounds,
their blood, their sweat, even their breath.
An eyewitness to these wretched men wrote the
following:
Lymph infections caused blood hemorrhages,
turning the skin black, including the tongue (hence
the name Black Death). Some forms of the disease
infected the throat and lungs. Such victims coughed
up blackened blood and gave off a foul smell. Pain
was intense and death came swiftly, typically within
three days or less.
Even before the arrival of the Genoese ships in
Messina, Europeans had heard of a great plague in
the East. Beginning probably in China, it spread to
central Asia, then to India and Persia. By 1346 it
made its way to Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor
(modern Turkey).
Trading ships unknowingly helped spread the
disease, as did land trade caravans. Others, too,
spread the plague. Central Asian warrior nomads,
called tatars, invaded Europe in 1346, bringing the
disease with them.
One such band of warriors, while laying siege to
the city gates of the port of Caffa on the Russian
Crimean Sea, fell victim to the Black Death. Rather
than retreat, they loaded their catapults with the
putrid corpses of dead comrades, and flung them into
the city, spreading the disease among their enemies.
In their bones they bore so virulent [strong] a
disease that anyone who only spoke to them was
seized by a mortal illness and in no manner could
evade [avoid] death.
City officials, fearful of the spread of the disease,
tried to keep these death ships out of Messina, but it
was too late. Frightened Messinans fled their city to
escape the disease. However, they only managed to
spread the illness further and faster. By early 1348, it
had found its way to mainland Italy and France.
The great plague, soon to be called the Black
Death, arrived on the shores of Europe and soon
spread to nearly every corner of the Continent.
What was this dreadful disease and how was it
spread? Often called the bubonic plague, it was
caused by bacteria which developed in the blood of a
certain type of flea. The bacillus caused the flea’s
stomach to block, making it unable to take in food
properly.
Such fleas were frequently found on black rats.
The fleas bit the rats by inserting a pricker into the
host’s skin to feed on its blood. With an infected
flea’s stomach blocked, it would regurgitate the rat’s
blood along with the plague bacteria. A bite from an
infected rat or flea could then pass the infection to a
human.
Once contracted, the disease was almost always
fatal. The bacteria could infect the bloodstream and
settle in the lymph glands, causing large lumps,
called buboes, on the skin.
© Milliken Publishing Company
2
MP3398
The Black Death, Part II
Once the bubonic plague landed on the island of
Sicily in October of 1347, it spread quickly
throughout the European continent. With no
understanding of disease, germs, or bacteria,
medieval people did not know how to begin
fighting the disease.
The Black Death was, by its nature, a disease
which spread rapidly. By January of 1348, it had
spread to France, landing first in the Mediterranean
port city of Marseilles. Within the next six months,
it made its deadly way into eastern Spain, all of
Italy, the southern reaches of Eastern Europe, and
across the hills and valleys of France
as far as Paris.
Before year’s end, it
had traveled across the
English Channel to
the British Isles. The
next year—1349—
brought the infection
to nearly all of England,
Ireland, Scotland,
modern Belgium, the
German states, and the
Scandinavian countries. The great cities of
Europe—London, Paris, Rome, Florence, Pisa,
Frankfurt, Cologne, Ghent—were all centers of the
Black Death. In 1349, Paris reported 800 deaths
daily, Vienna 600, and Pisa 500. In some cities, as
much as 80% of the population died.
As the plague advanced, frightened people tried
to flee ahead of it, often carrying the disease with
them to the next town, port, or village.
People stayed to themselves, refusing to come
in contact with outsiders, even their own servants.
Family members abandoned one another, leaving
the dying miserable and alone.
Remote farms were not necessarily safe; sheep
and hogs contracted the disease, just as rats did,
spreading it to their masters.
Life everywhere changed dramatically in the
face of this powerful killer. It was the speed of the
disease which caused its potency. The plague
consumed its victims so quickly that a person might
go to bed feeling well and die in his or her sleep.
Doctors called to tend to the sick sometimes caught
© Milliken Publishing Company
the plague and died ahead of their patients. Present
at the bedside of the suffering to provide last rites,
priests died in great numbers
In the southern French city of Avignon, specific
death numbers were recorded. In one three-day
period, 1500 people died in the city. Many Roman
Catholic clergymen were counted among the dead,
including five cardinals, 100 bishops, and 358
Dominican friars. A single Avignon graveyard
received 11,000 corpses.
The threat of the Black Death nearly drove
some people to the brink of insanity. This dreaded
disease, which could strike at any
moment without warning,
caused some panicky
souls to gather in church
graveyards where they
sang and danced
wildly, hoping to
drive away the evil spirits
which had brought the death
to their village or
community. Also, such
frenzied activity would
hopefully keep the dead from rising from their
burial places, so that they would not infect anyone
else with the plague. People often gathered in long
processions of dancing and singing. Sometimes
such paranoid people danced until they fell
exhausted or died of self-induced fear.
Today, historians do not have a clear estimate of
the number of people who died at the hands of the
Black Death. Tens of thousands of villages and
rural settlements disappeared, their inhabitants
killed. The populations of monasteries, abbeys, and
universities were wiped out. Across Europe, villas,
castles, and homes were abandoned.
Modern estimates place the death toll from
recurring outbreaks of the plague at 20 million,
or perhaps one out of every three persons.
Review and Write
What were some of the reasons why the Black
Death killed so many people in Europe?
3
MP3398
Map of the Black Death
The Black Death spread rapidly from Asia to
Europe. The result was widespread destruction and
death spanning the continents.
The map below shows the spread of the disease.
Dates are included to indicate the time frame for
transferring the plague from Asia.
Using the map and information given on pages 2
and 3, use the space below to write a short history
describing where the plague began and when and how
it spread from Asia to Europe. Use your interpretative
skills to determine the sequence of events.
A History of the Spread of the Black Death, 1333 to 1351
________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________
© Milliken Publishing Company
4
MP3398
The Impact of the Black Death
At first, the direct impact of the Black Death was
fear, dislocation, and death. The population of
Europe dropped from 60 million people to 40 or 35
million. A wandering traveler could enter a village or
town and find it abandoned or, worse, littered with
rotting corpses. Death was commonplace.
This pattern recurred over and over again. After
its initial run from 1348 to 1351, the plague returned
in later decades. It appeared four different times in
Spain and nine times in Italy between 1381 and
1444. England witnessed five separate outbreaks
between 1361 and 1391. The Black Death struck in
France six times between the years 1361 and 1436.
Since men and women of the Middle Ages didn't
understand how diseases spread, they manufactured
explanations to satisfy themselves. Although Jews
died from the plague like everyone else, Christians
blamed the Black Death on the Jews. They created
elaborate plots by which Jewish Europeans were
destroying Christianity by poisoning wells and other
water supplies.
Campaigns to kill Jews took place in southern
France, Spain, Poland, Austria, and Germany. Jewish
populations were massacred, burned alive, and
attacked by dogs. In more enlightened villages and
towns, city fathers protected local Jews, certain they
had nothing to do with the spread of the disease.
In many instances, the threat of the Black Death
brought out the worst in people. However, despite
the destructive and deadly impact of the plague
across Europe, there were some changes which
resulted in positive differences across the Continent.
With the threat of the plague, people farmed less,
produced fewer goods, and became generally less
enterprising. This caused the economies of whole
regions to plunge into chaos. Many basic items,
including food, grew scarce and their values rose,
causing inflation.
While this made life more difficult for most,
such scarcities were not all bad. With the deaths of
so many people, a scarcity of labor developed across
Europe. This shortage of workers caused the labors
of those still alive to be worth more.
For example, prior to the initial outbreak of the
Black Death in the mid-14th century, the normal
wage for a field worker was a penny a day. After the
© Milliken Publishing Company
plague and the deaths of tens of
thousands of worker peasants,
a grain reaper could
demand eight pennies
(or pence) a day, plus
a noon meal. A mower
could expect 12 pence daily.
Suddenly, peasant workers
had a new economic power,
many managing to escape
feudal services altogether. Large
numbers of serfs gained
freedom, becoming
landowners in
their own right.
Those who
survived the plague
were now wealthier
and bought more. (The inflation
caused by the Black Death was only temporary.)
Business flourished once again, great trading centers
were reestablished in the towns and cities, and
significant profits became the rule.
Renewed emphasis on trade and buying brought
on a new banking industry, accounting firms, and
large international trading companies. One such
group was known as the Hanseatic League. Led by
two northern cities, Lubeck and Bremen, the
Hanseatic League controlled much of the trade
between the North Seas and the Baltic, from
Scandinavia to the Germanies. By 1450, a smaller
population in Europe was enjoying a better standard
of living than the population of 1300.
Review and Write
1. How were Jewish Europeans victimized by the
Black Death?
2. How did the Black Death bring about an increase
in the wages of the average European worker?
5
MP3398
New Trials for the Church
During the 1200s A.D., the power of the
Roman Catholic Church piqued. The papacy was
recognized as the spiritual head of all European
Christians. (Christians living in the old Byzantine
Empire in Eastern Europe did not tend to recognize the pope and his authority, however.)
But, beginning in the 1300s, with the
strengthening of the monarchy in places like
France, England, and the Germanies, challenges to
the Church and the power of the papacy came
frequently. The Church faced several defeats over
a long century of turmoil and division.
The struggle between the Catholic papacy and
secular kings began during the years of Pope
Boniface VIII (1294–1303). He and the king of
France, Philip IV (known as Philip the Fair), came
to blows. When Philip attempted to tax the clergy
in France, Boniface resounded, announcing that
clergy in any state were not to pay taxes to a
secular ruler without permission from the Church.
When Philip ignored and challenged the Pope’s
authority by banning exports of money and
valuable goods from France to Italy, Boniface
came down hard, excommunicating Philip from
the sacraments in an attempt to keep him in line
and extend papal authority over all secular rulers.
Philip IV responded by dispatching soldiers to
Rome, taking Boniface prisoner and bringing him
back to France to stand trial. Since Boniface was
an old man, the shock of imprisonment and
challenge took its toll, causing his death in 1303.
