Download Week 15 The Renaissance and Reformation

The Renaissance
The Renaissance—a cultural
re-awakening in Europe after
the Middle Ages
 New push for
individualism
 Time of great artistic and
cultural achievements,
though these don’t apply to
the masses
The Beginning of the Renaissance
The Renaissance begins in northern
Italy (technically, still part of the
HRE but functioned as a
conglomeration of city-states)
 Rome, Milan, Florence,
Venice, Genoa
Unique factors of northern Italy
 Wealthy through trade and
commerce, not agriculture
 Nobility had to share power
 Centers of education and free
thought
Phases of the Renaissance
There is no single date which begins the Renaissance
1350-1400
 General decline of European society, until a rediscovery of
ancient Greek and Roman literature (thanks, Crusades)
 Lots of social experimentation (feudalism? towns?)
 To a certain extent, the Plague provided a clean slate
1400-1500
 Renaissance thrives in Italy, new thoughts glorified
 Italy becomes more stable/peaceful
 Values become uniform
1500-1550
 Italy invaded by Spain and France—Renaissance ideas spread
Humanism
 A new outlook on life inspired by the
newly discovered works of ancient
Greece and Rome
 Previously, medieval scholars tried to
fit everything into a Christian
mold—everything we do and know
should be based on God’s work and
salvation
Humanism
Humanism—a Renaissance philosophy that urges a
focus on human, rather than religious, matters
 Inspired by ancient Greek and Roman beliefs
 It is important to live well and do one’s civic duty
 It is our duty to learn about the world around us and
discover how it works
 Didn’t attack the Church, but sought to incorporate
other ideas
Humanism
Humanism featured two concepts:
 secularism—a focus on realities of
the world, ignoring religious preaching
 individualism—people should explore
their own personal interests
Fathers of Humanism include:
 Petrarch
 Boccaccio
 Giovanna Pico
 Oration and Dignity of Man proposed:
 Man has the ability and freedom to shape his own life
 Man has the ability to understand and control nature
An “Urban” Renaissance
To a large extent, Renaissance
ideas thrived mainly in urban
areas
 Many city-dwellers felt free to
enjoy themselves already
 Wealthy nobles patronized the
arts, Medici family
 Women in Renaissance
environments enjoyed more
freedom than those living
‘medievally’
Renaissance Politics
Renaissance thinkers came to see government as a
secular (non-religious) institution
 People have a civic duty to obey their govt
 Leaders have a responsibility to govern in the best
interest of their citizens
European leaders not in Renaissance areas—
monarchs and nobles—touted their roles as deities:
divine right to rule
Machiavelli
Machiavelli (1469-1527)
Renaissance humanist,
historian, and philosopher
from Florence
Machiavelli’s arguments in
The Prince:
 Good leaders know that
the end is justified by the
means, even if the means
are immoral
 Religion can be used as a
tool to manipulate
Renaissance Economics
 Trade flourished in the
northern Italian city-states
 Influenced by humanism,
people began to pursue wealth
and material happiness
 Explosion in the value of
artwork, especially among
nobles
 City-dwellers now have money
to spend too (rise of the middle
class, guilds, etc.)
Renaissance Art
Renaissance art reflected individualism, secular achievement, and
worldly values
 Three main areas: painting, sculpture, architecture
Painters experienced with perspective: shading and proportion
 Giotto
 Brunelleschi
 Van Eyck
 Botticelli
Renaissance Art
Some Renaissance artists
excelled in more than
one domain, and are
better known today:
 Michelangelo
 da Vinci
Giovanni Danato’s Crucifixion
1495 fresco held in
the Church and
Covenant of Santa
Maria delle Grazzi
in Milan facing
da Vinci’s Last
Supper
Brunelleschi’s
Dome
• 1436 Florence, Italy
• Bascilica of St. Mary of
the Flower
Jan Van Eyck’s
Arnolfini
Marriage
• 1453, oil on oak
• Wedding of Italian
merchant Giovanni di
Nicolao Arnolfini and his
wife
• Considered one of the more
complex paintings in
Western art because of the
iconography and the use of
the mirror to reflect space
Botticelli’s Birth of Venus
• Commissioned for the Medici family in 1486
• Neoplatonic interpretation, the idea of divine love in the
form of a nude Venus
Raphael’s
St. Catherine of
Alexandria
• The breaking wheel, or
Catherine wheel, was a
medieval torture device
• Raphael’s portrait of
Catherine of Alexandria
• sentenced to death by
the wheel after refusing
to denounce her
Christian faith. It is said
that the wheel broke as
soon as she touched it.
Consequently, she was
beheaded.
The Protestant Reformation
 The Church underwent a number of changes in the
Middle Ages. From time to time, critics appeared but
were always silenced by the Church. Generally
speaking, the average European peasant had very
limited knowledge of Christianity despite being
devoutly religious
 Christianity was a mix of a lot of local beliefs
 Service was in Latin, an extinct language (for
speaking)
 No access to the Bible—couldn’t read anyway
 Important early Protestant reformers: Wycliffe, Hus,
Luther
John Wycliffe (1320 – 1384)
 John Wycliffe—schoolteacher in Oxford, England
who attacked the wealth of the Church
 the Church did not control individuals’ fates
 Sacraments not necessary to be saved
 Gained support from English nobility who resented the
Church’s power
 Translated Bible passages into English vernacular
because most could not read Latin
 Lollards—Wycliffe’s supporters who continued to
promote his ideas after his death
Jan Hus (1369 – 1415)
Jan Hus—called for the Holy
Roman Empire to become
independent of the Church
 Caught and burned at the
stake
 His followers revolted and
broke with the Church
 Followers called Hussians
Church Problems
 During the Avignon Papacy period (1309-1377) several of
the Papal States gained their independence
 When the papacy returned to Rome, Popes were elected
based on their leadership skills, not their spirituality
 Financial issues meant the Church turned into a moneymaking enterprise
 Tithe—10% of income given to the Church