With the death of the pope, King Philip moved
swiftly to replace him. By 1305, he forced the
college of cardinals (Catholic clergymen who
select new popes) to elect a Frenchman to the
papacy named Clement V (1305–1314). Once
Clement was installed as pope, he ordered the
removal of the papacy from Rome to French soil,
settling himself and his papal office in the city of
Avignon. This new papal city was not located in
France directly, but rather in the Holy Roman
Empire along the east bank of the Rhone River.
Although not in France, Avignon was just across
the river from the territory ruled by King Philip,
and easily controlled by him.
For roughly the next 75 years, the papacy was
© Milliken Publishing Company
centered in French-controlled Avignon, not in
Rome. Historians refer to this era as the
Babylonian Captivity, the period when the papacy
existed outside of its traditional home in Rome.
During the reign of most of the popes of this
period, the papacy supported French interests.
With the papacy centered outside of Rome,
many critics questioned the popes who ruled from
Avignon. Their first loyalty appeared to be to
France and its monarchy. By 1377, Pope Gregory
XI, aware of the decline of the papacy’s
reputation, returned to Rome, where he died the
next year.
When the college of cardinals met to select a
new pope (most of the cardinals were French) the
citizens of Rome forced them to elect an Italian
pope named Urban VI (1378–1389). Five months
later, a group of French cardinals refused to
recognize Urban and elected another pope, a
Frenchman named Clement VII, who returned the
papacy back to Avignon. With two ruling popes, a
Great Schism—or division—developed.
Christians in Europe divided their loyalty
between the two popes. France, Spain, Scotland,
and southern Italy gave support to Clement.
England, Scandinavia, the Germanies, and most of
Italy recognized Urban.
The Great Schism caused many Christians to
doubt papal authority and led to great confusion. It
was not until 1417 that a church council, the
Council of Constance, rejected the split papacy
and elected Pope Martin V as the only legitimate
pope. By this time, however, the prestige of the
Church had been greatly compromised, never
again to regain the power it wielded during the
High Middle Ages.
Review and Write
1. What was the basis for the struggle between
Pope Boniface VIII and the French king,
Philip IV?
2. What damage to the Church was caused by the
Great Schism?
6
MP3398
The Hundred Years' War
While many peasants gained their freedom and
became landowners during the years of the Black
Death, the nobility, who traditionally owned the land
and its wealth, suffered. The economic crises caused
by inflation and a lack of manpower caused the
incomes of the landlords to dwindle.
Strapped for money and trained in the arts of
war, the nobles and their knights turned the 1300s
into a century of almost constant warfare, with
knights raiding and looting towns and terrorizing the
peasants, tradesmen, and merchants.
Much of the looting, raiding, and warfare was
embodied in the long series of military and political
struggles between England and France known as the
Hundred Years’ War, which actually lasted longer
than a century, beginning in 1337 and drawing to an
end in 1453.
The Hundred Years’ War was fought for
territorial control. In 1337, the French, led by King
Philip VI (1328–1350), invaded the English province
of Guienne in southwestern France. (The French
kingdom of 1337 did not yet include all the lands
which comprise modern-day France.) The English
king, Edward III (1327–1377), responded by claiming to be the rightful king of France since his mother
was the daughter of Philip IV (the Fair), who had
ruled France earlier in the century.
The actions of both kings led to a lengthy war.
After ensuring his alliance with the town of Flanders
(in modern-day northern France), King Edward III
invaded French territory with approximately 15,000
men, mostly highly mobile infantry and archers
armed with longbows.
When the war began, France was the strongest
country in Europe, its population outnumbering the
English three to one. France’s strength in numbers,
wealth, and allies won out over the long run of the
Hundred Years’ War. But the English won several
decisive battles early in the war, primarily because
of their effective use of the longbow.
The longbow, compared to the more traditional
crossbow of the period, was a superior weapon. Five
to six feet in length, it was carried by a common
archer. The bow string was pulled back to the ear
(the crossbow was aimed like a gun) and, when let
loose, had an effective range of 250 yards. Such an
© Milliken Publishing Company
arrow could penetrate two sets of chain-mail armor
or a well-seasoned, thick oak board. It could also be
shot five times faster than the crossbow.
For the first 80 years of the Hundred Years’ War,
the English armies won most of the significant battles.
Using superior military tactics and well-disciplined
archers, the English were able to defeat the mounted,
heavily-armored French knights.
In three great battles—Crecy [kray SEE] 1346,
Poitiers [pwah TYAY] 1356, and Agincourt [AJ in
kohrt] 1415—the English, although outnumbered by
the French army, crushed their enemy.
The Crecy battle was typical. An English army of
8000 lodged themselves at the top of a hill. Their
king, Edward III, was present, to rally his men. They
faced a larger army of French cavalry, infantry, and
Italian mercenaries armed with crossbows. The
French made 15 charges up the hill. Each time, they
were cut down by the arrows of the English longbows.
The French lost 4000 men (including 1500 knights)
that day, while the English suffered few casualties.
While the Crecy engagement proved the longbow
effective, it also introduced another new weapon to
the European battlefield: cannons and gunpowder.
7
MP3398
The Hundred Years’ War Continues
Following the English victory at Crecy, where
archers cut down the French and Italians with their
deadly longbows, King Edward III laid siege to the
French port city of Calais. The city fell and Calais
remained in English hands for the next 200 years.
The war was interrupted by the advance of the
Black Death. The English withdrew temporarily
from French soil (except for Calais), only to return
in 1355. Two English armies were soon moving
about on French soil, one marching from Brittany to
the south, while the other made its way north from
Bordeaux in territory controlled by the English.
The next significant English victory came a
decade later with the fight at Poitiers in 1356. Here,
Edward’s son, known as the Black Prince, engaged
a larger French army once again. Although the
French knights fought on foot rather than be cut
down on horseback as at Crecy, English
longbowmen brought victory. The English took
2000 prisoners, including the new king of France,
John II. King John’s ransom was set at 500,000
pounds, a huge sum of money for that time.
In 1359–60, the English invaded France again
and marched all the way to Paris. This campaign
brought an end to the first phase of the Hundred
Years’ War. The Treaty of Bretigny, signed in 1360,
guaranteed English control over French soil
including the regions of Calais, Aquitaine, and
Ponthieu. In exchange, Edward III agreed to give up
his claim to the French throne.
In time, France recovered from its losses and
with the coming of a new king to the throne,
Charles V (1364–1380), fought to regain its lost
territory. By 1380, the year King Edward died, the
English held little French territory. For the rest of
the 14th century, England’s monarchs were either
insane, unpopular, or busy fighting rebels in
Scotland and Wales. Some warfare with the French
continued, but both sides were tired and financially
drained by the war. In 1396, both powers agreed to
sign a 20-year truce, ending the second phase of the
Hundred Years’ War.
In 1413, a new king, Henry V (1413–1422), the
great-grandson of Edward III, led the English into
war with the French once again. The most significant battle of this phase of the war was at
© Milliken Publishing Company
Agincourt, located
between Crecy and
Calais.
Here the English,
outnumbered five to
one, won a brilliant
victory. A small
army, its ranks filled
with archers, once
again battled French
knights in full armor.
English longbow
The night before the
battle, heavy rains turned the next day’s battlefield
into a muddy meadow.
The French knights, dismounting their horses,
were soon caught between slipping in mud and
lying helplessly on their backs under the weight of
heavy armor and the arrows of the English archers.
The day’s battle resulted in the loss of 5000
Frenchmen, plus 1000 prisoners. English losses
amounted to a mere 100 men. Following his success
at Agincourt, Henry V conquered Normandy
(1417–19). By 1420 he was recognized as the heir
to the French throne.
More English victories came in the 1420s, as
well as the rise of a mysterious young girl, Joan of
Arc, a peasant mystic who rallied French forces in
the 1428–29 siege of the city of Orleans. Inspired
by her presence, the French broke the English siege.
This victory proved to be a turning point in the war.
The English suffered disastrous defeats, owing to an
increased use of French cannons. By the 1440s, the
French had regained much of their territory. When
the English failed to reconquer the region of Gascony,
the Hundred Years’ War ended. The result was a
stronger France which controlled more territory.
Research and Write
Joan of Arc is a fascinating figure. This young,
illiterate peasant girl made an important contribution to the French efforts in the war. Research her
story and write about it in 100 words.
8
MP3398
Challenges to England’s Kings
Despite great military success on the part of the
British throughout most of the Hundred Years’ War, the
French ultimately regained their lost territory. By the
war's end, the French were stronger than ever.
In England, events took a dark turn. Nobles warred
with one another, military leaders were accused of
treason, and some were even executed.
The English monarch, Henry VI (1421–1471), was
unable to stop the fighting which soon spiraled out of
control. Henry suffered from bouts of insanity and was
otherwise controlled by his French wife,
whom most of the English
aristocracy hated. After decades
of fighting the French, the
English nobility had
become accustomed to
violence. And within
ten years of the end
of the Hundred
Years’ War, the
English were at war
again, this time with
one another.
These conflicts
were known as the Wars
of the Roses, and were
fought between 1455 and
1485. The cause of the wars was
basically a challenge to the ineffective
reign of Henry VI.
The name for the wars came from the emblems used
by both sides. The symbol for Henry VI’s family name,
Lancaster, was a red rose, while the rival house of York
bore the emblem of a white rose. (Both lines had descended from the line of Edward III, so both claimed
they represented the legitimate heirs to the throne.)
In 1461, Edward IV of York (1461–1483) managed
to seize the throne from the weak Henry VI. Edward and
his supporters did manage to restore some order to
England, but he was occasionally cruel. When he died,
his brother Richard III (1483–1485) became king,
despite a legitimate heir in Edward V, one of two young
sons of Edward IV.
To ensure his reign, Richard III had his two nephews
locked away in the Tower of London. “The little princes”
were eventually murdered, presumably under orders
from their uncle, Richard. Richard’s rule proved to be a
© Milliken Publishing Company
short one, however; he was killed at the Battle of
Bosworth Field in 1485.
With the death of Richard III during battle, the
English throne passed to Henry VII (1485–1509), the
first English king of the Tudor family line. (He was born
into the house of Lancaster.) To consolidate his claim to
the throne, Henry VII married into the house of York.
He also convinced Parliament to recognize him as the
rightful heir to the throne.
Henry VII proved one of the most capable kings
seen in England in 200 years. He selected
capable ministers who served him well,
balanced the kingdom’s budget,
and even accumulated a
treasury surplus. Trade
increased during his reign.
He avoided war as
often as possible,
Henry VIII
knowing that wars are
expensive, win or lose.
He married his children
to the royal families of
Scotland and the
Germanies. He forced his
nobles to treat their serfs
and the lower classes with
justice.
Although the people of England
did not feel warmly toward their king
(Henry kept himself removed from direct contact
with his subjects), he managed to bring to England a
new order of stability and security. He left his kingdom
solidly intact and is considered one of England’s
greatest kings.
When his son, Henry VIII (1509–1547), inherited
the throne, England was one of the four strongest
powers in all of Europe, second only to France, Spain,
and Austria.
Review and Write
1. Identify the basic cause of the English Wars of the
Roses.
2. From the information found on this page, describe
the reign of Henry VII. What kind of king was he?
(Be specific.)
9
MP3398
France in the Later Middle Ages
Early in the 1300s, the French monarchy—in
particular, Philip the Fair— caused the Roman
Catholic Church many problems. Yet in the 14th and
15th centuries, the monarchy faced serious troubles
of its own.
When the sons of Philip the Fair died, leaving
Philip without a male heir, it was left for his
daughters to inherit their father's power. Yet, the
French lords created a rule barring any woman from
ascending to the throne.
By 1328, the barons selected a nephew of Philip
the Fair, Philip of Valois, for the position of king.
Since this Philip was placed on the throne rather
than having inherited it directly, he spent much of
his reign granting favors to his supporters and
watching his back against nobles opposed to him.
Aristocratic feuds and squabbles nearly caused civil
war and accounted for the early French defeats in the
Hundred Years’ War.
Philip’s son, John (1350 –1364), faced his own
rocky reign. Captured by the English during the
Battle of Poitiers, he lost huge portions of French
territory (which cut out his tax revenues from those
regions) and made the French people in general very
dissatisfied with him. The year 1358 proved most
difficult for John who faced a bloody peasant revolt
and an attempt by the Parisian middle class to bring
down his government, which ultimately failed.
The next king, John’s son, Charles V (1364 –
1380), was moderately successful in his war with the
English and managed to regain much of the territory
lost earlier in the Hundred Years’ War. His son,
Charles VI (1380 –1422), however, proved to be a
highly ineffective ruler. He suffered bouts of insanity,
and died in 1422 in his early 50s.
His son, Charles VII (1422–1461) was a victim
of events that were often greater than he was. Few
took him seriously, for he had been disinherited by
his father. The Hundred Years’ War was on in earnest
and the English, along with their allies, held much
French territory. His armies seemed incapable of
defeating the English. Charles was known as a weak
ruler.
Then, events turned in Charles VII’s favor. First,
the mysterious and pious peasant girl, Joan of Arc,
stirred her people and rallied around Charles. Joan
© Milliken Publishing Company
was certain she heard voices from
God which told her that Charles
VII was the only rightful king of
France. Many people, from
nobility to peasants, believed in
her and in her words. She helped
to restore to the French people
their Christianity and faith
in the French monarchy.
Charles could not have had
a better ally than Joan of Arc.
With a new confidence, he
decreed a massive campaign
against the English which
ultimately turned the tide of the war.
He gained an advantage when some of
England’s allies (actually fellow
Frenchmen known as the Burgundians)
had a falling out with the English and
returned to fight alongside the
Joan of Arc
French instead. With such allies,
Charles’s armies were able to
wrest northern France from the English.
With the support of the French people, and the
success of his armies against the English, Charles
VII began to systematically expand his power base
as king. He instituted taxes on the people without
consulting with anyone, including the Estates
General, a political body representing the three
classes of French people—the clergy, nobility, and
commoners.
He overcame all opposition, including the
nobles, from seriously challenging him. The result
was a king who expanded the power base of the
French monarchy. Charles VII became a king who
was strong, and who ran France as a powerful,
bureaucratic state. This pattern of political structure
was soon to become the European model for
centuries to come.
Review and Write
What positive impact did Joan of Arc have on
her native France?
10
MP3398
Ferdinand and Isabella Unite Spain
During the High Middle Ages, from 1085 to
1212, the land known today as Spain was ruled by
small feudal Christian kingdoms. Those decades
were spent battling the Moslems for control of the
Iberian Peninsula, which today includes the nations
of Spain and Portugal. These wars to remove the
followers of Islam from the peninsula were known
as the Reconquista, the
reconquest. This campaign
concluded with the 1212
victory of a combined
Aragonese and Castilian
army over a Moslem force
at Las Navas de Tolosa.
By the 1400s, the
various kingdoms had
formed three, often feuding, monarchies: Portugal,
which hugged the western coast of the Iberian
Peninsula; Aragon on the Mediterranean Sea coast;
and Castile near the center of the peninsula. (The
Moslems, called the Moors, still retained a small
state called the Kingdom of Granada in the south,
where they hung on by a thread by paying tribute to
the Christian kingdoms to the north.)
Two of these kingdoms united later in the 15th
century. In 1469, King Ferdinand of Aragon
(1479–1516) and Isabella of Castile (1474–1504)
married and formed a single state. (They became the
sponsors for the voyages of Christopher Columbus
in the 1490s.) In time, this newly formed Spain
became the chief French rival in Europe.
Once united, Ferdinand and Isabella faced many
problems. Both France and Portugal opposed the
marriage, and Portugal went to war with Castile in
1476 to overthrow Isabella. Noblemen in both Castile
and Aragon frequently launched plots against the
union of the kingdoms. Yet Ferdinand and Isabella
ultimately overcame all serious opposition.
Together, they managed to extend and strengthen
their royal power over the nobility, the towns, and all
legislative bodies. They ordered the Council of
Castile, once controlled by the noblemen, into an
agency answerable to the monarchy. Ferdinand took
control of the three military orders of knights which
had previously been controlled by the nobility. In the
years to follow, the Spanish army became one of the
© Milliken Publishing Company
best-equipped and best-trained forces in Europe.
Ferdinand and Isabella dominated the Church in
Spain as well. In 1482, the pope granted them power
to appoint Catholic bishops, archbishops, and cardinals. They collected Spanish Church revenues. Although the king and queen appeared loyal to the
pope in Rome, they changed the Catholic Church in
Spain into a national body,
independent of the papacy.
Church officials often served
the monarchy in administrative positions.
Religion played an
important role in late 15thcentury Spain. Isabella,
much more religious than her
husband, ordered the reintroduction of the Inquisition,
which had been created in the 1200s by the Church
as a means of fighting heresy and Church opposition.
The Inquisition was carried out by a zealous Spanish
government to harass rebellious noblemen and other
opponents. Isabella’s Inquisitor General, Torquemada,
used torture and execution (by burning at the stake)
to punish his victims.
As an extension of Christian zeal, the Spanish
government ordered the removal of all Moslems and
Jews from Spain in 1492, the year of Columbus’ first
voyage to the New World. Approximately 200,000
Jews were forced out of their homes. Once the
Spanish army defeated the Moslems in Granada,
their Christian state was complete.
Isabella died in 1504 and Ferdinand in 1516.
Upon his death, their grandson, Charles V (1516–
1556), became the king of Spain. As the ruler of the
Spanish Netherlands, Austria, Milan, Naples, and the
new Spanish empire in the Americas, his kingdom
was a secure one during Spain’s golden
age of the 1500s.
Review and Write
Once they united their kingdoms into one, what
successes did Ferdinand and Isabella have as rulers
of Spain?
11
MP3398
15th-Century Eastern Europe
The 1400s, despite destructive wars and recurring bouts of the Black Death, brought about the
rise of powerful monarchies in the Western
nations of England, France, and Spain. However,
while kings and queens were expanding their
power in the West, in the East and in central
Europe, the states were noted not for power but
for weakness.
There were some short-lived exceptions. In
Hungary, King Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490)
briefly united the kingdoms of Hungary and
Bohemia to the west into a single monarchy.
Matthias defeated his neighbors, the Habsburgs of
Austria, and one of his armies even occupied the
Austrian capital of Vienna in 1485. However, his
kingdom collapsed after his death in 1490, when
the Hungarian nobility refused to recognize
Matthias’s son as king.
In Poland to the north, the ruling family of the
Jagiellonians stepped in. Casimir IV, king of
Poland, managed to get his son, Wladyslaw,
elected as king of both Bohemia (in 1471) and
Hungary (in 1490). However, when Casimir died
in 1492, the kingship of Wladyslaw died with it
as the union of Bohemia and Hungary fell apart.
To the south of Hungary, the ancient empire
of Byzantium faced a grim future. The direct heir
of the eastern half of the long dissolved Roman
Empire, the Byzantine Empire managed to thrive
for nearly 1,000 years until the 15th century. In
1453, the Moslem leader of the Ottoman Empire,
Mehmed II, proclaimed a holy war against the
Byzantines. He soon laid siege to the ancient city
of Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium.
Mehmed’s army was gigantic, one of the
largest amassed during the Late Middle Ages.
With his army ranging between 200 and 400,000
soldiers, he faced little opposition from the 6000
men defending the crumbling, 1000-year-old
walls of Constantinople. Mehmed’s men used a
huge siege cannon, which knocked down the
city’s walls with granite cannon balls weighing a
ton each. After 53 days of siege, the old city of
Constantinople finally fell to the Moslem Turks
on a Tuesday, the 29th of May, 1453.
© Milliken Publishing Company
When the Turks rode into
the city on horseback (they
were able to because the
walls of the city were destroyed completely in some
places), they killed everyone
who resisted them and
enslaved 60,000 others.
Almost immediately,
the 1000-year-old
Ivan III of Muscovy
church of the Hagia
Sophia was invaded by the Turks. Here, the last
Byzantine emperor, Constantine IX, was killed.
Now, the Greek city of Constantinople became
Turkish Istanbul, as it is known today.