(not new, just enforced more)
 Indulgences—selling forgiveness/passages to Heaven
 Developed concept of purgatory—the “in between”
zone souls rest in awaiting Judgment Day
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Priest and Professor of Theology at the University of
Whittenburg who argued that faith is all that’s needed for
salvation
 In 1517 Luther challenged priest Johann Tetzel on selling
indulgences to build St. Peter’s Bascilica
 95 Theses—Martin Luther’s criticisms of the Catholic
Church
 Luther nailed his criticisms to Tetzel’s church’s door
 When the Church formally excommunicated him, Luther
publicly burned the memo
 The HR Emperor summoned Luther for a formal apology, but he
refused to recant
 Formed the Lutheran Church
The Lutheran Church
Characteristics of the Lutheran Church
 Stressed an individual relationship with God
 Service in the language of the congregation
 Statues and all iconography removed
 Only two sacraments: baptism and communion
 consubstantiation—the Lutheran belief that communion is
symbolic
 transubstantiation—the Catholic belief that communion is
literal

Jesus says “This is my body… This is my blood…” (Mark 14:22-24)
 Not much change made in the service, Lutheran Mass still
very similar to Catholic Mass. Begins the Reformation.
The Protestant Reformation (1517-1648)
 The Protestant Reformation is the schism within
Western Christianity began by Martin Luther.
 Luther’s break with the Roman Catholic church led to
the creation of new Protestant (non-Catholic) churches
across northern Europe
 Not to be confused with the earlier schism between the
Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox church!
Ulrich Zwingli (1484 – 1531)
Ulrich Zwingli—priest who brought the Reformation to
Switzerland
 Argued that whatever tradition was not written in
Scripture should not be practiced
 Attacked the custom of fasting during Lent
 Promoted clerical marriage
 Attacked iconography
 Introduced a new communion liturgy to replace the Mass
 Led an attack on the the traditional Catholic cantons in
Switzerland and died in battle at age 47
John Calvin 1509 - 1564
John Calvin—French theologian and reformer who
emphasized strict obedience and extreme morality
 Introduced the concept of predestination—God has
already predetermined who is saved
 Developed the Christian theology of Calvinism (In the
US, this is the Presbyterian Church)
 Charles V announces the Peace of Augsburg (1555)—
the ruler of the land determines the religion of the
land
 “cuius regio, eius religio”
The Protestant Reformation in
England
The Reformation in England was political rather than
religious
 When the Pope refused to grant Henry VIII a divorce
from his Hapsburg wife, the king created his own
church and appointed himself the head of it—the
Anglican Church
 In the US, this is the Episcopal church
 Henry’s oldest daughter Mary I tried to restore
Catholicism in England through terror
 Elizabeth I secured the Anglican Church’s permanency
Reformation Problems
In France, very brutal fighting between Catholics and
Protestants began in the 1560s
 1589 Edict of Nantes protected French Protestants,
though the king and country remained wholly
Catholic
Throughout Europe, radical Protestant groups emerged
 Anabaptists practiced adult baptism, lived in
communes, practiced polygamy
The Counter-Reformation
In response to all of the breaking-away by Protestant
groups, the Catholic church decided to clean its act up
 Counter-Reformation led by Jesuits (Society of Jesus),
a new order of Catholic reformers founded by
Ignatius Loyola who emphasized the reform of
corrupt practices
 “Ad majorem Dei gloriam” For the greater glory of God
 1545-1563 Council of Trent lays out a series of reforms
for the Catholic church, begins the CounterReformation
Christian Europe and the Wars of
Religion
As a result of the Protestant Reformation and the
Counter-Reformation
 Northern Europe (except Catholic Ireland) remained
largely Protestant
 Southern Europe remained largely Catholic
 Central Europe was a site of fierce conflict that
escalated to full-scale war
Mass Media and the Exchange of
Information and Ideas
 Johannes Gutenburg’s
printing press (1439) allowed
for the spread of
Reformation and
Renaissance ideals
 and the Age of
Enlightenment and the
Scientific Revolution, but
that’s for World Civ II ;)
 THE END!!!