Despite the power vacuums scattered around
eastern Europe in the 1400s, one state saw
dramatic expansion and development. During the
second half of the 15th century, the Muscovite
princes of northern Russia overthrew their Asian
oppressors, the Mongols.
One prince, Ivan III (1462–1505), rose to
power and declared himself tsar, from the Roman
name Caesar, over all Russian lands, then known
as Rus. In 1471, Ivan defeated his opponents in
the city-state of Novgorod, which controlled
much of northern Russia. He soon consolidated
his power, establishing his capital at another
Russian city, Moscow.
Research and Write
1. Another weak state of central and eastern
Europe in the 1400s was the Holy Roman
Empire of the Germanies. Find out about the
Germanies of this period and explain why the
HRE was so ineffective.
2. Describe the collapse of the Byzantine Empire
at the hands of the Turks on May 29, 1453.
12
MP3398
Map of 15th-Century Europe
During the Later Middle Ages, Europe was the
scene of both new and old states. It was a time of
rising political power for the monarchies in France,
England, and Spain. Other states continued to exist
only as less significant places where royalty failed to
gain an upper hand. Others were surrounded by more
powerful neighbors or were too small in size to gain
any real strength during the 1400s.
Using the map below, locate the following
© Milliken Publishing Company
kingdoms, states, and countries: Aragon, Austria,
Bavaria, Bohemia, Brandenburg, Castile, France,
Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, Netherlands, Ottoman
Empire, Papal States, Poland, Portugal, Russia,
Saxony, Switzerland, Tuscany. Write the name of
each site directly on the map.
Using a modern map of Europe, what European
countries today were basically already in place during
during the 15th century?
13
MP3398
Test I
Part I. Multiple Choice (Worksheets 1-6)
Match the answers to the right with the statement on the left.
______ 1. The period of medieval history from 1300-1500
______ 2. This Sicilian port saw some of the first European Black Death victims
______ 3. The large lumps found in the armpits and groins of Black Death victims
______ 4. Religious and ethnic group blamed for the spread of the Black Death
______ 5. Economic impact brought on by the Black Death
______ 6. Organization which controlled much of the trade in northwestern Europe
______ 7. Pope who was taken captive by the forces of the French king in 1303
______ 8. French king who challenged the power of the papacy during the 1300s
______ 9. Name given the period when the papacy was located at Avignon
______ 10. Period of a divided papacy: a pope in Rome and one in Avignon
______ 11. French pope who returned the papacy back to Avignon in 1378
______ 12. Pope selected by Council of Constance in 1417, restoring one pope to Rome
A. Babylonian Captivity
B. buboes
C. Great Schism
D. Hanseatic League
E. Jews
F. Later Middle Ages
G. Boniface VIII
H. Martin V
I. Clement VII
J. inflation
K. Philip IV (the Fair)
L. Messina
Part II. Multiple Choice (Worksheets 8-13)
______ 1. English king whose armies performed well during early years of the
Hundred Years’ War
______ 2 Most effective English weapon used during the major battles of the
Hundred Years’ War
______ 3. English victory of 1456
______ 4. French king captured by the English monarch, the Black Prince, in 1356
______ 5. English king victorious at the Hundred Years’ War battle at Agincourt
______ 6. French peasant girl who rallied troops at the siege of Orleans
______ 7. English king killed at 1485 Battle of Bosworth Field
______ 8. Spanish campaign of the 1200s to remove the Moslems from Iberia
______ 9. Government-Church campaign to fight heresy and Church opposition
______ 10. King of Aragon who united his kingdom with Castile in 1469
______ 11. Queen of Castile who united her kingdom with Aragon in 1469
______ 12. Muscovite prince who united Russians in the 1400s
A. Joan of Arc
B. Reconquista
C. longbow
D. Inquisition
E. John II
F. Richard III
G. Henry V
H. Isabella
I. Poitiers
J. Edward III
K. Ivan III
L. Ferdinand
Part III. Respond and Write
During the Later Dark Ages, life was dramatically changed in Europe by the repeated plagues known as the
Black Death. Explain why these plagues were so devastating to much of Europe. What impact did the Black
Death have in the long run on Europe?
© Milliken Publishing Company
14
MP3398
The Early Renaissance
The 1300s were marked by the recurring Black
Death plagues, inflation and economic depression,
and pesky wars which made life in later medieval
Europe a challenge. The Church experienced serious
challenges from secular rulers resulting in the
Babylonian Captivity and the Great Schism.
Monarchy survived the century, mainly because
most Europeans of the period believed kings to be
the best means of governing. Yet many kings and
queens functioned badly, were constantly
challenged, murdered their own family rivals, and
rarely stirred patriotic confidence in the people.
By the end of the 14th century, many people
across Europe had grown pessimistic about their
future and the future of their political state. There
was an air of hopelessness about the new century.
However, by the end of the 1400s, Europe had
experienced great change. The recurring economic
downturns were leveled out, new domestic
industries were created—especially in the areas of
textiles and armaments, new trade routes were
established, and a New World in the Americas lay
ahead, yet to be tapped for its wealth and potential.
As for Christianity, Rome was once again the
center of the religious world of Europe. Kings,
queens, and princes gained the upper hand over the
often divisive nobility. Even learning had changed
as Europeans became increasingly curious about the
world. The arts were changing as new styles of
painting, sculpture, and architecture were introduced.
Above all, however, there was a new sense of
optimism about the future. People from the Atlantic
to the Mediterranean to the Baltic saw their futures
filled with possibilities. There was an excitement
about what was going to happen next in Europe,
although no one really knew what to expect. Those
who thought much about these exciting times wrote
about a “new age” dawning across the continent.
Some writers used the word renaissance, a rebirth,
to describe their own times. They put behind them
the dark age of plagues, wars, and inflation.
By 1500, the new optimism of Europe
developed into a new way of looking at the past, the
present, and the future. The medieval world, with its
superstitions, its limited scholarship, its religious
values, was a thing of the past. The next world—
© Milliken Publishing Company
Renaissance-era Lute
historians refer to it as the beginning of our modern
world—was destined to be different from anything
which had come before it. It was to be a world
dominated by kings and queens ruling over powerful
nation-states, robust, international economies,
broader intellectual and moral values, and secular
ideals.
How all this came about is hard to determine. In
some respects, Europe just shook off its immediate
past and moved ahead. We can see today more clearly
why these changes occurred.
The new economics was generated by Northern
Europeans in great trading and merchandising
centers in Paris, London, Bruges, Bremen, Lubeck,
and the Hague. The new art was created largely by
Italians, and later fanned out to nearly all corners of
Europe, creating a new European civilization.
Review and Write
1. From your reading of this sheet, make a list of
the changes which came to Europe during the
1400s. Why might such changes cause Europeans to become more hopeful about their
world?
2. List some of the problems Europe faced
during the 1300s.
15
MP3398
The Italian City-States
For over two centuries, from the early 1300s to
the early 1500s, the city-states of Italy directed
Europe, creating new forms and styles of painting,
sculpture, architecture, and decorative arts. They
created a new ideal male image: the gentleman. This
image took the place of the chivalrous knight, the
male symbol of the Middle Ages.
Even Italian schools were different. While nearly
all medieval schools and universities were church
schools and cathedral-based universities, the new
Italian center of education emphasized a broader
education, independent of the Church. The concept
of a liberal education developed, one free to explore
subjects frowned on in Church schools (or simply
considered too trivial for serious study.)
Such schools were attended not only by Italian
students. Thousands of pupils from dozens of
European countries streamed into the city-states to
receive a Renaissance education.
How did Italy come to be such a leader and
source of change in Europe by the 14th century?
One reason was that Italy had always been out of
the mainstream of medieval culture, thought, and
politics. It had never been truly medieval. Italy had
never had a strong monarchy, did not rely on the
vassal-serf model of feudalism, and medieval
thought—scholasticism—had never taken deep root
there. Thus making the change from the Middle
Ages to a new era of progress and rebirth was a
natural one for Italy.
The Italian city-states had the power and money
to assume cultural leadership in 14th-century Europe.
Such cities as Milan, Venice, Florence, and Rome
had dominated life in Italy for generations.
Without a powerful, unifying Italian monarch,
such cities came to dominate the economy, culture,
and politics of vast regions, without many serious
rivals—except for one another.
As city-states, political power was not centered
in a landed nobility as in most other European
countries of the period, but rather in an urban ruling
class. Wealthy bankers, merchants, and traders (the
popolo grosso, or “fat people”) were found at the top
of the economic and social ladder. Under them were
the popolo minuto, the “little people”: small business
owners, artisans, craftsmen, and other urbanites.
© Milliken Publishing Company
Below them, typically
living outside the cities
in rural landscapes,
were the peasants.
They worked the
land, farmed, raised
sheep, had no political
power, and no way of
getting it.
Quarrels for power were
common between the popolo
grosso and the popolo minuto.
Such city-states not only
ruled themselves but wielded
great economic influence. The
A stevedore
northern Italian cities were
leaders in international trade.
In the northern city of Venice, on the northern
shores of the Adriatic Sea, nearly the entire population
was involved in some way with Oriental trade.
Venetian traders served as the European source for
such rare and prized trade goods as spices, silks, teak
wood, and exotic fruits. Even if one was not a merchant of Venice, he or she worked as a banker, sailor,
dock worker (called a stevedore), manufacturer,
shipper, and was connected with trade.
The city of Florence, located along the Arno
River in northern Italy, was a center for European
banking and manufacturing. Great textile mills were
located in Florence. Nearly one out of every three
Florentines was involved in the woolens industry—
from raising sheep to selling cloth to foreign buyers.
Review and Write
1. From your reading, list the reasons why the
Italian city-states took the position of leadership
in moving Europe out of the Middle Ages and
into a new era.
2. How important was trade to the economy of
Renaissance Venice? Give examples.
16
MP3398
Life in Renaissance Florence
The High and Later Middle Ages witnessed great
eventually accepted by the people of Florence. This
strides in urbanization. Where city life in the Early
palace, the Palazzo Medici, was the first of the
Middle Ages almost ceased completely, the centuries to Renaissance palaces, and it served as a model for
follow brought about a remarkable rebirth of town and
many others.
city dwelling.
Cosimo ordered the building of the first public
By the 1400s, some European urban centers were library in Europe since the days of the Roman Empire.
home to hundreds of thousands of citizens. The city
In time, he and his family spent millions of dollars on
of Paris boasted a population of a quarter million. In
rare manuscripts and books for this civic project.
northern Italy, the city-state of Milan held 200,000.
Cosimo sent agents to the East to locate manuscripts.
Its neighbor to the south, Florence, had
One scholar hunted for and purchased
a citizenry of 100,000. City life in the
200 ancient Greek documents.
Renaissance served as a model for the
Approximately 80 of them were
new era.
previously unknown in Europe.
One leading city was Florence.
The artists supported by the
During the Renaissance, Florence
Medici make up a who’s who of
embodied the soul of the period,
Renaissance painters, sculptors, and
rising to prominence as a source of great
architects. Donatello, Filippino Lippi,
art produced largely under the patronage
Masaccio, Verrocchio, Botticelli,
or financial support of one ruling
Ghirlandaio, DaVinci, and
family: the Medici [MEH dee chee].
Michelangelo all produced great works
Members of this important Italian
of art under the generous patronage
Palazzo Medici begun in 1444
family greatly influenced the Renaisof the Medici.
sance in Italy and France from the
Such influence created a new
1400s to the 1700s.
world in Florence. Craftsmen produced lavish items of
The Medici supported the arts of Florence with
personal use from fine furniture to elaborate pottery.
money and influence. Through them, Florence became Yet not everyone enjoyed the wealth of the city. Many
the creative center of the Renaissance. They also gave
were poor, barely making a living combing and
support to the new liberal education of the period.
carding wool for the lucrative textile trade. These
Experts estimate that the Medici family spent the
common workers, known as ciompi, sometimes
modern equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars
revolted against their harsh living conditions, as they
on the arts and sciences during a single 50-year
did several times in the late 1300s.
period.
Florence became a city of such consumption and
The wealthy Medici family came to power in
conspicuous wealth that critics rose up and condemned
Florence in 1434. It controlled the city’s politics
it. A 15th-century Dominican friar named Girolamo
through an oligarchy—government by a small group
Savonarola convinced many Florentines that wealth
of powerful leaders. One influential banker, Cosimo
was the work of the devil. His preaching brought
de Medici (1389–1464) led his family in controlling
converts. The result was the burning of many works
daily Florentine life. Throughout most of the 1400s,
of Florentine art in what were known as Bonfires of
Cosimo and his grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent
the Vanities.
(1449–1492), controlled Florence, its economy, its
politics, and its art.
In 1444, Cosimo ordered the construction of a
Review and Write
magnificent building, the first of such Medici family
palaces. Although the Medici were not true royalty,
Describe the influence the Medici family had on
Cosimo considered himself a duke. The title was
Renaissance Florence.
© Milliken Publishing Company
17
MP3398
The Birth of Humanism
The Renaissance Italians busied themselves with
creating a new set of values for their world. New
social ideals were created, further separating the men
and women of the 14th and 15th centuries from their
medieval roots.
Unlike during the Middle Ages, the special
status brought on by an aristocratic or noble birth
came to mean little in Renaissance Italy. Old
knightly virtues of chivalry, loyalty, and personal
honor, for many, became meaningless.
The Renaissance world defined itself differently.
Although there was always a marked division of
labor and social significance—an upper, middle, and
lower class—there were opportunities for more
people than ever before.
Competition kept everyone on their toes. Getting
an education now meant more than just developing
one’s mind. It stood for getting ahead. Poor peasants
might rise in class status and, by the use of their
talents, become famous painters like Leonardo Da
Vinci, who was born illegitimate.
The new values of the Renaissance included
upward mobility, self-reliance, imagination,
creativity, adaptability and forethought. Such
qualities allowed one to reach the top of the social
heap.
Many of these qualities were combined in the
Renaissance concept virtu, from the Latin word vir.
Virtu should not be confused with our common word
virtue. Instead, it means well-rounded, complete,
having many skills and abilities.
Men and women of the Renaissance valued
individualism. No longer tied to a noble lord,
working anonymously on someone else’s property,
now a man looked after himself first, and his family
and friends second. His loyalty to king, baron, or
pope came in a distant third. Suddenly, Renaissance
men and women began to put great emphasis on
their own existence, their own wants and needs.
This emphasis on individualism developed into a
philosophy called Humanism. This ideology caused
many to look to sources other than religious texts,
including the Bible, for education and inspiration.
During the Middle Ages, education and study
centered around the Scriptures and the writings of
© Milliken Publishing Company
Christian theologians. Medieval scholars paid little
attention to the classical literature of the ancient
Greeks or even the Romans. But by the 1300s,
Italian thinkers and philosophers paid great attention
to these ancient sources of knowledge and insight.
One of the early Italian Humanists was a writer
and scholar named Francesco Petrarca, or Petrarch
(1304–1374). Today Petrarch is considered the father
of Humanism. He spent much of his life collecting
Roman manuscripts and was a great admirer of the
Roman orator, Cicero.
Such Humanists as Petrarch and those who
followed him helped restore the study of classical
Greek and Latin and changed the prevailing theory
about education. During the Middle Ages, the
Church dominated teaching. The nobility even
created its own teaching program for knights,
instructing them on how to fight and behave in
court.
Few other educational systems existed in the
medieval world. But the Humanists of Renaissance
Italy created a new educational model. In their
schools, they taught students to be complete human
beings: to be able to read and write Latin and Greek,
to develop good manners and codes of politeness, to
be skilled fighters, to build up their bodies, and to be
well groomed.
The purpose of this system of study was to create
strong individuals who could think for themselves.
In doing so, such individuals came to believe in the
ancient Greek maxim: Man is the measure of all
things. Each person, individually, determines his or
her own values, morals, and interests.
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The Prince and The Courtier
The Renaissance inspired the creation of new
ideals and political thought. The knight was out;
the gentleman was in. The noble lord, led by religious conviction, was a creature of the past. Government would now be led by discerning men and
women who would use their conscience as their
guide.
Two important books, published just four
years apart during the late Renaissance, set down
the new standards of the day. The author of The
Courtier was Baldassare Castiglione [CAST ig
leon] (1478–1529). The other book was known as
The Prince, and was written by Niccolo
Machiavelli [MAH kyah VEL lee] (1469–1527).
The Courtier was published in 1528 and The
Prince in 1532. Both had been written several
years before they were made public.
These two books set the standard for the modern man of Italian society politics. They present a
new creature to the world, one quite different
from the medieval chivalrous knight or the
Christian noble lord. Yet both books present two
ideals which appear, at least on the surface, to be
quite different from one another.
Castiglione’s The Courtier presents a picture
of the ideal Renaissance man. While not necessarily
born an aristocrat, Castiglione assumed he would
be because typically only the upper class could
spend time developing this ideal. Castiglione
writes of his ideal man:
a good joke teller.
If Castiglione’s courtier image was of one who
played fair and decently, then Machiavelli’s prince
lived by another set of rules
altogether.
In his book, Machiavelli
articulates how a ruler—he
patterned his prince after
Lorenzo (the Magnificent)
de Medici—is to conduct
business and diplomacy.
Machiavelli’s model
Niccolo Machiavelli
prince is wise and virtuous.
But he is also cunning, devious, practical, a
realist. He is to be self-interested. He may use any
means to achieve his ends, no matter who is hurt
in the process. In battle, the prince is ruthless and
doesn't worry about gaining a reputation for
cruelty.
Machiavelli describes The Prince as one who:
...must imitate the fox and the lion, for the
lion cannot protect himself from traps, and
the fox cannot defend himself from
wolves. One must therefore be a fox to
recognize traps, and a lion to frighten
wolves.
The Prince and The Courtier were important
books in their time, addressing the new ideals of
the Renaissance. In fact, the Emperor Charles V
kept only three books by his bedside—the two by
Castiglione and Machiavelli and the Bible.
I would wish the Courtier endowed by
nature not only with talent and with beauty
of countenance [the face] and person, but
with that certain grace we call an ‘air,’
which shall make him at first sight
pleasing and lovable to all who see him.
Review and Write
Among the other virtues Castiglione required
of his courtier were modesty, humanity, competition, and fierceness. His skills were to include
wrestling, horsemanship, swimming, jumping,
running, dancing, and throwing stones. He needed
to speak several languages, play a musical instrument, and write with flowing handwriting.
Conversation was to come easily and he was to be
© Milliken Publishing Company
1. Do you think it was possible for a Renaissance
man to follow the advice of both Castiglione
and Machiavelli at the same time? Explain in
50 words or so.
2. What impact did The Courtier and The Prince
have on Italian politics and society?
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The World of Leonardo Da Vinci
The Renaissance witnessed a great flourishing of
art, science, literature, and music. Perhaps more than
any other, the great Italian painter Leonardo Da Vinci
embodied all the skills of his age. If Machiavelli’s
prince is patterned after Lorenzo the Magnificent, the
model for Castiglione’s courtier may well be Leonardo.
Not only was he one of the greatest artists of the
Renaissance (after all, he painted the Mona Lisa),
Leonardo was a genius in the sciences as well. The
list of his skills and interests reads endlessly: painter,
architect, sculptor, engineer, botanist, geologist,
teacher, inventor, musician, writer, scientist, and critic.
Leonardo once wrote, “The natural desire of
good men is knowledge.” He spent a lifetime
accumulating information, insights, deductions, and
sketches—thousands of sketches—in notebooks.
Inquisitive, Leonardo often carried small sketchbooks
on his belt. Today, approximately 5700 pages of
writing in his own hand exist.
His life took place against the backdrop of the
creative era of the Renaissance. Born in 1452 in the
small Italian village of Vinci, young Leonardo was
raised by his grandparents. As a boy, he displayed
genius by solving difficult mathematical problems.
But he was also artistic. His father took him to
Florence where he studied under the artist Verrocchio.
Here, Leonardo improved his skills of painting,
sculpting, and engineering. By 1472, his talents
admitted him to the painters’ guild in Florence.
During these years, he was busy with some of his
early works of art, including the painting Adoration
of the Magi, which he never finished.
While in his early 30s, Leonardo served the Duke
of Milan, Ludovico Sforza. While in Milan, Leonardo
designed military equipment for the Duke. He
developed canal systems and new fortifications for
Milan and painted some of his greatest works, such
as The Madonna of the Rocks. But his greatest work
of this period was his painting of The Last Supper, a
mural adorning a wall in the refractory, or dining
room of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie.
This detailed work shows Jesus and his apostles
at their final meal together before Christ’s arrest and
crucifixion. It is considered by many to be one of the
greatest paintings of all time. The Last Supper was a
triumph of balance, anatomy, and subject. It has not
© Milliken Publishing Company
weathered well over the centuries, however, and has
been restored by artists over the past twenty years.
Leonardo's helicopter design
When French troops invaded Milan in 1499,
Leonardo returned to Florence for a few years. Here
he painted his most famous portrait, the Mona Lisa.
It is a painting of a young Italian woman named Lisa
del Giocondo, and it continues to captivate people
hundreds of years after its completion.
Leonardo's notebooks swelled with sketches of
inventions including models of a helicopter, glider,
parachute, machine gun, and armored vehicle. He
studied anatomy and included scores of drawings of
the human body in his notebooks.
In 1506, he returned to Milan to serve the King
of France, Louis XII. There his work continued, as
he studied anatomy and made engineering designs.
By 1512, he was in Rome working on designs for
the new Church of St. Peter. In 1516, he was invited
to France by Francis I, and there he died in 1519.
Leonardo’s work in the arts and the sciences gave
him a reputation during the Renaissance of a genius.
He was a man of his age, the gentleman courtier who
was the best example of a Renaissance man.
Review and Write
How did da Vinci live out his maxim that “the
natural desire of good men is knowledge?”
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Italian Renaissance Art, Part I
The Italians made the greatest contribution to
Renaissance art. These skilled and inspired artists
were first known for their painting. Much of their
sculpture is considered less significant, with the
exception of that carved by Michelangelo.
Much of the painting done during the Middle
Ages had been religious in subject. Biblical scenes
such as Christ’s crucifixion or the Virgin Mary and
stories such as Noah and the Flood or Adam and Eve
in the Garden of Eden were commonly captured in
paintings, carvings, and stained glass.
During the Renaissance, many painters continued
to rely on Biblical and religious subjects. However,
just as scholars were discovering Classical Greek and
Roman literature, so Renaissance painters were
painting scenes of Greek mythology, Roman history,
and other secular subjects.
These new artists tried to capture their subjects,
whether Biblical or not, in more realistic poses.
People were portrayed sitting and lying down with
their faces turned toward the viewer. These paintings
often depicted dramatic scenes. Technically, their
work improved owing to the development of new
paints and pigments, and the use of canvas surfaces
(rather than parchment, wood, or stone). The result
was an art which elevated the artist from the class of
craftsman to that of a skilled professional. While
dozens and scores of painters produced thousands of
Renaissance works, several stand out from the ranks
of their peers.
An early Renaissance painter of note was Giotto
(1266–1337), who is credited with founding the
Florentine school of Renaissance painting. Many of
his works survive today as frescoes—wall paintings
made from watercolors applied to wet plaster. His
subjects were nearly always religious. Unlike his
contemporaries, Giotto painted his figures in realistic
poses, including some with their backs to the viewer.
His characters reveal high emotions during highly
charged dramatic scenes.
In addition, Giotto experimented with light and
shade to give his paintings a three-dimensional
appearance.
While Giotto enjoyed both fame and wealth as a
painter, other artists did not. One such artist was
Tommaso Cassai from Florence. Today he is known
© Milliken Publishing Company
for his nickname, Masaccio (1401–1428), which
means Simple Tom. Masaccio died at the age of 27 in
poverty, but his paintings were admired by many
during his lifetime. As did Giotto, Masaccio used light
and shadow to give depth and perspective to his
works. As a result, his painted figures appear realistic
compared to earlier medieval paintings.
Giotto and Masaccio were both from Florence, as
was a third painter, Sandro Botticelli (1444–1510).
Botticelli worked under the patronage of the Medici
for part of his career. He painted both religious and
secular subjects. Among his most famous paintings
was the Birth of Venus, which used the figure of a
nude woman in the composition. (During the Middle
Ages, the female nude was not allowed as an art
subject.) Botticelli also enjoyed painting the Virgin
Mary. Like Giotto, Botticelli became wealthy through
his painting.
A contemporary of Botticelli’s
was Raphael (1483–1520). Originally from Urbino, young Raphael
(he died in his mid-20s) painted in
Florence and Rome. Many of
Raphael’s subjects are young,
attractive women and
children. He painted with
soft colors and his paintings
Raphael (1483 –1520)
reveal a wide variety of styles
and emotions. He painted several Madonnas, just as
Botticelli did.
With the work of these artists, the dimensions of
Renaissance art expanded and were redefined to fit
into their new era.
Review and Write
What were some of the subjects which the following
painters depicted in their art?
Giotto: ____________________________________
Botticelli: __________________________________
Raphael: __________________________________
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Renaissance Map of Italy
Beginning in the early 1300s, Italy became the
center of a new era which brought about the age of
the Renaissance. Renaissance Italy was not a country
united under one powerful monarch. (In fact, Italy did
not become a single nation until the 1860s.) Rather, it
was a landscape dominated by powerful rulers in
influential city-states.
Using the map below, place each of the following
in the proper places. First, draw the borders that
separated the following states. (Be careful here. You
© Milliken Publishing Company
are not yet identifying the cities of the same names.)
Venice, Milan, Florence, the Papal States, Siena, Genoa,
Savoy, and the Kingdom of Naples. Shade each state
using a different colored pencil. Now identify the
locations of the following cities: Milan, Venice, Padua,
Bologna, Pisa, Florence, Rome, Genoa, Urbino, Turin,
Siena, Mantua, and Naples. Then identify the islands
located off the west coast of Italy: Corsica, Sicily, and
Sardinia.
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MP3398
Italian Renaissance Art, Part II
The artists of the Italian Renaissance continued
to redefine the dimensions of their field throughout
the 1300s and 1400s. Their work continued to serve
as the model to the rest of the art world throughout
Europe. Leading figures, men of great talent and
genius towered in a world already filled with gifted
painters, sculptors, and architects.
Leonardo Da Vinci was one artist who used his
great powers of observation and imagination and
applied them to his art. In paintings of common
subjects—portraits, Madonnas, Biblical scenes—
Leonardo filled his canvas with precise renderings
of plants, animals, fossils, and human figures with
extremely accurate anatomy. His use of light and
shadow took Masaccio’s work a step further.
One Italian artist who dominated the art of the
15th century was Michelangelo Buonarroti of
Florence [mi EL an’ je lo bwo nah rot’ TEE]
(1475–1564). He was an artist of extraordinary
genius. Although he was a man of his times when it
came to his art, he was often gloomy and restless,
much like a medieval artist.
Among his greatest works was the painting of
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Taking
over four years to complete, he worked in solitude
on top of a scaffolding. Using the Old Testament as
his inspiration, Michelangelo’s frescoes cover over
10,000 square feet of the ceiling. (Years later,
Michelangelo returned to the chapel to paint the
Last Judgment on the altar wall.)
Despite his skill as a painter, Michelangelo most
wanted to be known as a sculptor. His sculptural
works stand as some of the most famous in history,
including his statue of the biblical David with a
slingshot in his hand.
Michelangelo spent his entire life producing
monumental images of art. By the time of his death,
at age 89, he was the most famous Renaissance
artist of his time, and was loved and respected for
his accomplishments. Few artists left as extensive a
legacy of painting, sculpting, and architectural
design as did this tempestuous Florentine.
The period of Italian dominance in the Renaissance art world reached its final stage in the citystate of Venice. Two brothers, Gentile Bellini
(1429–1507) and Giovanni (1430–1516), estab-
© Milliken Publishing Company
lished a famous school of Renaissance art in Venice.
Their students included the Venetian greats, including Giorgione, Tintoretto, and, perhaps the best of
them all, Titian [tee SHUN] (1477–1576), who lived
nearly a century.
These artists painted religious
subjects, yet they also rendered
works of pure landscapes and
nudes. Their subjects were
painted in vivid colors.
Venetian painters often
produced their works on
canvas, since the wet Venice
climate caused paintings to
bleed and mold.
Although the Italian
Renaissance artists are often
thought of first as painters,
there were many great
sculptors as well. One of
the first of the great was
Ghiberti (1378 –1455).
His most noted work is
a pair of bronze doors
depicting scenes from
the Old Testament. Both
Donatello's David
he and another sculptor,
Donatello (1386 –1466),
lived in Florence. His statues are noted for their
beauty and grace, such as his own David.
Research and Write
This page and the previous one introduce the
subject of Italian art. Using other sources (especially
art books), compare the work of an early
Renaissance painter or sculptor (Giotto, Masaccio,
Ghiberti, or Donatello, for example) to the work of
later artists (such as Raphael, Michelangelo, Da
Vinci, or Titian).
What differences do you see? What changes
were made in painting or sculpture during the
Renaissance period?
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MP3398
The Northern Renaissance
Most historians agree that Italy was the source
of the Renaissance movement in art, literature,
sculpture, philosophy, and architecture. However,
the influence of the Italians spread from their native
city-states to the far corners of Europe, especially
the north.
Italian Renaissance ideals, attitudes, and styles
found their way across nation-state borders. Not
until the 1500s, however, did these impulses finally
take root outside Italy—two hundred years after the
first sparks of Italian genius began forming the
Renaissance outlook in Italy.
Even then, things were not exactly the same as
in Italy. Politically, northern Europe was a collection
of nation-states, not city-states as in Italy. The
influences of the medieval world were more deeply
rooted in the north and harder to abandon than in
Italy. The Church still controlled much of the
education system of the north. Even many of the
sources for Italian Renaissance art, such as the
Greek and Byzantine worlds, were further from the
north geographically, making them more difficult
for northerners to access and model.
And when Renaissance ideas found their way to
the northern states of Europe, they were applied
differently than in Italy, often because the north
followed different political, economic, and social
goals than did the Italians.
In England, the Italian Renaissance influenced
the work of the great English poet, Geoffrey
Chaucer. [CHAW suhr] (1340–1400). Earlier in his
life, Chaucer had served in Italy as a diplomat.
There he may have met the Italian poet and writer,
Boccaccio, and read other Italian poets such as
Dante. Chaucer’s greatest work, Canterbury Tales,
is a work of humanist Renaissance literature.
Humanism found its way to England in time,
and found its greatest supporter in the English writer
and theologian Thomas More (1478–1535). More
was a brilliant writer and thinker. His best-known
work, Utopia (1516), takes much of its inspiration
from a writing by the ancient Greek philosopher,
Plato, called The Republic. Once again, a classical
work influenced a Renaissance writer.
© Milliken Publishing Company
Perhaps the most significant humanist writer and
thinker of the northern Renaissance was Desiderius
Erasmus [ur AS mus] (1466–1536). He was born a
Dutchman, but was a true Renaissance man teaching
and writing in France, Italy, England, Switzerland,
and Germany. Noted for his translations of the
Scriptures in Greek, Erasmus also edited several
classical Greek and Roman works. His writings
reveal a strong faith in reason. He was an influential
scholar and reformer.
The Italian Renaissance also had an impact on
northern European painting and art. The Dutch
brothers Hubert (1366 –1426) and Jan (1390 –1441)
Van Eyck were greatly influenced by Italian art.
Their works are highly realistic. They inspired later
generations of Dutch painters.
Hans Holbein (1497–1543),
a German painter, studied art
in Italy. His special mastery
was found in portraits—
especially of the English
royal family—works which
are charged with depth
and personality.
A German painter
dramatically influenced
by the Italians was
Albrecht Durer
Albrecht Durer
(1471–1528). His trips to Italy inspired him. His
technical skill as a draftsman and engraver caused
his art to be extremely popular, making him
wealthy.
Research and Write
Many other artists left their mark on Renaissance painting, sculpture, and architecture. From the
following list, select one and write a short report on
his work and contribution to Renaissance art: Leon
Alberti, Donato Bramante, Pieter Bruegel, Fra
Angelico, El Greco, Piero della Francesca, Paolo
Uccello, Matthias Grunewald.
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MP3398
Home Life During the Renaissance
Renaissance merchants, shippers, and lenders
often lived in relative luxury and stability. Their
homes and the lives they created there reveal a
sense of pride in accomplishment in the business
world. The homes of these merchants were places
where their owners could show off their success.
A typical Renaissance merchant’s house was at
least two stories tall, sometimes three or four. The
front door was usually a large opening made of
thick wooden planks attached to its frame by heavy
iron hinges. (In an urban world where city riots
occurred frequently, such a door protected the
merchant’s family from outsiders.)
Inside the house, the rooms were usually divided
by partitions. There was little privacy and one
could pass from room to room. Hallways were rare.
Often rooms were used for more than one purpose
owing to a lack of adequate space.
The master bedroom, for example, might have
been used to entertain company. A large, fourposter bed dominated the space. To provide privacy
and to keep out the cold, curtains were hung around
the bed. A small children’s bed was often stored
under the big bed and brought out at night for use.
Much of family life centered in a great room
which was a combination kitchen, dining room, and
living room. Such a room included a broad
fireplace where meals were cooked, shelves for
food storage and utensils, a few chairs, perhaps a
large table, a long bench, and side tables featuring
vases, candles, and other smaller items.
Renaissance houses did not feature many pieces
of furniture. The rooms were uncluttered and
uncrowded compared to today’s homes. Some of
the more ornate pieces included intricately carved
wood chests, which were typically long, rectangular
boxes with heavy lids. Today’s cedar chests are the
modern equivalent of these functional yet elaborate
pieces. A new bride often kept her important items
in such a box, and the piece and its contents went
with her when she married and left home.
Typically, a family ate two meals during the
day—the first at 10 a.m. and supper around 5 p.m.
Generally, utensils included a plate, a knife, and a
spoon. People drank from wooden cups or metal
mugs and tankards. Glasses were very rare. Nearly
© Milliken Publishing Company
everyone drank ale and wine, even children, and a
gallon a day for an adult was not considered too
much. (Pure drinking water was rare.) By the mid1500s, drinking chocolate was introduced from the
New World, and later, coffee and tea
Glass was available for windows as early as the
1200s, but remained rare as late as the 1500s
because of its expense. Windows were often open
to the outside world, with wooden shutters to shut
out cold weather and bad smells. In winter, such
houses, with their shutters closed, were dark
indeed. Wood burning fires provided the heat in
such houses.
By the late Renaissance, tiled floors were more
common in houses. However, many houses had dirt
floors scattered with grass rushes as an insulation
and to absorb moisture. They also harbored mice,
fleas, and lice.
While many Renaissance people did not bathe
regularly, most middle-class homes had a bathtub.
The old Roman and medieval public baths had
fallen out of use since the days of the Black Death,
when people feared the spread of the dreaded
disease.
Review and Write
What glaring differences do you notice between
the description given here of a typical Renaissance
merchant’s house and the place where you live?
25
MP3398
The Printing Press
In our modern world, we take information for
granted. Today, we have ready access to dozens of
sources of knowledge, including libraries, television,
radio, and newspapers. The media are important
tools for keeping us up-to-date and informed.
Despite the presence of the electronic media—
from news programs to satellite feeds to the
Internet—the printed word continues to
play a vital role in keeping us informed.
Newspapers, magazines, newsletters,
books, even billboards lining the roads
and highways provide people with the
information they want and need.
It is difficult for us to imagine a
world where access to information was
almost nonexistent. In the medieval
world, producing a book was a
slow and involved process. Monks
often copied manuscripts by hand,
which took many weeks and much
concentrated effort. Such books
were also highly expensive.
A rapid mechanical means of
printing did not come into existence
in Europe until the Renaissance.
Printing was not, however, a European
innovation. Early printed works were first produced
in the Far East as early as the A.D. 700s. Such works
featured sheets printed from a single wooden block.
The Koreans were the first people who produced
printed material using movable type. Movable type
refers to small individual letters which, put in the
right combination, spell words.
Early European printing came into being during
the mid-1400s. In the German city of Mainz, a printer
named Johann Gutenberg produced a Bible by using
movable type and a printing press. The book was
printed in Gothic script, which made it look much
like the letters formed by medieval monks. However,
each letter was produced by a single movable type
piece of cast metal. Gutenberg called his method
artificial writing.
This now famous Gutenberg Bible was huge. It
was printed in two volumes, with a total running
length of 1282 pages, featuring over one million
individual letters, each representing a single piece of
© Milliken Publishing Company
movable type. Gutenberg printed about 150 copies of
his Bible. (Approximately 21 of them still exist
today.) He was, at first, very secretive about his
work, not wanting the general public to know he was
creating an artificial system of publishing short of
writing by hand.
Some of his Bibles were printed on animal
skin called vellum, the traditional printing
material of European scholars for
centuries. Other copies were printed on
paper. Paper was produced from old linen
rags and old clothes which were boiled and
beaten to a pulp. The pulp was
thinned and the water was
squeezed out to form a sheet.
Gutenberg’s press was copied
and in just a few years, printing became
big business in many parts of Europe.
By 1500, 250 European towns were
home to at least 1000 printing presses.
Other printers traveled around with
portable presses, taking on
publishing jobs from town to town.
Gutenberg printed his Bible in the
mid-1450s. By 1460, printing was
commonplace in Europe. Italy saw its first
printing press in 1465 and it had found its way to
France by 1470. By the end of the century, the
printing presses of Europe had produced roughly
nine million copies of Bibles, books, and pamphlets.
They also produced copies of maps, musical
compositions, and pictures. This new innovation and
technology made the passing of information and
knowledge much easier, at a fraction of the cost of
previous centuries.
Review and Write
How did the printing press dramatically increase
the number of books in print in Renaissance Europe?
26
MP3398
Europe Discovers the World
By the late 1400s and the early 1500s, changes in
Europe brought about an era of global expansion and
exploration. Europe’s economic development in the
1400s allowed nation-states and individuals such as
merchants and bankers to accumulate enough wealth
to take risks in overseas investment. Monarchs
extended their rivalries to other continents, paying for
ships to explore and discover new markets.
Other changes also made overseas expansion
possible for Europe during these decades. Ship
construction and navigational technology improved.
Ships built with the stern-post rudder were
becoming widespread. Changes in how sails
were rigged—such as the lateen rig created
by Arab sailors—allowed ships to sail into
the wind. An improved compass was introduced by the 1400s. Other devices,
such as the astrolabe, a metal ring
marked off in degrees, allowed sailors to
know their latitudinal position at sea.
One hindrance to European
exploration had always been
inaccurate maps. Even late medieval maps were notoriously
wrong. Earlier sailors told wild
stories about nonexistent lands. Some believed that if
they sailed into the tropics, they would boil to death
and sailing to the southern African coast would turn
their skin as dark as the Africans themselves. The most
accurate maps of the early 1400s were Moslem and
Oriental. These foreign rivals saw no reason to share
their geographical information with the Europeans. By
1500, some fairly accurate maps were circulating in
Europe, but they were few.
Among the leading European nations supporting
exploration and expansion around the globe was
Portugal. This nation’s efforts to sail to distant lands
began as part of a campaign against the Moslems. In
1415, a Portuguese army captured the Moslem port of
Ceuta, located just 15 miles south of Gibraltar on the
northern African coast. A 21-year-old Portuguese
prince named Henry (1394–1460) was appointed as
governor of Ceuta. He was the youngest son of the
Portuguese king, John I.
Enticed by stories of fabulous wealth in Africa to
the south, including gold and ivory, Henry began
sending seafaring expeditions along the west coast of
© Milliken Publishing Company
the African continent. Not only did he desire the
wealth of Africa for his nation, he also wanted to
Christianize the Moslems.
Henry was so interested in exploiting the riches of
Africa and the East, he established a school where
navigators and seamen could be exposed to the latest
equipment, the newest, most accurate maps, and hear
true stories told by explorers who had made voyages to
the south.
His voyages brought success. By the early 1420s,
Portuguese seamen had explored the Madeira
Islands. They also landed at the Canary Islands
in 1425 and at the Azores just two years later.
(These three island chains are
located in the Atlantic, west
and south of Portugal.) When Henry
died in 1460, his explorers had mapped
over 2,000 miles of the
west coast of Africa.
In 1487, the Portuguese
king, John II (1455–1495), great
grandson of John I, sent a seaman
named Bartholomew Diaz
to venture as far south
along Africa’s coast as possible.
By 1488, he reached the southern tip of the continent.
His reports encouraged others to follow in his path.
One such seafarer was Vasco da Gama who sailed
from Portugal in 1497. By 1498, he reached the
Orient. His voyage marked the first time a modern
European had sailed around Africa and landed in India.
Vasco da Gama’s voyage proved the existence of a
direct sea route from Europe to India, which later
destroyed the monopoly of the Moslems in the Eastern
trade. Only a few years passed before the Portuguese,
in 1513, landed in the Chinese port of Canton.
Review and Write
1. What are some reasons why the Portuguese and
others wanted to discover an all-water route to the
Orient?
2. What discoveries and improvements in sailing
helped European explorers in their search for
global expansion?
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Test II
Part I. Multiple Choice (Worksheets 15-20)
Match the answers to the right with the statement on the left.
______ 1. Word “rebirth,” which is used to describe an artistic flourish in Europe
______ 2. Name for wealthy bankers, merchants and traders in Italy
______ 3. Italian small business owners, artisans, and craftsmen
______ 4. Italian city-state known for its banking and woolens trade
______ 5. Wealthy family which dominated Florentine politics through the 1400s
______ 6. 15th-century Dominican friar who criticized Florentines for their luxury
______ 7. Italian Renaissance ideal that emphasized having many talents
______ 8. Writer and scholar who is considered the Father of Humanism
______ 9. This philosophy emphasized individualism
______ 10. Author of The Prince
______ 11. Author of The Courtier
______ 12. Painter of the Mona Lisa
A. Humanism
B. populo minuto
C. Castiglione
D. Florence
E. Leonardo da Vinci
F. Renaissance
G. virtu
H. Savonarola
I. Machiavelli
J. Medici
K. Petrarch
L. populo grosso
Part II. Multiple Choice (Worksheets 21-27)
______ 1. This early Italian Renaissance painter’s nickname meant “Simple Tom”
______ 2. His Birth of Venus featured a mythological female nude
______ 3. He painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome
______ 4. Author of Canterbury Tales
______ 5. Northern Renaissance humanist writer
______ 6. German painter known for his portraits of the English royal family
______ 7. German printer who printed a famous Bible in the mid-1400s
______ 8. Metal ring marked off in degrees which gave sailors their latitude
______ 9. Portuguese seaman who reached the southern tip of Africa in 1488
______ 10. Portuguese seaman who sailed around Africa and reached the East in 1498
______ 11. English Humanist who wrote Utopia
______ 12. Portuguese prince who encouraged sailing explorations in the 1400s
A. astrolabe
B. Botticelli
C. Gutenberg
D. Holbein
E. Henry
F. Michelangelo
G. Thomas More
H. Erasmus
I. Chaucer
J. Da Gama
K. Masaccio
L. Diaz
Part III. Respond and Write
The Renaissance brought many changes to Europe. Describe some of the changes Europe experienced and
explain which ones you believe were the most significant.
© Milliken Publishing Company
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MP3398
Answer Key
Page 1
1. Agricultural expansion made food more abundant and
allowed for more trade. Warm weather patterns insured good
harvests. Population expanded, new towns and cities dotted
the landscape. Gothic cathedrals and schools of higher
learning were constructed. Wars were kept to a minimum. It
was a time of peace, security, and an expanding economy.
2. Widespread financial chaos, years of rivalry, revolution,
peasant riots, international rivalries with the Church,
famines, and the Black Death.
accumulated a treasury surplus. He avoided war and married
his children to the royal families of Soctland and the
Germanies. He forced his nobles to treat their serfs and the
lower classes with justice. He managed to bring to England a
new order of stability and security.
Page 10
She helped to restore to the French people their Christianity
and faith in the French monarchy. Charles could not have had
a better ally than Joan of Arc.
Page 3
1. Answers will vary. People did not understand how the
disease was spread. When they fled from it, they often
carried it with them to the next town. There were no
effective medical ways of dealing with the plague.
Quarantine was not commonly practiced in the day. People
in cities lived in relative filth where rats and their fleas were
common.
2. Frightened people tried to flee ahead of the disease and
carried it with them instead. Their dancing and singing in
graveyards to ward off evil spirits were based on superstition.
Page 11
They managed to extend and strengthen their royal power
over the nobility, the towns, and all legislative bodies. They
made the Council of Castile answerable to the monarchy. The
Spanish army became one of the best equipped in Europe.
They dominated the Church in Spain. They ordered the
removal of all Moslems and Jews from Spain.
Page 12
1. Answers will vary. The Holy Roman Empire was ruled by an
emperor who had only minimal sway over his subjects.
There was no united Germany of the period and the Holy
Roman Empire was a mish-mash of hundreds of middlesized, small, and even tiny states, kingdoms, fiefdoms,
duchies, and independent towns. One-man rule over these
“Germanies” was nearly impossible.
2. Mehmed’s cannon knocked down the walls of Constantinople. His soldiers rode into the city on horseback,
killed all who resisted, and enslaved 60,000 others.
Page 5
1. Christians blamed Jews for the Black Death. Campaigns to
kill Jews took place all over Europe.
2. With the deaths of so many people, a scarcity of labor
developed across Europe. This shortage of workers caused
the labors of those still alive to be worth more.
Page 6
1. When Philip attempted to tax the clergy in France, Boniface
announced that clergy in any state were not to pay taxes to a
secular ruler without permission from the Church. Philip IV
responded by dispatching soldiers to Rome, taking Boniface
prisoner.
2. The Great Schism caused many Christians to doubt papal
authority and led to great confusion.
Page 13
The nations of Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Scotland, England,
France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Poland,
Russia, and Hungary will show on both maps.
Page 14
Part I.
1. F
2. L
3. B
4. E
5. J
6. D
Page 8
Various biographies and encyclopedia citations will provide
the information sought by students. Answers will vary
individually.
Page 9
1. The cause of the wars was basically a challenge to the
ineffective reign of Henry VI.
2. Henry VII proved to be one of the most capable kings seen
in England in 20 years. He selected capable ministers who
served him well, balanced the kingdom’s budget, and
© Milliken Publishing Company
7. G
8. K
9. A
10. C
11. I
12. H
Part II.
1. J
2. C
3. I
4. E
5. G
6. A
7. F
8. B
9. D
10. L
11. H
12. K
Part III.
The plagues disrupted life in Europe by killing one-third of the
population, spreading fear, causing people to abandon their
villages, towns, farms, castles, monasteries, etc. The plague
killed off many members of the clergy, making it difficult for
29
MP3398
Answer Key
the Church to administer its members. Trade, commerce, and
agriculture were seriously disrupted. Despite an economic
downturn and inflation, workers received better wages and
were able to buy their freedom.
Botticelli: Both religious and secular subjects. He painted
works which included female nudity.
Raphael: Young attractive women, children, and Madonnas.
Page 23
Answers will vary. Differences between early and late
Renaissance painters could include the use by later artists of
more light and shadow contrasts, more vivid colors, more
secular subjects such as the female nude, etc.
Page 15
1. Answers will vary. Church problems caused by
powerful secular rulers seemed to even out. Economic
downturns seemed to level out, new industries developed,
and new trade routes were established, causing European
wealth. The arts were changing, indicating a new creative
spirit. Such changes helped Europeans to throw off their pessimism about the future. They thought in terms of new
horizons, new beginnings, new possibilities.
2. Black Death, inflation, economic depression and wars, plus
challenges of the Church from secular rulers.
Page 24
Answers will vary. Students will complete research work on
their own.
Page 25
Answers will vary. Students may note how in their own
homes, each room generally has a singular purpose
(bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room, etc.). They will
also note technological changes— running water, electric
lights, insulation in walls, furnaces, etc.
Page 16
1. Answers will vary. Italy had always been out of the
mainstream of medieval culture, thought, and politics. It had
never truly been completely medieval. It did not rely on the
vassal-serf model. Medieval thought, such as scholasticism,
had not taken root in Italy. Italian city-states were not
hindered by a powerful secular ruler. They pursued their
individual goals without restrictions.
2. In Venice, nearly the entire population was involved in some
way with Oriental trade.
Page 26
In the medieval world, producing a book was an involved
and slow process of copying each volume by hand. The
printing press allowed for multiple copies of the same work
by a device, rather than by hand copying.
Page 17
The Medici supported the arts of Florence with money and
influence. They gave support to the new liberal education of
the period. They controlled the city’s politics. They were the
leading banking family of Florence.
Page 27
1. Answers will vary. They wanted to rival the Moslems in
trade, convert Moslems to Christianity, gain wealth, gain
power beyond other European countries.
2. The stern-post rudder, lateen rigging, improved compass,
astrolabe, accurate maps.
Page 19
1. Answers will vary. Students will probably note the
distinction between Castiglione’s warm, multitalented
Renaissance man and Machiavelli’s calculatingruthlessness.
2. These two books set the standard for the modern man of
Italian society politics. They present a new creature to the
world, one quite different from the medieval chivalrous
knight or the Christian noble lord.
Page 28
Part I.
1. F
2. L
3. B
4. D
5. J
6. H
Page 20
His studies and skills included painter, architect, sculptor,
engineer, botanist, geologist, teacher, inventor, musician,
writer, scientist, and critic.
Part III.
Answers will vary. Changes brought about during the Renaissance include more secular literature and thinking, increased
understanding of the world, increased trade and commerce,
new views of art and aesthetics, and the end of the
predominance of medieval economic structures in Europe.
Page 21
Giotto: Religious subjects.
© Milliken Publishing Company
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7. G
8. K
9. A
10. I
11. C
12. E
Part II.
1. K
2. B
3. F
4. I
5. H
6. D
7. C
8. A
9. L
10. J
11. G
12. E
MP3398